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Edward Snowden: Saving Us from the United Stasi of America

ellsberg.net

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

#41

Post by mseebach »

gasull wrote: post #39
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…

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

Indeed. Making the causal link all the more slippery.

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

#42

Post by tootie »

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 think the key is that we don't have Article 58. Per the quote in the op-ed, the NSA has had the ability to make America a tyrrany since 1975 and it hasn't done so. None of history's police states required digital surveillance. What they required was, you know, tyranny. We don't have any right now. I look at this purely as a question of privacy and due process.

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

#44

Post by betterunix »

tootie wrote: post #42
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 think the key is that we don't have Article 58. Per the quote in the op-ed, the NSA has had the ability to make America a tyrrany since 1975 and it hasn't done so. None of history's police states required digital surveillance. What they required was, you know, tyranny. We don't have any right now. I look at this purely as a question of privacy and due process.

"What they required was, you know, tyranny. We don't have any right now."

We have all the pieces in place. Widespread surveillance, a "legal system" that allows anyone to be arrested and imprisoned, soldiers carrying out police work, secret courts/secret laws, mass imprisonment, etc. All it would take is for someone to arrange those pieces properly and tyranny would ensue.

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

#45

Post by paganel »

gasull wrote: post #39
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…

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

I agree, even though the time-difference wasn't that big as far as I remember (I did read a history of CEKA and Solzhenitsyn's "Gulag Archipelago", but that was 10-12 years ago).

Back to the conversation, what might prove slightly useful from this comparison is that in the USSR and German Democratic Republic surveillance was mostly done through the use of one's acquaintances and often-times even close relatives, because as the article mentions back then secret police forces didn't have access to today's technology.

That's what made it very personal and invasive and what ruined lots of lives and close-relationships, while today's surveillance techniques seem to be (and I'd say they are indeed) more remote and not that soul-crunching. In the old system you risked to have your sister or brother-in-law snitching on you for listening to Radio Free Europe or for making a regime-related joke, you had to be always on the alert of what you were saying and to whom you were speaking. I think this is why in the present day and age we don't see lots of protests against this new surveillance system, it's far too remote from us so we tend not to notice it.

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

#46

Post by minikites »

In all the talk about this, I haven't seen any proposed solutions. What is the way out?

Stop all domestic surveillance? What about US Citizens in other countries? What about foreign nationals inside the US?

Increase oversight? What about for rare unambiguous national security threats? How can that be enforced?

And it sounds a lot like learned helplessness, but what is an individual supposed to do?

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

#47

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#48

Post by PavlovsCat »

brown9-2 wrote: post #38
[deleted] wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

The mere existence of a conspiracy theory is not proof of a conspiracy.

Likewise, crying "conspiracy theory" means and adds nothing. Someone pointed out it's technically possible, not even claiming it's being done, and already that's too much? Heh.

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

#49

Post by ginsong »

gyardley wrote: post #29

Is there anything in this article, aside from an overblown metaphor in the title, that hasn't been posted here fifty times in the last couple weeks?

If Snowden has convincing evidence why is he not releasing it? I don't understand all the dancing around.

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

#50

Post by jsmcgd »

mseebach wrote: post #33
jsmcgd wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Godwin's Law, or people's interpretation of it, has a lot to answer for. It's perfectly acceptable to make comparisons to the Nazis if it's relevant to where a conversation is at, at a particular moment. Not only is acceptable, it should also be encouraged. The most valuable thing to emerge from World War Two was the anti-blueprint for society. Let's not make this taboo merely for the sake of falling foul of some int…

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…

I totally get your point that people often make fallacious comparisons. In the interest of making a concise point I omitted stating it myself. However just because some people do not debate with integrity, or they make mistakes in their reasoning, it should not prevent others making comparisons which are pertinent.

I disagree that with your last point, that people should make the argument purely on its own merits. "So what if people are monitoring our communications?" I might ask this question myself if I had never read any history books.

The worrying thing for me is that we've been here before. Hitler did not come to power via some dramatic coup. He tried that and it failed. Instead he took the long, slow, legal and democratic route. Many legitimate comparisons with early 1930's Germany are there. I'm not saying it's a facsimile, it never would be. But with each civil liberty we sacrifice in the name of security the state becomes more oppressive, more open to abuse, an evermore viable breeding ground for tyranny. Worst of all, it can all happen without a shot being fired and well meaning onlookers saying, 'It will never get that bad'.

I'm going on a bit now, but for me the really terrifying aspect is that with all our modern technology (which I do love) it is possible for the state to create an apparatus to suppress the population that which we could never extricate ourselves from.

To quote BoC, "Defend your constitutionally protected rights. No one else will do it for you."

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