> The article was used for the imprisonment and execution of many prominent people, as well as multitudes of nonnotable innocents. (...) Article 58 of the Russian SFSR Penal Code was put in force on 25 February 1927 to arrest those suspected of counter-revolutionary activities.
So the point is that even in Soviet Russia people were sent into the Gulag based on written laws and going through the legal system, so I'd say that the US Government's reply that "it's all legal! it has gone through the courts" doesn't mean a thing as long as said laws are against the spirit of the US Constitution.
And I'd say that's the gist of it, the current laws are against the spirit of the original fundamental law of the United States. As long as its current citizens are ok with that (no mass protests etc) then I'd say there's nothing that the minority can do (if it matters I'm not from the US)
Godwin's Law, or people's interpretation of it, has a lot to answer for. It's perfectly acceptable to make comparisons to the Nazis if it's relevant to where a conversation is at, at a particular moment. Not only is acceptable, it should also be encouraged. The most valuable thing to emerge from World War Two was the anti-blueprint for society. Let's not make this taboo merely for the sake of falling foul of some internet meme.
The problem is that references to the Nazis or Soviets are very hard to get right without tripping over the slippery slope argument. Hitler was not only a vegetarian, he was a health fanatic, and there's evidence that it informed his obsession with purifying the race. That's doesn't make any number of locavore glutenfree vegan hipsters a step towards nazism. Hitler "militarized" society, and emphasized such organisations as the Hitler Youth where kids learned discipline, healthy living and love of the outdoors. Does that tell us anything meaningful about the boy scouts?
Yes, Hitler and Stalin spied a lot on their own populations for "national security" purposes, but we should be able to oppose surveillance on it's own merits with out resorting to the painting a (fallacious) slippery slope picture where the next frame is a KZ/Gulag camp.
I totally get your point that people often make fallacious comparisons. In the interest of making a concise point I omitted stating it myself. However just because some people do not debate with integrity, or they make mistakes in their reasoning, it should not prevent others making comparisons which are pertinent.
I disagree that with your last point, that people should make the argument purely on its own merits. "So what if people are monitoring our communications?" I might ask this question myself if I had never read any history books.
The worrying thing for me is that we've been here before. Hitler did not come to power via some dramatic coup. He tried that and it failed. Instead he took the long, slow, legal and democratic route. Many legitimate comparisons with early 1930's Germany are there. I'm not saying it's a facsimile, it never would be. But with each civil liberty we sacrifice in the name of security the state becomes more oppressive, more open to abuse, an evermore viable breeding ground for tyranny. Worst of all, it can all happen without a shot being fired and well meaning onlookers saying, 'It will never get that bad'.
I'm going on a bit now, but for me the really terrifying aspect is that with all our modern technology (which I do love) it is possible for the state to create an apparatus to suppress the population that which we could never extricate ourselves from.
To quote BoC, "Defend your constitutionally protected rights. No one else will do it for you."
> The worrying thing for me is that we've been here before.
No, that's exactly the problem. Other nations has at radically different time been in a vaguely similar situation.
Looking at Hitler doesn't tell you anything about the surveillance state that it doesn't also tell you about vegetarians and boy scouts. The reason we're not opposed to vegetarians and boy scouts (at least not based on their relation to nazism) is that we're approaching those cases on the merits. It's ludicrous to suggest a causal bond between those and Auschwitz.
Also, pure tactics: Anyone who's studied WWII civil oppression can spend hours detailing just how radical the differences between the Gestapo and the NSA are. You're basically handing your opponent the rhetorical petard he will hoist you by.
Yes, Hitler and Stalin spied a lot on their own populations for "national security" purposes, but we should be able to oppose surveillance on it's own merits with out resorting to the painting a (fallacious) slippery slope picture where the next frame is a KZ/Gulag camp.
Agreed, but consider this: a slippery slope fallacy is more like "If we do A, then B will inevitably follow". Lacking evidence to support it, that is a fallacy. But it's not a fallacy to point out "B" as warning of what might follow from "A".
And in the "reasoning by analogy" sense, it's not wrong to point out that "Group C did A and then B followed, so we might want to be careful about doing A" (assuming "B" is something undesirable).
Sometimes it is a valid point of discussion to point out these potential "slippery slopes"; it's just important to distinguish between the assertion that the following part happens as an inevitable consequence or not, and if that is asserted, to demand evidence.
The problem with such "pointing out" is that it's often taken as incontrovertible evidence that A means B will happen.
The very essence of Godwin's Law is that invoking Hitler is almost always the most extreme example possible of governmental abuse possible, when more nuanced ones would do the job. Usually it's a symptom of lazy thinking and lazy arguing, used by those who want nothing better than a cheap sound bite for their audience (e.g. "Obama is literally Hitler!" and other such gems).
By making the Hitler comparison, you are more likely than not pointing at an irrelevant extreme and tarring yourself with the brush of "conspiracy nutjob". There are better ways to make the same point which don't involve the same baggage.
I agree, even though the time-difference wasn't that big as far as I remember (I did read a history of CEKA and Solzhenitsyn's "Gulag Archipelago", but that was 10-12 years ago).
Back to the conversation, what might prove slightly useful from this comparison is that in the USSR and German Democratic Republic surveillance was mostly done through the use of one's acquaintances and often-times even close relatives, because as the article mentions back then secret police forces didn't have access to today's technology.
That's what made it very personal and invasive and what ruined lots of lives and close-relationships, while today's surveillance techniques seem to be (and I'd say they are indeed) more remote and not that soul-crunching. In the old system you risked to have your sister or brother-in-law snitching on you for listening to Radio Free Europe or for making a regime-related joke, you had to be always on the alert of what you were saying and to whom you were speaking. I think this is why in the present day and age we don't see lots of protests against this new surveillance system, it's far too remote from us so we tend not to notice it.
Do you believe that Obama (or secretive figures in the NSA) are actually planning gulags and concentration camps?
If not, instead of arguing by outrageous and irrelevant historical innuendo, you could express quite reasonable concerns about consequences of excessive security powers that are actually likely to happen.
It would be a much more convincing argument.
(since both the Nazis and the Bolsheviks very openly stated their intent to violently suppress people fitting certain criteria and had militant wings actually targeting them long before they achieved the power that enabled them to set the surveillance, I'm not sure the historical comparison even works...)
> the Hitler Youth where kids learned discipline, healthy living and love of the outdoors
Yes, and too soon a lot of "healthy living" "outdoors"
had too many single girls 15 or so coming back pregnant, as
"Hitler's brides" and had to be throttled!
Can you name a place with that level of surveillance that turned out good for anyone? Because I can point to a lot of vegans there are more obsessed than Hitler was and didn't gas a single Jew.
Godwin's "law" is nothing but an Internet meme at this point. "Invoking Godwin's Law" or referencing it does nothing to promote the conversation at hand, and we'd all be better off it it just disappeared into the dustbin of history.
Godwins Law was necessary in the early-mid 90s on Usenet where every conversation would degenerate into people calling each other Nazis. Now, not so much.
There is 'the law' and 'the rule of law'. The former without the latter is pointless, and is what existed in the Soviet Union. The worrying bit about the current state of the US is not the law itself, as much as it's the erosion of the rule of law: concepts such as due process, meeting your accusers in a disinterested court, equality before the law etc. being eroded.
Who was responsible for passing these laws/articles in 1920s Soviet Union?
One difference here is that when the USG says "well it's all done according to law", that law was written and passed by an institution who at least nominally represents and is elected by the people. I don't know if the same can be said of the USSR.
> One difference here is that when the USG says "well it's all done according to law", that law was written and passed by an institution who at least nominally represents and is elected by the people. I don't know if the same can be said of the USSR.
The USSR was also nominally run under laws, which were notionally written and formally adopted by an institution which at least nominally represented and was elected by the people, and no doubt for any particular policy the regime could point to some justification in some provision of the Constitution and laws for the authority to carry out the action.
