The EFF, ACLU and other organizations are sponsoring a new campaign, Stop Watching Us, which will hold a rally in Washington tomorrow to protest NSA spying. Here’s their video.
I’m all for restricting the Patriot Act and reining in the NSA domestic surveillance program. It’s mainly a boondoggle and it’s not at all clear that we’re any safer for it, and even if we are safer, what is the price? That said, who’s the audience for this video? Are the kids nowadays supposed to be stirred to action by old film of Fritz Mondale and Frank Church, people that are pretty much lost to recent history, saying never again? Oliver Stone has a fair amount of screen time here, and the whole thing reeks of his boomer-style liberalism. Do better, EFF.
Thanks to reader J for sending this in.
Rex Everything
That’s just because you have a stiffy over GG’s new gig, you libertarian!
Matt McIrvin
Maybe the kids should learn the history.
Howard Beale IV
Alexander should resign his commission for deliberately giving our enemies the weapons (Stuxnet) to attack the US.
Jeremy
Well if we are so concerned about the government watching us then maybe we should also be concerned about corporations having even more access.
gelfling545
@Matt McIrvin: Absolutely not! It’s not on the state tests. Learning anything for the sake of actual knowledge is strictly forbidden.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Matt McIrvin: History? Pah! People these days think that the “Gilded Age” was a good thing because shiny!; The Great Gatsby was a phat MC; and the TeaHadis began as a populist movement.
Emma
Especially to kids who watch each other constantly? One of my cousins has some sort of app on her phone which shows the coordinates of any location she’s in to her thousands of bffs on Facebook. She publicly records everything. With pictures! Privacy is so old style!
ruemara
Except no one is watching them. Really.
Chris
I just saw this video at an on-campus event yesterday.
Not all bad… apart from the one kid in the audience who asked if 9/11 was an inside job, and the panelist flipping out about how baaaaad it is to be bugging Angela Merkel’s phone. (I missed the part where she became an American citizen).
Ripley
Celebrities asking not to be watched. Cosmic Irony Alert…
nastybrutishntall
“Privacy” is a word like “Freedom” which means less than you think it does. We will not survive as a species with too much of either. The end of Individualism cannot come soon enough.
Honestly, this is why we will be entering the Chinese Century soon. Libertarianism will eviscerate this country, Europe will sink into fractious xenophobia, and the Chinese, once they figure out that their environment is essential for sustaining life and not a good to be used to curry favors, will, in their own disciplined, authoritarian way, be the only player left standing, and we will be begging them to sort us out. Sorry folks. It’s been a lot of fun. Hopefully the HD 3-D brainchips will make it all no less tolerable than any other configuration of human existence…
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Jeremy: That’s a bullshit argument. The Security State is compulsory—there’s no opt out button, and usually no recourse for abuse. Corporate surveillance is certainly a problem, but it’s a different problem from state surveillance.
Chyron HR
@Rex Everything:
Do you wake up at night, weeping bitterly, knowing that someone, somewhere is being insufficiently deferential to the great Greenwald?
(I’m just kidding, of course. How could you possibly fall sleep in a world where people mindlessly worship and/or fantasize about getting raped by Obama?)
Gin & Tonic
@nastybrutishntall: You mean the Chinese, once they figure out how to steal enough water from all their neighbors and dry up the Mekong and Iriwaddy, will be the only player left standing.
schrodinger's cat
NSA has deployed new surveillance gadgets, they can be anywhere even in your mailbox.
handsmile
Out-of-state family commitments will prevent me from joining this weekend’s Washington rally, but I do plan to attend this conference, “Power, Privacy, and the Internet” here in NYC next week.
http://www.nybooks.com/events/power-privacy-and-internet/
(I don’t know if it’s still possible to register for it.)
