Our power-mad leaders never give up any of their power without a long protracted fight. We have to continue to keep the pressure on until this is actually fixed.
"February 11th: The Day We Fight Back Against NSA Surveillance"
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/01/february-11th-day-we-f...
I will say as a disinterested observer (I do not support either major political party in the U.S.) I'm curious to see if any candidates will run on an anti-surveillance state message in the upcoming presidential elections.
We could end up with the same assholes who support all this nonsense going back out and making a bunch more speeches about how bad it all is -- just so they can get elected and continue things as before.
People say cynical voters are a problem, but you watch enough of how politics actually works (and has worked over the centuries) and if you don't become refreshingly cynical you're an empty-headed fool and more of a danger to yourself and others than anything else.
ADD: Ok. Maybe a little ranting.
The danger of this (from a politician's POV) is that it paints a giant target on your head, to the extent that the public is spooked about bad guys. Especially if something bad happens while you're in power, and the public rises up demanding the ability to catch all the bad guys whatever it takes. If we could learn to not freak out every time J Random Lunatic does a public bad thing, then we wouldn't be handing pro-surveillance politicians the tools to so easily defeat their opponents.
Basically this isn't just politicians being evil, it's the symptom of widespread irrationalism.
We see this same pattern on many issues, take for instance welfare for Republicans. They'll talk up their objections, including making all sorts of nuanced arguments, but at the end of the day nobody is going to vote to throw grandma off a cliff.
I'd be ten bucks we same some of this same crap with security. Somebody will make impassioned, reasoned speeches -- probably explaining things just as you have done, and making a case for something that sounds great but is more of a marketing blurb than anything else. Maybe it'll be "peace through reasonable security" or something. (Be assured that it will be heavily poll-tested.)
But in the end, it'll just be more whitewashing. My curiosity is just how banal and pandering the politicians will get. From a rhetorical and philosophical viewpoint alone, it's always interesting to watch these verbal and policy gymnastics. What'll be the catchphrase? Will the tech community come out and support a politician even when it's blatantly obvious he or she is just beating a pinata and isn't serious about real change? I suspect so.
They say a country gets the government it deserves, and America deserves Sarah Palin in 2016.
Yeah, I mean its not like Congress passed a law specifically prohibiting the actions the President proposed in order to close the detention facility at Guatanamo Bay. [1]
[1] They didn't pass a law, but several, on different occasions.
Our "leaders" really mostly follow. They follow votes. They follow money. Increasingly, the influence of money (and the votes, and redistricting into "safe" districts, that it can buy) appears to be superceding that of raw, individual votes.
But it is still the citizens who cast those votes.
It's not just "them." It is "us." (For U.S. citizens. And for non-citizens who have various forms of influence upon U.S. policy, directly or in response to it.)
In that sense, it might be argued we have very much gotten the government we deserve.
If we think we deserve better, it is up to us. Not them.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/ClosureOfGuantana...
Sure, he could find a way to push it through, but given the Republicans' historical success at demanding the world from a Democrat with a mandate (e.g. cutting capital gains tax by a third in exchange for childrens' health care), I'm sure their asking price was high.
But why would he, when an army of apologists will rationalize and defend any failure.
I really don't see how we elect change without a third party - yet I think the way elections are run (especially financially) virtually guarantees we'll never get that third party. The only possible solution is to pray for grid-lock.
Yes ... I really am THAT cynical. But I'm older than most of this crowd and my idealism is spent.
That so many young people who idealistically embraced him can't stand him now doesn't mean he changed, just that they woke up to who he really was all along.
Seriously, no surprises here. If you believed the impossible promises he made on the 2008 campaign trail, I'm sorry, but you were warned.
(Incidentally I intend to pay a lot of attention to the negative reporting done on candidates I support in the future, because it represents a worst-case scenario if the pundits actually turn out to be right)
Actually, unfocussed churn in elected policymakers just means that the unelected powerbrokers -- who are very much not interested in change -- increase in power relative to the rotating classes of novice elected officials.
Especially given the limitations of our electoral system in providing choices and effective representation, educated voting on substance alone without effort outside of voting is insufficient to do much to produce desired change, but reducing the effort involved to just voting blindly for novelty will be even less effective.
This data will be pitched to the likes of US Chamber of Commerce[1] via firms like Hunton & Williams[2] as to be used to attack/stifle/undermine political dissidents, journalists like Glenn Greenwald[3], and _THEIR FAMILIES_[4][5]. These comments may be used against you by any nation-state that pays, or entity that leaks information from the database.
All of this foretold in the details (meta-content) of the 2011 anonymous leaks.
[1] http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/02/10/143419/lobbyists...
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/12/us/politics/12hackers.html...
[3] http://www.salon.com/2011/02/15/palantir/
[4] http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/02/10/143428/chamberle...
[5] http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Aaron-Ba...
edit: Oh eat me anonymous down-voter. Anyone that wishes to learn more about the for-profit interests often created by the NSA or their past employees can read Telecomix's BlueCabinet[1] or Barrett Brown's Project PM[2]. Free Barrett Brown.
...
> These comments may be used against you by any nation-state that pays, or entity that leaks information from the database
Uhm...HN comments are by design available to anyone in the world who wants to read them. What is the point of leaking something that is freely available from the original source?
The comment was more a gesture at how all this public/semi-public/private/extremely private data can end up being used. Or indeed how it has been used or pitched to be used. When you have NSA affiliates like Palantir mucking about with firms like Hunton & Williams. Teaming up to do attack work on generally anyone who opposes the persons who make up the facade that is US Chamber of Commerce, you have a shipwreck in progress.
How much you are targeted by these entities is a matter of how much of a nail you are to their hammer.
