Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The NSA Is Commandeering the Internet

theatlantic.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 208 posts

Re: The NSA Is Commandeering the Internet

#61

Post by diminoten »

ledge wrote: post #21
diminoten wrote: post #3

Commandeering implies control, and the NSA does not have control. No one has "control" over the Internet. I also don't like this, "us vs. them" rhetoric that this story has turned some people towards, where the NSA are the unequivocal bad guys and we, the "little people", are the unequivocal good guys. That's a great way to get absolutely nothing done. The NSA is, despite everything we're being told by some people (B…

Well they certainly aren't on my side, and I don't want to be on their side. They aggregate and analyze data used to conduct drone strikes, spy on the world indiscriminately, and assist brutal agencies like the DEA in destroying the lives of millions of innocent Americans. Is it a paranoid delusion if you're a drug dealer to think that the NSA is out to get you? Not anymore. What about a drug user? What about a file-…

You'd argue that a child porn viewer isn't doing anything wrong?

Your opinion officially doesn't matter any more. Sorry, I have a 10 yr old sister and I simply can't abide folks who won't even do the research to understand what it means when they say things.

Re: The NSA Is Commandeering the Internet

#62

Post by natrius »

diminoten wrote: post #3

Commandeering implies control, and the NSA does not have control. No one has "control" over the Internet. I also don't like this, "us vs. them" rhetoric that this story has turned some people towards, where the NSA are the unequivocal bad guys and we, the "little people", are the unequivocal good guys. That's a great way to get absolutely nothing done. The NSA is, despite everything we're being told by some people (B…

Congress and the NSA believe it is both constitutional and acceptable to collect and store any data they can get their hands on. They supposedly draw a fuzzy line to exclude most Americans when searching the stored data, but storing the communications of Americans is blatantly unconstitutional and dangerous for our democracy. It just takes one bad actor with access to that information to control elections and entire lives.

The idea that there are "not-so-big tweaks" that could be made to these programs is false if preserving privacy and democracy matters to you.

Re: The NSA Is Commandeering the Internet

#63

Post by squozzer »

apalmer wrote: post #53
northwest wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think powerful commercial interests colluding to purposefully break the rule of law is a huge negative. It happens all the time, though, if you look at the financial, banking, insurance and oil industry - even without the slightest (moral) excuse. And nobody goes to jail, just some ridiculous fines to pay. This time, there is a very serious moral imperative.

Corporations have morals now? Just seems like a bad idea to root for, actually it sounds very similar to the argument that there is a serious moral imperative for the govt to ignore the 4th amendment to stop terrorism. You are either for the rule of law or you arent.

I could go into permanent Godwin purgatory for listing crimes against humanity that were codified into law not all that long ago.

Re: The NSA Is Commandeering the Internet

#64

Post by marssaxman »

diminoten wrote: post #3

Commandeering implies control, and the NSA does not have control. No one has "control" over the Internet. I also don't like this, "us vs. them" rhetoric that this story has turned some people towards, where the NSA are the unequivocal bad guys and we, the "little people", are the unequivocal good guys. That's a great way to get absolutely nothing done. The NSA is, despite everything we're being told by some people (B…

> The NSA is, despite everything we're being told by some people (Bruce), on our side.

Like hell it is. The NSA is part of the US Government, which is on its own side, and is only on "our side" to the degree that it depends on us for tax revenue and political legitimacy.

Re: The NSA Is Commandeering the Internet

#65

Post by ihsw »

danenania wrote: post #51
swombat wrote: post #25

If Google, Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo and Facebook simultaneously came out and published all statistics that the government is not allowing them to publish, and declared that they will continue to publish those as they come in and be entirely transparent about the tracking that the NSA asked of them, would their CEOs all go to jail, doing enormous damage to the stock market? I don't think so. I think the NSA would fold…

Yep, the NSA is on very thin ice right now and they know it. It's the perfect time to stand up to them. Large tech companies can do more than just release statistics. They can take principled stands against these disgusting programs in their entirety. Executives who are still playing along at this point are just cowards.

The stock market is a fickle thing. Despite the government-collusion revelations, top tech companies' shares haven't moved an inch in response. It stands to reason that share prices would decrease in the event of a revolt against the US Government, one could even take it a step further and argue that -- through a variety of strategically-placed and secretive investments -- the USG holds stocks in these companies.

Through such an arrangement the USG would be able to exert considerable control. One can enter serious conspiracy territory and speculate that the entire recession recently was orchestrated by the USG to launder billions of dollars to gain influence in a variety of companies and property across the world.

