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Obama’s crackdown views leaks as aiding enemies of U.S.

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Re: Obama’s crackdown views leaks as aiding enemies of U.S.

#91

Post by powertower »

mtgx wrote: post #37
venomsnake wrote: post #28

This was common in Eastern Europe and USSR during the purges - they were "Enemies with a Party Ticket". It is disturbing how easily this rhetoric comes.

While I could understand why the vast majority of the government is in favor of this, or why the mainstream media is with the government, too, however disappointing that may be, what is most saddening is that there are a lot of people out there who agree with them, too, maybe not the majority but even 40% would be a very scary number. Even in the most ruthless dictatorships there were a lot of normal people who suppo…

To me, the scariest part of all this is your opinion.

Nations are, and have always been, in a state of competition for dominance and resources.

Knock one out, and some other will fill the vacuum instantly, while their people clap and cheer - death to the USA, my country #1.

This idea that the USA should just leave everyone alone, and then the world will be a perfect place is so naive that it's absurd and self-destructive.

Pretending that you can get a job as an IT guy at some contractor's place, then steal government laptops, bring them home, then sift through the data to gather whatever dirt you can find, and give that dirt away to other nations is most certainly treason and espionage.

Re: Obama’s crackdown views leaks as aiding enemies of U.S.

#92

Post by grey-area »

Sven7 wrote: post #82
grey-area wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a free society, you can't guarantee that you will stop terror attacks. They do cause damage and mayhem, however that is strictly localised unless the government overreacts and introduces draconian measures in a mistaken attempt to find terrorists under every rock. The UK survived decades of terrorism (sponsored by some US politicians like Rep. Peter King, now so ferocious against terrorists) without relying on mas…

If you were a Congresswoman, and a terror attack happened in your district, and you give this speech, what do you think the reaction would be?

Like your previous question, this is a non sequitur. The answer to a local terror attack is not hysteria about stopping all terror and surveillance of all citizens (99.9% of whom will never encounter terrorists in any form). The answer is to give the police and law enforcement time to do their work (which they do very well) and support them in trying to catch the people who committed that crime. The Boston bombers were found by police work after the fact, not by the mass surveillance of the population you are advocating as a solution to 'stop terror'. That's a solution to another problem - it's far more useful for finding dissenters of any stripe and undermining the rule of law than for catching terrorists.

Re: Obama’s crackdown views leaks as aiding enemies of U.S.

#93

Post by ObviousPoints »

Sven7 wrote: post #58
mpyne wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The normal recommendation is "good old-fashioned police work", as if strong police states are known to be beacons of freedom. Some simply recommend to just suck it up as the price of doing business, but that goes against everything America has typically done with regard to terrorism, all the way back to the Barbary Pirates: "Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute!"

That's why the surveillance state will exist. Cause the answers are non-obvious. What I find most annoying about the comments on hacker news over the last couple weeks, is the amount of people crying about the problems or potential problems and hardly anyone talking solutions. The lack of solutions itself is a sign that no one has anything better to offer than what the NSA is currently upto.

> The lack of solutions itself is a sign that no one has anything better to offer than what the NSA is currently upto.

Not doing what the NSA is currently up to, and letting a 9/11 happen every year, would be better than what we're currently doing.

"Preventing all terrorism" is both impossible and wildly impractical: to even get close, you must eviscerate the freedoms in your society and undermine the rule of law.

The "solution" is "be an adult, and don't go in to a frenzied panic every time you get hurt".

Re: Obama’s crackdown views leaks as aiding enemies of U.S.

#94

Post by grey-area »

greenyoda wrote: post #86
grey-area wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a free society, you can't guarantee that you will stop terror attacks. They do cause damage and mayhem, however that is strictly localised unless the government overreacts and introduces draconian measures in a mistaken attempt to find terrorists under every rock. The UK survived decades of terrorism (sponsored by some US politicians like Rep. Peter King, now so ferocious against terrorists) without relying on mas…

"In a free society, you can't guarantee that you will stop terror attacks." Even a repressive government can't guarantee that it will stop terror attacks.

Yes of course, but the key here is that even if you could stop all terror attacks, many things are more important than stopping terrorist attacks, many things which are undermined by dragnet surveillance. Stopping the terrorists is entirely the wrong debate and not the most important issue here - it's a convenient hot button issue which, because it has no solution and is emotive, distracts much time and attention from the real issues in question.

Re: Obama’s crackdown views leaks as aiding enemies of U.S.