Pre-WWI, Russia was a feudal system. After the revolution, pretty much everything was done via some kind of parliamentary procedures. Granted, Lenin was a bully and hammered through the things he wanted but he largely did it via parliamentary consensus. At least at first.
The problem now is that who you vote for doesn't represent you. They represent themselves, their donors and their social class/circle. They've also sworn an oath to the Constitution, then passed laws that are against that oath.
For all practical purposes the "classical constitution United States" that we were taught in school and media doesn't exist anymore. But we pretend it does for pragmatic reasons.
> For all practical purposes the "classical constitution United States" that we were taught in school and media doesn't exist anymore.
The Constitution never existed as anything more than an idea, and it has force and meaning to the exact extent to which the people choose to give it force and meaning (the same as any other law.)
Laws, including basic laws like the Constitution, aren't magical and self-enforcing; they are real or not to the extent that people give them effect. The idea that "the Constitution protects" this right or that limitation on government's power is the exact thing which guarantees that those things are not protected -- either people protect them by insisting on them, or they are not protected at all. The Constitution is, at most, a statement of intent about what the people will insist upon, and it loses credibility when the people are passive and don't follow through.
I believe that one of the reasons that Jefferson thought it was necessary for the Constitution to be rewritten and readopted every generation is that he recognized that the slide into passivity and lack of ownership of the Constitution was a natural trend that would, over time, render any Constitution into a dead letter.
I agree except I must point out that the Constitution was an agreement amongst the states, not an agreement with the people and the government.
The rhetoric of "the people" is extremely deceptive. Me, nor my forefathers, had their opinion represented at the constitutional convention. The people in "... a statement of intent about what the people will insist upon" is solely people who were at the convention.
I think the key is that we don't have Article 58. Per the quote in the op-ed, the NSA has had the ability to make America a tyrrany since 1975 and it hasn't done so. None of history's police states required digital surveillance. What they required was, you know, tyranny. We don't have any right now. I look at this purely as a question of privacy and due process.
"What they required was, you know, tyranny. We don't have any right now."
We have all the pieces in place. Widespread surveillance, a "legal system" that allows anyone to be arrested and imprisoned, soldiers carrying out police work, secret courts/secret laws, mass imprisonment, etc. All it would take is for someone to arrange those pieces properly and tyranny would ensue.
What you ask for requires sweeping structural changes, which itself requires cooperation between a bunch of mutually-antagonistic parties, and all of that happening under the watchful eyes of the entire world who are more than happy to lace into America for the slightest fault they see.
It certainly helps that Americans are so seemingly genetically suspicious of government that even government workers despise the government (usually not their little enclave of it, but even that is not a hard and fast rule).
In short, despite all the whining on HN about how the people are just sheep, the people themselves are the reason your part of the plan is the most difficult part. The fact that you had an NSA contractor leak TOP SECRET data at great personal risk over an automated warrant compliance system should indicate that.
Likewise it was not very many years ago when some of the same senior intel community personnel that HN feels are all enemies were threatening to resign and cause a huge political explosion due to how Bush wanted to implement a program that would have benefited the NSA.
When we lose the people we'll have real problems. But if we lose the people those problems will be far, far, far worse than simple surveillance.
Which one? Adjusting algorithms or start using it little bit more? In both cases all they need are some good arguments but you already see they even have, so called, arguments for current situation. At the end they are here to save You! P.S. ofc, if you can, please join the army. Forget the truth, there's a war out there, I tell you :-)
When I was a kid, the Soviet Union was declared bad _because_ it did these things. So it's hard for some of us to shift from a mindset that it was bad on its face as proven by the Soviet Union, to that it's only bad if it's done by a bad state. I mean, right or wrong, this is the conditioning society gave us at the time. I happen to think it was right. I don't really care about their reasons, no legitimate process operating under the principle of limited government and consent of the govern gives it the power to collect extensive data about the private lives of citizens without some kind of cause to believe the citizen is engaged in wrongdoing.
I agree that they don't have the right to do this, I just don't think it amounts to tyranny. The Soviet Union was a police state because the national security apparatus was used not just for national security, but also for mercilessly squashing political dissent. A policy enforced with an iron fist by unelected oligarchs.
As an analogy, consider how Americans view gun ownership in relation to gun crime as opposed how Europeans might view it. Crime is the telltale of a criminal, not having a gun.
As you're concerned with the spirit of laws - your parallel is much in the spirit of 'Godwin's law' and ahistorical to the point of being specious. The USSR was a totalitarian single-party state that engaged in many decades of brutal mass repression of its population. The US is a constitutional democracy where laws are formulated, enforced and interpreted by independent branches of government, two of them elected. The comparison boils down to 'both in the US and in the USSR, they wrote some stuff down'.
But my real concern here is with the "constitutional" part, because most reasonable readers seem to agree that the PRISM surveillance violates the Constitution. Yet the federal government only seems concerned about Constitutionality when it suits them, (literally) laughing it off otherwise:
CNS: Madam Speaker, where specifically does the Constitution grant Congress the authority to enact an individual health insurance mandate?
Pelosi: [Giggles] Are you serious? Are you serious?”
CNS: Yes, yes I am.
Pelosi: [Takes question from another reporter.]
So I'm concerned that the degree to which we're "consitutional" at all is becoming increasingly tenuous.
That's a really bad example, given the interstate commerce clause. Pelosi was laughing it off because damn near everybody, including the majority-conservative supreme court, agrees that regulating healthcare is regulation of interstate commerce, just like 1000s of other things that the federal government does which don't happen to be hot political footballs at the moment.
Conversely, most people that I've talked to agree that the NSA listening is very much not constitutional as per the 4th amendment. Even if you think it's constitutional, you have to do a lot of weasel wording about the definition of 'search and seizure'.
It was actually a very close ruling (5-4) that hinged on whether "regulating interstate commerce" gave the power to the government to compel people to participate in commerce.
Personally, I disagree with the Wickard v. Filburn ruling that gave the power to the government to control what a farmer grows on his own land to feed to his own cattle under the "interstate commerce" power. The Constitution was distorted beyond any reasonable reading of the English language during the FDR administration and we never recovered.
The Republic is dead, FDR killed it. It's just taken us awhile to get used to living in a totalitarian state. Well, here we are.
> It was actually a very close ruling (5-4) that hinged on whether "regulating interstate commerce" gave the power to the government to compel people to participate in commerce.
No, it didn't hinge on that point. The court split a number of different ways on different points in the case, but the rationale to which a majority signed on to for finding the individual mandate constitutional was the Taxing Clause, not the Commerce Clause.
There was an apparent 5-4 majority against finding for it under the Commerce Clause (the four conservative dissenters who would have struck it down plus Roberts), though there was no single opinion to that effect joined by any majority.
Yeah, but the only reasons it was close were political. The individual mandate is well within the bounds of interstate commerce regulation when you compare it to some of your and my examples of existing jurisprudence that aren't politically controversial at the moment.
But the eventual SCOTUS decision did determine that it's not covered by the Interstate Commerce Clause. So your explanation of Pelosi's laugh may illustrate what was going on in her mind (as well as most other legal scholars at that date), but it also shows that they were wrong in the final analysis.
The reason that ObamaCare survived wasn't because of the Interstate Commerce loophole. It was because SCOTUS determined that it's a tax, and thus came in through the power of Congress to levy taxes.
In my cynical opinion Roberts wrote his finding as a tax to prevent being responsible for the ruling that found you could use interstate commerce to argue the government could compel you to actually _engage in commerce_ so that your activity could then be regulated, because inactivity affects the market. Ginsburg wrote a pissy rebuttal defending the Commerce Clause interpretation. It's almost comical she had to write a dissent for a decision in her favor simply because she loves the omnipotentCommerce Clause so fucking much.
Ordering people to pay money to a government approved set of corporations is not regulating healthcare it's regulating the people and undermining property rights.
