The dangers of our new normal...

[Nanker]

maybe the government could pass a law requiring Universal Background Checks before issuing encryption keys?

Even at Computer shows? How about they take away all computers and smart phones from people on the"no fly list"?

[Deranged Rhino]

Which point?

 

The entire fear mongering rant in post #1053 about how terrorism is an existential threat to society because Americans have died from it. It's an absurd argument to make, caked with fear mongering of the worst kind.

 

You have a greater chance of being killed in a traffic accident or being struck by lightning than you do dying in a terrorist attack on American soil. But you're right, giving up our rights to due process, privacy and freedom of speech is a reasonable response to a threat which has practically zero chance of impacting the your day to day life or security.

 

 

 

 

The one that says that the opposite of bulk collection...is targeted collection...which is also known as: profiling?

 

Or, the one that says if you want no collection, you're an unmitigated moron, like Snowden?

 

Dance all you want. You know that what I am saying is...how it is.

 

I've never called for no collection. I've also never objected to targeted searches so long as it's done with a warrant and proper judicial oversight. Neither has Snowden btw -- but you knew that.

 

What I have said, and what has become more and more true by the day, is that mass collection is a poor tool for preventing terrorism. For those people paying attention, it's remarkably clear that this was never its purpose in the first place. Regardless of how much fear mongering and spin the Federal Government tries to employ, mass bulk collection isn't about fighting terrorists, it's about giving the Federal Government the ability to suppress and tear down anyone they feel is a threat to their greater interests. It's purpose was NEVER to prevent terrorism, it's purpose was/is/has always been control.

 

The targets in bulk collection are not terrorists. They're us, US citizens who by and large are tax paying, law abiding folk going about their day.

[/dev/null]

Even at Computer shows? How about they take away all computers and smart phones from people on the"no fly list"?

You ever been to a Computer Show. There's some crazy people there

[Deranged Rhino]

Microsoft says US is abusing secret warrants:

 

“WE APPRECIATE THAT there are times when secrecy around a government warrant is needed,” Microsoft President Brad Smith wrote in ablog post on Thursday. “But based on the many secrecy orders we have received, we question whether these orders are grounded in specific facts that truly demand secrecy. To the contrary, it appears that the issuance of secrecy orders has become too routine.”

With those words, Smith announced that Microsoft was suing the Department of Justice for the right to inform its customers when the government is reading their emails.

The last big fight between the Justice Department and Silicon Valley was started by law enforcement, when the FBI demanded that Apple unlock a phone used by San Bernardino killer Syed Rizwan Farook.

This time, Microsoft is going on the offensive. The move is welcomed by privacy activists as a step forward for transparency — though it’s also for business reasons.

Secret government searches are eroding people’s trust in the cloud, Smith wrote — including large and small businesses now keeping massive amounts of records online. “The transition to the cloud does not alter people’s expectations of privacy and should not alter the fundamental constitutional requirement that the government must — with few exceptions — give notice when it searches and seizes private information or communications,” he wrote.

https://theintercept.com/2016/04/14/microsoft-says-u-s-is-abusing-secret-warrants/

***********************

CIA Investing in firms that mine your Tweets and Instagram Photos

Yet among the 38 previously undisclosed companies receiving In-Q-Tel funding, the research focus that stands out is social media mining and surveillance; the portfolio document lists several tech companies pursuing work in this area, including Dataminr, Geofeedia, PATHAR, and TransVoyant.

Those four firms, which provide unique tools to mine data from platforms such as Twitter, presented at a February “CEO Summit” in San Jose sponsored by the fund, along with other In-Q-Tel portfolio companies.

The investments appear to reflect the CIA’s increasing focus on monitoring social media. Last September, David Cohen, the CIA’s second-highest ranking official, spoke at length at Cornell University about a litany ofchallenges stemming from the new media landscape. The Islamic State’s “sophisticated use of Twitter and other social media platforms is a perfect example of the malign use of these technologies,” he said.

(snip)

“When you have private companies deciding which algorithms get you a so-called threat score, or make you a person of interest, there’s obviously room for targeting people based on viewpoints or even unlawfully targeting people based on race or religion,” said Lee Rowland, a senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union.

She added that there is a dangerous trend toward government relying on tech companies to “build massive dossiers on people” using “nothing but constitutionally protected speech.”

https://theintercept.com/2016/04/14/in-undisclosed-cia-investments-social-media-mining-looms-large/

[Deranged Rhino]

You may hate Trump, but do you want Facebook to rig the election against him?

 

While the prospect of a Donald Trump presidency is a terrifying one, perhaps this is scarier: Facebook could use its unprecedented powers to tilt the 2016 presidential election away from him – and the social network’s employees have apparently openly discussed whether they should do so.

As Gizmodo reported on Friday, “Last month, some Facebook employees used a company poll to ask [Facebook founder Mark] Zuckerberg whether the company should try ‘to help prevent President Trump in 2017’.”

Facebook employees are probably just expressing the fear that millions of Americans have of the Republican demagogue. But while there’s no evidence that the company plans on taking anti-Trump action, the extraordinary ability that the social network has to manipulate millions of people with just a tweak to its algorithm is a serious cause for concern.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/19/donald-trump-facebook-election-manipulate-behavior

[Joe Miner]

You may hate Trump, but do you want Facebook to rig the election against him?

 

While the prospect of a Donald Trump presidency is a terrifying one, perhaps this is scarier: Facebook could use its unprecedented powers to tilt the 2016 presidential election away from him and the social networks employees have apparently openly discussed whether they should do so.

As Gizmodo reported on Friday, Last month, some Facebook employees used a company poll to ask [Facebook founder Mark] Zuckerberg whether the company should try to help prevent President Trump in 2017.

Facebook employees are probably just expressing the fear that millions of Americans have of the Republican demagogue. But while theres no evidence that the company plans on taking anti-Trump action, the extraordinary ability that the social network has to manipulate millions of people with just a tweak to its algorithm is a serious cause for concern.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/19/donald-trump-facebook-election-manipulate-behavior

If they somehow link any Cross Fit, yoga, spiritual pass it on, or duck faced chicken winged teen girl pic to something against Trump, he doesn't stand a chance.

[GG]

You may hate Trump, but do you want Facebook to rig the election against him?

 

While the prospect of a Donald Trump presidency is a terrifying one, perhaps this is scarier: Facebook could use its unprecedented powers to tilt the 2016 presidential election away from him – and the social network’s employees have apparently openly discussed whether they should do so.

As Gizmodo reported on Friday, “Last month, some Facebook employees used a company poll to ask [Facebook founder Mark] Zuckerberg whether the company should try ‘to help prevent President Trump in 2017’.”

Facebook employees are probably just expressing the fear that millions of Americans have of the Republican demagogue. But while there’s no evidence that the company plans on taking anti-Trump action, the extraordinary ability that the social network has to manipulate millions of people with just a tweak to its algorithm is a serious cause for concern.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/19/donald-trump-facebook-election-manipulate-behavior

 

And here you are, worried about Citizens United and unlimited spending on TV broadcast airwaves.

[Deranged Rhino]

 

And here you are, worried about Citizens United and unlimited spending on TV broadcast airwaves.

 

That's not what I'm worried about.

[GG]

 

That's not what I'm worried about.

 

Sure seemed like it in another thread.

[Deranged Rhino]

 

Sure seemed like it in another thread.

 

That's only because you're only hearing what you want to hear and filling in the rest. My concerns aren't about political ads. The money going into the system from Citizen's United (which, again, isn't the source of the issue, it merely accelerated a preexisting problem) isn't buying ads. It's buying politicians and legislation.

 

That's the issue. Codified, legalized bribery which disenfranchises the majority of the population.

[GG]

 

That's only because you're only hearing what you want to hear and filling in the rest. My concerns aren't about political ads. The money going into the system from Citizen's United (which, again, isn't the source of the issue, it merely accelerated a preexisting problem) isn't buying ads. It's buying politicians and legislation.

 

That's the issue. Codified, legalized bribery which disenfranchises the majority of the population.

 

Baloney. Citizens United dealt with campaign ad spending. You're up in arms about lobbyist influence, which was always a factor in US politics.

[Deranged Rhino]

 

Baloney. Citizens United dealt with campaign ad spending. You're up in arms about lobbyist influence, which was always a factor in US politics.

 

Incorrect. But thank you for telling me what my position is.

[GG]

 

Incorrect. But thank you for telling me what my position is.

 

You've done a pretty decent job of explaining it yourself.

[Deranged Rhino]

 

You've done a pretty decent job of explaining it yourself.

 

And yet you still misrepresent what it is I'm saying.

[GG]

 

And yet you still misrepresent what it is I'm saying.

 

Not really. Do you think that your FB story completely undermines your rant about the 2010 Citizens United ruling?

