Government Mass Surveillance Programs and Edward Snowden

[Volenta]

Glen Greenwald is making a false equivocation.

He wasn't, you must have misunderstood him. He was talking about privacy in general, not specifically to mass surveillance.

Would you let Glen stick a couple of his fingers in your ass if he asked? Probably not. And yet, you might let a doctor you met two minutes ago do that.

But you don't want it to happen every time you enter the airport for sake of catching drugs criminals. I won't deny that the situations aren't equivalent, but Glenn asking for my emails closer resembles governments collecting my emails than Glenn is resembling the doctor asking to put his fingers in my ass. The doctor is putting in effect to help you individually, while governments are using you as a resource—harming you individually in the process—for sake of catching criminals.

It's a though question morally, but it's of course also a political question. And I value individual freedoms enormously, it's very important to me. We may differ on this.

We also understand that when we keep and even share certain secrets; for example, we might be much more open about our personal and romantic lives with somebody we met on the airplane and will never see again than with a colleague.

In those situations you had a say in the matter whether to share it or not. When sending an email to a friend, it's not my intention to automatically also authorizing the government to analyze it. There is a huge difference between voluntary and involuntary.

I wouldn't give Glen my e-mail passwords first because I have confidential correspondents (whose privacy I am obligated to protect) and other things he would need to sign an NDA to see, but secondly (if I didn't and was free to share that information) for the same reason I wouldn't let him stick his fingers in my ass, and for the same reason I'll tell the stranger on the plane things I wouldn't discuss with a secretary at work. These things are different.

Sure, but why are you okay with the intelligence agency have it then?

All this nonsense about behavioral modification and conformity (oh no!) in society because people might be watched is completely false for a number of reasons;

It's sad to see that you are not taking it seriously. I think it's funny that you are denying conformity is taking place; most people I spoke with that also didn't caring about their privacy did not do that, instead they saw it as something valuable.

from that fact that people don't think about it and normalize to the situation when that observation is consistent (Theists, as adults at least, don't behave differently overall: and that's with a being that's distinctly judgmental of them, UNLESS they're primed immediately before hand -- something which atheists also respond to. You have to remind people they're being watched AND judged to get that effect)

You should know that just because most people don't think about it consciously, doesn't imply they are not behaving differently.

It's the effect of knowing that you can be watched, that causes you to behave conformist—the way as would happen in a panopticon. The psychological pressure one experiences may differ from person to person, but you're wrong in denying it. People behave differently at places where they know for a fact that they can't be watched—like at home or at the toilet—independent of the source of who's watching. (Of course you would behave more freely with friends and family as well. Those differences I'm recognizing.)

How are you so sure that theists don't behave differently then they would without the knowledge of a god watching them day in and day out? I don't want to make an anecdotal fallacy here, but I know that when I was still a theist I refrained from doing certain things because I knew (or thought I knew) I was being watched. Like Greenwald said, the effect of knowing you can be watched at every instant is immensely powerful, and indeed psychological research has shown this, but if I understand you correctly, you seem to dismiss this all together.

to the impersonal nature of the surveillance (which is non-judgmental, the primary thing people actually worry about, not mere observation, most of which is done by automated computer programs)

Most the data is indeed handled by automated computer programs, but it's also true that certain things must be done manually. But you don't know whether they are doing something manually with your data or data about you or not. So, the point I made above still applies here as well.

to the low statistical odds of it (which people by consequence ignore); to the same personal biases and dissonance that let people smoke with the little voice in their head assuring them they'll be one of the few lucky ones who doesn't get lung cancer, heart disease, or stroke despite the overwhelming odds (even if they were overwhelming).

It's only those people that try to or do behave conformist that think or hope they belong to the low probability group, so how is this an argument against it?

And people are irrational, yes, what's your point? It's a metaphor that doesn't relate to mass surveillance at all. Again, you're misunderstanding the problem if you think that people ought to think that they are being watched to make a valid argument against mass surveillance.

No, most people really don't care unless they're terrorists or conspiracy nuts, and no, society won't change into some horrible conformist dystopia because it's being watched.

Total bullshit. You had to be a conspiracy nut to do so previously, but this all has changes after the revelations of Snowden. Maybe you're not really aware of how much we know about the scale in which mass surveillance is taking place—as revealed by Snowden (and other trustworthy sources).

Here's a bit of Irony, though (note the proper use of the term ): The invasion of privacy doesn't bother people unless you remind them of it, and that's exactly what fearmongers like Greenwald are doing. By giving these talks, ostensibly to fight the power he sees as creating this imagined chilling effect, he's causing the real chilling effect he set out to stop.

[...]

Only if you constantly remind them about it, Glen. Good job on that.

