Comment by kitsune_ | Hacker News Reader

Comment by kitsune_ | Hacker News Reader

Switzerland had a huge surveillance scandal during the 80's. It was named "Fichenskandal" or in English, "Secret files scandal".

More than 700'000 people or organizations were targeted, usually people on the left: unions, feminists, environmentalists etc.

A friend of my father runs an independent book store and he requested his files after the scandal was made public. He received a stack of paper over 10 inches high. The government pretty much had every part of his life on file. From mundane stuff to him participating in demonstrations (protesting for women's suffrage * , environmental issues). This is a guy who was never arrested in his life. Yet they had a record of pretty much everything.

This was in a time with limited technological capabilities.

In the 70's, the police probably took photographs of public gatherings and sent them to a special group which in turn had to identify the participants with the help of a magnifying glass and reference files.

Nowadays with have facial recognition techniques, cameras everywhere. Yes, this is some Public Enemy No. 1 shit, but it's a good time to be paranoid.

You can be sure that every form of electronic communication is in some form or another under surveillance by governments around the globe.

* Switzerland finally allowed women to vote in... drum roll... 1971.

I wanted to work for Cyc Corp. several years ago. They have an interesting software and before Watson, maybe the closest thing to AI that there is out there. IT took me some time to understand why it was so hard to be a candidate as a non-US citizen : it was later disclosed that they were participants in the Total Information Awareness project. Its purported goal was to have a ten-pages file on every human on the planet. It is not clear that it has been discontinued.

Is there a good reason for any country to have spies at all, especially for internal matters?

I feel that spying on other countries (let alone on own citizens) shouldn't exist at all, but it has become accepted by societies as something that the Governments just have to do, to "make their job easier", just like even FBI said recently that they'd prefer if they didn't need to get warrants, because it would make their job easier. Having a democracy and rights for people must be really tough on authorities, or at least that's how they sound.

I'm curious why you think international spying is unnecessary. Until countries cease to compete for limited resources, it seems to me like an inevitability.

Why should it be considered morally acceptable by those who vote? When have we had the opportunity to vote on it?

I understood mtgx's question to be based on practical grounds, not moral ones. But in answer to your question, I think of espionage as something akin to the military. Perhaps in an ideal world neither would be necessary, but unfortunately the world is not a utopia.

Thus, from a realistic standpoint, spying is sort of like doing market research for a startup. It allows you to make predictive decisions instead of reactive ones.

I agree with international spying. If the other countries don't allow you that information, you must spy to get that information. A scenario of nations having bad or inaccurate information about other countries, their status and their intentions can make the world a more dangerous place.

However domestic spying seems kind of silly. You should just be able to collect the information you need voluntarily through census and and surveys, without resorting to spying. If they refuse to provide the information, get a warrant.

I think of espionage as something akin to the military.

As far as I am concerned, the two are not simply akin but deeply intertwined. Espionage can greatly improve the effectiveness of your military.

de·moc·ra·cy /diˈmäkrəsē/ Noun:

1. A system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives.

2. A state governed in such a way.

3. The cake is a lie.

This seems rather mercantilist. There are many island nations with little natural resources and little capacity for offensive intelligence gathering which are quite wealthy through trade alone.

I think here you're assuming wealth was the limited resource referred to, were it might be other things.

I can't think of something they can justifiably compete over, except security, in which case it's only jusitifable when the other party is initiating threats.

How about global clout?

That does not seem like a justifiable thing to compete over, to me.

The corporate/bureaucratic symbiosis means that spying on your citizens is seen as necessary to control the populace.

Then add in "terrorism", the war on drugs and child pornography (think of the children!) as excuses for these actions and the game is won.

I remember going to a demo against the fiches. I had a sign with a fish on it. The fish was crossed out. I was five.

But, seriously: the impulse to keep files on "internal enemies" is strong in any state, but it's come to the fore in a scary way in the last decade.

"Switzerland finally allowed women to vote in... drum roll... 1971." the last canton to allow women to vote was forced to do it as late as 1990 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appenzell_Innerrhoden

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