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Surveillance: A Threat to Democracy

nytimes.com

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Re: Surveillance: A Threat to Democracy

#51

Post by jlgreco »

gnaritas wrote: post #47
SamReidHughes wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Replace "God" with "self-evident." You are wrong and missing the metaphor.

God is not equal to self evident, and I'm not wrong.

To one using "god" as a figure of speech, "self-evident" and "god" are sufficiently equivalent for the purposes of this discussion. You can consider both concepts to imply that the subject is considered beyond question and in need of no external justification. I have no literal believe in gods, but I use the terminology semi-frequently in the manner being described.

Re: Surveillance: A Threat to Democracy

#52

Post by malkia »

alexqgb wrote: post #10
malkia wrote: post #6

If surveilance threathens your choice, then it's a threat to the democracy, but then US has never been a real democracy, but a representative one. As such it's congresmen and senators that might be threatened by it since the do our real voting for us.

Uh, thanks, but intelligent, educated people who are attentive to civic life (e.g. a significant portion of the HN readership) don't need to have the difference between a pure democracy and a representative one spelled out in detail each and every time the word "democracy" comes up in conversation.

I agree with you, but I've recently (few years ago) learned about the difference. I was born in Bulgaria, and I thought we were democratic back then when communism was "all good" :) (lol, how wrong was I).

Re: Surveillance: A Threat to Democracy

#53

Post by tzs »

gcv wrote: post #39

Surprised 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…

You talk about liking surveillance in your final sentence, but about supporting surveillance earlier. There is a significant different between supporting something and liking something. I support visiting the dental hygienist twice a year, for instance, but I don't like visiting the dental hygienist.

Assuming we are talking about supporting, rather than liking, then it is quite rational to support surveillance when done by your own party. I choose politicians to support based on my belief that they largely share my values and goals and are smart enough and educated enough to act in ways that help further the advancement of those values and goals.

However, I recognize that politicians who succeed in getting elected gain access to information that is not available to me. That information will occasionally make the correct action in some cases appear to be against my values when judged by someone with the information I have, but actually in accord with my values given the extra information the politician has.

To put it simply, you are more likely to trust the politicians you support than the politicians you do not support, and so you are more likely to give politicians you support the benefit of the doubt if they occasionally do things that appear to go against your shared values.

Re: Surveillance: A Threat to Democracy

#54

Post by yen223 »

betterunix wrote: post #27
malkia wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm an atheist, there is no God for me.

It is just a figure of speech, don't be pedantic about this.

It's not pedantic. One of the most notable aspects of the US constitution is that its power is explicitly derived from the masses - "We the people..." - and not from some divine power, unlike the British monarchy.

Re: Surveillance: A Threat to Democracy

#55

Post by redwood »

Surveillance is reflexive. It has no doubt already changed, irreversibly, how we all communicate. We hesitate more, we collaborate less. This is the immediate, intrinsic downside---an economic impact, even---that isn't being discussed. This loss alone makes the surveillance state a net sink on our society. Let alone the threat to democracy ,the potential abuse of power.

We need to show Obama and the other leaders that standing up against irrational fear of inevitable crime IS a tenable political position

Re: Surveillance: A Threat to Democracy

#56

Post by Pherdnut »

analyst74 wrote: post #4

No, 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'm still not seeing how that makes warrantless secret surveillance with gag orders and secret courts reporting to special committees not a threat to democracy.

Re: Surveillance: A Threat to Democracy

#57

Post by veidr »

Pherdnut wrote: post #56
analyst74 wrote: post #4

No, 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'm still not seeing how that makes warrantless secret surveillance with gag orders and secret courts reporting to special committees not a threat to democracy.

OP means they aren't in and of themselves a problem if the citizens do their job and hold their democratic government accountable and force it to abide by their collective decisions.

I don't agree, though; I think secret surveillance is in and of itself anti-democratic. However, OP is correct too, in the sense that once it is revealed that secret, illegal surveillance is going on, if the subjects of a functioning democracy don't care or take any action, that is probably even more corrosive to a democratic state (since presumably there will eventually always be people like Norden^W Snowden, and nothing stays secret forever).

Re: Surveillance: A Threat to Democracy

#58

Post by gnaritas »

alan_cx wrote: post #48
gnaritas wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but then US has never been a real democracy, but a representative one. A representative democracy is a real democracy; it's just not a direct democracy. Please stop this nonsense of thinking that only direct democracies count as democracies.

I think only direct democracy is a real democracy. No need for "direct", just "democracy" will do. The fact that so call democratic countries need a modifier before the word "democracy" tells you that it is not real, as such. A representative democracy is really a practical alternative to a real democracy which would have been hard to implement. That doesn't make it real though. Its just the practical best one can do…

It doesn't matter what you think, words aren't defined by personal opinion but by common usage. They are used to communicate, and what you want to call a real democracy everyone else calls a direct democracy. So if your intention is to communicate effectively, don't use your own definitions for words because you like it better because it'll just continually ensure you're misunderstood.

Direct democracies are not the only real democracies and it makes you look foolish and uneducated to insist it so.

Re: Surveillance: A Threat to Democracy

#59

Post by gnaritas »

jlgreco wrote: post #51
gnaritas wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

God is not equal to self evident, and I'm not wrong.

To one using "god" as a figure of speech, "self-evident" and "god" are sufficiently equivalent for the purposes of this discussion. You can consider both concepts to imply that the subject is considered beyond question and in need of no external justification. I have no literal believe in gods, but I use the terminology semi-frequently in the manner being described.

The word god is in no way equivalent to self evident and if you use it as such you're simply not communicating well and likely not getting your point across to those listening. Worse, you're using a term that will turn off listeners who tire of religious nonsense being injected in conversations about important issues. There's nothing less self evident than a god, they are certainly not synonyms.

Re: Surveillance: A Threat to Democracy

#60

Post by akiselev »

Pherdnut wrote: post #56
analyst74 wrote: post #4

No, 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'm still not seeing how that makes warrantless secret surveillance with gag orders and secret courts reporting to special committees not a threat to democracy.

In my opinion, in a real democracy the citizens are not passive voters but a vigilant, armed (at least in the US) populace that holds their representatives accountable and vocally prevents unchecked accumulations of power or other undemocratic tactics (i.e. the electoral college turning into a two-party system). In my utopian view of what a democracy should be, a revelation like this would result in a very significant portion of the people speaking out and actively working to squash the surveillance system, putting the system to work instead of threatening it. Of course, such a society wouldn't let the surveillance situation progress so far and if you view democracy as a voting populace, not an informed one, my argument isn't convincing :)
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