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Israel police uses NSO’s Pegasus to spy on citizens

calcalistech.com

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Re: Israel police uses NSO’s Pegasus to spy on citizens

#191

Post by FridayoLeary »

hunterb123 wrote: post #132
MichaelMoser123 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is ignoring some minor details, like that Israel had to fight some real frigging wars over its bare existence, and is still facing a regional power that calls for its extinction. Looks like Israel isn't getting too much love, at least not here at HN. I maintain that we in Israel are still a very normal, western type society, if you take all these rather extreme circumstances into consideration (and, in addition,…

If it's any consolation, these comments here do not reflect a general opinion and liberal leaning places seem to have this anti-Israel agenda, and it seems to be more prominent recently. Maybe I'm just paying more attention. That's not to say everything is perfect, no country is. But in perspective of everyone's actions in the region I support Israel overall. I don't want to get into a political flamewar, just wanted…

Thank you.

Re: Israel police uses NSO’s Pegasus to spy on citizens

#192

Post by worik »

slg wrote: post #170
ForgotMyPwOops wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should all opinions based on bad reasons be banned? Should people be compelled to explain their beliefs? Who decides if these opinions are good or illegal? I don't believe fairly arbitrating expression based on beliefs is feasible, and I do believe it is actively harmful

Everyone is free to their own opinions. Actions can and should be banned depending on their motivations. We already apply this to other forms of restriction on speech like defamation. Often defamation will require negligence to harm or intent to harm. Someone who is factually incorrect through an honest mistake generally isn't considered to have committed defamation. I don't know why we are okay trying to ascertain t…

> Actions can and should be banned depending on their motivations

Really? That requires mind reading.

Do you mean "...depending on their effects"?

Re: Israel police uses NSO’s Pegasus to spy on citizens

#193

Post by slg »

ForgotMyPwOops wrote: post #180
slg wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Defamation has a singular victim. Hate speech has a class of victim. Why should we allow one and not the other? Why can't we just scale up our defamation laws to also apply to groups of people?

I don't think you can justly punish people for an unquanitifiable "group harm" with regards to speech You could easily use such a justification to ban anti-war speech (something that has been done before), or ban speech against whatever you favorite political view is

I'm not sure why we need to quantify the harm, but even if we did, how does that harm change? Why is it illegal to lie about an individual but it is legal to make that exact same lie about the group in which that individual belongs? Wouldn't you be equally harmed if I said "ForgotMyPwOops drinks the blood of babies" compared to if I said "Everyone of ForgotMyPwOops's ethnic group drinks the blood of babies"?

Also we could just limit this to protected groups as they are currently defined for discrimination. That solves your problem with anti-war speech or generic political views.

Re: Israel police uses NSO’s Pegasus to spy on citizens

#194

Post by worik »

yonixw wrote: post #156
ForgotMyPwOops wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who decides what is antisemitic? It seems to me that based on your logic all speech can be prevented assuming some arbiter declares it antisemitic Boycotting can hardly be considered protected speech if that's all it takes to silence it

> Who decides what is antisemetic? The Majority. > Some arbiter Nope. The Majority. > if that's all it takes to silence it Nope. anti-semetic is kinda big deal. We all should treat it as such and run from it like fire.

At one point, in my home land (Aotearoa) it was considered perfectly reasonable by the majority to bring teams of white South Africans into the country to play games. They were whit South Africans because they would not allow black South Africans in their teams.

The minority here fought long and hard to stop it, lost the battle (the team came and played their games against our local teams) but now are recognised as heros.

No. It is not the majority who decides what is right and wrong.

Re: Israel police uses NSO’s Pegasus to spy on citizens

#195

Post by FridayoLeary »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #135
alphakilo wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All Israelis have equal rights, why do you say Israel an apartheid state?

Equal rights apart from not being able to "lease" ~15% of the total land area in the country which is owned by a religious organization that does not lease land to non-Jewish people.

Private religious organisation != the state of Israel.

While we are on the subject, did you know that it's illegal for an Arab in the self-governed parts of West Bank to sell land to a Jew? And that the official penalty for doing so is death?

Also, take a look at the awful governments in West Bank and Gaza and how they abuse their citizens. You don't see hordes of opressed Israeli Arabs fleeing to the Gaza Strip do you?