As long as we don't talk about it, there's no problem... As long as we don't draw cartoons, they won't attack us... I don't like that attitude. If you want people to make an informed political decision about it, it should be known publicly. If the fact that people are informed is causing it not to happen, so be it.

There are much more important things to worry about.

We're slowly heading to a more authoritarian society, and you're saying that there are more important things to worry about? You are free to choose your own priorities, but some people actually do care, and they are doing it also for your sake. But it's great to see that you at least think it is something to worry about.

And by the way, you've got it backwards. The things that governments want to achieve with the intelligence agencies is actually something that's not to really worth worrying about. Their main goal is to catch terrorists and other forms of criminality, right? How many people have died because of terrorism? It's more in the numbers of that of an nuclear energy disaster. Maybe it's better to focus on people falling of roofs while installing solar panels ( ).

I don't want to dismiss catching terrorists as an useless activity, but if you're going to talk about prioritizing you should think again. I think great progress can be made as well without tracking every citizen. It's not a choice between mass surveillance or nothing, but mass surveillance and terrorist suspect surveillance.

If this massive spy network helps save a few civilians from ending up as collateral damage in the middle East, it may be worth it.

Hundreds of millions of people need to give up their privacy in order to help save a few civilians? That's absurd.

Governments are misusing the system they've build, and (most?) methods of doing things have not yet been demonstrated to be effective.

We don't actually know that. And that's not something you can just "show" (nobody knows what would have become a terrorist attack).

As for the first thing I've said, Snowden has showed this to be the case. The NSA is doing a lot more then trying to catch terrorists. As for the second thing, you should know as no other that the burden of proof is not on my side.

Details on this kind of thing would still be classified. So, this may be one of those things we just need to wait for a couple decades to find out, unfortunately. This is where we really just have to realize that we don't know, and the people who are in charge of intelligence departments probably have a better perspective than we do, and put a little trust in our meritocratic institutions, because they certainly wouldn't work if they were transparent (unlike science, which works best when transparent). We can't try to treat everything the same.

Sure, but that's not in conflict with what I've actually said. I even agree with you also that it won't work very well when it's (completely) transparent. And it's exactly this that makes it though to make an informed democratic decision about it. The question is whether you really want to resort to some form of oligarchy for these kind of decisions. I know I don't.

Unlawful spying? They do not have the right to do that.

When it's lawful, they have every right, by definition. We're talking about democratically elected governments passing laws the population overwhelmingly approves of. They should have the right, because people decided to give it to them, and that's exactly how government should work (at least, until we come up with a better system; democracy is all we have).

I think you must have misunderstood me. I tried to say that I don't want it to be legal for them. That's my political conviction.

People didn't even know what the government was doing—indeed, they were even lying about it saying that the exact opposite was true. You could say that the people should this government to be elected, but they they surely didn't have any say or knowledge these specific decisions. All you could say is that after the facts where made public you could say people agreed to it (if that's in fact true).

...These things are not the same. Not even a little bit. This isn't anything more than popular rhetoric.

I don't care whether it's rhetoric or not, it's just true. The point is that some people seem to care a lot about one freedom, but have absolutely no trouble with giving away the other. Never said these freedoms were the same.

Freedom is power, and yes, we are each giving away a tiny piece of freedom to the goverment, which is giving it a lot more power; hopefully to fight the threat of terrorism.

If you actually have to hope for it, you know that they have given them enough power to make it possible for them to misuse it. It's very dangerous to give such power without having some other independent and trustworthy body that can verify whether they are in fact misusing it. The only 'body' I can think of that currently does this are the whistleblowers like Snowden, but I think I don't have to tell you that that's not enough.

This is not good for the terrorists. They're not winning; this is not what they were after. They want to force Islamic law on us. Sure, they'd like to spy on us too, but to make sure we're praying. Terrorists would also like to tax us, and to issue drivers licenses, and regulate aviation and commerce; lots of other freedoms that we also give to the government that don't make us just like the terrorists.

That's beyond the scope of my point. It's not that they are winning, it's that we are making ourselves lose (wouldn't necessary call it lose, but I'll do so for simplicity) because we can take terrorists with us in the process.

The whole government spying thing is silly to get worked up over. It's a waste of liberal time like the campaign to ban abortions is a waste of conservative time.

Do I smell a bit of fatalism here? I don't think it is to late to do something about it at all. If there is a time to do something about it, it is now. And even if it were hopeless, I can at least say that I took a strong stand against this disgusting authoritarian power.

[brimstoneSalad]

He wasn't, you must have misunderstood him. He was talking about privacy in general, not specifically to mass surveillance.

You can't generalize all privacy concerns, because they're not comparable. He was comparing two things that aren't comparable.

But you don't want it to happen every time you enter the airport for sake of catching drugs criminals.

