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Comment by bhouston | Hacker News Reader

It is standard that companies within a country act in the interests of its security services. Israel has a lot of ad-tech companies and thus it makes sense that they are roped into serving Israel's security services.

It is no different that Israel's location tracking of StarLink terminals worldwide: https://www.newarab.com/news/israel-tech-firms-can-locate-an...

This is the same issue that the US government has with Chinese networking companies, it is too easy for the Chinese government to pressure these Chinese networking companies to put in back doors in the interests of national security. The US likely knows this because it pressures its own companies in similar ways.

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Difference being we're pretending that Israel is a democracy that values human rights, so nobody makes a real stink about it, unlike with China.

Only the national brass is pretending at this point.

Why Israel is not a Democracy?

Israel was created by ethnically cleansing Palestinians during the Nakba. That's not a democracy, ethnically cleansed Palestinians aren't even allowed to live on their land, let alone vote. That's not including all of the Palestinians that have been straight up murdered.

In addition Israel is an apartheid state with many undemocratic features:

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/66a134337e960f229da81...

> ethnically cleansed Palestinians aren't even allowed to live on their land, let alone vote

America was a democracy while we were exterminating our native population. Democracy is a system of government. Voters can democratically vote for terrible things.

Israeli Arabs are allowed to vote.

> Israel is an apartheid state

This is a valid argument, though still stretched–America didn't cease to be a democracy while we occupied Germany and Japan.

Murdered people can't vote. People forced off their land and over an artificially created border can't vote. Israel is no democracy.

> America was a democracy while we were exterminating our native population.

I would argue that it was not for the very same reasons (and of course there were many other classes not allowed to vote at the time). Killing someone robs them of their right to vote.

> Murdered people can't vote. People forced off their land and over an artificially created border can't vote

Sure. But this also describes a lot of well-accepted democracies' histories.

Perhaps you're thinking of a liberal democracy?

> would argue that it was not

Sure, according to a personal definition that countries cease to be democracies any time they go to war (or more narrowly, commit war crimes), Israel is not a democracy...

> there were many other classes not allowed to vote at the time

Most democracies also prohibit children and non-citizens from voting. The term you may be looking for is full democracy. And I think most people and experts agree Israel is not a full democracy [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index

> Most democracies also prohibit non-citizens from voting.

I mean we're talking about all Black people, Indigenous people and women! I think arguing semantics isn't helpful.

Israel is an illegitimate state practicing crimes against humanity. That some of the colonizers can vote isn't really relevant. I actually think this can help us reflect on the true nature of the US as well and push for things like land back to Indigenous people and reparations for Black people.

> we're talking about all Black people, Indigenous people and women

Yes. Athens was similar–a minority of the population could vote. It was a deeply flawed democracy, but a democracy nonetheless.

> That some of the colonizers can vote isn't really relevant

Literally America! Also all of Europe depending on when you draw the line. Also all of the Middle East for the same reason. (Also most extant Native American tribes.) Hell, even in Palestine we can only say more than 50% of the population traces from Bronze-Age heritage.

By your definition, democracy does not exist and cannot exist in most parts of the world.

> this can help us reflect on the true nature of the US

It really can't if we're redefining precedented terms. America, like Israel, is a flawed democracy.

> Most democracies also prohibit children and non-citizens from voting

In the case of Israel these 'non-citizens' are under brutal military occupation where each day Israel steals more and more of their land. There's no 'home country' they could return to because Israel is occupying it. They're not illegal immigrants. They ARE home and yet being treated by Israel like invaders.

> They ARE home and yet being treated by Israel like invaders

Which is illiberal and flawed. It doesn't mean Israeli citizens don't democratically choose their leaders.

Note that this cuts both ways. If Israel isn't a democracy, the Israeli people have no moral culpability in their state's actions because we have no way of knowing if they actually support it.

> There's no 'home country' they could return to because Israel is occupying it

Agree this is tragic. But again, historically not unique. Displaced people have existed across the history of democracy.

