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Comment by raganwald | Hacker News Reader

You can say what you like about the Constitution, but my tin foil hat says that the reason you don’t have laws like this in North America is because we have the technology and can afford to snoop on Skype, email, and so forth at scale. Ethiopia simply doesn’t have the money and/or know-how to monitor VoIP and Email at scale. There’s no salient difference in policy between them and us.

If we rewrite the law to say, “Thou shalt not use a communication mechanism we can’t monitor,” the behaviours of Ethiopia and US/Canada aren’t all that different.

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The Ethiopian decision isn't about monitoring, it's about protecting a monopoly. It's the same sort of thinking that has a certain political party opposing free trade agreements out of a fear that it will bankrupt manufacturers using inefficient processes. It's a classic case of violating Henry Hazlitt's economics lesson: "The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups."

While this prohibition has the immediate (apparent) consequence of 'saving' the state-controlled telephone industry and ostensibly the jobs of its workers, it has a long run consequence of raising telecom costs for the rest of the country which results in less money available for other investment, resulting in a net-loss for the economy. This will also result in an expansion of the "industry" of catching illegal Skypers and prosecuting and incarcerating same -- thus magnifying the net economic loss. Instead of diverting government and/or private resources into innovation, those resources will instead be consumed by reactionism.

The Ethiopian policy is entirely about protectionism and has nothing to do with communications security.

This country is controlled by one man, Meles Zenawi, who is not very nice to his political rivals or to people who disagree with his rule. Protecting the monopoly and communications security are not necessarily mutually exclusive goals. Although I am personally in no position to say with authority, I submit that Zenawi is far more interested in protecting his personal/political interests than in protecting an industry. While the two goals align, he protects the industry. Should they become malaligned, he goes with whatever serves his interest.

If you have evidence that the situation is otherwise, please share it.

It's the same sort of thinking that has a certain political party opposing free trade agreements out of a fear that it will bankrupt manufacturers using inefficient processes.

If by 'inefficient processes' you mean 'workers who are paid a living wage', then yes.

As a general rule I support free trade, but I think you're misrepresenting the concerns coming from the left about free trade.

As with most things a 'living wage' is context dependent and changes as society changes their ideas of what people need to 'live'.

And as other things, substinence wages are not context dependent, and are very common in places which "free trade" proponents tout.

Plus, their arguments which amount to "working in a sweatshop for our cheap shoes is doing them a favor, because otherwise they'd have no jobs at all" I always found as mere justification for the continuation of slavery and colonization in modern terms.

You don't need fancy technology to snoop on people in America. All the companies are based in the US, so it's just a matter of the government compelling them to build the spy mechanisms into their products or turn over their data. Ethiopia is functionally doing the same thing (massive surveillance of its populace), but without the power to influence these companies, it just bans the products.

I might add, if you think 15 years in prison for using Skype is outrageous, what is the penalty for refusing to cooperate with a US court order or National Security Letter? And how is that functionally different from what Ethiopia is doing? The consequences are the same: surveillance, any time, anywhere the authorities please.

Skype is headquartered in Luxembourg. http://about.skype.com/where-is-skype/

And owned by Microsoft.

Do they not store most of their data on servers based in the US?

Which is why it's illegal for me to use gpg, otr, and tor, right?

Not so long ago in the 90s people were being persecuted for developing and using cryptographic technology. Specifically, the author of PGP, Phillip Zimmerman, was prosecuted for developing the original PGP -- sparking considerable outrage. If you weren't around and paying attention in the 90s these links can help give you a feel of the general political climate:

Author of PGP: http://www.contra.org/pgp/PhilZimmerman.html

More on Zimmerman: http://www.spectacle.org/795/zimm.html

Popular T-shirt at the time: http://www.conchord.org/xeno/pgp.html

Well I still think the intentions of monitoring here are still "good". There are people who think terrorists are a bigger threat to us than us turning ourselves into a more fascist nation. I disagree. But I still think the drive here is still primarily for security... albeit it theater. But the theater is just covering up incompetence, not evil malice.

But in Ethiopia I think I recognize the familiar pattern of government wanting to prevent communication, especially large scale fast or instant communication, because that's what leads to popular revolutions.

Totalitarian governments do that often, this is why the USSR slowly leaked the news of Chernobyl over three days. And why North Korea would not show its national soccer team's World Cup games live. Too much opportunity for too many people to find each other in the streets at the same time.

We are not there yet. However, it's not like our current path leads any place else. And I wonder if well-of people like Singaporeans for example, simply don't engage in violent popular revolutions? This would mean, that as long as our quality of life stays mostly at industrialized world levels, we won't do anything that extreme.

It's quite ironic - the current government overthrew a communist dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam who now resides is thought to be in Zimbabwe. Many government processes, offices and thoughts however are still stuck in the era - lots of paper pushing (believe it was 14 different counters to get your drivers license renewed every year).

I am not nearly as cynical as you. The culture in the US is quite different, and the citizens would have to be scared into letting something like that happen. There would be a huge debate and a groundswell of outrage. Perhaps the fearful, reacting more emotionally than rationally, would eventually persuade the majority. But I don't think so. We still expect a certain amount of freedom and privacy in the US.

The fact that we even have these expectations is what sets us apart from a lot of other nations. Sometimes we (especially those of us, who, unlike you, don't have a public writing persona that lends to the occasional "I wonder what the reaction to this will be" moment) forget to step back and appreciate them. Indeed, many of our discussions are framed around these very expectations.

Where was the groundswell of outrage over the warrantless wiretapping program? Who is protesting the use of National Security Letters with no due process or oversight? Americans celebrate freedom and privacy but are complacent and apathetic when it comes to the erosion of those rights.

There was certainly a groundswell of outrage over warrantless wiretapping. There was plenty of anger and suspicion over things like 'get-mo'.

But those policies were put in place when fear ruled the land- especially the republicans, who had expressly ignored the terrorism threat to the US in favor of defense spending aimed at missile defense.

But what we haven't seen, in the wake of these disturbances are the powers being used for anything other than what they were intended. Nobody is rounding up prostitutes, or drug dealers, or even pedophiles with the powers granted by the Patriot Act.

And we've seen a new administration take over and change its mind on the issue. That is: before having access to all of the information AND being the one responsible, I believe X. Now that I have the security access and is the one responsible, I believe Y.

You don't have to be a genius to see what is happening. And it has nothing to do with corruption, power-grabbing, etc. My guess is John McCain wouldn't have closed the base at Guantanamo either, despite his campaign stance.

It's easy to sit in the cheap seats and lob mortars of accusations at these people. It's harder to try to understand how they are trying to do the best job they can without letting go completely of their ideals.

It's a wobbly boat. I hope we get some ballast good and low before too long. But I think we're still doing reasonably well-- and much better, I'm happy to say, than I feared when the Patriot Act was passed.

Sure, it's possible to relate the two things in a theoretical sense, but reality still matters. Nobody here is going to prison for making a VoIP call.

His point is: there, people will go to prison for making an unmonitorable call; here, our government has the technology to monitor any call ... if here someone could make an unmonitorable call here, doing so would be made illegal and violators imprisoned.

The Constitution is merely an expression of sentiment. Its force comes not from the fact that it is the "law of the land", but from its general support amongst the populace.

Could government agents flout the Constitution and public sentiment? Sure. But they couldn't get away with it for long without public support.

"How did this happen? Who's to blame? Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror."--V for Vendetta

>"Its force comes not from the fact that it is the "law of the land", but from its general support amongst the populace."

Or to quote the great political philosopher, Dennis: "Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses."

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