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Edward Snowden: Saving Us from the United Stasi of America

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Re: Edward Snowden: Saving Us from the United Stasi of America

#111

Post by Karunamon »

mindcrime wrote: post #54
mseebach wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that references to the Nazis or Soviets are very hard to get right without tripping over the slippery slope argument. Hitler was not only a vegetarian, he was a health fanatic, and there's evidence that it informed his obsession with purifying the race. That's doesn't make any number of locavore glutenfree vegan hipsters a step towards nazism. Hitler "militarized" society, and emphasized such organisat…

Yes, Hitler and Stalin spied a lot on their own populations for "national security" purposes, but we should be able to oppose surveillance on it's own merits with out resorting to the painting a (fallacious) slippery slope picture where the next frame is a KZ/Gulag camp. Agreed, but consider this: a slippery slope fallacy is more like "If we do A, then B will inevitably follow". Lacking evidence to support it, that i…

The problem with such "pointing out" is that it's often taken as incontrovertible evidence that A means B will happen.

The very essence of Godwin's Law is that invoking Hitler is almost always the most extreme example possible of governmental abuse possible, when more nuanced ones would do the job. Usually it's a symptom of lazy thinking and lazy arguing, used by those who want nothing better than a cheap sound bite for their audience (e.g. "Obama is literally Hitler!" and other such gems).

By making the Hitler comparison, you are more likely than not pointing at an irrelevant extreme and tarring yourself with the brush of "conspiracy nutjob". There are better ways to make the same point which don't involve the same baggage.

Re: Edward Snowden: Saving Us from the United Stasi of America

#112

Post by 286c8cb04bda »

lifeformed wrote: post #66
swombat wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The second problem with "nothing to hide" is that it's really "nothing to hide based on today's laws". Laws change. Things become illegal or looked down upon that were previously just fine. What you did with a peaceful conscience today could be used to throw you in jail in 20 years. The third problem is that due to the complexity of the penal code, this is already the case. You have already done stuff in the last 10…

Everyone keeps saying that everyone has committed a jail-able offense if you just look hard enough, but no one has any examples. I'm not denying that it's true, I just have no response if someone says, "like what?" Are there any examples of crimes that many people have probably committed? Maybe software piracy, but isn't that just a fine? And I hope that isn't the only example.

> Are there any examples of crimes that many people have probably committed?

Have you ever ordered anything off Amazon? Did you declare and pay the appropriate use taxes for what you bought? Did you ever discuss with anyone that buying things off Amazon meant there was no tax?

Depending on where you live, that's tax fraud and conspiracy to commit. If you had the discussion over email or on a message board, then it's an inter-state crime...

Re: Edward Snowden: Saving Us from the United Stasi of America

#113

Post by nsxwolf »

lifeformed wrote: post #66
swombat wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The second problem with "nothing to hide" is that it's really "nothing to hide based on today's laws". Laws change. Things become illegal or looked down upon that were previously just fine. What you did with a peaceful conscience today could be used to throw you in jail in 20 years. The third problem is that due to the complexity of the penal code, this is already the case. You have already done stuff in the last 10…

Everyone keeps saying that everyone has committed a jail-able offense if you just look hard enough, but no one has any examples. I'm not denying that it's true, I just have no response if someone says, "like what?" Are there any examples of crimes that many people have probably committed? Maybe software piracy, but isn't that just a fine? And I hope that isn't the only example.

Finding your kid's drug stash and punishing him by flushing it down the toilet is probably possession. I certainly would rather it remain private than find out via government prosecution.

Re: Edward Snowden: Saving Us from the United Stasi of America

#114

Post by 286c8cb04bda »

Martijn wrote: post #23
triplesec wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Watch this classic lawyer's talk, and understand that "nothing to hide" is still no protection against talking ti authorities, even non-malicious ones. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc

I wonder if this is also true if you are a foreigner visiting the US. And I wonder if this also works for the Dutch police.

> I wonder if this is also true if you are a foreigner visiting the US.

It won't work on Customs and Immigration. When you're talking to them you're not "in the US" yet. After that, yes, the privilege against self-incrimination is granted to everyone in the United States, citizen or not.

> And I wonder if this also works for the Dutch police.

The privilege in question is considered an essential component of the Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution. Most other countries based on English common law have something similar. You'll have to look for parallel support within the Dutch legal system.

Re: Edward Snowden: Saving Us from the United Stasi of America

#115

Post by graycat »

makomk wrote: post #108
graycat wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I sincerely hope that the laws will get struck down, but I also fear that the classified nature of many things that touch this will lead the courts to say that we can't show we have standing, and therefore decline to rule on the constitutionality. So, the Supreme Court will let claims of 'secrecy' trash the Constitution? I don't think so! The court should be able to find some ways around such claims of 'secrecy'! T…

> So, the Supreme Court will let claims of 'secrecy' trash the Constitution? They already have for decades, starting with United States v. Reynolds . That ship has well and truly sailed.

Then the court should revisit the case. They can do that, too.

