[stephen_g]

The public have been sold a lie. Just like the “Patriot Act” was just to keep everybody free and protect people from terrorists. It happens everywhere, and has been happening for a long time - it’s more about the narrative made up by the people pushing a law than what the law actually does. It would take a particularly free, particularly good media to inform the public that just doesn’t exist in most of the world.

[Loquebantur]

The complacency of researchers knowledgeable in these topics should be noted as well. With great power comes great responsibility, as Spiderman states correctly.

This letter is a "nice try", but pretty late and lacking media-awareness. People certainly won't read a 4-page PDF. They should have led with:

> There is no technological solution to the contradiction inherent in both keeping information confidential from third parties and sharing that same information with third parties.

[red-iron-pine]

your lead statement would still confuse a non-trivial amount of the general population.

[Loquebantur]

Certainly true.

But would that be a part of the population that actually partakes in the discussion to begin with?

If you cannot say something more simple without making a mess of it, don't.

[classified]

There is no solution to the contradiction inherent in both showing off your ability to craft convoluted sentences and informing the public.

[scarface_74]

As far as the Patriot Act, when Max Cleland came out against it, the Republicans claimed he “didn’t love his country”.

Cleland lost three limbs in Vietnam. None of his opponents had ever served.

[opo]

The only senator who voted against the Patriot Act was Russ Feingold.

>...On October 25, the Act passed the Senate with a vote of 98–1. Russ Feingold (D-WI) voted "no"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Act#:~:text=The%20thre....

[scarface_74]

You’re right. I mixed up the attack ads were not for the patriot act.

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a38201636/max...

[WarOnPrivacy]

> The public have been sold a lie. Just like the “Patriot Act” was just to keep everybody free and protect people from terrorists.

The public tend to believe what they've been informed and the press tend to be inept when it comes to Gov surveillance.

The history of editors and journalists is 1) they reprint Gov Natsec claims w/o analysis or a single thought about Gov's history and 2) will only report surveillance wrongdoing when their nose has been dragged to it and they've been booted from behind.

And to clarify here, NatSec and Child Safety are just different food colors in the same poisonous water.

[Given_47]

There’s some irony here about being a journalist yet not even considering individual privacy. Seems indicative of a missing journalistic quality lol

[halfbrite]

> The public have been sold a lie. Just like the “Patriot Act” was just to keep everybody free and protect people from terrorists.

The public have largely been sold nothing and are completely, blissfully, ignorant of this legislation. The legislation is being pushed through by politicians who have been sold two lies:

1. The legislation, and 2. the idea that the public care.

[thephyber]

People rarely pay attention to bills before they are passed. This just seems like another case of people answering polling with higher confidence than they should.

The people are always sold a lie. But in a democracy, it is the responsibility of the voter to identify when they are being lied to and to search for the truth.

As much as you claim that media isn’t free and isn’t good, I look around and see the opposite. Now is the best time in the history of the world to get amazing journalism. You are just too focused on the media you dislike to admit that with selection comes lots of terrible choices.

[pessimizer]

> People rarely pay attention to bills before they are passed.

The fact that people don't pay attention means that they're vulnerable to accepting the framing that they get the first time they're forced to hear about it.

In this case it will be from slightly rewritten press releases sent from the people pushing the bill to the kind of UK papers and TV stations that can't find a single journalist who objects to censorship or surveillance.