Privacy, Government, Surveillance, and You.

I call the police on that guy.

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

But peering through someone's window isn't illegal, so long as they're not actually on your property.

Funny, that's what they're saying about reading your email. And it's the cops doing it.

... I'm sorry, but I must say that I am unable to picture you doing that (not on purpose and for the porn rather than, say, doing P5 work for some reason, anyway). (And that has nothing to do with me not knowing what you look like. )

edited 2nd Mar '14 2:44:21 AM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

If I'm dumb enough to conspire to commit terrorist acts or overthrow the U.S. government or something like that via plaintext email, I frankly deserve to get caught.

Vague arguments of principle aside, there is no guarantee of privacy or anonymity on the Internet once something leaves your computer, and it's criminally ignorant to believe otherwise.

edited 2nd Mar '14 7:34:36 AM by Fighteer

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

That's a legal technicality. There is a guarantee of privacy within my mail once the envelope leaves my house, there is a guarantee of privacy with my phone calls once the signal leaves my telephone, why are my digital communications any different?

You're talking the difference between legality and actuality. In fact, someone could intercept your physical mail or your phone calls. In law, they aren't allowed to, unless they are a government agency with a warrant.

I agree in principle that the Internet deserves similar treatment from the law. In fact, it's still very much the Wild West out there and an individual is responsible for their own privacy by necessity.

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

You know, with all the bitching about Internet privacy, you'd think there would've been more than a few attempts to get a direct citizens' initiative that pushes for imposing strict limits on government agencies regarding the issue. Yet I never heard of any.

edited 2nd Mar '14 8:16:39 AM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

I think that's because it's a "small group issue". Only a few people care about it (unlike, say, unemployment) and then there is the New Media Are Evil trope/belief to deal with.

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

The Pirate Parties movement?

Schild und Schwert der Partei

I really think that the number of people who care enough about their privacy in that regard to engage in that kind of activism is relatively small.

edited 2nd Mar '14 8:20:32 AM by Fighteer

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

Not that an issue being of concern only to a small minority makes it any less important.

That's one of those tautological, subjective assertions that unfortunately doesn't help much when trying to convince people.

"I'm not really concerned by this."

"Well, you should be."

"Why?"

"Because I am."

edited 2nd Mar '14 8:38:28 AM by Fighteer

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

"I'm not concerned about the rights of racial minorities.

Well, you should be.

Why?

Because it affects you too."

Swap out any of our civil or individual human or legal rights, as appropriate.

I don't see any core issues of equality here.

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

Dude, some of us consider our constitutional right to be free of unreasonable search and seizure to be pretty core ("equality" wasnt the issue I was arguing).

Fine. Call it an argument of core rights if you wish, but the problem with that is that unless you demonstrate actual tangible harm to the individual and/or collective, you won't motivate people to action.

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

Is there a "law" or some sort of rule that states that, the more notorious you become, the more your communications (digital or otherwise, but mostly digital) will be under surveillance by the government, the NSA or other authorities?

edited 2nd Mar '14 9:35:56 AM by Quag15

Yeah like I'm not feeling very threatened by everything honestly.

Like they haven't actually done everything besides just look at our stuff. Nobody is getting abducted and sent to camps as far as I can.

Oh really when?

New Snowden Documents Show that Governments Are “Attempting To Control, Infiltrate, Manipulate, and Warp Online Discourse”

Direct all enquiries to Jamie B Good

At least some of them are the wiki vandal.

I think the government should and can be benevolent. I wouldn't have a problem with such a government going through my email. But going by at least this article linked earlier they not only try to catch terrorists, but also sabotage people they don't like. To me it's not so much that they have information, but more what they do with it and whether they cause harm obtaining it.

Honestly I'm not concerned for my own safety either. There are camps though, but for whether the detainees were abducted I'd have to get more specific info on the circumstances of their arrests/captures/abductions.

edited 2nd Mar '14 1:43:27 PM by Qeise

Laws are made to be broken. You're next, thermodynamics.

That's not entirely true. It's illegal to open the envelope once it leaves your house, but people can still hold it up to the light or use some sort of scanning device to see through the envelope and read what's inside. So long as they don't physically tamper with the envelope, that stuff's legal. By the same logic, one could argue that it should be legal to read someone else's email, so long as you don't alter the email or their inbox in any way.

And that's a surprise? And a PowerPoint Presentation from GCHQ — it's probably not too exciting when you get down to it in Cheltenham. An ordinary Office.

^note  Re; GCHQ: It's an ordinary office, isn't it?

An envelope could be opened, read and closed and you wouldn't even know about it.

edited 2nd Mar '14 2:33:32 PM by Greenmantle

Keep Rolling On

@Le Garcon, others: You do realize that is exactly the point that I am making? If you stand by while others are being victimized simply because you do not feel personally threatened, then in due course of time you will be affected, but it will be too late to do anything about it. Also, there are basic considerations of fairness in play- right now they only target people with some sort of connection to foreigners- does that make it fair?

I do. As of yet Supo has not been revealed to commit the kind of deplorable actions some other intelligence agencies have. Finland hasn't imprisoned anyone without trial recently enough to be relevant.

How do you think I could best influence the policy of foreign intelligence agencies?

Laws are made to be broken. You're next, thermodynamics.