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Comment by freakonom | Hacker News Reader

This is a Free Speech Cage [1] with suits.

Straight from the history books, it's one of the last phases of the plan that goes like this:

1) leverage an extraordinary event to scare everyone into supporting emergency measures

2) perpetuate fear and argument on all sides to distract, divide, and conquer public opinion, raising the possibility that these emergency powers might be (necessary|good|here to stay)

3) put on the suits and officially vent dissent to devnull (you are here)

4) everyone gives up and you can peel off the emergency sticker, pointing to your new law as precedent and tradition to uphold

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_speech_zone

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I know I'm going to get called on Godwin's law and/or hyperbole for this one, but this is the exact route Hitler took (using the Reichstag fire) to escalate his authority from Chancellor to Fuhrer.

[edit]

to clarify, the reason I made this comment is to note a case where this strategy has been used in history, as mentioned by the parent post. Not to compare Obama/Bush to Hitler.

Not just Hitler. Naomi Klein (of No Logo fame) wrote an excellent book about it, called The Shock Doctrine [1]. She lists numerous examples in the last 50 or so years how convenient, but shocking events were used as excuses to implement controversial laws, that often either limited freedoms or made the life of people more miserable.

She mostly approaches the issues from an economical perspective, mainly focusing on inhumane economic policies that both Thatcher and Reagan implemented, but the gist is similar.

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shock_Doctrine

Generally Congress does not act until there is an overwhelming impetus to push them over the threshold: They have limited time to deal with the whole nation's and world's problems; and they are responsive to a body, the public, which is uninformed, has a short attention span, and is highly reactive and rarely proactive.

Therefore it is not surprising that shocking events lead to controversial laws. Shocking events arguably lead to most laws; it's hard to get something done unless something shocking gets the public's (and members of congress') attention and causes a reaction.

Of course, people in power are aware of this phenomenon and plan their tactics to take advantage of it. I remember reading that many provisions of the Patriot Act were written long before 9/11 and its authors had been awaiting an opportunity. Or as the Obama administration said early in its tenure (IIRC), 'never waste a crisis'.

> pointing to your new law as precedent and tradition to uphold

"It's the second oldest profession"..."this is what countries do, they spy on each other".

This is already the most commonly used defense for spying, even on HN, despite modern espionage being very different than even a decade or two ago.

The main goal would eventually be to require by law that all communications become privy to the government agencies, and outlawing any non-identifiable communications.

This way they'll be able to maintain some argument of 'democracy', while being able to identify any threats to their usurpation by democratic means.

The real question, then, is how step 3 goes. Historically, the US has always cycled between step 2 and then bounced back to sanity around step 3.

Except the TSA which is still way more intrusive than before 2001, and has been expanding lately (to security lines at subway stations etc). Oh and the forming of the DHS which erased boundaries between a bunch of agencies, that's still around. And the "Patriot Act" which got cut down a bit but is still around. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Act#Reauthorizations

Your forgot

5) PROFIT !

Because that is what this is all about (excessive wealth == power).

Profit may be a strong driver however safety and security are equal if not paramount, while not negating privacy of the innocent while preventing abuse.

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