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Post by Lorn on Nov 19, 2015 9:07:18 GMT -6
If there is due process and a transparent judicial system, I don't see what the big deal is. Yes, the government may see that you like to watch gay furry hentai porn, or that you sext with your girlfriend's sister on the side... like the government cares? If people are actually caught by this method, what harm is there? Hackers can obtain this information just as easily through illegal methods; it's not like your privacy is safe as long as the government does get involved. I believe it's wrong for the government to hold that much power and authority over it's people, it always leads down a dark path. I do not trust them at all with that much information.I don't trust anyone with that information, but if private corporations already have access to said information, and they may sell/give said information to others, why is it worse if the government also has access? Well, the reality is that other governments and organizations are trying to obtain it through cyber espionage. China, Russia, North Korea... every day, cyber attacks are being made to data centers and telecommunications networks to obtain any information they can. China, Russia or whoever doesn't give a rats ass what a random person writes in his emails, their internet history or what stuff they download. What those attacks aim for is sensitive informations and trying to find backdoors into places that contain such sensitive informations. Like it was said already, knowing what your bogstandard person is communicating is of no interest for security purposes. The only thing that would profit from knowing the average citizen's everyday stuff is commercial interests; advertising and some such. It is in the securities best interest to NOT be flooding with trivial informations so they can actually work on the stuff they get from other, more trustworthy sources, like police reports or through diplomatic channels. The fact that France seemingly ignored Turkey warning them about the possibility of terror attacks including warning of very specific suspects just shows they can't handle the amount of informations they already have, yet they say they need more? Who's going to work through all that stuff, most intelligence agencies are undermanned as it is anyway. If they need anything, it's more competent personel and the funding to pay those, not more useless informations no one's going to review because they don't have time for it. Aside all those practical issues, there is a significant underlying perception that needs to be questioned: is a nation to defend his citizens, or defend itself from its citizens? A carte-blanche to spy on every citizen without reasonable suspicions that would warrant a ... warrant is not in the interest of the citizen, neither the one being targeted, nor those that fund it via taxes. A nation isn't its own entity seperated from its population. A nation is its population. If the population is regarded as a threat, or in laymen's terms -the enemy- then there's something fundamentally wrong in how a government sees itself. And to make sure, this isn't just something I'd toss in the face of the US government, this is a basic ideal on what a nation is that a lot of governments should take a good long look at and question with what motivation they are driving some of their policies. because the path which some of them appear to go leads to a very dangerous future for everyone that isn't part of governing body ... a government that secludes itself from its nation is how you go back to an oligarchic social class system.Some people may say that that's exactly what the US government is...  The idea that a government can spy with impunity is a very dangerous and subversive idea. I've always been a strong advocate of classical liberalism, the ideas advocated by the likes of Edmund Burke and Adam Smith etc. It took centuries to create a legal system which enshrined the rights of individuals and advocated a rule of law should govern the country, not an ideology. For instance Habeus Corpus, the defining concept of British law and therefore all legal systems which are based upon it. We ended up fighting a civil war in the 1600's over the legality of the kings actions. You should have a body, essentially. That the state cannot imprison or detain an ifividusl without evidence. A system which allows governments to break into and steal evidence then submit it as probable cause is in direct breach of the fundamental classical liberalism which underpins the entire western civilisation. It is difficult, given the obvious threat posed by the migrant crisis both economic and socially. Yet it simply underpins the notion that neo liberalism/ progressives have abandoned all concept of the rule of law in place of moral and cultural relativism, eroding the idea of national sovereignty with excessive migration and transnational super states replacing it with an authoritarian system, whereby group think is the order of the day. While dissent is labelled racism, hate speech, in enlightened bigotry. Look at the likes of the hard line EU advocates and liberals in the UK and EU, disagreement is tantamount to heresy. You're acting as if this is somehow a "new" issue of instead of it being a basic trait of "modern" populations as a whole. I'd be quite interested in learning about any sort of social disagreement that didn't follow that exact model. The other side is almost always portrayed as an unthinking mass (group think), they accuse the other group of being *X insulting term*, and always treat any disagreement as a heresy. Granted, it's a rather simplistic model, but the only difference between then and now is the internet. With the internet, anyone can find a place where they can voice their opinions and easily group with others that share their same belief system throughout the world, where before people were limited to people within their local communities, and if they were lucky they were able to form/join a group of people in their state/country. If the women's suffrage movement in the US in the early 20th century had access to the same technology as now, would they have interacted differently than us? |
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