251–260 of 359 posts
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Be slightly careful with your analogies between the US and Nazi Germany, too.
Everyone be slightly careful about anything they read on history.
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It's possible to also be a hero for jeopardising national security. Bad nations should be jeopardised. It's how they become good nations. They stay bad nations when their citizens repeat the mantras they've been taught rather than thinking. Bullshit like "My country, right or wrong" and worshipping flags and all that sort of junk. It appears that the United States is still , incredible as it seems, a country producin…
I prefer this Ben Franklin quote, it address the exact same question, but takes a different position: "The deliberations of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 were held in strict secrecy. Consequently, anxious citizens gathered outside Independence Hall when the proceedings ended in order to learn what had been produced behind closed doors. The answer was provided immediately. A Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia asked Be…
While it's still a voting republic, the monied use that money to teach the poor how to vote (predictably, in a way that means they get to keep their money and power).
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Before Nazi Germany it was just Germany. Unless one is racist against Germans, one must in the interest of humanity seek to understand exactly how that transition happened.
> one must in the interest of humanity seek to understand exactly how that transition happened. I suspect Martin-Niemöller had some insight into how this happened: First they came for the communists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the socialists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't…
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Unfortunately we don't live in a world of ideals. With complete transparency comes little ability for security. Terrorist attempts become more frequent. Crime becomes more rampant and life become more unstable. If you ask a typical American if they are willing to die for their freedom, very few would. They'd rather the security. I'm not saying that's right or wrong, it's just true.
>Terrorist attempts become more frequent. Citation needed. We have no reason to believe that any actual terror attacks have been stopped. People who wanted to use terror against the US have either managed to or failed by their own incompetence. What we do know is that before we started getting insane about security there would be some attack about once every 10 years. Why do you imagine it's any higher frequency now?…
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How about a middle ground where information private to the government is allowed but there is no NSA or CIA, or at least no intelligence operations beyond keeping an eye on the military movements of other countries? Honest question: What danger would that put us in? My instinct says a moderate amount, but I guess none of us know for sure, which makes it a little scary to imagine.
There is no middle ground. As soon as you give the government the right to secrets (and even if you don't!) they're going to use it to build things like NSA and hide them from you.
We don't need an NSA or CIA or any other spy agency. I know I'm an extremist on government secrets, but I think there should be none. Nothing should be outside the reach of a FOIA request. In my ideal world all government officials' documents and emails would be made publicly accesible in real time, they're working for us. Any exception or loophole to transparency gets abused, every time. If that makes it harder to c…
Secrecy is also an essential part of negotiations - you can't reach middle ground if all your concessions are made public. There's a balance to be struck, though we're clearly far from achieving that atm.
A little secrecy by itself is not an issue, as long as the process built around it is as transparent as possible. That's the issue you're facing with this whole PRISM thing, lack of accountability and transparency.
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Hence the reason I tell you all that neither the NSA nor the U.S. government is actually omnipotent or all-powerful. :P
I do agree with that statement, but it doesn't mean they can do a whole lot of damage. From Iraq to Aaron Schwartz, when the US government turns it's big sloppy attention at you, watch out.
So the way I see it, if your only goal when considering the law is how you will prevent this new ability from ever seriously affecting anyone innocent you've already locked yourself into a NULL set. Even in our justice system, with warrants and probable cause and the right to remain silent and the works we still lock up innocent people, do we not?
But imagine instead that we take that big huge nasty government and at least point it in a useful direction; perhaps that would be a more effective way to prevent a slide into tyranny in the future.
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That strategy demonstrably worked -- we got through the Cold War. The problem is you can't always assume that the other guy has good intentions. If they're rational, then mutually assured destruction keeps everyone rational. If they're crazy, then that certainly is a problem, which is why there is enormous effort put into preventing proliferation and containing the capabilities of countries like North Korea and Iran.
You think mutually assured destruction is going to keep an Islamic extremist group rational?
I realize it's a circular argument, but MAD is for other nuclear nations (or future nuclear nations).
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So, when some large military power cuts off shipping lanes in the Pacific, we'd, what, threaten to nuke them? That's a better state affairs than what we have today? Conversely: what goes does a standing army of 1,127,801 people do you if your adversary has nuclear weapons?
The adversary has nuclear weapons because you (assuming you are a citizen od the US of A) have nuclear weapons.
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>Terrorist attempts become more frequent. Citation needed. We have no reason to believe that any actual terror attacks have been stopped. People who wanted to use terror against the US have either managed to or failed by their own incompetence. What we do know is that before we started getting insane about security there would be some attack about once every 10 years. Why do you imagine it's any higher frequency now?…
Israel. They're under a constant threat of terrorism, but their intelligence has been relatively successful.