I am not concerned that the government has taken a special interest in me, specifically, and is using these techniques to manipulate or harm me, specifically.
It is the latter that starts to lean toward delusional thoughts. Some people, lik Edward Snowden or Glenn Greenwald, do have a reason to think that way. Most people do not.
And I make a difference between concern and anxiety/freaking out. I have an anxiety disorder that is triggered by specific things. Government doesn't trigger it, but if it did, I would agree with a therapist it is a problem that needs addressing. Panic attacks are debilitating.
All this is to say that the details matter, when it comes to diagnosing mental health.
Have said that, some degree of angst about inadvertently become a target, despite my relative unremarkable public presence, is warranted. Consider the following...
On Facebook, I post a comment for my friends that says something like, "My kid walked an entire mile to the park and back all by himself, too! A good haul for a 10 year old!" The government comes and collects that semi-public posting. Some in the government may consider that abuse (there are cases where overzealous government officials have indeed made that determination). Guess what? If data collection and analytics are sufficient, I may well be referred to the local child protective services. While it's not the same as the directed anger of the United States government against Snowden, it would potentially cause irreparable harm to my family nonetheless. Technology has the potential to enable economies of scale in bringing unwarranted intrusions to the least of us. Connect that with an increasingly paternalistic government and even mere mortals like myself have real reason to be deeply concerned.
TL;DR Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get me :-)
[Editted for spelling and minor clarity]
Maybe one day you cut off the wrong FBI agent on the way to work, or may be a friend of a friend knows someone with access to the government database.
There are countless ways, outside of a Edward Snowden, scenario where the information may harm you but would not raise to the level of a National Security Investigation
We know for a fact the agents have used the databases to keep tabs on Friends, Family, wives girlfriends,etc. Even for their own Amusement, looking and passing around intimate photos... After all these are just insignificant citizens, not a threat to anyone, so who cares if they pass around your dick pics right...
The fact that your are insignificant means they probably would not think twice about using their access to look up info on you, why is irrelevant.
Then there is the Ever Present data leak, look at OPM, at any point one of these databases can be compromised and your data simply uploaded to Paste Bin...
People that marginalize the risk of their personal data "because I am not a terrorist" are just as bad as the "I have nothing to fear so I have nothing to hide" people...
They do a disservice to everyone attempting to fight the government overreach... you sir are part of the problem.
Databases of Ruin my friend... Databases of Ruin
"I have found that most psychologists, psychiatrists, and other mental health professionals are not only extraordinarily compliant with authorities but also unaware of the magnitude of their obedience."
I should also add that the psychiatrist could be wrong about the thoughts, but still might be correct about the feelings that flow from the thoughts.
As I progressed in my treatment for social anxiety, I realized the more appropriate emotional reaction to generalized government data collection was not personal anxiety, in that nobody was actually likely to look at my data or use it against me. I still have my recognition that it's a political danger and my anger about government overreach, but in retrospect I see my anxiety about surveillance as inappropriate, and related to my generally excessive anxiety reactions.
Also makes me think of Terminator 2.
To say otherwise, I believe, is to try detract from the actual implications and make them seem more benign and less dangerous. I.e. "Oh, don't worry that the CIA is spying on you, the 'supreme court' will make sure your rights are upheld!"
If you believe that, then it doesn't seem like you understand the basic concept of checks and balances very well. The fact that checks and balances can be perverted and subverted and are imperfect doesn't imply they are completely ineffective and irrelevant. The fact that the FBI is fighting in court for the ability to command Apple to hack the iPhone is a perfect example of this. "The government" wants to force Apple. O..K... "the government" isn't going to let "the government" do that. This is a useful way to talk about things to you?
"When it comes to the powers of "government institutions", it seldom makes a difference that only "parts" of the government believe/do what is being discussed."