#95

Post by christkv »

reminds me off the Hermann Goering quote from the Nuremberg trial in 1947.

"Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally the common people don't want war neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."

Re: Obama’s crackdown views leaks as aiding enemies of U.S.

#96

Post by AnthonyMouse »

hga wrote: post #69
benjohnson wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to sound rude, but I'd rather lose 10,000 American souls then lose the freedoms that make America.

That's unrealistic, because we simply won't put up with mass casualty events. The key is to focus the response productively and avoid mission creep. It's the potential if not inevitability of the latter that makes the current NSA et. al. stuff so bad. This is different, this is a president who's cut from the same cloth as Nixon, in everything from being the first one since him to refer to his political enemies as "en…

>That's unrealistic, because we simply won't put up with mass casualty events.

Honest question: Why not?

Obviously we don't want mass casualties, but we don't want thousands of traditional murders or automobile fatalities or cancer deaths every year either, and we don't allocate insanely disproportionate budgets or construct a surveillance state to address any of those things. If anything we under-perform in addressing them.

I mean let's even compare to other mass casualty events. There have been hurricanes that have caused more deaths than 9/11. Where is the call for a war on CO2 to reduce climate change induced mass casualties? The answer is that there is no lobby for it. Nobody is going to get paid a trillion dollars, if anything the oil and coal companies would lose money. So the mass casualties there don't get politicians, lobbyists and PR flacks whipping the media into a frenzy over it, instead it just gets swept under the rug.

We as citizens have a duty to not allow ourselves to be manipulated like this.

Re: Obama’s crackdown views leaks as aiding enemies of U.S.

#97

Post by smsm42 »

Sven7 wrote: post #84
johnrob wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've unjustifiably framed the problem as preventing terrorist attacks. There's no evidence indicating that is our biggest problem.

:) unjustifiable huh? Feels like I am in an evangelical church questioning god.

You're not questioning, you're proclaiming a statement which has no proof but the proclaiming itself. Following your metaphor, you should be feeling like you're in physics lab proclaiming the reason for gravity is God's will. Don't be surprised somebody would ask for some proof to that and for some explanation about how one could verify that.

Re: Obama’s crackdown views leaks as aiding enemies of U.S.

#98

Post by Sven7 »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #83
Sven7 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is like saying lets have a lottery every year that picks 3000 people and send them over to the middle east. My point is people have to be pushed to answer the question on how to tackle terrorism to take this debate in a constructive direction. Ofcourse governments will do dumb things but the terrorism problem is a hard one.

The terrorism problem is a manufactured one. You want to fight terrorism? Fine, your budget is proportional to the budget we use to solve other types of murder based on the number of lives it costs us, and you can use the same methods. If you don't agree you'll have to distinguish terrorism from other types of murder in a defensible way, otherwise we should be treating them equally.

Finally someone with a realistic solution that can be politically acceptable.

Amazing to watch how defensive people get over a question.

So thank you, for showing everyone else who has been downvoting me into oblivion, the right way to react to questions that make one uncomfortable.

And in the end, this debate will only move forward over reasonable solutions. Not fancy speeches on privacy and freedom. Which I have had more than enough off.

Re: Obama’s crackdown views leaks as aiding enemies of U.S.

#99

Post by AnthonyMouse »

Sven7 wrote: post #75
losvedir wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do what you can while respecting freedom and privacy, and accept that every once in a while terror attacks may happen. You're giving us a false choice.

Yet politicians the world over, in the aftermath of terrorist attacks are expected to act tough. I have never heard a shit happens lets move on speech.

>Yet politicians the world over, in the aftermath of terrorist attacks are expected to act tough.

So act tough. Demand justice. Capture Osama bin Laden.

The rest of it is just defense contractors and bureaucrats capitalizing on the tragedy to engorge their budgets and claim new powers.

Re: Obama’s crackdown views leaks as aiding enemies of U.S.

#100

Post by jlgreco »

greenyoda wrote: post #86
grey-area wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a free society, you can't guarantee that you will stop terror attacks. They do cause damage and mayhem, however that is strictly localised unless the government overreacts and introduces draconian measures in a mistaken attempt to find terrorists under every rock. The UK survived decades of terrorism (sponsored by some US politicians like Rep. Peter King, now so ferocious against terrorists) without relying on mas…

"In a free society, you can't guarantee that you will stop terror attacks." Even a repressive government can't guarantee that it will stop terror attacks.

Even North Korea cannot prevent assassination attempts. That should be all anybody wanting a "solution" to terrorism has to know.
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