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Comment by mypov | Hacker News Reader

I would like to add that contrary to your impression we too value privacy in USA.

Consider the massive usage of Facebook and Twitter, the lack of outrage over the warrantless wiretapping scandal (running for 10.5 years now), easily available voter records (see e.g. the backstory behind Latanya Sweeney's original identifiability study), and lack of public comments about requiring ISPs to store all session information for a long time - I would say that is strong evidence that USA as a nation does not actually value privacy.

edit: wireless wiretapping scandal -> warrantless wiretapping scandal, silly me.

Or the fact that all ATT (and possibly Verizon) traffic goes through the NSA.

doh! I wrote "wireless wiretapping scandal" but I meant "warrantless wiretapping scandal", which is what you are referring to explicitly. edited to note correction; Thanks!

Please don't equate a lack of change with a lack of outrage; that assumes we have the ability to fix things here just by getting outraged about them. I'd say "if only it were that easy", except that many of the broken things that need fixing exist due to supposed outrage/fear.

I use outrage as an indicator for the degree of caring (in the sense that "value privacy" means "care about privacy"); is that not an acceptable use?

Lack of outrage is the phenomena here, not the lack of respect for privacy. It's not that Americans don't value privacy, I think we do. Rather, it is the general attitude against outrage or, perhaps, against complaining, what differentiates the US from Europe.

The country doesn't have a healthcare system for citizens outside of the military, and there's no outrage. Does this mean "there is strong evidence that USA as a nation" doesn't value not dying?

"Don't seek government help, work harder, smile more and make more money" appears to be the answer/advice to those who complain/express outrage. Then you can buy yourself healthcare, privacy or anything you wish.

I beg to differ. You may tell that to yourself and feel better (and many Americans do), but in the grand scheme of actions-speak-louder-than-words world we live in, there is no evidence for the American respect for privacy.

> Does this mean "there is strong evidence that USA as a nation" doesn't value not dying?

No, but it does mean that the country does not value a social safety net as much as it values monetary profit for the few at the top of the healthcare insurance industry.

> "Don't seek government help, work harder, smile more and make more money" appears to be the answer/advice to those who complain/express outrage. Then you can buy yourself healthcare, privacy or anything you wish.

If you believe that, you are naive. Here are some facts for you (you can google them if you want, I don't have time)

* 75% of people who file for bankruptcy because of medical expenses (and there are a lot of them) HAVE health care insurance. That doesn't happen in any country with socialized health care.

* 40M americans are on food stamps; that is, they seek and receive government help, and unlike other government perks (like extended unemployment), these will never go away because that's what is stopping blood from flowing in the streets.

* Senators and Congressmen are, on the average, millionaires (unlike military people). They can afford the healthcare they want. And they want state sponsored health care, for life (as long as they've served two terms); what's not good for the goose is apparently excellent for the gander.

* The government takes money from you -- taxes -- essentially at gun point. You might believe it is only on income, but by debasing the currency (which the Fed has been doing very diligently since 2008, and slightly less diligently since 2000, and only just diligently since 1971), they rob the value of money you already have -- and if you hold only anything like gold that retains its value -- why, that's taxed as capital gains; you can't win.

* What the government does with this money is -- among other things -- give it to their friends on Wall Street. To the tune of trillions of dollars.

You know, I remember in 2004 I was arguing with an American friend about how americans can re-elect Bush, and his reply was "we're not stupid, it's just apathy". I see this apathy as stupidity.

And you know what? It's not that it can't be changed. It's just the everyone prefers cheap iPods to actually facing things that matters. In general, that only delays the arrival of the bill - but it is coming.

You've written so many words I feel compelled to reply. Beagle, I am not arguing with you. Just pointing out that Americans aren't inclined to be outraged in general. Therefore you can't use the lack of outrage as a proof for anything, that's all.

Why the contempt? For each of these issues, a decent fraction of the population will make a reasonable argument for change, and a similarly sized fraction will make a reasonable argument against change, or at least against the type of change proposed by the other side (dissatisfaction itself is universal enough).

In the case of socialized health care, especially, a majority of the population is violently against it, and while I disagree with most of the arguments, they are neither unreasonable nor apathetic.

> a decent fraction of the population will make a reasonable argument for change

That's how it works in theory. In practice, there is one party (Lobbyists) with two representations, Democrats and Republicans. This guarantees that everyone keeps arguing about supposed merits (mostly about things like gay marriage and legal abortions, which make little difference overall, but occasionally also about things that do matter like health care), but little gets done on any argued front, while in the meantime wars and patriot acts happen.

I'm sure reasonable arguments can be made for both sides, e.g. on the health care debate. But I've listened and looked for them, and never heard them (on either side). I'm familiar with reasonable arguments on the "for" side for socialized health care. I haven't managed to find a reasonable argument for the "against" side. (By reasonable, I mean based on facts and comparison to other countries who have implemented similar programs ..... e.g. the entire western world except the US).

> a majority of the population is violently against it, and while I disagree with most of the arguments, they are neither unreasonable nor apathetic.

I remember reading about >50% support FOR one-payer system (the way Canada and the UK run theirs), before the rulers (eh, sorry, "leaders") decided it's not even on the table.

I would really like to hear some of these reasonable arguments against.

The contempt is from actually living in the US, talking to people daily who believe that they live in a democracy, or that their government is working to benefit them in any way.

> lack of public comments about requiring ISPs to store all session information for a long time

Data retention is there since a long time in Europe...

In some of the countries, not all of them (definitely not "for a long time"). But it is retained at the ISPs, with legally mandated security controls, except for government access. It would be better if they were not kept.

As far as I know, the only privacy of records the US law cares about is health care records, through the HIPAA act.

To some extent, though we've been less active in doing anything about it. In part we tend to be less keen than Europeans on having the government regulate these kinds of things, but the various private-sector and non-profit initiatives (like TRUSTe) that are supposed to fill the gap have been fairly ineffectual.

Unlike Germans - who had the Statsi to contend with, and before that the SS - Americans have never been exposed to a genuine, law-unto-itself, every-phoneline-tapped, free-to-kidnap-torture-and-kill secret police force.

One of the clearest lessons learned is that once these things take root, they are incredibly hard to dislodge. When they do go, it's only due to truly cataclysmic change. What naive Americans may regard as absurd hyper-sensitivity or a hopeless lack of technical sophistication is often an acute awareness that never letting it happen again means banning a lot of stuff that young innocents casually dismiss "as just being how the internet works".

Evgeny Morozov (author of "The Net Delusion" http://amzn.to/nOOxzQ) observes that casual openness is exactly how the web can be used to work against you. He makes the point that while folks safely ensconced in California should be grateful for their freedom from truly abusive government, they should also be a lot more sensitive to the concerns - and outright trauma - still found in places that haven't been so lucky.

Of course, I'm over-simplifying his argument a bit. If you want a more complete (and much more entertaining) introduction, RSA did an especially good animation of a talk he gave, which you can see here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uk8x3V-sUgU

You mean Gestapo, not SS.

Correct - thank you.

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