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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

#51

Post by riggins »

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.

OP didn't say government is doing x,y,z.

OP said, if you want to persuade people, frame this as government could do x,y,z.

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

#56

Post by coldtea »

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.

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

Nothing "paranoid" about it.

Are you some kind of totally private citizen, only concerned with his household affairs, that has never been in any activist, grassroots, dissident movement, from OWS to EFF?

If yes, your lack of historical knowledge is understandable.

>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.

No need to imagine anything. Yes, they have been able to collect all these data, and they have already used them. Even in the past, do you know how many people the government didn't like did Senator McCarthy or J.E. Hoover step on, blackmailed, got fired from their job and/or jailed with such data?

Do you remember why Nixon was resigned? Remember that Watergate thing? Heck, they eavesdropped and broke into the HQs of the Democratic Party, which is a huge power itself. Consider what they'd do to dissidents, whistleblowers and such.

>Or how about we amp up the crazy and talk about all the things the "government" could be doing with their drones and satellites.

What's crazy about it? They already murder citizens of sovereign nations with them, without trial, and also track foreign (as if only) nations, corporations, etc, with those. You meant to suggest those things are not bad enough already?

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

#57

Post by brown9-2 »

crusso wrote: post #47
icebraining wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This is a poor analogy when you consider that people don't live for hundreds of years and thus there is no such thing as "hangers-on" arriving to a country.

It also ignores all of the things that the founders did that we find reprehensible today (slave-owning), along with how far this country has come racially and in regards to civil rights in the past 50 years.

It also ignores the fact that the size of the US economy has never been larger, and whatever "decline" you are referring to is purely subjective and mostly rosy retrospection.

I wonder what it is about the USA that has made this type of "our good run is over, oh well" sentiment popular for several generations. People have been making complaints like this for several hundred years in this country.

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

#59

Post by coldtea »

halorhodopsin wrote: post #50
threeseed wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 tacti…

>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.

And tons of other similar programs. Like this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird

What's "paranoid" (== isolated in a private little world and ignoring facts) is to ignore or downplay such things, as the parent does.

If not total naiveness, it's a classic case of "la la la la la hands in the ears" denial.

As Gore Vidal put it: "Americans have been trained by media to go into Pavlovian giggles at the mention of 'conspiracy' because for an American to believe in a conspiracy he must also believe in flying saucers."

As if governments all other the world, throughout history, didn't conspire against dissidents. And as if secret services weren't created for this very reason exactly.

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

#60

Post by dragonwriter »

brown9-2 wrote: post #57
crusso wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This is a poor analogy when you consider that people don't live for hundreds of years and thus there is no such thing as "hangers-on" arriving to a country. It also ignores all of the things that the founders did that we find reprehensible today (slave-owning), along with how far this country has come racially and in regards to civil rights in the past 50 years. It also ignores the fact that the size of the US econom…

> People have been making complaints like this for several hundred years in this country.

People have been making complaints like this for several thousand years, in pretty much every country. I suspect that its largely because people tend to see things in an overly optimistic way as children and progressively see more of the messy bits as they mature, and this creates a common impression (irrespective of the truth) that things are actually getting worse, and this is magnified by people trying to advance agendas by demogoguery centering around the idea of a past happier age created by exaggerating positive qualities and ignoring negative ones of the past.

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