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

'Sending a message': what the US and UK are attempting to do

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 158 posts

Re: 'Sending a message': what the US and UK are attempting to do

#21

Post by nwh »

yenoham wrote: post #19

When articles like this are submitted to HN, can we have a discussion on what us as individuals can actually do (if anything)? I'd rather drop 100 comments on general FEELING towards the news, for 1 or 2 comments suggesting 'Let's create a campaign site' or 'There is nothing we can do, lets just sit here in silence' Edit: For what it's worth my ONLY suggestion is that a campaign site similar to that for SOPA, etc. is…

I don't really see a solution, and I'm assuming that nobody else does really. Citizens and foreigners (like me) have equally little power over what their governments do, just a mild decision between two parties come election time. The general population seems to be apathetic about it all, I don't think I know a single person who has any opinion other than the tired "nothing to hide" line.

Re: 'Sending a message': what the US and UK are attempting to do

#22

Post by alistair77 »

kleiba wrote: post #2

Folks, take a step back and take a look what is going on here. When you were a child, would any of you have believed that one day in the early 21st century, you would wake up in a world where your own government spies on each and every single citizen, plus whoever is connected to them in another country, where they send agents to newspapers to oppress the freedom of the press? I mean, isn't this almost surreal? Like…

I listened to an interview with the Home Secretary, Theresa May, yesterday. She explicitly stated several times that she had no say in the Miranda's detention as it was a police matter. Odd, then, that she is responsible for the secret services and it is MI5, not the police, who are the primary in all anti-terrorism investigations.

Re: 'Sending a message': what the US and UK are attempting to do

#23

Post by rainsford »

wil421 wrote: post #15

Lets condemn places like China, Russia, and Syria for they way they limit or monitor electronic communications but when the US and "Friends" do it its for mumble mumble TERRORISTS mumble mumble.... If the laws don't allow us to monitor our citizens lets just change the laws or interpret the words differently.

Except the US and friends aren't really "doing it" in the same sense that China, Russia, etc are. Those countries develop powerful surveillance capabilities and use them to target political dissent, among other anti-democratic things. Nothing that's been reported about the US comes even close to that sort of usage.

Re: 'Sending a message': what the US and UK are attempting to do

#24

Post by fnordfnordfnord »

kleiba wrote: post #2

Folks, take a step back and take a look what is going on here. When you were a child, would any of you have believed that one day in the early 21st century, you would wake up in a world where your own government spies on each and every single citizen, plus whoever is connected to them in another country, where they send agents to newspapers to oppress the freedom of the press? I mean, isn't this almost surreal? Like…

>When you were a child, would any of you have believed....

Actually, yeah. I read 1984 at age 10, and somehow grokked enough about what that would mean.

>Like a cheap sci-fi novel has become reality?

Like Orwell, Huxley, Bradbury, with a little Kafka thrown in. I'm not sure "cheap" is the word I'd use here.

>I for one am more scared, appaled by what has been bubbling to the surface every week, almost every day since Snowden.

I'm glad that I'm not 'crazy' anymore. It's a good thing that it is out in the open now. It was more frightening when nearly everyone ignored it.

Re: 'Sending a message': what the US and UK are attempting to do

#25

Post by cabalamat »

acheron wrote: post #14

Of course, remember that the Guardian was perfectly fine with the government harassing journalists as long as it was not them: http://reason.com/blog/2013/08/20/despite-its-battle-with-th...

While dare say the Guardian isn't perfect (not that it's relevant) I would distrust anything coming from Spiked, a magazine whose modus operandi is to be contrarian on every issue. They are, in effect, professional trolls.

Re: 'Sending a message': what the US and UK are attempting to do

#26

Post by [deleted] »

api wrote: post #13
arethuza wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly believe that the "morals" (for lack of a better word) of the UK government haven't actually got any worse over the last 50 years or so - what has changed is that now technology allows so much more so they are quite happy to do it. For example, in the 1980s there was an almighty fuss because an excellent journalist found out that the UK government had wasted vast amounts of money on a failed spy satellite p…

As an outsider (American) it's long appeared to me that the British government thought 1984 was a utopian blueprint rather than a dystopian novel. :(

[deleted]

Re: 'Sending a message': what the US and UK are attempting to do

#28

Post by padobson »

nwh wrote: post #21
yenoham wrote: post #19

When articles like this are submitted to HN, can we have a discussion on what us as individuals can actually do (if anything)? I'd rather drop 100 comments on general FEELING towards the news, for 1 or 2 comments suggesting 'Let's create a campaign site' or 'There is nothing we can do, lets just sit here in silence' Edit: For what it's worth my ONLY suggestion is that a campaign site similar to that for SOPA, etc. is…

I don't really see a solution, and I'm assuming that nobody else does really. Citizens and foreigners (like me) have equally little power over what their governments do, just a mild decision between two parties come election time. The general population seems to be apathetic about it all, I don't think I know a single person who has any opinion other than the tired "nothing to hide" line.

Sounds like we need a campaign against the "Nothing to hide" line. You could probably point out to them that there are so many laws now, they probably broke 10 of them before they left for work in the morning.

Re: 'Sending a message': what the US and UK are attempting to do

#29

Post by grey-area »

acheron wrote: post #14

Of course, remember that the Guardian was perfectly fine with the government harassing journalists as long as it was not them: http://reason.com/blog/2013/08/20/despite-its-battle-with-th...

Of course, remember that the Guardian was perfectly fine with the government harassing journalists

It's fairly simple:

Journalists who break the law to bribe police and others for information, hack voicemails of private individuals, and intrude on the privacy of individuals should be punished. These things are not in the public interest, there is no excuse for doing them just to make money by publishing the (often prurient) details of someone's life.

Journalists who shed light on what the state is doing (even if that means publishing secret documents), if they can argue that is in the public interest, should not.

Of course there are some grey areas between the two, but the constrast of Murdoch's News organisation bribing policemen and the Guardian publishing stories based on top-secret documents from a whistleblower is an edifying one I think.

Re: 'Sending a message': what the US and UK are attempting to do

#30

Post by ttt_ »

I can almost picture NSA analysts vulturing all over the private data collected of these enemies of the state.

How soon utnil they send out the drones into the foreign lands where they have not so great a political strongarm?

"Drone bombing in brazilian airport kills dozens"

"Sadly it was necessary as one of the passangers carried terrorist intel that would put our free world at risk"

Post reply on HN