As for “learning the history,” I think far more than “the kids” would benefit from reading James Bamford’s authoritative investigative work on the NSA. His The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America (2008) being the latest from several decades of published work on the agency.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Shadow-Factory-Eavesdropping-America/dp/0307279391
And while its subject is the burgeoning American national security state, Top Secret America, written by Amazon Prime Daily’s prize-winning investigative reporter Dana Priest, is another invaluable volume.
http://www.amazon.com/Top-Secret-America-American-Security/dp/B00AF3O2V0
Belafon
I believe it’s about $60 for the first phone, and $10 for each additional phone on AT&T, though the data plans will cost you extra. And that’s per month to have them monitor me.
As for getting young adults to care, if we’d had this technology when I was a kid, my friends and I probably would have acted the same way, mostly because HIV and AIDS were all over the news and that didn’t stop us from having sex. These types of things will have about the same rate of success that condom ads do.
My kid’s definition of privacy is keeping his parents from seeing it. Maybe if someone announced that parents could access any NSA data on their children, then they would care.
nastybrutishntall
@Gin & Tonic: Naturally. But, if you look at what’s happening now with rare earth mining, the increasing standard of living in China is starting to affect environmental policy & corruption practices. On the other hand, I expect the Chinese to become ever more nationalistic and expansionary. So yeah, they’ll start taking everyone’s shit. Just like we did. Just like the Soviets did, Just like the Europeans did. And I expect India will take up the banner of Democracy and oppose them while remaining something of a semi-functional mess. Welcome to the new Cold War, kids!
? Martin
Yeah, this. I don’t think it’s illegal. I just think it’s almost all stupid and pointless and damaging.
Rex Everything
@Chyron HR: I don’t, because my stiffy, when I think about Greenwald and his new job, is just SO BIG you wouldn’t believe it! If you had one like mine you wouldn’t lie awake worrying about ANYTHING, except which orifice on the lingerie model you’re banging to stick it into. Seriously, dude, the Greenwald stiffy is nature’s dramamine.
Ask Mistermix. He knows.
gbear
The best way to get the government to stop watching you is to post videos and attend a public rally in DC.
Southern Beale
Latest right-wing talking point: Rep. Jared Polis of Boulder (a Democrat!!! So SEE YOU GUYZ!!!) is requesting an Obamacare waiver for certain wealthy ski resorts because insurance premiums are unusually high.
Daily Failure and Faux Noise are all over this because it’s a DEMOCRAT and wow look how expensive the insurance is because Obamacare and even the DEMOCRAT wants out etc. etc. Except it’s not quite true. What is true is that insurance companies used geography to fuck with customers for years, and we’re now, thanks to Obamacare, actually seeing it.
So it kinda proves the OPPOSITE.
chopper, interrupted
@Ripley:
of course. you think maggie gyllenhaal wants anyone to watch her without coughing up 13 bucks for the pleasure?
Cacti
Is it just me, or does it seem a little ironic to hold a visible public event whose theme is “Stop Watching Us”?
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
This right on the heels of the “Hey, Look at Me!” campaign?
Cacti
Also too, not watching Maggie Gyllenhaal has never been a problem for me.
Rex Everything
@Cacti: You’re right! Oh my god. What laser-like insight!
Jeremy
@Comrade Scrutinizer: I think we need reforms to the NSA but I’m really tired of hearing people whine about the so called “Police State”. It seems like we have a group of privileged people in this country who want to pretend that they are being abused and persecuted.
I think there are more important things to worry about.
Cacti
@Rex Everything:
Oooh, another snarky glibertarian. You’re all so witty.
Yatsuno
@Southern Beale: That seems odd. U of C has a medical school, so providers shouldn’t be too much of an issue for that immediate area. I know a lot of this has to do with Colorado having very few insurers there. Oh what a difference a public option would make there…
Cacti
O/T:
Progressive hero Rand Paul is putting a hold on the nomination of progressive hero Janet Yellen.
Should we still stand with Rand?
Rex Everything
@Cacti:
BURN! Whoa! A little first aid cream, over here, please? For this BURN?!!
