[ Date Index ] [ Thread Index ] [ <= Previous by date / thread ] [ Next by date / thread => ]
[Had accidentally sent this to Phil only, resending to the list.] On Wed, Jun 26, 2013 at 11:42 AM, Philip Hudson wrote: > It's terribly complex and tangled in webs of deceit, of course, but I think > there's a groundswell growing. I think people around the world have had > enough. I'm afraid most people either simply don't care, or buy the argument that the NSA has stopped about 50 terrorist attacks (and see the Boston bombing as a reason for even stricter surveillance, not as a sign that surveillance is not the solution). People I tend to speak to might care more than average, but I don't believe they are representative of the population as a whole. (The day the Guardian came with the GCHQ revelations, most other newspapers opened with a teacher who had had sex with a pupil.) > Also, the players involved, the spooks and their masters, have not > only their own agendas but their own self-image (or self-justificatory > myths, if you subscribe to my view) to sustain. They need to be able to tell > themselves, each other, new recruits and so on the we-serve-the-nation lies > with a straight-ish face. I genuinely believe that people working for the NSA think they are doing a good job and that they believe it when they say they've stopped 50 terrorist attacks. I don't think they're right about this, but I can imagine how from their point of view it may seem to be that way. Of course, we can disagree about this, like we can on the competence of the NSA (I think they tend to be rather competent). But my main problem with the NSA is evil/incompetent argument is that, in theory, it can be countered by a suggestion to replace the NSA with a less evil and more competent equivalent, who are given similar surveillance powers. But that's not how privacy works: it is the powers that are the problem, not those who (ab)use them. If the EFF could read everything I did on the Internet, it would be just as bad. Martijn. -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/listfaq