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Comment by cowpig | Hacker News Reader

I find this article interesting in that it describes a direct clash of motives between two major systematic problems in American government at present: corporate capture of politics, and the runaway NSA.

What needs to happen is for both of these forces to be curbed, before they find a compromise that I don't expect to be in the best interest of the people.

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> corporate capture of politics

If you look at which companies can actually make things happen in DC[1], it's the ones that are regulated (the reasons for this should be obvious with some thought). Those are not Silicon Valley companies, by and large, but telecommunications firms like AT&T and VZ.

And it's those telecommunications firms that have long-standing surveillance "partnerships" with the NSA, according to leaked Snowden docs, which I wrote about last year here: http://www.cnet.com/news/surveillance-partnership-between-ns...

Here's one reason those regulated telecom companies may not be eager to see reform happen:

"ATT, Verizon, Sprint Are Paid Cash By NSA For Your Private Communications" http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertlenzner/2013/09/23/attveri...

[1] AT&T/VZ/Comcast rolled Google/eBay/etc. on Net neutrality in Congress. Twice. Silicon Valley-backed NN bills were defeated in both the House and the Senate. And heck, Silicon Valley can't even get a permanent R&D tax credit passed. They've been trying forever to get a ECPA reform passed (this has failed). DMCA reform? Over a decade, nothing. They should be heavyweights or superheavyweights but they're bantamweights instead.

Given that the NSA was going to get data from the telcos in any case, you'd rather they got it for free? If there is some sort of behavior you want to discourage somebody from engaging in, the simplest way of doing so is to make them pay for it. Even nominal fees can be a significant deterrent (this is why ads and eyeballs are the currency of the web). Without this monetary friction, there would doubtless have been even more rampant data collection.

Additionally, the link you provided itself says that the money the telcos got from that is a small fraction of their total revenues, so I am not sure how compelling a reason that would be to oppose reform.

That's why I said "one reason."

I don't think it's that much of a clash. These companies are the exception, which makes for a noteworthy article.

There's one sector in particular that has been suspiciously mum about the whole thing. A sector that relies heavily on secure communications and has tremendous influence on the US government: Wall Street.

Yes, this is so true.

It's difficult to be against things on principles when the outcome is desired, but I'd argue that's the only 'right' thing. I.e. lobbying should be condemned even though the outcome may be in line with ones interests (reducing gov-spying in this case).

This illustration comes to mind: https://mayday.us/campaigns/illustrations/be-a-good-politici...

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