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We need an NRA for privacy

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Re: We need an NRA for privacy

#111

Post by rdl »

hga wrote: post #104
rdl wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think part of the NRA's effectiveness is that "gun people" spend serious money on guns all the time, and there are active ways to use the guns (going shooting, hunting, etc.) which are concrete, and both could be taken away. Privacy is much more abstract, loss of privacy doesn't have direct physical or financial cost to individuals (voters) as it happens, etc. I'd also be wary of pushing this NRA analogy too far, f…

Actually, many, perhaps most gun owners don't constantly spend "serious money on guns all the time". There's a whole bunch who have one or two for self-defense in the home and almost never touch them. There are the "Fudds" who buy a few boxes of shotgun shells every year for hunting season, or a box of 20 rifle rounds every few. They're very ... there for concealed carry types, but we don't necessarily regularly spen…

Trying to split the "sporting gun owners" from the "ccw and evil black rifle crowd" was an effective anti-NRA tactic (attempted again recently). I guess I know a weird subset of gun owners who have to buy new safes regularly.

I think CISPA was an attempt to split the security/privacy crowd as well -- there certainly are those who care about infosec just to keep their corporate IP unrustled, vs. those who care about it from individual liberty grounds, the same way.

Re: We need an NRA for privacy

#112

Post by damoncali »

the_watcher wrote: post #102
rayiner wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that you rarely see the NRA coming to the defense of hardened inner-city thugs getting railroaded with felon-in-possession type charges. It's careful to craft an image, and that image is centered on one set of people who use guns and not the other sets of people who use guns.

The NRA is also very careful to support people who don't actually violate gun laws (whether because they are just normal people with guns for hunting/protection or people exploiting loopholes that - regardless of your feelings towards them - are codified by law), or who are at least making some attempt at a credible argument (trying to phrase this as politically neutral as possible. I'm not here to debate their polic…

worries about government databases of guns should be very easy to relate to actual government databases of communications.

Bingo. There is a strong ally for privacy advocates in the NRA. This hasn't blown up in the media yet, but you can be sure it will next time discussions of gun registration/background checks comes up.

Re: We need an NRA for privacy

#113

Post by rdl »

hga wrote: post #108
rdl wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an aside, gun trusts are a decent way around the CLEO signature requirement for NFA items, at least in states which don't ban them outright (sigh, California). (acutely noticed since I've seen the fare.)

I gather that in a lot of states they haven't been put to the legal test. Not a good bet where judiciaries lean more left than the state itself, e.g. any that picks judges with the Missouri Plan, like my home state of Missouri where our Castle Doctrine has been judicially nullified. Especially since you won't find many political profiles in courage supporting ownership of NFA items.

Yeah. My long-term plan involves either running as CLEO (in a low-population county in WA), and/or becoming a manufacturing FFL (looking at how to make .22lr mini-mag clones at <$0.05 all day, in the $10-20mm+/yr scale -- it's sadly a bit of a black art)

Re: We need an NRA for privacy

#114

Post by hga »

damoncali wrote: post #107
_delirium wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if part of it also relates to a shift in which parts of the political spectrum people associate politically tinged, "potentially subversive" gun carrying with. In the '60s it was mainly associated with the militant left, especially groups like the Black Panthers. That may explain why conservatives of the time, like Reagan, supported gun control as part of a general strategy of supporting the police and law-a…

It could be. The NRA is actively engaged in working with a traditionally liberal segment of the population - poor minorities. There are lots of reasons for that, but one big one is that they are mostly Democrats, and the NRA has become too dependent on Republicans lately.

"It's not our fault!"

The nation is polarizing, e.g. too many Blue Dogs got sent home to spend more time with their families, too many never really on our side (re)turned against us like Harry Reid ... we'll see how it goes. Then again, ask ex-Senator Richard Lugar what he thinks of the NRA and gunowners.... What we really need, for both issues, is this bit of wisdom from Milton Friedman:

"I do not believe that the solution to our problem is simply to elect the right people. The important thing is to establish a political climate of opinion which will make it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing. Unless it is politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing, the right people will not do the right thing either, or if they try, they will shortly be out of office."

Of course, for privacy, if everything is kept secret including the courts, how will we know...?

Re: We need an NRA for privacy

#115

Post by damoncali »

hga wrote: post #108
rdl wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an aside, gun trusts are a decent way around the CLEO signature requirement for NFA items, at least in states which don't ban them outright (sigh, California). (acutely noticed since I've seen the fare.)

I gather that in a lot of states they haven't been put to the legal test. Not a good bet where judiciaries lean more left than the state itself, e.g. any that picks judges with the Missouri Plan, like my home state of Missouri where our Castle Doctrine has been judicially nullified. Especially since you won't find many political profiles in courage supporting ownership of NFA items.

I don't know. It's a pretty standard thing to do these days. Surely you have to make sure you cross all the t's and dot all the i's. But it's not like the practice doesn't have a long history. Seems there are more pitfalls for owning personally.

Re: We need an NRA for privacy

#116

Post by mtinkerhess »

hga wrote: post #97
snowwrestler wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Privacy advocates need to get their act together and form a single-issue organization. I need to be seeing teenagers coming to my house peddling privacy the way they do for churches and baby seals. The tech industry needs to sack up and realize that their business interests are at stake, and put some serious money in PACs behind the whole effort. But privacy advocates are frequently at odds with tech companies over…

Until we have specific , actual, real privacy atrocities I can't see this effort getting the traction of any of the groups you've specified. Labor had company towns and less but still specifically abusive employers, with plenty of specific people maimed or killed in unsafe workplaces or labor actions. Environmentalists had deformed children from Japanese industrial mercury dumping, and, oh, the Cuyahoga River catchin…

None, because apparently the people who the specific incidents happen to are either never aware of it or are told they can't talk about it.

Visibility is a particular challenge for the privacy issue. On the one hand, it means that advocacy groups should make transparency one of their platform's planks; on the other hand, it exposes advocacy group to the criticism that they are conspiracy theorists asking the government to reveal violations that ostensibly don't exist.

Re: We need an NRA for privacy

#117

Post by hga »

robg wrote: post #95

Privacy isn't explicitly guaranteed in the Constitution. So the Court has tended to side with the Government on matters of National Security vs. Privacy. In fact, the Constitution guarantees searches for the Government, so long as they are reasonable. On matters of national security versus a database, national security readily wins. The Court finds those searches reasonable. So, in the case of Privacy, you aren't fig…

We realize it, but one of the secrets to the NRA's success is it's single issue focus, it doesn't give people unrelated reasons to not join it, as what you recommend would do. Unless it directly impinges on it or gun owners, like McCain-Feingold's suppression of political speech, it's not going to get a major push, although I'd expect it'll be added to "reasons we can't trust the good will of those in government".

Re: We need an NRA for privacy

#118

Post by pessimizer »

hga wrote: post #97
snowwrestler wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Privacy advocates need to get their act together and form a single-issue organization. I need to be seeing teenagers coming to my house peddling privacy the way they do for churches and baby seals. The tech industry needs to sack up and realize that their business interests are at stake, and put some serious money in PACs behind the whole effort. But privacy advocates are frequently at odds with tech companies over…

Until we have specific , actual, real privacy atrocities I can't see this effort getting the traction of any of the groups you've specified. Labor had company towns and less but still specifically abusive employers, with plenty of specific people maimed or killed in unsafe workplaces or labor actions. Environmentalists had deformed children from Japanese industrial mercury dumping, and, oh, the Cuyahoga River catchin…

The NRA doesn't have "specific, actual, real gun rights atrocities" and they do just fine. How about people who won't give up their privacy until it is pried from their cold dead fingers just getting an address to send a check to in order to feel like they have agents working on their behalf?

Do the NAR or the Chamber of Commerce need atrocities?

Re: We need an NRA for privacy

#119

Post by damoncali »

pessimizer wrote: post #118
hga wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until we have specific , actual, real privacy atrocities I can't see this effort getting the traction of any of the groups you've specified. Labor had company towns and less but still specifically abusive employers, with plenty of specific people maimed or killed in unsafe workplaces or labor actions. Environmentalists had deformed children from Japanese industrial mercury dumping, and, oh, the Cuyahoga River catchin…

The NRA doesn't have " specific , actual, real gun rights atrocities " and they do just fine. How about people who won't give up their privacy until it is pried from their cold dead fingers just getting an address to send a check to in order to feel like they have agents working on their behalf? Do the NAR or the Chamber of Commerce need atrocities?

Well, there's this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_Ridge

Re: We need an NRA for privacy

#120

Post by pessimizer »

Torkild wrote: post #110
jivatmanx wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prohibition succeeded because they formed an alliance with the Women's Suffrage movement.

Prohibition failed because it allowed the bootleggers of the underground to fully monopolize their trade without having to abide by any legal restrictions. If a business no longer has the threat of ramifications for questionable acts, then the questionable acts increase exponentially. That can be two-way though. Cracking down only builds a stronger underground, which is where I see the entire surveillance issue going…

Prohibition didn't fail; it was wildly successful.
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