You point out an example where "checks and balances" somehow reigned in the FBI from decrypting a phone. While at the same time, hundreds of other acts have occurred that were not stopped by either public-outcry, private institution defiance or a "check" by another portion of the government. The point I was making is that when a government entity decides to do something towards a private individual, more often than not, other parts of the government don't have a say (at first definitely not, arguably still not long after the fact). To back that, you could use countless examples of every single failing part of government, or an injustice caused by it.
To say otherwise, I believe, is to try detract from the actual implications and make them seem more benign and less dangerous
That's your point. And I think it's a bit silly. Saying "the FBI wants to break into the iPhone" instead of "the government wants to break into the iPhone" is just more precise. It doesn't imply there's any less of a problem. The fact that you have other parts of the government to appeal to, and which may disagree with the first part of the government, is important! If you're involved it gives you a hint as to how you might proceed. It tells us which parts of the government we might have to restrict or promote.
What, pray tell, is the advantage of thinking of all these different and differing institutions as one monolithic entity, or of calling them "the government" as if they were?
Calling it "The Government" exaggerates the strength of the forces for or against something. It becomes a dystopian 1984-esque war.
When instead it is described as "some strategists at the FBI", or even, "some of the upper-brass at the FBI and DOJ" it becomes clearer that this isn't a problem that a revolution will have to solve. We could probably handle it with everyday boring old politicking.
That's like saying it makes sense to say that all Muslims are terrorists just because 1 in 4 Muslims believe terrorism is justifiable. XD [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_attitudes_towards_terro...]
The question is how existentially frightening you think that fact is.
The way the OP framed the therapist's response, sure. Of course, they're telling their perspective on what the therapist responded.
Having worked with therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, and studied it to some degree in my early college including internships the more typical concern of a therapist is not the veracity of your beliefs (they're largely irrelevant), but the degree to which they are causing distress and if that distress is to a level that it interferes with your ability to function in society and form meaningful relationships With 'meaningful' defined by your personal satisfaction with the relationships and the satisfaction of those you have relationships with.
This is the criteria for all behaviors in the DSM that causes a spectrum of behaviors or beliefs to shift on the continuum of 'normal' to 'abnormal' for the purpose of diagnosis.
In practice, that means they could care less if you think the government (or God, or FSM, or Xenu) is watching your every move...but only if that keeps you from leaving your house or causes you significant distress. Or kept you from forming relationships because you thought they were government agents.
For example, here is the definition of delusion from the DSM V
Delusion. A false belief based on incorrect inference about external reality that is firmly sustained despite what almost everyone else believes and despite what constitutes incontrovertible and obvious proof or evidence to the contrary. The belief is not one ordinarily accepted by other members of the person's culture or subculture* (e.g., it is not an article of religious faith). When a false belief involves a value judgment, it is regarded as a delusion only when the judgment is so extreme as to defy credibility.*
Emphasis mine. The point is by virtue of most people in the subculture of hackers believe this way means that, by definition, it is not delusional.
But again, if it keeps you from getting to the grocery store it would likely be worth considering medication. ;)
If she said "nope you're perfectly fine," you would never come back!
Psychiatrists are disturbingly incentivized to overdiagnose.
In my experience it's difficult to find a professional who takes me seriously. I feel like I've been treated like a drug-seeker. It's all very demoralizing.
Traditional medication used for anxiety include stuff like diazepam, lorazepam, tamazepam, etc. These all have some abuse potential, and some potential for addiction.
If you decide that you still want to seek treatment here's some information from the UK "NICE" (the organisation that looks at cost-effectiveness of treatment and makes evidence based recommendations).
http://pathways.nice.org.uk/pathways/generalised-anxiety-dis...
https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/qs53
https://www.nice.org.uk/news/article/offer-psychological-int...
https://www.nice.org.uk/news/press-and-media/new-nice-qualit...
Hopefully this gives you some information that you can use if you decide to seek help in future.
But I'm just commenting on an Internet forum.
I like to think the number of psychiatrists who consciously make stuff up are few, but yeah at the end of the day, even when you visit a doctor, you are the one who is most responsible for your own health. You alone decide whether to get a second opinion or ignore the doc altogether.
