Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: Why Isn't There More Public Outrage About NSA Revelations?
Nerval's Lobster writes "This morning we discussed news that the National Security Agency (NSA) has siphoned up millions of online address books and contact lists. The Post drew its information from top-secret documents provided by government whistleblower Edward Snowden, who spent the summer feeding information about the NSA to a variety of news outlets. Snowden's documents (as outlined in The Guardian, Spiegel Online and other venues) have detailed a massive NSA program that's siphoning all sorts of personal information from a variety of sources — and yet the public seems to have greeted each new revelation with weakening outrage. Whereas the initial news reports about NSA splying in June kicked off a firestorm of controversy and discussion (aggravated by the drama of Snowden seeking asylum in pretty much any country that would have him), the unveiling of the NSA's Great Contact-List Caper has ranked below the news stories such as the government shutdown, negotiations over Iran's nuclear program, and invites for Apple's upcoming iPad event on aggregators such as Google News; it also didn't make much of a blip on Twitter and other online forums. There's the very real possibility that Americans, despite the assurances of government officials, are being monitored in a way that potentially violates their privacy. Surely that's an issue that concerns a great many individuals; and yet, as time goes by, it seems as if people are choosing to focus on other things. Are we suffering from 'surveillance fatigue?'"
..we've all suspected it was true a long time ago. Honestly I think the bigger surprise was that the surveillance wasn't worse. There have been people who've sworn for years that every time you lick a stamp the Post Office sequences your DNA....
ICANN and ARIN are kicking the US off.
That's not fatigue.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
There's the very real possibility that Americans, despite the assurances of government officials, are being monitored in a way that potentially violates their privacy.
What? Possibility? Potentially? Without a single doubt, the mere collection of this information does that.
Da derp dee derp da teedly derpee derpee dum. Rated PG-13.
People would care but... hey! Did you hear what Miley did?
Seriously, it's too abstract and invisible. Being online and virtual, you don't SEE that your mail was steamed open and re-sealed. You don't SEE that someone watches where you go. You don't SEE that someone is standing there listening to your phone call to your wife.
Out of sight, out of mind.
Slashdot is packed with mentally unstable conspiracy theorists who insist that the US is worse than Nazi Germany, Stalin's Russia, and North Korea all rolled into one. Compared to that level of white hot hatred, most Americans will seem pretty passive over the NSA thing.
That doesn't mean they don't care though. Wait for the next campaign season, and I'll bet privacy will be a big issue. Not as big as the economy, but up there with abortion and gay marriage. A bill restraining the NSA failed by a pretty slim margin in the wake of the revelations this year. If just a dozen or so seats flip on the privacy issue, we can solve this problem.
Or we can sit around screaming for bloody, nation-destroying revolution. I know that seems to be the popular choice on this site.
Not at all. I think we've just all come to the realization that there's not a damn thing we can do about it. The people who are supposed to be looking out for us are acting like petulant teenagers. The "hope and change" guy hasn't done anything but make the problem worse. The guys in charge of the whole thing just lie about it and nothing is done. What's the answer, other than ignore the new revelations?
Speaking as one person at a full time job that regularly requires in excess of 60 hours a week, and as a friend to others who work 2 crappy minimum wage jobs at similar hours, it seems like a lot of people these days work themselves to the point where they're just too tired to rabble-rouse politically.
Lagito ergo expectabo
I was wondering about the lack of concern and so I started asking friends and family about their views on the NSA scandal. None of my non-techie friends/family had heard of it. The local news doesn't carry it, many main stream outlets don't pay it more than a passing mention and they don't visit tech websites, so they were all in the dark about the issue. The fact of the matter is that unless you're a tech-minded person you probably either do not know about the NSA controversy or you don't understand the implications.
It is widely accepted that the people of the US are unable to consume more than two or three news stories at a time. At the moment, at least one or two of those slots are actively occupied by celebrity fluff crap. And what we have in attention limits is completely overshadowed by the lack of comprehension of what is going on in any of these issues and what they actually mean. Issues such as religious and racial tensions not only in the US, but around the world are tuned out while we keep chanting to ourselves "I'm not racist! I'm good! I have a black friend!! See?" And we're being swallowed up by our own debt -- debt largely caused by excessive defense spending... worse, untraceable defense spending as stories of missing millions, billiions and maybe even trillions have been told and few people acknowledge as relevant. And we're seriously nearing the end of the US's relevance in the world as China and other nations are very interested in forcing the US out of the center of the world's influence. We've burned every bridge possible with the NSA unbelievably huge global surveillance and the US government's even larger hubris.
