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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

#91

Post by sampo »

nraynaud wrote: post #38
sampo wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 widene…

understood: without confrontation to the foreigner there is not need to take a stance on one's own nationality. There is no contrast to reveal it.

Before country-level identity, you were probably identifying to your clan or tribe or somesuch.

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

#92

Post by cpursley »

dasil003 wrote: post #51
Sami_Lehtinen wrote: post #2

I totally agree, I have been watching this totally pointless discussion about domestic spying all over the net. I was going to write about the topic, but someone did it already. My conclusion is that at least 95% of US population are so bad in geography that they don't know that they represent only less than 5% of world population. After all, it seems that only people who are voting in elections do matter at all. May…

> My conclusion is that at least 95% of US population are so bad in geography that they don't know that they represent only less than 5% of world population. Uh-huh. You've been watching those candid videos where they interview stupid Americans haven't you? Of course you probably realized that they are always filmed in heavily populated areas and there is always a cut between every interview. You know why? Because yo…

I know from experience that Americans in fact, don't know their geography.

Many couldn't find where they lived if you pointed it to them on a map. I had a neighbor who thought Amsterdam was a city next to Athens, Georgia (US State) and even after explaining where it was, that it was part of Holland, he asked me how the Germany trip was when I returned.

And yesterday, the Indian gas station owner was flabbergasted that I knew about and where his home town was (Goa - relatively well known at least I thought). He actually asked 'how do you know that' and I wanted to say because I'm not a zombie.

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

#93

Post by muyuu »

lispm wrote: post #20
hartator wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There is an european passport?

Yep, there are several. Any EU passport makes you an E.U. citizen.

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

#94

Post by randallsquared »

bambax wrote: post #47
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…

> You, as a non-US citizen, are not protected by our constitution. This is a myth, recently revived by Republicans to justify "enhanced interrogation techniques" (ie, abominable torture methods that used to qualify as 'war crimes'). The most important articles of the Bill of Rights don't refer to "citizen" but to "people" in general. Here's the full text of the 4th Amendment, most relevant in this case The right of t…

It is not at all clear that "the people" means "people in general". If they had meant people in general, they could have simply omitted the article, and thereby not referred to any specific group of people.

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

#95

Post by muyuu »

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.

I think that's generally a very bad idea if you don't want to live in the US. The USA is one of the very few countries in the world that will tax you even for your gains abroad while being resident abroad.

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

#96

Post by throwit1979 »

This is going to be a little inflammatory but it's true.

Why I will never take seriously foreigners' reactions to our wars, surveillance, human rights violations, etc:

You people, and the governments and central banks who represent you, keep buying our debt and financing all of this. The US Government would be incapable of funding these programs and wars at low cost without YOU stepping up to the plate every single auction to buy up our treasuries at ridiculously low yields.

I'll believe your outrage when I see action behind it.

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

#97

Post by honzzz »

UVB-76 wrote: post #39

I was going to write a comment to this effect on one of the many threads related to this subject, but figured it would fall on deaf ears. Americans should not underestimate the damage this scandal has done to the American 'brand'. Growing up, I was the Americophile of my friends. I loved American culture, I aspired to live the American dream, I fully intended to pursue American citizenship later in life. This is only…

Exactly. When I was younger I kind of admired Americans and their ideals and I automatically perceived them as the 'good guys'. I did not want to get American citizenship or anything but I had spent couple of months in the US, I loved it and Americans were my friends - I used to defend them every time someone was critical about the US.

Now I would not even want to visit again. TSA alone would be enough for it not to be worth it.

US is like that kid in school who used to be popular and when he got beat up by that bully, everybody wanted to help him. But after that beating he never recovered and became so paranoid and creepy that even his friends abandoned him and now he himself is a bully and everybody ignores or hates him - if he is going to need help again nobody is going to give a shit.

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

#98

Post by TimJRobinson »

As an Australian this is exactly how I feel. Over the past few weeks I've been moving many of my business systems off the cloud and onto self hosted servers and using less and less American servers because they clearly have no issue with taking foreigners information and with tens of thousands of contractors and employees able to access that information I wonder how long it's going be before big companies are able to effectively spy on competitors through having a 'friend' with access to prism.

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

#99

Post by cpursley »

jcromartie wrote: post #90
cpursley wrote: post #88

I'd argue that there are several countries that are more free than the United States in both terms of social issues and economics that make better role models. This might all be 'news' to the tech community - but Libertarian circles have been talking about this trend towards totalitarianism since what, the 70s? It might feel like it all started after 9/11, but this framework has been building up for decades. In fact,…

Which countries would those be? I'm really on the fence at the moment, between becoming active in trying to change politics for the better, or just packing up and going somewhere that doesn't spy on literally everybody and throw you in jail over a stupid joke or rap song on facebook.

Well, it depends on your political preference. Strong social liberty or strong economic liberty or something in between? It depends on what's important to you.

Economic Freedom: http://www.heritage.org/index/

Democracy Index: https://portoncv.gov.cv/dhub/porton.por_global.open_file?p_d...

Human Development Index: http://hdr.undp.org/hdr4press/press/outreach/figures/HDI_Tre...

Gun Freedom: http://www.freeexistence.org/gunindex.html

Press Freedom: http://en.rsf.org/press-freedom-index-2013,1054.html

Drug Freedom: http://www.freeexistence.org/drugindex.html

Various other stats: http://www.eiu.com/default.aspx

Just notice the trends - which countries are you seeing at the tops of most of the lists?

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

#100

Post by Kylekramer »

bambax wrote: post #47
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…

> You, as a non-US citizen, are not protected by our constitution. This is a myth, recently revived by Republicans to justify "enhanced interrogation techniques" (ie, abominable torture methods that used to qualify as 'war crimes'). The most important articles of the Bill of Rights don't refer to "citizen" but to "people" in general. Here's the full text of the 4th Amendment, most relevant in this case The right of t…

Sure, but the whole Constitution begins with "We the People of the United States". You can argue that it should include non-citizens, but the constitution itself and subsequent applications are very clear that it does not. It is a somewhat odd proposition to claim the constitution of one country apply to all. Should the rest of the world have stopped drinking in 1919?

(Not a Republican mythmaker who loves torture, just stating the facts)

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