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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

#61

Post by ajtaylor »

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…

I couldn't have said it better myself. The problem with programs like these is that it's almost impossible to roll them back. They are like a snowball: small at the very beginning, growing larger over time, until at the end they become a catastrophic force (usually for bad).

I wouldn't have trusted either Bush or Obama with these powers. Government officials have proven time and time again that they don't always have the general populace's interests at heart. The saying "Absolute power corrupts absolutely" is the first thing to come to mind.

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

#62

Post by jivatmanx »

VladRussian2 wrote: post #38
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.

Athens was a tiny city-state in a world where every other political. The Roman Republic did get fairly large and lasted a while, however.

After the classical era and prior to WWII the only major democracies were Britain, the U.S. and intermittently, France.

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

#63

Post by jessaustin »

threeseed wrote: post #49
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.

A good bet would be all those places with a long history and tradition of authoritarianism, which have only recently become less authoritarian: Egypt, Iraq, Libya, Tunisia, Burma, Indonesia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Russia, etc.

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

#64

Post by jessaustin »

knowaveragejoe wrote: post #5

Couldn't techniques typically used for finding moles be used to test this? Astroturf a politically antagonistic group with carefully crafted information and see what happens. Similar to inserting random strings into documents with each distributed copy in order to later find who leaked their copy. Either the NSA(or whomever) would have to be incredibly careful in using the information to some end, or they would absta…

Don't assume that the NSA's primary goal is to collect factual information.

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

#65

Post by zxcdw »

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.

Downvoted. Not for the disagreement but for the offensive and degrading tone which I see having no purpose here in HN.

As many have pointed out, the USG has the power, and the USG has abused that power numerous times in the past(Pentagon Papers for example? Lies/misinformation related to Iraq war and the whole War on Terror? Aforementioned Watergate scandal?). Because with power comes the responsibility, and the past has shown that the USG has not been able to live up to the expectations of the said responsibility, it is naive to believe it won't happen again. Of course it's not only USG, but probably every single government out there which has ever existed which has been corrupt in some way and which has abused it's power in a way or another when it comes to political regards, let alone other personal benefits of those in power. This only strenghtens the belief that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

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

#66

Post by yummyfajitas »

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.

The "government" has been able to collect far more data via the tax...

The government might use the IRS to harass their political opponents?

Nah, that's just crazy conspiracy theories.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_IRS_scandal

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

#67

Post by zxcdw »

jessaustin wrote: post #63
threeseed wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A good bet would be all those places with a long history and tradition of authoritarianism, which have only recently become less authoritarian: Egypt, Iraq, Libya, Tunisia, Burma, Indonesia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Russia, etc.

And growing authoritarianism everywhere too where there are economical and social problems. This probably includes many, if not all western countries to varying degree.

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

#68

Post by yummyfajitas »

riggins wrote: post #37
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. Th…

(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).

You don't even need to look into the past in the US - as far as I know the war on drug users continues.

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

#69

Post by wicknicks »

riggins wrote: post #37
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. Th…

You are taking my statements out of context. Almost all my comment talks about HN's reaction to the NSA news. Did I support collecting data from social media websites? No. In fact, if you look at my reply to @Uhhrrr on this thread, you will notice that I mentioned that no org (political or business) should misuse personal information.
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