Re: Edward Snowden: Saving Us from the United Stasi of America

#116

Post by chrismarlow9 »

lifeformed wrote: post #66
swombat wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The second problem with "nothing to hide" is that it's really "nothing to hide based on today's laws". Laws change. Things become illegal or looked down upon that were previously just fine. What you did with a peaceful conscience today could be used to throw you in jail in 20 years. The third problem is that due to the complexity of the penal code, this is already the case. You have already done stuff in the last 10…

Everyone keeps saying that everyone has committed a jail-able offense if you just look hard enough, but no one has any examples. I'm not denying that it's true, I just have no response if someone says, "like what?" Are there any examples of crimes that many people have probably committed? Maybe software piracy, but isn't that just a fine? And I hope that isn't the only example.

http://ask.metafilter.com/55124/What-laws-do-noncriminals-co...

http://www.dumblaws.com/random-laws

They've basically "al caponed" the entire US. If they can't get you on one thing, they'll get you on another. Oddly enough, taxes are probably something everyone has broken the law on. Do you really report everything to the last penny? No? Oh, well theres tax evasion.

Re: Edward Snowden: Saving Us from the United Stasi of America

#117

Post by jlgreco »

ako wrote: post #106
gasull wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gulags and concentration camps weren't set the same day they set the surveillance. Those came afterwards.

The gulags are already there: Guantánamo bay...

Hell, we've got a goddam archipelago of them: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CIA_Secret_Prisons.jpg

Re: Edward Snowden: Saving Us from the United Stasi of America

#118

Post by Andrew_Quentin »

mpyne wrote: post #84
betterunix wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it almost impossible? What, other than voluntary procedures, is standing in the way?

What you ask for requires sweeping structural changes, which itself requires cooperation between a bunch of mutually-antagonistic parties, and all of that happening under the watchful eyes of the entire world who are more than happy to lace into America for the slightest fault they see. It certainly helps that Americans are so seemingly genetically suspicious of government that even government workers despise the gov…

You boil a frog slowly. If such thing as torture, surveillance, indefinite imprisonment without trial, secretive kill list, secretive removal of right (no fly list) etc, become normalized and accepted, then a huge part of what forms a free society is already gone.

Re: Edward Snowden: Saving Us from the United Stasi of America

#119

Post by dragonwriter »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #100
dragonwriter wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not saying you're wrong, just that your point isn't really about what is or is not constitutional, but rather that interpretation has rendered the constitution meaningless so anything is constitutional now. Except that that's clearly not the case, as plenty of things remain prohibit by the Constitution, as we see the Supreme Court finding as recently as today [1]. Sure, the interstate commerce power is generall…

plenty of things remain prohibit by the Constitution The language of your statement reveals the problem (sorry for being deconstructionist...) There is very little that the Constitution prohibits -- that's not how it's constructed. It's not designed to blacklist certain governmental powers. Rather, it starts from a perspective where all rights belong to the people, and the government may do nothing. It then whitelist…

> The language of your statement reveals the problem (sorry for being deconstructionist...)

Sure, but not for being wrong.

> There is very little that the Constitution prohibits -- that's not how it's constructed. It's not designed to blacklist certain governmental powers.

There's quite a lot that the Constitution prohibits the government from doing.

> That people think of government power in terms of whether it's prohibited by the Constitution rather than whether it's allowed by the Constitution reveals how far away we've gotten from understanding how it was intended to work.

That people think that there is a difference shows how little people have paid attention to the Bill of Rights, a rather critical piece of the Constitution, which, as part of its whole stack of specific prohibitions, made the two superficially-conflicting approaches you refer to equivalent when everything not explicitly granted to the federal government was explicitly reserved against the federal government (see Amendment 10.)

Re: Edward Snowden: Saving Us from the United Stasi of America

#120

Post by AnthonyMouse »

graycat wrote: post #65
paganel wrote: post #3

For once I'll avoid Godwin's law and link instead to this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_58 > The article was used for the imprisonment and execution of many prominent people, as well as multitudes of nonnotable innocents. (...) Article 58 of the Russian SFSR Penal Code was put in force on 25 February 1927 to arrest those suspected of counter-revolutionary activities. So the point is that even in Soviet Russia…

> I'd say there's nothing that the minority can do (if it matters I'm not from the US) No, not at all. The situation is still all well within the US Constitution in the sense of want people "can do". In particular, as I will outline, there is a very fast, simple solution well within what "the minority can do". Background: In the US Federal Government, there are three branches, executive (e.g., headed by the president…

>Net, there is only one branch that can say if a law is constitutional or not, the judicial branch

This is a myth. Any branch can declare a law unconstitutional. If Congress thinks a law is unconstitutional they can keep it off the books. If the President thinks a law is unconstitutional he can refuse to enforce or execute it.

The courts get a reputation as the ones who decide because A) if the other branches do their duty it never gets to the courts, which means the courts have the last word and are the final check on unconstitutional activity, and B) the other branches of government are happy to let you believe they have no responsibility to uphold the constitution (even though they very much do) because they're elected and elected officials violating the Supreme Law of the Land is fairly unpopular, so all the better if people mislead themselves into thinking that they have no responsibility.

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