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0 pointsrayiner12y ago0 comments

Is it the case that people don't have enough control over the government? As far as I can tell, we have exactly the government we want, or at least exactly the government you might expect to get in a compromise between rural middle America, suburbanites, christian conservatives, and urban yuppies.

The people who strongly oppose the security measures taken after 9/11 are in the minority. They were part of Obama's coalition, but were almost certainly outnumbered by teachers or blue collar factory workers. I bet if you polled the public, "NSA surveillance" wouldn't rank among the top 3 concerns of even a sizeable minority of the people.

So when the government engages in legal (at the edge of legality, to be sure, but at least colorably legal), and the people don't strongly oppose the measures, why do we treat it as some sort of failure of democracy?

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josephlord12y ago

It could still be a failure of the constitution even if not of democracy.

rayinerOP12y ago

See: http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/rightof... ("The U. S. Constitution contains no express right to privacy. The Bill of Rights, however, reflects the concern of James Madison and other framers for protecting specific aspects of privacy, such as the privacy of beliefs (1st Amendment), privacy of the home against demands that it be used to house soldiers (3rd Amendment), privacy of the person and possessions as against unreasonable searches (4th Amendment), and the 5th Amendment's privilege against self-incrimination, which provides protection for the privacy of personal information.") (emphasis added).

The NSA's actions seem pretty precisely tailored to stay on the "right side" of the Constitutional line, avoiding the specific aspects of "privacy" protected by the Constitution.

josephlord12y ago

It could still be regarded as a failure even if it is not a breach (and I hold no position on whether it is or isn't a breach).

Electronic communications were clearly not considered by the authors of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights (understandably) but they were clearly trying trying to impose limits on the power of the state and I think the idea that the government should be allowed to track all of everyone's associations would have been abhorrent but that is the practical effect of the monitoring that has been revealed.

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chris_mahan12y ago

What I like is that people don't know what surveillance means. it's a french word, and being french myself, I happen to know that it means to oversee, to control, as in work, or to monitor, as in a medical patient. I think people think of surveillance as simply passive, but in French, it has an active component, to rectify wrong events. To me, NSA surveillance means NSA monitoring for the purpose of control.

jessaustin12y ago

a compromise between rural middle America, suburbanites, christian conservatives, and urban yuppies

Left out a few parties there ray. What about the military-industrial complex? Don't they get a vote? (Maybe two or three?) What about all of those whose paychecks appear magically from "black" appropriations? How about LEOs? Are they not voting now? That would be a pretty sizable class to which to deny the franchise. You think the people who make house payments based on subverting the general welfare of the nation might be a bit more focused on what horrible program they can impose next than is "rural middle America"?

"Let's be clear" though. The current embarrassment is a paragon of "democracy".

dwiel12y ago

Imagine a government which has popular support, but only because their PR is so good. Is this a success for democracy?

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0 pointsrayiner12y ago0 comments

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josephlord12y ago

It could still be a failure of the constitution even if not of democracy.

rayinerOP12y ago

The NSA's actions seem pretty precisely tailored to stay on the "right side" of the Constitutional line, avoiding the specific aspects of "privacy" protected by the Constitution.

josephlord12y ago

It could still be regarded as a failure even if it is not a breach (and I hold no position on whether it is or isn't a breach).

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chris_mahan12y ago

jessaustin12y ago

a compromise between rural middle America, suburbanites, christian conservatives, and urban yuppies

"Let's be clear" though. The current embarrassment is a paragon of "democracy".

dwiel12y ago

Imagine a government which has popular support, but only because their PR is so good. Is this a success for democracy?

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse