Apple vs the NSA

[Pointedstick]

As I was watching Apple's keynote yesterday, I was stuck by the juxtaposition of the growing scandals embroiling our government with this incredible private company bringing to market products that fill people with wonder and awe.

It really brought into focus the difference between the private sector and the government: one tries to persuade you that your life will be better if you exchange your money (AKA time) for products it has created for your enjoyment, while the other used naked, unmediated power to intrude on your life, spy on you, steal from you, kidnap you, or kill you.

It struck an oddly discordant tone to see one part of society work so hard to advance the boundaries of the future while another seems so retrograde, so primitive, such a throwback to our brutish tribal lizard brains and the world of might makes right.

[MediumTex]

Each entity is behaving according to its nature.

[Benko]

It is worth noting that our current administration didn't get there because of our primitive lizard brain.  It got there because it was voted in a second time, despite the results of the first time.  Sure there were contributing factors (media, a very effective campain machinery...) but in many ways, the administration is a sympom of the problem.  The people who elected him are the problem. 

NSA spying ON THE GENERAL POPULATION* will likely persist, not only because of the current administration, but because there are a number of people on both sides of the aisle who agree with it, and not enough people in the population with the gumption to oppose it actively.  This is also a symptom of the problem (see gleason report thread)

*I view spying on suspected terrorists differently, but that is another discussion.

[dualstow]

It really brought into focus the difference between the private sector and the government: one tries to persuade you that your life will be better if you exchange your money (AKA time) for products it has created for your enjoyment, while the other used naked, unmediated power to intrude on your life, spy on you, steal from you, kidnap you, or kill you.

I'm no defender of the administration, but is that a fair comparison? Apple uses heavy-handedness too, though within the boundaries of the law. And then there's Foxconn. (I watched the keynote address, too, and was very excited to see that many new machines will be manufactured in the U.S. Yet another reason I love Apple!) Meanwhile, the government has a duty to protect us. That inevitably means things like tanks and spies. Not to open that whole libertarian can of worms on whether govt works and whether we need it at all. But Google collects our data and they have no such responsibility to protect U.S. citizens from future terrorist attacks. (Side note: my mom is ex-NSA and is completely unrepentant about the recent Verizon news. We've had some interesting conversations.  )

[Pointedstick]

Of course it's not a fair comparison; one is a company and the the is a government. They have different roles in society. One provides us with products, the other oppresses us in the name of protecting us. 

In terms of collecting information, I think there's a huge difference:

Google, Facebook, Skype, and the others only collect the data we give them, and they do it for the purpose of marketing to us.

The NSA collects everything, and they do it for the purpose of seeing whether they should kidnap us, put in tiny boxes, fix us with madness helmets, and/or kill us.

[MediumTex]

The NSA collects everything, and they do it for the purpose of seeing whether they should kidnap us, put in tiny boxes, fix us with madness helmets, and/or kill us.

If I ever started a heavy metal band, I would like to call it "Madness Helmet."  We could sing songs about the government destroying our minds with strange images and loud noises. 

[MediumTex]

My mom is ex-NSA and is completely unrepentant about the recent Verizon news. We've had some interesting conversations. 

That reminds me of the great line about never trying to explain something to a person whose livelihood (or retirement) depends on not understanding it.

I am sure that some very very very bright people work for the NSA.  The issue is not with the competence or commitment of NSA employees; the issue is with what the scope of the NSA's (or any secret domestic surveillance agency's) activities will be.

If I went to an NSA facility with my camera and some recording equipment and let them know I was just there to keep an eye on things because if they weren't doing anything wrong presumably they wouldn't mind me keeping an eye on them, they would probably burst out laughing before hauling me off.  The watcher never wants to be watched and never wants his rationale for watching you to be used as a rationale for you watching him.

It's not unlike the way the government says that citizens shouldn't have certain types of weapons because they aren't necessary for self-defense when the police are using the exact same weapons in the exact same communities for self-defense.

[Libertarian666]

My mom is ex-NSA and is completely unrepentant about the recent Verizon news. We've had some interesting conversations. 

That reminds me of the great line about never trying to explain something to a person whose livelihood (or retirement) depends on not understanding it.

I am sure that some very very very bright people work for the NSA.  The issue is not with the competence or commitment of NSA employees; the issue is with what the scope of the NSA's (or any secret domestic surveillance agency's) activities will be.

If I went to an NSA facility with my camera and some recording equipment and let them know I was just there to keep an eye on things because if they weren't doing anything wrong presumably they wouldn't mind me keeping an eye on them, they would probably burst out laughing before hauling me off.  The watcher never wants to be watched and never wants his rationale for watching you to be used as a rationale for you watching him.