What's next? A selected group of 'food providers' that you have to pay because the government decides that they provide a better diet than people would choose from the free market?
It's not new. You've got mandatory flood insurance from a selected group of companies, mandatory osha safety training from a selected group of companies, mandated accounting procedures that must be certified by selected people...
If you disagree with the law on principle, that's fine, it's certainly not a perfect solution.
But those are political objections. Based on how the interstate commerce clause has been interpreted for a wide variety of issues, it's not unconstitutional (for most working definitions of constitutional). That's why Pelosi laughed and moved on to the next question.
I don't know who these reasonable readers are given how few facts are available about PRISM surveillance - so few that it's next to impossible to reasonably conclude much about it.
As to the 'it's not a democracy, it's a republic' thing - it's just silly. So is taking the fact that some congressperson would not engage in a constitutional law
debate with a reporter as an indication of the country's inexorable drift away from its constitution. Especially when you consider the question was answered - by the Supreme Court.
> The US is a constitutional democracy
> Actually, it's a constitutional republic.
I don't understand this distinction. I read it from time to time on forums like these. US certainly is a democracy, in my (non-English) native language. And it is a republic. These are not exclusive.
> I'd say there's nothing that the minority can do (if it matters I'm not from the US)
No, not at all. The situation is still all well within
the US Constitution in the sense of want people "can do".
In particular, as I will outline, there is a very fast, simple solution well within what "the minority can do".
Background:
In the US Federal Government, there are three branches,
executive (e.g., headed by the president), the legislative (i.e., Congress), and the judicial (with the Supreme Court).
In the case of the Snowden leaks, the actions Snowden was
objecting to were by the executive branch which (more or less) was following laws passed by the legislative branch and signed into law by the executive branch. So far so good, that is, within the Constitution. Note that the judicial branch is not involved in passing or
signing such laws and so far has not been
involved in this whole matter.
But looking at the laws and what the executive branch did that Snowden revealed, a "minority" might conclude that the Constitution was violated. Really, still, so far so good because it's not up to the legislative or executive branch
to determine if the Constitution was violated. It's been
common throughout US history for the legislative branch
to pass laws and the executive branch to sign and use those laws but later the US courts, usually including the US Supreme Court, to find that the laws were "unconstitutional"
and strike them down.
So for what a "minority can do" in this case? Sure:
Bring a law suit in the judicial branch where the
suit claims that the Constitution, e.g., First or
Fourth Amendment, was violated. Typically the case
(I don't know the details of the process) makes it
to the US Supreme Court. For the role of a "minority",
in principle only one person need bring the case.
We should guess that people highly concerned with the
situation leaked by Snowden will bring such cases. So,
we will look for the ACLU and the EFF. But now we also
see that Google is bringing a case. The legal costs
for bringing a case might be significant, but there
are plenty of organizations and individuals with
much more than enough money to pay for those costs.
Likely cases will be brought.
My guess is that much of the relevant laws will be
struck down.
So, why has the judicial branch or the Supreme Court not
yet struck down the relevant laws? Because they don't
do that; instead, there has to be a legal case brought.
In all of this, the Supreme Court will act
very cautiously. And in principle there is
nothing important to keep them from acting
quickly.
Net, so far the US Constitution is working just
as intended. No riots in the streets are needed
yet. We just need for some cases to be brought.
That the laws mandated a lot of secrecy may have
helped slow the bringing of cases, but likely Google,
Microsoft, and some individuals have plenty of
'legal standing' to bring suitable cases.
So far the legislative branch passed some laws.
They can do that. The laws can later be found
to violate the Constitution and even then we
don't line up the people in Congress who
passed the laws and shoot them. Similarly
for the executive branch: Once Congress has
passed a law, the executive branch can sign
it and use it.
Net, there is only one branch that can say
if a law is constitutional or not, the
judicial branch, and so far apparently no
suitable case has been brought and the
judicial branch has yet to speak.
Indeed, I have a letter drafted to my
members of Congress but have not sent it
because the letter really just claims
that the relevant laws were unconstitutional,
and for the members of Congress such
claims are nearly irrelevant.
Net, we just need a suitable case in the
Supreme Court. The Supreme Court will
have no difficulty at all understanding
all the relevant issues, and that court
has plenty of ability to slap down laws
passed by Congress and signed and used by
the executive branch. Slapping down
unconstitutional laws is much of just
why the Supreme Court is there, and they
are 100% fully aware of that point.
Some of the recent appointees to the
Supreme Court are quite 'liberal', but
nearly always they are plenty bright
and will see the constitutional issues
in the activities Snowden described
with crystal clarity and intense concern.
The fight over the constitutionality of the relevant laws
is not nearly over and, indeed, has yet to
begin but apparently is about to begin.
Don't bet on those laws coming out whole.
In particular the Constitution says nothing
about violating the Constitution
with secret orders of the executive branch
based on wacko laws and approved by a
secret 'court' of persons appointed by
a member of the judicial branch with secret oversight
by committees of Congress. Maybe the people
who dreamed up this wacko nonsense thought
that they were clever, but they were not:
What they constructed has nothing to do with
the Constitution, and the Supreme Court
will have no difficulty at all seeing
this point.
If the Supreme Court strikes down the laws,
they will be gone -- out'a here. And that's
just the way the Constitution says the
process is supposed to work.
We're a government of laws, not men: What
matters are the laws, not what Presidents
Bush and Obama say, what General Alexander
says, what the FISA 'court' says,
or what the Intelligence committees of
Congress say. Instead what matters here
is what laws the Supreme Court says are
constitutional.
> My guess is that much of the relevant laws will be struck down.
> If the Supreme Court strikes down the laws, they will be gone -- out'a here....
> What matters are the laws, not what Presidents ... say.... Instead what matters here is what laws the Supreme Court says are Constitutional.
I wish I shared your optimism.
I sincerely hope that the laws will get struck down, but I also fear that the classified nature of many things that touch this will lead the courts to say that we can't show we have standing, and therefore decline to rule on the constitutionality.
More importantly, what matters is NOT just what the laws say, but whether the government follows them! The core issue here is that we believe the laws and constitution are NOT being followed, and that the government feels that What the King Does Is Legal. That was Nixon's claim, and in effect is what the Bush administration claimed re: treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. This time around, the fact that it's being done by the NSA with the President's permission allows them to claim that the classified nature of nearly everything at stake here means we should trust them.
Getting the laws overturned will be a HUGE first step, though, and you laid out in excellent detail things that we citizens can (and should) do and expect.
I had no idea about this issue, thanks for the link! Looks like the FISC overruled the executive branch's argument about classifying the ruling. Kudos to the EFF.
Honestly, what does the executive branch hope to accomplish by classifying the ruling that it was illegal? It sounds like everyone already knows what the ruling was even if the documents themselves are classified. Seems like a weak measure that makes them look worse, that they are willing to exercise the power to hide things (a power one would hope would be used responsibly) even in cases where it doesn't seem to help their goals in a meaningful way? Am I missing something here?
No. Money is the mother's milk of politics,
and secrecy is the favorite dessert of
bureaucracies.
Much of why W, Obama, etc. want the Patriot
Act is to have power to catch the bad guys
so that they, W, Obama, etc., won't get
blamed. Indeed if a president doesn't defend
the Patriot Act, the NSA, etc. and there
is another Boston bomber, then some people
will try to sell the charge that "The president is
soft on terrorism." So, a president will
want to defend the Patriot Act, etc. right up until
the Supreme Court strikes down the act.
Then a president will say that he did all he
could to protect us against the bad guys, and the part of government soft on
terrorism was the Supreme Court or just say
that the Supreme Court showed us what we have to
do to defend the Constitution.
A politician wants
to avoid chances that
opponents could say that the
politician was to blame.
Generally politicians get
an A+ in CYA.
