PRISM - Where are all the protests?

[Eclectic Dreck]

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.

Congress would have to actually want to throw the guys to the wolves since they would be the group responsible for any punitive action in this case.

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.

There would not be an early election. Joe Biden would become the new president and John Boehner would be the new VP.

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 are a number of reasons. Not everyone, for example, thinks that what the NSA did was wrong. In spite of violating various parts of the intelligence oversight procedures (not the least of which is that the only Intelligence Agency allowed to collect on American Citizens is the FBI) and the variable perspective that blowing the whistle was morally correct the reality is he was in flagrant violation of federal law. As a result, you have a fairly divisive issue as this is an excellent example where doing something morally justified required a breach of law, an issue that is oft debated.

 

[Dangit2019]

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

I don't know why that made me laugh as much as it did.

 

[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.

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.

Racial profiling is iffy too though. I know quite a few people who look like muslims but well, aren't. They get crap constantly because of it. Just like the majority of muslims are law abiding but treated like terrorists all the same. While it might lower the hassle for many, I don't know if I can condone it.

 

[Tanakh]

-snip-

I see, well, there is little point in us talking, at least for me. But I greatly appreciate your answer, it speaks volumes about you being a very well mannered person and probably a good human being, even if I think you are batshit crazy and I don't think I can rectify that.

Thanks

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

What's going on here is that people are becoming more and more indifferent to things happening around them because they live with a mentality that they live in their own little bubble.

I mean, how else don't do you explain the huge amount of teenagers who have their "Political Affiliation" status on Facebook as "lol politicians are retarted". It's fascinating really.

I think the trouble is we are comparing ourselves to our parents generation who came of age in the 60's and 70's. Then, politically and demographically all the conditions were in place for social activism. You had two world wars which drastically altered society- It changed how we view other races, our stance on colonialism and women for instance. And then right after the world wars you had the baby boomer's which meant that for a limited amount of time there were a lot of young people being raised in a post-war world which was very different to the pre-war world.

What i'm saying is that the mid-20th century was a time of historically unusual high levels of social activism, and the activism you see today is therefore inevitably going to pale in comparison.

This. So much this. The baby boomers came of age in a time of unprecedented prosperity. They were actually able to do stupid things like buy an old VW bus and drive across the country for a protest. My generation is coming of age in what we really should be calling the second world depression, but we're not because economists don't know their own asses from the holes in the ground they tell people to throw their money at. I would love to camp out in Washington DC (not on Wallstreet, like the Occupy movement) and tell them exactly what I want them to be doing (as opposed to vaguely complaining about the way things are, again like the Occupy movement.) But I'm too busy trying to figure out how to, first of all, get a job period, and second of all, how to get one that pays well enough to move out of my parents house. I am so pissed off about what my government is doing it's not even funny, but about the only thing I can do about it is ***** online and vote, neither of which makes as much difference as a good protest would.

Edit: And by the way, I have a friggin' Bachelor's degree. It's actually making it harder for me to find work, because there's no jobs in my field (which is education -- who knew there would be so little demand for History teachers? Especially when I started the degree at a time when there was a shortage of teachers across the board, and they were pretty much hiring anyone with a bachelor's degree regardless of what it was in), and I'm "overqualified" for entry level positions in things like retail.

 

[Reeve]

I don't agree with that ^ after all we have the Internet. We can transmit information at light speed. It's the most awesome tool for communication ever invented. Decades ago people could only get organised and stand up by either word of mouth or via talking to one person on a telephone. Whereas now one person can reach out to thousands of people from all over the world at once.

 

[Greyhamster]

Why should Americans care? They're only spying on those dirty foreigners. That's totally okay according to the NSA.

But yeah, it's weird and I don't get it. For that matter, why isn't the EU telling the NSA to get their dirty paws of my internet? D:

 

[elthingo]

Anyway, what I was trying to say is, it's a much bigger part of US society than Egyptian society, or, well, the word anyway. Hence why I expected someone to go "Hey, the NSA did what? That's not freedom! Let's do all we can to stop this!" or something, even if their concept of freedom is a bit, well, strange and not too well defined, often being used as a meaningless buzzword.

But why would you expect that? Gringos are one of the most passive and stable societies, in the last 50 years they passed from being one of the best places to live to have social indexes quite similar to Mexico, especially in wealth distribution and social mobility (the second being probably the closest you can get to have a "freedom index").

They have a very distorted impression of themselves, in general, which i attribute in no small part to the manifest destiny ideology. But in general i see them as conservative and passive, again, based on their indexes, current pop culture, their legislation and their politicians.

I guess what i am saying is, you seem like a smart folk, why would you base your expectations of USA on their self propaganda rather than their actions and numbers?

Also, as i pointed out on another similar thread, we have had documented proof that the US gov has been spying using the net both americans and non americans in 2001, then in 2006, then in 2008... if they didn't cared then, why now?

As for revolutions and freedom, you are right the liberals and freedom fighters are just a few in Egypt, but do you know how many russians did their revolution? Around 0.1% of the population, that is about 1 in 1000 dudes. Revolutions are weird, numbers vary, but they almost never represent their countries brah.

