
If PRISM is Good Policy, Why Stop with Terrorism? - milesf
http://m.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/07/if-prism-is-good-policy-why-stop-with-terrorism/277531/?
======
milesf
_The danger of a surveillance state is not the obscure chance of a truly evil
person abusing the system; rather, the actual threat, the real danger, is a
person with good intentions who believes that their draconian actions are
morally justified and prudent. It is such a leader, perhaps with the best of
intentions, who can make the most heinous of mistakes with eyes wide open and
belief that the ends justify the means. Those ends never justify eviscerating
the Fourth Amendment._

If the American people do not understand this, then they will abandon their
freedoms and liberty voluntarily, without any outside foreign invasion or
attack.

They will fall because of apathy, just like the Romans did.

~~~
tokenizer
Then they will fall. The protests were an abysmal failure. I've seen plenty of
"I don't care" opinions regarding it, and that's not even factoring the 50+%
of people who don't even follow such things.

People get what they deserve, and the world apparently deserves the US
monitoring all of its communications. My only hope is a complete collapse of
their government.

~~~
MarkSweep
If the United States is becoming more repressive, where can one go? Other
English speaking countries such as Australia, England, and Singapore have
problems with freedom of expression.

~~~
el_zorro
This sounds ridiculous, but lately I've been of the opinion that this planet
is borked. I hold out serious hope for Elon Musk and his Mars colony. I
seriously believe that we as a species need a fresh start in a new place. We
need a new planet so we can try new things, create new ideas, and generally
liberate ourselves of traditional conventions. It sounds pie-in-the-sky, but
people are actively working on it and I hope to one day count myself among
them.

America used to be the place where things like this could happen, but that's
not so much anymore. There's still innovation, but the trend doesn't look good
and most of the world just doesn't care.

~~~
adventured
Fleeing earth doesn't instantly change human nature. The risks to liberty will
remain no matter where you go.

The George Washington willing-to-cede-his-throne type will be just as rare on
Mars in 2095 as it is today, as it was throughout history.

~~~
el_zorro
True, but it might allow the freedom to implement alternative methods that
clamp down on such things. Just as the New World allowed for the political
innovations that has lead to modern democracy (however flawed), Mars would be
a new frontier that could be used to create a better government with all the
lessons the past 400 years has taught us. It would be an even better frontier,
as Mars doesn't have the pesky problem of people already living there with all
the historical baggage that accompany it. It doesn't have the terrible legacy
of slavery and the social problems that that implies. It is a fresher start
than we as a species have ever had, and we now how the proper perspective to
avoid the pitfalls that we're currently saddled with. In time, much as
democracy filtered its way back to Europe, a better system of governance could
find its way back to Earth.

In any case, it would be a bold experiment. To go in with the intention of
building a better social contract, or to rethink what that even means, is
something that we should keep in mind. Mars shouldn't just be a joyride in 0.4
g, but an intentional effort to rethink society.

------
jivatmanx
"If humans were angels there would be no need for government to begin with,
and if elected leaders were angels there would be less need for protection of
our privacy -- but humans are not angels and we have experience with elected
leaders that are partisan, opportunist, short-sighted and, sometimes, even
corrupt. Government's natural inclination is to abuse its power, one critical
reason why our Founders limited it. "

Sounds like direct plagarism of this:

"Sometimes it is said that man can not be trusted with the government of
himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we
found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history answer this
question."

-Thomas Jefferson, first inaugural address

