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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

#41

Post by asolove »

I think this is a much more effective method of getting people to reject snooping. Saying "the government can track metadata about who you call" is not very scary.

But make it more concrete and you get some scary statements:

- The government can use phone call metadata to build a list of all people who likely own firearms and are gun enthusiasts and pro-gun rights.

- The government can use phone call metadata to build a list of all women who likely have had abortions or use contraception.

- The government can use phone call metadata to build lists of likely members of each religious group, and their respective social networks.

Now there's something for everyone to oppose!

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

#42

Post by SkyMarshal »

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…

>This simply isn't true. Obama ran on being Bush's third and fourth terms and that's what we got.

No, he ran on the exact opposite - being the anti-Bush. Maybe you saw through that are remembering what you perceived instead.

And there's no "hidden power" in so far as the Federal bureaucracy is anything but hidden. Secretive maybe, but not hidden.

>If anything we need a stronger and more professional bureaucracy that's less eager to help the President break the law.

Agreed. That would be ideal. There are elements of it, but it's not universal.

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

#43

Post by Millennium »

wonderyak wrote: post #3
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…

The other problem -- despite the changing of the guard in the Executive branch -- other branches and workers stay the same.

It wasn't always this way, at least in the US. There was a time when many more high positions were appointed, and could be replaced by incoming administrations, though especially at first it didn't tend to happen all that often. But then certain figures got the idea that they could use government jobs as rewards for campaign support, and after a couple of decades of this, the "spoils system" (as it was called) was pretty much ruined for everybody.

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

#45

Post by d23 »

Steko wrote: post #44

Hey look a push poll from Scott Rasmussen. Shouldn't he be working on President Romney's reelection? http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/04/rasmusse... http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/10/which-po...

Yeah, I've stopped caring much about what the general populace thinks about issue X since they seem to mostly just respond with what they think they should say.

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

#46

Post by ivanca »

asolove wrote: post #41

I think this is a much more effective method of getting people to reject snooping. Saying "the government can track metadata about who you call" is not very scary. But make it more concrete and you get some scary statements: - The government can use phone call metadata to build a list of all people who likely own firearms and are gun enthusiasts and pro-gun rights. - The government can use phone call metadata to buil…

Yeah, the government use fear to spread ignorance, we should do the same to spread awareness against their systematic privacy violations.

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

#47

Post by crusso »

icebraining wrote: post #39
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…

The USA has been like a successful startup. The first people in were the superstars who had vision and made things happen. The next arrivals were strong performers not scared of hard work who could at least understand the vision and keep the momentum going.

Eventually at any new successful company, the hangers-on arrive. The "work hard, play hard" mantra that drove the first generations gives way to just a "play hard" one. The benefits created by the original visionaries are siphoned off mercilessly by those who didn't create them, can't create anything new, and don't seem to care that they're so destructive. With the decline of the company and jerks in power, anyone worth a damn goes elsewhere to find a better environment or if they do stay they tend to work around the system to get their jobs done or just content themselves operating at 1/4 speed for a paycheck. As more good people leave because of frustration, a death spiral ensues since upper management clowns no longer have anyone who can problem solve.

We had a nice run. It's really too bad that we lost our way as a nation.

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

#48

Post by threeseed »

asolove wrote: post #41

I think this is a much more effective method of getting people to reject snooping. Saying "the government can track metadata about who you call" is not very scary. But make it more concrete and you get some scary statements: - The government can use phone call metadata to build a list of all people who likely own firearms and are gun enthusiasts and pro-gun rights. - The government can use phone call metadata to buil…

Sorry but is this the kind of paranoid stupidity I should start to expect from HN now ?

The "government" has been able to collect far more data via the tax and health care systems, TSA, census etc for decades. Imagine all the scary statements I could contrive from those. Or how about we amp up the crazy and talk about all the things the "government" could be doing with their drones and satellites.

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

#49

Post by threeseed »

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…

    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.
Like ? Name the countries.

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

#50

Post by halorhodopsin »

threeseed wrote: post #48
asolove wrote: post #41

I think this is a much more effective method of getting people to reject snooping. Saying "the government can track metadata about who you call" is not very scary. But make it more concrete and you get some scary statements: - The government can use phone call metadata to build a list of all people who likely own firearms and are gun enthusiasts and pro-gun rights. - The government can use phone call metadata to buil…

Sorry but is this the kind of paranoid stupidity I should start to expect from HN now ? The "government" has been able to collect far more data via the tax and health care systems, TSA, census etc for decades. Imagine all the scary statements I could contrive from those. Or how about we amp up the crazy and talk about all the things the "government" could be doing with their drones and satellites.

well, it's not really paranoid stupidity. these resources were used against the Occupy movement. if you look at the 70's, COINTELPRO was created to squash domestic dissenting groups such as the Black Panthers, to great effect.

our government is perfectly fine with suppressing dissent, and the fate of the Occupy movement shows this - a government would not use undercover police, agent provocateurs, destabilizing tactics, etc. if they tolerated dissent. in my city, the local police intentionally broke up homeless camps and moved them near or into the Occupy tent camp, straining the Occupy resources. Then, when the homeless people inevitably did drugs or were publicly intoxicated in the camp, the police came in and started arresting people left and right for drug possession, intoxication, etc. this did a fantastic job of breaking up our local protest.

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