During the aughts, I was labeled a "sweaty paranoid kook", in the local press, for daring to explain our loss of privacy.
I get the denial. The truth is scary, uncomfortable. The arcana is difficult to grasp for non-geeks. But it's not for a care provider to nark on their patients.
Or is not acquiescing to a physician considered unhealthy anti-authoritarian behavior?
What do you mean by "the government collects all of our data". What do you mean by "the government"? Do they come in to your house and go through your private photographs? Do they break in to your house and read your journal while you're at work?
Or do you mean that the NSA intercepts electrical signals that you publicly broadcast from your house?
Did you talk about the details of how the government collects all of our data? Perhaps you were both unable to disassociate your paranoid thoughts about a totalizing outside power from the reality of the situation.
The reality is that the government is not collecting all of our data. It is collecting most of the data that we publicly broadcast. The politics of this are a totally separate concern from your feelings of anxiety.
Maybe the problem is you spend too much time publicly broadcasting electrical signals and too little time dealing with your actual private thoughts and effects.
Maybe write a poem that no one will ever hear outside of being recited in your own living room! Maybe keep a physical journal that you keep safely stored under your pillow! There are plenty of things you can be doing to convince yourself that the government is not collecting all of our data.
Edit: facepalm...
> The reality is that the government is not collecting all of our data. It is collecting most of the data that we publicly broadcast.
There are some recent troubling moves towards collecting "telemetry" about offline user actions in operating environments like Windows 10, but this observation largely rings true. Where I think you need some empathy is understanding how some people wrestle with the knowledge that "stuff I/family/friends broadcast is stored, indexed, and could be used against me/family/friends."
The knowledge that to broadcast one's thoughts exposes one to possible tyranny can only squelch discussion, and that drives people apart. We're social creatures, so that's not healthy.
Techies are especially cognizant of what "broadcasting" means in today's landscape. Celphones broadcast one's movements, audio, images, and store personal information that could be secretly stolen. Yeah, I can see why some people are anxious.
You're absolutely right that people need to write down private thoughts on paper and keep journals that they don't share. That's good for mental health in any case.
What parts? I'm not trying to be harsh but nor am I trying to be compassionate.
I think what may be considered "not very compassionate/overly harsh" is nothing more than a subjective reaction to the vast difference in political opinion that I express compared to the rest of the HackerNews community.
> The knowledge that to broadcast one's thoughts exposes one to possible tyranny can only squelch discussion, and that drives people apart. We're social creatures, so that's not healthy.
Yes, we are indeed social creatures, which is why we should all spend more time offline. There is a world outside of the Internet and I think a lot of techies forget that. The government is not listening in on our conversations down at the local pub. The government is not taking minutes on Kiwanis and Rotary Club meetings.
This perceived totalizing nature of the "surveillance machine" is mainly experienced by people who mainly interact with the outside world on the Internet. It's like a Greek tragedy!
I posit that too much cellphone and Internet use can cause many kinds of mental health issues.
Go outside more! You're totally free! The streets are yours for the taking! Go hand out pamphlets in the town square! Grab a guitar and sing for an audience in a public park! Go to the beach and make new friends! There are no gatekeepers!
Choosing to have your entire life thinly channeled through a certain kind of electrical signal that you constantly broadcast from your person and then suffering under the consequences is quite maddening.
Stuff like how you were calling into question the parent's perception of what the NSA does with "electrical signals" coming from their house. I got the impression that you were framing the parent as a crackpot. It's just ... there's better ways of making your points than to call people out like that, whether they really are a crackpot or (most likely) NOT.
You may not have tried to be harsh, but you were. And you have no empathy for the parent, which is a bummer.
You made and are making good points in this retort, but they're mostly lost in the negativity. I'll get off your lawn now.
I don't see how this frames anyone as a crackpot. Collecting electrical signals is exactly one of the things the NSA does, and there aren't many other simpler ways to describe it.
Even General Hayden talks publicly about such collections and how he would "jump on the comms of anyone that is interesting" (may be a very slight paraphrasing).
>And you have no empathy for the parent, which is a bummer.
It would be hilarious everytime someone says something like this, if it didn't indicate that someone out there actually believes things like this. You are really judging someone's empathy through text on HN and claiming they lack it?
Even just responding to someone's post is an act of some empathy.
You sound like a precious snowflake when you talk like this. You don't dignify anyone simply by responding to them.
Yes, I was judging @williamcotton for lacking empathy for the grandparent. Read some of his responses, and you'll see I was right. @williamcotton thought grandparent needed some tough love advice from a benevolent sage - NO THANKS!
Empathy, not sympathy and certainly not scorn, is what grandparent deserves. And real empathy requires applying the Platinum Rule, not the Golden one. Look it up.
I was using a rhetorical device to show that OP's statements can very well be perceived as crackpot ideas to almost everyone outside of forums like this.
I don't think you know what the word empathy means. It isn't related to some sugar-coating process. It just refers to a capability to relate to another individual.
I used to have all of these same paranoid delusions about the government/the system/the man... and then you know what? I got older, I met a lot of people who care a lot about civil order, and I realized the world is full of nice and friendly people and there are plenty of ways for me to get involved to make sure the world keeps getting better!
I feel like I can empathize very well with people like OP. And since I don't think of myself as a crackpot when I shared these same thoughts, I don't think of OP as a crackpot. I now know that many of my beliefs were juvenile and undeveloped and I think OP's are as well. I'm sure OP is fine. He just needs to grow up a bit and stop trying to blame "the man" for his problems.
This makes me guilty of being patronizing but not lacking in empathy. Is there a better way to go about trying to help OP grow as an individual? Sure, but it's not going to happen on some Internet forum, which is why I mainly avoid this place! Layers upon layers of irony!
I just think you kids spend too much time on your phones and you don't really know how things work out there.
You're fine to hang out on my lawn whenever you want, but I would appreciate it if you didn't check your phone every 30 seconds while you're a guest on my property, it's very rude.
And also, seriously, just go outside more. You're looking too pale these days. You're like a ghost.
Ya'll need some outside perspective.
I'm not going to toot my own horn, but I will say this about the aged elders I have met who were fantastic and respectable people, and from whom I learned the most: their main feature was humility, and knowing that they did not in fact know everything.
Not everyone likes paper books. Some people like trees, but also using a laptop under one. Some people are growing up gay or trans in a hard-right reactionary community and their only outlet is the Internet. Others simply prefer the company of they know online to those they happen to meet on the street.
I'm glad you have experienced personal growth in your own life. You think the views you used to hold were underdeveloped - fine! But don't pattern match other people you meet to those views and assume they just need to get past them and think like you do now. That's rude and presumptuous.
That's just your interpretation. Other people are entitled to their own interpretation of what I'm saying.
I don't feel like I'm being condescending, I feel like I am being patronizing. Those are related concepts but they're not the same thing. Also, if you didn't notice, and this could just be my fault, but I was trying to be comical! I was playing the patronizing character who shouts "NOW GET OFF MY LAWN!"
> I'm not going to toot my own horn, but I will say this about the aged elders I have met who were fantastic and respectable people, and from whom I learned the most: their main feature was humility, and knowing that they did not in fact know everything.
You have no idea who I am nor what I'm like. How about you offer up some of your personal opinions and you let me take a crack at judging you? I'm willing to have a very open and honest talk about some very real instances of paranoid delusions that seem to dominate the conversation in our forums. I think these are destructive and unnecessary fixations.
This is what makes me patronizing. I'm telling you that if you think that "the government is watching everything that we all do, all the time" and that if this makes you unhappy, well, there's a reason for that. It's a matter of perspective. I'm offering a paternal perspective. I've been there, I've done that, and I'm here to tell you that you're being a bunch of doofuses.
NOW GET OFF MY LAWN!
> Not everyone likes paper books. Some people like trees, but also using a laptop under one.
Ok, but that doesn't change the political and legal realities of what it means to have a paper book and what it means to use a laptop connected to the Internet.
