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Why discussions on cyber snooping have been so painful for us

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Re: Why discussions on cyber snooping have been so painful for us

#21

Post by vidarh »

nraynaud wrote: post #13
anon1385 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nationalism is a relatively modern phenomenon. The founding of the US was part of the rise of Nationalism. The idea that your nation (I assume you are american?) represents 'higher ideals' than others is rather nationalistic don't you think? From wikipedia: With the emergence of a public sphere and integrated economy in the 18th century, a broader sense of identification with one's country began to permeate society.…

I have a candid question then: what did drive the mess of wars in Europe before that? Germany, Switzerland and Italy were a mess of little independent territories fighting each other. I don't think all of those wars where based on religious grounds.

Power. Money. Prestige.

Re: Why discussions on cyber snooping have been so painful for us

#22

Post by grey-area »

The other dangerous thing about this attitude of, oh, it's only foreigners, is that GCHQ and other US allies routinely sweep up communications from all over the world (in the case of GCHQ probably mostly from the US). So if you send information to Europe from the US, you're being spied upon, and the information relayed back to the NSA. The same goes for citizens of the UK subject to NSA spying who have data or contacts in the US. This distinction between us and them is used to tranquillise dissent in the US even as the NSA blithely ignores their own rules.

In our increasingly connect world, does it even make sense to define rights based on where a person lives, or what country they happened to be born in? We should expect the same basic rights (right to a free trial, right to a free press, protection from torture) to apply to all people even if citizenship of a nation confers certain privileges.

Re: Why discussions on cyber snooping have been so painful for us

#23

Post by arrrg »

jmadsen wrote: post #10
rmc wrote: post #5

That's one thing that has annoyed me about the tech world's outrage and objections to the PRISM spying lark. They appear outraged that US citizens are spied on, with the implication that it was ok when non us citizens were spied on. Do I, a non us citizen, not have a right to privacy?

You, as a non-US citizen, are not protected by our constitution. Nor am I, a US citizen, protected from your government. I have no grounds to "raise outrage" at my government for spying on foreigners, much as I might disapprove. They don't break any laws when they do that. Moral rules, yes; disrespect to our friends and allies, yes; laws, no. When they spy on US citizens, they tear up our Constitution in doing so. Th…

You are factually wrong.

You, as a US citizen, are most certainly protected from my government by the German constitution. Not when it comes to all basic rights in the constitution (only Germans have freedom of movement, freedom of labor and freedom of association), but most are universal and apply to every person.

The US constitution is out of date and simply wrong on this point. Human rights are universal and every human has them. Citizenship shouldn’t come into play. (I really hope that when it comes to freedom of movement, labor and association the limitation on Germans can also be lifted one day. For now the pest of nationalism lives on and makes lifting those limitations a practical impossibility. To me it seems clear that morally it is very wrong to have such limitations.)

Oh, and by the way, breaking moral rules is a hell of a good reason to raise outrage. I don’t understand why you seem to think that something being legal is reason to not be outraged.

Re: Why discussions on cyber snooping have been so painful for us

#24

Post by grey-area »

Yver wrote: post #8

What hurts me is that people are acting surprised that spy agencies are spying on people. Their job is to collect intelligence. If they can read your emails, they will. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_intelligence_agencies

But should they do so without oversight and without limits?

Re: Why discussions on cyber snooping have been so painful for us

#25

Post by Filligree »

nraynaud wrote: post #16
mike-cardwell wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Started by the US? I can't think of a country whos people are more fervently patriotic than the US...

I would say Norway? people don't put a gentle flag at the window or on the porch there, they put an actual pole in the middle of the front yard

..eh, that's just a flag.

No, there are better reasons to think Norway is hilariously patriotic.

Re: Why discussions on cyber snooping have been so painful for us

#26

Post by mtgx »

jmadsen wrote: post #10
rmc wrote: post #5

That's one thing that has annoyed me about the tech world's outrage and objections to the PRISM spying lark. They appear outraged that US citizens are spied on, with the implication that it was ok when non us citizens were spied on. Do I, a non us citizen, not have a right to privacy?