We're on the edge of something extremely bad.
And did you catch the latest celebrity twerk video?! OMG!
With the internet to remind me of everything else I should be violently outraged about (global warming, abortion, Kony, Miley Cyrus twerking), it's hard to fit time in to be outraged about this.
I think maybe I can pencil it in for Thursday at 3am. Does that work for you?
I suspect that the real reason why people aren't outraged is because we've been groomed to accept a lack of privacy for years. We have companies like Facebook, Google, and Twitter to thank for that.
...has got us a wee bit distracted? I mean, the good news is that after our currency tanks, the NSA won't be able to afford their spy center in Utah and their $60 billion budget, but the bad news is that we'll all be eating grass. So it's a bit hard to get exercised over something as trivial as whether somebody in Utah is reading our email.
Seriously. Look at Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, etc. People are freely sharing information about themselves than the NSA is collecting. People like you are running around getting upset over some phone numbers while most people are posting pictures of themselves stupid drunk, committing crimes, and telling offensive jokes in public forums, not to mention publicly demonstrating how stupid they actually are.
Why aren't people upset? Because what the NSA is doing doesn't even begin to compare to what people are doing on their own.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
People aren't outraged because all the rhetoric criticizing the surveillance programs was overblown. There are certainly plenty of things to be concerned about, sure. But just go read some news coverage from the time of the leaks and have a look at all the hyperbole and fear mongering. It was ridiculous.
If we want people to have a serious discussion about surveillance, then we need less fear mongering and more actionable activism. We need to get more organized and make specific proposals detailing what laws we would change and why it's so important to do so.
Instead of doing that, we just went on rants about how right we were the whole time and how evil it all is. We vomited vague, nonspecific emotion over the issue instead of proposing tangible solutions people could actually act on.
So yeah, no wonder everyone's suffering from "surveillance fatigue." I am too. And I actually care about the issue.
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
My in-laws are in the camp that their lives aren't interesting so if some guy in the US wants to read my sis-in-law's text messages, who cares... Or find out what brand of tampons she buys... She figures it's better to be safe from "terrists" and lose a bit of insignificant privacy than the alternative... I'm a tinfoil hat wearing paranoid freak, to them, because I refuse to have a passport...
Withdrawing in disgust is easily confused with apathy. It's been beaten into the American public's head that nothing they say or do will change anything - no amount of outrage changes anything. I don't know many people who thought bailing out the crooks that ruined the economy was a good idea, lots of people tried to stop it - yet it went through nonetheless. When we do speak up - such as Occupy - we get tazed, maced and worse... and still, nothing changes. Does anyone honestly think there is anything at all that will stop the NSA from doing what they're doing? Even if them doing so is akin to a big sick bird, they'll still do it - and just go back to lying to everyone who asks if they've stopped.
It seems like it will take a total and complete collapse before we can rebuild on the ruins of this once great republic. Until that happens, I'm withdrawing in disgust and painting racing stripes on my hand-basket. Hopefully it will make the ride to hell go faster.
Two words: Government shutdown.
And while that -is- the answer, there's a deeper meaning here. NSA spying is yesterday's news. People only care about today's news, and they only care about it for as long as it remains news. As soon as the shutdown is yesterday's news, we'll get angry about something else. Our nation's vane hubris keeps our minds tied to the present, leading our general populace to share little concern for the past.
What the NSA is doing is terrible, but the raping of our nation's economy by private financial interests is still far worse. Even more atrocious was starting a war with a foreign nation on false pretenses. But that's all behind us now. Let's get out there and raise our Don't Tread on Me flags against ObamaCare; we live in a democracy, and dammit, if we don't raise up our voice for what's wrong, we're not doing our patriotic duty.
(And if you don't understand the irony of that last sentence, then please don't leave a comment.)