> Some people are growing up gay or trans in a hard-right reactionary community and their only outlet is the Internet.
They have many more outlets than the Internet! I would argue that there are much more productive and healthy outlets than those found on Internet forums. It is at least unhealthy to think of the Internet as being someone's only outlet. Growing up and being a teenager is difficult anywhere and I definitely found a lot of support on the Internet when I was a teenager in the mid 90s but shying away from the real world was never a long term solution. If there are hard-right reactionary communities that are oppressing teenagers then we need to figure out how to fix the root cause of those issues, and not just paper over them by avoiding the confrontation!
> Others simply prefer the company of they know online to those they happen to meet on the street.
And just like conversations on the street, you should expect people to be able to hear your conversations when you're publicly broadcasting information from your physical location!
NOW GET OFF MY LAWN!
And BTW, I've actually had to educate at least two mental health professionals on the basics of even stuff that is within their field (specifically Gender Dysphoria). The magnitude of ignorance among mental health professionals, especially psychiatrists, frightens me. It's like having a surgeon who still thinks there's bodily humours. -shudder-
https://youtu.be/73lpAL6gvfY?t=148
It's a John Prine song called "Crazy as a Loon". I changed it a little bit and added my own verse:
So I packed up my computer
San Francisco was the place
I'd go build us a new future
Before we blasted off to space
Wrote a billion dollar software
You could see it on my face
But someone spilled on my hardware
And all my data was erased
That town will make you crazy
Just give it a little time
You'll be walking 'round in circles
Writing C code line by line
You'll be waitin' on a phone call
At the wrong end of a broom
Yes, that town'll make you crazy
Crazy as a loon
Seriously though, you are not at all free offline. Playing a guitar and making friends are safe activities that you can do online just as fine and not worry about government. But try crossing a border. (Pamphlets are a special case since a pamphlet can have much greater impact if "handed out" online)
Our frustration comes not from a delusion that Internet made us less free but from losing the hopes for liberation we once placed on it.
Just make sure you are in a free Speech zone, cant just hand out pamphlets anywhere, and depending what is on the pamphlets you may be charges with a Felony for passing them out (Jury Nullification)
While outside you will be tracked by Facial Recognition and Automate Plate Readers that record your movements even if you do not have a cell phone, if you have a cell phone they just use the mandated GPS ....
>There are no gatekeepers!
ROFL. that is funny right there... Yes there are gatekeepers, there are 100000000's of rules and regulation governing your behavior outside, any more saying a rude word to someone could likely get you beaten by the police...
It is laughable you think that anywhere on this earth exists a free society...
It you think that it is you who is delusional
If you want to maintain your position on the matter, you're going to have to broaden that even further.
You know about residential power monitoring [0] right? Sewage systems have already been used to sample drug usage for entire cities, but the BONAS project [1] takes it to a new level.
How far are you willing to twist the logic? Would you consider the gravitational disturbance caused by the mass of my body within my home as a public broadcast open to government data collection?
[0] http://www.leagle.com/decision/199917586CalRptr2d89_1161/PEO...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_doctrine
As far as the Supreme Court's interpretation of the U.S. Constitution is concerned, every electrical signal that leaves your private property or private person is considered to be publicly broadcast.
Don't shoot the messenger! I'm just telling you the facts. The U.S. Constitution is a real piece of paper and the Supreme Court justices are real men and women with real power. This is how they see the world and you should carefully engage with the arguments that they make. You should at least learn to appreciate their arguments whether or not you agree with them.
You might not like conservative thought but that doesn't mean that it is wrong or that it isn't influential and legally valid in a democratic republic.
How far are you willing to distort your paranoia in order to keep thinking that there isn't a very reasonable and balanced conversation taking place in the third-party doctrine about individual rights weighed against the public good?
If anything, the Supreme Court is duty bound to follow the constitution. If we have reached some sort of internal contradiction with the U.S. Constitution then we're going to have to make some amendments. These amendments will need a lot of political consensus to be enacted and people are going to have to accept some compromises.