1. This isn't for sake of catching drug criminals, it's to interfere with terrorist operations.
2. Having fingers in your ass is probably more uncomfortable than having your e-mails read; one is a bit more uncomfortable. The comparison was to show that privacy means different things in different contexts.

Glenn vs a doctor regarding ass fingering, and Glenn vs the NSA regarding e-mail reading. In both cases, Glenn is doing something completely different.

I won't deny that the situations aren't equivalent, but Glenn asking for my emails closer resembles governments collecting my emails than Glenn is resembling the doctor asking to put his fingers in my ass.

Glenn has no business doing either of those things. They're very much alike.
While the doctor, and the NSA, very much have business to do those things, and would be going about them for very different reasons.

The doctor is putting in effect to help you individually, while governments are using you as a resource—harming you individually in the process—for sake of catching criminals.

Please explain how the government is harming you individually.
Also, please explain why the government wants to catch criminals, if not to protect the people (which includes you).

It's a though question morally, but it's of course also a political question. And I value individual freedoms enormously, it's very important to me. We may differ on this.

This is something only deontologists should really care about.
Blindly collecting metadata on internet usage which harms only criminals in any material way, and saving lives; it's not a very tough question morally for consequentialists.

Why would you value freedoms that are more harmful than helpful?
Do you value the freedom for people to torture and kill animals?

Freedoms are always a trade. Your freedom to do something to another means another's freedom is lost to not have that thing done to him or her.
Some freedoms are good, others are not good.

The only meaningful question I see here is whether the programs are actually cost effective.

If you wanted to discuss the cost effectiveness of government programs, though, we would need a lot more information that we don't have.

In those situations you had a say in the matter whether to share it or not. When sending an email to a friend, it's not my intention to automatically also authorizing the government to analyze it. There is a huge difference between voluntary and involuntary.

I was explaining why Glenn was making a false equivocation. The significance of privacy is contextual.

It is not harmful for the government to spy on people because it's not a meaningful violation of privacy -- unless you're engaging in terrorist activities, in which case they will judge you and affect you personally. Otherwise, this metadata is very impersonal and non-judgmental.

I'll use another analogy to help you.

Is it a violation of privacy for a pervert to install a camera in a bathroom, streaming that feed to his bedroom where he enjoys it?

OK, now: Is it a violation of privacy for the same camera to be there, but streaming into an empty locked room where nobody sees it or will ever see it?

What if there was a houseplant in that room, exposed to the light from the screen?
What if there was a fly in that room, who saw the feed?

Privacy is like a quantum phenomenon in the Copenhagen interpretation; the act has to be meaningfully judged on a personal level in order to become a violation of privacy.

Sure, but why are you okay with the intelligence agency have it then?

I don't know why you didn't get my explanation. Glenn is not the NSA, and the NSA is not Glenn.

I won't let him see my e-mails for the same reason I won't let him stick his fingers in my ass.

The NSA is not violating anybody's privacy except for terrorists, because they're the only ones being judged or affected by it.

It's sad to see that you are not taking it seriously.

Because it's an absurd ad hoc hypothesis with no evidence, invented by fear mongers as an excuse to oppose NSA spying.

These people [like Glenn] are creating the environment of fear that they pretend to be fighting against.

I think it's funny that you are denying conformity is taking place; most people I spoke with that also didn't caring about their privacy did not do that, instead they saw it as something valuable.

Most people you speak to probably aren't very skeptical.
They don't have any evidence that it's forcing social conformity either.

You should know that just because most people don't think about it consciously, doesn't imply they are not behaving differently.

Again, more ad-hoc speculation and no evidence. The lack of significant behavioral differences between Christians and Atheists should be a sufficient enough model to demonstrate this; or do you think that, when we control for intelligence and education, that Christians murder fewer people than Atheists do because they believe god is watching them?

If that were true, then we should be promoting religion, shouldn't we?

It's the effect of knowing that you can be watched, that causes you to behave conformist—the way as would happen in a panopticon.

I forgot what peaceful places prisons were. It's also completely irrelevant.

Or is the NSA planning to build a tower to help remind us? Is that what Glenn is helping them do? Is he an NSA contractor?

The psychological pressure one experiences may differ from person to person, but you're wrong in denying it.

You're wrong in asserting it without evidence; I'm correct in denying it.

People behave differently at places where they know for a fact that they can't be watched—like at home or at the toilet—independent of the source of who's watching.

Nonsense.
They do the same kinds of things when there's a security camera around. In parking lots, in elevators, etc. where they know for a fact that they can be watched but probably won't be, or that the person watching them won't care. There are even signs up telling them they're being watched.

There are a number of cases of the people on the other side of those cameras uploading that private behavior to the internet -- something which the NSA doesn't do (Snowden-like-cases excepted).

We care about privacy because we care about judgement, and particularly judgement for people we may see or interact with.

