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

91–100 of 208 posts

Re: The NSA Is Commandeering the Internet

#91

Post by civilian »

alan_cx wrote: post #46
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…

Are you seriously comparing protecting the environment to embarrassing a government in to open disclosure? Really? Two completely different things.

Still, both are examples of corporate leaders standing up to government thugs. They're only different because of how american culture treats those two different topics.

Re: The NSA Is Commandeering the Internet

#93

Post by dictum »

diminoten wrote: post #86
dictum wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>us vs. them bullshit Surely not an appropriate point to raise when defending an agency whose raison d'etre is to acquire and analyze all foreign communications. Its existence comes from a us vs. them mentality. What's happening is that for the USG, "them" now includes not only foreigner suspects; it includes all foreigners and many Americans—probably all Americans. I don't expect the intelligence agencies of a dicta…

Okay so you're not in a dictatorship, and the NSA isn't "out to get" you. If you're a US citizen, then the NSA is trying, at least, to prevent you from being harmed by foreign threats by gathering data on those threats and alerting other US government agencies. That's what they do. As long as the US exists, someone will have to do this. If you're not a US citizen, then the NSA will take a look at you. Period. That's…

As far as I'm aware, the country of which I am a citizen does not take an adversarial approach to other countries. If I learned that it's spying on people of other countries, I'd be just as concerned as I am about the NSA/the USG. None of that changes the fact that the NSA and the USG have a us vs. them mentality and it's only natural that Americans look at their government with a corresponding us vs. them view.

I can understand the USG watching a tourist, since they might commit a crime on US soil. But I'm a not a tourist. I'm not on American soil. My data is flowing through servers in the US, American-developed routers and American-developed OSes only because of the historical accident that the US loved globalization so much that its corporations now dominate the world and made the technical standards the whole world depends on.

If I could limit my exposure to the USG, I would. I want nothing from them, just as I don't expect an appendix removal from the NHS.

The line drawn between foreigners and American citizens stands on very thin ground. It's fraying. Think about it: who are the people with the greatest power to commit a terrorist act, the people who are already inside the US or the people who are outside?

Americans will be spied on. The NSA merely collects all data, and the magic of parallel construction will distribute it to the FBI or your friendly corrupt local authority.

Re: The NSA Is Commandeering the Internet

#94

Post by jivatmanx »

ihsw wrote: post #68
dwiel wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 liber…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-market_environmentalist

Re: The NSA Is Commandeering the Internet

#95

Post by foobarqux »

diminoten wrote: post #86
dictum wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>us vs. them bullshit Surely not an appropriate point to raise when defending an agency whose raison d'etre is to acquire and analyze all foreign communications. Its existence comes from a us vs. them mentality. What's happening is that for the USG, "them" now includes not only foreigner suspects; it includes all foreigners and many Americans—probably all Americans. I don't expect the intelligence agencies of a dicta…

Okay so you're not in a dictatorship, and the NSA isn't "out to get" you. If you're a US citizen, then the NSA is trying, at least, to prevent you from being harmed by foreign threats by gathering data on those threats and alerting other US government agencies. That's what they do. As long as the US exists, someone will have to do this. If you're not a US citizen, then the NSA will take a look at you. Period. That's…

As you should know surveillance is used for far more broadly than for preventing terrorism. It is beyond comprehension that you can ignore documented abuses, even ones that have recently been reported.

You cannot justify arbitrary powers simply by pointing to the fact that (US and ally) citizens may be safer from terrorism. Otherwise you should be advocating for more invasive surveillance.

> Being investigated does not mean you're an enemy.

No it means I lose my autonomy and therefore my freedom. It means I can never have goals that meaningfully oppose those who surveil me.

Re: The NSA Is Commandeering the Internet

#96

Post by dreamfactory »

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…

I imagine many would say recent events demonstrate that it shouldn't continue in its current incarnation as it's doing more harm than good to national interests. Like the TSA, it doesn't need to exist, certainly not in its current form. In the UK for example, the equivalent hasn't always existed, (and going by Adam Curtis recently, may as well not have). That didn't prevent them from building an empire and dominating world trade.

Re: The NSA Is Commandeering the Internet

#97

Post by jcromartie »

jivatmanx wrote: post #16
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…

Keith Alexander believes that terrorists live amongst us, trying to implement Sharia and create a Caliphate. To fight this, he needs to "Collect it all". It's just as important to understand his motivation as it is to understand ours, and assess the reasonableness of each in comparison to the other, comparing our current situation to others in history that were similar, and the result they had.

He believes that Islamist terrorists are trying to institute Sharia law and establish a Caliphate in the Middle East, and that terrorists live among us, and he's absolutely correct.

You are wrong to suggest that he believes that there is an imminent threat to American government itself from Islamists living in the USA. Some people do believe this, but he is not one of them, based on his own words.

Re: The NSA Is Commandeering the Internet

#98

Post by foobarqux »

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…

> 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.

They are being assassinated by drones overseas.

Re: The NSA Is Commandeering the Internet

#99

Post by tekromancr »

diminoten wrote: post #49
apalmer wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What on earth are you talking about? The whole purpose of the NSA monitoring program is to provide actionable leads to enable intervention by law enforcement. You can think this is 'bad', you can think this is 'good', you can think it is highly effective, you can think it is ineffective... but arguing that the NSA program has never lead to anyone being 'snatched up off the streets', is WILDLY disconnected from realit…

> but arguing that the NSA program has never lead to anyone being 'snatched up off the streets', is WILDLY disconnected from reality. Do you have evidence that indicates US citizens are being 'snatched' from the streets of the US without being arrested, tried, or convicted as per the US criminal justice system? You say it's wildly disconnected from reality and that the NSA's entire purpose is to do precisely this, an…

There is evidence of US citizens being blown off the streets by drones.

Re: The NSA Is Commandeering the Internet

#100

Post by diminoten »

ledge wrote: post #72
diminoten wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes I said that without doing any research on the subject ever. And yes one opinion of mine invalidates every other opinion I have, how true. You win, good arguments. Edit: For a more serious reply, there is evidence that countries that have decriminalized viewing child pornography (not production) have seen decreased rates of child sex abuse. Also, the definition of child pornography is so broad that we have a lot o…

Are you seriously trying to defend child pornography?
Post reply on HN