The 4th amendment clearly states the government is allowed under certain circumstances to partake in search and seizure of private property. Why is that? It's because we want the government to be able to deny certain individual rights in cases where it could best serve the public good. Why does this forum tend to abandon these philosophical first principles in exchange for virtualized mathematical first principles that seem blind to the physical political conditions of mankind?
How, exactly, are you supposed to stop anyone from figuring out your draw on the power grid? Any outside private interest could go about collecting this information. Why and how do you specifically stop the government from doing so? If you want to install your own Tesla battery packs and your own Solar City solar panels, then you don't have to worry about your power draw on a publicly sponsored electrical grid, and I guarantee even the most ardent supporters of the third-party doctrine will fully support your rights to keeping your own information from leaving your own property and requiring the government to get a warrant in order to inspect your own internal records on power usage. I'm sure the government, or anyone else who is allowed to pilot their own aircraft in public airspace could get a pretty good estimate from other measures. Or do we need air police to protect us from other people spying on us from above?
The government has consistently supported the individual protections of the 4th amendment for private property. The police need a warrant in order to attach a GPS device to a car. They don't need a warrant to go through your trash. Anyone can go through anyone's trash. How else would you police that? Do you want the police making sure that people aren't going through other people's trash? Should we have a special police force that just makes sure the regular police forces doesn't go through your trash? Who watches the watchmen? We all do. We just consider it all to be public knowledge if it leaves your private properties. It's the easiest, least contradictory solution. If you want something to be private, you need to be very careful with it!
Or is it that you do disagree with the government's right to warranted search and seizure in principle?
> How far are you willing to distort your paranoia in order to keep thinking that there isn't a very reasonable and balanced conversation taking place in the third-party doctrine about individual rights weighed against the public good?
Well first you're going to have to effectively demonstrate that I'm being paranoid, all you've done so far is provide justifications for the very thing I'm supposedly paranoid about. You are also going to have to define "public good", because I seriously doubt that we share the same definition. I don't think the public good involves individual rights being trumped by majority tyranny or deference to whoever the king is that day, so we probably won't find middle ground on that issue.
> ...to be able to deny certain individual rights in cases where it could best serve the public good. Why does this forum tend to abandon...
I can't speak for the entire forum, but for me the problem is in defining "individual rights". I don't include murder or destruction of property (or the utility there of) as an individual right. So that leaves very little else to justify the state's forceful curtailment of individual rights. The raiding of a farmer's market to protect the public from scourge of raw milk is an example of what results when you overburden the term "public good".
> How, exactly, are you supposed to stop anyone from figuring out your draw on the power grid?
I'm not concerned with that. I am concerned about those that have the capability, inclination and authority to collect and then act on that information. For example: if the Mothers of America had a direct feed on my power usage data - I'd be pretty bewildered but otherwise unconcerned, because they can't raid me. I'm not a fan of the USG having that same data, because they can raid me for unknowable reasons at some point in the future. I imagine the justification for such action would be as equally ridiculous as the raw milk raids - energy star compliance violation under Executive order 2023.082-ProtectMotherGaiaFromEwaste.
> We just consider it all to be public knowledge if it leaves your private properties.
I totally agree. But the break down occurs at the definition of "it". We really have very little idea of what information we are broadcasting that is of government interest because they not only have a monopoly on violence, but they enjoy a one way flow of information due to the concept of state secrets. Until the state is subject to that same policy, citizens cannot make informed decisions about what constitutes a public information disclosure.
If people can legally do something, they will, and it really doesn't matter if they should or not. If they really shouldn't be able to do it, make it so they legally can't do it! They'll probably do it anyways, but then it would be illegal. That's a whole other conversation.
> I don't think the public good involves individual rights being trumped by majority tyranny or deference to whoever the king is that day, so we probably won't find middle ground on that issue.
Good, we don't actually have to find any middle ground! I'm perfectly fine with how the Supreme Court is handling their interpretations! I think that our common law courts and the judicial oversights that continue to define "the public good" are doing a pretty good job of it. Are you?