Something being wrong doesn't automatically make it all kinds of wrong. Israel illegally occupying the West Bank and Gaza and having unresolved reparations around the Nakba doesn't have much relevance to whether it's a democracy. Just whether it's a liberal or full one. (Among all of the other issues.)

Democracy doesn't mean voters can't choose to be awful.

Sure, you can always slice it in a way to make it look like a democracy. There's elections within the Politburo too, or Iran, which is a Republic after all. It was true of South Africa too.

I am happy to call Israel an ethno-supremacist, apartheid democracy if you want.

> Agree this is tragic. But again, historically not unique.

Sure, the Holocaust was 'historically not unique' too. Aren't we meant to be moving forward as humanity? Slavery was legal for most of history too.

> If Israel isn't a democracy, the Israeli people have no moral culpability in their state's actions because we have no way of knowing if they actually support it.

The Palestinians don't have any moral culpability in their own genocide and ethnic cleansing. That's the point, they can't vote on their own land.

By the way, the word "Nakba" is linguistically related to the Shoah, a.k.a. The Holocaust. If they admitted the Nakba happened they'd be admitting they did a Holocaust, so they don't admit that.

This is not the definition of democracy. You just invented something. Which is cool but is not relevant.

People in Gaza who are indigenous to Palestine cannot vote in elections occurring in Palestine. That's not a democracy.

Now you are also inventing history. People in Gaza voted to elect Hamas in 2006. Since then the PA didn't held an elections.

What it has to do with Israel?

"Israel" is on their land, they have the right of return after all. They cannot vote in their homeland. Hence, no democracy.

So "poland" , "Netherlands", "Czechia" that kicked out ethnic Germans and don't allow their return are all not democracies.

Seriously, are you older than 5?

That analogy doesn't make any sense. Israelis are the Germans in your example, they invaded Palestine.

I can’t really have a conversation with someone who doesn’t know the history of Palestine. I suggest starting with the basics if you’re honest about wanting to know more:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakba

Millions of muslims were ethnicaly cleaned when both "Greece" and "India" were created. So they are not democracy?

You really don't know history, the Germans lived there hundreds of years.

You are really 5 years old. Aren't you?

I’m not going to engage with someone insulting me and spreading false history.

Just because you are illiterate doesn't make those events disappear from history

Bills like the US CLOUD Act (there are similar ones in the EU and China) force service providers to illegally spy on people overseas (via unauthorized use of anything they can access—consider Microsoft’s Windows backdoors).

I think the only technical solution available to individuals is to boycott non-verifiably e2ee services and corporate operating systems (especially including android).

A few weeks ago the FBI tipped the Argentinian police that some 15 year old kid from buenos aires province had asked chatgpt for ideas to plan a school massacre.

just to confirm your info... https://buenosairesherald.com/society/argentine-teenager-pla...

In the interest of balance, how many times did the FBI snoop into innocent people’s private lives with no warrant or worse, goaded some weak-minded individuals into planning crimes together in sting operations (i.e. people who needed convincing to commit the crime, so not quite clean but not the masterminds either)?

If you put out a fire how many are you allowed to set while people applaud selectively?

I don’t think they’re striking a good balance between how invasive they are compared to the real results they deliver.

to be clear: I'm against this "pre-crime" FBI bullshit. it's overreach.

> I think the only technical solution available to individuals is to boycott non-verifiably e2ee services

If the world moved that way overnight, I wonder where digital spy budgets would go. Into traditional techniques, cracking encryption, banning encryption, or a more educated guess?

Banning encryption. The laws of mathematics are very commendable, but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia!

It's not "illegaly spy", it' just spy. National security laws make sure that these requests are all legal - from that particular country's point of view who is forcing the provider to supply the info... and illegal from all the other country's point of view. The root of this problem is that nation states have the final say in what they consider legal. But that difficulty is by design and is very difficult to fix.

This is abhorrent. Every government spying on everyone.. and who benefits from all of this?

Can we get an alien invasion already please, god

Except this isn't the security services they are serving it's a mercenary spyware vendor.

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