Someguy
These critiques are basically just racism. I mean it’s cool that Rand Paul has something to yell other than straight up racial slurs, but come on. We shouldn’t buy into this crap. It’s just joining a lynch mob.
Cacti
@Rex Everything:
Witty glibertarian is still witty.
We all wish we could be you.
C.V. Danes
I think that would depend on what the definition of “we” is, and it is probably NOT the American people.
chopper, interrupted
@Rex Everything:
all i have is my 6-month-old’s diaper cream. you can rub it all over your face if you want.
Jeremy
Also the “Stop watching us” campaign will never work. We live in an era where technology allows us to see and know what people are doing. We no longer have privacy.
Rex Everything
@Cacti:
Yes! “We” are! My god how you have “us” nailed! From the observation that I am a libertarian, right on down to the wittiness, the snark, and hell, just everything! It’s like you’re holding up a mirror to the inside of your mind, and sharing what you see with us all.
Xecky Gilchrist
the whole thing reeks of his boomer-style liberalism. Do better, EFF.
I don’t understand. Boomers are the only people who exist.
Cacti
@Rex Everything:
And an internet psychoanalyst too!
Is there anything you don’t do, Mr. Galt?
Omnes Omnibus
@Jeremy: No, we live in an era when technology is outstripping the law with respect to privacy. The fact that technology allows someone to do something doesn’t mean that everyone has assented to it being done. Facebook is not compulsory.
Chris
@Jeremy:
I’m mostly tired of hearing about it from people who in many cases simply sat on their asses and twiddled their thumbs back when Obama tried to close Guantanamo and found himself facing a bipartisan wall that had suddenly decided that closing Gitmo was irresponsible.
That’s not aimed at anyone on this website, but it applies to a great deal of the chattering classes.
fuckwit
@Cacti: He’s going to filibuster until the Federal Reserve is abolished and the USA goes back on the gold standard.
FlipYrWhig
@Jeremy:
ITYM _another_ group of privileged people who like to pretend they’re victims, added to a list that includes “Christians” and “business owners” and “conservatives.” It’s fun to think you’re a dangerous enemy of the state! Adds spice to life.
Cacti
@fuckwit:
If we had defaulted on the debt ceiling, I was hoping that the POTUS would open up the US gold reserves, just for the unadulterated joy of watching the Pauls have a public meltdown.
Yatsuno
@fuckwit: I hope he realises the Fed will keep chugging along regardless of how long he throws his temper tantrum.
ericblair
@Jeremy:
Especially when a bunch of us have family who actually, you know, lived in honest-to-God police states.
fuckwit
@FlipYrWhig: They’re afraid of black helicopters, black people, it never ends.
Which isn’t to say there aren’t plenty of progressives who support the EFF and ACLU and want the fucking PATRIOT Act repealed, Gitmo closed, drone strikes limited by law, and more public oversight of surveillance. But those are all legislative issues, and we need a Democratic Congress first at least.
Redshirt
Ah, sweet. Back to the Snowden Wars. It was too long.
fuckwit
Also, this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YvAYIJSSZY
And this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMOGaugKpzs
Cacti
@Yatsuno:
I wonder when Ezra Klein and Mrs. Ezra will start tut-tutting Rand for being such a He-man woman hater like the POTUS was, back during the imaginary nomination of Larry Summers.
Jeremy
@fuckwit: The funny thing is that President Obama has called for the repeal of the AUMF and revisions to the Patriot Act but according to the emos Obama is just like Bush.
Omnes Omnibus
@Redshirt: Hopefully this isn’t a return to the “Snowden Wars;” the Patriot Act is desperately in need of severe rollback or, preferably, repeal. There are real issues lurking under the sound and fury.
Comrade Dread
Ditto. I’m just not on board the hysterical hyperbole train. I’d like the f***ing Congress to actually exercise some oversight, pass new laws restricting what the intel community can and can’t do, and have a judiciary that actually exercises their power to check the Executive branch by making them meet some standard for warrants (I’d like more of this in the criminal justice realm too.)
