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End the N.S.A. Dragnet, Now

nytimes.com

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Re: End the N.S.A. Dragnet, Now

#101

Post by 001sky »

dllthomas wrote: post #97
leokun wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In five years she will have done so much more damage it's hardly fun to think about it.

Plausibly. She doesn't individually have much power without cooperation from others, who could potentially stop cooperating, though. That is likely a better use of resources than railing against her individually.

That is likely a better use of resources than railing against her individually.

As the face of hypocrisy, its (perhaps) actually worth rallying against her individually. Does she really represent you (or by extension CA, SF, SV...etc?). Human nature has very strong instinctual aversion to public demonstrations of hypocrisy of one's own activity. This is true because political power is power rested in delegated authority. That is rooted in trust. And duplicity and hypocrisy mark such an agent as untrustworththy. This reduces their eventual political tenebility. Its one of those experiments, ironically derived from cognitve science about why people don't on a publicly revealed preference or bet. In this case, it (perhaps) makes sense to use the result in a constructive way.

Re: End the N.S.A. Dragnet, Now

#102

Post by tokenizer »

enraged_camel wrote: post #87
javert wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. Capitalism == free markets == non-coersion. We have a highly mixed economy now, not capitalism. If you consider large government bureaus (public, or "private" via regulation, like, say, Verizon) to define "capitalism" just because there are large amounts of money involved ("capital"), you are defining the term by non-essentials. There were also large amounts of money in the USSR. Capitalism lost because of Euro…

>>Capitalism == free markets == non-coersion Wrong. Capitalism is synonymous with free enterprise , not free markets. And free enterprise simply means that enterprises (rather than states) own the means of production.

Agreed. We can definitly have unrestricted free markets with community owned syndicates and still be able to create tailored products and respond to demans.

IMO, we need to start talking about workplace democracy if we're going to continue to entertain the idea of corporate controlled society, so that the common person can at least get their vote back (indirectly, by choosing who leads the company which bribes officials...).

Re: End the N.S.A. Dragnet, Now

#103

Post by nested »

opinali wrote: post #71
rayiner wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Ben Franklin quote is apropos here: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither." While it's wildly misquoted on the interblags, you can't read out the word "essential." The point of the quote isn't that no trade-offs between freedom and safety are appropriate, but rather that we shouldn't trade away those freedoms that are "essential." It is debatable whethe…

Internet privacy becomes essential in the moment that people put their entire lives on the Internet. All mail is email, all financial transactions are electronic, medical records are in computers, credit scores are in data centers--- you name anything important to your privacy/freedom, and it's in the cloud these days. No tradeoff is possible anymore.

I came to share the same thought. We need to preserve freedom for the future and set the damn standard for the rest of the world. I don't want my children or theirs to think surveillance like this is acceptable. It's absolutely not.

Re: End the N.S.A. Dragnet, Now

#104

Post by onli »

ttflee wrote: post #34
onli wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Capitalism clearly won. But Capitalism is not Freedom, not democracy and is not the rule of the law. Capitalism is a way to conduct business by letting people posess the means of production, and the capital to produce as well. It was not only rhetoric that in the fight between USA and UDSSR, there was a fight between freedom and authority. But mainly, it was a fight between different ways to regulate the means of…

> China shows that you can have a capitalst economy in a (not a real one, but wanting to be) communist country. Wanting to be? I'm afraid that China would never want trying again in the current reign. China just has not yet figured out which model of heaven could be used to replace the communist one. It is really a tough job to propose for a egalitarian heaven in an age of quickly increasing rich-poor gap.

Hm, ok. While I know that the chinese government still tries to define its system as a communist one, it is quite possible that they are simply searching by now. Given you use of the word heaven you probably know that better than me (if my limited chinese is correct).

But there are other examples. Take Stalin, under his reign there was a limited (but successful) effort to produce food using a free economy, which he shot down. Which was tragic given the food was needed.

But that leads to far. I mainly meant that the existing systems claiming to be communist aren't, and some were able to use the tools of capitalism without becoming a western country, e.g. without becoming an indirect democracy - thus showing that capitalism is an economic model, not more.

Re: End the N.S.A. Dragnet, Now

#105

Post by PavlovsCat »

AsymetricCom wrote: post #5

The thing about the NSA dragnet is that if the NSA wasn't doing it, then corporations would (are) doing it. You can't stop technology from moving forward. Someone is going to be sniffing your packets now until the end of time.

IMHO human and animal rights are technology, too. At least in the sense of progress being made there as well.

It's not that long ago black people were slaves/segregated, and women's suffrage is even fresher. And as much there is still to improve, some progress happened; instead of, say, there "always being one class of people considered subhuman", which no doubt some people have uttered in defeat back then, too.

Re: End the N.S.A. Dragnet, Now

#106

Post by rayiner »

dragonwriter wrote: post #93
rayiner wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Data" versus "metadata" doesn't go to the definition of "reasonable." It goes to the definition of "their" in "their persons, houses, papers, and effects..." The basic distinction is your data versus data that's about you. If I own a store, and make a note that 001sky came in to buy a box of cookies at 2:00pm on January 23, 2005, that's my paper. It's not your paper. I can claim 4th amendment protection if the FBI b…

> "Data" versus "metadata" doesn't go to the definition of "reasonable." It goes to the definition of "their" in "their persons, houses, papers, and effects..." Not really, its still the persons, houses, papers, or effects of "the people" no matter which of the people it belongs to. There's this weird idea which seems to have emerged from the use of the exclusionary rule as the main (and pretty much exclusive) remedy…

First, the 4th amendment isn't worded as a restriction on the actions of the government, like many other "rights" in the Constitution, but as a personal right. While an individual can't consent to say the government's exercise of an unconstitutional power, an individual can waive a personal right. For example, if the government eminent domains my property to build a highway, its not a violation of the Constitution if I waive my right to just compensation. So while the call metadata is clearly protected by the 4th amendment as to AT&T, its their personal right and they can waive it.

