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Cybersecurity and CISPACybersecurity and CISPAPosted May 3, 2012 14:26 UTC (Thu) by drag (subscriber, #31333)Parent article: Cybersecurity and CISPA
Our personal freedom and national security is far far too important and vital to leave in the hands of a organization so ripe for the potential of abuse, corruption, and incompetency as the USA Federal government.
These modern attempts to legislate 'security' will easily ruin what little real freedom and independence that remains in our country.
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Cybersecurity and CISPA Posted May 3, 2012 15:59 UTC (Thu) by smoogen (subscriber, #97) [Link]
What I find funny in such comments is that overall the Federal government has less power over people than state and local governments or even corporations.. and the lion share of corruption is there. However people seem to focus on a bogeyman far away than the monster in their own closet.
[I say this after looking at the size of and scope of tracking that the NYC intelligence agency has over the people of New York State. Or the amount of control that the oligarchy of AT&T and Comcast have over people's information. Most state governments have more ability to "watch" over their citizens at checkpoints, data taps, and have less oversight than even the most corrupt sections of the Federal Government (Interior Department) has. ]
The main item is that always going on about the Feds misses where a lot of the real problems occur.
Cybersecurity and CISPA Posted May 4, 2012 1:39 UTC (Fri) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
One of the major differences is that if a state government is being evil then you can just move to another state. This is a far more effective manner to control the behavior of the state then democracy because it affects their tax base, and this is something they actually do care about.
AS far as corporations like ATT and Comcast it is important to realize that:
Companies like ATT would of never existed and gotten large if it was not for direct collusion with government interests. Things like regional monopoly grants, special legal privileges, grant money, FCC, patents, and so on and so forth they could not be what they are today.
Now I am not saying that corporations are your friends or that State governments are easy to control. Pointing out that things other then the Federal government are terrible does not make the Federal government any less terrible.
What I _AM_ saying is that CISPA is fucking evil and if it passes the Federal government will abuse it at every opportunity for political and economic reasons and it will do nothing to help make us safer.
Cybersecurity and CISPA Posted May 3, 2012 17:21 UTC (Thu) by jackb (subscriber, #41909) [Link] far far too important and vital to leave in the hands of a organization so ripe for the potential of abuse, corruption, and incompetencyTaking that principle to its logical conclusion the set of legitimate government functions is empty.
Cybersecurity and CISPA Posted May 4, 2012 13:10 UTC (Fri) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
That does indeed appear to be what drag believes. Speaking as someone whose life (and the lives of 3/4s of his family) were saved by repeated interventions from one of the US right wing's giant bugbears, state-funded healthcare, I'm pretty sure I have grounds to disagree. On Planet Libertarian I would be dead.
Cybersecurity and CISPA Posted May 6, 2012 23:03 UTC (Sun) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] Ah, but drag has a point in this case. The potential for abuse and corruption in a function such as total information awareness is too high for any government to have, so it should be forbidden by law. Probably by an amendment to the constitution of all democratic countries.Not so with public healthcare or other functions, which may or may not be provided by the government, but there are no a priori arguments against the function itself. (Sure, US right-wingers have a plethora of such arguments. They just don't make any sense.)
Cybersecurity and CISPA Posted May 8, 2012 9:00 UTC (Tue) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
Oh, agreed -- pervasive spying by *anyone* is a bad thing. (However, your assumption that all democratic countries *have* a constitution to be amended, or anything like one, is a tad parochial. You can build a country entirely on overlapping layers of precedent and "this is the way we always did it" if you keep at it long enough.)
Lack of a constitution Posted May 8, 2012 9:16 UTC (Tue) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] Yep, sorry. I suppose UK citizens would be even more offended if I suggested that EU directives play the role of a super-constitution since each of these has to be transposed to local legislation... Perhaps this particular right to electronic privacy should be included in the bill of human rights, or something else with the pretense of being universal. Is it too late to amend the Magna Carta?Anyway, the traditional right to privacy should be enhanced by including electronic surveillance and data retention as effective means of violating privacy. Bad things can happen, and are happening in places like PRC.
Lack of a constitution Posted May 8, 2012 15:51 UTC (Tue) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
You could amend the Magna Carta if you liked, but it's almost entirely repealed by this point anyway so it's pretty much pointless to do so. It's not a constitution of any sort.
(But, yes, pedantry aside I agree with your original point!)
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