How An Israeli Sees The Recent NSA Controversy | Hacker News Reader

How An Israeli Sees The Recent NSA Controversy

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7 pointsishener11 comments

"Don’t you think it’s better to damage the entire society in a broad spread, than having a few individuals taking all the damage? Of course you don’t, you are hypocrat liberal white people"

No ... but if you write the same exact blog post replacing "terrorism" with "automobiles", you can make a very good argument for outlawing cars.

you're right. "The goal of the NSA’s eavesdropping was to prevent automobiles".

Wow, now it's clear we need to outlaw cars.

You missed the point of the article ... that it's better to damage all of society a little bit to save some people from a lot of damage. And I was pointing out that most of our modern conveniences have some level of risk associated with them. Privacy has similar risks.

His point is that the broad argument that damaging all of society a little is OK falls down when generalized. And, on top of that, even this intrusive, pervasive, broadly damaging surveillance doesn't actually prevent what it claims to prevent.

There is a problem with trying to analogize from the Israeli point of view. Almost no place on Earth is enough like Israel, and is in a sufficiently similar condition, for those analogies to work. As the TSA's behavioral screening fiasco shows, it is also, for the same reasons, very difficult to transplant Israeli practices in security.

I should also point out that the Israeli method of doing airport screening is to be admired. Highly-trained agents who understand human psychology, body language, etc. ask the right questions and have a lot better chance of picking out who needs additional screening than the random algorithm that results in "SSS" being printed on your boarding pass.

Israel, from its inception has been in dramatically more danger than the U.S., so I'm not surprised that their attitudes are different.

"... the Israeli method of doing airport screening is to be admired"

Well that depends on who you ask. Palestinians or even people with distant Arab roots who are subject to racial profiling, or even people suspected of being, god forbid, peace activists might tell you otherwise. Some examples:

http://mondoweiss.net/2012/06/do-you-feel-more-arab-or-more-...

http://mondoweiss.net/2013/10/big-hold.html

http://english.pnn.ps/index.php/politics/6148-palestinian-at...

What's hypocritical about not wanting to live in a surveillance state?

Putting aside the condescending tone of the article, the actual argument represents the typical Israeli knee-jerk reaction to terrorism, and the absolutely myopic, black-and-white, I-don't-give-a-shit-about-anyone-else's-pain-because-we've-been-through-the-holocaust world view so proudly exhibited by the Israeli mainstream.

I'm also Israeli (although not currently living in Israel), and I can assure you that there are many Israelis, me included, who are very disturbed by the recent NSA revelations.

Next time, please put the "white people" at the top, so my Ctrl-W reflex will trigger before reaching the end.

that was on purpose

The concluding sentence screams "flag me".

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