141–150 of 184 posts
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Good idea. Overwhelm the system with the keywords they're flagging. i.e., bomb. pentagon. drop-point. fertilizer. sarah jessica parker.
Their systems are probably smarter than grep, by now.
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This is foolish. Non-violent protest is how the Civil Rights movement and Martin Luther King, Jr. forced better law, Gandhi did the same and freed India from the British empire. And today we're much more networked and able to communicate directly, P2P, without the media or government as message passer. Our system works remarkably well, considering how poorly it works ;) Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater- th…
> Non-violent protest is how the Civil Rights movement and Martin Luther King, Jr. forced better law The was Malcolm X though. The threat of militant and violent backlash was there and served like a booster for the non-violent factions. Otherwise look at Occupy movement. How many bankers are in jail? None. There _has_ to be a background and credible threat to the system so it would consider the peaceful alternative a…
There were things here and there that many seemed to agree on - but it was not nearly focused enough to matter. I think if it were accompanied by any kind of violent protests, the people in general would have completely turned on it - and without legitimate goals, I think rightly so.
Its not comparable to Civil Rights, imho. That was a moral imperative with clear, legitimate, practically implementable goals. There was moral high-ground, general sympathy among the people, and a roadmap (e.g. extend the rights to us that are extended to everyone else). I'd love to see something similar for the modern age of privacy violation or holding gov't officials accountable - but I haven't seen it yet.
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Playing Devil's advocate here. The government position is that it isn't a search until they subject the data to analysis. Nor is it a seizure when you still have your data. Thus they draw a line between collecting data (making sure they have it) and actually searching it. Therefore broad data collection does not violate the 4th so long as they always get specific warrants before actually searching that data.
But how do we know that? There is no accountability. They do everything under secrecy. It might be different if we had a third-party, non-governmental agency verifying that they are not violating the 4th amendment. Why have no accountability and no transparency if they were not going to violate our privacy? I'm flipping the "If you have nothing to hide" bit on them. But even if there were oversight, the main issue is…
The rest of your argument is about reality as civil libertarians see it, and not how the government sees it. (Because, after all, they think that the briefing that Congress gets and the oversight of the FISA court is sufficient protection.)
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Revolution in France in 1789. We don't learn history in school for nothing I hope.
While I agree, these are merely the exceptions. Sure, things can go great and well (after a long period of time). However, the following needs to be taken into account 1. The fatalities and economic losses 2. The high possibility that the power goes to the wrong hand. 3. The good possibility that the power doesn't change hands and we are stuck with even less freedom. 4. Revolutions make the country very vulnerable wh…
There's genuine problems with US Democracy. The lack of a good voting system (preferential, or better still - acceptance voting) means a stable two-party system.
Statistically, protest actions can be beneficial, as long as they don't go too far. No politician wants angry people on the streets. Media tends to cover it. It's a good way for a minority of people to have a huge impact (for better, or worse, depending on whether you support what the protesters want).
The problem is, a lot of protests are pretty much zero sum movements. They are things which half the people want, and half the people don't want (environmental protection, gun rights, gay marriage). A protest for something which would be popular, but most people don't really think about could be more useful.
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That made change. Not necessarily the DESIRED change, but it certainly changed things!
That brought Democracy. Which is closer to what people wanted at that time : A country ruled by the people. Let's not forget that it brought us something even more beautiful : The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_the_Rights_of_Ma...
The world was certainly changed. Not always for the better.
This should be read as an indictment of what the site has become, not just an example of it. "Where's the petition to NOT pardon him!!" I will do it. I will ragequit. This site is turning into a libertarian silicon valley version of freerepublic. When you've found civilisation, America, in 1000 years or so you'll realise that autoritarianism works and that's why you've got it. If we had a fascist government, everyone…
GOOD!
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Wasn't that the one that introduced Robespierre and the Reign of Terror, and then later another despot? Sure, Napoleon was talented and introduced the civil code, but it was still another example of the guy with the biggest stick making the rules.
In the short term, maybe. But in the long term, it was a catalyst that forced reforms (and further upheavals) across the whole continent; it was a large stick to carry at each negotiating table for freedoms, human rights and so on. In the same way, the Russian Revolution eventually generated Stalinism and brought suffering to the Soviet block, but it was a tremendous inspiration (and often brought material help) to w…
The Russian revolution started relatively peacefully, moved on to a brutal civil war, and then to draconian dictatorship (under Lenin) in just a few short years, then in 21 the resulting wars and disastrous economic policy caused a famine that killed 6 million people before NEP was introduced. And that was well before Stalin began to terrorise the country. Again, I think you're romanticising events which were nasty, brutish, and mostly harmful in their effects.
I'd argue European socialism (the social Europe we currently enjoy) evolved more from the evolution of liberal democracy and liberal capitalism in a peaceful society than from Marxism - many of the things Marx & Engels criticised have been peacefully removed (child labour, alienation of workers from means of production, lack of unions etc). Granted the UK and other European nations have other problems, but let's not forget how far we came peacefully, and how much of a set back to civilisation war and revolution really are.
I don't mean to be cynical, but a mere petition is just the tip of the iceberg. This is a government agency that is commiting widespread breach of privacy. A petition will not be respected. It's an OK start, but it will be essentially meaningless. If you want results, riot in the streets. Civil disobeience. Historical actions and movements that achieve some measure of peace. The ease of an action corresponds to what…
A more effective list of tactics (for the long term): 1. poison databases; feed bogus information to surveillance systems at all levels, do this as a matter of course, make it pop culture. 2. build darknets: for instance wifi nodes disconnected from the internet that multiple communities use as a dropbox and rendezvous point ( a linux box, a solar cell, some git magic (or UUCP/Usenet for the old school feel ), and yo…