While I’m at it, I’d also like to see better spooks who don’t subcontract out intelligence functions to the free market, don’t blab about their work on a public train, and don’t get caught spying on our allies.
Chris
@nastybrutishntall:
I don’t see all this as inevitable by any means, but, yeah, that’s my concern. Let’s face it, thirty years of Reaganism have already done a lot to damage the country, and the same principles being applied in Europe right now are fucking killing the PIIGS. I can hope that Obama’s presidency is the beginning of a trend going the other way… but otherwise, yeah, the country really is not going to do well if neoliberalism keeps being given second chances.
Omnes Omnibus
@Comrade Dread: This.
handsmile
@Jeremy:
“I’m really tired of hearing people whine about the so called “Police State”. It seems like we have a group of privileged people in this country who want to pretend that they are being abused and persecuted.”
With respect, there are a few hundred thousand residents of NYC, the overwhelming majority far from “privileged,” who would object rather forcefully to that characterization. And a federal judge has recently agreed with them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_stop-and-frisk_program
Just this week as well, there have been two widely-reported instances of the “privilege” of Shopping (even Paying) While Black.
I’m just a middle-aged, middle-class white guy myself (so “Stop-and-Frisk” has never and almost certainly will never be something I get to experience), but I do find it something “important to worry about.” Thus, for example, volunteering for the Bill deBlasio mayoral campaign.
Cacti
@Jeremy:
Syria was the new Iraq!
Mission creep! Boots on the ground! DOOOOOOM!
Baud
I hope someone at the protest will be wearing Google Glasses.
LanceThruster
Seems like we have things bass-ackwards.
Government reps need to have caps with CCTV recording 24/7 so we know what the hell *they’re* doing.
Bastids!
Belafon
@handsmile: I’m sure you know, but the difference is the whiners Jeremy is talking about weren’t whining before they found out THEIR phone numbers were being copied. It suddenly became an issue when it affected them.
Omnes Omnibus
@handsmile: Stop and Frisk is completely, IMO, without any legal justification. It operates on the principle that citizens are dangerous until proved safe.
OTOH, the people that Jeremy was talking about probably aren’t going to subjected to S&F any more than you or me.
WereBear
Ramen.*
*Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Belafon
@Baud: Well, you know how much tweeting and FBing will be going on.
Mnemosyne
@ericblair:
Wait, you mean having your e-mail headers in a government database that no one’s ever going to bother to look at until after you commit a crime is not exactly the same thing as being arrested and thrown in prison for what you wrote?
You have made the ghost of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn cry by implying that having your cell phone data stored indefinitely on a server is not the same thing as being imprisoned in a gulag for 8 years for something you wrote in a private letter to a friend. I hope you’re proud of yourself.
Jeremy
@handsmile: I’m not talking about victims of stop and frisk. I’m talking about privileged people who believe they are being persecuted and abused. There is a difference.
handsmile
@fuckwit: , @Comrade Dread:
This and this, to you both. Agree pretty much completely.
I do my best to stay off the “hysterical hyperbole train.”
pamelabrown53
@Comrade Scrutinizer: Jeremy’s argument is not a “bullshit argument”. The amount of detailed information corporations collect and sell to other corporations is a serious danger to employment, mortgage qualifications, etc. which impact everyday citizens much more than the government’s collection of meta-data.
kc
@Cacti:
It’s just you.
FlipYrWhig
@Mnemosyne: The notion of the government being able to use its full spectrum of intrusive powers on you at will is demoralizing. Even more demoralizing? The notion that the government is able to use its full spectrum of intrusive powers on you at will, but doesn’t, because you’re not particularly interesting.
Robert Sneddon
@Cacti: One can only guess at the number of folks planning to attend who will liveblog, instagram and tweet the proceedings 24/7 while holding “Stop Watching Us” placards.
Maybe they should rename it “Look at Me”.