Generally the hope that a politician
will be more responsible is
a well informed citizenry making
their opinions heard. That's why
here on HN I'm putting out there
that my view is that we need to
protect the Constitution; the Patriot
Act, etc. and the NSA have been trashing
the Constitution; it's not worth
trashing the Constitution to catch
Boston wackos with pressure cookers;
so, let's get the NSA, etc. back
within the Constitution and
otherwise do what we can with
Boston police, the FBI, etc.
about Boston wackos. Indeed, the
Russians told us that the Boston
bombers were dangerous wackos,
and still we didn't do enough.
One more point is that so far
a few wacko Muslims have caused
us to suffer over 4000 deaths
among our soldiers, tens of
thousands of serious casualties
among our soldiers, blow
ballpark $3 trillion (net present
value) of our money, and trash
the Constitution. We've taken
a sucker punch. We need to
find some ways to get more security
per unit of effort.
> I sincerely hope that the laws will get struck down, but I also fear that the classified nature of many things that touch this will lead the courts to say that we can't show we have standing, and therefore decline to rule on the constitutionality.
So, the Supreme Court will let claims of 'secrecy'
trash the Constitution? I don't think so! The
court should be able to find some ways around
such claims of 'secrecy'! Telling those
nine justices that they can't get 'secret'
details promises not to
'play well'! The NSA is worried about tracking
some loser, wacko, nutjob Jihader from
Somalia, and the Supreme Court is worried
about saving the US Constitution -- hmm ...!
> More importantly, what matters is NOT just what the laws say, but whether the government follows them!
If the executive branch is violating a law, bring a legal
case. While this answer is simplistic,
and usually is not an easy path, it is basically
the way the process works. But such a case has
to be brought and decided only once -- after
that any judge can say that the issue has
already been decided.
While the process is not always
easy, in important cases it tends to get followed. E.g., if
the FBI goes to Google and says "gimme", Google can
reply "see you in court". "Double secret probation" worked
in the movie 'Animal House' but won't last long before the
Supreme Court.
> What the King Does Is Legal
Not really true, but there is a lot of 'latitude'. And
there can be a 'time window' until legal cases are brought.
But the President is Commander in Chief so can tell
the military to take that town. If the town is in the
US, then there is a law about that. If the town is
in another country, then the president should have
some 'war powers', but the way it usually works in
practice is that the president asks Congress for
an authorizing vote. Then of course the president
needs Congress to vote the money for the military
action. And Congress can also pass a law that
says that no money will be used to take the
town in question -- in which case for the money
the president has to run a bake sale, sell some
arms and call up Colonel North, or some such. If the vote is 2/3rds in both
houses, then it overrides any presidential veto
and stands. So far the pushing and shoving
from both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue have not
gone beyond such things. E.g., in effect for
Gulf War II, Congress voted some 'authorization'
(I'm no expert with details), did vote the money,
lots of money, often, and didn't vote "no
money will be spent in Iraq" or any such thing.
W didn't do Gulf War II by himself and, instead,
had a lot of help from Congress; it wasn't
all W's fault. Cheney's "There's no doubt that Saddam
has WMD."? Well, if count chembio weapons, that
was true. Why? Because we still had the receipts
from when we shipped those materials to him
when he was fighting Iran. I was 100% against
Gulf War II, but it wasn't all W's fault;
he had a lot of help, enough that at least
the spirit of the Constitution was followed.
It's simple: Nearly all the power is in
Congress, if they can get a sufficient
majority to use it. But if Congress goes
beyond the Constitution, then they can get
slapped down by Supreme Court just across
the street. We had some darned smart
founding fathers: They were working to
give up a lot of the power of the separate states
to a central government and were darned
careful about doing so.
Gitmo is a legal mess: (1) It's not in the US,
deliberately so. (2) It's supposedly about
what we are now calling 'prisoners of war'.
Somehow a lot of people want to regard the
prisoners in Gitmo as having the right to
access the US legal system, but that's
not so clear, and, indeed, how the US
military handles 'justice' on the in times
of 'war', or whatever we are calling the
fight against Al Qaeda, etc., has long
or always been a long way from the US
domestic criminal legal system. E.g., the
stories go that in Viet Nam, the US had
four prisoners and wanted them to talk but
they didn't want to talk. So, all four
prisoners got a helicopter ride. From
maybe 2000 feet up, the prisoners were
asked one last time to talk. When they
didn't, one prisoner went outside for
a 'walk', from 2000 feet up. The story
is that then usually the other three
prisoners were willing to talk. The
Geneva Convention may have something to
say about such tactics, but I don't recall
if the Geneva Convention applied in
Viet Nam. Maybe Senator McCain
(whom I rarely agree with -- he
didn't actually sink a US aircraft
carrier although he came close) can
give some details on how the Geneva
Convention applied in Viet Nam.
I was very much against the US in
Viet Nam soon after I heard General
Maxwell Taylor speak and asked him
a question and got his answer;
but with the US military actually sent
to Viet Nam, some of the details on
just how they talked to prisoners I
was less concerned about.
Broadly just what the heck the US
military does on battlefields is to
me a bit far from the US Constitution
here inside the US.
> This time around, the fact that it's being done by the NSA with the President's permission allows them to claim that the classified nature of nearly everything at stake here means we should trust them.
They can claim all kinds of stuff. E.g., they
might claim that no kittens or puppies were
harmed by the NSA. Fine. Irrelevant but
fine. Similarly they might claim
"you can trust us -- we love the US and
work hard everyday to protect and defend
the US and honor the laws and the Constitution" --
close to some things they actually said recently and
about as relevant as not harming kittens
and puppies. Instead, as we know well, very
well, all too well, and as I am fully sure
that all nine Supreme Court justices know
with brilliant clarity,
"The price of liberty is eternal vigilance."
Besides, it's not up to General Alexander,
the NSA, or President Obama to determine
what is "constitutional". And it's not
up to Senator Feinstein, etc. either.
As we know well, instead, with a suitable
case brought, the issue is up to the
Supreme Court.
> Getting the laws overturned will be a HUGE first step
Shouldn't be. That's just the way the process is
supposed to work. Congress and the president go
with the excitement of the moment but eventually
a case is brought to the Supreme Court and cooler,
wiser heads prevail. In the meanwhile a General
Alexander is able to say maybe that he loves
America while he tracks mud over the First and
Fourth Amendments.
Have some faith: The Constitution is fairly clear.
The Supreme Court is highly respected. Nearly
everyone in the US understands that the Federal
Government is not supposed to be listening in on
pillow talk, phone sex, steamy e-mails, or
following people around, e.g., via cell phone towers, as they meet for their
romantic engagements, etc. And the government
is not supposed to be getting all that data,
from Verizon, Google, Microsoft, or the
Internet backbone even if the government
does not use it. E.g., an ordinary phone
wiretap takes a court order, and grabbing
all the Internet traffic covers wiretaps,
literally, and more. That no alligator
clips and reel to reel tape recorders
need be used is irrelevant -- grabbing
voice over IP is the same as a wiretap;
grabbing that data for 330 million US
citizens within the US instead of just
some one suspected Mafia thug is
at least 330 million times worse and
not better;
and without a court order, in line with
at least the Fourth Amendment grabbing all that data is just
flatly illegal and unconstitutional.
Net, for the Supreme Court to strike down
the laws that enabled a lot of what
Snowden showed will be an easy slam
dunk from a 10 foot stepladder. Telling
the Supreme Court that they can't
strike down such laws will be
one of the most outrageously funny
jokes ever cracked near DC. Take
that claim and go down the present
list of Supreme Court justices
and guess who will even smile:
Let's see, will Justice Scalia smile?
He never smiles! Justice Ginsberg?
She's so serious she can laugh and
smile and no one believes it's genuine.
Justices Sotomayor and Kagan? They
are both busting their gut everyday
to be sure no one can claim that
they, as women, are not up to the
full seriousness of the Court.
Trust in the founding fathers, the
Supreme Court, and the Constitution.
