Comment by pnathan | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pnathan | Hacker News Reader

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I understand the implications of having surveillance and using that information to ... regulate... dissent to be acceptable dissent. I completely agree that we have wound up with certain things in place that are foundational to a police & authoritarian state. However, I don't see any direct evidence of police state action; no smoking gun if you will. So I believe it's better to confine ourselves to openly known facts & working to roll back the (already very bad) truth rather than looking forward to a (worse) fork in the road.

Remember, a great number of people have to be on board with restricting the TLAs in order for effective change to happen at the national level. While YOU might not want monitoring of influential activists, others might (and probably do). So your possible future might be a wanted one for segments of the population. Confine yourselves to facts and positives and you have a stronger base to work with rather than pushing fear (no one wants fear, everyone wants hope).

Understand that I'm not denying your hypothetical future. I'm simply convinced that a narrative not focused on "what-ifs" and fear will be more successful at winning support.

I don't agree with your point that arguing what-if scenarios is a losing argument. These days there are enough actual or potential attacks on groups that someone holds dear such that a what-if argument can be constructed that will resonate with anyone. Sure, there may be some people that would want, say, the Occupy Wall Street activists monitored, and those same people would deplore the Tea Party "activists" being monitored by something like the Obama administration.

I would argue that imagining what-if scenarios and disseminating that fear are the only way to prevent us from crossing the threshold where there's no turning back. Waiting for direct evidence of a police state is a losing battle. Just take a look at what a decade of the All-Seeing-NSA-deniers have brought us? Relying on the next Snowden to bring us hard evidence about intelligence activities is a losing proposition.

> However, I don't see any direct evidence of police state action; no smoking gun if you will. So I believe it's better to confine ourselves to openly known facts & working to roll back the (already very bad) truth rather than looking forward to a (worse) fork in the road.

You didn't see any diret evidence of massive surveillance either. Yet it is quite clear it exists. All that means is you are willing to wear blindfolds. By not preparing yourself for the worst, you simply let it happen.

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