This issue is bigger than just voting in new politicians. It's on the order of slavery, women's suffrage, the "trail of tears", prohibition, civil rights in the South, etc. In other words, to reign in surveillance will take enormous will on the part of the people to change deeply rooted systems of government and power that reach far beyond any single politician.
Unfortunately I don't think the people have the will to change this currently because the harm being done is so well hidden, even after Snowden's revelations.
It's hard to generate that kind of willpower in most people when you have groups like JTRIG spreading the "anybody that mentions the NSA doing something bad must be a tinfoil-hat-wearing crazy" meme and other methods[1] of breaking up "unrest".
This is why we have freedom of assembly. It is hard to get people to stand up alone in defense of an idea, but when they can see firsthand that there are other people that also want to stand up in defense a lot more people will join in.
I suspect that the primary threat we face is not about arresting unpopular groups or even information based blackmail; the threat we face is one where organization any opposition is next to impossible. You can try and conduct things offline and remind everybody that "loose lips sink ships!", but the predictive power we have discovered in data mining could make any organized opposition fall at the first tiny mistake
But aside from that you have corporations profiting from surveillance, numerous gov't employees and contractors involved, judges receiving perks and legal bribes, existing surveillance legislation and court precedent, state and local employees/contractors (from traffic cops to fusion center workers) whose work is based on surveillance data, foreign governments who do much of the same the US does, a media that has been bought off and consolidated.
A number of those laws already exist, but are ignored or have exploitable loopholes. How do you know define reasonable assumption for getting a warrant to search someones home? If you need tangible evidence for that, then the warrant is basically pointless because you ahve what you need already.
PCI compliance for instace is clearly being violated here, as are numerous data protection acts; the issue is that nobody is accountable for it
And what to do with the executive? And what do you with the legislative? Only the supreme court can be replaced by politicians.
There's no other way out than start telling people the truth. Which might start with independent media and education. But US people are already even more indoctrinated than in the 30ies with Goebbels.
You'll have to start by convincing the electorate that collecting all the data "just in case" is a bad thing. "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" is a belief people actually hold about aggregation of private data.
Unfortunately the best way may be through spreading FUD: Get people to believe that government employees are perving over pictures of their children, and attitudes will change very quickly.
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This is just depressing, honestly. It is pretty clear they just want to collect all of the data "just in case" you might one day become a suspect. :/
Sadly, unless you can convince the electorate to keep kicking people out until things change...nothing will change.
This issue is bigger than just voting in new politicians. It's on the order of slavery, women's suffrage, the "trail of tears", prohibition, civil rights in the South, etc. In other words, to reign in surveillance will take enormous will on the part of the people to change deeply rooted systems of government and power that reach far beyond any single politician.
Unfortunately I don't think the people have the will to change this currently because the harm being done is so well hidden, even after Snowden's revelations.
It's hard to generate that kind of willpower in most people when you have groups like JTRIG spreading the "anybody that mentions the NSA doing something bad must be a tinfoil-hat-wearing crazy" meme and other methods[1] of breaking up "unrest".
This is why we have freedom of assembly. It is hard to get people to stand up alone in defense of an idea, but when they can see firsthand that there are other people that also want to stand up in defense a lot more people will join in.
I suspect that the primary threat we face is not about arresting unpopular groups or even information based blackmail; the threat we face is one where organization any opposition is next to impossible. You can try and conduct things offline and remind everybody that "loose lips sink ships!", but the predictive power we have discovered in data mining could make any organized opposition fall at the first tiny mistake
[1] https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipula...
If you kick out enough politicians in a Democracy, you get a completely new majority government. We need to kick out about 55% of Congress.
But aside from that you have corporations profiting from surveillance, numerous gov't employees and contractors involved, judges receiving perks and legal bribes, existing surveillance legislation and court precedent, state and local employees/contractors (from traffic cops to fusion center workers) whose work is based on surveillance data, foreign governments who do much of the same the US does, a media that has been bought off and consolidated.
Yes. And with the right laws you can reduce that to reasonable levels.
A number of those laws already exist, but are ignored or have exploitable loopholes. How do you know define reasonable assumption for getting a warrant to search someones home? If you need tangible evidence for that, then the warrant is basically pointless because you ahve what you need already.
PCI compliance for instace is clearly being violated here, as are numerous data protection acts; the issue is that nobody is accountable for it
You need to replace Congress to close loopholes. You need to replace the President & Congress to replace the Supreme Court & enforce the laws.
Seems all politics to me.
And what to do with the executive? And what do you with the legislative? Only the supreme court can be replaced by politicians.
There's no other way out than start telling people the truth. Which might start with independent media and education. But US people are already even more indoctrinated than in the 30ies with Goebbels.
Seems all press and misinformation to me.
Read up. :/ I already said that.
That's ridiculous.
You'll have to start by convincing the electorate that collecting all the data "just in case" is a bad thing. "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" is a belief people actually hold about aggregation of private data.
I just wish I knew how to do that.
Unfortunately the best way may be through spreading FUD: Get people to believe that government employees are perving over pictures of their children, and attitudes will change very quickly.
Ummm, it looks like they already are, sort of:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/07/17/nsa-respo...
The NSA's response is basically a non-response.
And as the definition of suspect continues to shift, slowly, you're becoming a target.
Well, yes. That is kind of the point.