Why do people who knowingly trust their data and communications to a few corporations expect any privacy in the first place? Why do people who, as it now appears, care so much about surveillance use Skype and Facebook? It is not the government, but careless consumers who are killing democracy.
Surveillance: A Threat to Democracy
31–40 of 74 posts
Re: Surveillance: A Threat to Democracy
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Your rights come from God, not government. No, my rights come what the people are willing to fight for and establish with government. Absent government, there are no rights, there is only what I'm willing to claim my rights are and what I can defend. There is no God and nature doesn't create rights.
From the point of the premise of America, they do :-)
No, they don't; the premise of America is the Constitution and it doesn't mention God. You're thinking of the Declaration of Independence which is little more than a fuck you to England, it is not however our founding document nor does it reflect our principles which were actually hammered out by the Constitution as a that of a secular nation.
Re: Surveillance: A Threat to Democracy
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
On that note, if the US had a 9/11 event every month, that would still be less dead people than we lose to suicides, which was at 1.6% the number 10 cause of all deaths in 2010. Of course, every death is one too many, but imagine we put the same amount of money into mental health research and treatment that we are currently pumping into the by-definition-unwinnable "war on terror". Less people die by terror than by a…
If people honestly cared about the overall risk to them every nation would be powered by nuclear with perhaps a smattering of renewable generation in areas where it clearly made sense.
And care more about the water crisis than energy.
Re: Surveillance: A Threat to Democracy
#34Re: Surveillance: A Threat to Democracy
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
From the point of the premise of America, they do :-)
No, they don't; the premise of America is the Constitution and it doesn't mention God. You're thinking of the Declaration of Independence which is little more than a fuck you to England, it is not however our founding document nor does it reflect our principles which were actually hammered out by the Constitution as a that of a secular nation.
Replace "God" with "self-evident." You are wrong and missing the metaphor.
Re: Surveillance: A Threat to Democracy
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is just a figure of speech, don't be pedantic about this.
Your rights come from God is not a figure of speech; it's a statement of belief in God and it's not pedantic to point this out.
No, it is a figure of speech and it is pedantic to claim that it is about belief in any deity. It is similarly used in this context: "God gave you legs, now move your ass out of my way!" It is nothing more than a way to express the idea that rights are something people are born with, regardless of who is in power or what sort of government rules over them. That is how the founding fathers (another figure of speech, nobody is claiming that any of those men are any living person's father) used the term.
Re: Surveillance: A Threat to Democracy
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
> "The question is whether the security goals can be achieved by less-intrusive or sweeping means, without trampling on democratic freedoms and basic rights. " No, NYT, the question is how which security goals can be achieved without trampling on democratic freedoms and basic rights. There is no security goal that justifies destroying freedom, as freedom is the motivation for our security goals.
Go ask the villagers in the unadministered lands of Afghanistan and Pakistan how their freedom from government is working out for them. It's easy to say that security is completely unimportant when it's not your daughter being beaten and raped for being seen outside without a veil.
More like, it is easy to say that security is completely unimportant when you have spent your entire life in such a cocoon of security, you don't know what life is like outside of it.
Re: Surveillance: A Threat to Democracy
#38No, surveillance is not a threat to democracy, people not caring about democracy is what threatens democracy. Democracy has never been a right, it's always been a privilege that people demanded, and guess what, when people stop demanding it, power will naturally collude.
I agree with your point that apathy is a threat to democracy, but there are multiple threats to an open and fair system, and a surveillance state is one of them.
Re: Surveillance: A Threat to Democracy
#39Surprised and pleased to see the NYT editorial board take this stance, considering it has traditionally supported the Obama administration.
According to a poll cited in today's WSJ and LA Times (http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-republicans-democ...), Democrats tend to support NSA surveillance, whereas Republicans tend to oppose it — a complete reversal of the situation under the Bush 43 administration. In other words, a majority of voters likes surveillance, as long as it is being conducted by their preferred political party.
Re: Surveillance: A Threat to Democracy
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm an atheist, there is no God for me.
So you agree with all of the other words of my comment? :-)
I don't know whether I'll agree to any of it. I'm not that wise.
Humans are able to raise kids, leave knowledge to them, and as long as they don't believe so hard in rebirth, treat history with importance. As such many different laws were left - it's for us to decide which make sense.
If we are left to nature, then we are left with whatever the animals have. It won't be anymore our human "nature".
We were not born to speak, record, etc. - over the long period of evolution it developed around us - along with raising kids. This is where we recognize the nature as important force, but not really for guiding us what to do - it's our environment, and we should care about it, but there is hardly any guidance what to do.