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**patfromlogan** · 6/08/2013 11:36am,

So yes, the expectation of privacy is terribly naive? We're all dirty masturbating oversharers, no one cares about our 3AM chats, and apathy comes as easy as breathing. I, too, have responded to tasteless jokes and sleazy internet stuff. Who cares, millions are doing it and I'm not building bombs or such. There are a lot of things to be outraged about, and didn't we all just freak out about SOPA (http://sopastrike.com/) or whatever? Hey, I'm not a terrorist, who cares. Fine.

But please consider:

This is the government we're talking about. Google may trawl our emails, and make some dough, but google can't send us to prison. Have y'all never heard of COINTELPRO? Or the House Un-American Activities Committee? How about the brutal repression of Black Rights organizations (it was murder most foul, dozens of murders)? The infiltration of the anti-war movement? The crackdown on Gay activists?

Imagine if the government had had this tool during the labor movement. If they had intimate knowledge of every American's communication when they were building government databases of known and suspected homosexuals, and using that information to blackmail political opponents. Or when the FBI was conducting mass arrests of completely innocent communists.

With this sort of omnipresent surveillance, would we have ever gotten desegregation? Or gay rights? Freedom of political affiliation? Legal interracial marriage (illegal in much of the US until 1967!)? Fuck, even the end of slavery or child labor? These are things that the government actively fought, that they rounded up people and threw them in jail for. The fourth amendment is one of the most important freedoms we have. It allows us to go about our civil and political lives in relative comfort. Without it, our democracy would literally not function. The threat of government action diminishes our freedom, and knowing every single thing you have ever said to anyone is incredibly threatening IF YOU"VE EVER DISAGREED WITH THE POWERS THAT BE.

Once we give up a right, it's hard as hell to get it back. Say in fifteen years we have an administration that decides that any known user of marijuana should be prohibited from working with children. Say you're running for office, and your opponent wants some dirt. Say you're an activist, fighting for immigrant's rights or environmeTal justice, and the Paul Ryan administration wants you to shut the fuck up. How much of your private communication do you really want the government to have on file? All of it?

People have spent decades fighting for the rights you take for granted. Some of us are still fighting. And if the government had had this tool all along, a whole lot of us would be in prison, and a lot less progress would have been made.

So please, learn some fucking history.

**tgace** · 6/08/2013 11:47am,

When things like the marathon bombing happen it seems like everyone clamors for evidence and asks why LE hasn't found any video yet. When there isn't a crisis going on it seems like many people complain about there being too many cameras.

The speed with which the Marathon Bombers were identified was obviously associated with camera footage.

When things like 911 happen people yap about why we...with all the data the CIA/NSA can get (there wasnt all that much resistance to the Patriot Act immediately after 911) were not able to catch the terrorists before they struck.

What is the solution? Im not saying Im FOR the latest intelligence grabs, but WE need to be more consistent with our expectations. Of course with our knowledge being based on television and popular media most of us are clueless as to what the reality truly is.

**nils** · 6/08/2013 12:25pm,

@patfromlogan - I wrote that to make fun of governmental bureaucracy and to point out that the higher executives of the NSA - for whom those papers were intended - seem to have not even a basic understanding of the technological issues at hand nor of the ethical and juristical ramifications of a surveillance of this magnitude.

Furthermore, I wanted people to read this stuff.

So please do not understand this as a legitimation of any kind, nor as an offense to people trying to protect civil rights - although Anonymus is a bit fucked up at times and those Guy Fawkes masks are silly, since they create the impression that this whole generation is more interested in comics than in history.

Still, I agree wholeheartedly with most of your post; especially since we have similar problems in Europe right now, with basic rights of privacy being marginalized to the lowest common denominator by way of the European Union.

**patfromlogan** · 6/10/2013 1:36am,

Edward Snowden: the whistleblower behind the NSA surveillance revelations

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013...r-surveillance

***DerAuslander*** · 6/10/2013 6:27am,

Originally posted by tgace View Post

When things like the marathon bombing happen it seems like everyone clamors for evidence and asks why LE hasn't found any video yet. When there isn't a crisis going on it seems like many people complain about there being too many cameras.

