Hacker News Reader

Comment by ams6110 | Hacker News Reader

At some point people would have started being thrown in jail and that's when resistance usually ends.

Right, but what would that look like? Would the FISA court jail a citizen without a trial, and can you imagine a FISA judge wanting to make that call, knowing that their decision will soon become public? Because once someone is prosecuted the U.S. govt would really have difficulty enforcing silence. It's one thing to force a company to be silent about surveillance, it's quite another to force individuals to be silent about being jailed. I'd like to think we haven't gone so far off the tracks that the first amendment wouldn't ultimately triumph in that case.

It's called 'disappeared' and we're close.

Watch what you say. Final warning.

it's not so cut and dry, first they discredit you.

then they say you did something illegal and you're immoral.

then you appear like you're lashing out at a government- trying to blame them instead of atoning for past transgressions.

In an era of 'parallel construction', you build a separate case and use that as leverage.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction

That's simply blackmail, not 'parallel construction'.

Just as 'Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder' is simply 'Shell Shock'

Language changes depending on how you want the person to feel about a subject.

if you want people to hate and revile someone for doing something you do call it something strong and fierce (blackmail) if you want to do something yourself make it sound lawful (IE; parallel construction).

It'll get the job done.

I have read that the FISA court can indeed hold sometime in contempt secretly. For all we know if Yahoo had continued to resist their executives would have simply started disappearing.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com