
Academics Against Mass Surveillance - jobstijl
http://www.academicsagainstsurveillance.net/
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javajosh
Anyone who throws their hands up in the air (and I'm talking to you yodsanklai
and JoeAltmaier, dobbsbob...and basically 80% of the people on this thread)
but YOU are a big part of the problem. It doesn't matter even if the petition
is totally ineffectual to change things on it's own: it's value is in it's
very existence, and it signals a strong position against something that is
very, very wrong with our society at the moment. No movement ever started
fully formed like Aphrodite from the head of Zues - they all must start
somewhere.

So please, if you agree with the desired outcome, why would you naysay ANY
attempt to change things, no matter how "naive" or "ineffectual" or
"pointless"? Is it not better to have good people speaking truth to power,
even if they are not listened to?

All I ask is that you consider this question before criticizing someone else's
attempt to _advocate for positions that you yourselves agree with_.

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yodsanklai
I suppose pretty much everybody is against mass surveillance, academics or
not. But what choice do we have? I think the problem is that we don't really
live in democracies. It's not only mass surveillance, but also wars,
inequalities and so on...

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herbig
I don't know, I've been surprised by just how many of the people I know either
don't know anything at all about this, or simply don't care.

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BrownBuffalo
This also plays out in the turn-out of voters on election day - its just a
disconnect in community. Not saying its bad -or- good, but its reflective of
how diluted our outlets are and the lack of trust we all have in everything
and it becomes a culture of indifference.

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lkbm
If we had a direct vote on mass surveillance I wouldn't be at all surprised if
American voters rejected it, but that's not how we make political decisions in
the US.

There are very few candidates who oppose mass surveillance (though we did
elect a president who spoke out against trading freedom for security during
his campaign), and most of them also have a bunch of other policy positions
that are sufficiently distasteful to enough people that even opponents of mass
surveillance will either reject him/her for those other positions, or reject
him/her for being "unelectable".

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rayiner
I doubt it. Neither party really opposes surveillance, and if there was broad
public opposition to surveillance, one or the other would.

I posit that you're not seeing a failure of representative democracy to
properly express what is a position with majority support. Rather, you're
failing to perceive the nature of the electorate.

I remember I stared college the year after 9/11 and was in school when the
Iraq war started. Conservative place as far as colleges go, but left of center
for the region as a whole. I heard a lot of talk about turning the middle east
into a glass parking lot. That was not a position anyone was afraid to take
publicly. Imagine my surprise when I'd come back to my very liberal circle in
northern Virginia and hear about the "overwhelming public opposition to the
Iraq war." Simply put, ideological minorities often don't realize that they
are that.

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lkbm
Neither party is big on decriminalizing marijuana, but it has >50% support
among Americans. Neither party is big on ending gerrymandering, but I'd guess
it has >50% support (opposition?) from Americans.

There's stuff that gets votes, and there's stuff the majority supports. They
aren't necessarily the same.

On the other hand, the Washington Post/Pew Research Center say there's narrow
majority support some of the mass surveillance. Narrow majority opposition for
some aspects: [http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/most-americans-
suppor...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/most-americans-support-nsa-
tracking-phone-records-prioritize-investigations-over-
privacy/2013/06/10/51e721d6-d204-11e2-9f1a-1a7cdee20287_story.html)

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dobbsbob
I don't agree with petitions. Not only do they get ignored but here they use
it against you in politics later when public opinion changes, plus it's a list
for marketers. Instead harass your local representative mercilessly with
letters and espcially angry phone calls those get noticed eventually.

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f_salmon
Shouldn't the US list be much, much longer taking into account the size of the
various countries?

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pdkl95
Yes, it should be.

Instead, we see an example of chilling-effect created by surveillance.

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MofR
OR - Most academic never heard of 'acedemicsagainstmasssurvalence' and know
form bitter experience that signing a petition from some unknown group could
end up with them claiming to speak on your behalf in the future.

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JoeAltmaier
While I agree in principle, opposing surveillance is like pissing into the
wind. Privacy is becoming extinct. Soon devices and technologies will be
impossible to regulate - specks of dust that record sound and location;
recorders that stick to clothing, hair, skin; phones and tablets that come
pre-infected in their OS and hardware.

We can oppose it, and maybe stave off for a few years, but inevitably we are
all going under the microscope. Better to design new social mechanisms to
protect against misuse of the data, than try and prevent its collection.

~~~
f_salmon
> Better to design new social mechanisms to protect against misuse of the
> data, than try and prevent its collection.

The only way to achieve this, is to eliminate EVERY kind of asymmetry in
society (which we should have achieved a long time ago, since we all always
pretend that every life has the exact same value). If you keep any kind of
asymmetry within society and accept mass surveillance, democracy is dead
because mass surveillance will of course be abused to increase and further
protect power monopolies.

This means, every kind of power would have to be distributed equally over
every citizen. And that also means that everybody would have to receive the
same amount of money per hour of work (all education being paid for by
everybody, meaning entirely financed via taxes).

While that would be the perfect model and the most sane one, I doubt we are
culturally mature enough to get there fast enough.

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twoodfin
_which we should have achieved a long time ago, since we all always pretend
that every life has the exact same value_

I don't think we've ever pretended this. We've "pretended" that all men are
_created_ equal, but what anyone does from there has a great impact on how
society will value them. And why not? Two guys created equal: One spends his
life on his parents' couch, the other becomes Bill Gates or Michael Jordan.
Which one should we value more?

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TelmoMenezes
That depends. If the couch potato is my neighbour and takes care of my cat
when I'm away, I will probably value him more.

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plg
Is anyone else thinking that this is like signing up for a no-spam list? In
other words, an invitation for spam?

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pdkl95
As several of the recent 30c3 talks mentioned, the concept of "being a target"
doesn't really apply when the goal is ubiquitous surveillance.

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plg
I'm not so sure about that. Isn't there an argument that goes like this: if
there is indeed ubiquitous, mass surveillance, in other words if "everyone is
a target", then doesn't that just move the problem back to a sort of baseline,
where authorities still need to identify targets? (or sub-targets, if you
like)

In any case I'm glad to see so many people signing this petition. It would be
great if it had more populist support.

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amirouche
must read: [http://cultureandempire.com/‎](http://cultureandempire.com/‎)

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rikacomet
none from India?

