What's the point of believing something if you can't regard it as true due to lack of evidence? That's usually reserved for religious faith.

If you suspect something, there has to be a reason. You have a certain level of evidence to support a suspicion, a higher level to support a deeper suspicion, a lot more to support being "practically certain" and so on.

The role played by suspicion in a rational context is to justify a search for more information, or to justify some precaution being taken.

This is entirely a semantic argument, but if you have proof of something then there is no need for belief to enter into anything.

For example, the fact that the Earth is warming is a matter of fact, it's measurable that year on year the planet's temperature has increased. I don't need to believe it, it's observable. But the conjecture that it will continue warming is a belief - perhaps the models are entirely wrong and next year we will enter into a new ice age. You can't prove something will happen until it happens - maybe tomorrow Russell's Teapot will magically appear on the other side of the Sun, it's not a falsifiable claim.

I would say that a belief is a stronger conviction than a suspicion, but I don't think it necessarily implies ironclad proof.

Given a past record of bad behavior, I'm more than willing to believe in present abuses of state secret privileges. It's been rotten since it was created (US V Reynolds) and at this point the null hypothesis is that nothing has changed.

> The role played by suspicion in a rational context is to justify a search for more information

Is that not what I'm doing?

I believe it to be true, but I'm not saying it's absolutely true because I currently have no proof.

He is asking why you believe something if there is no proof. Rationally proof should precede belief, but suspicion is better suited to describe your position. I understand your use of the word "belief" but I think I do prefer his usage.

Oh, I see. Yes, just poor wording on my part

thanks

Here is a good primer that includes some example companies that self-report the impact of NSLs, including Microsoft, Yahoo, Verizon...

https://epic.org/privacy/nsl/