[shadowgovt]

> It seems something has shifted 180 degrees since WW2

The Twin Towers were destroyed, the Pentagon was damaged, and an additional plane was crashed, via a successful conspiracy that could have been detected by blanket, passive surveillance. That's what changed.

The threat model the US defense department is concerned about has changed significantly since WWII. The threat to Pax Americana is not direct military intervention, since the possession of atomic weapons ensures that's a short trip to annihilation for any nation-state that tries it. It's small-cell actors using sabotage tactics and technology as huge force-multipliers.

As for individual citizens, it appears most still see the threat of asymmetric warfare as a more profound threat to their life and livelihood than passive, blanket government surveillance.

[rickmode]

I don't think this is a good example.

If memory serves, the threat _was_ detected, however it was not acted on. There was lots of finger pointing about lack of coordination, but (as I recall) the core problem was that it was one threat amount many (100s? 1000s?), so the threat detection was generating too much noise.

Ubiquitous surveillance could (does) easily end up creating the same situation: not enough signal among the noise.

[shadowgovt]

It's not an example; it's the causal explanation.

The article in question at the top of this thread is discussing the Patriot Act expansion; the family of laws passed in direct response to the attacks of 2001.

[rickmode]

Ah. Understood.

The Patriot Act is the problem. We knew it at the time. Sounds like we all agree on that point.

[NineStarPoint]

EDIT: Didn’t take much reflection to realize a lot of awful stuff liberty wise happened during the cold war, so scrap my comment.

[economicslol]

>As for individual citizens, it appears most still see the threat of asymmetric warfare as a more profound threat to their life and livelihood than passive, blanket government surveillance

I don't think this necessarily follows. I don't think most Americans support the Patriot Act but its basically known at this point that Public Opinion has no effect on Policy here. Also how much the public understanding of what the Patriot Act actually does is probably pretty low.

[shadowgovt]

Question wording drastically changes the results on polling whether people support the Patriot Act, but broadly speaking, it appears most Americans support its existence and most Americans believe it is in need of moderation. I don't think it's as simple as "Public opinion has no effect on policy;" it's that the policy response to "most people aren't happy, but nobody can gel behind a concrete changelist" is "stay the course."

I agree on the education question, but that's going to be a regular pattern in public polls. General public savvy on privacy issues and the power of technology to consolidate information has not kept up with technology. And, TBH, if the situation at hand is actually "Most Americans don't understand the problem well enough to articulate their wants in the context of the issue," that's a scenario where public opinion shouldn't drive policy. A democracy of the uneducated doesn't work.

[economicslol]

https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/fi...

TLDR: Citizen opinions don't have an effect on policy.

I agree about education though. It's a tricky problem. Clearly people aren't informed enough to make coherent decisions on many policy issues but they have to trust that the slick looking lawyer they are voting for actually does understand and has their best interests at heart?

[syshum]

So that is how liberty dies, and terrorism wins... With thunderous applause from a scared and panic citizenry that unable to understand statistical risk instead believing the propaganda of fear that will ultimately see the erosion of both their liberty and the safety they so foolishly believed the government would provide if they just gave up that essential liberty

[shadowgovt]

The threat model has fundamentally changed, and I'm not so convinced it's acceptable to tell people "We will change nothing because you probably won't die" when the mode of death strikes directly at perception of day-to-day safety.

American tolerance of that, from terrorism to gun ownership, is changing.

[syshum]

>>The threat model has fundamentally changed

Not really, Authoritarian governments through out history have still killed more people than all of terrorism put together.

The Threat Model is still Authoritarian government...

>I'm not so convinced it's acceptable to tell people "We will change nothing because you probably won't die"

What is not acceptable is telling people "just give up your liberty and you will be safe" history proved that is never the case, government will (not if, or can but WILL) abuse that power, and the end result will be mass death

[shadowgovt]

> that is never the case

All governments are some form of sacrificing liberty for safety. The strongest interpretation of the argument that you're putting forward is that the only just government is anarchy, and I don't think we can find many supporters of that hypothesis.

As with all government measures throughout history, the question is not "should any liberty be traded," it's "is this trade a good deal?"

[syshum]

>>All governments are some form of sacrificing liberty for safety.

Incorrect. Governments are instituted by groups of people to organize and support their natural right to defend their life, property, and liberty.

This principle of a "collective right", its lawfulness, is based on individual rights therefore the common force that protects this collective right cannot logically have any other purpose or any other mission than that for which it acts as a substitute (i.e the individual right of self defense)

Since no individual acting separately can lawfully use force to destroy the rights of others, does it not logically follow that the same principle also applies to the common force that is nothing more than the organized combination of the individual forces?

[shadowgovt]

> Since no individual acting separately can lawfully use force to destroy the rights of others...

In the absence of a government and legal framework, the concept of "lawfully" does not exist. The freedom to engage in unlawful violence is one of the freedoms that people under a government sacrifice and exchange for aggregate safety.

If I have a dispute with my neighbor over who owns the cherry tree, I could solve the problem my negotiating with them and coming to reasonable terms on sharing the tree, or I can slaughter them where they stand, and I'm under the risk they will try to solve the problem by slaughtering me where I stand, regardless of what I choose. If the two of us are living under a government, the law and the threat of government violence curtails one of those options for us both. It is a choice we willingly give up for the benefit of giving up the risk that the other will choose the same.

[malandrew]

I wouldn't even say it is just the threat model that changed. Humans in developed markets now have a very unhealthy relationship with death to the point where any policy that minimizes death is acceptable consequences be damned.

We no longer see death as a normal and natural part of life like previous generations did because it's not as prevalent as it once was.

The threat model you just described in another era would have more likely been met with acceptance if the alternative was to give up our hard fought for freedoms.

[shadowgovt]

I don't think I can point to an era in US history where an attack on a couple buildings resulting in thousands dead would have been brushed under the rug as "Well, death just happens." I'd even argue that's not a healthy response to a human-caused tragedy like that.

Seeing death as normal and natural carries its own antisocial pathologies. War is more justifiable if "Everyone has to die some time."

[malandrew]

That's a strawman that doesn't try to interpret the point I'm trying to make from the strongest possible position. I'm not suggesting that an event like that should be just brushed under the rug as "Well, death just happens."

I'm saying that the response to that event such as the Patriot Act and other safety-above-liberty-at-all-costs measures would have received a lot more scrutiny and been seen as disproportional. Just like your strawman is not a healthy response, neither was the response we had to 9-11. The goal of the terrorists was to fundamentally change life for Americans and get them to abandon their principles. Well they succeeded beyond their wildest imagination because we responded by dumping many of our freedoms in response.

[shadowgovt]

My understanding of the history of American responses to being attacked inclines me to disagree with that assessment. Consider how many liberties were given up during WWII after Pearl Harbor---the government basically nationalized resource distribution. To say nothing of what Americans considered tolerable to do to their Asian-American neighbors.

[mrfusion]

Yet we won’t find longevity research.