MSNBC Contributor: Debate over NSA is a 'Privileged' Discussion

We now know that the DEA has been using laundered NSA intelligence. That's relevant to the Drug War, where primarily minority communities are routinely terrorized by soldiers, and imprisoned en mass at the world's highest rate.

He has a point. The NSA spying adopts more of an innocent until proven guilty mantra that many minorities have experienced throughout their lives. However that shouldn't diminish our outrage towards either or our efforts to put a stop to them.

I just realized this is the domestic version of "...and you are lynching Negroes!"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_you_are_lynching_Negroes

Is it necessary to call attention to a form of surveillance by downplaying another? The NSA apparatus will be very useful for those who love to perform these searches on black people. Sharing of information between agencies and departments is slowly being implemented. Your local police officer will love to use the searches of a black teenager to frame him.

Honestly, after seeing this I understand the HNers who complain about the politics overload on HN. This is pure partisan hackery. This is a classical trick in two-party politics: show a problem in the opposite team while you ignore how your side does the same thing through different ways.

If I lived in New York, I'd be more active in opposing stop-and-frisk too. Most Americans don't live in New York.

I have heard this point made by many of my friends. Another example is: the TSA pat downs are met with outrage precisely because some of the people who are subjected to them are not accustomed to that sort of treatment. Treatment that many members of minority groups have been enduring for decades, at least.

The outrage implies that the member of the newly affected group is either unaware of the position of privilege he has enjoyed thus far in his life, or is aware of it and thinks it is the natural order of things. Otherwise, why hasn't the person been outraged for decades about these policies which target less powerful members of society?

Taking it further these violations being committed have been paid for (taxes), voted for (elections), and therefore tacitly endorsed, by many of the same people who are so upset when it happens to their in-group.

Which is the greater violation? Someone reading your private email, or the imprisonment of a young mother for 40 years because she was associated with drug dealers? Because the latter had been going on long before the former even could exist.

Ah yes, the privilege of not having all of your electronic communications monitored.

I'm reading this as an interesting variation of "I am annoyed that this is being discussed now because I already knew this was a problem."

Wholly unhelpful.

This strikes me as making the good the enemy of the great.