PRISM - Where are all the protests?

[Abomination]

Because nobody has seen it being used to harm somebody in a practical manner yet. It's difficult to have a riot about government powers when there's been no example of the government using those powers to harm the average citizen.

Everything you do is already recorded someway somehow and can be accessed by somebody, only this time it's the government. Folks didn't care when ICQ or MSN or Hotmail or G-mail has access to everything you've ever typed via their services so the government having it really doesn't change... anything.

 

[bfgmetalhead]

And I have nothing against Sweden (I am of Swedish heritage, myself) but it's not really fair to compare it to America. Sweden is a fine country, but let's be fair here: it's small, less populous, and it has few enemies. America is a superpower, and the only one in the world by many accounts. We have many people looking to knock us down a peg or two, a very large military force which is large not only to defend us but also to provide hefty support to our less militarily capable allies (like Sweden), and a combination of a huge landmass and equally impressive population to keep track of. I'm not saying these are excuses for shifty dealings, but certain considerations have to made to keep us as secure as we've become accustomed to.

I'm pretty sure many of us don't want your "protection", or anything close to it. We had to protest when the piracy acts were being made, because one was almost forced on us, which is something that came from you. >_> We haven't been in a war since 1814, which is almost twohundred years by now.

I think time will take care of America anyway, so I don't see why anyone would bother. Much more impressive superpowers didn't stand the test of time (Rome for example). Hopefully it'll be sooner rather than later though.

That's easy to claim until the shit hits the fan. The US is the biggest supporter of the UN and the largest military contributor in NATO. Like it or not, many countries depend on our support. How much support our allies need is always up for debate, no doubt, but the fact they they want it generally is not. France had one major interdiction into Mali, and they still needed United States support in the form of troop transport and other equipment. Your views about America seem pretty narrow-minded. Just because we have power means we're like the Romans or other ancient empires? I think you need to take a step back from your blind cynicism and see the bigger picture. I would certainly think again about wishing for the collapse of the US; That's over 300 million people you're wishing doom upon for entirely petty reasons, buddy, not even including how the rest of the world would be affected. When countries collapse, it affects a LOT more than just the government.

I doubt that will happen. There's not many countries that are hostile to us. The world is moving forward, and becoming more globalized, with a better understanding and communication with other countries wars are less likely to happen. Few or no one goes to war to expand their borders anymore. Some countries aren't fear mongering. <_< Some even get rid of most of their military, to spend money on more important things, like Sweden has been doing since they stopped forcing military service on the young.

Also, haha, no. Only in the way that you'll one day end. Debt. >_>

I don't care. I have no love for humans.

I Agree with you wholeheartedly, American values are some of the worst that I can imagine. As a citizen of the UK I often see America as a more twisted version of my own country, this is mostly due to the political process and the apparent foolishness of a large chunk of it's populace. I am sure that many Americans are quite aware of the failures of their country and actively engage these problems like I do in mine, cause we all know the UK is far from perfect.

Nations in Europe are the last, best hope for humanity. We generally shun religion and are heavily invested in advanced scientific research, this is a sign of progress. Now, America is home to many talented and brilliant minds that shun selfish capitalistic American values in favor of dedicating their lives to the betterment of mankind, these are the people that America should celebrate instead of defending their so called 'freedom'. America is heading towards a Corpocracy, some would say it already is one, with a gerrymandered two party system that is at the beck and call of lobbyists and the highest bidder.

The 'freedom' that some Americans defend is as hollow as their constitution, I'll readily admit that the American constitution was once a good thing that protected the citizens from the British. However that was over 200 years ago, I often draw correlations between the vile Islamic emirates and America because of the Constitution. Both cultures fanatically defend the importance of their guidebook which is understandable, however both are as bad as each other. Both lead to a dark age, one under the fist of Islam that crushes all free thought and places mankind in the care of a selfish, cruel and domineering deity (same for Christianity). The other under corporate domination were everything in life will have a price and social disparity will see nearly all those not born into the higher classes suffer for nothing but a fat cat's bonus and swelling balance.

Back to my country, America is the largest cultural imperialist on earth; American values and tradition flood the airwaves and media outlets across the globe. I can only watch as my nation becomes more and more like America, corporations gaining more and more power, growing reliance on military worship to justify violence, an increasing amounts of 'greed is good' mentality (thanks Thatch) and the worship of stupidity and pointless things like footballers.
Now there is hope for the world, that lies with our intellectuals, academics and scientists. The citizenry of America need to rise to defend what is important and stop worshiping the dollar, the gun and the bliss of ignorance; only then can America become a place to look up to again and call itself 'the land of the free'.

