Obama’s Path From Critic to Overseer of Spying • Hacker News Board

Re: Obama’s Path From Critic to Overseer of Spying

#191

Post by dwaltrip » Fri, Jan 17, 2014, 11:08 AM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #86

nathan_long wrote: post #47

OK: once he got in office, it turned out that watching everyone seemed like a good idea. But here's the thing: it's unconstitutional. It's illegal. "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the…

This has been debunked to death. The issue isn't "houses, papers, and effects" not encompassing e-mail, but the "belonging to that person" aspect. Phone metadata doesn't "belong" to you. It belongs to your phone company. They generated it, they store it--you never even see it. It's also quite questionable how much of say your Facebook data "belongs" to you. Or your GPS location data. It's about you, but much or all o…

Intelligence agencies automatically gathering and storing all data generated by mankind is very different from manual surveillance of an individual's house. I find these types of comparisons rather misleading. The changing nature of technogoly and the increasing tendency for highly personal data to be generated and then vacuumed up by the NSA & friends strongly implies, to me at least, that, in order to protect the sanctity of the individual's personhood as well as democracy itself, this data needs to withheld/protected from powerful institutions. Especially those that can kill you/lock you in jail. Even if the data isn't "owned" by the indiviudal in the traditional sense.

Re: Obama’s Path From Critic to Overseer of Spying

#192

Post by aaronem » Fri, Jan 17, 2014, 1:46 PM UTC

ambler0 wrote: post #176

aaronem wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the American people are and have been the most heavily propagandized people on Earth You have heard of North Korea, I hope?

Your point is well taken. However, propaganda in America is much more insidious than propaganda in North Korea. Don't get me wrong, North Korea is a brutal place and I thank my lucky stars I was born here and not there. In America, there is always the illusion of a raging debate, which causes people to identify with the views they are presented. In places like North Korea, the propaganda is much more heavy-handed and…

Well, I'm certainly not inclined to argue with that.

Re: Obama’s Path From Critic to Overseer of Spying

#193

Post by tptacek » Fri, Jan 17, 2014, 1:50 PM UTC

grandalf wrote: post #12

rayiner wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Talking about "majority of power holders agree" is so disingenuous. See: http://techcrunch.com/2013/11/05/poll-public-supports-nsa-sp... ("As we’ve written about before, the American public has widely supported the NSA’s activities before and after the scandal. I’m no fan of the secretive spying, but if the government appears to be acting slowly on surveillance reform, it could be because they’re responding to consti…

Most Americans learn about the issue from media stories created by firms owned by powerful interests, so public opinion is not surprising. If you look back at the early coverage of the Snowden leaks in the NY Times, the story was reported but the paper dutifully prepped a character assassination attack on Snowden himself, while intentionally suppressing the story of James Clapper's perjury and while also avoiding sug…

This might or might not be true, but it is also among the oldest arguments in all of propaganda: the will of the people can't be trusted, because it's shaped by malignant elites. Often, it continues on to say that until we can fix that problem, we all need to be governed by this other group of benificent elites.

Re: Obama’s Path From Critic to Overseer of Spying

#194

Post by dleibovic » Fri, Jan 17, 2014, 5:56 PM UTC

Mr. Obama was angry at the revelations, privately excoriating Mr. Snowden as a self-important narcissist who had not thought through the consequences of his actions.

I could not disagree more with that sentiment.

Re: Obama’s Path From Critic to Overseer of Spying

#195

Post by downandout » Fri, Jan 17, 2014, 6:08 PM UTC

cmelbye wrote: post #190

downandout wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Naivete is an arguable excuse for Obama's statements prior to his first election. But he continued his anti-surveillance rhetoric during his second campaign, and there is simply no explanation for that other than lying.

Did he? I can't remember that being an important issue at all in the 2012 election.

It wasn't at the forefront all that much, but he did say it and talked alot about how he was protecting our rights where Republicans weren't.

Re: Obama’s Path From Critic to Overseer of Spying

#196

Post by grandalf » Sun, Jan 19, 2014, 7:03 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #193

grandalf wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most Americans learn about the issue from media stories created by firms owned by powerful interests, so public opinion is not surprising. If you look back at the early coverage of the Snowden leaks in the NY Times, the story was reported but the paper dutifully prepped a character assassination attack on Snowden himself, while intentionally suppressing the story of James Clapper's perjury and while also avoiding sug…

This might or might not be true, but it is also among the oldest arguments in all of propaganda: the will of the people can't be trusted, because it's shaped by malignant elites. Often, it continues on to say that until we can fix that problem, we all need to be governed by this other group of benificent elites.

That's not really the argument I'm making b/c I do ultimately believe it's the public's own responsibility. But nonetheless, short-term framing of issues is influenced by media, and that's often enough to nudge things quite significantly.

Re: Obama’s Path From Critic to Overseer of Spying

#197

Post by nathan_long » Mon, Jan 20, 2014, 2:06 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #86

nathan_long wrote: post #47

OK: once he got in office, it turned out that watching everyone seemed like a good idea. But here's the thing: it's unconstitutional. It's illegal. "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the…

This has been debunked to death. The issue isn't "houses, papers, and effects" not encompassing e-mail, but the "belonging to that person" aspect. Phone metadata doesn't "belong" to you. It belongs to your phone company. They generated it, they store it--you never even see it. It's also quite questionable how much of say your Facebook data "belongs" to you. Or your GPS location data. It's about you, but much or all o…

1) Even if you are correct about eg, metadata, they are also snooping your internet requests, emails, etc, simply because they pass through infrastructure not belonging to you.

Do you think the Founders would have said "if you send a message via Pony Express, you authorize the government to read it"?

2) "If I write down every time my neighbor enters and leaves his house, that's mine, not his." True, but one person writing down what one other person does is hardly scalable or powerful. Computers recording everything everybody does creates much larger potential for analysis and abuse. We don't know what the Founders would have said about this, but I oppose it on the grounds that the risks for tyranny are enormous.

Re: Obama’s Path From Critic to Overseer of Spying

#198

Post by dkl » Wed, Jan 22, 2014, 7:43 PM UTC

angrybits wrote: post #172

dkl wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/ Promises kept: 45% Compromised: 25% Broken: 22% Stalled: 1% In the works: 6% not rated: 1% Your comment resonated with me, then I decided to check the facts.

Yeah you can tell that that those are facts, because it says so right there in the domain name.

Yeah you can tell that that those are facts, because it says so right there in the domain name.

Wow, you're adding a lot to this discussion.

Re: Obama’s Path From Critic to Overseer of Spying

#199

Post by BrandonMarc » Thu, Jan 23, 2014, 6:41 PM UTC

crusso wrote: post #96

clarkmoody wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe it's high time to repeal the 17th Amendment and return a fair bit of power to the states. This would ease the democracy crisis and decentralize some of the power from D.C.

Yeah, the power structure in DC has gotten way too comfortable for the people living there. Look at how unaffected the DC housing market was by the crisis over the last 6 years. The people in Washington aren't going to relinquish any of their power, though. An Article V convention of the states is about the only hope. http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/08/enacting_the_liberty_...

I agree about a constitutional convention ... trouble is, that sword cuts both ways. It's a great opportunity for those you agree with to get major changes through ... but it's a great opportunity for those you disagree with.