

MSNBC Contributor: Debate over NSA is a 'Privileged' Discussion - tsax
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/msnbc-contributor-debate-over-nsa-is-a-privileged-discussion/

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jivatmanx
We now know that the DEA has been using laundered NSA intelligence. That's
relevant to the Drug War, where primarily minority communities are routinely
terrorized by soldiers, and imprisoned en mass at the world's highest rate.

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slg
He has a point. The NSA spying adopts more of an innocent until proven guilty
mantra that many minorities have experienced throughout their lives. However
that shouldn't diminish our outrage towards either or our efforts to put a
stop to them.

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dictum
I just realized this is the domestic version of "...and you are lynching
Negroes!"

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_you_are_lynching_Negroes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_you_are_lynching_Negroes)

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tsax
Except no one is being lynched.

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dictum
Is it necessary to call attention to a form of surveillance by downplaying
another? The NSA apparatus will be very useful for those who love to perform
these searches on black people. Sharing of information between agencies and
departments is slowly being implemented. Your local police officer will love
to use the searches of a black teenager to frame him.

Honestly, after seeing this I understand the HNers who complain about the
politics overload on HN. This is pure partisan hackery. This is a classical
trick in two-party politics: show a problem in the opposite team while you
ignore how your side does the same thing through different ways.

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dllthomas
If I lived in New York, I'd be more active in opposing stop-and-frisk too.
Most Americans don't live in New York.

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tsax
[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2351342/Bloomberg-
re...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2351342/Bloomberg-responds-
critics-stop-frisk-program-declaring-I-think-disproportionately-stop-whites-
minorities-little.html)

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dllthomas
I have no idea what you're trying to communicate with the link.

~~~
tsax
Would you like to respond to Bloomberg's argument for stop-and-frisk?

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whiddershins
I have heard this point made by many of my friends. Another example is: the
TSA pat downs are met with outrage precisely because some of the people who
are subjected to them are not accustomed to that sort of treatment. Treatment
that many members of minority groups have been enduring for decades, at least.

The outrage implies that the member of the newly affected group is either
unaware of the position of privilege he has enjoyed thus far in his life, or
is aware of it and thinks it is the natural order of things. Otherwise, why
hasn't the person been outraged for decades about these policies which target
less powerful members of society?

Taking it further these violations being committed have been paid for (taxes),
voted for (elections), and therefore tacitly endorsed, by many of the same
people who are so upset when it happens to their in-group.

Which is the greater violation? Someone reading your private email, or the
imprisonment of a young mother for 40 years because she was associated with
drug dealers? Because the latter had been going on long before the former even
could exist.

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skaevola
Ah yes, the privilege of not having all of your electronic communications
monitored.

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jlgreco
I'm reading this as an interesting variation of _" I am annoyed that this is
being discussed now because I already knew this was a problem."_

Wholly unhelpful.

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elnate
This strikes me as making the good the enemy of the great.

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kaonashi
I think what he's saying is that the poor and minorities have been suffering
under a regime much more oppressive for a very long time. It's not that he
approves of NSA surveillance, he just finds it indicative of a privileged
point of view when one finds the former acceptable, but the latter some sort
of new low.