P.S I would like to point out that America does produce some damn good games .
pp.s If this offends you please don't post a nasty response, Thank you xxx.

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

It is mostly because so much of the American population is apathetic to things that don't immediately impact their lives. Even worse, is a lot of them actually defend this kind of thing. More and more scare tactics and terror mongering are used to get the American public to practically beg for having more rights taken away so that they can have more 'security'.
It is pretty outrageous and sorta blows my mind but I am in the minority I suppose. Most people I know are fine with losing rights so that they can feel safe from all the big scary terrorists that lurk in every corner.

 

[Therumancer]

If you want to have your arguments taken seriously, you're gonna have to have some sources to back it up; otherwise it's just a bunch of broad claims anyone could make.

I consider this an evasion. I'm addressing this less because of what you said than to make a general point to a lot of similar things said here over the years, including the *ahem* citation needed title attached to my profile as a title.

When someone asks a question and I provide an answer I generally point out where the information is from. I do not generally do people's own research for them. For example, in regards to what I just posted, I clearly referenced the security situation after 9/11 and the re-building of the US intelligence infrastructure and debates surrounding it. That is a reference. If you want to check this out, and are interested, it's thus a simple matter for you to go back to news articles and such dealing with government information gathering from that time period. There is not one source in something like this but rather something you can see a bit at a time from numerous articles dealing with people's concerns both before, during, and after the establishment of Homeland Security and The Patriot Act. In a case like this to raise a legitimate criticism you'd have to present something you believe proves me wrong, especially since it borders on common knowledge for someone who was paying attention at the time, rather than me needing to go beyond what I did since I did reference a source.

By extension I will also mention that one of the reasons why I rarely provide links is because I find it increasingly pointless, as if someone is intent on disagreeing with me on The Internet, all the evidence in the world isn't going to matter, especially when dealing with large scale issues that involve trends of behavior. An example of this would be a recent debate I was involved in dealing with the Muslim Meta-Culture, I posted a number of links to reinforce a point, which I specified were intended as a sampling to get people started for those that were interested. This of course lead to questions like "well, two of those are very similar and deal with the same area", and "well, what about Indonesia, nothing about there" (to which I also provided another link simply to make the point of the trend of behavior). The end result being that at the end of the day if people don't want to accept the point, and aren't going to be bothered to do any research when you tell them something they don't want to hear to begin with, nothing you actually do is going to matter, so why bother. Honestly... I could put up dozens of old articles about "The Patriot Act", government wiretapping, and the pros and cons of restructuring the US intelligence community, which after hours or days of long drawn out reading would wind up supporting what I said. But for starters I doubt you or anyone else involved in this discussion would seriously read it, and secondly if your pre-disposed to disagree with the answer I gave (in response to the OP's question) to begin with, your still likely to find reasons to argue with it.

The point mostly being, when I give a reference, even off handedly, I get tired of people telling me there isn't one.

That said, I stand by what I said. I don't expect this response to matter much or garner much positive response, but after some E-mail I received I became inspired to try yet again.

 

[Therumancer]

It is mostly because so much of the American population is apathetic to things that don't immediately impact their lives. Even worse, is a lot of them actually defend this kind of thing. More and more scare tactics and terror mongering are used to get the American public to practically beg for having more rights taken away so that they can have more 'security'.
It is pretty outrageous and sorta blows my mind but I am in the minority I suppose. Most people I know are fine with losing rights so that they can feel safe from all the big scary terrorists that lurk in every corner.

Well, yes and no. As I've said before, if you follow this back to the beginnings of the most current issues the American people were hardly apathetic. Nobody came running up and said "give us your freedoms so we can make you safe" to be followed through by people sheepishly turning them over. If you go back to things like "The Patriot Act", the establishment of "Homeland Security", and everything else, you'll notice it was being viewed with suspicion and under fire since the very beginning. People have been hating on Gitmo and the way people were being thrown in there from the very beginning. Heck, they turned the entire Marvel Universe "Civil War" story arc away from the original idea to make it a huge analogy for the war on terror and these kinds of rights issues.

