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57% Fear Government Will Use NSA Data to Harass Political Opponents

rasmussenreports.com

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Re: 57% Fear Government Will Use NSA Data to Harass Political Opponents

#31

Post by alan_cx »

wicknicks wrote: post #8

Fun science fact: Fear causes people to think irrationally. I find it hard to believe that so many people have jumped out of their wits over this NSA news. After all, there are so many more harder and pressing problems in the world. Global Warming, Child Slavery, Drugs, overpriced health care, mortgage and education loans? But on HN, the most intellectual community I am part of (imo) is so worried about automated pro…

Reads a bit like:

If we are told to be afraid, we are supposed to be afraid. But, if we our selves become afraid, we are not allowed to be afraid.

So, the gov tell us to fear drugs, immigrants and terrorists, then we should say, "Sure, we agree, have all the powers you need and take all the freedoms you like." However, when we fear surveillance and invasions of privacy as a result of our own base level sense of survival, we are stupid treasonous, un-patriotic plebs and should have nothing to fear if we have nothing to hide....because the government, with a nice smile and sharp suit, says so.

Re: 57% Fear Government Will Use NSA Data to Harass Political Opponents

#32

Post by gojomo »

jsdalton wrote: post #25
Millennium wrote: post #2

You will, no doubt, find plenty of people who trust Obama to not do this. You'll find plenty of people who would have trusted Bush, and you'll even find a lot of people who don't trust either one of them. But there's a fourth corner to that square, and I don't think you'd find many people in it at all: people who would trust both Bush and Obama with data like this. That's the thing about governments: people have succ…

Not just "plenty of people" -- actual majorities in both parties: "There are significant partisan differences [in 2013] in views of the government's program to obtain call logs and Internet communication. Democrats are more likely to approve, by 49% to 40%. Independents (34% vs. 56%) and Republicans (32% to 63%) are much more likely to disapprove than approve. "In 2006, when Gallup asked the similar question about a…

Party-affiliation is volatile and self-reported: these aren't the same 'Democrats' nor 'Republicans' as in 2006, both due to switched-voters, new-voters, and expired-voters.

In particular, I believe there are a significant number of respondents who either (1) aren't very politically aware, but do have high trust in "our leaders" (whatever party they may be), or (2) don't trust pollsters -- believing they could be "with the government" or other loyalist groups -- and thus answer as if the questions were a loyalty test.

Note that for both type (1) and type (2) respondents, they are especially likely to answer (a) "Yes, I'm the same party as the President in power"; and (b) "Yes, I approve of what the President's policing/border/drug/terrorism agents have been doing". The respondents have different reasons, but neither want to express dissension. And yet it's not really telling us what party "true believers" think, just situational switchers.

Of course, many party "true believers" can forgive "their guy" in office for the same things they'd raise a stink about from "the other guy". That's also a very common bias/behavior. But I suspect these other low-ideology, "kiss-up-to-whoever-is-in-office" respondents are another significant, 5-15% contributor to what looks like a "partisan swing" in polls like this.

Re: 57% Fear Government Will Use NSA Data to Harass Political Opponents

#33

Post by alan_cx »

wicknicks wrote: post #24
baddox wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I despise arguments like yours, which logically lead to the claim that only the most important problem in the world should be worried about until it is solved, and then the new most important problem, etc. Not only is it ridiculous on its own, it also requires the arguer to break the very rule he or she is proposing, by spending time worrying about what other people are worrying about, instead of whatever the most im…

I can't remember who said this, but my response to your comment can be best articulated with this quote "all philosophical arguments root from grammatical inconsistencies". So, I apologize if I made you feel that way. That was not my intent. The only other time I remember such an outcry here at HN was when Steve Jobs passed. A big and depressing event, indeed. I just don't understand why we complain so sparsely about…

Solving the privacy issues is easily solvable. It just requires the people in power to change policy, perhaps sit down and write a law or two. Simply, it is easily do-able, right now. We can get this done.

Solving the huge things like global warming, cancer, poverty, starvation, cancer, etc, are a little bit more involved, and will probably take a while, no matter what the motivation.

Re: 57% Fear Government Will Use NSA Data to Harass Political Opponents

#34

Post by alexqgb »

wicknicks wrote: post #8

Fun science fact: Fear causes people to think irrationally. I find it hard to believe that so many people have jumped out of their wits over this NSA news. After all, there are so many more harder and pressing problems in the world. Global Warming, Child Slavery, Drugs, overpriced health care, mortgage and education loans? But on HN, the most intellectual community I am part of (imo) is so worried about automated pro…

> "After all, there are so many more harder and pressing problems in the world. Global Warming, Child Slavery, Drugs, overpriced health care, mortgage and education loans?"

What do these problems have in common? That's right, every single one is a produce of extreme imbalances in power. Every. Single. One. And what does a program like PRISM undermine? Exactly, the democratic structures that can successfully challenge an abusive status quo.

