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Comment by mikeash | Hacker News Reader

How does the NSA program suppress dissent?

Seems to me that it's about stopping deaths. The reason they don't go after drunk driving and heart disease is because different kinds of deaths are valued differently. And while that's obviously crazy from a rational perspective, it's how the public views things.

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> How does the NSA program suppress dissent?

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/07/nsa-surveillance-chill...

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131108/10430625184/22-ex...

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jun/17/chillin...

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/nsa-chilling-effect

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/12/15/1263032/-Now-It-s-O...

Wow, how precious, someone who believes in the system! It suppresses dissent subconsciously. You start censoring yourself. If you think there is a shred of humanity within any of the NSA or any of the alphabet boys, you're in for a ride.

I don't believe in the system, I just don't see how the NSA's program suppresses dissent. There's no punishment for dissent, so how would it be suppressed? I'm sure they can and do listen in on people who want to overturn Citizens United or replace the government with a monarchy or whatever, but if there's no punishment that follows, then how does anything get suppressed?

>There's no punishment for dissent, so how would it be suppressed?

Surely you're joking. The United States government is eager to punish dissent to a lethal degree.[0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki

First, I assumed "suppressing dissent" meant domestic dissent.

Second, planning terror attacks is not "dissent." I mean, if this guy is your poster boy for the goals of NSA surveillance, then you're arguing that it is about fighting terrorism.

You think he was punished for dissent? He was punished for actively working to kill people. That's a bit beyond merely "dissent".

While not directly connected to the NSA, it's plausible the prosecution of Aaron Swartz amounted to suppressing dissent. It's hard to say what the root cause was prosecutorial overreach or a real effort to suppress a powerful political organizer. Either way, he became a target for his ideas and activism.

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