That said, I think one of the biggest problems with security is that it's too compartmentalized. When something really happens almost nobody outside of the incident knows about it for reasons of privacy, fear of causing a panic, etc. In a lot of cases the guys gathering the information can't tell people what they know even if they want to, which usually leads to the media building up a version of events based on what little is known, while the police and other authorities are more or less forced not to comment or correct anyone. Even when I worked for the casinos when something serious happened nobody would even hear about it, usually not even the rest of security, it would be kept to as few people as possible as a matter of policy... and the police and intelligence services are arguably even worse.

To be honest I think dialogue on subjects like this is difficult because so few people, including those in positions where they should know, really have any idea as to the big picture. Most arguments about this kind of thing seem to come down to either paranoia, or people argueing against security in a general sense usually from the position that they feel it's a power grab. I honestly have less of a problem with the security itself than the lack of transparency into it, I understand why an undercover operative cannot be exposed, or the specifics of a hidden camera or observation device revealed (as once you know about these things they cannot be used again), but I do think a lot more information can be presented than we see now, and I think we need better communication and cooperation between private and public security sources. Most private security has only the interest of their employers at stake (which comes down to money and reputation usually) as I've mentioned before. There is little incentive for private businesses to be more involved or share information, not to mention a degree of disrespect between private security and real police which can be ironic given the staggering amount of information gathered by some private sources in just watching their own back yard. As things stand now private sources are actually motivated not to volunteer information, and the police can't ask for what they might not even suspect.

 

[Tanakh]

The problem is largely that the left wing (which I blame a lot) got all uppity about the idea of profiling which is what the government wanted to do in the name of security to begin with.

Ignoring the rest of your post (which i think has shaky basis as a whole, but some good points), I just wanted to point out that both Democrats and Republicans are quite against profiling; Republicans proved so with the recent IRS scandal, following simple profiling rules it would have made sense for the IRS to target more anti tax groups. Thus I would suggest stop blaming the "left wing", because all your organizations seem equally sensitive to profiling when it targets them.

 

[Therumancer]

The problem is largely that the left wing (which I blame a lot) got all uppity about the idea of profiling which is what the government wanted to do in the name of security to begin with.

Ignoring the rest of your post (which i think has shaky basis as a whole, but some good points), I just wanted to point out that both Democrats and Republicans are quite against profiling; Republicans proved so with the recent IRS scandal, following simple profiling rules it would have made sense for the IRS to target more anti tax groups. Thus I would suggest stop blaming the "left wing", because all your organizations seem equally sensitive to profiling when it targets them.

Not really because of the way the definition has to be stretched for this to be an issue to begin with in the right wing's case. Mostly the right wing seems to use it as a defense figuring "turn about is fair play" when it comes to this kind of thing, by making a semantics based argument within the existing legal system when it comes up in cases like this. For the record I myself have been very critical of the right wind for not sticking to it's own principles for short term political victories because of arguments like this.

Overall though the left wing is against profiling, the right wing is for it. There is also a clear difference between when the right to do this should apply. Context matters, and there is a world of difference between profiling for reasons of security, and reasons of political expediency. It's like the difference between murdering someone and killing in self defense, the law allows one, but not the other.

That said there isn't much shaky about my argument, to be honest it seems a lot more like your trying to argue semantics in raising this point than anything, while I've been pretty straightforward.

 

[Xdeser2]

I agree

The death certificate of the Republic has been signed, and few people even batted an eye

As George Carlin Said: "...They?ve long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls. They got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear."

Okay, maybe im not THAT cynical, but the fact the NSA is making Orwell look like an optimist and no one seems to give a shit astonishes me to no end.

 

[Tanakh]

-snip-

No, they are not. Left wingers seem to be against all kind of profiling, right wings are against profiling for anti tax groups, discrimination against christians or straight white males, profiling for gun owners or sellers (or even registering them); they are however almost universally in favour to profile non white young persons both to enforce immigration laws, enforce (outdated) drug laws or prevent terrorism.

I am happy that you have an universally acceptable clear difference when is right to profile. We both seem to agree that profiling the groups more likely to break the rule you are aiming to enforce is more efficient, care to share the clear difference?

And we are discussing a social science issue, of course there's a lot of shakiness on everything about it.

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

It is mostly because so much of the American population is apathetic to things that don't immediately impact their lives. Even worse, is a lot of them actually defend this kind of thing. More and more scare tactics and terror mongering are used to get the American public to practically beg for having more rights taken away so that they can have more 'security'.
It is pretty outrageous and sorta blows my mind but I am in the minority I suppose. Most people I know are fine with losing rights so that they can feel safe from all the big scary terrorists that lurk in every corner.