So far what the NSA did may be roughly
'legal' with current laws;
that may not be the case much longer.
>Net, there is only one branch that can say if a law is constitutional or not, the judicial branch
This is a myth. Any branch can declare a law unconstitutional. If Congress thinks a law is unconstitutional they can keep it off the books. If the President thinks a law is unconstitutional he can refuse to enforce or execute it.
The courts get a reputation as the ones who decide because A) if the other branches do their duty it never gets to the courts, which means the courts have the last word and are the final check on unconstitutional activity, and B) the other branches of government are happy to let you believe they have no responsibility to uphold the constitution (even though they very much do) because they're elected and elected officials violating the Supreme Law of the Land is fairly unpopular, so all the better if people mislead themselves into thinking that they have no responsibility.
When the Supreme Court declares a law
unconstitutional, that ends the issue
until the Supreme Court decides to
address the issue again.
When anyone else or any other organization
declares a law unconstitutional, then that's
nice, nice to have their opinion, but
mostly that's just their opinion. As I
recall, the president is sworn to uphold
the laws. If there is some law the president
refuses to enforce, then there might be
a law suit that goes to the Supreme Court.
Or there might be an impeachment proceeding
in the Congress.
Really, in practice there is a lot of
discretion on what laws get enforced,
and part of the role of the Attorney
General (AG) is to decide, as a political
matter as the AG serves at the pleasure
of the president, what laws will be
enforced. Still, likely (I'm not a
lawyer) if I am suffering because
some law was not enforced, then I
can bring suit against the people
supposed to enforce that law.
>When anyone else or any other organization declares a law unconstitutional, then that's nice, nice to have their opinion, but mostly that's just their opinion.
Not really. If one of the other branches decides that a law is unconstitutional, that's pretty much the end of the issue as well. If the courts decided that operating Gitmo is constitutional but Congress decided otherwise, Congress could de-fund it and that would be the end of Gitmo. If Congress passed a law allowing indefinite detention without trial and the executive branch believed it to be unconstitutional, it could refrain from detaining anyone indefinitely without charge and there is very little anybody else could do to force them to do otherwise.
There are some circumstances where you can sue the government for failure to execute the law, but those cases pretty rare are hard to win. And even if you "win" all you end up with is a court opinion saying you won. If the executive subsequently says that it's still unconstitutional and they're still not going to do it, what then?
In practice this never really happens (because the executive pretty much never thinks anything is unconstitutional), which means there isn't a lot of precedent, but the courts don't really have any enforcement mechanism for their decisions against the executive other than reactions of the voters to the executive's defiance. If the executive is determined that something is unconstitutional and the electorate acquiesces then who is going to make them do it?
Good discussion. But all those places
you said that the Executive or Legislative
branches believed something was 'unconstitutional'
and applied that belief to their actions,
really they were just using the powers they
had and could have done the same thing just
saying that they just didn't like the law.
So when such a branch says "unconstitutional"
nice to have their opinion.
When the Supreme Court says "unconstitutional",
that's different because there the court is
using one of their fundamental powers. The court
can't strike down a law just because they
don't like the law.
So what the Supreme Court says, goes? You have quite the romantic opinion of them.
Maybe we should ask the Japanese Americans who were put into camps if they feel safe with the Supreme Court protecting us from the legislative and executive branches.
The WWII Japanese situation was a black mark on the
history of the US. Apparently the Japanese
Americans were exceptionally loyal to the US.
The excuse was that we were at war, in particular
with Japan. The fear was that Japanese in the US
would work for Japan.
We knew that putting all Japanese, at least those
in the West, in camps was an ugly situation.
And, when the war was over, the camps were
emptied.
In the camps, life should have been as good
as possible with lots of food, good shelter,
good schooling, good medical care, etc.
I don't know if that was the case.
They were not criminals. But a lot of
Japanese in the US lost their homes,
belongings, businesses, etc. It was
ugly. Hopefully they didn't suffer
serious medical problems or lose their
lives.
What happens in war is different
from what happens in peace.
Indeed, one of the issues about
'the war on terror' is, is it
war or peace in the US? If
it is peace in the US, are the
terrorists in the US
just criminals in the
US legal system or enemy soldiers?
If the war on terror is war in the
US, are we going to suspend the
Constitution until all the terrorists,
many tens of millions of radical
Muslims, have been 'defeated'?
What will the US do about Muslims
in the US? Try to judge if they
are 'radical' Muslims?
Watch them in the mosques?
Follow them around?
Deport them? Put them in camps
as for the Japanese in WWII? Treat
them just as criminals in the
US criminal system?
E.g., what is going on in Gitmo
is not really the US criminal
legal system. It's a bad situation.
But 9/11 was a bad situation, and
so was the role of the camps in
Afghanistan and the
IED's in Afghanistan,
etc.
What happens in war is different from what happens in peace.
First off, things don't "happen", people do them. Secondly, the actions of people determine peace or war, not the other way around. Thirdly, the "War On Terror" is a rhetorical device, and depending on the thickness of your skin, an exercise in hipocrisy or comedy.
all the terrorists, many tens of millions of radical Muslims
Wait, what???
what is going on in Gitmo is not really the US criminal legal system. It's a bad situation. But 9/11 was a bad situation
9/11 was a tragedy and a horrible crime, but what made it the bad situation you are referring to were the, how do I put this, nazi cunts who abused it for their ends. I also assume building 7 collapsed out of sheer sympathy with the whole situation being so bad? And of course, this logic applies to the attackers as well. Killing thousands of people wasn't ideal, but the situation was "bad", you know.
Your writing is not clear enough for me
to respond to all of your points. For
> nazi cunts who abused it for their ends
I'm guessing you mean Cheney and the
"neocons" who, for reasons of Mideast
oil and having a position to put more
pressure on Iran (note the map of
the huge number of
US military bases within 200 miles or
so of Iran -- it's amazing), etc. (which
can cover a lot if are willing to
believe).
I didn't like Gulf War II. I would have let
Saddam stay there since as bad as he was
we had no real way to engineer something a lot
better. And I would have ended the
no fly zone over Iraq as essentially just pointless. Leave carriers in
the Persian Gulf? Likely. Be ready
to jump back into air bases in Saudi
Arabia? Likely. Keep a big presence
in Kuwait? Okay.
But, whatever anyone thought of
W, Cheney, the neocons, Gulf War II,
in fact W, etc. had a lot of help
from Congress. There was plenty
of war authorization and money
voted.
Basically have to blame
the US voters. But, then, maybe
should blame the US MSM -- which I
do. One W Admin guy said that
Gulf War II would cost $120 billion
and got fired because W, etc. wanted
to say the cost would be $80
billion or some such. One guy
said that to occupy the country
(an occupying force is supposed
to ensure police protection)
would take 500,000 US soldiers,
and the W Admin fired him. Still
the MSM didn't raise a big stink and
basically public opinion went along
with Gulf War II. So, who to
blame? Basically the public.
For the places I said it was "bad",
that's a euphemism to admit it
was not good or acceptable but
to try to avoid a hot rehashing
of the old issue. If you believe
much worse than "bad", fine with me.
For Building 7, I've heard this
and that but really have tried to
avoid following the issue because
I doubt I could put back Building 7!
For the "nazi cunts", my guess is that
in part
they rubbed their hands with glee,
told themselves that with the Patriot
Act, our military, the NSA, CIA, etc.,
we were going to "take the gloves off"
and really roast the Jihaders and
teach them a lesson, not to mess with
the big bad US, that would last for
1000 years. For the Patriot Act
being constitutional, they just took
the position that it would take
years for legal cases to reach the
Supreme Court and get the act
struck down as unconstitutional
and in the meanwhile they would
bend the Constitution for a while
and roast all the Jihaders.