FlipYrWhig
@Robert Sneddon: It could be called “You’re Not Looking!” That way it could be either a challenge or an invitation.
Belafon
@FlipYrWhig: So, it’s the modern version of the Total Perspective Vortex.
Jeremy
@pamelabrown53: Great point. The information gathered by corporations can effect people’s employment prospects, ability to buy house, take out a loan, etc.
FlipYrWhig
@Belafon: Well played!
Robert Sneddon
@FlipYrWhig: What makes me go “Meh” about the whole surveillance theatre panic is the fact that folks pay to enable this data collection as part of their lifestyle. The NSA isn’t collecting your emails and phone calls, your ISP and your phone company is collecting them so they can transmit them on to their recipients as you requested when you signed that $35 per month and a free phone deal. The NSA just gets to look over the ISP’s shoulder subject to warrants etc. but the data will be collected nevertheless. Same for geolocation records; a cellphone handshakes with the nearest cell tower it can talk to so where a phone is can be easily localised and that information recorded. If you don’t like that idea don’t carry a cellphone because that’s what cellphones do.
Ripley
Watch Us Demand That You Stop Watching Us (And Stop Not Watching Us Demand That You Stop Watching Us!)
handsmile
@Jeremy: (and Belafon and Omnes Omnibus)
Thanks for your replies. So noted, and I acknowledge my misreading.
In the context of NYC tabloid (and not only there) coverage of “Stop-and-Frisk” police tactics, a practice not uncharacteristic of a “police state,” those who are subject to it are too often depicted as “privileged,” what with their welfare, steaks, and Cadillacs.
debbie
@Jeremy:
I’m with you. At least the government’s not out to screw you out of your money.
Mike E
@chopper, interrupted: I still have that tub of ass cream I saved for WATBen awhile back.
piratedan
@Comrade Dread maybe this will help…
http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/10/two-fisa-data-questions-for-joel-brenner/
in short, the reason that there’s such a high number of warrants being approved is that before they’re filed, they’re being checked and vetted for need/cause/accuracy… the numbers that were being kicked around indicate that about 25% get kicked back for insufficient evidence or cause but aren’t considered warrant requests because of how their process works. At least that’s how I read the article(s)… naturally, what someone else might take out of it could be different. Still a need for a better process so that people can’t just pull numbers out of their ass without context leading to this kind of misinterpretation because these folks don’t do a good job of indicating how their process works and this law works differently in regards to what is needed to get a warrant granted and what due process is in place for people who have complaints and concerns.
Bubblegum Tate
OT: Interesting experiment on what happens when you just give poor people money:
I’d be interested to see this idea get tested and fleshed out more (and, ideally, tested domestically).
Ahh says fywp
@Jeremy: Bingo. Seems like corporations invade my privacy far more than the gov, unless I were to become the subject of a criminal investigation, in which instance none of this matters because they will acquire all of it legitimately.
Some of these fringers think tge bill of rights is an investigation/warrant/subpeona shield.
Baud
@Bubblegum Tate:
It’ll need a rich patron to implement here, at least at first. I don’t see the government doing it any time soon.
Belafon
@Bubblegum Tate: I suspect if you gave a bunch of lower income people money here in the US, here’s what would happen:
~3% would spend it on booze or gambling
The rest would:
Buy better food than what they have
Spend it to buy the things for school their kids would need to get ahead
Go to a movie, something they probably haven’t done in a long while.
Buy something like a television.
People will mostly spend it on necessities, and most people will spend on their kids, but, sometimes, you just gotta have a bigger television.
And the GOP will consider the 3% a failure of the entire system.
Jeremy
@handsmile: Yeah I should have provided a little more clarity. The right loves to demonize people who don’t have much while calling them privileged.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
I’m watching all of you.
schrodinger's cat
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader: Are you ceiling cat?
