Ask HN: Our government is spying on us. What are we going to do? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Our government is spying on us. What are we going to do?

18 pointsbsbechtel13 comments

Over the past several weeks, HN has been full of articles, comments, and links discussing Edward Snowden's revelations, but I have yet to see any real ideas, suggestions, or action on how we, as citizens, can prevent our government from doing something like this (in secret or openly) again in the future. This community is full of some of the most creative problem solvers in the world who love to disrupt the status quo. What are some of your ideas?

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       No, no, go not to Tor, neither private mode, 

              Nor duck-duck-go the tight-rooted, for its secretive wine;

       Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kiss'd

              By anti-cloud sentiment, ruby grape prose of NSA;

                      Make not your rosary in tinfoil hats,

              Nor let the politicians, the doomsayers-media be

                      Your mournful Psyche. The downy social media

       A partner in your sorrow's mysteries;

              For shade to shade will come too drowsily,

                      And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul.

       But when the melancholy fit shall fall

              Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,

       That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,

              And hides the green hill in an April shroud;

       Then glut thy sorrow on a morning HN,

              Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-reddit,

                      Or on the wealth of globed nerds from afar;

       Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows,

              Imprison her harsh hand, and let her rave,

                      And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes.

       She dwells with Government—Government that must die;

              And NSA, whose hand is ever at his lips

       Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,

              Turning to poison while the lying-mouth sips:

       Ay, in the very temple of Delight

              Veiled Melancholy has her sovereign shrine,

                      Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue

              Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine;

       His soul shalt taste the sadness of her might,

                      And be among her cloudy trophies hung.

(Originally By John Keats)

Things like this don't make great revolutions. People won't care enough. People need to see a real threat to their lives before you can get an uprising. They have to be hungry or homeless or in some kind of actual pain.

Being spied on sucks. I don't want it to happen to me or you. But in the end, the government is only infringing on what it, itself, established as our rights. It keeps the economy moving along just enough to keep food on our tables and roofs over our heads and thus keeps us, in large, satisfied enough to stay home and not fight them.

There are other countries which don't even have a false promise of privacy. Some whose citizens don't eat daily and whose lives are constantly threatened. These are the countries which have unrest. They fight their governments and ultimately cause real change. We have had those situations here in the past. Privacy wasn't what caused it.

You can "#restorethefourth" if you want but it will be like most first world protests. You'll wrap up around 7, go to your comfy homes, eat dinner and sleep feeling completely secure and you'll dare not do anything to screw that up.

crowdfund a new political party with pro bill of rights, anti-corporatist smaller government platform

specific prohibitions for fourth amendment abuses

better whistle blower protecting legislation

supporting constitutional amendments for all of the following; ending corporate personhood, enacting real campaign finance reform, restoring Glass Steagall)

breaking up all too big to fail corporations

when enough money or risk to life is involved making it a capital offense/ treason to: supply false testimony to congress or government regulators, etc, or to disseminate false information to the public or business (eg LIBOR distortions), or to unnecessarily make classified any such information

smaller, better government through 'government as a service' Govt 2.0 ideas (see g.g. Lessig), testing legislators on content of bills before they can vote on them, line item vetoes

This party would recruit its candidates (not accept those who nominate themselves) through a computerized equivalent of the way honeybees choose a new nest (see Sealey Honeybee Democracy). Candidates would have to have a track record of volunteer service and a minimum history of published political writing addressing actual legislation - (likely drawing heavily on bloggers and academics).

> specific prohibitions for fourth amendment abuses

Not to be coy, but wouldn't that be the Fourth Amendment itself?

Or do you mean to explicitly expand what the Fourth is believed to cover?

The solution is not in technology, although I suspicion it will be the geeks that will move this forward. I've already laid out a plan at my site unfetteredspeech.com. The following url will take you directly to the plan: http://unfetteredspeech.com/?page_id=737 Live Free...PubliusX

Do we use politics or technology to fix this?

Politics doesn't seem to be working. I'm thinking technology. Our Primary Election system seems to be broken. It's dominated by extremists from both parties, and rarely reported on in the mainstream media. The media also tends to give the most coverage to the most extreme candidates, because they're the most interesting (and thus get the most viewers). It seems that a system could be developed using social media that allowed you to nominate those you know personally for office (using Facebook, Twitter, etc), and give the nominees a platform (blog, webpage, money-raising features) to discuss their views if they decided to run. This would at least move the vetting of primary candidates to a crowd-sourced model vs the media, which is struggling financially, doing most of the vetting.

I won't comment on the feasibility of your suggestion, but you're proposing to use technology to solve a political problem.

I guess it starts with how we define the problem. Edward Snowden whistle-blowing to the press is a problem, for the NSA. The government using the NSA to spy on us is a problem, for us. The lack of qualified candidates running for office who won't spy on us is a problem, for us.

Technology makes our lives better by solving problems. Defining this as a political problem is only limits the solutions we can come up with. Obviously the U.S. Government doesn't have any problem using technology for political purposes. As citizens, why shouldn't we?

I'm not anymore sure than you if my suggestion is feasible, but my point is to at least throw some ideas out there.

If you can't beat them, join them, turn in that weird person today.

Nothing, because no one gives a shit.

Stop flattering yourself, no one is reading your facebook messages or emails.

Damn, you must be one hell of a guy! I am so happy people like you are around to give great advice!

#restorethefourth pick a city near you and go protest. It's time you did something real. restorethefourth.net

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