But the "nazi cunts" in the end
were quite dumb, wasteful, and
ineffective. One reason is, if want
to use Nazi techniques, they
were not enough like the actual
Nazis: In some area the Nazis
occupied, if something went "boom",
the Nazis were not reluctant to
round people up, torture them,
and level much of the area. The
US, however, kept wanting to be
loved from building roads, bridges,
hospitals, and schools, of course,
including for the girls (which
totally torqued off nearly every
Muslim for 2000 miles),
setting up
a constitution and holding free
elections. Didn't work at all well.
Instead, nearly every low level thug,
every leader of a small gang,
a large fraction of everyone with
some military training,
various tribal and Muslim leaders,
various international opportunists,
etc. all saw that the US occupation
in both Iraq and Afghanistan was
a golden opportunity for mischief,
money, power, etc. while the W
Admin and any of their Nazis didn't.
We were writing term papers on
the lessons from Ireland, Indonesia,
and anywhere else, guessing, etc.
The short answer is, we blew it.
Now we've got one in Syria: Assad
is an ugly guy. He's in with the
Iranians we are pissed at. He's
in with Putin who, I guess, stole
a Superbowl ring and is not running
a Jeffersonian democracy. A lot
of innocent people in Syria are
suffering. So, there is US political
pressure "to do something". A point
is, it's not the least bit clear that
there is a better alternative, and there's
a fear that the main alternative is
Al Qaeda or some such and worse. So,
it appears that Obama is trying to appear
to do 'something' but actually is doing
very little, which to me means that he
will please the people who want him
to do 'something' but not really seriously
piss off the people, like Palin, who
just want to "leave it to Allah". The
Pentagon has said no fly
zones, shooting down Assad's air force,
etc. would all be too darned expensive,
e.g., 400 US air sorties.
So, no politician wants just to come
out and say, "The situation stinks.
What we can do about it is next to
nothing -- we could throw in a lot
of effort and come up with a big,
fat zero for making the situation
better. In time, the civil war
will burn itself out with likely
not much impact on essential US
interests.". US politicians don't
want to say that. However,
politicians in nearly every other
country on the planet are eager
to say just this. Really, only
the US is all vulnerable to rushing
off to more 'international adventures'.
I believe that the US voters need to
wise up and then wise up the
politicians.
All your posts in this thread just make you sound utterly delusional. You're presented with clear cases that prove your optimistic beliefs to be little more than prose from a romance novel and you wave it away with "was a black mark on the history of the US.". So was every other time they've ignored their own laws in the past and every time they will continue to do so in the future.
The US is somehow a naive country
(for no good reason) with more
money than wisdom about 'foreign
adventures'. So, the US messes up
a lot. I wish we didn't. As
Churchill observed long ago, the
US always does the right thing
after trying everything else.
Some countries a lot less democratic
than the US end up with much more
wisdom in foreign policy.
If you have some specific objection
with what I wrote, then quote it
and argue against it. If I return
to this thread, then I will try to
respond.
There was a case in the news today:
Some US woman reporter went into
Syria (she couldn't have been too
bright) and met in a room with
a lot of women and children. The
men were mostly off fighting.
One of the women was 14 and had
a small baby. The reporter explained
that the main reason was that the
family wanted the girl to get married
so that she would have more protection
against rape (the reporter didn't
go into what might have been the result
had the girl been raped). Then the
reporter went on about how horrible
it was for the girl to have a baby
at age 14 (and get married and pregnant at age 13).
Yes, there are potentially some
medical problems due to her young
age and lack of physical development.
And, as the reporter made clear,
the girl was not going to be able to
finish high school.
Gads! The US reporter was projecting
onto that poor family in Syria
her strong US views about women
in the US.
Instead, consider: The women and
children in the room looked well
enough fed and clothed. They
were not obviously suffering.
The young mother actually looked
quite happy and calm and really
happy holding her baby. The baby
looked good, calm, happy, well
fed and cared for (the US reporter
did mention that the baby had not
yet had some inoculations it should have).
Otherwise the young mother looked
like she was being a good mother.
Moreover, the young mother was just
surrounded by family -- her mother,
brothers, sisters, likely aunts,
etc. She was in an 'extended
family' and no doubt just
awash in emotional support and
feeling of belonging. There was no
shortage of expertise on how
to care for the young baby.
That
she had a baby at age 14 is not
ideal but, apparently, Mother
Nature is not wildly against it.
Also, likely in some Muslim
countries, such young mothers
are not so rare. As far as
finishing high school is concerned,
commonly in Muslim countries that's
not a big consideration for girls
(although maybe Syria, like some
Muslim countries, except for the civil war,
is more advanced
about such things).
That's just the way it is in
some Muslim countries. I don't
want to live that way, but
since they've been
living that way for 1000+ years,
it can't be all bad. For the
person under stress, it looked to
me that it was only the US reporter.
Net, the US needs to be more accepting
of other cultures. That doesn't
mean we want US girls 14 being mommies,
but it does mean that what that girl
was doing in that house and extended
family in that country was
not so bad there.
If the US
gets itself all bent out of shape
over lives such as that of that young mother, then
we will be chasing absurd
'foreign adventures' until
we are white from loss of blood.
To avoid this, we have to wise up.
I'm afraid your optimism is based on fairly tales, not actual historical precedent.
Laws, Supreme Court and so on mean nothing. They who hold the force make the rules. The constitution is nothing more than a security blanket that people can hold onto and pretend it's protecting them from something. In reality, the government will do what they want to do and (possibly, if they care to) justify it later with some "interpretation" of the law.
There's plenty of historical precedent
where the US democracy worked. E.g.,
we passed prohibition -- 2/3rds of
the House, 2/3rds of the Senate, and
3/4ths of the states. When we saw
how dumb it was, we repealed it.
Recently SOPA and PIPA were close to
passing. A lot of people in the
tech community raised hell, and
the bills went down in flames.
Sure, the Constitution doesn't
solve all the problems. Instead,
as Jefferson said,
"The price of liberty is eternal
vigilance."
So, to make the Constitution work,
citizens have to keep pushing.
You mentioned threats, and there
are threats, but they can be defeated.
Once public opinion polls rise
significantly over 50%, politicians
start to pay close attention.
The main issue, then, is just what
the voters want. Sure, the MSM,
political ad campaigns, lying
politicians, etc. can have
big effects, but in the end
the voters know a lot about
lying, duplicity, manipulation,
etc. I believe that the Internet
will be helping -- it seems to
have helped a lot with SOPA and
PIPA and to have gotten the
Snowden efforts front and center.
No doubt some cases are on the
way to the Supreme Court --
from Google, EFF, ACLU, etc.
I doubt that the Patriot Act
will come out whole.
Indeed, I believe that YouTube
is helping a lot: Once a politician
gives a speech, then due to YouTube
the politician can't assume that
the voters will easily forget.
And for text data on politics, the
Google/Bing keywork/phrase search
engines are terrific.
Look at the US efforts in Viet Nam:
Before WWII, Viet Nam was a
colony of France. Ho Chi Minh
was a dishwasher in Paris!
During WWII, Japan made Viet Nam
a colony. The US worked with
the Viet Namese 'nationalists',
e.g., to rescue downed US
pilots.
After WWII, the French got
one of the peace conferences to
let them back into Viet Nam,
and war broke out.
Then the US had just fought against
the Axis of Germany, Italy, and
Japan, and it looked like there
was another axis on the way with
Moscow, Peking, and Hanoi.
So, the US helped France in
Viet Nam. The French lost.
By then the US had been fighting
in Korea: The North was backed
by Moscow and Peking and wanted
the whole country. The US and
parts of the UN wanted to
'block' that effort. So,
there was the war in Korea,
really, still simmering.
So, when the French lost in
Viet Nam, the US wanted
to divide the country
and have the southern half
allied with the US.
Alas, whatever the Ho government
was, it was able to maintain
power. And the US couldn't
find a government to back
in Saigon that could maintain
power -- a Saigon politician
did not dare sleep in a
small village in the South.
So, the US kept backing
governments in Saigon
that kept losing.