Mike E
@Bubblegum Tate: And, our consumer culture has one distinct upside during this downturn: Tech and manufacture advances let us poors buy quality goods that have been discounted to clear inventory in order to make way for That New Thing. Also, Amazon, Groupon, Craig’s List etc.
ETA I still buy cheap beer and the occasional lotto ticket
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@Bubblegum Tate:
They can be trained!
Chris
@Jeremy:
As I-forget-who said here a while ago… there’s something fucked up about a worldview that claims that people earning $250,000 a year are “struggling,” while people on minimum wage are fat-cat union thugs.
Jeremy
@Chris: It’s a warped way of thinking.
nastybrutishntall
@Chris: I see the 27% getting dug in and going Taliban, funded by the psychotic and canny 1%, declaring a War on Reason, and generally shitting our bed for us, internationally and domestically. They don’t even need to take hold of the Executive, though if they do it will be game over, since they will be primed to purify the nation of its moral degenerates, effete elites, atheists, foreigners, and intellectual scum. The military will comply, since the ranks are filled with low information Evangelical Christians anyway and they will do whatever the CIC commands, especially if it involves saving the baby Jesus from sleeper cell CommunoMuslimMexiFascists hiding in every university lecture hall. The rich Media will be too scared to do anything about it and will go along to get along.
And all of this is because we are bored with affluence. America wants its apocalypse yesterday and desperately craves that War which Gives Life Meaning, i.e. killing your neighbors with the help of your other neighbors, because it beats a life of meaningless consumer upgrades. Existentialist malaise + concentrated weath in the hands of antidemocratic megalomaniacs + Old Time Religion = your turn, China.
The Chinese are too practical to wreck themselves, now that, for the first time in their history, they find themselves with a decent spread of wealth + global power and a chance to grab the ring. Their national pride will begin to create more of a desire for leadership globally, and with that, a desire to paint themselves as morally superior, perhaps even as global saviors (environmentally, economically). On the other hand, they’ll extract a hefty price for bringing stability, just as they do at home. No more privacy, no more personal liberty, no more (true, not merely nominal) democracy. And honestly, it may be the only way the species as a whole gets on. That and handing the reins over to our silicon overlords.
ericblair
@Mnemosyne:
I regret nothing.
Anyways, in a Real No Shit Police State, anybody who could spend years publicly bitching about the Police State was obviously an agent provocateur, since if he wasn’t he’d have been disappeared years before.
Chris
@nastybrutishntall:
I’d like to know what you mean re “the ranks.” My anecdotal experience, and also what I’ve heard on here and S, N! from veterans and people who’ve worked with the military, is that the officer corps does have an alarming amount of “low information Evangelical Christian” Republicans, but that the rank and file is much more representative of American society as a whole. (It would have to be. Look how many people from the inner city join up).
srv
@Chris: It’s a real struggle when you’re facing having to downgrade from Chamonix to Vail.
You people just don’t understand how hard this is on us, it’s like someone tore out our soul.
Emma
@nastybrutishntall: Flesh the idea out with some characters that’ll appeal to the right demographic and you’d have a big hit on ScyFy.
Bubblegum Tate
@Belafon:
Those are my expectations, too (especially the wingers seeking out that distinct minority that buys liquor or something and saying it proves that everybody’s just a goddamn moocher), but it still would be nice to test the hypothesis. Unfortunately, as @Baud points out, there’s a significant hurdle to getting to test the hypothesis here.
Frankensteinbeck
@Comrade Dread:
I’d also be happy with cutting back the Patriot Act and looking at how much transparency, oversight, and restrictions can be sensibly added to our intelligence and law enforcement systems.
What I objected to was the wild misrepresentations of a stream of really petty revelations. ‘One federal organization gives another a tip on a person of interest if they happen across relevant law enforcement information in their own investigations’ was sold as ‘the NSA spies on Americans and gives it to the DEA and police, who then create fake backgrounds for the evidence.’ That was probably the MOST accurately reported of Snowden’s little droppings. People taking the ‘the NSA came to our homes because of my husband’s use of search terms’ hoax – and let me reiterate, it was a hoax, it didn’t happen – as confirmation that the whole ‘NSA is spying on us’ narrative was true drove me nuts.