I expected them to do something about it because it's a pretty huge thing. Like, so huge that even their propaganda should have got them to do something, since it's nowhere near a major terrorist attack (Boston marathon doesn't count, I mean like 9/11) and it's so clearly against every single value their culture has.

All in all, I'm pretty disgusted by all this. I don't know if I'll be feeling bad for them when they inevitably end up being a complete police state with a shitty little layer of "FREEDOM, LIBERTY, MURRRRRIKA" badly covering up the hideous reality. I mean, sure, there's some people who really want to protest but can't, but the vast majority of those who can protest at least locally are too busy watching American Idol and too self obsessed to do shit.

 

[Tanakh]

I expected them to do something about it because it's a pretty huge thing. Like, so huge that even their propaganda should have got them to do something, since it's nowhere near a major terrorist attack (Boston marathon doesn't count, I mean like 9/11) and it's so clearly against every single value their culture has.

All in all, I'm pretty disgusted by all this. I don't know if I'll be feeling bad for them when they inevitably end up being a complete police state with a shitty little layer of "FREEDOM, LIBERTY, MURRRRRIKA" badly covering up the hideous reality. I mean, sure, there's some people who really want to protest but can't, but the vast majority of those who can protest at least locally are too busy watching American Idol and too self obsessed to do shit.

I disagree with you there. For me it's a much bigger issue how they have let less than 1% of their population fight their wars ( http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/25/us/civilian-military-gap-grows-as-fewer-americans-serve.html?_r=0 ) for more than a decade and giving them a terrible welcome back, the civilians aren't even buying war bonds or paying war taxes.

Or how they cite the second amendment as a gift from god that warrants them the right not only to bear arms, but to have zero government control over them. Did you knew that, according to the most conservative government estimates, 60,000 mexicans have been murdered using US guns in mexican soil? The US could have saved literally tens of thousands of lives by having universal background checks and better control over their gun industry. ( http://www.wola.org/commentary/four_facts_about_gun_legislation_and_cartel_violence_in_mexico https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Drug_War )

I am a mexican, and as you can guess I have no love at all for a state whose weapons have been used to kill 60,000 of the people of the country I live in, because God gave americans the right to go to a store and buy a weapon, no questions asked. Sadly this is not an isolated issue, US has been the world biggest Rogue State in recorded history and has been sistematically fucking both it's population and the rest of the world since it's fundation ( http://www.amazon.com/Rogue-States-Force-World-Affairs/dp/0896086119 ); gringos can be very decent people, but their history, their goverment and their values are totally messed up.

As for police state, do you realize they just voted down this week the law that ensured black and brown people would have the same civil rights as whites in dixie land? No surprisingly 2 hours later Texas passed laws to make harder for non whites to vote. Right now americans aren't only passively letting their freedom go, but actively destroying it.

All in all I am a cynic that don't even flinch at this, but if I was to be disgusted there are plenty issues more worthy IMO, especially because even if the government had all the digital data of all the world there's the question of the worth of analyzing it, my guess is that the average person data is not worth even looking at.

 

[Zacharious-khan]

I think its because the people who really understand the implications of what the NSA is trying to do aren't afraid of what they are doing. People pushing for privacy/anonymity on the internet is no new thing. besides what black hat out there can resist getting on to that database.

Big issue, Chinese hackers get into this we are fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

 

[thedrunkenmonkey]

Zach, Chinese hackers are already into damn near anything.

Thing is, intelligence is no longer boots on the ground. It's database mining and pattern recognition and analysis. PRISM is a natural progression of that shift from the interpersonal to the electronic threat. In the event PRISM is disabled or shut down, it will be a tool no longer available. It will still exist. However, chances are 29-year old high school dropouts who want to make a quick buck by selling US secrets to the Chinese (who then get rebuffed) will still be employed by the US government in some capacity, even if they're not outsourced to a Bush-era contracting agency.

Oh, PRISM will be shut down in this iteration. It'll make the same job that has to be done more difficult. The expectations that the agencies will continue to operate at the same efficiency will still be there. But the important thing is that the blame for it is laid at the correct presidential door.

And then time will pass.

Ten years may pass. Or five. Or two. Maybe three months. Who knows?

And then something will happen that a program similar to PRISM might have caught. And it'll throw the world into a tizzy, and then people will once again hand over their theoretical freedoms and their justifications to people who promise that if we spend enough money and bankrupt enough of our economy, we'll be safe. And ten years later, a 29-year old high school dropout will think, "Gosh, if only I could sell some of these state secrets to the Mongolian Hegemony, I could be rich!"

 

[secretkeeper12]

I disagree with you there. For me it's a much bigger issue how they have let less than 1% of their population fight their wars ( http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/25/us/civilian-military-gap-grows-as-fewer-americans-serve.html?_r=0 ) for more than a decade and giving them a terrible welcome back, the civilians aren't even buying war bonds or paying war taxes.

wat?

