[FpUser]

>"we can’t stop technological progress"

I do not want to stop tech progress, but I do want to stop social regress. Give it another 20-30 years and we will have same shit problems with freedoms as China, Russia, insert your fav scapegoat here.

[sneak]

There is no difference to what the USA and UK have done and continue to do to Assange and what China and Russia do to journalists they don’t like.

The idea that the west are the “good guys” hasn’t been true for a long time, if ever. China is just better at technology and large scale coordination than the US, so they are way better at building and deploying and operating large scale surveillance systems. The US will catch up in a few decades.

I believe this is inevitable. There is no meaningful opposition to pervasive surveillance in US government and there is no useful political action that can be undertaken by the public to turn this tide.

[lanstin]

Assange was killed with polonium or thrown out of a window? I think you have made your moral condemnation variable of Boolean type, rather than the more realistic float.

I think also it is worth distinguishing between corporate surveillance, where there are very few limits on what they can do with the data, vs government surveillance where we can exert some power over the government by electing people to pass laws that reflect our desire for privacy.

As well, I am surprised HN has not internalized Brin's essay "The Transparent Society." Privacy is going to be deeply reduced by the ability of all curious 13 year olds to launch insect sized drones. The question is how to handle - let only the overseers have the data or insist on public right to access data. Or something else; like laws forcing personal ownership of your data (although how things like being in the background of your neighbors cameras as you walk down the street should be handled there I am not sure.).

I would also point out that freedom and privacy aren't identical - one may have freedom via privacy or via less intrusive laws. (Ed: deleted incomplete thought).