Privacy, Government, Surveillance, and You.

Then how to stop rape then? Like you said, burden of proof is nearly impossible to meet. Heck, with drones, we can make fighting sexual slavery easier.

Huge difference between spying on people having sex and breaking up human trafficking rings.

Oh really when?

But in regards to spying on sex, if it's proving that is it was rape, all that is needed to be done is record evidence of the session not being done with the rape victim's consent, meaning, tape and record a guy a hitting a girl, taking off his pants, and proceeding to having his way with here. Present it, and the rapist is done for.

Hypothetically, yes, such a thing could be done, but is that a world we want to live in? Sacrificing every shred of privacy (which, by the way, is one of the things that any human being needs to stay healthy and sane) just to catch some extra crooks? I'd rather this world not becoming like 1984, thank you very much.

Bah, the world is nothing like 1984 and never will be.

It's much more like Brave New World

Oh really when?

Except in Best Korea.

Schild und Schwert der Partei

Which is why they're Best Korea

Oh really when?

Is North Korea even like 1984 though? If anything it's proof that an 1984 style state can't work, it fails to be self sustaining has a massive black market problem and has enough corruption and lose security for people to flee to China.

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran

Are you asking if I can provide examples of the US government abusing investigatory power to suppress dissent? I had thought that these examples were so well known that they didnt require enumeration, but I can comply:

FBI Investigated 'Occupy' As Possible 'Terrorism' Threat: "According to internal documents newly released by the FBI, the agency spearheaded a nationwide law enforcement effort to investigate and monitor the Occupy Wall Street movement. In certain documents, divisions of the FBI refer to the Occupy Wall Street protests as a "criminal activity" or even "domestic terrorism."

2013 IRS Controversy: "In 2013, the United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS) revealed that it had selected political groups applying for tax-exempt status for intensive scrutiny based on their names or political themes."

NYPD Can Record Peaceful Muslims Because Of Terrorism: "Undercover NYPD officers should be allowed to record peaceful conversations between Muslim Americans talking politics because of the "current events" of other Muslims' involvement in terrorism, a city lawyer argued in court Tuesday."

ACLU Releases Report on Suppression of Dissent in a Post 9/11 America: "Taking their cue from the Bush Administration, law enforcement officials across the country have interrogated, detained and prosecuted hundreds of people for exercising their First Amendment freedoms of speech and assembly, according to a new report by the American Civil Liberties Union on the suppression of dissent since the terrorist attacks of 9/11."

COINTELPRO: "COINTELPRO (an acronym for C Ounter INTE Lligence PR Ogram) was a series of covert, and at times illegal,[1] projects conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) aimed at surveying, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting domestic political organizations... The FBI has used covert operations against domestic political groups since its inception; however, covert operations under the official COINTELPRO label took place between 1956 and 1971."

Project MINARET: "Project MINARET was a sister project to Project SHAMROCK operated by the National Security Agency (NSA), which, after intercepting electronic communications that contained the names of predesignated US citizens, passed them to other government law enforcement and intelligence organizations... 1,650 U.S. citizens were targeted, including prominent anti-Vietnam War critics. U.S. Senator Howard Baker, civil rights leaders Martin Luther King, Jr. and Whitney Young, boxer Muhammad Ali, New York Times journalist Tom Wicker, the actor Jane Fonda and Washington Post humor columnist Art Buchwald were among those monitored."

Ya'll remember Watergate, right?

How far back do you want me to go? The FBI has been investigating peaceful protest movements practically since it's inception. The Sedition Act during WWI made many forms of dissent and government criticism illegal. And on and on.

It would be disingenuous, I think, to suggest that we have to wait until there is a specific, publicly documented example of the US gov't using it's electronic spying powers to target peaceful protesters exercising their right to free speech. Such efforts are undoubtedly kept secret- if you wait until gov't suppression becomes obvious then it will likely be too late to protest it. Given the governments history of attempts to suppress free speech, proactively becoming concerned about it isnt silly, it's prudent.

edited 8th Jul '14 5:39:31 PM by demarquis

The only reason why this became a thing was because conservative groups were bitching they were being targeted do to being conservative, not because there was an actual surge of conservative political groups trying to get tax exemption when you can't get tax exemption if you are a political group, and ignored the fact liberal groups were also being prevented from getting tax exemption status.

"We're all paper, we're all scissors, we're all fightin' with our mirrors, scared we'll never find somebody to love."

Frankly, most of those have little to do with the NSA and its surveillance programs and are well outside the scope and time frame of PATRIOT, which is what's at the heart of current efforts. That you have to reach back to the 1960's to find examples of abuse shows how remarkably clean the system has managed to remain when compared to many other nations.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Sigh. We can really do this example by example if you want to.

