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Comment by bsullivan01 | Hacker News Reader

I don't blame the NSA for this, their rationale is "lets collect as much as possible and then see, gathering intel is in our mission...". After all it's all legal as far as they are concerned.

I don't even blame the Exec branch that much since they have a LE mentality of "if you have nothing to hide...protect lives...blah blah"

I do however blame the courts, they could've stopped or at least not-rubber stamped this. The judges also have lifetime appointments, yet they let this happen. And no, the Congress cannot order the courts to ignore the Bill of Rights, regardless of what any legislation says.

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The NSA and the US Govt is unequivocally to blame.

It's not legal as far as they're concerned, they wouldn't be pushing for legislation to give them more power, seek secret courts for unethical interpretations of the constitution or lie and try and hide the scope of their activities (where even members of Congress still have no idea what they're doing) if that was the case.

As far as they're concerned they've got all the power and freedom with the influence to push any legislature they need to, and continue unfettered in their mission to track anyone they want to regardless of the constitution, legislation or public opinion.

I blame them all, but even more so, I blame the people. Snowden isn't the first whistleblower to emerge; google William Binney, Mark Klein, and Thomas Drake. This knowledge has been within earshot of the public for nearly a decade now, yet people just don't seem to care enough to do anything about it. There seems to be some kind of implicit collective trust in the government, that whatever they're up to is for our own good. I don't think it's ignorance; I think that people generally have known that the government was spying on them for years, they just never really cared, and now that we have full-blown, concrete evidence that it's been happening, the majority still doesn't care. It's strange.

I think it comes down to rational ignorance. The whole thing is a negative feedback loop, nothing about it should be surprising. Breaking out of it is an uphill battle. Blame everybody, the NSA, the executive, the courts, and the population.

Should we also blame ourselves? As the informed, as the people with the capability to explain these technical issues to the masses, with the capability to foment a movement if we so desired, what blame should we place on our own shoulders, if any?

Even if you 'foment a movement', will it simply end up like the teetotaller movement which managed to foist Prohibition on a public that didn't want it?

The American people have for a long time been extremely 'tough on crime' (e.g. the ongoing 'war on drugs'), and the reason people don't seem to care is that this is an extension of the same philosophy.

> yet people just don't seem to care enough to do anything about it

What can we do about it? I honestly can't think of a single thing I could do, or 100,000 citizens could do that would make a lick of difference.

There are always ways to act, you just have to be willing to do them. For example, if 100.000 people constantly barraged the members of congress to outlaw this it would happen, but people aren't sufficiently motivated to turn this into a genuine cause.

I agree with the parent comment, people have too much trust that this all will not affect their lives. The fact that a functioning democracy becomes impossible when political opponents can be retroactively wiretapped for years into the past is something esoteric that simply doesn't strike home.

The American people simply haven't had the misfortune of living under a totalitarian regime. That said, right now they should be earnestly listening to those who have; but sadly they seem to be brushing those views aside with thinking such as "well, that won't happen here".

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