Keith G
@Jeremy:
The thing is (contrary to your assertion) that those who will be most likely to be hurt by the sure-to-come abuses of our growing security/surveillance/ police state will be those without the power or the information to protect themselves, AKA those without “privilege”.
These growing apparatus certainly will be used to protect the interests of privileged capital from social protest urging change. If we let Obama and his successors lock in these practices, the changes in our society will not be for the good.
jeffreyw
Navy Solves Budget Woes By Selling Ship Naming Rights, Launches USS Ford F-150
Valdivia
The only problem I have with this rally, as it is happening in my home town, is that it is attracting not just the ACLU but the Oathkeepers and people like that. So, no way I am making my way downtown with that lot traversing my streets.
Reign in the NSA, the Patriot Act, by all means but do not for a second think the anarchists, crazy libertarians, right wing fringe wackos are in it for civil liberties. These alliances scare the shit out of me.
FlipYrWhig
@Keith G: The implacable government is always on the verge of silencing all of
Frankensteinbeck
@Keith G:
I don’t see any of that as inevitable, or even likely. The abuses are not sure-to-come, and nothing we know now makes them more likely. I also reject the assumption that this apparatus are growing and the conclusion that it will be used to protect capital. The last seems particularly unlikely, since these are government functions. If we get an executive willing and able to use our intelligence system to protect capital, that’s going to be way down the list of horrible abuses we’ll have to worry about.
C.V. Danes
@Keith G:
Exactly. From a historical perspective, the moment we have to fear the most is the moment government has nothing to fear from us.
ranchandsyrup
KEEP US COMPLETELY SAFE!
STOP WATCHING US!
C.V. Danes
@Frankensteinbeck:
The problem is not the abuse, but the threat of abuse, which has a chilling effect on ability of a populace to engage in types of discussion and free speech that is necessary for a functioning democracy. It wasn’t that long ago when the Bush crowd was going around and telling people they had to watch what they said.
Gin & Tonic
@nastybrutishntall: You must be a blast at parties.
Keith G
@FlipYrWhig: Unfortunately it won’t be the voices here at Balloon Juice that will be silenced. Most here could hardly be described as agitators.
C.V. Danes
One of the most critical conditions for an enduring democracy is the ability of the population to voice opposition in a protected and unfettered environment without fear of persecution. Once a government figures out that it can shut the people up and get away with it, it will do so.
The issue with NSA surveillance is the effect it has on the people’s ability to engage in free speech without fear of repercussion. The government doesn’t have to start carting away chunks of the population to shut people up. It merely has to suggest that it is listening in on everything we say “for the sake of security.” The implied power of the state to come into your home and take you away at any time will do the rest, whether it actually routinely does that or not.
john f
@Southern Beale: Yep, most of the ski resorts are located in rural counties where there is a single provider which reduces bargaining power for insurance companies. Somebody, posted an article yesterday on healthcare pricing in rural areas in one of Richard Mayhew’s posts.
Keith G
@Frankensteinbeck: Were you alive during the Nixon era? It’s not as hard to abuse executive branch powers as some seem to think.
Just remember the phrase: What would Dick Cheney do?
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Keith G: @Keith G:
Yeah, I remember when the Cheney administration did and end run around the law and got busted for spying on people without having warrants to do so. What I don’t remember is that end run causing anyone to shut up, here or anywhere else.
srv
@Keith G: I’m sure there was no active collusion between the privileged, state and media with Occupy.
Belafon
@C.V. Danes: Like the British and French? Considering how much those countries monitor things, the people seem to do a pretty good job of rioting, demonstrating, and voicing their concerns.
