
Why There’s No Mass Protest Over Government Surveillance - kurtable
http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/14/why-theres-no-mass-protest-over-government-surveillance/
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pdeuchler
This is disappointing, and almost misleading. There are several main reasons
why people "don't care" about their privacy.

1) It hasn't been threatened in their lifetime before. The past 60 or so years
have been pretty good for those fighting for civil liberties, though recently
we seem to have reached a tipping point.

2) Lack of (good) education in the humanities and philosophies. I'd say the
vast majority of America cannot correctly define "socialism" and "capitalism",
much less be able to articulate the paths societies take towards them. For
most to be able to imagine and understand a deterioration towards
totalitarianism is almost absurd.

3) They don't care. "I don't care that the government knows my secrets." They
have "nothing to hide". This ties in with number 2, in that there is a lack of
fundamental understanding of concepts like "liberty" and "privacy", which
creates a dichotomy where people can appreciate privacy, but still voluntarily
give it up.

And that's not even including things like "protest fatigue", willful
obfuscation of issues, and the vast amount of money changing hands.

Edit: It seems like the WaPo article is hardly better. For shame, really. It
almost seems like a purposeful attack (though I shouldn't attribute to malice
that which can be explained by stupidity)

~~~
eli_gottlieb
4) Low population density. Low population density. LOW POPULATION DENSITY!!!

Americans kvetch plenty online about their loss of privacy. /r/politics and
other fora are easy indications, even Facebook statuses show it.

You don't get mass protests because the settlement pattern of America is
_well-designed_ for incapacitating mass action. Mass action of any kind
requires physical togetherness, which requires density, on several different
levels.

~~~
brador
This doesn't gel with reality. Civil war worked out ok with even less density.
The truth is no one knows their neigbor. There's no sense of community here
with those around us.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
The Civil War was fought by state/national governments. But you do have a
point that many rural populations have shown higher social solidarity than
even urban Americans show today.

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AnthonyMouse
Why is there no mass protest over government surveillance? How about because
the article is talking about a bill with only a tangential relationship to
surveillance? If you want to talk about surveillance then talk about the
Patriot Act and national security letters with gag orders or the NSA
warrantless wiretapping program.

What I want to know is why the media has to report vague/misleading things
like this, instead of talking about what CISPA would actually do, like
exempting companies (and governments?) from _all state and federal laws_ for
"good faith" "decisions made based on cyber threat information identified,
obtained, or shared" under the new law. Wow.

I mean hey, maybe it could be a good thing, right? Argue that spam is a cyber
threat and that setting the spammers on fire is a good faith decision made
based on threat information about them?

Seriously, that wording is totally unreasonable. They really need to limit it
to at least a specific class of legislation. "Exempt corporations from laws
against causing death and destruction" = NOT OK.

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aspensmonster
Well ain't that the biggest false dichotomy I've seen all year!

Either:

a.) You're an individualist and you value "privacy, ownership, sovereignty,
expression, and choice."

or

b.) You're not an individualist and you value "transparency, sharing, global
citizenship, and wisdom."

Nope. No overlap here. No sir! I'm proceeding to read the WaPo article in
hopes that there is actually some substance to this matter.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
My favorite thing about "individualism versus collectivism" dichotomies is
their utter failure to take into account how the ostensible "individualists"
act when placed among a social group to which they actually feel the slightest
tinge of loyalty or belonging.

Everyone is a collectivist for the groups they like, and an individualist for
the ones they don't. These are not really deep personality features or full-
scale philosophies at all.

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javajosh
This article was written incredibly poorly. I mean, it opens with a history
lesson rather than the thing we're supposed to be outraged by. For two long
sentences it reminds us of what happend with SOPA, and then in a subordinate
clause of the second-to-last sentence it mentions CISPA.

This is not how you write a story. It's a classic readability problem and
burying the lead. Here's my rewrite:

Congress is getting ready to pass Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection
Act (CISPA) as soon as next month. It's got the support of Obama and a
majority of Congress, and, according to privacy and data-freedom experts from
the EFF and the FSF, if passed it threatens to destroy our digital civil
liberties as we know them.

This in itself isn't so strange - it seems like every other week the
government is asking for (and more often than not, getting) more unchecked
power under the guise of fighting terrorism. The odd thing here is that the
internet hasn't said a word.

Etc.

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forgottenpaswrd
Simple, Because of "out of sight, out of mind".

The US government probably records and stores every single telephone
conversation in the US, emails, Internet connections IPs and GPS mobile
coordinates.

Why?, because they can, as it is now ultra cheap, now hundreds of thousands of
conversations could be stored on a single hard drive. With GPS coordinates or
Internet logs it is even cheaper.

It is also very useful, the same way drones are starting to record everything
and after a bombing they could replay and follow the bomber, you could
"replay" all the conversations that someone the US gov is interested in did in
the past, where this person went, whom he met with and so.

It also gives absolute power to people in govertment, uncontrolled.

People can't see it because it is being so gradually enforced onto them and as
it is secret people can't really see it. Like in "the life of others" film(in
witch the main character gets shocked when he sees all the info they had over
him) people is completely ignorant of what the gov does.

Today, just with facebook alone you are giving the government more info about
you that the STASI did had over their citizens.

I for one believe the govs should have access to this information, but only in
a way that is controlled by the people, or democracy will evolve in Tyranny.

------
D9u
The article rises to the level of the lowest common denominator, namely, the
typical "dumbed-down" American who is unable to formulate an independent
opinion.

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n3rdy
The convenient thing about protesting government surveillance is you don't
have to travel very far to protest.

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Glyptodon
I think most people who actually care are already afraid of doing anything
that creates a larger 'public surface,' so to speak, and have gone to ground,
happy to to vote what they think and enjoy blaming everyone else when they
continue to get ignored until it inevitably goes bad.

~~~
bravohippo
The "masses" also have bigger problems than being spied on. Namely, having
shitty lives because they are poor, diseased, and overworked.

Meanwhile, the intelligentsia waits for the masses to fix the problems over
which the masses have little understanding or control.

The intelligentsia can't protest--that would threaten their careers! Free
speech--meaning political speech--doesn't apply if you're a Senior Vice
President. Being publicly political is the fastest way to undermine your
potential.

So those with power do nothing because they want to keep power and they have
bigger things to worry about.

Those without power do nothing because they have no power and it will make no
difference and they have bigger things to worry about.

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whiddershins
It's all so naive.

PIPA/SOPA threatens free stuff. Washington D.C. tariffs on Uber increase
prices for riders. That's the common thread.

CISPA threatens privacy and civil liberties.

Most people have at one time or another not had as much money as they wanted,
so anything that takes more money out of their pockets is bad.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Tea_Party>

Most people haven't felt (or recognized) any ill effects from loss of privacy
or civil liberties, so it probably feels very theoretical.

------
joonix
I told my parents about Internet surveillance and they said "Good! Help catch
terrorists!"

Average American probably feels the same.

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gasull
Or maybe people are just numb because of so many laws threatening our
liberties simultaneously. There's just so much to protest against.

