[Buzaga]

That is absurd. Do you think every country, and every country folk, would let the government pass a bulldozer all over their rights like this? This is just projecting.

In other words, that shit wouldn't fly everywhere, for sure. This all emanates from the 9/11 and Patriot Act and Secret Laws with no oversight, that's your problem specifically, of course every government must be wanting it's own surveillance supermachine too, but it doesn't mean every single one of them is willing(or have means) to pass every possible barrier to do it.

Other countries have their own constituitions too and people guarding it, and different political systems, and different relation of the people with their government. Brasilians, for example, are not patriotic(as you are), we like the localization and our folk but absolutely everyone despises the government, the governants are completely cowering with the demonstration, pulling their repression apparatus out and on...

It's absurd and it's also a derrotist statement, this lavabit guy is a hero and the more people go against this rotten government, more clear it becomes the damage is shared by everyone AND the country itself.

[dictum]

>Do you think every country, and every country folk, would let the government pass a bulldozer all over their rights like this?

If your government is not willing to pass a bulldozer over its rights, the US are more than willing to bulldoze your government.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_activities_in_Brazil

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1964_Brazilian_coup_d%27%C3%A9...

[emiliobumachar]

I wholehearteadly agree with your larger point, but as a Brazilian I think Brazil is not a good example in this regard. People here despise the government because of corruption of the "stealing" kind, and inefficiency. Despite our recent experiment with dictatorship ended in the 80's, We have a long road to travel in terms of awareness about the dangers of tirany. The government takes the fingerprints of every citizen when we go make our I.D. Cards, for example. No one makes a fuss. Official propaganda is standard practise (how else would one call the government-bought advertisements to raise awareness about its deeds?) Recenty the folks who organize electios are all over the TV with their campaign to take everyone's prints (see "inneficiency") in order to "make our elections even more secure". Though the last president's plans for "social control of the media" were soundly rebutted, it's telling that he even thought he could try. I'm an optimist regarding the next decades, but it's a long road indeed.

[Buzaga]

Yeah, I didn't mean it like Brazil would be anything near 'an example to follow', I was just trying to illustrate how the landscape can be different everywhere else, also to the scope of how the population interacts with their state, for which Brazil definitely has a long way to go...

The picture I was going for would more of how it would not be so simple to have this elsewhere in the same manner, the starting point being that, I'd think, without a good Boogeyman, most peaceful countries do not have especial exception laws to walk over the basics of democracy, without secret laws, secret courts, secret interpretations, it's way harder, possibly impossible in some countries to get to this situation, not to mention technical limitations, budget(imagine the disparity between Inteligence and Military spending around the world x US), media, 'political temperature'(most of Europe and Latin-America are liberal/libertarian-leaning, currently, no?), public and judiciary scrutinity... Basically the framework of democracy is meant to prevent this kind of thing, there may be holes, but still.