In the US, the foreign policy
'wise men', Keenan, Dulles,
Rusk, Bundy, etc. kept screaming
that the US had to stop Hanoi
or "dominoes" would fall all
across the Pacific and land
in California or some such.
LBJ and Nixon really bought
into this stuff, big time.
So the US bent itself all out of
shape, inflated its economy,
lost the lives of 50,000+
US soldiers, etc. trying to
prop up loser governments in
Saigon.
Why? Because no US politician
wanted to see Hanoi take Saigon
and, then, suffer the charges
that they "lost Viet Nam" and
were "soft on the atheistic, international
Communist conspiracy about to
take over the world and
march into Washington, DC".
That sales pitch worked really
well in the US from the end of
WWII until the US finally
was run out of Viet Nam with
people hanging off the
parts of US helicopters
whenever it was in the 1970s.
In all of this, it was really sad
that Ho worked so hard to
go to Moscow and Peking and, there,
poke the US.
Actually, in the end, Hanoi
and the US really had no serious
differences at all. Indeed,
now the US couldn't be happier
with Hanoi. The US could have
been happy with Ho and Hanoi
at any time from WWII until
the US totally lost.
But for your point about US
democracy, what finally got the
US out of Viet Nam was
the US voters, e.g.,
many thousands of them
marching on DC. Finally they
made such a big noise that
even President Ford gave only
half-hearted support for staying
in Saigon, and we left.
The US voters long bought into
that Rusk, etc. "domino"
theory. Eventually nearly
every young person knew
someone in their high school
days who had died in Viet Nam.
The predictions of the hawks
never came true. It was clear
that somehow the US just did not
know how to build a government
in Saigon.
It took US voters a very long
time, decades, to see these points.
But, eventually the voters saw,
and then the US was out'a there.
The bottleneck was the US voters
voting for LBJ and Nixon
instead of, say, McGovern.
I voted for McGovern;
he wanted out as in 'leave
now' which is eventually just
what we did and what brought us to
the present which is just fine.
But McGovern lost, badly.
There were lots of people saying
that we should get the heck out
of Viet Nam. One book went
"Are not winning, cannot win,
should not wish to win". My
view is that we burned enough
oil, say, in B-52s from Guam,
to enable OPEC.
We blew it.
Then, Afghanistan -- same song,
second verse. There, still,
no US politician wants to say,
"Leave. Now.". Me? I'd
have bombed enough of Akrapistan
to teach them a lesson and then
left, without ever setting a
foot on the ground.
>There's plenty of historical precedent where the US democracy worked.
And at least as many where it didn't.
>Recently SOPA and PIPA were close to passing. A lot of people in the tech community raised hell, and the bills went down in flames.
Haha, no. A lot of big companies put their lobby dollars behind a position and that position got adopted. No one in the US government cares about a bunch of blog posts, email or online surveys.
> etc. can have big effects, but in the end the voters know a lot about lying, duplicity, manipulation, etc. I believe that the Internet will be helping
No they don't! And even if they did, I'm not sure they can stop it (in the same way that knowing you're taking a placebo won't alter its effectiveness). It's getting more and more documented about just how effective marketing can be.
Some have gone so far as to ban certain kinds of advertising [1].
>it seems to have helped a lot with SOPA and PIPA and to have gotten the Snowden efforts front and center.
What? Outside of sites like HN, pretty much no one cares about Snowden. The mainstream press was already over him the next day.
>Once a politician gives a speech, then due to YouTube the politician can't assume that the voters will easily forget.
Except they do forget, and sites like political compass help them forget by trying to look official but producing padded stats. You can probably find every one of Obama's speeches on youtube yet there are still people who claim he hasn't broken any big promises.
What I wonder is at what point words like stasi become reasonable or acceptable.
OK, I don't like what is happening, and almost day by day thing happen that I feel are pushing the west, led by the US, more and more towards something highly controlled and not in any way free. Liberty is slowly being eroded, and I genuinely feel that is a true statement objectively. Right now, words like stasi, fascist, etc are an exaggeration, but used by people who see it going that way. They use such words to warn, but we all know those words do not really stand up objectively.
So, what is the tipping point, what has to happen for such words to actually apply? Or is it merely a case of presentation? If society, superficially, doesn't look like old Nazi Germany, is that enough for a majority to be content, even if underling that is something deeply nasty?
The Stasi were the secret police for Eastern Germany, nothing to do with the Nazis as far as I know.
The surveillance undertaken by the Stasi wasn't really as extensive as (for example) collecting all phone records for the entire country, so in some ways the US has surpassed the Stasi in surveillance, while in others obviously it's nowhere near the same situation (e.g. in-person surveillance and recruiting ordinary citizens as spies), and in other areas it's similar - secret courts and sweeping warrants etc.
I suppose the point of the comparison is to shock, and then perhaps point out that there are some areas in which the current situation is worse than it was in Eastern Germany.
Given that communists and fascists have historically really really not liked each other, yes the secret police of communist East Germany, would not like each other.
(In East Germany, the Berlin Wall was called the "Anti-Fascist Barrier", and Nazis imprisoned and banned the communist party)
For me it would be when people disappear. Being spied on is one thing but being afraid of getting arrested is another.
I grew up in Western Germany and visited the East several times. Living in the US now I have to say that it feels an order of magnitude "freer" than either of the Germanies of my youth. However, I'm very concerned about the NSA thing.
It feels like something out of the Niemoller poem:
"First they came for the muslims,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a muslim."
OT: I always feel awkward about writing "American" when referring to U.S. citizens, as we in South America also call ourselves Americans ("Americanos").
Have you noticed how those who move, move fast? And those who don’t, just stand still; motionless?
Yes, you can go ahead and rant to me about how an object in motion stays in motion, and how an object at rest stays at rest. But, I think there’s more to this than physics.
I think those in motion have seen something the others have not; their imprisonment.
While those who do not move, do not notice their chains.
What about "your children will not be allowed to attend a university" or "no matter how hard you work or how good you are, your path is blocked" or "people just do not want to do business with you any more"?
Unlike during the time of the Nazis, what most people in East Germany dreaded was not to disappear, but to have the few possibilities to achieve something taken from them.
Which is what happened to my mom and aunt in post-war Eastern Germany, luckily they were able to get away. That's also what I'm concerned about here. I totally understand the allure of big data mining for the purpose of preventing attacks but once you've figured out a good algorithm to pinpoint a specific population it's just a small step to put obstacles in their path.
You don't necessarily need to 'disappear' people when (with enough information) you can string together a bunch of charges such that a compliant judicial system will put them away for you. Even if there isn't a conviction, the process may be sufficient to destroy someone's life.
It's a good question but the story of the frog in the slowly heating pot of water comes to mind. At what temperature should the frog really get worried?
It's too late for the general population in the US. But there are very smart folks with means that have hedged their bets by having estates in multiple countries.
I've got an answer for all the people who say, "I've got nothing to hide".
That might be true but you would have to be naive to think that the information that could be gathered from these NSA activities would not be misused by people.
Imagine an up and coming politician. Squeaky clean but was friends with a few people who got prosecuted for drug dealing. Those useful NSA phone records could easily lead to the press asking the young idealist if he often hung around with drug users. Irrelevant and potentially career ending.
Civil rights campaigners who could be accused of having an affair because of call records.
A journalist investigating a corrupt politician... is he a terrorist sympathizer... comb through the records.
You may have nothing to hide but often the people trying to improve your country for the better and root out corruption and crime will be more vulnerable to this. Because the corrupt individuals in positions of power will not respect the laws and procedures and will use this information for evil.
The second problem with "nothing to hide" is that it's really "nothing to hide based on today's laws". Laws change. Things become illegal or looked down upon that were previously just fine. What you did with a peaceful conscience today could be used to throw you in jail in 20 years.
