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Comment by GeekyBear | Hacker News Reader

The problem is that modern Americans politicize everything.

There was a short period at the end of the Bush years when this was a big deal, but as soon as the gaslighting was coming from both political teams, it became a non-issue politically.

> President Obama defended the U.S. government's surveillance programs, telling NBC's Jay Leno on Tuesday that: "There is no spying on Americans."

"We don't have a domestic spying program," Obama said on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. "What we do have is some mechanisms that can track a phone number or an email address that is connected to a terrorist attack. ... That information is useful."

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2013/08/06/209692380...

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Everything _is_ political, as the other comment says. The problem is that no one talks about "governance", they just talk about "politics", which is not the same thing. Governance is the question of what good government should look like. Politics is just about accumulating power.

I'm afraid that caring about an issue (instead of caring about whatever stance your favorite political team happens to be taking at this moment) has become much less common.

When both parties threw their weight behind the "nobody is spying on Americans" lie, we went from only the hyperpartisan fans of the right wing making excuses for spying on Americans to the hyperpartisan fans of both parties doing so.

that is a good way of looking at it. I wonder though, if power is a bad thing in and of itself. I know that there will always be power. I would rather have people with good intentions have it then the opposite. Not sure how that will happen. I think when more good people get involved I guess.

Nope. Power corrupts. Or as Frank Herbert said it, power attracts the corruptible. The solution is to not give anyone that much power over you!

There is no better way to neutralize an issue like spying on Americas politically than to have both political parties gaslight the public and assert that it isn't happening.

In politics as a team sport, you can't admit that your team would lie like that other team does.

We have politicians on an individual basis that whistleblow surveillance, the public laughs it off: https://www.wyden.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/wyden_letter_to_d...

The people that treat surveillance as a political flashpoint don't take it seriously enough to inspire change.

Power is different than politics however. Maybe someday/some way we can build different organizations of people that can make good use of power.

I use to think power was the problem, but then I watched a video from someone I respected[0] and it changed my mind. Plus reading Hannah Arendt[1].

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJjODY-PyJY

[1]: https://hac.bard.edu/

Power buys politicians.

It's been my experience that power reveals, rather than corrupts. Corruption is in the heart. Instruments (Power) only amplify it.

> The problem is that modern Americans politicize everything.

Everything is political. Electric cars, crude oil, rocket launches, rare earth metals, cargo transportation, public transportation, housing, taxation, data, compute... which of those aren't political?

The problem is Americans believing obvious lies like "Privacy is a human right" and "Don't be evil" and then blaming the government instead of themselves.

That's the what's required to make propaganda and manipulation work the best.

Ironically from the perspective of 2026, the actual "conservative" conservatives were the key opponents. The "total information awareness" and national ID efforts were really killed by the conservatives in congress. The "neocons" and moderate/conservative democrats were mostly fine with both.

What does national ID have to do with government surveillance?

Why do you think people are having a bird over age verification? Or LinkedIn profiling browsers?

Tying chain of custody of online actions to identity makes data incredibly valuable information.

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