Comment by riskable | Hacker News Reader

Comment by riskable | Hacker News Reader

The moment my wife and I heard about the attacks in Paris I said to her, "the spooks are going to use this as an excuse to take everyone's rights away."

The media response on this was so predictable it was like clockwork:

* Conservative media immediately kicks off talking points in regards to, "if more people were carrying guns this wouldn't have happened!"

* "Where's the outrage from Muslims?"

* "Outraged Muslims say the attackers aren't true Muslims because Mohammed forbids killing innocents."

* "It had to have been Syrian refugees!"

* "Can't we just bomb the fsck out of Syria?"

* All manner of insinuations that all Muslims are dangerous and we should "kick them out" or prevent them entry into the our country.

...then, attempting to time things just right the spy organizations all over the world ask for everyone to give up their privacy so they can "stop terrorists".

What we won't see in the major news media/popular talking heads:

* Outrage that despite the billions upon billions invested in spying programs no one was able to predict or stop this attack. Proving that the vast spying powers granted to governmental organizations don't work.

* Factual stories pointing out that encryption with back doors won't be used by terrorists so it's useless against terrorists by definition.

* Investigations into why the mass collection of everyone's personal details didn't work and can't work to stop these kinds of attacks.

* Informative stories about what every-day people or politicians can do to hurt terrorists and stop terrorism. For example, there will be no one even remotely connecting the dots between oil usage and terrorism. Or how there's a direct link between a country's oil revenues and democracy.

I'm not sure how much of this is "media response". Politicians and people on the street are also blaming refugees, advocating bombinb Syria... at a certain level, the media is just reporting that.

(of course, talking about "The Media" is always problematic because it's difficult to sum up as one blob. There are, of course, bad actors in the blob)

People are easily manipulated. It's why marketing works so well.

That sounds pithy, but what does it even mean?

In relation to the parent it means which came first? The chicken or the egg? We've all been conditioned by media for our entire lives so to say that the media are 'just reporting' is to ignore/deny the power/impact they have and also to discredit the power of words.

> * Outrage that despite the billions upon billions invested in spying programs no one was able to predict or stop this attack. Proving that the vast spying powers granted to governmental organizations don't work.

In fairness, we don't exactly find out about the successes...

We can't know, because that back-channel carries information that could be useful to the enemy.

This is a really serious problem. There's a reason why the normal process of justice involves presenting evidence in public rather than just saying, "We know this guy is guilty because reasons we can't tell you. Don't worry, we've already executed him."

The fight has to be done procedurally or we'll end up shelling Parisian suburbs.

I can assure you that if they had any success, they'd be taking out full-page ads in the NYT and WaPo. When the Snowden revelations happened, after searching far and wide, they came up with 1 name: David Headley. It turns out, he was already well known to the US agencies, and it was a lie.

In fairness, we can't exactly trust professional spies to tell us the truth regardless...

Yes, we do. The FBI has to send provocateurs to gin up prosecutions is most of what we know about "successes." That the real successes are kept secret when the lame ones are publicized is not credible.

Why not?

You would think that the spooks are dying for some good PR given the hits they have taken post-Snowden.

  > Or how there's a direct link between a country's oil revenues and democracy.

Yeah, oil prices drop and Alberta and Canada promptly elect left-of-center governments.

There's a well-known link between oil revenues (well, natural resource revenues) and democracy:

http://www.voxeu.org/article/oil-and-democracy-new-insights

Well-established democracies with diverse economies such as Canada are mostly immune to these effects.

More reading:

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/middle-east/2011-08-...

What's interesting about that article is how it predicts unrest in the Middle East surrounding the control over oil resources. By obtaining control over oil resources Daesh has secured their ability to continue operating. Take away that resource and they're likely to die off pretty quickly.

We don't know if France spent "billions upon billions invested in spying programs". But for anyone over there politically who was hoping to start up the "French NSA", they will point to this incident for justification.

Actually, we do:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/06/world/europe/french-legisl...

The "French NSA" already exists. There's nothing to "start up".

Their budget isn't on par with the US but they already have more leeway than US authorities when it comes to invading everyone's privacy. I'm actually quite curious what more they could possibly want in terms of legal authority to spy on everyone.

French security forces already have their own surveillance program. And a controversial history of state-sponsored terrorism, from blowing up the Rainbow Warrior to enabling the Nigerian civil war. Not to mention Algeria.

I'd like to see it become taboo to exploit tragedies for political gain like this. Take every opportunity to call it what it is: profiteering off the death and suffering of others.

I guess that is a taboo, although one we seem to have forgotten. Respect the tragedy, do not cheapen the suffering, the appropriate action is to stay silent for a moment, be solemn, accept that their might not be a solution, ask if the cure isn't worse than the disease. All this is ours, all this sustained us so far. So why do I feel like we have forgotten it?

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