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Re:Stop Watching Us Gathers Over 100,000 signatures to fight... by csense on Thursday June 13, 2013 @06:52PM (#5877141)
> useless

Not to the NSA! With no effort at all, they've gathered the names of 100,000 subversives to put on a secret watch list!

(I hope I'm kidding.)

Re:Stop Watching Us Gathers Over 100,000 signatures to fight... by iguana on Thursday June 13, 2013 @07:37PM (#5877372)
I hesitated signing it for a good 5 minutes because I didn't want my name on the list of subversives, but then realized that since they monitor everything, I was already on the list.

Oh well, I'll let you guys know how good the food is in the secret prisons.

Re:Stop Watching Us Gathers Over 100,000 signatures to fight... by stox on Friday June 14, 2013 @12:00AM (#5878196)
I made the subversive list, I kid you not, at the age of 12. Needless to say, I stopped caring long long ago. Didn't find out about it until years later, when I was silly enough to think about enlisting in the Navy's Nuclear Propulsion School.
Re:Stop Watching Us Gathers Over 100,000 signatures to fight... by brokenparser on Friday June 14, 2013 @02:43AM (#5878593)
On the subversive list years before it was cool. Dude, you are the real hipster.
Re:Stop Watching Us Gathers Over 100,000 signatures to fight... by dredmorbius on Friday June 14, 2013 @05:33AM (#5879040)
Please tell me you've shared that story somewhere.
Re:Stop Watching Us Gathers Over 100,000 signatures to fight... by stox on Friday June 14, 2013 @01:49PM (#5881284)
Trust me, everyone who knows me has heard the story. But you do make a point, I should write it up and put it up on a website to educate others as to some of the abuses that have been occurring for so long.
Re:Stop Watching Us Gathers Over 100,000 signatures to fight... by a3n on Thursday June 13, 2013 @07:45PM (#5877409)
I think you'll be proud to tell your grandchildren that you were on the list of subversives.
Re:Stop Watching Us Gathers Over 100,000 signatures to fight... by korethr on Thursday June 13, 2013 @07:09PM (#5877229)
I hope you're kidding too. However, the cynic in me suspects that most of the signatories to the petition might already have been identified by the likes of PRISM as potential subversives and put on a secret watch list. This petition is probably just a confirmation of the majority of the names on that list.
Re:Stop Watching Us Gathers Over 100,000 signatures to fight... by Bill_Dimm on Thursday June 13, 2013 @08:34PM (#5877628)
This petition is probably just a confirmation of the majority of the names on that list

It's far worse than "just confirmation." If the NSA is training a machine learning algorithm to identify subversives based on various features/activities of those people, they need a set of labeled (i.e. subversive = yes/no) training data for the algorithm to learn from. They now have 100,000 extra training samples to help the machine learning algorithm better tune its ability to identify subversives. So, not only have the 100,000 people moved from the "probably subversive" to "known subversive" column, but the NSA is better able to predict subversiveness for all of the people that didn't sign the petition by comparing their features/activities to those that did.

Re:Stop Watching Us Gathers Over 100,000 signatures to fight... by DennisP on Thursday June 13, 2013 @09:55PM (#5877868)
That's a perspective I hadn't thought of, and will try to apply to other situations.

On the other hand, if the 100,000 people who already signed have now identified me as a subversive, I'd better go ahead and sign, in the hopes that it will maximize the odds of reigning in the NSA before they come get me.

Re:Stop Watching Us Gathers Over 100,000 signatures to fight... by Gaggleduck on Thursday June 13, 2013 @08:52PM (#5877701)
Re:Stop Watching Us Gathers Over 100,000 signatures to fight... by binarycrusader on Thursday June 13, 2013 @07:38PM (#5877377)
Welcome to the new era of McCarthyism.
Re:Stop Watching Us Gathers Over 100,000 signatures to fight... by redblacktree on Thursday June 13, 2013 @09:39PM (#5877823)
Where privacy is the enemy? Really?
Re:Stop Watching Us Gathers Over 100,000 signatures to fight... by binarycrusader on Friday June 14, 2013 @01:45AM (#5878461)
I was referring to how in the McCarthy era, people were persecuted for mere association with any sort of "unpatriotic" activity or organization.

That's a dark place to which I hope we never return.

Re:Stop Watching Us Gathers Over 100,000 signatures to fight... by drivebyacct2 on Thursday June 13, 2013 @08:53PM (#5877706)
A secret watch list? Holy shit, I wonder if they constantly surveil people on that list. Oh wait.
Re:Stop Watching Us Gathers Over 100,000 signatures to fight... by redblacktree on Thursday June 13, 2013 @09:39PM (#5877822)
Hold on. Are you saying that being on the side of freedom, privacy and government transparency is now "subversive?" Where did America go?
Re:Stop Watching Us Gathers Over 100,000 signatures to fight... by lessnonymous on Thursday June 13, 2013 @10:44PM (#5877993)
The constitution used to be about restricting what the government could do. Now it's about restricting what the people can do.