The TV still works, the computer still works, McDonald's still serves swill, and the boss is still harping for more work to be done.
As long as day-to-day life isn't affected, the average consumer cares far more about Miley Cyrus twerking than they do about oppressive surveillance.
Hell, how long has the TSA been invasively harassing people for the sake of security, and they put up with that, so why not put up with something that has no obvious impact on life?
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
I think it's easy to show that Julian Assange is a prima donna, but I hesitate to describe Edward Snowden as one. He isn't crying for more attention or more political power; he just wants to make sure he's safe from targeting of political adversaries. He hasn't offered a lot of commentary besides explaining his reasons. Whether he is or not, though, I don't think it matters all that much. What can be shown--and does matter--is that the media interested in maintaining the status quo wants to make the revelations about Edward Snowden. Turn it into identity politics and relatively few people will care about the underlying issues, then you can destroy Edward Snowden's credibility and cast the issue as irrelevant.
As a teenager in the 1980's I would talk to my friends on the phone about the NSA, and we would say all the words we thought would trigger surveillance review of our call. "Bomb", "terrorism", "air plane", whatever we could think of. It was a bit of a joke at the time, but on reflection it reveals an interesting vein of thought at the time.
A few things have occurred to me since then. First, I expected them to be listening. The recent "revelations" were hardly new - in the days before the Internet, in town of less than three thousand people in very rural Canada, I knew about and expected to be under surveillance under the right conditions. The NSA has since been regularly published about in popular film, at least as far back as Sneakers (1992) and Mercury Rising (1998) and other films. I think people who care have known about it for a long time.
Second, I did not expect any serious negative ramifications from our phone calls. I suppose I presumed honourable and just people were on the other end of the line, whose interests likely aligned with my own or whose actions were limited by sensible restraints on civil liberties. I think in a sense the fact that people were listening comforted me, expecting that there were good people whose sense of duty would be upheld.
All to say, it is not surprising to me that people are not up in arms. Perhaps it is apathy. Or perhaps along the lines of the reasoning I had as a teenager. Maybe something in between.
In any case, as a matter of interest, the posting for the job of Civil Liberties & Privacy Officer at the NSA seems to have been taken down. I have not heard of anyone being posted to the position, or it being squelched because of e.g. a hiring freeze in the shutdown.
you do realize trying to make the story about the whistleblower is the first thing organizations like the nsa do, right?
the origins of the 4th amendment are these:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writ_of_assistance
a writ of assistance is just as much of an abuse as what the NSA does
disgust with the writs of assistance was a genuine grievance and a genuine motivating factor in the founding of this country
so conceptually, the mandate of the NSA is a direct contradiction to a foundational concept of the usa
the difference?
a writ of assistance involves some rude assholes barging into your life and your business and messing up your stuff
meanwhile, what the NSA does is secret, quiet, and unseen
the difference between something invisible and in your face is all the difference in the world, even if it is the same abuse
but eventually, the negative effects will accumulate
extremely vile and unpleasant abuses will occur as the power of the NSA grows. selling information about a candidate or government official for blackmail purposes for example. that judge making that important decision on that coal power plant? blackmail him. that candidate that might spring the balance of power democratic or republican? blackmail him
with 100% certainty this abuse will happen, if it is not happening already. power and corruption and secret dealings: can't be helped, it's inevitable. only transparency prevents corruption, and the NSA is opaque by design, so corruption is a certainty
only then will the outcry reverse these growing NSA tentacles
the problem is, at that point, since they will know everything, will any resistance be effective enough?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Agreed 100%. Moreover, use of these sorts of weasel words that "journalists" love so much is part of the problem.
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
There's actually quite a bit of public outrage over the NSA revelations, but the people who benefit from this spying are spending a lot of money to suppress the story in the media and to astroturf social networks to make it seem like all the reasonable people are perfectly OK with their own government spying on them.
If you think I'm wrong, start paying closer attention when the story about NSA spying comes up on websites and blogs. Read the comments about how you should "Stop being such a drama queen about it, because privacy is so 20th century" and notice the similarity in the form of these comments.