SNIP.

I agree with that. There are a lot of gray areas in there, definitely. I work for a police department and even on that level, there are a lot of upsides and downsides to both views. I guess when it comes to terrorism type stuff, I feel like once we just treat everyone like potential suspects; we all lose. That's mostly why I get irked at rights being violated.

 

[Amir Kondori]

I am honestly completely taken aback by this. America is basically the only nation in the world that considers freedom a huge part of its national identity, so much so that they've named themselves "the land of the free".

And then PRISM happened. A secret police secretly spying on probably hundreds of millions of people from the US, its allies and the rest of the world under a president who made freedom, privacy and transparency a huge point of his campaign and on top of that, the FREAKING DIRECTOR of the NSA lies right in the face of congress UNDER OATH and walks away without any punishment whatsoever.

The American reaction to this? A freaking petition to the white house. No protests, no significant calls for Obama to step down and call for early elections, nothing. Not even any major rallies in defense of the guy who gave up a life of wealth and safety to warn the American people, risking his life and going up against the biggest superpower in the world in the process. There were literally bigger rallies in Hong Kong. Yes. China did more to support a guy who did nothing for them than the Americans, for whom he sacrificed almost everything.

I mean, Sweden, "The land of the midnight sun", not "The land of the free" had massive protests outside the Riskdag (our version of congress, basically) when the government considered doing an incredibly light version of this, and in that case they actually told us beforehand. So, what's going on here?

We have a lot of idiots here who think "well if you got nothing to hide what does it matter?"

Of course just ask to see their bank records and all of a sudden everything gets awkward...

 

[Therumancer]

-snip-

No, they are not. Left wingers seem to be against all kind of profiling, right wings are against profiling for anti tax groups, discrimination against christians or straight white males, profiling for gun owners or sellers (or even registering them); they are however almost universally in favour to profile non white young persons both to enforce immigration laws, enforce (outdated) drug laws or prevent terrorism.

I am happy that you have an universally acceptable clear difference when is right to profile. We both seem to agree that profiling the groups more likely to break the rule you are aiming to enforce is more efficient, care to share the clear difference?

And we are discussing a social science issue, of course there's a lot of shakiness on everything about it.

A profile involves more than one variable. Simply being black, or whatever does not in of itself make a profile it involves other things as well, a list of variables to which a person conforms to the vast majority. There are negative stereotypes of whites, Christians, etc... which nobody objects much to either. Militia members, neo-nazis, and others are all profiles where being white is usually involved.

When it comes to issues like gun control, that's a different issue as the right to be armed is guaranteed by the constitution. The right exists specifically so people will not be powerless against the government. In short in the case of a popular uprising even if the government could get the military involved it would wind up having to destroy the country (and wind up with nothing) to put down an armed populance. In a general sense a bunch of citizens with assault rifles and pistols are not going to take down a military with jets and tanks and such, but at the same time if the military ever did use those weapons (as opposed to fighting gun to gun) they would level the country. Something like New York City loses all value if the government is forced to level it to deal with rebels. Likewise it acts as a balance against unjust laws, because at the end of the day some cop still has to go out there and enforce the law. When the people are armed this causes the law enforcer on the street to evaluate whether it's worth potentially getting their head blown off to make some politician happy. As a result a lot of oppressive "vanity laws" wind up going no where (and occasionally get mentioned on lists of "stupid laws that actually exist"). You don't generally have to worry about squads of police arresting people for any stupid thing, or involved in things akin to the Hollywood version of facist crackdowns, because beyond a point an armed populance is going to start shooting back and everyone knows it.... a lot can be said on the subject but there is a lot to it. The basic issue here is that the right to be armed is a cornerstone of American society and something that does a lot of good just by existing.

In general when it comes to a profile it comes down to what the profile is about, and what kind of behavior it's related to. What's more the idea of profiling is simply used for probable cause when something happens or security becomes an issue, not as the cause for an arrest. In general profiling is going to lead to things like certain people like Muslims being searched by Airline security, but not nessicarily being arrest or detained unless something is found. Typically complaints about profiling occur after people have been caught committing crimes, someone fits the profile of a criminal, the police investigate them, find drugs/illegal guns/etc... and then the profiling defense is used for a guilty person to get away by claiming it was an unreasonable search. Something I find stupid since profiles are by definition reasonable, being assembled from data gathered over a long period of time.

