What ticks me off is no one will assign blame to the commander in chief, who willingly let this go on.
> willingly let
I believe the US continues to have a president right now, at this very moment. The past tense is confusing.
NSA secretly conducted illegal searches on Americans for years
161–170 of 225 posts
Re: NSA secretly conducted illegal searches on Americans for years
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't see this as an upside. You can't really blame people for that - this is a systemic issue, and it was predicted it will happen. People, in aggregate, don't respond to abstract problems like that by any form of prolonged care.
> You can't really blame people for that - this is a systemic issue, and it was predicted it will happen. People, in aggregate, don't respond to abstract problems like that by any form of prolonged care. They should, and I can blame them for that. That's the duty of the citizen. Not recognizing the issue at all is not an excuse.
Blame all you like, it doesn't make any progress towards solving the problem.
Re: NSA secretly conducted illegal searches on Americans for years
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
The US was not designed as a direct democracy, though. Bemoaning the design only when 'your side' loses is a problem that should be relegated to young children. I haven't voted for the winner for quite a few elections now but I don't think throwing out the entire system is the right answer because I didn't get my way. If you want to start movements in individual states changing the first past the post system, I think…
Sure, the current system is based on past choices. That does not mean it's a good system. I don't really care about Trump vs Hilary. I do care that because I moved my vote went from token effort to completely pointless. If you look at the history of US presidential elections the map used to be a lot more fluid. Compare say 1972 with 1964: http://www.270towin.com/historical-presidential-elections/ And compare that wit…
My vote could be considered completely pointless every year, because I do not vote for either of the 2 major parties. So should I just give up and quit voting? Should a Republican in New York just give up voting? What about a Democrat in Kansas?
I think the change you should be advocating for is not throwing out the entire electoral college system, rather you should be advocating for small changes over time the system. Small changes might be easier to get through and I think immediate and severe reactions end up being worse than small changes (see the PATRIOT Act among others for examples of immediate action with huge unintended consequences). Citizen ballot initiatives could certainly start changing how delegates are selected, but you don't see (m)any Democrats calling for that in a state like California because it would hurt them overall, just like it would hurt Republicans in Kansas.
As a side note, I would be curious when states started passing laws binding delegates and how that relates to the outcome over time given by your map. I wonder if there is any correlation.
Re: NSA secretly conducted illegal searches on Americans for years
#164I think the most dangerous thing is that what Snowden predicted actually happened by now. After all the revelations, nobody is interested anymore. There's this general fatigue and powerlessness that leads to a feeling of "well, yeah, everbody knows by now... what's the news here?" - even for me as a security expert and privacy proponent. The real danger is nobody cares anymore, as this enables all further constitutio…
People don't care until they see concrete harm to themselves. Look at how many modern day genocides we outright ignore. If we can do that, then what is a little spying in comparison?
I'd move that a level up and say until they see concrete anything.
All of the privacy rhetoric (I realize that sounds dismissive, it's not supposed to) is based on either philosophical notions or slippery slopes. "Something bad might happen to you in the future!"
It makes for effective fundraising but poor impact on policy.. especially when the groups behind most of the privacy erosion like the Googles and Facebooks of the world provide an actual product people like.
Re: NSA secretly conducted illegal searches on Americans for years
#165We voted in a new dynastic leader to handle these issues. That is what you do in a representative democracy.
Re: NSA secretly conducted illegal searches on Americans for years
#166Earlier quoted context omitted.
The American Revolution is one of the few outliers in history were such revolutionary action actually lead to such good results (relative to more likely possible alternatives). The cost of a revolution is heavy, and generally the outcome is almost certainly as bad or worse as the states of affairs that sparked it. I'm a hopeless cynic, but I always find a bit of reluctant optimism about the present after reading a bi…
There's a strong argument to be made that the American Revolution was successful because it was actually a rebellion . Organized polities broke their ties, but largely preserved themselves and their leadership structures.
Wow, that's a striking point that never occurred to me before. Do you have any source that discusses this viewpoint in greater detail, perhaps with some comparisons to other revolutions?
Re: NSA secretly conducted illegal searches on Americans for years
#167Earlier quoted context omitted.
The absolute first step is to take control of your devices. LineageOS or Replicant phone. GNU+Linux on computer, openwrt or similar on router/switches, ipfire similar on firewall. Firefox instead of chrome or opera. VLC instead of iTunes. Emacs/Vim instead of sublime. Blender instead of Maya. Etc. I'm working on this myself. It's not easy, but it is worth it. RMS was and is right: either the user controls the program…
Firefox instead of chrome Although I understand your sentiment here on philosophic grounds, it would be far more practical to run Chrome, because the likelihood of NSA hoarding effective chrome 0days is much smaller than hoarding FF 0days. Ideological purity is nice, but practical defense against the enemies of your ideology is better.
And the likelihood of Google streaming a copy of all your URL bar keystrokes to the NSA archive is larger still. Or hell, even if they don't stream them live, they surely store them for analysis and can respond to subpoenas.
Re: NSA secretly conducted illegal searches on Americans for years
#168The word "Obama" is mentioned only once within the 81 comments so far posted...
The article is working hard associating all 702 related problems with Obama starting with the title "Obama intel agency secretly conducted illegal searches on Americans for years" (different from the HN title). The Circa site seems to make it hard to peek behind the curtain so from wikipedia:
> The revived Circa formally went live on July 18, 2016 with a redesigned app, and a website using a new URL, Circa.com. Circa is currently led by John Solomon, the former vice-president of content and business development for the Washington Times; Solomon was hired by Sinclair as Circa's chief creative officer in December 2015 and promoted to chief operating officer twelve months later.
> Sinclair aims to "let the content drive [Circa]" and not let the site adhere to any set political or cultural viewpoint, describing Vice News and Breitbart as "partisan-driven" news sites the new Circa would not intentionally emulate. Though Sinclair has aired conservative political content on its stations, its intention with Circa is to present information with "no spin, just facts and transparency" and in "an irreverent tone" that will allow the site's target audience (young adults 18 to 35 years old) to form its own opinions.
Re: NSA secretly conducted illegal searches on Americans for years
#169Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's nothing about those wars that you can teach me, nor the idiot from the link posted.
Being directly involved (if that's what you mean by "can't teach me") doesn't help for more partial/accurate views. The exact same answer as yours could be given by anybody on the other side as well.
I was on every side.
Re: NSA secretly conducted illegal searches on Americans for years
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
Firefox instead of chrome Although I understand your sentiment here on philosophic grounds, it would be far more practical to run Chrome, because the likelihood of NSA hoarding effective chrome 0days is much smaller than hoarding FF 0days. Ideological purity is nice, but practical defense against the enemies of your ideology is better.
And the likelihood of Google streaming a copy of all your URL bar keystrokes to the NSA archive is larger still. Or hell, even if they don't stream them live, they surely store them for analysis and can respond to subpoenas.
Is there any evidence of this type of telemetry? Assuming you use it (or better, Chromium) as just a browser (e.g. don't log into it) behind your VPN, proxy, or overlay network of choice, I can't imagine this threat model being too bothersome.
And you're far more resistant to watering-hole attacks than you are with FF.