Re: Israel police uses NSO’s Pegasus to spy on citizens

#196

Post by slg »

worik wrote: post #192
slg wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone is free to their own opinions. Actions can and should be banned depending on their motivations. We already apply this to other forms of restriction on speech like defamation. Often defamation will require negligence to harm or intent to harm. Someone who is factually incorrect through an honest mistake generally isn't considered to have committed defamation. I don't know why we are okay trying to ascertain t…

> Actions can and should be banned depending on their motivations Really? That requires mind reading. Do you mean "...depending on their effects"?

We do this with plenty of crimes. Murdering your spouse to collect their life insurance policy is punished harsher than murdering your spouse after you come home to find them having an affair. Motivations and intent matter.

Re: Israel police uses NSO’s Pegasus to spy on citizens

#197

Post by pthread_t »

Calvin02 wrote: post #149
friendlydog wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Israel is the 3rd largest recipient of US foreign aid receiving 3.2 Billion in US tax dollars in 2017 with only Iraq and Afghanistan receiving more. Reducing foreign aid while America is floundering would be a small step to the road of recovery.

First, putting aside Israel for a second. I understand the urge to reduce foreign aid while we're running deficits (I assume is what you mean by "floundering"), but think of foreign aid as diplomacy. We need both hard (military) and soft (aid, donations, etc.) diplomacy. If any thing, the bang for buck is higher with soft diplomacy. Hard diplomacy is very expensive. Second, Israel is a shining example of a robust dem…

"a 2013 National Intelligence Estimate on cyber threats “ranked Israel the third most aggressive intelligence service against the US” behind only China and Russia" [1]

"Israel among the U.S.’s most threatening cyber-adversaries and as a “hostile” foreign intelligence service." [2]

"Israel’s snooping upset White House because information was used to lobby Congress to try to sink a deal" [3]

[1] https://www.timesofisrael.com/new-nsa-document-highlights-is...

[2] https://theintercept.com/2015/03/25/netanyahus-spying-denial...

[3] https://www.wsj.com/articles/israel-spied-on-iran-talks-1427...

Re: Israel police uses NSO’s Pegasus to spy on citizens

#198

Post by worik »

slg wrote: post #196
worik wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Actions can and should be banned depending on their motivations Really? That requires mind reading. Do you mean "...depending on their effects"?

We do this with plenty of crimes. Murdering your spouse to collect their life insurance policy is punished harsher than murdering your spouse after you come home to find them having an affair. Motivations and intent matter.

It is the same crime. Motivation does not count to guilt.

Intent does, but intent is different from motivation. Do I need to explain that?

Re: Israel police uses NSO’s Pegasus to spy on citizens

#199

Post by rsj_hn »

slg wrote: post #166
rsj_hn wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That $3.2 billion would be enough to pay for 23,000 Americans' college education. Is that more valuable than giving weapons to Israel? Of course it is. Even a single college education is a better use of the money. The rhetorical tactic of citing some much larger number to justify a misuse of funds is meant to obfuscate and confuse, and it's not a good faith argument. It's like a mayor saying "yes, this program is was…

I pointed to a big number because it reveals that the motivation is neither to battle waste and corruption or to provide for those 23,000 Americans. There is obviously much bigger waste and corruption in the domestic military budget. You are singling out Israel because of a specific political complaint about Israel. You admit as much in your last paragraph. That is a perfectly reasonable political opinion to have and…

Again, questioning the motivation of someone who raises a point you don't have an answer for is no better than trying to change the subject when you feel like you can't win on the merits.

If you think it's a good use of the money, then defend it.

But changing the subject and questioning people's motivations, or insisting that all larger forms of abuse in the military be talked about before anyone can call into question our aid to Israel - that's not a legitimate argument.

Re: Israel police uses NSO’s Pegasus to spy on citizens

#200

Post by ILMostro7 »

slg wrote: post #171
amoshi wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Equally, dismissing various criticisms (including boycotts) about the illegal military occupation of Palestine as "anti-semitic" is exactly what groups as JIDF (defunct), ACT.IL and many others are experts at doing.

Yes, I specifically pointed that out when I said "Some people who oppose the former might also accuse people of the latter to discredit them." However that neither exonerates the people who are doing it for truly anti-Semitic reasons or proves that those people don't exist.

Yet they all tend to be grouped into that category when a phrase like "anti-semitic" is used. If jews criticize Israel, they're labelled as self-hating. Whitewashing in the name of holocaust victims is doing a disservice, to say the least, IMHO. Religious zealots on one side are treated with white gloves, while any dissent or uproar (unrelated to Religion, even) on the other side is seen as justification to take any action in the name of security.

When the descendants of victims from places like the Warsaw Ghetto justify and defend their operations of the modern-day ghetto in Gaza...

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