[Deranged Rhino]

 

Not really. Do you think that your FB story completely undermines your rant about the 2010 Citizens United ruling?

 

Yes really. You've yet to accurately summarize my position, instead you gloss over it and focus on what you want to talk about.

 

And no, the FB story does not undercut my rant. If anything it supports my position since this thread started in '14. But, I guess to understand that you have to first understand my position...

 

 

I think this may be where we are talking over one another's heads.

 

I'm not really talking about free speech. If I understand your position correctly (and I may not), you've made the case before that the content of those political ads is irrelevant even if they're bold faced lies. The onus is on the individual hearing the message to filter out the lies from the truth, a form of informational Darwinism if you will. Furthermore, attempting to limit an individual's ability to put out political ads, regardless of their merit, is a violation of our first amendment rights because it puts the government in charge of deciding which political messages are appropriate or not. That is an understandable, and prior to 2010, a reasonable position to take when talking about political communication (the key phrase in Buckley v. Valeo). The intent of SCOTUS's decision in '76 was to prevent the censorship of political speech -- a cause I think we both can agree is noble.

 

But this also isn't what I'm talking about in these various threads. It's an entirely separate point altogether because it's not about political communication during an election. It's about corruption of the system itself.

 

The money going into the system isn't just being used to buy ads and "political communication"; it's being used to buy politicians and legislation. That's a MAJOR difference, and in turn it disenfranchises large swaths of the electorate who cannot afford to legally buy a sitting US Senator just to get their issues heard on the floor.

[GG]

 

Yes really. You've yet to accurately summarize my position, instead you gloss over it and focus on what you want to talk about.

 

And no, the FB story does not undercut my rant. If anything it supports my position since this thread started in '14. But, I guess to understand that you have to first understand my position...

 

 

It's hard to encapsulate your position because you take multiple sides of an argument. First it's the influence of money in politics, then it's the influence of that money during campaigns and elections. But not when it comes to limiting freedom of speech or expression. So you stake opposite views in irreconcilable positions. Then you argue that unlimited money in broadcast TV campaigns is swaying public opinion, and then claim to back up that reasoning because individual employees at a major web company want to use their company's platform to knock out a candidate they don't like.

 

So please, what exactly is your position, other than "money is bad?"

[Deranged Rhino]

 

It's hard to encapsulate your position because you take multiple sides of an argument. First it's the influence of money in politics.

 

Full stop.

 

The reason the conversation wanders is because I'm talking with different people who bring up different points. The conversation is fluid, and I'll happily follow that conversation down whatever rabbit holes we wish to go which does make it easy to lose my point. So in terms of that, I'm to blame.

 

But that's not because I don't have a central point, or haven't made one. It's because I'm trying to have actual conversations (not just rants) where my theories are challenged or they challenge other's theories. I'm not against learning new information or changing my opinions when confronted with logical reasons or evidence to do so. But on this issue, there has been none offered because most people arguing against what I'm saying have been so propagandized to think any attack on unfettered money into the system is an attack on free speech.

 

It isn't. It's an attack on corruption.

 

$1,000 will ALWAYS be worth less than $1,000,000. Expecting politicians not to realize the difference is not only idealistic, it's naive.Dangerous even. Especially when the system in place requires that our elected officials must raise thousands of dollars a day (tens of thousands of dollars a day for US Senators) just to stay in office.

 

 

 

... then it's the influence of that money during campaigns and elections.

 

I've said repeatedly that you're never going to get all the money out of the system. But you can and should seek to limit it's ability to corrupt the system itself.

 

 

But not when it comes to limiting freedom of speech or expression.

 

Again, when you don't track my argument it's easy to make false assumptions about what I'm saying. I've never advocated for limiting free speech. Quite the opposite.

 

What I'm arguing is the real issue with dark money in politics has NOTHING to do with speech and everything to do with corruption. It's a tactic employed by the big moneyed interests who own the system to confuse you with the free speech distraction.

 

It's not about speech. It's about influence and corruption.

 

 

So you stake opposite views in irreconcilable positions.

 

Incorrect.

 

 

Then you argue that unlimited money in broadcast TV campaigns is swaying public opinion,

 

Nope, you once again missed my point and inserted your own.

 

I've argued for a constitutional amendment that makes political campaign adds and communication free on broadcast networks as one way to limit the need for politicians to have to raise huge sums of money every day, thus limiting the potential negative effects of unlimited money flowing into the system. It'd be a win for broadcast networks and a win for our democratic republic. If politicians don't have to raise thousands of dollars a day to get their message out, they can in turn be more selective about who they take money from and what sort of strings are attached to it.