You, as a non-US citizen, are not protected by our constitution. Nor am I, a US citizen, protected from your government. I have no grounds to "raise outrage" at my government for spying on foreigners, much as I might disapprove. They don't break any laws when they do that. Moral rules, yes; disrespect to our friends and allies, yes; laws, no. When they spy on US citizens, they tear up our Constitution in doing so. Th…

No, I think you do have the right to raise that issue. That's why we have "international" human rights. But even those didn't all exist from the very beginning. People have to fight to introduce some of them to that list. Didn't the EU recently say that Internet access is a human right?

I think being able to use anonymous speech should be a human right, too, if it's not already, and a right to reasonable privacy. If there are no proper legal structures internationally for that, then maybe there should be.

Net neutrality is also not a law in most countries, but seeing how carriers are increasingly salivating at abusing their power so they can charge different content providers for their content, maybe we should be looking at net neutrality becoming some sort of international law, too.

Re: Why discussions on cyber snooping have been so painful for us

#27

Post by vidarh »

hartator wrote: post #12
ExpiredLink wrote: post #6

> we all bought into the dream.. The American dream didn't even work out for most US citizens. Merely the upper class. The rest of the world bought into practical consumerism more than into a diffuse dream.

Is the european model better? I will trade my european passport for the US one anytime. But, sure, I also feel there is two kind of people, and if you are not an US citizen, you are screwed.

> Is the european model better?

Better? Depends on who you are, I guess If you are part of the lower classes you have far better support systems available pretty much anywhere in Europe, with the exception perhaps of a couple of non-EU/EEA states. But just like the US, there's huge differences depending on where you are.

Re: Why discussions on cyber snooping have been so painful for us

#28

Post by alan_cx »

Yver wrote: post #8

What hurts me is that people are acting surprised that spy agencies are spying on people. Their job is to collect intelligence. If they can read your emails, they will. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_intelligence_agencies

No one is saying that at all. I am amazed that people still do not understand the problem.

And that really hurts, hurts us all.

Re: Why discussions on cyber snooping have been so painful for us

#29

Post by sampo »

nraynaud wrote: post #13
anon1385 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nationalism is a relatively modern phenomenon. The founding of the US was part of the rise of Nationalism. The idea that your nation (I assume you are american?) represents 'higher ideals' than others is rather nationalistic don't you think? From wikipedia: With the emergence of a public sphere and integrated economy in the 18th century, a broader sense of identification with one's country began to permeate society.…

I have a candid question then: what did drive the mess of wars in Europe before that? Germany, Switzerland and Italy were a mess of little independent territories fighting each other. I don't think all of those wars where based on religious grounds.

I am afraid anon1385's text puts the 200-300 year old rise of nationalism in a wrong light.

Before that nationalism, people were not global citizens, quite opposite: their circle of life was even smaller (in a geographic sense). Cities, city-states and small kingdoms. England alone was a patchwork of small quarreling kingdoms ( http://www.thehistoryofenglish.com/pics/heptarchy.gif ).

So the rise of nationalism widened people's perspective, it was a step towards larger geographical areas being united and living in peace within themselves.

So the nationalism was progress. Maybe Germans started to fight wars against the French. But at least now you have countries and larger scale organization, not just a patchwork cities and city-states and local warlords fighting their local neighbours.

Re: Why discussions on cyber snooping have been so painful for us

#30

Post by Ygg2 »

barrkel wrote: post #17
jmadsen wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You, as a non-US citizen, are not protected by our constitution. Nor am I, a US citizen, protected from your government. I have no grounds to "raise outrage" at my government for spying on foreigners, much as I might disapprove. They don't break any laws when they do that. Moral rules, yes; disrespect to our friends and allies, yes; laws, no. When they spy on US citizens, they tear up our Constitution in doing so. Th…

Outrage generally isn't triggered by breaking laws; rather, "moral rules" and "disrespect". A certain strand in the US considers the constitution an almost sacred document. Their outrage is less about laws being broken, and more about a perceived violation of sanctity. I'm fairly confident they don't feel the same way about e.g. driving 5mph over the limit.

Constitution is the highest form of law. IANAL but from what I understand all laws are made in such way that they shouldn't contradict constitution. If laws openly go against the constitution it weakness its position as the supreme law of a state/nation (for better or for worse).
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