Re: The NSA Is Commandeering the Internet

#66

Post by pessimizer »

ceol wrote: post #37
diminoten wrote: post #3

Commandeering implies control, and the NSA does not have control. No one has "control" over the Internet. I also don't like this, "us vs. them" rhetoric that this story has turned some people towards, where the NSA are the unequivocal bad guys and we, the "little people", are the unequivocal good guys. That's a great way to get absolutely nothing done. The NSA is, despite everything we're being told by some people (B…

I really appreciate your reasonable argument, but if the past few weeks have been any indication, there isn't any room for that here. HN has gone from interesting tech discussions to extremist, us-vs-them political rhetoric, and anyone who takes a different stance is jumped on and downvoted — as you can tell from your post having more replies than the entire rest of the thread. Of course, you won't see the story abou…

I am black and not rich, and I think that NSA/Lavabit stories are more relevant to HN than stop-and-frisk stories, because they are about techies and technology. Call me crazy.

Re: The NSA Is Commandeering the Internet

#67

Post by flexie »

apalmer wrote: post #35
swombat wrote: post #25

If Google, Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo and Facebook simultaneously came out and published all statistics that the government is not allowing them to publish, and declared that they will continue to publish those as they come in and be entirely transparent about the tracking that the NSA asked of them, would their CEOs all go to jail, doing enormous damage to the stock market? I don't think so. I think the NSA would fold…

Well I hope this is not the case. I am against the NSA monitoring program. I think powerful commercial interests colluding to purposefully break the rule of law is a huge negative. Lets disconnect this behavior from the specific instance's moral outrage: If Exxon, BP, Chevron, Shell simultaneously came out and ignored all EPA restrictions would their CEOs all go to jail, doing enormous damage to the stock market? Thi…

It's powerful commercial interests colluding to defend the constitution of the US and protect the human rights of US as well as non-US citizens.

Re: The NSA Is Commandeering the Internet

#68

Post by ihsw »

dwiel wrote: post #48
apalmer wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well I hope this is not the case. I am against the NSA monitoring program. I think powerful commercial interests colluding to purposefully break the rule of law is a huge negative. Lets disconnect this behavior from the specific instance's moral outrage: If Exxon, BP, Chevron, Shell simultaneously came out and ignored all EPA restrictions would their CEOs all go to jail, doing enormous damage to the stock market? Thi…

The point of civil disobedience is that those doing don't believe that the official methods for determine what a good thing is are working. Comparing this suggested action to oil companies and the EPA is like comparing Ghandi to the KKK.

Oh come on now, there are extremest libertarians too, and they abhor the idea of environmental regulations. They truly believe that the impact of "market corrections" applies wholeheartedly to the largest of corporations, and environmental damage is certainly detrimental enough to cause consumers to react accordingly.

The fines and environmental regulations imposed against corporations are viewed very poorly by libertarian extremists, so the comparison is apt. Advocates the KKK certainly identify with the likes of Ghandi, too.

Re: The NSA Is Commandeering the Internet

#69

Post by jacquesm »

diminoten wrote: post #19
jacquesm wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The NSA is, despite everything we're being told by some people (Bruce), on our side. Define 'our side' please. I'm not convinced of that. And if you take the temporal element into account you might very well find that the NSA is even against 'your side' in the longer term. Information gathered indiscriminately has a tendency to concentrate on the bad parts. If I vacuum up all your communications over the last 20 ye…

The potential of abuse for guns is pretty damn large, but some would argue that the US was founded on the idea of gun ownership. There's a lot of speculation about what could happen, but if we look only at what has happened, people aren't being snatched up off the streets because of the NSA's monitoring programs. The language of the above article seems too adversarial to be effective at getting anything done. If we c…

The NSA is not in the business of snatching people of the street, and they are also not in the business of revealing which cases where people do get snatched of the street by for instance CIA operatives were snatched because of leads generated by the NSA.

You are essentially asking for proof that may or may not exist but that certainly will never come to light.

I suspect signals intelligence plays a major role in just about every US operation on foreign soil, if it didn't what justification would there be for the NSA to exist to begin with.

Re: The NSA Is Commandeering the Internet

#70

Post by jacquesm »

marssaxman wrote: post #64
diminoten wrote: post #3

Commandeering implies control, and the NSA does not have control. No one has "control" over the Internet. I also don't like this, "us vs. them" rhetoric that this story has turned some people towards, where the NSA are the unequivocal bad guys and we, the "little people", are the unequivocal good guys. That's a great way to get absolutely nothing done. The NSA is, despite everything we're being told by some people (B…

> The NSA is, despite everything we're being told by some people (Bruce), on our side. Like hell it is. The NSA is part of the US Government, which is on its own side, and is only on "our side" to the degree that it depends on us for tax revenue and political legitimacy.

And that's if you're from the USA. If you are not then the NSA isn't on your side, period.
Post reply on HN