Following the state of the law with regard to providers and services in the United States, I think you've overemphasized the capability for companies to fight back, as the pressure from the state is incredible and at every front. Primarily, PR is used to emphasize that businesses are really on consumers' sides: that they'd like to not provide data and access. But in actuality, being a successful company at the scale you need to survive means working hand in hand with the US government. We saw how large ("trusted") brands worked hand-in-hand with government by the Snowden documents and we've watched it slip further since.
> I hope Americans don't get cynical enough to discredit that we have more rights and they are worth fighting for, because it could always get far worse.
We have the same rights worth fighting for that the Chinese have.
Government does not give us rights. The rights are independent of government. Americans and Chinese have the same rights. Both governments are impeding on them. Washington DOES NOT give Americans more rights than the Chinese. Rights have never been something Washington can give.
What you are seeing is Washington taking rights, and pointing fingers at the Chinese, telling you that they're taking more.
You want to fight for rights? You can't fight the Chinese for your rights.
You have to fight Washington for your rights.
No, it doesn't, because the ACLU has a degree of power and legitimacy in the US which the Chinese government would not allow to any equivalent organization. The ACLU has actually won cases in court which effected a change in law and/or behavior.
> I myself have been harassed (followed, gaslit, personally surveilled, and threatened) by state police in America, for sharing Snowden documents and their contents. My mail between my relatives and I were opened. All subtle hints and threats: stop being outspoken.
Without minimizing the wrongness, illegality, or harm those things have done to you, I have to imagine that in China, a) Snowden documents would never have seen the light of day, and, b) If you had attempted to share something like that you would have been imprisoned without trial.
As the parent poster said, the difference between some and none is significant.
I do agree with the ultimate statement of you post, about fighting for rights.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weiquan_lawyers
> I have to imagine that in China...
a) Had Washington had its way the documents never would have seen the light of day. They broke international law to ground planes in search of Snowden. They blocked as much of the documents as they could from being shared. They spread rumors about malware on Wikileaks. They worked with the media industry to not cover the contents and to work on the messaging to the American people: "This is bulk collection, not mass surveillance." Their official and public statements on the contents and scope of the programs were repeatedly shown to be false. They passed a law legalizing and expanding authorities and passed this off to the public as their stopping the programs, while the media ran 24/7 news about Caitlyn Jenning. The UK infiltrated the Guardian at gunpoint and destroyed the documents.
b) The laws are in place for exactly this. Snowden, had he been caught, would have been in military prison. His lawyers are arguing today the terms of a trial for him to come home, with senior members of our government calling for his execution. The US government under the Obama Justice Department has compromised on a secret jury-less trial in the Virginia legal subsystem (notable for prosecuting National Security cases, and siding with National Security over individual rights). Remember Chelsea Manning's court case? I don't.
It's absurd to compare this environment to the ACLU.
In 1986, Gorbachev released Andrei Sakharov from internal exile. I guess you would have been saying: "That's it, the West can stop harping about human rights in the Soviet Union, it's all equal now"...?
To my knowledge, there has not been a case of an ACLU lawyer being jailed or harassed simply for taking on a case.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Human_Rights_Lawyers_Con...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Constitution_Initiative
You read the first Wikipedia article looking for reasons to dismiss it.
There's plenty of Civil Rights activity in China. It's a myopic American view that there is none and "no true Scotsman" all the civil rights law firms, attorneys and court cases should be dismissed out of hand for consideration.
In China, most disputes are resolved without institutional involvement whatsoever. Off the bat it's difficult to point to institutions and institutional processes and claim China doesn't have equivalence.
You are right. China is different. But it's not some wasteland dystopia from a fantasy novel. It has a wide and active civil society. That civil society is uniquely Chinese, and frankly, it's exciting to see it blossom as it has been since the 80s.
The most shocking thing is that the United States thinks China and Chinese society is a country to compare itself to. The ignorance of these comparisons is nearly as shocking.
Your argument could have been made about the Soviet Union in the late '80s. I grew up in Finland, and I remember people actually saying that: defending the Soviet human rights record, saying Russia is different, and pretending that a sprinkling of perestroika has fixed everything. It was complete bullshit then, and it's the same today in China.
Because Hong Kong is part of China, probably?
Are there open debates about Chinese civil rights on Chinese websites?
Indeed, it's hard to find a place on American social media where dissenting opinions can be argued. There's either an administrative agreement to shut the ideas down, or places (such as HN) don't like the idea of having opinions on their site for whatever reason (harmful to the community) so they shut it down.
I'm certainly not getting thrown in jail. But you won't hear any dissenting opinions.
By the FBI?
Do you think some government agency actually complained to the owner of Y-Combinator threatening them with reprisals unless they evict you?
I think that both countries are on equally slippery slopes. I want to appeal to an American sense that this is something in our fiber, and civil liberties are as important to being American as baseball and apple pie.
The US has far more legal protections and better rule of law than China has ever had. And, crucially, America is a democracy with constitutionally protected free speech. American citizens have much greater ability to challenge the actions of their government than Chinese citizens do.
I think it does a disservice to those defending civil liberties in the US to not recognize that the two countries' situations are vastly different.
That's a really good point--those of us in America are lucky to be here. Do you think people are fighting enough, though? Amy Goodman was nearly thrown in jail just for covering the Dakota Pipeline Protests--what punishment will be handed out in response to that egregious attempt at violating civil rights in America. Right now it looks like: none.
Another example: At least one Journalist has been physically detained, searched and had equipment seized for travelling to cover the Dakota Pipeline Protests.^1
What about the fact that the Iraqi government was desperately trying to prove they did not have chemical weapons or weapons of mass destruction, and the Bush administration hid this from the public?^2 Even though that is a proven, factually-substantiated conspiracy, and it is not technically censored, how many Americans would you guess are aware that happened? In my experience, most aren't.
What about whistle blower protections? Human rights abuses? Guantanamo? Police brutality? Legalized propaganda? Our actions in Syria? Government harassment of Greenwald, Poitras, and others for covering the Snowden leaks? The list goes on and on.
If we lost just a few of our best 'freedom fighters:' the ACLU, the EFF, and people like Amy Goodman and Glenn Greenwald, my best guess is that the world would start to turn into a different place. I'm not sure if we are fighting enough.
[1] https://www.aclu.org/blog/speak-freely/does-what-happened-jo... [2]https://theintercept.com/2016/12/15/if-donald-trump-is-so-up...
In contrast anyone Chinese that are active online effectively has to be capable of understanding both english and Chinese.
I find that hard to believe. I know it's not true for Portuguese native speakers, and China seems to be even more keen on providing native alternatives to foreign sites.
The goals of the organizations doing these things are not always aligned either, since many of them do have to maintain consumer trust they aren't always on the same page as the government, and that's a meaningful friction that doesn't exist AFAICT in China.
I hope Americans don't get cynical enough to discredit that we have more rights and they are worth fighting for, because it could always get far worse.