Second, ("th[e] weird idea... that the Fourth Amendment only applies when the person about whom information is sought is the person whose person, houses, papers, or effects are being searched or seized") doesn't stem from the exclusionary rule, but rather the subpoena power. The subpoena duces tecum (subpoena for the production of documents) predates the 4th amendment by quite a bit, appearing in England in its modern form sometime in the 1600's. While an overly broad or abusive subpoena can be a 4th amendment violation (but against the person at whom the subpoena is directed, not against the subject of the documents sought), they are presumptively reasonable.

Re: End the N.S.A. Dragnet, Now

#107

Post by rayiner »

001sky wrote: post #98
rayiner wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are situations in which technology changes things and the law has adapted (e.g. using an infrared camera to look into a house from a public location is a 4th amendment violation), but this is not one of those situations. At least when it comes to call metadata, technology really has nothing to do with it. Whether AT&T records it on magnetic tape or quantum bits, it's still their records, generated by their equi…

At least when it comes to call metadata, technology really has nothing to do with it I'm not sure this is logically possible. The metadata retention by the telco's is an artifact of their business process (minimize fraudulent billing liability)[1]. A similar process did not exist for mail until the government mandated and paid for it. Now, every piece of mail is photgraphed ("to collect the 'metadata' ")and the image…

The fact that metadata is generated and collected may be an issue of technology, but that doesn't change the essential characteristic of whether it's your data, or data about you. E.g., in 1776, there were no video cameras in public places. But technology doesn't change the essential character observing you in a public place versus in a private place.

> That notwithstanding, the entire notion of such meta-data is strictly an artifact of technology. There is no analogue in pure verbal speech, in other words.

Sure there is! Before mail was scanned for delivery purposes, you could always have called a postal worker to testify about what he read on the outside of the envelope. Before store cameras, you could have always called a store worker to testify about when he saw 001sky enter and leave the store and what he saw 001sky buy. Before automated call tracking, you could always have called a phone operator to testify about when 001sky placed a call. Technology makes it easier to collect metadata, but it does not turn "data" into "metadata."

Re: End the N.S.A. Dragnet, Now

#108

Post by [deleted] »

001sky wrote: post #101
dllthomas wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plausibly. She doesn't individually have much power without cooperation from others, who could potentially stop cooperating, though. That is likely a better use of resources than railing against her individually.

That is likely a better use of resources than railing against her individually. As the face of hypocrisy, its (perhaps) actually worth rallying against her individually. Does she really represent you (or by extension CA, SF, SV...etc?). Human nature has very strong instinctual aversion to public demonstrations of hypocrisy of one's own activity. This is true because political power is power rested in delegated author…

[deleted]

Re: End the N.S.A. Dragnet, Now

#109

Post by Crito »

dalek_cannes wrote: post #32

Surveillance. It always starts with a desire to be safe. And that comes from fear. It seems Americans today are afraid of more things than ever: pedophiles, guns, terrorists, lawsuits. Some news reports are ridiculous by foreign standards: teachers not being allowed to shake hands with students out of fear of sexual harassment allegations, boys suspended from school for drawing guns, bystanders not administering firs…

Here is an idea I have been toying with for the past few weeks:

Fear has become patriotic.

Before I say more, I'll say that I am not a fan of patriotism, I think it is a mild form of bigotry, but I recognize the positive connotations it has to the population at large. I think that patriotism has also traditionally been associated with traits that are seen as positive. Traits like self assurance, confidence, pride, and bravery.

You might be afraid that Hitler is going to cross the channel, but you are going to put on a hard face and proudly declare that the RAF will continue to kick ass and take names. That is how you make yourself look patriotic.

That has changed slightly though. Now, if you want to present yourself as a patriot, you must present yourself as a coward who fears the enemy first and foremost, even if you really don't. That's why you get nonsense like this prefacing editorials: "Our first priority is to keep Americans safe from the threat of terrorism." You think that terrorists are going to implement Sharia Law in your podunk town in Kansas? A wildly irrational fear. So is that cowardice? No, it is patriotism! Advertise this fear to the world with a giant decal on your pickup truck; show your neighbors just how damn patriotic you really are.

Re: End the N.S.A. Dragnet, Now

#110

Post by leokun »

001sky wrote: post #101
dllthomas wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plausibly. She doesn't individually have much power without cooperation from others, who could potentially stop cooperating, though. That is likely a better use of resources than railing against her individually.

That is likely a better use of resources than railing against her individually. As the face of hypocrisy, its (perhaps) actually worth rallying against her individually. Does she really represent you (or by extension CA, SF, SV...etc?). Human nature has very strong instinctual aversion to public demonstrations of hypocrisy of one's own activity. This is true because political power is power rested in delegated author…

She's not a hypocrite. She is very open and public about her positions. I do not think she is dishonest I just think she fights against progress.
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