[discostrings]

The government is a privileged actor that can do many harmful things to a person that a company cannot. The government has a monopoly on coercion, and it claims the sole right to deprive you of life, liberty, and property. For these powers not be abused, there must be real and serious limits on government power. Of course people and companies you enter into private agreements with should know more about what you share with them than the government should.

[jvictor118]

For better or worse, in 2013, the government is also a privileged actor that can _prevent_ harmful things. One of the ideas of government is that we trust them to protect us.

Thousands of years ago, you lived in your village with your sheep in pigs, and the local warlord would be responsible for watching the edge of the woods and defending you against invading Barbarian hordes. In return, you paid the warlord taxes.

If you believe you can protect yourself adequately from the global threats of nuclear war, extremism and terrorism, Chinese hackers and the rest, then anarchy is a form of government that might suit you well! And best yet, no taxes!

[stevewillows]

I completely agree. However, how can a group that owns coercion set the rules for their own agencies?

[discostrings]

The short answer is law. But even with a good system, it seems very difficult to maintain.

In the U.S., the idea was that its founding legal document, the Constitution, would put some very strict limits on the power of government. Thus, there would be many things the government could never do, like restrict one's freedom of speech or unreasonably search and seize a person's belongings or effects. A process was included to amend the Constitution in the future if that was ever necessary, but as one would expect, it takes a very large amount of agreement to do that.

Under these strict limits, three different branches of government would often work adversarially to keep one another in check. The Congress would make laws, but it had no power to enforce them. If the Congress was not happy with the execution of a law, they could repeal it. The President would execute the law and set up a system to enforce the law, but could not change the law and was not given the power to interpret the law or determine whether the law had been broken. The judiciary would interpret how the law applied to specific situations, determine whether law was being followed, and make sure new law complied with the country's ultimate law.

In theory, each branch doesn't have enough coercion to abuse it, and the other branches can stop the excess of a single branch.

It appears, however, that currently this isn't the case in the United States. The executive branch interprets the law to mean whatever it wants the law to mean. Then it claims "national security" at every attempt to subject those interpretations to judicial review. And it doesn't tell Congress its interpretation of the law or how it's carrying out the law. The Congress and judiciary aren't acting adversarially enough to restore the desired balance

Can this be prevented or corrected? Is it really a workable solution? I think we may be about to find out...

[stevewillows]

In essence we the people need to be Big Brother keeping an eye on the government while they spy on their siblings.

Ultimately the US needs a sustainable system where the people elected to power aren't bound by financial need which in-turn forces them to pass and enforce laws that aren't good for the greater purpose of the people. But while we're at it, I'd like a pony.

I'm in Canada, and we are in the same cycle of 'interpretation'. As with any major country we need to get back to the foundations and simplicity of our core laws that both protect the innocent and judge fairly on the guilty or suspicious.

In respect to transparency, we need a set of global laws that protect the users of systems based in foreign countries. If Canada had strict privacy laws, I would hope that I would be protected by those laws even if I'm using a service based in the US.

[jvictor118]

> In respect to transparency, we need a set of global laws that protect the users of systems based in foreign countries. If Canada had strict privacy laws, I would hope that I would be protected by those laws even if I'm using a service based in the US.

Do you also think that Canada's laws relating to freedom of speech would allow you to defame the Muslim prophet Mohammad on a service hosted in Jordan? The King of Jordan would disagree with you.

You can't begrudge sovereign nations the right to form their own laws and system of government. I smoke cigarettes. When I go to Montreal, I can't smoke near doorways. I don't demand that because I'm American I should get to smoke near your doorways. Your doorways, your rules. Same goes with servers.

> Ultimately the US needs a sustainable system where the people elected to power aren't bound by financial need which in-turn forces them to pass and enforce laws that aren't good for the greater purpose of the people.

What exactly are you talking about? Politicians are basically scumbags everywhere, but I don't see this as an endemic problem affecting the policy in our country... simply because the financial interests of lawmakers are highly diversified, and they also have an incentive to serve their constituency faithfully (re-election)?

[stevewillows]

What I'm getting at is the idea that we need separate laws for international services. Less about freedom and more about protection.