 

That in no way prohibits politicians from spending money on new media ads or any other form of political communication. They'd be free to do whatever they please to get their message out, they'd just have the option to use broadcast networks free of charge to do so in addition to however else they wish to get their message out.

 

We live in a world where you don't need a small fortune to broadcast your political message or ads. We live in a world where people have HD cameras and editing equipment in their pockets. You're a believer in the free market, right? Shouldn't the best message win not the message with the most money behind it?

 

... and then claim to back up that reasoning because individual employees at a major web company want to use their company's platform to knock out a candidate they don't like.

 

 

I never said anything like this, again you're filling in my argument (which you've yet to understand) with your own slants and biases.

 

What I've been arguing against since this thread (the New Normal thread which is about mass surveillance and the dangers of the program) is the ability to use the vast amounts of data being collected everyday by government agencies and faceless corporate giants to bend the public will however they please. Which, is exactly what this article demonstrates.

 

I've also been arguing for months now that this entire election cycle is theater. Hillary was picked to win over a year ago by the people who actually have influence in this government, thus she will win by hook or by crook.

 

So please, what exactly is your position, other than "money is bad?"

 

My argument has never been money is bad. My argument is we should seek to limit, not enhance, money's ability to corrupt the system.

 

Citizen's United, which sets the ridiculous precedent that there is NO legal difference between $1,000 and $1,000,000 when it comes to campaign contributions isn't limiting money's ability to corrupt the system, it's accelerating it. And what we've seen since 2010 on the national political stage is precisely that, the acceleration of the buying out of America by multinational corporate interests who care not about the people of this country, but do care about creating the most corporate friendly environment for them to bolster their bottom lines.

 

That's called an oligarchy. Not a republic.

[GG]

 

[snip]

 

That's called an oligarchy. Not a republic.

 

You have been deluded by your day job in thinking that we're moving into a more repressive society. If anything it's the opposite, the openness and availability of information is empowering a nation of gators to put Trumps & Sanders in a position to lead this country. If the system was as crooked and controlled as you say it is, there's no way Obama gets the Dem nomination in 2008 against the biggest political machine in the country.

 

There is no rational basis to conclude that this is a much more repressive and less informed society than 1789, 1889, or 1999. My argument is that it's not such a great thing, but for a different reason than you think it is.

 

But I'm not advocating changing the constitutional rights just because I don't like the outcome.

[Deranged Rhino]

 

You have been deluded by your day job in thinking that we're moving into a more repressive society.

 

I admit that's entirely possible. Though every bit of information I've learned in the past two years about this subject, from first hand sources within various intelligence services and second/third hand sources says otherwise.

 

 

 

If anything it's the opposite, the openness and availability of information is empowering a nation of gators to put Trumps & Sanders in a position to lead this country.

 

Sure, but like I said, neither one have any real chance of winning. So are they really empowering anyone or merely giving the illusion of power?

 

 

 

If the system was as crooked and controlled as you say it is, there's no way Obama gets the Dem nomination in 2008 against the biggest political machine in the country.

 

 

Again, 2008 was different from 2016 in a lot of ways. Citizen's United being one but not the only.

 

And let's not forget that as soon as Obama actually got in office, he wound up following the same script that Hillary would have (more war, more surveillance, sold out to various lobbies he rallied against etc.)

 

 

There is no rational basis to conclude that this is a much more repressive and less informed society than 1789, 1889, or 1999.

 

Less informed? I'm not arguing people are less informed. More apathetic, maybe conditioned to be so either directly or indirectly by the divisiveness and political tribalism, but not there are certainly more opportunities for people to be informed than ever before in our history thanks to technology.

 

More repressive -- yes, I am arguing that. We've seen the chilling effect mass surveillance has already had on the way people communicate. People joke about watching what they type into search engines out of fear of ending up on a "list". That impacts free speech, free expression, and represses intellectual curiosity to a great extent.

 

 

My argument is that it's not such a great thing, but for a different reason than you think it is.

 

But I'm not advocating changing the constitutional rights just because I don't like the outcome.

 

I would like to hear your arguments, in all seriousness. I'm not trying to monopolize the conversation. Let's hear it.

 

I'm not arguing for changing any constitutional rights, merely restoring them. We've already seen our constitutional rights assaulted in the name of fighting terrorism, there's no question about that.