>A surprisingly large number of Americans approve of the Patriot Act.
Because the vast majority of those people don't understand the repercussions of it. They think it allows the government to "catch the terrorists" on our soil. That's the way it was pitched.
The people in power are still immigrants to the internet and this sort of technology in general. The views regarding domestic spying will change as more technologically savvy people age and move into politics. That's why they're trying so hard to push certain legislation, before it's too late.
Let's assume that's true for the sake of argument. Then why stop there? Why not monitor all communications to also catch murderers and rapists and tax cheats? Why have a 4th amendment at all? What makes "terrorism" substantially different than any other crime?
Sure, why not? There are people out there that would happily have their communications monitored in order to catch murderers. Tax cheats, maybe not - no-one lives in fear of a tax cheat.
I'm not saying this is a wise or sensible opinion, but people still hold it - not everyone is just "ill informed".
I disagree. They're ignorant. How could they not be? 3000 people died in the twin towers. Thats nothing. The spying is far scarier. They own us. Totally. No one can escape it. Anyone who intends subversive action can be targetted. They can be approached and manipulated by an agent who knows everything about them. The would-be-subversive can be nudged, sabotaged or flat out blackmailed. There won't be any more rights movements in this environment. At least not "real" ones. They will manufacture contrived movements to subdue us. Anyone who thinks this is right hasn't thought it through; They are wrong.
If you're one of the people holding this opinion, you are wrong.
At the very least you're wrong about them being properly informed.
> Anyone who intends subversive action can be targetted. They can be approached and manipulated by an agent who knows everything about them. The would-be-subversive can be nudged, sabotaged or flat out blackmailed.
You've just highlighted why the average American is scared of terrorists but not the NSA: 3000 people did die on 9/11. There is no evidence of the NSA targeting Americans, or nudging/sabotaging/blackmailing them.
The military could easily storm Washington DC, topple the government, execute every Congressman, impose martial law and announce the start of a new regime under the sole authority of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. You'd have to be pretty nuts to worry that's actually going to happen.
Also, referring to people who disagree with you as ignorant isn't generally the best way to change their minds.
Our government has done exactly those things. The FBI compelled Martin Luther King Jr to kill himself [1]. You are ignorant. Ignorance is the inescapable reality of a mind that is more finite than the world. It's not an insult unless you're ignorant of that reality. Otherwise it's just the feedback necessary to remedy the relevant ignorance for the problem at hand.
First off, Martin Luthor King didn't kill himself, so you can't really say that the FBI compelled him to do so.
Secondly, you're using the actions taken by a domestic law enforcement agency more than half a century ago as evidence that a foreign intelligence agency is going to blackmail Americans, neglecting the difference in missions between the two agencies, the changes in legal authorities since the 60s, the fact that multiple generations of Americans with differing cultural values have come into and left government service, etc.
Thirdly, calling someone ignorant is an insult. I'd suggest consulting the forum guidelines linked at the bottom of the page.
Calling you anything you wish not to be called is an insult. You just called me ignorant without using the word. Does that make it less insulting? Do the forum guidelines say: don't call people ignorant? I can write "person who doesn't know relevant information" in that case. But soon that too will be an insult. I'm not seeing this avoidance of potentially insulting statements going anywhere useful. It just leads to the continual recycling of words for any idea that could possibly accumulate a negative connotation.
I only gave you one example. There are plenty but I don't think it's important. The motivation is there, for the protection of national security, to manipulate anyone who opposes the status quo. To thwart their efforts.
Martin Luther King Jr was pressured to kill himself. That he resisted this pressure doesn't mean that he wasn't pressured. We can quibble about definitions but I think a charitable reader is more than capable of understanding what I meant.
No. You're not. You depend on the people that do for all of the rights that you enjoy. You're smart enough to know this. Stop trolling me I can't take it.
> And it does. Some people are worried enough to think that is worth the price.
That's a broad claim. From everything I've read, there has not been much real success. Can you point me to some news reports where the spying actually helped catch real terrorists? The only case I know of is a Somali expat sending money home, which ended up in Al Shabab's hands.
It does make you wonder if they decided it would be best to kill some Americans in California to make a point that they needed power.[1]
We know they had intent to protect their powers.
We know that they are willing to train and create terrorists in order to help make the point that terror is a real threat.
We know they lie and can do so with out any punishments by our government.[2]
The real question is would they murder Americans to help keep that power.
I still find it hard to believe that they would be willing to kill Americans in order to keep these powers, but I am finding it harder to keep this belief.
After COINTELPRO law enforcement as a whole in both the US and other countries moved to a subversion model as opposed to an adversarial model. This is why the FBI or local police have infiltrators or paid informants in virtually every activist group in the US, regardless of whether or not those groups are actually affiliated with terrorism -- if they ever start leaning that way, LEA will step in and disrupt it from the inside.
The way this works out in practice is that every agent sees an opportunity to advance their career by manufacturing threats. So they have their infiltrator agent or their informants stir the pot, see who's "really down for the cause," get as deeply embedded with the group as they can (going so far as to have children with members in some occasions), and gradually shift the group towards extremism, or if the group won't go along with it, whoever they can splinter off and radicalize.
Once this person has incriminated themselves enough, they get arrested and charged with terrorism.
I'm not going to cite any sources because you could easily find reasons to dismiss them. Certainly, I don't know of any listing of all arrests for terrorists accompanied by all the case details, so I'll certainly never be able to provide quantitative evidence of this very real trend. Also, I think that looking all of this up and finding it out piece by piece will be valuable for you -- it's very easy to dismiss a fully formed theory such as this comment, but it's more difficult to dismiss all the little pieces of evidence you build up over time. Maybe keep a document with all the incidences you find, to prevent yourself from dismissing every single one of them as "only about one case -- not a trend" and by induction, determining there is no issue.
Because the vast majority of those people don't understand the repercussions of it. They think it allows the government to "catch the terrorists" on our soil. That's the way it was pitched.
The people in power are still immigrants to the internet and this sort of technology in general. The views regarding domestic spying will change as more technologically savvy people age and move into politics. That's why they're trying so hard to push certain legislation, before it's too late.