Larry Lessig is fond of pointing out that his chosen problem (campaign finance) may not be the biggest problem in the world, or the most serious, but it is the first in that it addresses a fundamental dysfunction that prevents the us from responding to a constellation of concerns in a meaningful, socially beneficial way.

The development of a authoritarian surveillance state falls into a similar category, in that its mere existence frustrates a broad range of social development goals. Because it is absolutely guaranteed to be used against civilians who are attempting to steer government state power towards healthy ends, and away from abusive, toxic ones, it should be treats as an intrinsic part of any problem that benefits a small but entrenched status quo. Indeed, that's the whole point of structures like these. They actively undermine the ability of people to organize themselves in opposition to established interests that profit from extraordinary and otherwise unsustainable levels of abuse.

And no, this isn't speculation.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/earth-insight/2013/jun...

Re: 57% Fear Government Will Use NSA Data to Harass Political Opponents

#36

Post by csallen »

bcoates wrote: post #30
SkyMarshal wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. I find it confounding how people are still attributing this stuff to Presidents when it should be obvious by now it's not the elected officials running this show. They're being led along by an entrenched bureaucracy with its own goals and agenda, no term limits, and with the ability to shape the world view and hence decisions of our elected officials by what information they choose to provide or withhold. St…

This simply isn't true. Obama ran on being Bush's third and fourth terms and that's what we got. The two of them have been a radical departure from previous administrations. Two presidencies does not make an immutable law of nature. Recent political events have demonstrated just how autonomous the President is, there is no reason to think there is some sort of hidden power at play here. If anything we need a stronger…

I understand your point, but I don't see any reason to believe it.

It seems to me that it's in the NSA's (and every other gov't organization's) best interests to do everything in its power to increase its own reach and influence. It's naive to assume they are working against their own best interests unless you have some sort of evidence to back that up.

Re: 57% Fear Government Will Use NSA Data to Harass Political Opponents

#37

Post by riggins »

wicknicks wrote: post #8

Fun science fact: Fear causes people to think irrationally. I find it hard to believe that so many people have jumped out of their wits over this NSA news. After all, there are so many more harder and pressing problems in the world. Global Warming, Child Slavery, Drugs, overpriced health care, mortgage and education loans? But on HN, the most intellectual community I am part of (imo) is so worried about automated pro…

Fear causes people to think irrationally.

this is the most amazing thing I've read all day. someone using the argument that 'fear causes people to think irrationally' to justify government snooping.

Let's step back to base principles. What's the claimed reason for snooping? To stop terrorists.

How much of a threat are terrorists? If you think about it rationally, not very much.

10K per year die from drunk driving. That's three 9/11's per year. You wouldn't consider allowing the government to filter your facebook and email for strings like 'i've been drinking, now I'm driving', so why would you allow that for a much smaller problem?

Here's something else to think about rationally. Stop and look around the world and history. Have terrorists caused more deaths and taken away more individual rights than governments? I'd say its governments by an enormous margin (I'm not talking about the US govt by itself, although I bet if you dug up all the stuff like the Tuskegee syphilis experiment you might get close even in the US).

We're graced with relatively good government in the US but you don't have to look too hard around the world (Iran, Syria, Saudia Arabia, Afganistan pre-9/11, Rwanda, Bosnia) to see that it's perfectly rational to be wary of government power (its even more obvious if you consider historic examples like the Soviet Union, Nazis, Armenian).

tl;dr it's irrational to fear terrorists, ergo no need to sacrifice your civil liberties

Re: 57% Fear Government Will Use NSA Data to Harass Political Opponents

#38

Post by VladRussian2 »

curt wrote: post #16

People seem to forget that democracy and freedom are relatively new to the world. The Soviet Union collapsed 20 years ago, many European countries have been free for less than 40 years. Don't take freedom for granted, it's not the steady state system, tyranny is. I'm sorry to say but a lot of countries will degrade back to authoritarianism within the next 10-20 years due to economy and political problems. They who ca…

>People seem to forget that democracy and freedom are relatively new to the world.

Democracy was practiced by Greeks 2 thousand years ago. The system of couple of hundred people from the top of society gathered in one room making the decisions for the rest of society hasn't changed since than.

And Magna Carta which codified the idea of freedom as a limit on government power is 800 years old.

Re: 57% Fear Government Will Use NSA Data to Harass Political Opponents

#39

Post by icebraining »

curt wrote: post #16

People seem to forget that democracy and freedom are relatively new to the world. The Soviet Union collapsed 20 years ago, many European countries have been free for less than 40 years. Don't take freedom for granted, it's not the steady state system, tyranny is. I'm sorry to say but a lot of countries will degrade back to authoritarianism within the next 10-20 years due to economy and political problems. They who ca…

Since we're quoting Franklin, this one is also relevant:

(...) I think a general Government necessary for us, and there is no form of government but what may be a blessing to the people, if well administered; and I believe, farther, that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other.

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