[mandalar12]

Problem is the next governments will inherit the surveillance system. Who says they won't be fascists and/or turn the country into dictatorship ? When this happens, we might see these mass arrests. A lot can change in only a few decades.

[hnriot]

One would hope that the US population wouldn't vote in a party of fascists. And if they did, then they get what they deserve. American voters aren't known for being particularly bright (they voted in a drunk who couldn't put together a complete sentence, twice!) but voting in fascists is a little far fetched.

[fooqux]

Obviously their running platform wouldn't be "I'm more of a fascist than the other guy". No, it's probably going to happen like it usually does- somebody gets voted in for being less of a nutjob than their opponent, something bad happens, and the elected official uses that as a excuse for all the horrible policies that follow. It's already happened at least once here with McCarthy; he was just a freakin senator, one of many across the nation.

It almost happened once again with 9/11. Bush basically gutted Habeas Corpus, since he decided that anybody arrested under suspicions of terrorism wasn't allowed the protections afforded under it. The government could arrest you, send you to secret prison, and that would be the end of it since you were never allowed a trial.

True, none of the above examples are true fascism. But, they are scary steps in the right direction. Fear is an excellent political motivator, and with our fear-mongering media we have, that's a more powerful tool than ever. Invent an enemy scary enough, and it seems people will actually hand you their rights while thanking you for it.

[opendais]

I've seen that argument before but honestly...

What would stop them from building it themselves if they were elected?

Nothing, really.

[mandalar12]

Yes but, for instance, if you lived under a fascist anti-gay regime and were gay you would hide it very actively. On the opposite gays today, through their correspondances, might be quiet easily spotted by the NSA or anyone with access to their phone calls / mails / texts. Once the regime becomes anti-gay, they will come for you and it is too late to do anything.

[opendais]

So what your saying is you'd be able to destroy all crawlable evidence on the internet and wipe the memories of all your friends and strip out every reference to a "gay bar" or the like from your finances?

I think you greatly overestimate how effective people could be in wiping their fingerprints from the internet. There is a reason people talk about once you post something on the internet its out there forever. You aren't magically going to be able to wipe out decades of fingerprints because of a regime change, regardless of whether the NSA was collecting them or not.

You can use this argument when you can wipe out all copies of a nude woman whose ex posted her to imgur or something. Until then, you are just 100% wrong because you know you can't do what you claim.

[nitrogen]

The parent comment is saying that those things wouldn't be created in the first place if the environment were already hostile to them. You can hide your present to some extent, but not erase the past.

[opendais]

Yes. I'm aware the parent comment wants to try to ignore reality and pretend you can nuke the publicly posted information on the internet in the event of a fascist government.

That isn't how the internet or public communication works. The Nazis were able to identify the people they sent to concentration camps because of past associations, even once it became clear what they were doing because people don't live in a vacuum.

By the same token, you aren't going to be able to nuke all your facebook posts, twitter posts, etc. that might obviously flag you as gay "magically" whenever a fascist type government comes to power. The evidence is already there and completely out of your control.

If bad people come to power you are screwed regardless of what the NSA is currently doing. At worst, this shaves a few months off the process.

The most hilarious part of this is, all of you arguing with me about this in a public forum. Do you think you can magically go back and delete all these posts if some truly evil people came to power?

Nope.

I'm amused by the downvotes and arguments because:

1) You've publicly provided information that isn't going to go away already to show which camp you'd end up in if the people arguing with me are right. This information isn't vanishing simply because its posted publicly on the internet. It isn't going to magical become invisible in the future.

2) I've said I agree with the basic premise in my parent comment and basically said it was people who were vulnerable/edge cases that are getting screwed. That is still going to the base regardless of what happens because you only need control of 51% of the electorate to remain in power. The US electorate has shown, consistently, it will believe lies.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09... "For now, there appears to be little political reason to back down. A Washington Post-ABC News poll taken Sept. 5 to Sept. 7 found that 51 percent of voters think Obama would raise their taxes, even though his plan would actually cut taxes for the overwhelming majority of Americans. Obama has proposed eliminating income taxes on seniors making less than $50,000 a year, but 41 percent of those seniors say their income taxes would go up in an Obama administration."

The ability to fabricate falsehoods and get 51% of people to believe it is a far, far greater threat than the NSA. The fact none of you seem to notice this or even care worries me more than the NSA does. If I can get 51% of people to believe any lie I tell them, I can rule any democracy in the world.

[mandalar12]

I am not ignoring the reality: public or semi-public posts (facebook) are not going anywhere and should be considered public information.

Reading my previous post you can surely infer that I disagree with the mass spying but not that I am (or not) gay. This is not a coincidence: I don't hide this political view and accept to be vocal about it publically because I believe discussing it helps protecting the democracy I live in today. If I am to be accused of having that opinion later on, then so be it because that was an accepted risk.

On the other hand I don't accept that my privacy can be used against me, be it related to my sexuality or the opinions I chose to keep for myself or only share with close friends privately.

Overall I am not denying that the information can be found elsewhere or that the Nazis used past associations (I have no opinion about that) but the key point is that you should be able to dissociate between your public life and your private life.

I am well aware of the public traces I leave on forums and "social media" but I don't know to which extend my private conversations are infiltrated and I am much less careful when I write them. So I am not sure what extreme (or not so extreme) opinion I once formulated and was stored somewhere. That could be used against me by the next fascist government. There are two ways to avoid that: the first is that it is never stored in the first place, the second is that I never formulate such an opinion. I want the option that is compatible with a democracy.

[nitrogen]

I'm not sure what you are arguing. We can dislike the panopticon and the propaganda at the same time.

[TheSpiceIsLife]

You have totally misunderstood what the parent comment was saying.

[maxxxxx]

It's much easier and faster to use existing infrastructure than having to build a new one.

[opendais]

Obviously. However, speed isn't relevant since you can't erase your fingerprints of your entire life on the internet.

> You can use this argument when you can wipe out all copies of a nude woman whose ex posted her to imgur or something. Until then, you are just 100% wrong because you know you can't do what you claim.

That is really what it boils down to. You can't erase all of the evidence on the internet, so you are screwed anyway.

I think the most amusing part of this is the fact I basically agree with the comment I responded to except to the severity and scope of the danger.

Vulnerable people will get screwed. Most people won't.

[dictum]

And you can spend the time you'd spend building new infrastructure making the existing infrastructure even more powerful.

Additionally, while the people capable of building this infrastructure might refuse to do it under a fascist regime, they're comfortable doing it now under a democracy.