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Comment by usernomdeguerre | Hacker News Reader

So long as Republicans have no counterbalance in courts, congress, or the whitehouse then these things will continue to metastasize.

The entire experiment here is to bring the surveillance apparatus' of dictatorships to the US. They no doubt see the durability of these dictatorships and one-party states around the world and are drooling at the prospect of running it in the US.

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Republicans have suggested for years that there is a counterbalance in the bill of rights.

That has shown to be nothing but hot air and wishful thinking. The second they got into power they’ve thrown any hint of caring about the constitution out the window.

The Bill of Rights is just words on paper. For it to mean anything, the judicial needs to be willing to uphold it and the executive needs to be willing to enforce those decisions.

That becomes much less likely when they are allowed to become overly partisan. The officials who wield power lose the ability to distinguish between civic duty and the rule of law, and loyalty to the party itself.

Yet they continue to ignore court orders when those rights are found to have been violated.

The primary mechanism for redress of constitutional right violations under current law are monetary damages under FTCA, especially now that universal injunctions are dead. There's no actual counterbalance.

Can I buy the same weapons the American military has access to?

Until that's true, the 2nd amendment is meaningless when USAF can buy JDAMs and F35s and I, an American citizen, cannot.

It’s been meaningless ever since the courts decided the “well-regulated militia” part doesn’t actually mean anything. It was never meant to be carte blanche access to every weapon under the sun

Even if you had access to all the munitions on paper, it would be extraordinarily surprising to wake up one day to the news that US citizens collectively out-gunned the US armed forces. I mean, F35s are not famous for being cheap.

Even if you could spend alike in aggregate, who maintains them? Where is the secondary military drilling people on tactics and/or strategy?

Nah, the 2nd never did what its proponents claimed, not even in the old days.

> Nah, the 2nd never did what its proponents claimed, not even in the old days.

I'm not sure this is accurate. General Benjamin Butler bought and used private gatling guns. JP Morgan loaned a warship to the Navy. I am sure there are many other examples. https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/nhhc/research/h...

Regarding who maintains them: that’s my problem to have _after_ I buy them, but today I can’t even buy them! And I picked a high-end example, of course I couldn’t maintain an F35 but maybe I would like some automatic rifles or more realistically some armed drones.

Still I think we’re saying the same thing: the founder’s arguments amount well regulated militias being a check on tyrannical government doesn’t land when the tyrannical government can just drone swarm the country into submission.

I think you misunderstood the range and purpose of the 2nd amendment.

Yeah, and what happens every time we take a Republican at his word?

in theory, yes; in practice, no.

18 U.S.C. § 242: Deprivation of Rights Under Color of Law

A DOJ with its ducks in a row would be charging this left and right.

5 year statute of limitations, unlimited if it results in death.

Unless he pardons literally every ICE agent, a new administration can and certainly should levy all kinds of charges. That's one reason folks have been documenting so much about what's going on even if it can't be stopped right now.

You make the assumption there will be a new administration

This is what surprises me about the U.S. citizens who oppose Trump's fascism - why be so naive about the rule of law and adherence to the constitution when both have already been shown to be virtually meaningless without a non-partisan judiciary and enforcement of court orders.

Also, why do people think that Trump is so hurriedly building a new ballroom for the White House along with the bunker underneath? At some point it'll either be people giving in to Trump's administration or out-right civil war and that's why Trump wants a secure bunker and an armed militia (ICE) that is loyal just to Trump.

Even if people vote against Trump in sufficient numbers, he's not likely to accept that and leave.

Play your scenario out further, not just to the extent it serves your point. What do you think 200 million furious Americans looks like? Even assuming a willing military (besides ICE), how does the US occupy itself? It's a massive territory.

If the citizens do revolt, then they'll be unstoppable.

However, if we look at the Nazi takeover of Germany, it seems that most people will just go along with it which certainly seems to be the case in the USA so far.

How many Germans had guns and a distrust of their government?

How many gun owning US citizens have opposed ICE entering communities and murdering people?

How many Americans have guns and actually oppose this government? Remember that only 32% actually voted for the "other guy", and I suspect the other 68% carry more guns on average than that 32%. Plus, they've already deputized many of those in defense of the regime (through ICE) and released and/or shielded many others (through pardons).

That is... not outside of the realm of possibility.

While Republicans certainly have a focus on illegal immigration, support for spying on American citizens is hardly a partisan issue.

ie: 25 years of Patriot Act renewal, Flock rollouts in liberal cities, Obama’s pursuit of Snowden and not the NSA itself

There is certainly liberal leadership concerned with our rights, just as there are conservatives, but they are the minority under both partisan umbrellas.

If you have some information on how much they approve or support these programs i'm open to hearing it, but i'm not sure how much "Both parties have bad people/policies" contributes to a discussion on this specific program.

This is shifting the goal posts. You said this will continue to happen as long as Republicans have no counterbalance in courts[0], congress[1], or the whitehouse [2; sic] - which kind of implies (actually not kind of, it directly implies) that if only there were some more Democrats around this wouldn't happen. So "both parties do this" is absolutely a valid criticism of your point and one you probably have to address.

[0] Most things are decided long before SCOTUS involvement, and most courts are liberal-leaning.

[1] Republicans are far short of a supermajority in the Senate so nothing passes Congress without Democratic votes

[2] The White House is always singularly partisan by definition, what Democratic counterbalance you expect to see in a Republican White House, or vice versa?

If anything i'm asking for the conversation to stay 'on-goal'.

If I take for granted that the waterline surveillance increases under previous administrations (and i do, i implicitly conceded it) then the only meaningful discussion is then on its magnitude.

