Re:If PRISM is Good Policy, Why Stop with Terrorism?
by trestles on Sunday July 07, 2013 @06:17PM
(#6003804)
My point is that, if you perceive that the capabilities of PRISM are new and that the behavior that the NSA has engaged in for 10 years are new and you are outraged by it (which was the point of the original article and I assume is the point of your stepping stone argument), then I think you are naive. This behavior, the FISA courts, etc... are part of the Patriot Act and Carnivore has been known about for > 10 years and is IE3 type technology. I actually probably see the world much more sinisterly than you do (hence the contradiction of the Madison quote). Snowden probably can't get asylum not because of what he has said but the can of worms of what is in his laptop. Oh well....
The fact that you are trying to cast me as an apologist for ' long-term human rights abuses by your government cause you to automatically approve of their actions'; I think the stupidest thing America has ever done is invoke the traditional war-machine (esp drones and block sites) against the Middle East.
I'm not sure why you equate my outrage to ignorance. I can set you up as a complementary straw man by asking why long-term human rights abuses by your government cause you to automatically approve of their actions?
As to Auschwitz, well, that's why I said "stepping stones" not, "next thing you know Obama's going to grow a toothbrush mustache and send the jews off to labor camps". The point is that this kind of unbridled power of global surveillance, supposedly checked through secret courts but which are accountable to no one outside the innermost circles of power is guaranteed to corrupt in the long run. Furthermore, when the tyranny starts, you won't even know about it because it will be done in secret with explicit legal approval. Give your "it can't happen here" attitude I find it incredibly ironic that you would call me naive.