 

[Therumancer]

It is mostly because so much of the American population is apathetic to things that don't immediately impact their lives. Even worse, is a lot of them actually defend this kind of thing. More and more scare tactics and terror mongering are used to get the American public to practically beg for having more rights taken away so that they can have more 'security'.
It is pretty outrageous and sorta blows my mind but I am in the minority I suppose. Most people I know are fine with losing rights so that they can feel safe from all the big scary terrorists that lurk in every corner.

SNIP.

I agree with that. There are a lot of gray areas in there, definitely. I work for a police department and even on that level, there are a lot of upsides and downsides to both views. I guess when it comes to terrorism type stuff, I feel like once we just treat everyone like potential suspects; we all lose. That's mostly why I get irked at rights being violated.

Well, my basic attitude is that profiling is a way to deal with that as I explained. As we deal with things now we pretty much treat everyone at your typical airline like a potential terror suspect to make a show out of being fair, when we are concerned specifically about Muslims at least at the moment. Hence my defense of singling out the Muslims who fit the terrorist profiles, and other security risks, search them, and don't for example harass the actor who played Chewbacca over his lightsaber cane (it made the news) due to some obtuse policy.

At the end of the day I feel it comes down to profiling being a valid tool, and something that should not be seen to violate any rights. A profile being a reasonable cause to conduct a search or investigation. Sure, it's going to suck really bad for a few people, but overall is going to benefit a lot more people by getting rid of the current siege mentality where we're basically infringing on everyone to make a symbolic point.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Dont give a shit. Dont care. Im sure they are spying on you in another 100 ways still. Just not worth worrying about.

 

[Lord_Gremlin]

Everybody and their dog knew for DECADES that US was spying on every other country and it's own citizens using every way possible. That's why I for example don't use social networks and never will. Honestly, you really, actually was surprised that PRISM existed? Well, general public did not know how US government called it, but everybody knew they were doing it.
Also lol freedom in USA? Are you mad? Don't delude yourself. It's one of the worst countries when it comes to freedom, although for example North Korea is hundred times worse.

 

[Lightknight]

We already knew they were doing it and the majority of people in surveys on the subject don't care. As Conan said, men thinks it makes us safe and women are just happy a man is finally listening to them.

 

[Agayek]

Also lol freedom in USA? Are you mad? Don't delude yourself. It's one of the worst countries when it comes to freedom.

Hey now, that is quite clearly not true. American citizens are free to do nearly anything they please.

Provided it is something the masses approve of and/or does not threaten their lifestyle, religion, or currently-held opinions.

To paraphrase Henry Ford: 'You can do whatever you want, so long as it's what you are told to'.

 

[Gearhead mk2]

People just don't care anymore. They've gotten so used to being treated as guilty until proven innocent that the're apathetic to it now. And a lot of people put every detail of themselves online anyway, so they've gotten used to everyone knowing everything about them. That horrifies me. I honestly think that if it continues down this path, someday America's gonna go full-on North Korea.

 

[Saxnot]

Well, to be fair to those teenagers, politicians ARE retarded, and it's really difficult to choose a political party in America when the two primary parties are the democrats, a bunch of spineless cowards who lie to you and spy on you, and the republicans, a bunch of bible thumping inbred jackasses who lie to you and spy on you.

I mean, you could go third party, but considering a third party candidate has about as much chance of getting elected president as me finishing those genetically engineered flying pigs I've been breeding, I'd say their apathy is not unwarranted.

See, you're giving people my age too much credit; the people I'm talking about think politicians are retarded because they themselves don't understand anything about politics.

I mean, people in my class legitimately still believe that we should (depending on the left/right affiliation):

A. Drop a shitload of nukes on the Middle East (nowhere specific, just the whole Middle East)
-or-
B. Just stop having any structure or diplomacy and run free through the meadows.

That's cause your classmates are 15 years old. they'll learn. or not, in which case they will become tea party members.

 

[lemby117]

ACORN: a government funded assistance program was caught on-tape offering advice to a guy playing as a pimp wanting to set up a house for under-aged prostitutes. He made it clear that's what he intended to do, and they were giving him advice on what to put on his tax forms and such. Little to no media coverage.

This was a hoax set up by an opponent of the program. It resulted in the program being shut down.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACORN_2009_undercover_videos_controversy

OT: I want to do something about it but I don't know what I can do aside from petitioning the government but we cant even get a man cleared for release from Guantanamo home, they are hardly going to imprison themselves and let Snowden off the hook.