So you tell me, are Republicans going further with this program than before? And furthermore, are Republican courts and Republican congresses going to curtail it at any point?

I already know my answers to this, but if i'm going to be criticized I think it should be against the meaningful alternative facing us where Republicans retain control of these branches.

> Most things are decided long before SCOTUS involvement, and most courts are liberal-leaning.

Doesn't matter if the damage is already done. Raise dead doesn't exist in the real world. And the courts don't decide things. The executive has proven it will just ignore the courts.

> Republicans are far short of a supermajority in the Senate so nothing passes Congress without Democratic votes

First, this it 100% not true, and secondly, if you ignore congress, it doesn't matter. And once again, the damage is already done by the time congress gets around to it.

> The White House is always singularly partisan by definition, what Democratic counterbalance you expect to see in a Republican White House, or vice versa?

Expect? None. Hope for? Basic respect to the rule of law to start. But with pdf in the white house, all bets are off.

> most courts are liberal-leaning.

this isn't Europe, so if you make that claim, you have to define "liberal"

> Republicans are far short of a supermajority in the Senate so nothing passes Congress without Democratic votes

in fact that's not how it works! read up on reconciliation and how ICE got funded

> [2] The White House is always singularly partisan by definition, what Democratic counterbalance you expect to see in a Republican White House, or vice versa?

both sides that fucker, good and hard, better things aren't possible woo!

In my fairly wealthy and liberal community, the mayor (a Democrat) approved a Flock contract and refused to hold a public hearing on the issue until it became a nationwide story, at which point the contract was ripped up. The community was told to kick dirt until it became a political liability, and that's the point.

Political leadership doesn't want civil discourse until it becomes a self-preservation concern for them, same with data centers.

Which is exactly what i'm advocating, to make the issue a self-preservation concern via voting.

voting for who? If Democrats are also willing to spy, how does voting make a difference?

Stylistically, the local Democrats who putatively represent me listened and got rid of flock. They replaced it immediately with Axon.

So, yeh, red is certainly a different color than blue, but they are still two colors.

There's bad. And then there's extremely bad.

So let's not conflate the two, ok?

Republicans mistreated legal immagrants with particular pleasure and revoked their legal status.

Even so, scale, severity, and flaunting of the law matter. Current political powers have turned it up to 11. You can absolutely "both sides bad" in general, but I don't think you should be doing so within this context or it's disingenuous / whataboutism.

My response is not whataboutism.

It is “don’t expect the Democrat party to save us when they come back into power at the Federal level. With regard to erosion of privacy rights, I don’t see a positive track record for them.

Please surface to me what I’m missing and I’m happy to change my mind.

I disagree, it's important to discuss because it indicates that neither party is capable or interested in deviating from the current trajectory. Say the Republicans are voted out of power this cycle, who's really confident that the trajectory of all of this is going to meaningfully change in the next decade based on what we've seen in the past without a major shakeup in the political system?

It's the same core group of people controlling the centers of power in both parties for many years now, and it's not realistic to expect meaningful change for as long as they remain in power

Surveillance expanded under Obama and Biden. It would have expanded under Clinton or Harris. It will expand under the next Democratic President and it will expand under the next Republican one.

Maybe the Republicans are worse, I don't particularly give a shit. They're both horrible and anti-American on this issue and nothing will change without systemic changes.

Let's be clear here that this is explicitly not just surveillance. This is surveillance in service of abducting people without due process. We can debate surveillance in the abstract, but this specifically is a feeder program to a system that has illegally deported US citizens without any due process. (Which would have, at step 1, indicated that US citizens cannot be deported.)

This is surveillance as part of a department that explicitly says it is not bound by US law or the Constitution.

All of that makes this program materially different than any other US domestic surveillance program or proposal of which I am aware.

"Maybe the Republicans are worse" when the democrats have a plan to create a 100M domestic surveillance program and push it on the national stage, the word maybe becomes relevant. Until then, it is clear to everyone with a functional set of eyes what is happening; maybe schedule your check-up.

> when the democrats have a plan to create a 100M domestic surveillance program

Did you miss the Snowden reporting? How much do you think those programs cost? Whenever you hear someone’s political analysis contain “The Republicans…” “The Democrats…” you can be sure they have no grasp on how DC works.

No, I am just literate enough to understand that the executive office was not solely responsible for the 'Snowden reporting' and that it is responsible for the proposal in the article above. The democrats did not create or propose a 100M domestic surveillance program but go off king

" Whenever you hear someone’s political analysis contain “The Republicans…” “The Democrats…” you can be sure they have no grasp on how DC works. "

I'm not giving political analysis, retard. But you are clearly so smart and clever. Tell us all about the 'Snowden reporting' that president Obama personally proposed and executed. Not sure why he is reporting on himself but mister user seven numbers is sure to be a source of truth

> The democrats did not create or propose

They funded and instrumented it. “Go off king”? Are we 14 year olds on TikTok here?

You sound very angry, guess I got a little too close to home. The lady doth protest too much.

What exactly is the point of this post

to sandbag and continue the narrative that 'both sides are bad' during a time in which only one side has the power. really compelling stuff

They are both bad. Every administration has used and advanced these types of programs. That’s inconvenient for those who wear a tribal badge.

Stubbing your toe is bad. Digitally raping a woman is bad. Bringing up the former in the light of the latter makes you a jack ass. Do as you will

Funding dragnet surveillance vs funding dragnet surveillance is the comparison. Not precisely sure what your bizarre example means but it’s nevertheless clearly a non-sequitur.

> digitally raping a woman

...what?

digital (adj)[0]

6 : done with a finger

a digital rectal examination

[0] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/digital

I think the content of my post, and the post I'm replying, makes it pretty obvious. What has you confused?

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