I wish there was an email option instead of having to call my congressman.
Block NSA funding for collecting the call records of all Americans
201–210 of 232 posts
Re: Block NSA funding for collecting the call records of all Americans
#202Earlier quoted context omitted.
It should be banning surveillance of anyone not under active investigation, not simply domestically.
Why? Persons who are not US citizens who are not on US territory aren't given protections under our constitution. What's the reasoning behind this? Surveillance serves a national interest for the US, and while there ought to be limitations for domestic surveillance, I don't see why those ought to exist for foreigners in other countries.
Everyone's giving you the high-and-mighty ethical arguments, I'll give you the rational self-interest argument.
US internet companies need the freedom to do business with overseas clients without those clients assuming their communication will be spied on. If you start spying on foreigners using American services you hurt the providers of those services, you hurt their ability to get customers.
Re: Block NSA funding for collecting the call records of all Americans
#203Earlier quoted context omitted.
It should be banning surveillance of anyone not under active investigation, not simply domestically.
Why? Persons who are not US citizens who are not on US territory aren't given protections under our constitution. What's the reasoning behind this? Surveillance serves a national interest for the US, and while there ought to be limitations for domestic surveillance, I don't see why those ought to exist for foreigners in other countries.
American companies such as Facebook and Google are under EU laws when operating in the EU. Handing over all this private information about EU citizens is illegal according to EU laws. So PRISM will cause problems for American companies because they will not be able to operate outside the US without getting fined.
That is the economic side of things. Then there is the other aspect that it is going to ruin relationship with allied countries. We have had to put up with a lot of shit from the US, and this feels like the final straw.
Re: Block NSA funding for collecting the call records of all Americans
#204Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why? Persons who are not US citizens who are not on US territory aren't given protections under our constitution. What's the reasoning behind this? Surveillance serves a national interest for the US, and while there ought to be limitations for domestic surveillance, I don't see why those ought to exist for foreigners in other countries.
Everyone's giving you the high-and-mighty ethical arguments, I'll give you the rational self-interest argument. US internet companies need the freedom to do business with overseas clients without those clients assuming their communication will be spied on. If you start spying on foreigners using American services you hurt the providers of those services, you hurt their ability to get customers.
A compelling argument. But it's predicated on the assumption that US corporations are somehow unique in terms of the relationship they have with the local intelligence agencies, and I don't know that that's a reasonable.
Re: Block NSA funding for collecting the call records of all Americans
#205Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why? Persons who are not US citizens who are not on US territory aren't given protections under our constitution. What's the reasoning behind this? Surveillance serves a national interest for the US, and while there ought to be limitations for domestic surveillance, I don't see why those ought to exist for foreigners in other countries.
Each country expects other governments to spy on them, but when you start requiring American companies to help the intelligence agencies do their jobs, it leaves little reason for anyone to do business with American companies. Also, as Obama has stated (intensely dislike many of his policies, but on this occasion he's right), it's a given that espionage is conducted in order to discover political/military secrets, bu…
> Each country expects other governments to spy on them, but when you start requiring American companies to help the intelligence agencies do their jobs, it leaves little reason for anyone to do business with American companies.
This is largely orthogonal to the issue of whether or not the NSA ought to be barred from spying on foreign individuals unless that person is specifically under suspicion of some sort.
Re: Block NSA funding for collecting the call records of all Americans
#206Earlier quoted context omitted.
Countries are just arbitrary divisions. Just because you are born in a certain geographic region doesn't mean you are the property of the government of that region. Every person is a human being with inherent rights and freedoms. You think we are all equal, but Americans are just more equal than others? Dividing people is counter productive and antiquated. We are all unified as citizens of Earth and denizens of the i…
> We are all unified as citizens of Earth and denizens of the internet. That's something we would all probably like, but that's not actually true to this point. Today we can't even keep $FOOs from killing $BARs (or other $FOOs) when they're in the same national boundary, so why would you pretend the world is something other than what it actually is? FWIW I think the U.S. needs to normalize how it conducts surveillanc…
> we won't spy or do this list of things to you, without arranging with your Foreign Ministry, and you won't do those things to us without arranging with our Dept. of State
During the Bush years, I recall reading that the US had (secret) bilateral agreements with the UK, wherein the Brits would spy on the Americans for the US govt and the US would spy on the Britons for the UK govt. This was supposedly a way of working around legislation governing domestic surveillance.
I've no idea if this is actually true or not, but perhaps bilateral agreements aren't necessarily better.
Re: Block NSA funding for collecting the call records of all Americans
#207Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why? Persons who are not US citizens who are not on US territory aren't given protections under our constitution. What's the reasoning behind this? Surveillance serves a national interest for the US, and while there ought to be limitations for domestic surveillance, I don't see why those ought to exist for foreigners in other countries.
> Why? Because there's nothing inherently special about the humans born inside of the imaginary lines that comprise the US borders that entitles them to privacy denied to others. In short, none of us are free until all of us are equal. Also, in the off chance you don't give a shit about basic human dignity for those filthy foreigners: it's also simply bad business. It puts all US internet companies at a huge starting…
> Because there's nothing inherently special about the humans born inside of the imaginary lines that comprise the US borders that entitles them to privacy denied to others.
The fact that the borders of nations are arbitrary and drawn by humans makes them no less real or important - it definitely doesn't make them imaginary. To say otherwise is incredibly naive, as well as deeply ignorant of history and the political realities in the world.
> Also, in the off chance you don't give a shit about basic human dignity for those filthy foreigners
Do you really need to include this kind of bullshit in your response?
Re: Block NSA funding for collecting the call records of all Americans
#208Earlier quoted context omitted.
In politics, partial victories can snowball. And vice versa: repeated loss teaches helplessness. The direct real effect of this would be small, but I'd expect it to be much more useful than a loss. Added: If you read about Watergate, the scandal wasn't any one event or one reaction: it took over two years from the break-in to the resignation, and people weren't sitting still. Some of the important action was in Congr…
This isn't Watergate. There isn't widespread public outrage. If you want to change the policies, you'll need to generate or simulate that outrage first.
Watergate made barely a ripple at first, according to Woodward and Bernstein's book. It built up over time.
Re: Block NSA funding for collecting the call records of all Americans
#209This is something real, tangible, and valuable that we can all actually do. All of this month I have felt powerless. This is something within everyone's power to do, and it can definitely help start the ball rolling back the way it came. It is pretty unfortunate that there is such a short window of time in which this information can be disseminated. I can imagine if there were a bit more time, this could really sprea…
I disagree, it is not something real or tangible. I'm all for defunding NSA, but it's not like a regular business which you can boycott by not giving them money. You have to go and ask permission from the government to not give the money (which they previously extracted from you by force for the "good of society") to some of the government agencies. It's pretty much like going to NSA itself and ask them to defund the…
> most of the money government generates comes from inflation
I don't believe this. And if it is true then witholding your taxes won't help. The people losing money to inflation would probably stop buying bonds if inflation ate into their returns.
Re: Block NSA funding for collecting the call records of all Americans
#210Makes sense hn would too vote such a stupid idea. If it didn't exist already something like it would have to be created.
The Soviet Union went out of business in 1991. Why do we still have a mechanism that was built to target a closed totalitarian system armed with 20 megaton hydrogen bombs? The NSA is out of date and out of place.
=) This assumes you have correctly defined what"it" is and does? Or what current is? Current isn't on tv.