[niksakl]

>There's no reason why this should not hold for spying and policing agencies

Isn't that what democracies call "constitution"? Something that protects citizens' rights again wrong-doing of powerful entities including legislators and the state itself?

[amcoastal]

And how's thats working out so far?

[buran77]

Democracy is the best we have for the people. But while the theory is sound, the practical implementation is usually flawed.

The people are "in power" just for that day while they're giving their blessing to their representative. After this, as long as things aren't too abrupt and disadvantage the regular person obviously enough to trigger a violent response, that representative can pretty much represent and defend any other point of view. Usually the one from the otherwise equal but not quite equal, much richer person. And with education being on the bottom of everyone's list, it just gets easier to cover these things up.

For things that concern interests far from home it's even easier. Freedom also means you're free to pump as much one sided information as possible. So as long as one can flood the people with Middle Eastern terrorism, Russian hackers, or Chinese human rights abuses, who's going to care about the home team doing the same even at home?

Superficially democracy is alive and well but it's like religion, most people observe it only in theory and when it matters to them personally. And when it does matter to them, it doesn't matter to enough other people. Which is why most talking points don't have a strong majority, and they're mostly dealt in a compromising way, which makes everyone equally unhappy (except a very few).

[niksakl]

Well, to the best of my knowledge, in most countries, the constitutions themselves suggest some actions to the people in the case somebody is not complying with the constitution. Did we see any of those suggested countermeasures taking place?

[ClumsyPilot]

Actually it was going reasonably well for 2 or 3 centuries, the mass spying is a recent development.

Thus the correct question to ask is "why/how did we break the system that used to work"

[hpoe]

The answer is actually because we spent several years with the entire country dedicated tona total war effort in the face of an enemy that was devoted to our total and absolute extinction and subjugation.

Following that rather than returning to a peacetime country and disbanding the associated military structure it was instead repurposed for a cold war in the face of another enemy that had sworn themselves to our complete and absolute destruction and which had the capability to do so. In the face of such constant risk of extinction almost any measure was seen acceptable to counteract the threat.

However after about 60 years the threat disappeared but the massive institutions built up to combat the threat then needed to continue to justify it's existence as careers and lives had been built upon counteracting the Red menance. Unfortunately these institutions did not cease to exist and continued the same tactics that it was profecient in despite the threat to the existence of the nation.

That's basically it in a nutshell.

[bigbillheck]

> the mass spying is a recent development

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

[sandworm101]

Lol. Mass spying is far from recent. Mail has been spied upon for centuries in the US. Sending agents to spy on political groups too. I'm never sure exactly when this ideal time was, that time before government got evil, but I suspect it never really existed.

[ClumsyPilot]

Spying on someone's mail is well regulated, and is not 'Mass' as defined by any reasonabke person.

[hindsightbias]

People who develop hardware and software made it possible.

[niksakl]

I believe it is not about the means and the tooling. Systemic problems need to fix the system, not various outcomes of such problems. Assuming we are talking about democracies, I guess it is up to the people. If the people do not care, then fine. "Nothing to see here, move along". If this is the case, I disagree with "the people", but apparently that is just me... Or few of us.

[goodpoint]

Much better than most alternatives so far. And it can be improved further.