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Block NSA funding for collecting the call records of all Americans

defundthensa.com

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Re: Block NSA funding for collecting the call records of all Americans

#51

Post by tokenizer »

rb2e wrote: post #32
infinity0 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your post accomplishes nothing except to persuade people to give up the fight for civil liberties. You propose no solution or do you give any additional insight into developing a solution. Regardless of your actual intentions, you might as well be performing psychological propaganda. It's not helpful.

No offence is taken. I've been reading and studying Intelligence/espionage for a long time. Not the fancy James Bond stuff, just the boring average, mundane stuff of the past 100 years. I offer no solution because quite frankly, there isn't one. Unless you want to shut down the US military's and civilian intelligence gathering capabilities, it's not going to happen. There will always be reading your mail and listenin…

So with that said, what would you recommend the average foreign citizen do?

I mean, every western country right now is a vassal to the states. I doubt my country can really go against US interests (Canada). Most educated people I talk to about these matters agree that the US is not a functioning democracy, but rather a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism

> I am not for this, I love my privacy but I am simply pointing out what will happen, regardless of any action taken.

Well if that's the case, what would you suggest a poor foreign person do?

Re: Block NSA funding for collecting the call records of all Americans

#52

Post by [deleted] »

MisterWebz wrote: post #48
[deleted] wrote: post #36

[deleted]

> remember that threats from the US are the only thing that prevents many countries from doing more horrible shit than they already do. You mean horrible shit like drone strikes that kill innocent civilians, illegally detaining "terrorists" and torturing them, spying on the whole world, and commanding other countries to ground a president's plane? Is that the kind of shit "they" already do?

[deleted]

Re: Block NSA funding for collecting the call records of all Americans

#55

Post by binarymax »

[deleted] wrote: post #36

[deleted]

Your reasoning is flawed as a false dichotomy.

Also "Don't take away their ability to wrong, lest someone else does the same wrongs or worse" is a strawman. Others are going to try to do bad things no matter what. Giving our government unethical powers to somehow overcome this is not OK.

Re: Block NSA funding for collecting the call records of all Americans

#56

Post by DanielBMarkham »

No, no, a thousand times no. Hey, I'm the biggest fan of anonymity and privacy you can find. This is not an answer. It's an emotional over-reaction.

Countries need intelligence agencies -- they are the best way NOT to fight future wars. SIGINT is a useful function when used against foreign leaders. It's just a terrible idea when used against the population as a whole. Separate the parts that work and are useful from the parts that are destroying the country. Just don't lump it all together.

Unilaterally disarming is not a way forward. The only thing you accomplish by doing that is allowing dozens of other countries to spy on you without your knowledge. How is that a solution? These movements are in real danger of becoming "useful idiots" for others who wish us harm [1]

The only solution here is parity, i.e., whatever blanket surveillance is going on by corporations and the government regarding every citizen should be available to all citizens. This policy would naturally severely limit these kinds of operations without asking us to make broad decisions about delicate matters.

If you insist on defunding something, de-fund and kill the TSA. Then eliminate DHS and have the work go back to the separate agencies. But don't take a flamethrower to something which has a useful, important purpose because the politicians changed their mission to something terrible.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot

Re: Block NSA funding for collecting the call records of all Americans

#57

Post by kub »

snitko wrote: post #10

I think this is fighting the symptom rather than the cause. NSA is a symptom of a much larger problem, which is taxes. If you didn't have them, you wouldn't have to demand those things in the first place, because all the money you'd give would be given voluntarily and to organizations that you choose and think are important.

Actually, the REAL problem is the ability of law enforcement to enforce court sentences.

Without that ability, taxes would be effectively eliminated, since you could just avoid paying them without ill effects.

Also most of the public enemies who currently prosper thanks to the protection of the corrupt legal system (patent trolls, monopolists, politicians, financial fraudsters, etc.) would be quickly eliminated by a bullet to the head from the first passerby.

Re: Block NSA funding for collecting the call records of all Americans

#59

Post by snitko »

unimpressive wrote: post #38
snitko wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on how you define paradise. If paradise is the same as now, but without massively killing population of foreign countries with drones, keeping people in prison without trial and massively spying on your own people, then yes, it's going to be paradise. If your question is whether we can still have a civilized, stable and prosperous society, ask yourself would the demand for the good things that are currentl…

This true seeker has some questions: How do you deal with petty crime? It would be impractical to set up a temporary court for every theft. How do you hold the criminals while they're prosecuted, if they're prosecuted? Anarchists generally don't like prisons. Do you have a jail as a temporary holding cell? How do you stop external forces from taking over? As the old adage goes "If you want peace, prepare for war.".

Those questions already have great answers. I can probably only recommend you a couple of authors like David D. Friedman and Stefan Molyneux, they all address the questions you asked. In short, yes, there will be courts and prisons.

But in general, try to think of people from the middle ages wondering how would a country work without a king and what a crazy idea a democracy is. Or how stupid and primitive those troglodytes are for not believing in god. Or who's gonna pick cotton if we didn't have slaves. The problems you mention are not that difficult to solve. What's difficult is to show people that what they think is the best system out there is actually immoral.

Re: Block NSA funding for collecting the call records of all Americans

#60

Post by healsdata »

[deleted] wrote: post #36

[deleted]

The US isn't a direct democracy and, if I understand history correctly, that was on purpose and not just a matter of practicality. A direct democracy allows the majority to pass laws that benefit themselves while punishing the minority. We already have politicians passing ridiculous laws just to pander for votes; I can't see how it wouldn't be worse if the people being pandered to made the laws instead.

The internet has given us a front row seat to witness the fact that, regardless of which side of an issue they're on, there are a lot of people who don't arrive at their opinions through any sort of research, discussion, or consideration. This is probably confirmation bias on my part, but there seems to be a lot more people who'd vote how Wil Wheaton or Justin Bieber told them to than those who'd spend ten minutes reading a few different news sources about a particular ballot initiative to form their own opinion.

One would hope, if things were working ideally, that representatives in congress would consider the constitution, existing laws, and their constituents best interests when passing new laws. I'm not so naive to think that things are anywhere close to ideal, but I'm not sure that direct democracy is a better solution.

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