> I can't speak for the entire forum, but for me the problem is in defining "individual rights".
Good, again, I'm generally fine with the status quo definition! Are you?
> I'm not concerned with that. I am concerned about those that have the capability, inclination and authority to collect and then act on that information.
Everyone and anyone has the capability, inclination and authority to collect and then act on that information. It is not only a waste of time trying to figure out who does or doesn't but also a clear violation of one's rights to be told that they don't have the right to collect public information. I want a world filled with dumpster divers and phone phreaks!
There's no such thing as "the government". It's just a bunch of people and a shit ton of paperwork. You can't just start denying some people the right to do something just because their name is written down on a piece of paper somewhere saying that they work for "the government".
These are all reasonable considerations, which is why our current government and legal infrastructure works this way! Do you like that it works this way?
> For example: if the Mothers of America had a direct feed on my power usage data - I'd be pretty bewildered but otherwise unconcerned, because they can't raid me. I'm not a fan of the USG having that same data, because they can raid me for unknowable reasons at some point in the future.
Why are they going to raid you? And even if you do, you have legal protections, and they know this as well! They still need a very good reason to get a search warrant.
By the way, who the hell is "they"? Who are these people we are referring to!?!
> I totally agree. But the break down occurs at the definition of "it". We really have very little idea of what information we are broadcasting that is of government interest because they not only have a monopoly on violence, but they enjoy a one way flow of information due to the concept of state secrets. Until the state is subject to that same policy, citizens cannot make informed decisions about what constitutes a public information disclosure.
I totally agree as well! Everything that I'm talking about really depends on an even playing field. Information asymmetries are incredibly toxic. I feel like this applies equally to private corporations like Facebook and Google. We all stand to benefit from having equal access and equal privileges to our public information.
There are of course times where there need to be state secrets but I agree, there are WAY too many state secrets. We should slash the budgets of the NSA and the CIA. State secrets make a lot of sense for the Armed Forces. What's the point of a submarine if you know where it is?
The problem isn't that the NSA and CIA are legally allowed to exist. It's that their budgets are too opaque and bloated. I doubt they're getting much effective information from the incredible volumes of noise they have to sift through. Even when they do find "bad stuff", they'd still need to pass the information along to someone who has to get a warrant. If they don't find anything or the information was wrong somehow, well, sue the fuckers who kicked in your door!
There's a whole wide world of manicured office parks filled with lawyers just waiting to represent someone just like you! ;)
It is, we were talking about whether or not believing that the government goes beyond public data collection in the pursuit of large scale monitoring is paranoid. You originally said that it was, but given your subsequent statements I'm confident that if pressed you'd define "public" as the space found just outside of your skull. So the original question is meaningless.
> I'm generally fine with the status quo definition! Are you?
Nope, I'm not a big fan of the resulting laws that thinking enables - the outlawing of interracial marriage, war on drugs, etc.
> Everyone and anyone has the ... authority to collect and then act on that information.
Some have authority to a greater number of actions than others, I thought I made my point obvious with the phrase "monopoly on violence". If you're suggesting that Nabisco is equal to the USG in range of authority and action... well you're just being thick.
> There's no such thing as "the government". It's just a bunch of people and a shit ton of paperwork.
No, it isn't paperwork - it is a monopoly on violence over a geographic area. It is the ability to define one killing as murder and the other as capital punishment. By your logic: if all the paperwork in DC were to instantly vaporize then so to would the state's authority to use deadly force. The state's power is not derived from paperwork.
> Do you like that it works this way?
Nope, the logic for it does not follow and the unsound foundation has led a huge number of convoluted rules and exceptions.
> Why are they going to raid you?
I already said that it is impossible to know, I can't predict future laws - I even provided a silly example. So again, lets not be thick.
> I feel like this applies equally to private corporations...