• FBI Investigated 'Occupy' As Possible 'Terrorism' Threat: The FBI investigates things all the goddamn time, that's it's job. "The FBI investigated something I like!" is not a legitimate complaint. Investigation is not suppression.
• 2013 IRS Controversy: Political theater put on by the Republican party in an attempt to discredit the Obama administration. The IRS investigated companies applying for tax-free status by focusing on ones with political names because politically-active groups are not legally allowed tax-exempt status! This also just the IRS doing its damn job. (Note that it investigated things like "tea party" and "patriot", but also things like "progressive" and "occupy".)
• NYPD Can Record Peaceful Muslims Because Of Terrorism: The program was stupid, but exposed via our system of free press and eventually ended due to public outcry. System working as intended.
• ACLU Releases Report on Suppression of Dissent in a Post 9/11 America: I'd comment on this one, but the link to the report itself is broken.
• COINTELPRO, Project MINARET: This is stuff that happened 40+ years ago, during the height of the Cold War, where policies and attitudes were vastly different. Their applicability to today's political climate is limited, at best.

What I think is disingenuous is the leap from "investigation" to "suppression" that you're making, both here and elsewhere. Investigation is not suppression. The government can spy and record all they want, but they're not suppressing anything until they do something with that information. I honestly don't give a damn if the government records every word that comes out of my mouth and every post I type online — until they use that information, it doesn't affect me in the slightest.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

The ACLU link ([1]) is working for me.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

It may not be direct suppression, but it can still cause one to feel suppressed, because people can't relax or be themselves if they know someone's probably watching them.

EDIT: In other news, Glenn Greenwald is naming names.

edited 9th Jul '14 8:09:11 AM by speedyboris

And yet people willingly submit to reality TV shows where they are being watched every minute of their day. It's amazing what the human mind can adapt to: your brain eventually tunes it out to the point where you act normally, or at least whatever passes for normal in your life. The cameras disappear.

I'm not calling this a good thing, necessarily, but I'm again advancing the point of view that tangible harm must be demonstrated. Law enforcement agencies have a duty to investigate actual or potential criminal behavior. To that end, they must have some way to detect this behavior. Everything else after that follows, including the need for checks and balances to prevent abuse.

edited 9th Jul '14 9:49:10 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

They also a) agreed to it via contract for a clearly-delineated period of time, b) get an extended vacation in the process, regardless of winnings, c) are afforded basic privacies even within that, and d) don't make particularly good entertainment.

edited 9th Jul '14 9:55:03 AM by Pykrete

Oh, good. I usually do the point-by-point rebuttals, but I feel like ass today and don't really have the strength for it. Today, you are my hero.

My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.

A) And we, cheerfully lulled by Fox News propaganda, voted for public officials who decided it was within their mandate to create spy agencies. We are the ones to blame for our predicament. We signed the contract, as it were, or at least enough of us did. B) Irrelevant to the matter under discussion. C) I can usually expect that I won't be spied upon by the government in my bathroom, either. D) Irrelevant to the matter under discussion.

edited 9th Jul '14 10:02:32 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

People can also feel suppressed because they have to pay taxes, because black people exist in their neighborhood, or because a girl refused to go to the prom with them. People feel a lot of things.

My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.

This is equivalent to saying if enough people are on reality TV then everyone else is fair game. There's a difference between one person signing away their privacy with clearly delineated limits of time and scope, and closed courts being created to systematically shit on the privacy rights of 300 million people with a good deal of their expansions of scope happening without even congressional oversight.

Also, the acts that the whole thing hinges upon were passed in the space of a few months, between election cycles. Prior to 9/11, this was not even an election talking point, much less something we could have been "lulled" into.

And yet, as has been documented, a large amount of the databased content in question is highly personal or sexual in nature — 20% last time I saw a source, which would be disproportionate even to an average cross-section of life.

edited 9th Jul '14 10:34:27 AM by Pykrete

My point is, privacy should be a human right, not something disregarded or dismissed because "people feel a lot of things".

edited 9th Jul '14 10:29:49 AM by speedyboris

Moreover, it's an implicit violation of freedom of speech and association. Chilling effects of the current policy upon legitimate discourse and association are well documented.

Also, as for suppression, the FBI is apparently trained to regard Islam as a whole as a national threat.

edited 9th Jul '14 10:48:10 AM by Pykrete

Like many so-called "rights", it only exists if we're willing to make it exist. I don't agree that there's a fundamental right to have other people not know things about you. Humans are social animals; we multiply each others' capabilities by sharing information. People living in soap bubbles pretending to the world that they don't exist are functionally irrelevant.

The debate should be about degree, control, and accountability, and you won't find everyone on the same side. That's why we have a democracy in the first place: to sort this stuff out.

This isn't a factual, scientific issue like climate change or evolution by natural selection; it's about social ethics — ergo, there is no absolute, correct answer. Let's stop pretending there is.

edited 9th Jul '14 11:37:21 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Nice strawman. Nowhere did I state human beings should live in complete isolation and never communicate with each other. What I was suggesting was that humans should have privacy as a right, and by that I mean they shouldn't have to worry that they're under constant government surveillance. I really don't see why it's so hard to disagree with this.

Your argument is loaded with undefined terms and prior assumptions that may not be shared by your audience; ergo it is impossible to fairly agree or disagree with.

For example, define "constant government surveillance".

edited 9th Jul '14 11:57:50 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"