Forced Exposure

From the way he presented it, I would be very surprised if there was anything specific that cannot be told.

> Lets not try to code our way out of this.

I disagree. Let's use all our skills and avenues, not just some of them.

> We succumb to terror pushing away meaningless bits of code on Github as a crypto projects in response.

That is a subjective opinion. Email itself is meaningless bits of code. You want us to stop using email altogether? What about the web? Why are you even posting on this forum so?

> Some projects flourish sure but the same forces that profit off the court-less killings of others are collating your data, your pet projects. Harvesting your stolen info out of botnets.

That is alarmist hyperbole.

> Giving you a salary for technician work keeping infrastructure ticking. Enough enabling the beastly mess that is privatized 'national' security. The payments to infrastructure providing companies for data access. The kidnapping/torture/drone fire of others when technological routes don't work. If you have a career with Dell, AT&T, Booz Allen Hamilton, SAIC, and many others, start making demands or make resumes. Stop being complicit.

Dell? A computer hardware device assembler? What on earth are you on about. You appear to think that the entire info-tech infrastructure, companies and "wage-slaves" alike are complicit in all this. Computers are a kind of tool, you can use them for beneficial, neutral or nefarious means. Let's keep the spotlight where it is needed -- on the secrest out-of-control governmental surveillance organs of various nation states.

In short. Think a bit before you post and spare us the melodrama.

Since we weren't allowed to say it when it was relevant, and the point was muddled and trampled on in pseudo-rational debates (“Can you find evidence that they’re abusing this new legislation?”, etc.), I'll go ahead and say it now: it's happening.

There's still a big world outside the Internet, and yet ironically, we live in a world where some employers are so stupid that they won't hire someone without a Facebook, making the abuse and surveillance of Internet more relevant than it needs to be.

I find it hilarious that in most of the threads I've read on here for months, that people who have actually lived in oppressive regimes say that the US is at least displaying a likelihood of being on the slow descent to Hell, while people in the US are quick to point out that it's still fine because we have elections and we aren't being forced out onto the streets and shot in the back of the head.

Read any book on history, strategy, authoritarianism or "real" conspiracies and it's abundantly clear that the best way to control a population is to analyze and manipulate the information they consume; I will not be surprised when we find out in 30-50 years that the tech companies were not only complicit in passive surveillance, but in active manipulation to control public opinion and perception.

Further, people self-actualize and learn to evolve to higher ideals, so once you debase intelligent debate/freedom of expression and make every personal detail of a person's life that passes over an electronic medium open to dissection and survellience, you debase the minds of the people as a whole and open the door to committing worse atrocities.

It's actually less difficult than it was 50-100 years ago to control public opinion. Before, you'd have to burn books and control every major newspaper and broadcasting corporation. Now you can just astroturf on Reddit or Twitter, or edit Wikipedia is subtle ways, and have the same effect.

Holy crap. Groklaw? I'd never for one second thought that the fall out from the NSA debacle would reach so far as to cause Groklaw to be shut down.

PJ feels extremely genuine here, she is definitely not using this as an excuse.

Wow. There is something very unhealthy in the air or in the water these days. Lots of people seem to be totally immune to the consequences of rampant surveillance and frankly bizarre powers executed by the current set of governments. And all that in the name of the war on some nebulous entity that could not even capitulate if it wanted to (and that's assuming such central command and control even exists).

2013 is fast shaping up to be a year of notoriety, so many things happening in so many places that are all linked to governments overstepping their powers.

Who would have thought 20 years ago that we'd see US whistleblowers hiding in Russia of all places. That there would be meaningful comparisons drawn between the Russian government and the UK government when it comes to dealing with the press, that we'd see torture committed by the people we routinely thought of as the good guys.

It's a weird world we are living in at the moment.

Since comments are turned off there:

Thank you PJ for all the extremely hard work and the dedication. A lot of good came from this, I'm quite sure that there were some cases where both the plaintive and the defense were spending as much time reading groklaw as they were reading their email. It certainly counted for something.

I have said this on HN several times, and I will say this again. Dragnet surveillance of private digital correspondence by the US and other governments is wrong, and a gross, unjustified, overreaction to the real threat of terrorism.

And yet, when taken as part of the whole picture that is the internet, government surveillance is little more than a drop in the ocean. While governments may collect a possibly significant amount of correspondence and analyze some of it, almost all online data, e-mail correspondence as well as photos and documents, search history, browsing history, our physical location, the driving, running and cycling routes we take, the busses we use and more, is constantly collected, analyzed monitored and used, all day every day, by private corporations. These corporations are even less subject to oversight than any democratically elected institution, and their employees are less carefully screened.

Government surveillance is wrong, but at least it raises an outrage that, in time, is almost certain to bring about change. Corporate surveillance is a more dangerous beast. It employs manipulation and deceit rather than plain-old secrecy, and worst of all – it causes little outrage.

Some have compared the current state of things to George Orwell's Big Brother government, but those who've read the book know that Big Brother does not rule through secrecy and intimidation. Big Brother is never mistrusted, never hated, and never feared or suspected. People subject themselves to his control willingly. Big Brother is loved. That is how absolute power is gained. And that is why a democratic institution has little hope of ever attaining Big Brother status, especially in America where any government is automatically suspect. The real danger to our privacy and our freedom, the true potential Big Brother and the danger that dwarfs any government surveillance online, is Google, Facebook and their ilk.