The third problem is that due to the complexity of the penal code, this is already the case. You have already done stuff in the last 10 years, that you didn't think was illegal, but somewhere in the tens of thousands of pages of the penal code someone can find a reason to throw you in jail if they have enough information about you. As Richelieu put it, "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him." - the NSA has billions of lines about you. They can hang you a million times over.
I agree with you 100% but I'm trying to formulate an argument that works on people who really believe that there is no way that 'they' could ever break the law and will never do anything that might make 'someone' want to pick on them. I want to demonstrate to them that there are other people who are doing important things for society and those people need to be protected too.
Everyone keeps saying that everyone has committed a jail-able offense if you just look hard enough, but no one has any examples. I'm not denying that it's true, I just have no response if someone says, "like what?"
Are there any examples of crimes that many people have probably committed? Maybe software piracy, but isn't that just a fine? And I hope that isn't the only example.
> Are there any examples of crimes that many people have probably committed?
Have you ever ordered anything off Amazon? Did you declare and pay the appropriate use taxes for what you bought? Did you ever discuss with anyone that buying things off Amazon meant there was no tax?
Depending on where you live, that's tax fraud and conspiracy to commit. If you had the discussion over email or on a message board, then it's an inter-state crime...
They've basically "al caponed" the entire US. If they can't get you on one thing, they'll get you on another. Oddly enough, taxes are probably something everyone has broken the law on. Do you really report everything to the last penny? No? Oh, well theres tax evasion.
Finding your kid's drug stash and punishing him by flushing it down the toilet is probably possession. I certainly would rather it remain private than find out via government prosecution.
Watch this classic lawyer's talk, and understand that "nothing to hide" is still no protection against talking ti authorities, even non-malicious ones.
> I wonder if this is also true if you are a foreigner visiting the US.
It won't work on Customs and Immigration. When you're talking to them you're not "in the US" yet. After that, yes, the privilege against self-incrimination is granted to everyone in the United States, citizen or not.
> And I wonder if this also works for the Dutch police.
The privilege in question is considered an essential component of the Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution. Most other countries based on English common law have something similar. You'll have to look for parallel support within the Dutch legal system.
That refrain, which is based in fear, requires but one simple response: nothing to hide, according to whom?
That invalidates their entire premise instantly, by pointing out that it is not their judgment that matters as to whether they have anything to hide.
People say that they have nothing to hide - in response to things like the NSA spying scandals - because they're terrified of confrontation. To say almost anything else is to challenge the government's authority, to say to them: you have no right to violate my constitutional rights and I refuse to accept it.
When you see someone cowering in fear behind that statement, remember what their mental state of mind likely is and re-approach how you discuss the spying with them, otherwise you'll find they will just turtle. It's far easier for most people to back down from confrontation than to challenge such extreme authority (the US Govt.).
Let's disregard the blackmail aspect of nothing-to-hide.
Consider that lobbyists & bureaucrats now have the capability (prevented only by policy) to snoop the past and present communications of elected officials.
Imagine your squeaky clean politician, whose friends are equally squeaky clean. How effective will this politician be when at negotiations, hearings, etc, his opponents have already studied his history and relationships? They know where he likes to eat, where he's been on vacation, where his dog goes to the vet. They know how the talks are going, they know which strategies are working, and which lines of thought aren't.
In short, they know which ideas to push, and which ideas to back away from.
This politician will be both ineffective at representing his constituents, as well as unable to point to why this is the case. And he's never going to cry out "blackmail!"
Who hasn't broken some minor law at some time? Selective enforcement and total information awareness on the part of the enforcers are a dangerous combination.
The 4th amendment is all but obliterated, and now this is how the 1st amendment and the freedom of the press will be destroyed, too, by killing any sort of investigative journalism left, and by prosecuting all leakers.
I used to think that Wikileaks and other such secure leaking is the future of investigative journalism. If you believe the print media will die, and blogging will take its place, then investigative journalism will die, too, because I doubt many bloggers will go out and do that. So in a way Wikileaks would serve as a "disruptive innovation" for investigative journalism. Actually, most investigative journalism is only about finding "sources" that are willing to leak stuff to them, anyway. Wikileaks is kind of a "user-generated" investigative journalism/leaking, or investigative journalism 2.0.
But if the government is trying to kill both at once, then I'm not sure what's left to uncover illegalities inside the government.
The fact that these conversations are happening is indicative that we do not have a Stasi.
We have serious problems, as evidence by the unwillingness of any member of Congress to really speak out on the issue, and the sheer scope and reach power of this poorly regulated surveillance regime.
There's no gulag archipelago, but the tools used by repressive totalitarian regimes are being built for other purposes, and many of us believe that these tools are not compatible with a free and democratic society.
Let's focus on the real and stop running down the slippery slope.
I'm not so sure. Europeans stopped conquering and colonizing in favor of economic colonialism, which is just as bad perhaps, but now with a veneer of credibility. They are just doing business. Nevermind that the despot du jour was installed by the CIA.
Similarly we can talk about NSA overreaches all we want, as opposed to the old way of actually silencing the dissent. Great, except everyone is just talking, they are probably continuing with impunity under a different program name.
In a free country on the other hands, every last (healthy adult) citizen would be able to think without employing sophistry, and to see woods despite the trees.
The NSA leak is troubling, yes. It is NOT comparable to the horrors of communist authoritarianism - where 20 million people were killed, starved, or simply disappeared. To me, this seems like a cheap shock tactic more common on stations like Fox News where the labels "nazi" or "socialist" are thrown around without thought. These words have deep historical roots and deep meaning, and to use them in situations where it isn't appropriate is trivializing. A government can be intrusive and overstep its bounds without earning the label of 'Stasi'. We can have a conversation about the power and role of government in this country without drawing these hyperbolic and historically inaccurate parallels.
This whole thing has reminded me how prescient the movie "Sneakers" was.
"There's a war out there, old friend. A world war. And it's not about who's got the most bullets. It's about who controls the information. What we see and hear, how we work, what we think... it's all about the information!"
"The world isn't run by weapons anymore, or energy, or money. It's run by little ones and zeroes, little bits of data. It's all just electrons."
I missed it when it first came out, and only saw it for the first time about 2 years ago. I've probably watched it 20+ times since then. It really is a great movie.
The current uproar will do us no good unless we develop ways to either disrupt the technology or protect ourselves from it.
Because even if we win this round, the state will find ways to bring these programs back in some other guise. For example, the FISA courts were part of the reforms that emerged from the abuses of the CIA and FBI during the Red Scare and Civil Rights eras.
In other words, we need a technical Rosa Parks. Well, more like a million of them.
There is no hope if that's the extent of the “solution”, no meaningful work will come in the form of more politics and oppression.
The only reasonable conclusion is that to stop the bloodshed and invasion, one must stop supporting the oppressors.
You are quite literally paying many thousands of thugs to fly to the middle east and support a paedophilic, incompetent, oppressive regime which directly hurts people's lives.
At home you're paying many more thousands to pick on people carrying small amounts of plant trimmings, specifically targeted by the colour of their skin.
Those people are then sent to buildings and force fed in contract-incestuous CEO-laden prisons with an economic incentive to cost more money to their handlers.
Aggression is the problem, and paying people to use it against you, or anyone else for that matter, is probably not going to help.
> The article was used for the imprisonment and execution of many prominent people, as well as multitudes of nonnotable innocents. (...) Article 58 of the Russian SFSR Penal Code was put in force on 25 February 1927 to arrest those suspected of counter-revolutionary activities.
So the point is that even in Soviet Russia people were sent into the Gulag based on written laws and going through the legal system, so I'd say that the US Government's reply that "it's all legal! it has gone through the courts" doesn't mean a thing as long as said laws are against the spirit of the US Constitution.
And I'd say that's the gist of it, the current laws are against the spirit of the original fundamental law of the United States. As long as its current citizens are ok with that (no mass protests etc) then I'd say there's nothing that the minority can do (if it matters I'm not from the US)