On Sun, Jan 11, 2015 at 11:00 PM, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 1/11/2015 12:27 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: > > > > On Sun, Jan 11, 2015 at 7:14 AM, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote: > >> On 1/10/2015 12:54 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote: >> >> >> >> On Sat, Jan 10, 2015 at 7:19 PM, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> On 1/10/2015 2:00 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: >>> >>> >>> >>> On Sat, Jan 10, 2015 at 12:24 AM, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote: >>> >>>> On 1/9/2015 3:11 PM, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List wrote: >>>> >>>> >>>> ------------------------------ >>>> *From:* meekerdb <[email protected]> <[email protected]> >>>> *To:* [email protected] >>>> *Sent:* Friday, January 9, 2015 2:45 PM >>>> *Subject:* Re: Democracy >>>> >>>> On 1/9/2015 1:08 PM, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List wrote: >>>> >>>> >>>> ------------------------------ >>>> *From:* meekerdb <[email protected]> <[email protected]> >>>> *To:* [email protected] >>>> *Sent:* Friday, January 9, 2015 12:25 PM >>>> *Subject:* Re: Democracy >>>> >>>> On 1/9/2015 4:55 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: >>>> >>>> Money becomes coercive under statism, because it becomes illegal to use >>>> alternative currencies, operate outside of the banking and taxation system >>>> and so on. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>Banks used to issue their own script and in principle anyone could do >>>> it. The trouble with anarcho-capitalism is that there's nothing to prevent >>>> a group from organizing, forming a "government", raising an army a >>>> conquering people around them. In fact that's exactly the arc of history. >>>> If you want anarchy you can go to Syria or Somalia right now. >>>> >>>> What you describe is not the political philosophy of anarchy; what >>>> you describe is life under warlords, and the susceptibility of anarchy to >>>> such organized groups of thugs. >>>> >>>> Functioning anarchy would require a level of individual ethics that >>>> does not yet exist (or at least is not widespread). Anarchy is vulnerable >>>> to being destroyed by thuggery and mayhem; no doubt about that; however it >>>> should not be confused with that heartless outcome. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>Every form of government will work well with perfect people. >>>> >>>> That is side-stepping the point that some forms of social >>>> organization require a much higher degree of civic involvement than others >>>> do. >>>> >>>> >>>> Exactly, and anarchy that functions as well as constitutionally >>>> limited democracy would require angels. >>>> >>> >>> This overestimates the importance of things written in a piece of >>> paper and underestimates the importance of social norms, culture and >>> education. >>> >>> The reason why I don't go and loot my neighbours is not because a >>> piece of paper says I can't, or even because I am afraid of the police. >>> Remove this too things and I still wouldn't do it. I suspect everyone >>> participating in this discussion is the same. Why? >>> >>> On the other hand, the Weimar constitution was powerless to stop the >>> nazis, and the American constitution appears powerless to stop the NSA. >>> >>> >>> And I think you underestimate it. It is something any citizen can >>> point to as a norm. Notice that everyone who complains about the NSA's >>> invasion of privacy cites the Constitution as evidence their complaint is >>> justified. >>> >> >> That is true, but it's far from the only argument. Now my question is: >> do you figure that people think that invasion of privacy without a warrant >> is wrong think that because of what the constitution says, or do you figure >> invasion of privacy offends their sense of morality and then they look for >> arguments to justify their position and find the constitution? >> >> >> That's a good question, and the answer supports my point. When you >> poll people and ask if they think it's right to wiretap people suspected of >> plotting crimes the majority say yes. So in a way the Constitution informs >> and bolsters people's understanding of the importance of freedom from >> government surveillance. If they were just morally offended by >> surveillance then they would be equally exercised about AT&T, Google, >> Time-Warner, Verizon, and a dozen other corporate organizations that spy on >> them. But because they know the Constitution forbids the government from >> doing it they are much MORE offended when the government does it. >> >> >> >>> Without it they would have to give a long argument based the prior >>> abuses that the founding fathers used to to support the right to privacy. >>> >> >> This would be a good argument had the Constitution actually succeeded >> in preventing total surveillance from the government on its own people. But >> it didn't. >> >> >> But it did. The NSA is only allowed to track who-calls-who, not what is >> said. >> > > Unfortunately, after Snowden we know better. > > > No, we don't. First, while I approve of Snowden I don't think he *knows* > everything attributed to him. > I'm referring to information contained in the internal presentation that he leaked. Are you unsure about the authenticity of these presentations? > > > One of the important tricks here is how they interpret the word "track". > A secret court(!!!) decided that storing data is not tracking if no human > is looking at it. So they can record your phone calls and the content of > your internet communications and then, if they get a court order, they can > go look at it. > > > And that is wrong how? > You know the cliched quote attributed to Richelieu: "Give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, and I'll find something in them