~~~
mratzloff
No need for accusations of plagiarism. Your post reads the same without the
words "direct plagiarism of".

~~~
jivatmanx
I agree. Not sure why I worded it that way.

------
mtgx
I don't think most Americans truly understand what's at risk here. All they
can think about is "oh, they'll just monitor my useless chats - no big deal".
The author does a pretty good job defining how far they could go, and I don't
think most Americans even consider those scenarios, which is why they don't
care. Or they do, but "they trust Obama", or they don't believe anything bad
from it will happen to _them_ , as if it wouldn't be bad enough if the power
was abused against many other people or leaders.

------
clavalle
Perhaps Information should become a separate branch of government.

That way, at least we could construct a clean interface with the other
branches and prevent the executive branch from having direct, unfettered
access.

Information is vitally important and I can see the benefits of concentrating
information into one place for security and even efficiency reasons but I
think that sector needs some kind of overarching framework for access and
dissemination to other branches of government and to the People. But,
basically, without cooperation of the other branches, Information would be
neutered. They would be incapable of acting on the information they possess.
We probably don't want it totally controlled by career politicians so it would
need a different structure than Congress and we don't want it run by the same
people forever so we need a different structure than the Judiciary. And we
need a way to look into the black box in a controlled and reliable manner as
the People.

I am not sure how to structure it. It is just the seed of an idea, but it may
be worth some real thought and debate.

~~~
mratzloff
You're assuming the executive branch actually controls the "intelligence
branch". I would say that's a big assumption.

With the press having largely abandoned its role as Fourth Estate it seems
like we need to find a replacement. Clearly, the intelligence establishment
has more influence than the press does these days, so it gets my vote.

------
contingencies
Roughly, this statement does wonders for people who believe in state
surveillance: _If the society you are supporting is a society in which
committing a crime is not reasonably possible, then the society you are
describing is totalitarian_. Forget source. Works wonders.

~~~
johnchristopher
But politicians are telling people they are trying to prevent crime... and
people seem to support that idea. Why wouldn't they ? Preventing crimes before
it happens is good.

Of course no politician tell them (or know) how ugly the surveillance is
really going to be. People may not realize they are wishing for a dictatorship
but complete control, or attempt to get complete control, leads to that kind
of political system.

My point is: few know what totalitarinism is and how to recognize it.

~~~
ctdonath
Most people in true totalitarian states manage to normalize the situation and
go about their lives. They just accept that you vote for Saddam Hussein,
present your documents upon "papierein, bitte", report your neighbors to the
KGB, and hand over half your income to the IRS. Those who don't tend to just
disappear - quietly, with politically correct mumbling about "good riddance".

Few are willing to fight for their right to live at risk. Their neighbors see
to it (if indirectly) the consequences are swift and severe, quiet and veiled.

~~~
mikeash
Vote for Obama or Romney? Both indistinguishable when it comes to the question
of surveillance and basic constitutional freedoms.

We routinely hand over our "papers" when traveling, or even when just buying
beer.

"If you see something, say something" hardly needs additional comment.

They're not nearly as extreme as they are or have been in some places, but the
US certainly seems to qualify for all the basics you outlined. And we have
indeed normalized the situation to go about our lives.

------
du
Of course terrorism is the way to get the foot in the door. Once total
surveillance is cemented and the possibilities for public outrage have
diminished enough, it will be broadened to murderers, pedophiles and so forth.

For pointers of where it'll stop, I think we can look at society today. Where
the people in power are very careful not to threaten their privileges. Milking
the people as much as they can while not to cause the public to seriously
demand change. (of course the milking equipment gets more and more
sophisticated)

So in the end those surveillance tools won't be used for petty crimes (except
where it concerns the least powerful) but everything that could send you to
jail for half a year or more.

~~~
gutnor
Let's talk about public outrage. In the last decade the US has officially
invaded countries, tortured prisoner (and still continue), lied and spied its
citizen, blatantly ignored the responsible for the biggest crisis in a
century.

All of that happened, and well, there is still no real public and media
outrage.

------
tigroferoce
Good point, but why did you proposed speed limits or illegal downloading
instead of insider trading or other financial crimes? Why not proposing some
special eavesdropping on wall street operators?

~~~
visarga
The author picked crimes that would be perpetrated by the majority of
population, as examples.

In another article, someone said there are so many laws and statutes (around
3000) that a person could potentially violate, that there is no sure way to
maintain yourself legit.

For the government it's just a matter of finding something to pin on any
person.

~~~
tigroferoce
Are you implying that child pornography is more diffused than financial
crimes? Or that there is a weird top chart of crimes where terrorism > child
pornography > speed limits > financial crimes?

------
sneak
It occurred to me that with only traffic analysis of US mail, NSA could
probably stop the drug trade in a matter of weeks.