If anything, the U.S. gives our troops too MUCH of a welcome back. Seriously, outside of extreme anti-war protests (which incidentally were probably a major factor in the decreased enlistment rate, along with the loss of the draft and general shadiness around it), troops are seen as some of the most respected people around. If a politician can find a way to connect themselves to the armed forces, you bet they're gonna milk it for all its worth.

If you were referring to practical benefits, there still isn't much of a case. Pensions can get a bit stingy at times, and that's honestly a pretty big concern, but most other things-from the honorary funerals [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_funerals_in_the_United_States] to charity aid [http://www.thehungersite.com/clickToGive/vet/home?link=ctg_vet_home_from_bcs_thank-you_sitenav]-are granted to them.

Sorry if I came off as rude; that's just such a BIZAREE thing to say.

 

[Snotnarok]

I could have sworn I signed a petition against this, so I'm not sure if you missed it or whatever. It wasn't against PRISM but NSA spying in it's entirety.

 

[Itchi_da_killa]

I don't really care what in my life the government would be listening in on and that's assuming I even pop up on their radar. I'm not doing anything illegal or anything that I am ashamed of. If the Prism program and other forms of it helps to keep the people of our country as well as our allies safe from the enemy of the day, then what exactly is the problem? Expecting complete privacy and/or autonomy while living in a government is stupid. There is a "give and take" understanding when living in a society.

 

[Tanakh]

If you were referring to practical benefits, there still isn't much of a case. Pensions can get a bit stingy at times, and that's honestly a pretty big concern, but most other things-from the honorary funerals [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_funerals_in_the_United_States] to charity aid [http://www.thehungersite.com/clickToGive/vet/home?link=ctg_vet_home_from_bcs_thank-you_sitenav]-are granted to them.

Ahh, yeah, they get the veteran day, funerals, charity aid and to be as sought by republicans as a single cute mother 8 different ethnicities.

But as you said, practical:

- Military training doesn't count towards getting a job, ie. a combat medic won't be able to get even a nurse job or paramedic. So they are screwed when inserting themselves back.

- Pensions and health benefits exist in paper. For a real person though it will be a nightmare to get access to those.

- Persons that went to war have special needs. They should have special legislation akin to that of minorities regarding works and education.

As a result the above and other factors a veteran is 3,300% more likely than a regular american to be homeless ( http://www.veteransinc.org/about-us/statistics/ ). Yeah, you read right, a veteran in US is three thousand three hundred percent more likely to be homeless than a civilian.

So yeah, US give em parades and free lolipops, then send the veterans to a very fucking harsh environment which gives no shit for them to fend off for themselves.

To be fair though, they are also overrepresented in the top earners of the country. It seems that when a veteran goes back it's a sink or swim situation, where after years killing and risking dying for their country badly planned missions, they go back to an even harsher environment they are not trained or supported for where they either learn new tricks or end up in misery.

 

[secretkeeper12]

snip

Yikes. That IS pretty fucked up. You'd think the same experience that can save a life in battle could be useful in say an ER, but I guess not. Seems like there's no winner: companies lose a good employee and the unfortunate veteran has no way to support themselves. And after going through hell, man......Excuse me, I'm off to have a hippy moment.

 

[hazydawn]

And deep down, if they stopped a single terrorist attack and saved one life, then I'm not concerned

You know I don't give a shit either because I have different problems on my mind but saying that a single life is worth more than the freedom of millions of people? Preposterous.

I don't really care what in my life the government would be listening in on and that's assuming I even pop up on their radar. I'm not doing anything illegal or anything that I am ashamed of. If the Prism program and other forms of it helps to keep the people of our country as well as our allies safe from the enemy of the day, then what exactly is the problem? Expecting complete privacy and/or autonomy while living in a government is stupid. There is a "give and take" understanding when living in a society.

As if this surveillance system could stop terrorist attacks efficiently. As long as they don't communicate, read bomb manuals or order the stuff to beuild them via the internet they are on the safe side. This "I don't have anything to hide" mentality is sick. If I or anyone I hold dear dies in a terrorist attack, so be it. There is no guaranty that it could have been prevented anyway. This is nothing I'm willing to trade my freedom and privacy for.

 

[PoolCleaningRobot]

And deep down, if they stopped a single terrorist attack and saved one life, then I'm not concerned

You know I don't give a shit either because I have different problems on my mind but saying that a single life is worth more than the freedom of millions of people? Preposterous.

Well that depends on how you value a life. Beside, I never said I was speaking for millions of people. I can only speak for myself

 

[Devil's Due]

And deep down, if they stopped a single terrorist attack and saved one life, then I'm not concerned

You know I don't give a shit either because I have different problems on my mind but saying that a single life is worth more than the freedom of millions of people? Preposterous.

Well that depends on how you value a life. Beside, I never said I was speaking for millions of people. I can only speak for myself

If you're supporting PRISM, then you're supporting taking away every single American's rights just to make yourself feel better. Is it fair to demand everyone else lose their rights for your safety?

 

[PoolCleaningRobot]

If you're supporting PRISM, then you're supporting taking away every single American's rights just to make yourself feel better. Is it fair to demand everyone else lose their rights for your safety?

Once again, I never said that I supported PRISM. I just don't give a fuck