I don't feel that I have a right to any information held by another private individual or corporation, just as I have no right to the fruit of their labor. But I do have that right in the case of the government - the very definition of a public resource. I think the cost of maintaining state secrets of all kinds, to include submarine locations, far outweighs the benefit - the concept itself needs to go the way of "the divine right of kings".
Your original post basically said that we shouldn't be upset when the government collects our data because we're just shouting it to the world anyway.
With the new post, you're saying that the government can legally collect our data without a warrant if we first give it to someone else. That's a very different point to make!
I'm sorry, I was just being a little lazy and trying to address both points, but you're right, I didn't take the time to make the association.
> Just because the third party doctrine exists does not mean our activity is a "public broadcast,"
The Internet is nothing but public infrastructure with a commitment to route a packet to an intended destination. A datagram has to publicly state where it came from and where it is going in order for it to be properly routed. It is totally legal for anyone to run something like Wireshark and see how these packets are being routed around.
You clearly don't own all of the wiring and fiber optic cables that your packet travels on so you're always reliant on either public or third-party infrastructure.
> nor does it somehow mean that we're not allowed to be upset at these activities.
You shouldn't be upset when you use the radio in your cellphone to broadcast electro-magnetic signals from your physical location on earth. You should be aware of the repercussions of your activities. Anyone can see that you're broadcasting!
> Your original post basically said that we shouldn't be upset when the government collects our data because we're just shouting it to the world anyway.
Yes, by using the Internet we are literally broadcasting datagrams out on to a vast public network of routers and physical connections. Anyone can easily read this and track the physical location.
> With the new post, you're saying that the government can legally collect our data without a warrant if we first give it to someone else. That's a very different point to make!
Yeah, that's the extreme end of the legal argument. Because you are literally broadcasting information out in to public, the government doesn't need to invade your personal properties in order to search or seize. Therefore they don't need a warrant in order to read through your trash. The reason is because this is impossible to enforce.
Using Twitter is pretty damn close to just writing little notes and throwing them promptly in the trash when you think about it in a certain light! :D
All of that aside- there are no paranoid people after snowden. Just realists and delusional ones.
That would acknowledge the normal diversity of human moods, behavior, and minds while viewing psychiatric treatment as a means of empowering patients to improve their lives rather than just a means of "fixing" what a practicioner perceives to be broken. A lot of people, far more than those who actually seek treatment, could benefit from psychiatric tools, therapies, and treatments. That's not the same as saying they're broken or that they should be medicated.
Anyhow, your experience would be a good example of how the normal approach can fail. With set theory, psychologists refer to something called a "perceptual set," which is just a series of predispositions that shape how we perceive external stimuli. Psychiatrists look back to past cases when they're diagnosing new patients, and they all draw parallels to them the same as others draw on past experience. It's a huge part of how we learn.
Unfortunately for you, that means they're thinking of cases where the patient was anxious about various conspiracy theories. You managed to get lumped into that category because she's heard it before, and lacks the specific education to understand the difference between concerns about encryption/internet surveillance and conspiracy theories about NASA and the moon landing. Congratulations, you've been stereotyped and likely mis-diagnosed as having some (minor? major?) paranoid tendencies. If the root causes of your anxiety are misunderstood, it becomes more likely that th misunderstanding will negatively affect how it's treated.
That's actually a huge part of the problem with the political fight over encryption. People don't understand it, so they fall back on analogies and ideas that they do understand and attempt to apply them to this new, unknown stimuli. It's a powerful method of learning, but when it fails, it can do so spectacularly. People see encryption like a lock on a safe or a sealed letter, not realizing the differences or the universality and negative consequences of things like backdoors.
That said, don't give up on psychiatric help and therapy because of this one experience. Finding a psychatrist you connect well with isn't easy, and they understand perfectly well that there might be better options for their patients out there. It's possible that this experience has undermined your ability to work well together in the future. You never should have walked out of the room feeling like she's labeled you as "nuts" and that that was the end of it. In that respect, she failed you. Maybe it was word choice, or maybe she didn't explain certain things to you. Whatever the case, you might be better off seeing someone else.