Real and tangible way to defund NSA is this:

1. Withhold your taxes.

2. Protect yourself against the police and the military who will try to extract them by force (possibly by having crowdfunded guards).

3. Switch from using US Dollar as most of the money government generates comes from inflation (gov sells "bonds" that it will never repay in exchange for new money). Since all national currencies are inflationary and controlled by similar institutions all over the world, only Bitcoin is a good alternative. Or gold, if we can protect the vaults properly and build trust in a company that keeps it (but history shows it doesn't work).

4. Pay only what you think is fair and where you think it's fair. E.g. if you like social security, pay there directly as much as you want.

Only voluntary payments will guarantee that people who you don't like get as much money as someone is willing to give them explicitly and voluntarily. You should not ask for permission to not participate in what you don't approve.

> 2. Protect yourself against the police and the military who will try to extract them by force (possibly by having crowdfunded guards).

> 3. Switch from using US Dollar as most of the money government generates comes from inflation (gov sells "bonds" that it will never repay in exchange for new money). Since all national currencies are inflationary and controlled by similar institutions all over the world, only Bitcoin is a good alternative. Or gold, if we can protect the vaults properly and build trust in a company that keeps it (but history shows it doesn't work).

> 4. Pay only what you think is fair and where you think it's fair. E.g. if you like social security, pay there directly as much as you want.

So the solution of breaking free from the NSA and problems of US gov't is to isolate yourself and recreate the exact same systems in miniature?

I'm confused at what you are trying to advocate here?

Of course, you'd have to protect yourself when attacked, no question about it. But it's not a moral choice, it's an extreme case where you don't have any choice. So I'm not going to prove any libertarian rights platform based on right to self-defense. Without government, rights will appear in a form of voluntary agreement in parts of society on what's acceptable and what's not. E.g. if in Texas it's acceptable to kill trespassers without asking question, then so be it. I don't like this rule, so I'd just avoid being in Texas. But neither my opinion, nor cowboy's opinion create any globally applicable rights. I just don't want some mafia to take over people living in Texas and dictate them what they can or cannot do. They'd better decide themselves and smoothly adjust as new people arrive or get born there.

It's definitely hard to imagine the NSA being defunded, but that is rooted in a culture that is less concerned with government compliance with law and more with "reasonable" outcomes. The inability to control institutions, and the establishment of those institutions as powers in their own right, is the logical consequence.

That depends on either your definition of government or everyone.

I don't. Many people I know don't either. So what if we don't really need any kind of government?

I love white people who are satiated by the blessings of good government that they can talk, without irony, about how they don't need government. I don't meet many anarchists from my part of the world...

The state of human nature is lawlessness and violence. The only thing keeping society from collapsing into the hell that people in those countries live with is the collective force of the majority asserted through government.

Anarchy sounds dandy until a bunch of people realize that in the absence of the overwhelming power of the state, all it takes is a gang of a dozen people to terrorize their neighbors, taking from them whatever they want. Morality doesn't prevent that. The only thing that prevents that is a bigger group of men, with guns. At first those groups of men were warlords, who eventually became kings, and ultimately we decided we should be able to vote for them. History of civilization in a nutshell.

Democratic government, government by discourse and persuasion, is a remarkable achievement of a society. It is maintained and supported and continued by that society. There is nothing inevitable about it.

It shows this skinny nerd getting beat up by a tattooed thug. With a caption that says something like "This is your anarchist utopia: getting beat up like you were in middle school over and over and over again."

It was awesome (and phrased in a slightly more clever way than I can remember). I really wish I could find it again, but I can't seem too even after trying many times.

I'm as skeptical of the Po Po as the next guy, but the alternative isn't sunshine and rainbows.

The one possible exception is my sister (I wasn't there when she was arrested), but you steal $10,000 worth of silver from an in-law to feed your drug habit and I can't say I'd be surprised that the government gets involved.

P.S. On that note, how does anarchy account for thieves?

Anarchy is not some structure imposed on people. When I advocate for non-violent solutions, it's not me who needs to prove anything. It's the advocates of violence need to prove why all of a sudden generally undesirable violence becomes totally valid when done by a man in a special costume.

You yourself live 95% of your life in anarchy. You voluntary interact with people you like and avoid people you dislike. You avoid bad districts, you put locks on your bike, purchase insurance, enjoy security video cameras. Ultimately, with modern technology, people can be ostracized economically without any violence whatsoever. You'd need violent action only in extreme case of personal assault, but that's outside of morality. Morality is needed to avoid such situations in the first place.

If you go try to beat up the policeman when they come at you with a signed warrant, or ever point a gun in their direction, then don't be surprised when they don't decide to just roll over and die. This is, again, consonant with you mention about personal assault.

But don't try to brush away the question: What does an anarchist propose to do about thieves? Rapists? Murderers? Apparently your answer will not involve violence and will involve sterning telling people to be moral to each other. But I'm not worried about people who are moral, I'm worried about people who aren't.

What happens if you don't pay taxes?

The government will get violent.

Yeah, that's not going to happen. "Protect yourself" in this case translates to "ensure your rapid death in a SWAT assault". Security guards aren't going to fight a warrant for your arrest, and mercenaries will just die in the assault.

When they realize that cooperating with the NSA will severely damage their reputation, they'll think twice before handing over user data this easily. Not to mention that if they realize their users are migrating, they might start lobbying against the NSA.

"We're losing money here, we really need you to vote like this and then we can give you a ton of money for your next campaign. If not, well, we'll fund that other guy and he'll get a bunch of rave press and you'll get a bunch of attack ads during the next election, what do you say Senator?"

No one "cooperates" with NSA. Companies would have their bank accounts and other property seized if they don't obey orders. Even if some court later decides to return their property, company would already be fatally harmed. If you want to continue your business, you must comply.

I don't believe this. And if it is true then witholding your taxes won't help. The people losing money to inflation would probably stop buying bonds if inflation ate into their returns.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_resistance

I hope you'll be able to make a difference. Good luck on this.

Will there be beer?

We don't have a written constitution, so the Powers That Be don't have to hack the legal system in quite the same way as as they do in the US (secret courts, secret injunctions, requirements for industry leaders to deny activity &c).

However, we have absolutely no oversight and no way to gain oversight of the agencies that purport to be acting for our protection. It is difficult even to find out how much we are paying for these agencies. As our Prime Minister has recently demonstrated, our elective representatives have very little understanding of how the Internet actually works. There is a cross party consensus that the 'legal framework' is adequate. Maybe it is, but we don't know, and have no way of knowing.

So I'd suggest taking what action you can within your system, because at least you have some avenues for change.

In fact I have come to believe that your system is more well-managed than ours here in the US partially because it is a smaller country and hence easier to keep track of. See the Washington Post's article (before Snowden's revelations) on the mushrooming growth of myriad, largely redundant secret intelligence groups dispersed throughout various US agencies: http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/articl...

I shall add that to the summer reading list. I'm still dubious about how much accountability there actually is. For instance, the quote below is from a (generally favourable) Amazon review of the book referenced

"The book is a bit weak in the realm of intelligence collection, but this is because this is a very sensitive area and Sir David was clearly trying to avoid stepping on toes."

We are good at 'sensitive areas' in the UK.

"...the mushrooming growth of myriad, largely redundant secret intelligence groups..."

I suspect we have some of those as well but as projects/units within the main agencies.

HN should be about constructive criticism. We're all intelligent people, we can all tear down anything we put our mind at, but that doesn't mean that we should, or we wouldn't leave our house every day.

I know I'm a cynic and it's a bad habit I'm trying to change, maybe you should try too.