What they don't do is almost as telling as what they do.

~~~
advice4u
Why do you think they do not do that?

~~~
sneak
1) it would draw attention to their collection activities

2) it would draw attention to their data analysis abilities

3) they don't care if people get high

4) they would prefer to have the leverage against everyone involved for use on
an individual basis should they ever need it in the future should the
need/mission/assignment arise

------
SCAQTony
...because PRISM is not about protecting Americans it is about protecting
politicians and rich people. Sound simplistic but Empires fall abruptly and
their arc downward is not like a rainbow - it's a car crash off a cliff:

Harvard professor Neil Ferguson has an article about how economics drives
rapid empire collapse.

[http://www.realclearworld.com/articles/2010/07/28/sun_could_...](http://www.realclearworld.com/articles/2010/07/28/sun_could_set_suddenly_on_superpower_as_debt_bites_99088.html)

Rome fell in 30-years. The French Revolution took just three years after
France became insolvent. Russia fell in about a decade. Egypt in a few short
weeks. Is Greece next? Severe economic disparity is what they all have in
common.

USA politicians must utterly fear the people they govern and with mounting USA
debt, robots & software crushing jobs, it may be unlikely that the US would
collapse but economic travail are the seeds that would make it happen and
PRISM is the watchdog in my opinion.

If the US collapsed imagine the court trials politicians would be subjected
to: War crimes, financial crimes, congressional and senatorial insider trading
scams exposed, selective enforcement of laws so as to hurt specific
individuals and political competitors...

------
ttty
All phones traveling below 20 mph would be excluded on the assumption that
they're not driving. All phones traveling faster than 20 mph would be plotted
to discern what road they are traveling on and what the speed limit is for
that road. ...

I just turn off the phone..

~~~
sigkill
With quite a few phones coming with sealed batteries, is it even a reasonable
assumption that you've truly turned off the phone?

~~~
mitchty
So stick it in a metal box as well. Every escalation can have a counter. If it
can't communicate or pick up signal, its as good as off.

~~~
superuser2
Do dead reckoning with the accelerometer, phone home with your speed later. Or
just look at the endpoints of the trip when you take it out of the Faraday bag
and calculate average velocity. Or don't try to enforce speed limits through
phones, because that doesn't make any sense anyway. Require GPS-enabled
governors in all car computers.

------
morgante
Good piece. But why no attribution on the blatant paraphrase of another
Madison quote? "If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If
angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on
government would be necessary."

------
robbiemitchell
Written by a member of the Internet Society Project (ISP) at Yale Law School.

If you are interested in these topics, follow it and its members. They are all
over this stuff.

------
trestles
That wasn't a very well-written article. First off, the anachronism of quoting
James Madison to discuss internet privacy. Did you know that James Madison
also owned slaves? Is the author condoning slavery?

Second off, the intrusions he discuss already happen in the private sector.
Having your credit card transaction? Wake up, that already happens. Child
pornography; I'm fine with the state creating a system to find child
pornographers.

His point about the cold war is also inaccurate. Nuclear war with the Soviet
Union didn't happen because each side was basically assured destruction. Our
surveillance there was to figure out what they were capable of (satellites, U2
/ SR71s) not local communication as is the case with terrorism.

So a bunch of vague talk about our privacy with bad comparisons. The fear of
terrorism?
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XELamUnF0EU](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XELamUnF0EU)

Society has already moved beyond what this guy is talking about. Look at the
Anthony Wiener case; he could very well be the next mayor of New York.

We have more freedom and more ways to talk than ever before.

There are other points he should have made better, specifically whether the
archive could be manipulated. Snowden also mentioned this but this could
easily be handled by simple hashing. Maybe they should propose it but I'd bet
it's already being done.

~~~
agilebyte
Once you own slaves you are rotten to the core and nothing that comes out of
your mouth is worth paying attention to?

One of the points of the article was that humans are fallible, that is our
nature. Best to prepare for that fact in advance (like assuming someone will
steal your data stored with the government).

~~~
trestles
You don't get the irony of the Madison quote?

Re 'your' data, the problem is that it all exists in the private sector
already and IS GROWING in the private sector much more quickly. What do you
the big data bandwagon is? I'm much more concerned about a breach of my SSN
from Equifax than the US Govt.