to hang him by." A very important freedom we have enjoyed so far is to not have everything we say to each other potentially scrutinised by the authorities. Specifically, this is a serious threat to democracy, because outsider political candidates may be targeted for "inspection" for background check reasons and always prevented access to power by the ones who hold the trove of surveillance data. But even without it, this leve of intrusion and the loss of the possibility of forgetting is a dystopia. It is also quite protestant-neurotic I should say. Never relax. > > But they don't really need to bother about these warrants. The neat > "five eyes" system allows the participants to spy on behalf of each other, > circumventing these privacy protections. > > The NSA sent divers to place physical optical splitters on submarine > cables. It stores all the data in gigantic datacenters and has algorithms > comb through it. > > > A slightly paranoid idea. It's much easier for them to get data other > ways. > Again, this is from information written in the leaked slides. http://i.guim.co.uk/static/w-620/h--/q-95/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2013/6/8/1370710424658/new-prism-slide-001.jpg > > > It infiltrated American companies, like Google, to install spying > software on its servers. It also infiltrated technical committees > responsible for cryptography standards to introduce backdoors in the > implementation of cryptographic algorithms. These actions make us all less > safe. Even open source cryptography projects like TrueCrypt decided to give > up, because they were infiltrated by the NSA and realised they could do > nothing against it. > > > What makes you think it makes us less safe. > Because the security holes introduced by the government can be exploited by anyone. > I'd say part of the problem is it makes us more safe > Any terrorist organisation that is a real threat to our safety will not, by definition, trust american companies with their communications. They will not discuss their plans on gmail or carry iphones in their pockets. If they do, they are surely too naive to be a serious threat. Before Snowden, Bin Laden already used air-gapped computers and communicated by human messenger carrying USB pen. He didn't survive that long by being an idiot. NSA's wide surveillance's goal is surely not to spy on these people -- the NSA people are no idiots either. > and people think being safe is more important than privacy - and they are > right at least in the short run. The problem is the long run. > > > These are not the actions of an organisation that respects privacy. > > > Any intelligence agency worth it's salt is going to push to the limit of > the law. Would you expect, or want anything less? > Yes. I would want them to follow the spirit of the law to their best ability, because the law expresses the will of the people they serve. > Would you be happy to hear, "Yeah, we could have found he was conspiring > to blow up that building, but we thought we should respect his privacy when > talking to Al Queda in Syria" > That would be a weird way to phrase it. I am an adult and can accept that freedom has a cost. Sometimes this cost is that tragedies happen. Tragedies that could have been prevented if we forfeited our freedoms. But that's no way to live. > Here's a good analysis of the technical aspects of the situation: > > http://bit-player.org/2006/room-641a > This is quite outdated. There has been a lot of progress both on the hardware and algorithms front. For example, map/reduce and big table style architectures introduced by Google allow for the use of cheap consumer-grade computers to create datacenters of unthinkable size. >From Snowden's slides, we learned that NSA stores 3 days of global communications and then flags stuff to be kept for months or indefinitely. These flags are determined algorithmically. For all intents and purposes you can assume they are keeping all of your stuff and this is already leading to widespread self-censorship. Telmo. > > > Brent > > > > >> The courts recently ruled that putting a GPS tracking device on a car >> without a warrant was unconstitutional. >> > > This tells us very little in a world where every single word in that > sentence can be subject to "interpretation" by a secret court. > > >> Would you rather live in a nation with no Constitutional prohibition of >> unreasonable search and seizure or with one? >> > > I would rather live in a nation with a Constitution that worked. If it > doesn't work, it might make things worse, by masking the problem. > > Telmo. > > >> >> >> Brent >> >> >> I have to admit something though. I used to work in a lab not far from >> Charlie Hebdo. Seeing the terrorist act in a very familiar setting is >> incredibly disturbing. It made me understand the excesses after 9/11 a bit >> better. A part of me feels that primordial "how dare they bring their >> medieval rules and behaviours to my backyard". It's human, no doubt. >> >> Telmo. >> >> >>> >>> Brent >>> -- >>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >>> Groups "Everything List" group. >>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send >>> an email to [email protected]. >>> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >>> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. >>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >>> >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "Everything List" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to [email protected]. >> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >> >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "Everything List" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to [email protected]. >> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >> > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. 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