The speed with which the Marathon Bombers were identified was obviously associated with camera footage.

When things like 911 happen people yap about why we...with all the data the CIA/NSA can get (there wasnt all that much resistance to the Patriot Act immediately after 911) were not able to catch the terrorists before they struck.

What is the solution? Im not saying Im FOR the latest intelligence grabs, but WE need to be more consistent with our expectations. Of course with our knowledge being based on television and popular media most of us are clueless as to what the reality truly is.

I think most reasonable people are able to distinguish between cameras in public places and the search & seizure of phone and internet records.

You're arguing for cameras in the bedroom.

**tgace** · 6/10/2013 6:43am,

Originally posted by DerAuslander View Post

I think most reasonable people are able to distinguish between cameras in public places and the search & seizure of phone and internet records.

You're arguing for cameras in the bedroom.

Eh..Im not really arguing FOR anything. It just seems like there can be a disconnect with the US public between "stay out of our business!!!!" and "why didn't we catch these guys with all of our '24' high tech surveillance?"

Similar to DNA...there's an outrage over collecting DNA at arrest like fingerprints but there's also an outrage when we don't catch a murderer within a week like on TV by using DNA.

What I have always thought is that the gvt does a piss poor job of explaining exactly WHY they want what they want and WHAT the information will do to benefit the public. Which to me indicates that they don't have a good answer or that they don't think we deserve one.

**Chili Pepper** · 6/10/2013 7:07am,

Originally posted by tgace View Post

When things like 911 happen people yap about why we...with all the data the CIA/NSA can get (there wasnt all that much resistance to the Patriot Act immediately after 911) were not able to catch the terrorists before they struck.

I would suggest those are two seperate groups of people. A huge swath of the population clamoured for Something To Be Done, and the government willingly agreed, meaning that a metric shit-tonne of your tax dollars are spent making travellers take off their shoes in airports.

These people have absolutely no idea how important freedom of speech is, or privacy, or safety from an overly-intrusive government.

**Devil** · 6/10/2013 8:49am,

Wow, I completely agree with Pat. That feels weird.

**Permalost** · 6/10/2013 9:39am,

"Its okay that they have this powerful tool, because the guys using it are idiots!"

**CrackFox** · 6/10/2013 9:42am,

There is no disconnect with complaining about excessive surveillance and the failure of said surveillance to apprehend criminals. People don't like being snooped on, but are sold a preposterous idea that in exchange for invasive surveillance they will gain security, then when said surveillance fails to predict some criminal action, they quite rightly ask "WTF, I thought you said in exchange for snooping, you would prevent this from happening?"

The fact of the matter is that we can't even predict the weather, and that is much a much easier task. You can gather all the data you want, but you won't predict what's going to happen for an entire population of people. The only thing the data is good for, is fucking over individuals within that population. So if there is data being gathered on you, you'd better hope that no one involved in that collection process ever decides to fuck you over, and that no one from outside the process breaks into that nice big collection of info and uses it to do something you don't like.

**Permalost** · 6/10/2013 10:25am,

There would be a certain irony if the information gathering system itself became the target of a terrorist act.

**CrackFox** · 6/10/2013 11:34am,

Originally posted by Permalost View Post

There would be a certain irony if the information gathering system itself became the target of a terrorist act.

Actually a problem with collecting data like this is that it becomes a target for good old fashioned fraud. So much easier to bribe/blackmail someone to get access to this one source than it is to try and collect the data yourself.

**patfromlogan** · 6/10/2013 12:06pm,

from http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/10/us...l?ref=us&_r=1&

**patfromlogan** · 6/10/2013 12:12pm,

Originally posted by Devil View Post

Wow, I completely agree with Pat. That feels weird.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/07/op...nted=all&_r=3&http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...v=86UL9ekiXDk#!

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Why there is no reason fo fear the Surveillance state

Why there is no reason fo fear the Surveillance state

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