When both the government and the advertising companies have an aligned incentive to spy on us all, Why would the government pass either privacy or advertising laws?
That's the problem with democracy at the moment, vested interests have taken control of the forum because (a) they're able to and (b) the majority of citizens are just not interested in or engaged with the issues.
You see this everywhere not only with security etc. but also in many other areas. A classic case is copyright law where a small number of powerful people have hijacked the debate and managed to impement grosely unfair laws in their favor. They're so organized and powerful that they've not only been successful domestically but also internationally with treaties etc. It's almost impossible to break these nexes when the populace at large is so complacent.
In short, our current democratic structures favor the powerful, money-rich and organized at the expense of the disinterested who are disinterested because they're not yet aware of the issues involved and thus don't yet know that they stand to lose or be disadvantaged. There is no effective advocacy system to support them and conterbbalance the push at the early stages of law formation and thus we end up with laws that overcompensate the initial lobby and which are extremely hard to unwind later, especially so when international treaties are involved.
Outside a revolution I cannot see change happening and revolutions are the very last thing we need, they end up disastrously for everyone.
I disagree. The problem with (multi-party) based democracy is that it is way more important to be popular with the party seniority, than with the constituents.
If fact, if you want to be a member of a parliament, its essential to first be popular with the party, before you get a shot at being popular with your voters.
Not disagreeing, I should have said 'one of the problems'.
Nevertheless, same goes here, there's insufficient interest from the citizenry to break that nexus too. Breaking party loyalty etc. to obtain a fairer system has been the bane of modern democracy for hundreds of years - back to Hobbes, Locke etc. As I said it's depressing that there's no easy solution.
Edit: Same goes for any lobby who wields effective power over the elected, remember Edmund Burke got the shift from the electors of Bristol when he dared move off their agenda to put broader (national) interest first. Whilst this broader approach seems fairer/better for all it's nevertheless a double-edge sword though, as it allows politicalians an excuse to pursue another agenda - one that may not be in either the electors' or national interest but rather that of a third party or even him or herself. The problem remains, we've no effective way of fixing it/balancing all interests fairly.
You see this everywhere not only with security etc. but also in many other areas. A classic case is copyright law where a small number of powerful people have hijacked the debate and managed to impement grosely unfair laws in their favor. They're so organized and powerful that they've not only been successful domestically but also internationally with treaties etc. It's almost impossible to break these nexes when the populace at large is so complacent.
In short, our current democratic structures favor the powerful, money-rich and organized at the expense of the disinterested who are disinterested because they're not yet aware of the issues involved and thus don't yet know that they stand to lose or be disadvantaged. There is no effective advocacy system to support them and conterbbalance the push at the early stages of law formation and thus we end up with laws that overcompensate the initial lobby and which are extremely hard to unwind later, especially so when international treaties are involved.
Outside a revolution I cannot see change happening and revolutions are the very last thing we need, they end up disastrously for everyone.
It's all rather depressing really.