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NSA tracking cellphone locations worldwide, Snowden documents show

washingtonpost.com

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Re: NSA tracking cellphone locations worldwide, Snowden documents show

#241

Post by benihana »

sebkomianos wrote: post #162

I shouldn’t be writing this. Every time I read something NSA/FBI/CIA/KGB/Interpol/MI5/Stasi related I get this instinctive feeling of angriness and sadness at the same time. We were given the “internet”, pretty much for free, and we believed it would be a fair deal? That there would be nothing in for them? When was the last time you were give something for free, can you even remember? They are breaking encryption? Re…

>Because you don’t realise how much the barrier has moved. We didn’t care when we had to pay unreasonable taxes last year. We don’t care when politicians lie to us in front of our sad faces, time after time, election after election. We don’t care about other any other person’s rights. We don’t care about unfairness all over around us. We don’t care about any kind of oppression, anywhere in the world.

Hey, you arrogant ass. You're speaking for yourself. You may not care about them, but some of us do. Some of us are very angry at all the things you listed, and some of us try to do things about it. So while you're complacent, and you're okay with politicians lying to your sad little face, I strongly resent you projecting that same complacency onto me.

Re: NSA tracking cellphone locations worldwide, Snowden documents show

#242

Post by bmelton »

diminoten wrote: post #238
bmelton wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And "Jews" isn't the same as "terrorists". According to who, exactly? Who's to say that it isn't simply a placeholder for 'arab', or 'sheikh'? It's worth noting that I don't think it actually is, and I don't know of any specific abuses of the powers enumerated by the aforementioned acts -- but the point isn't what they're doing is wrong (though it is), it's that we've allowed the government to grant itself the auth…

You're basically scared because someone other than you has power. It's sad you can't see past that fear.

That's an entirely meritless accusation. I wouldn't want the power if it were handed to me, and frankly, if I were "in charge" of everything, the very first thing I would do is repeal any and every law that places anyone above, outside of, or beyond the purview of the law.

Our nation was founded on the concept that nobody is exempt from the law, and the NDAA, Patriot Act and laws of their ilk are antithetical to that core tenet. They destroy the fifth amendment entirely, and do severe harm to other rights.

That said, on the quality of your reply, I'll end this conversation here. Regards.

Re: NSA tracking cellphone locations worldwide, Snowden documents show

#243

Post by diminoten »

bmelton wrote: post #242
diminoten wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're basically scared because someone other than you has power. It's sad you can't see past that fear.

That's an entirely meritless accusation. I wouldn't want the power if it were handed to me, and frankly, if I were "in charge" of everything, the very first thing I would do is repeal any and every law that places anyone above, outside of, or beyond the purview of the law. Our nation was founded on the concept that nobody is exempt from the law, and the NDAA, Patriot Act and laws of their ilk are antithetical to that…

Our nation was not founded on the concept that nobody is exempt from the law (see: Presidential pardons). That's an intellectually dishonest thing to say. What you suggest is quite simply stupid - should every enemy combatant be given the chance to take the lives of US citizens, just in the effort to give that combatant a trial? Hold trials on the battlefield?

Your problem boils down to the fact that there are people out there in this world who have power, and you do not. This bothers you. The NDAA and the Patriot Act weren't created in a bubble, and if you actually want to understand what caused them to be written other than malice (seriously?), you ought to read more about the history surrounding the times, as well as current events today.

Sometimes the US government goes too far, but not nearly as often, or nearly as extreme as you keep saying, and frankly it's just sad that someone like you can have even an infinitesimally small sway in how this country is run.

Re: NSA tracking cellphone locations worldwide, Snowden documents show

#244

Post by maaarghk »

benihana wrote: post #241
sebkomianos wrote: post #162

I shouldn’t be writing this. Every time I read something NSA/FBI/CIA/KGB/Interpol/MI5/Stasi related I get this instinctive feeling of angriness and sadness at the same time. We were given the “internet”, pretty much for free, and we believed it would be a fair deal? That there would be nothing in for them? When was the last time you were give something for free, can you even remember? They are breaking encryption? Re…

> Because you don’t realise how much the barrier has moved. We didn’t care when we had to pay unreasonable taxes last year. We don’t care when politicians lie to us in front of our sad faces, time after time, election after election. We don’t care about other any other person’s rights. We don’t care about unfairness all over around us. We don’t care about any kind of oppression, anywhere in the world. Hey, you arroga…

He is -very- clearly using the word "we" to describe "the masses", not HN readers.

Re: NSA tracking cellphone locations worldwide, Snowden documents show

#245

Post by diminoten »

GVIrish wrote: post #236
diminoten wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think the world today is anything like post-WWI Europe, you're either immensely blind, or you don't know what post-WWI Europe looked like.