I'm not saying they're made by the same people or even by an organized campaign (not necessarily anyway), but I'm saying that a lot of the "opinion makers" are worried, and that's the real story here. They're worried enough to either decide just to not talk about it too much or save their own bacon by coming out in favor of NSA overreach. It goes something like this: "Yes, mistakes were made, but the issues are being addressed" or, "There's overreach, but at least we're safe" or "The people who have exposed this overreach are a bunch of attention whores" or, "Get over it, princess. Privacy is a thing of the past because you use Google". Don't ask me to explain the rationale of that last one. I guess somehow, if you decide to have a private transaction with a private party and you give them your name and phone number, I guess it means that it's OK to do a pen register on your phone or put your contacts list into some database of some private contractor working for the government (and working for other private companies).
People see what happens if you rock this boat too hard. People are tacitly aware of what can happen if a little birdy drops a word in someone's ear about you. There are names in the news of people that nobody really wants to mention too much, like Aaron Schwarz and that Rolling Stone journalist with the car accident or even just Glenn Greenwald's partner getting hassled in a UK airport. For 9 hours. Nobody needs that. Ain't nobody got time to fight a faceless contractor who works for a company without customers and without accountability who works for the Federal Government. Hell, I don't even have time to fight with my phone company, and I'm gonna take on who knows who?
If your credit rating goes bad, you could lose your job. If the FBI start talking to your neighbors, you could lose your apartment. If you're so much as questioned, it could change the way people look at you. In an environment where jobs are scarce and things uncertain, it's not hard to put enough fear into people that they'll just decide to keep their heads down and pay attention to their fantasy football league instead of expressing their outrage that now our government treats us all like the enemy.
You are welcome on my lawn.
People don't care because the actual harm is too ill-defined and nebulous for people to relate to.
A politician that campaigns on fixing this will put 80% of the voters to sleep. A politician that promises to force cable companies to offer ala carte programming will win unanimously.
The bottom line is that the foaming at the mouth rage this induces in... some slashdot users... barely registers as a issue at all to the vast majority.
Conspiracy theorists' version: it's all part of the plan. Tank the economy so that citizens have to work their fingers to the bone just to survive and they'll be too busy and tired to care.
There are a lot of people out there (some of my good friends included in this) who simply feel we're rapidly accelerating down a slope to a really bad place, and we've picked up too much speed to where you can say, "Oh, don't worry... We can still put on the brakes and slow this down gradually, until it comes to a peaceful stop."
Life in America *is* good by most standards, and it's great by selected others. But that's part of the reason for the apathy. It's tough to get people too worked up about loss of individual freedoms or rights, or an eventual economic collapse when right now, they're still enjoying what's clearly a "first world existence".
Problem is, the powers in charge know this too. As this continues, you'll see them juggle money and debt all around, doing whatever gymnastics it takes to ensure our poor still qualify for assistance programs, and to ensure everyone who serves in our military continues to get benefits and "special treatment" in various ways. They know a sure path to failure is angering the poor masses enough so they're motivated to riot, or to put a crimp in the supply of people willing to take orders to fight the "enemy" (whoever the govt. claims that happens to be at a given time), as part of the military.
The "literal crazy person" you refer to who advocates revolution (with mass murder and a long period of violence -- though decades is perhaps questionable) is quite possibly just a "long term thinker", who unlike the majority, is willing to give up a comfortable lifestyle if it means securing 200 more years of a fair, just political system and nation for future generations.
I'll be honest.... Despite all the problems I see looming on the horizon, I've been able to get by well enough for myself and for my family so I'm at least keeping my head barely above the waters of "middle class life". I'm not in any hurry to throw it all away for a life of hardship. But I also have a growing fear that time is running out to turn this thing around. I'm not sure my kids won't grow up cursing our whole generation, saying "Why didn't you fight this tyranny while you still could!?"
There's that saying about the 3 boxes used to change things; the soapbox, the ballot box and the ammo box. I'm on the virtual soapbox all the time, at least online, trying to talk sense into those who will listen about where we're going wrong and where we might be able to fix it. The ballot box feels pretty ineffective to me, as of late, with the corruption rampant throughout the political system. (What good is your vote if your only selections have the same fundamental flaws?) I *really* hope we don't have to crack open that ammo box.