Comment by sneak | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sneak | Hacker News Reader

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My dad is about the most anti-authoritarian person I know, going so far as to sue the USG during 'nam for false induction.

These days he gets all his news from (Michigan) broadcast TV and radio, and is pretty reclusive and doesn't talk to anyone.

The narrative he'd constructed from these limited inputs was that he's an egomaniac computer hacker who took government data and then went to China and Russia. Technically it's not false, but that's the narrative (and all the implication) he'd assembled, given only MSM reports.

I think this is much bigger news outside of the US than inside, and that's pretty sad. Then again, Obama claims "foreign entities" (thanks for pretty solidly Othering all of the 6.5+ billion other humans) are the only ones that get surveilled without a warrant.

This whole thing stinks. Why'd NSA have to pull this stupid shit anyway? Did they really think that there'd be some huge domestic unrest against the military if they DIDN'T tap everyone's phones and resultantly missed some attack that hurts fewer people than we blow up quarterly with drones?

I don't get it. The logic simply doesn't pan out, and these aren't stupid people, because you can't build information processing systems at this scale and be dumb.

I feel like I'm missing something critical.

I do credit the Three-Letter Agencies with the benefit of the doubt; they may know about dangers much scarier than shoe-bombs or even 9/11. It does not justify the overreach of authority, but is sufficient that I do want to presume on their intentions.

Having said that, given the opportunity and no legal obstacles, it's almost stupid not to soak up every last piece of data.

* If the motives are pure, they might stop a large attack, and/or avoid accusations of incompetence if an attack slips through.

* If motivated from above in the power structure, Obama or Cheney or whoever gets enough data to be ten steps ahead of political and economic foes, at home and abroad.

* If motivated from within, the agencies are able to blackmail and manipulate opponents to maintain their own budget and relevance. They might even do this out of genuine belief in their organization and mission.

* If motivated personally, a handful of powerful individuals get to maintain back-scratching relationships through selective dissemination of information, to say nothing of potential financial gains.

If I had to guess, every single one of these motives is at play at various levels. And of course, being in a position to have all this data gives one an immense amount of leverage to shut people up and hide misdeeds. Good to be the king.

Blaming the NSA for PRISM is like blaming the ocean for New Orleans. It's We The People who failed to build strong enough levees, and somebody was going to take advantage of it eventually. Time will tell if the public will accept the degree to which government institutions are openly doubling down. This is the political issue of our generation; if we accept spying as the norm, it will be very hard to undo.

> Having said that, given the opportunity and no legal obstacles, it's almost stupid not to soak up every last piece of data.

then

> Blaming the NSA for PRISM is like blaming the ocean for New Orleans.

I simply can't buy that.

It doesn't take a ton of smarts to know that a giant database such as this, even in the hands of the most kind and benevolent stewards, _will not stay in those hands forever_.

It's a ticking time bomb for abuse. It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when, and how bad. It's a silent bloodless military coup in a box with a big red button on top.

Once built, something like that could never get meaningfully opposed, and a large-scale abuse would be the absolute end of freedom as we know it: everything from oppression of the free press, to coercion and blackmail of political opponents, and silencing of activists or loudmouths of any/all stripes.

I just can't see how any reasonable person, even with a 100% belief in the legitimacy of spying, even domestically, could not see what a COLOSSALLY BAD IDEA this thing is.

No conceivable threat model, even fantastic ones from Hollywood, makes it seem sane, as the damage to the "American way of life" is an order of magnitude greater from such a system than any bomb or attack.

I see what you're saying, and all of these seem like reasonable explanations, but they all become non-starters when you consider the long-term consequence of this thing being built. It's like a doomsday machine that you can't turn off.

We're definitely on the same page. What I'm getting at is the general human capacity for hubris, ideology, and group loyalty.

The One-Way Panopticon may be a horrible idea both morally and practically, but given the above human foibles, I'm not ready to jump to the easy conclusion that the perpetrators are Evil, Idiots, or Evil Idiots. People are complicated, and I ultimately lack sufficient data to assess motives. Rather, there are so many possible motives, at some point it doesn't really matter.

EDIT: I should clarify: When I say "they'd be stupid not to spy", I mean in the sense of short-sighted immediate goals. Obviously, on a larger scale, it is sheer lunacy.

Knowledge is power and people/entities in govt are all about the pursuit of power.

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