~~~
nemesisj
Why? Equifax can't put you in jail indefinitely, or use everything you said in
the last few years to build a case against you, just because you have a funny
name. I get (and share) your concerns about corporations having so much
sensitive data, but for now a company's ability to inflict harm (even when
they don't mean to) is far less than a government's.

~~~
trestles
Major can of worms lol. Are you arguing that your concern is that the gov is
going to change the record if it decides it doesn't like you and then imprison
you?

How about a bank creating fictitious > 10k deposits that they'd have to report
to government? Now, the FBI is on your tail (see Eliot Spitzer).

~~~
dasil003
Privacy is not even necessarily the issue per se. Data is going to be out
there in increasing quantities, and it's naive to think that we can force it
all to be private. Obviously some legal controls should be in place to prevent
corporate entities from abusing the data they collect, but that's really a
secondary issue.

The primary issue is that the government is our representative, and we have
never given them the authority to spy on us in this way. _Even if all the data
were public_ the government should not be doing mass surveillance to ferret
out terrorism. If terrorism were 1000 times worse than it is in the US it
would not justify this activity, but given the tiny problem that terrorism
actually is in the US, it's shameful how quickly some people are willing to
sell out our principles for the false promise of absolute security. These are
the stepping stones towards tyranny which are being built in the face of an
apathetic public behind the smokescreen of the legend of America's exceptional
liberty.

So many people believe "it can't happen here" and just nod along when Obama
declares the necessity and level headedness under which this is all occurring,
but even if you give them the benefit of the doubt that everyone's intentions
are pure and no abuses are occurring at this moment, the apparatus will not be
dismantled, and it will only be a matter of time until someone comes into
power that _does_ abuse it. It must not be allowed to exist; certainly not in
our names and with our tax dollars.

~~~
trestles
If terrorism were 1000 times worse than it is in the US it would not justify
this activity

In light of the fact that the Patriot Act allows this, you are a naive person
- it's no big deal but just acknowledge the reality. The comparison to tyranny
is absurd. This has been going on for 15 years
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnivore_(software)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnivore_\(software\))
The fact that you don't know that isn't my fault. Get with the times. The
question is why are you so naive to act surprised to hear about this? You
really think Auschwitz or the Gulag is the next step from where we are now?

~~~
dasil003
The Patriot Act is a reactionary cowardly piece of legislation. The fact that
it is law in no way makes it equally definitive of the nation as the
constitution.

I'm not sure why you equate my outrage to ignorance. I can set you up as a
complementary straw man by asking why long-term human rights abuses by your
government cause you to automatically approve of their actions?

As to Auschwitz, well, that's why I said "stepping stones" not, "next thing
you know Obama's going to grow a toothbrush mustache and send the jews off to
labor camps". The point is that this kind of unbridled power of global
surveillance, supposedly checked through secret courts but which are
accountable to no one outside the innermost circles of power is _guaranteed_
to corrupt in the long run. Furthermore, when the tyranny starts, you won't
even know about it because it will be done in secret with explicit legal
approval. Give your "it can't happen here" attitude I find it incredibly
ironic that you would call me naive.

~~~
trestles
My point is that, if you perceive that the capabilities of PRISM are new and
that the behavior that the NSA has engaged in for 10 years are new and you are
outraged by it (which was the point of the original article and I assume is
the point of your stepping stone argument), then I think you are naive. This
behavior, the FISA courts, etc... are part of the Patriot Act and Carnivore
has been known about for > 10 years and is IE3 type technology. I actually
probably see the world much more sinisterly than you do (hence the
contradiction of the Madison quote). Snowden probably can't get asylum not
because of what he has said but the can of worms of what is in his laptop. Oh
well....

The fact that you are trying to cast me as an apologist for ' long-term human
rights abuses by your government cause you to automatically approve of their
actions'; I think the stupidest thing America has ever done is invoke the
traditional war-machine (esp drones and block sites) against the Middle East.