It looks to me like the democracies that failed either:
1. Had outside people influence things – see Iran
2. An active minority allowed someone they liked subvert the Democratic process – see Venezuela.
I think you’re confusing the US Constitution with democracy.
john f
@pamelabrown53: Agreed. Fred Clark at the Slacktivist has documented how credit ratings have totally knocked people down in trying to get hired somewhere. Not to mention, that the credit rating business is the only one that can get away with advertising that we screw up your credit score all the time and you can call us and pay us to fix it
Jebediah, RBG
@Bubblegum Tate:
That is interesting. It seems to me that worrying about giving money directly is a form of infantilizing condescension, assuming that poor people are not smart enough to, for example, buy food when they are hungry. Reversing that assumption might be a nice way to restore a little dignity.
Comrade Dread
@Frankensteinbeck: That’s what I meant by I’m not taking the hysterical hyperbole train.
Just as it didn’t particularly surprise me that our spooks were allegedly spying on our allies, as I assumed that of course we spied on our allies and they spy on us. We just don’t admit it to one another because that’s bad form.
Keith G
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): The tales of ill effects do exist. They can be found at On The Media and other such groups. Of course it is a problem to hear stories that have been successfully derailed.
FlipYrWhig
@Keith G:
Too true! Especially the ones who like to pass themselves as such!
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Keith G:
Yeah, sure, whatever. Corporations fund the campaigns of the politicians who do the snooping, same corporations own the media outlets. When the reporter at corporate media outlet has the blockbuster story, the corporation conveniently blames the government they paid for as the reason they can’t run the story. That isn’t the chilling effect of the government on the media, that’s the chilling effect of corporate ownership of the media.
Botsplainer
@john f:
B-b-b-but they can’t theoretically maybe put you in jail for some comment in the indefinite, unknown future!
/dudebro mode
Keith G
@FlipYrWhig: My, such blistering snark.
Bill Arnold
Via boing-boing M. Hayden live tweeted by a guy listening in on a conversation where Hayden (on a train) trash talks the administration.
Too funny.
Keith G
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): And let me say I’m not sure why you seem to be limiting your discussion to barriers put in the way of major news stories. The limits on dissent often take the form of harassing travelers or impeding the efforts of attorneys. Even taking what is widely recognized as unprecedented action to intimidate whistle blowers.
mclaren
Inasmuch as 20-somethings think nothing of having sex on webcam or phonecam, this “stop watching us” campaign may not grab them.
gorram
Rewatch it and count the number of times they say “indiscriminate”, “sweeping”, reference the people under surveillance not be suspected of anything, or clarify that they’re talking about US citizens specifically.
This isn’t a call to action – it’s a rebranding. They’re cleaning up the narrative of the dangers of the US surveillance state, and they’re cleaning out the concerns of people who aren’t citizens of the US, people whose skin color or name makes every act “suspicious”, and otherwise don’t fit into the narrative.
They’re not building a movement to overturn the entire surveillance system, but to modestly reform and contain it.
BruinKid
Wow, never realized the “Don’t Touch My Junk” guy was actually a military contractor all along trying to get people to support privatizing the TSA and bust their union.
philadelphialawyer
Gee, how dare folks who oppose unconstitutional, illegal, and nightmarish totalitarian spying have the temerity to be unhip in your eyes? Paraphrasing Casey Stengel, I guess they should never be old again!
Seriously, man, what is this? The Village Voice music review, “hipper than thou,” version of political commentary?
And, in case you didn’t know, “boomers” happen to comprise a pretty sizable chunk of the electorate.
But, I guess if Miley Cyrus and Jay Z are not involved, it must be a waste of time.
“Do better”? Yeah, you should. A lot.
philadelphialawyer
Its just you.
When folks give speeches in public, or make videos for public distribution, they want folks to listen to and watch them.
When the same folks are at home, or on the phone, or using their email, they don’t want folks (other than the folks in their house, who they called on the phone, or sent the email to) to listen or watch.
Nothing even remotely “ironic” about it. Nor contradictory, Nor even surprising or noteworthy.