I don't think parent was equating current times with post-WWI era Europe in the least. He was simply saying that people who inherited a challenging/dangerous geo-political landscape went on to create an unimaginably worse geo-political landscape. The current challenge is global terrorism, but the swing towards authoritarianism by Western governments may end up being FAR worse than the threat of terrorism.

Then what he was saying is immensely broad and basically useless as guidance for today. "Bad thing happened at some point in history" is worthless, as a sentence.

And we're not swinging towards authoritarianism. That's absolutely a lie. Want to know the irony in you saying that? That you can say that, and not fear your door being knocked down and you being questioned. You don't know authoritarianism if you think the US is headed that way. Authoritarianism is not being able to criticize the government. Authoritarianism is the inability to change the government. Authoritarianism is a very loaded word, and your misuse of it only clouds the real problems the US government has, of which there are undeniably many.

People like you who go chicken-little constantly by bandying about words like "authoritarianism" create huge political blockage, which causes government standstills like what we're seeing in congress today. Lawmakers are afraid to do anything, because every time they try, it ends with some lawmaker or another being portrayed as eating children under a bridge somewhere, and his/her constituents buy it enough to oust him/her, despite just trying to make this country a better place.

Re: NSA tracking cellphone locations worldwide, Snowden documents show

#246

Post by sebkomianos »

acqq wrote: post #239
sebkomianos wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A better approach for what? Against defeat you mean? I only wanted to share some thoughts, I am not a leader of a social movement or anything.

If you stand to your "But I care. And I hope you start caring too" then writing the big wall of defeat acceptances ending with "but I care" will bring the opposite result to the one for which you claim that "you care." If you claim that you can't do anything you're certainly wrong. Your actions influence others too, otherwise your post wouldn't be on the top here.

Point taken, @Ihmar also suggested some first steps (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6854593).

Re: NSA tracking cellphone locations worldwide, Snowden documents show

#247

Post by diminoten »

eliasmacpherson wrote: post #203
diminoten wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So no one, then?

They've silenced over 200,000 people with national security letters. Nick Merrill is one example. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Merril https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpRp-D5v5NQl https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eT2fQu50sMs Brewster Kahle is another from archive.org: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2013/06/what-...

I can't tell if you're being funny or not by linking to two YouTube videos, a New Yorker article, and a Wikipedia page that doesn't exist.

Also, that's not the kind of silencing we're talking about. We're talking about the act of blackmail using data collected by spying programs.

Re: NSA tracking cellphone locations worldwide, Snowden documents show

#248

Post by sebkomianos »

maaarghk wrote: post #244
benihana wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because you don’t realise how much the barrier has moved. We didn’t care when we had to pay unreasonable taxes last year. We don’t care when politicians lie to us in front of our sad faces, time after time, election after election. We don’t care about other any other person’s rights. We don’t care about unfairness all over around us. We don’t care about any kind of oppression, anywhere in the world. Hey, you arroga…

He is -very- clearly using the word "we" to describe "the masses", not HN readers.

No, I was referring to benihana and solely on him/her. Pfff...

Re: NSA tracking cellphone locations worldwide, Snowden documents show

#249

Post by diminoten »

bmelton wrote: post #196
diminoten wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So no one, then?

Aside from those prisoners in Gitmo, the drone-struck Americans, anyone who happened to be near them, and the thousands of others we've killed with drones, you're right -- absolutely no one.

So how would you rewrite the poem?

    First they came for the terrorists, and I didn't speak because I wasn't a terrorist.
    Then they came for the enemy combatants, and I didn't speak because I wasn't an enemy combatant.
    Then they came for the traitors, and I didn't speak because I wasn't a traitor.
? I'm just trying to see which part of this is not 200+ years old. Was there ever a time in the history of the US where the US government wasn't "coming" for terrorists, enemy combatants, and traitors? If that's the case, then how do you build a bridge from "terrorists" to "random law-abiding citizen", which is the point of the poem.

Re: NSA tracking cellphone locations worldwide, Snowden documents show

#250

Post by bmelton »

diminoten wrote: post #249
bmelton wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aside from those prisoners in Gitmo, the drone-struck Americans, anyone who happened to be near them, and the thousands of others we've killed with drones, you're right -- absolutely no one.

So how would you rewrite the poem? First they came for the terrorists, and I didn't speak because I wasn't a terrorist. Then they came for the enemy combatants, and I didn't speak because I wasn't an enemy combatant. Then they came for the traitors, and I didn't speak because I wasn't a traitor. ? I'm just trying to see which part of this is not 200+ years old. Was there ever a time in the history of the US where the…

> Was there ever a time in the history of the US where the US government wasn't "coming" for terrorists, enemy combatants, and traitors?

There were a couple hundred years in our nation's history where we weren't drone striking American citizens without due process for crimes they might have committed in the future.

That should probably be in there somewhere.

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