It's not unlike the way the government says that citizens shouldn't have certain types of weapons because they aren't necessary for self-defense when the police are using the exact same weapons in the exact same communities for self-defense.

Yes, one distinguishing characteristic of governmental agencies is that they always, repeat always, violate the Golden Rule.

[dualstow]

My mom is ex-NSA and is completely unrepentant about the recent Verizon news. We've had some interesting conversations. 

That reminds me of the great line about never trying to explain something to a person whose livelihood (or retirement) depends on not understanding it.

Haha. She hasn't been there since the 60s when she was quite young. I guess she still has the mentality, though, that good people have nothing to hide so it's ok to be spied on. I used to have that mentality, too.

[MediumTex]

My mom is ex-NSA and is completely unrepentant about the recent Verizon news. We've had some interesting conversations. 

That reminds me of the great line about never trying to explain something to a person whose livelihood (or retirement) depends on not understanding it.

Haha. She hasn't been there since the 60s when she was quite young. I guess she still has the mentality, though, that good people have nothing to hide so it's ok to be spied on. I used to have that mentality, too.

Ask her if it would be okay for a citizen to go to an NSA facility to keep an eye on what they were doing.  If the NSA isn't doing anything wrong, what would be the problem with doing this?

There should be a rule that the government is not allowed to make the "we can't tell you what we're doing, but trust us it's in your best interest" argument after it's been determined that the government isn't doing what is in our best interest...unless, of course, being spied on for no reason is considered to be in your best interest.

[dualstow]

Ok, I'll ask her, but I think I could answer that and so could you.

[MediumTex]

Ok, I'll ask her, but I think I could answer that and so could you.

Yeah, I just always like to hear the strange rationales people come up with for the government being allowed to do things to the citizenry that the citizenry isn't allowed to do to the government.

The truth, of course, is that the government does what it wants because it has a monopoly on the legal use of force in society and there simply isn't any other institution or group within our society that is capable of telling it to stop doing something. 

If the two parties represented a meaningful choice when it came to statist vs. non-statist solutions to society's problems and the media wasn't controlled by a set of corporate interests with little desire to seriously disrupt the status quo, then voting might possibly be considered a way to get the government to stop doing something that the citizenry didn't want it to do, but we don't currently live in that type of country.

I do, however, very much enjoy exercising my right to free speech during these periods of what Thomas Paine might have called governmental "ruffianism."  It's a bit of a bummer, though, to know that every word I type is probably moving through some type of algorithm that calculates my estimated propensity to engage in activities that the government doesn't like.

[Jan Van]

The truth, of course, is that the government does what it wants because it has a monopoly on the legal use of force in society and there simply isn't any other institution or group within our society that is capable of telling it to stop doing something.

Which somehow made me think, what if there was some Chinese dissident in the USA and the Chinese took him out with a drone (which they might have made using plans obtained by hacking)? Maybe a bit OT...

[MediumTex]

The truth, of course, is that the government does what it wants because it has a monopoly on the legal use of force in society and there simply isn't any other institution or group within our society that is capable of telling it to stop doing something.

Which somehow made me think, what if there was some Chinese dissident in the USA and the Chinese took him out with a drone (which they might have made using plans obtained by hacking)? Maybe a bit OT...

You mean like we routinely do in the Middle East, Afghanistan, Pakistan and parts of north Africa?

I should also add that the goal of the U.S. military seems to be to obtain a monopoly on the use of force worldwide.

[Pointedstick]

I should also add that the goal of the U.S. military seems to be to obtain a monopoly on the use of force worldwide.

Seen in this light, supporters of the notion of a global government ought to be the U.S. military's biggest boosters. Unless of course they were hoping for the global government to be kind, fair, just, and representative, to which I say LOL!

[MediumTex]

I should also add that the goal of the U.S. military seems to be to obtain a monopoly on the use of force worldwide.

Seen in this light, supporters of the notion of a global government ought to be the U.S. military's biggest boosters. Unless of course they were hoping for the global government to be kind, fair, just, and representative, to which I say LOL!

I can hear Dr. McCoy describing this to Captain Kirk...

We've never seen any hairless ape society with institutions that lasted more than a few generations, and they are talking about a single worldwide governing structure?  Don't they know from their own history that concentrations of power like that never end well.  These people are just too violent for anything like that to work.

Dammit Jim, these New World Order idiots have either been watching too much Star Trek or reading too many Woodrow Wilson biographies.

[dualstow]

My brother sent me this image. I think we should split one and send it to mom.
http://www.despair.com/nsa-freedom.html