

Ask HN: How to Explain Why NSA Situation is Important? - aasarava

In expressing my utter shock at the revelation that the NSA has secretly been accessing user data from the top tech companies, the response I&#x27;ve received from people who don&#x27;t work in the tech industry is either a shrug or a &quot;why are you surprised?&quot;<p>Given this, how do you explain to the average citizen why the NSA surveillance is an important issue that they should not simply ignore? What example would you use? What is the &quot;elevator pitch&quot; that gets people to understand the implications?
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waterphone
There are numerous reasons dragnet surveillance is bad, and these are only a
few:

There are so many federal laws, no one even knows how many there are. Law
professors and other experts have said everyone over the age of 18 has
committed a federal crime, often unwittingly. Collecting and indefinitely
storing information on the communications and other data of everyone in
America allows retroactive and (necessarily) selective enforcement of these
laws to target people who cause problems for people in power. Whether or not
this is happening now, it inevitably will with a system in place long enough.

Privacy is generally considered a human right, and it should be for a variety
of reasons, including to encourage a free society. People under constant
surveillance by the government are less likely to speak negatively about the
government or subjects that could be misinterpreted. If you know you're being
watched by the government, even passively, and things you say are permanently
stored and potentially on record, you self censor your own speech. Thus, this
indirectly becomes a way to suppress free speech.

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ddorian43
/u/161719 offers a chilling rebuttal to the notion that it's okay for the
government to spy on you because you have nothing to hide. "I didn't make
anything up. These things happened to people I know."

[http://www.reddit.com/r/bestof/comments/1fw77t/u161719_offer...](http://www.reddit.com/r/bestof/comments/1fw77t/u161719_offers_a_chilling_rebuttal_to_the_notion&#x2F);

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kohanz
I'm not sure you have anything to explain to someone who responds with "Why
are you surprised?". They understand the implications; nothing to explain
there. Where they probably differ, is that they are likely resigned to the
belief that it is not within their power to stop it (which I tend to agree
with) and the only way to live with it is to act accordingly.

These people accordingly limit their trace-ability through channels they
suspect of being monitored (e.g. phone, financial transations, Facebook,
Google, Twitter, etc. - not everyone signs up for these) and when they do use
such channels, they do not divulge private information through them. I realize
for some people I'm conjuring up an image of a person wearing a tinfoil hat,
but these people (and I can't even say I'm one of them - I fall somewhere in
between them and "average joe") weren't so "paranoid" after all.

~~~
aasarava
Except that, in the cases I've seen, the "why are you surprised" people _aren
't_ limiting their trace-ability. Again, these are not people who are in the
same tech world as you and me. Their attitude comes from a cynicism toward
government, not toward a confidence in their tech abilities.

More so, the "why are you surprised" attitude comes with an unsaid "so what?"
"Yeah, we're being monitored. Why is this a big deal?"

And that is the point of my question: what can you say to explain that this is
a big deal?

------
ksherlock
Three letters: IRS. Whether it was a "couple of rogue employees" or 88+ given
specific orders from their boss(es), the same thing can (and some day will)
happen at the NSA.

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e3pi
Re:

"...I've nothing to hide".

"... I find it hard to care."

...

"...I hate math."

RESPONSE:

A name defines, sets boundaries, your name and your privacy; defines you
exclusive of everything and everybody else. Without privacy, you have no skin,
you are not interesting, you are insignificant.

"The cypherpunks credo is 'privacy through technology, not legislation.' The
law of the land can be changed by the next administration. The Laws of
mathematics are more rigid."

~~~
jastanton
I get your core concept. you have a shell thats consisting of "name" and
"privacy" (these need to be defined more). and those 2 things separate you
from everyone else -- so without those you lose your identity.

Can you define a little bit more what goes into name and privacy?

~~~
jastanton
something I didn't adress in my point there is that I feel like this is a weak
argument because my identity isn't shattered so easily, I am not
"insignificant" because I was wire taped. in fact, it would seem that someone
intentionally listening in on me considers me to be significant!

~~~
e3pi
If the name of pi is with itself, and the rate(in domain) of the exponential
is itself, how significant are you to do otherwise?