Unless you're a terrorist, the NSA is not judging you. And you won't see your local neighborhood NSA agent when you go to get your nails done to be embarrassed about those e-mails you exchanged last week with the pool boy.

It's completely irrelevant that the NSA is spying on you. Just like god, or Santa, unless you're actively reminded about it and engaging specifically in the behavior you're supposed to be judged on.

(Of course you would behave more freely with friends and family as well. Those differences I'm recognizing.)

No, you're not really recognizing those differences. There are more categories of observation than next door neighbor and friends/family.

If you really feel paranoid about the NSA watching you, that's unusual, and unhealthy. You're personalizing something completely impersonal. The normal human response is to not care, because it's completely impersonal and irrelevant to normal human privacy concerns.

How are you so sure that theists don't behave differently then they would without the knowledge of a god watching them day in and day out?

They seem to when they're children, or when strongly primed, but otherwise data on crime rates, and things that god should really care about, don't seem to show much difference. Anecdotes don't really overcome hard data on criminal behavior.

Like Greenwald said, the effect of knowing you can be watched at every instant is immensely powerful, and indeed psychological research has shown this, but if I understand you correctly, you seem to dismiss this all together.

Yes, I dismiss this. Getting an effect from people requires a strong priming and constant reminder to evoke that paranoia. That kind of fear-mongering is Greenwald's business, and the business of churches, not the government's.
When you have to build a huge tower in attempt to remind people they're being watched and even that barely does anything, there's really something to be said for human capacity for blocking things out.

Aside from that, as I have explained many times, there is a context to observation which has to do with judgement. You're only likely to alter your behavior (when you actually think about it), if you consider doing something you think the NSA might have a serious problem with, like joining a terrorist organization. The NSA doesn't care that you're having an affair with your secretary. You will not, therefore, care that they know about that, because it doesn't matter.

Most the data is indeed handled by automated computer programs, but it's also true that certain things must be done manually. But you don't know whether they are doing something manually with your data or data about you or not. So, the point I made above still applies here as well.

No it doesn't, not unless you're a terrorist. For the same reason the doctor doesn't care if your boobs are lopsided, or your penis is a strange color; that is, he only cares in a diagnostic capacity, just as an NSA agent only cares if you're a terrorist or not.

They are not sitting around the office laughing at your bad love poems, or that explicit selfie you sent.

If you think they're doing this, or worry about them doing this, that's a paranoia issue.
Yes, some small percentage of the population is deeply paranoid, tin-foil hat paranoid, and this probably doesn't make them feel good; but they'd be paranoid about it even if it wasn't happening in some sense (or had less of a chance of happening). I don't see where the fact of the matter has much bearing on those delusions.

It's only those people that try to or do behave conformist that think or hope they belong to the low probability group, so how is this an argument against it?

It's not just those people. Everybody will assume they're those people. In many cases (like smoking), they're wrong. In this case, they're almost all right.

And people are irrational, yes, what's your point? It's a metaphor that doesn't relate to mass surveillance at all.

You didn't understand it. I'm saying even if it was probable, people wouldn't care because they'd assume it was improbable for them. They aren't changing their behavior, they're rationalizing.

Again, you're misunderstanding the problem if you think that people ought to think that they are being watched to make a valid argument against mass surveillance.

You're misunderstanding the issue. Why do you think mass surveillance is bad?

Are you playing deontologist here, "Because privacy is a right, just because..."
Or are you a consequentialist?

Explain to me why this surveillance is bad, or why it matters at all?

Yes, if it bothers people, that is a problem, but it clearly does not. What's the problem then?

Seems like it's just people like Glenn who are bothering people about it.

Total bullshit. You had to be a conspiracy nut to do so previously, but this all has changes after the revelations of Snowden. Maybe you're not really aware of how much we know about the scale in which mass surveillance is taking place—as revealed by Snowden (and other trustworthy sources).

Irrelevant. You still have to be a conspiracy nut to really care. Tell me, what evil agenda is the government planning to use all of our e-mails for?

As long as we don't talk about it, there's no problem...

Correct. The problem is people feeling uncomfortable about it, not the action itself.

As long as we don't draw cartoons, they won't attack us... I don't like that attitude.

You don't understand the attitude, because drawing cartoons of Muhammad has nothing to do with it.

If you want people to make an informed political decision about it, it should be known publicly. If the fact that people are informed is causing it not to happen, so be it.

People are informed about it. There's a difference between informing people, and fear-mongering and spreading absurd conspiracy theories and wild ad hoc hypotheses about a zombie society without art or freedom caused by the surveillance state.

We're slowly heading to a more authoritarian society, and you're saying that there are more important things to worry about? You are free to choose your own priorities, but some people actually do care, and they are doing it also for your sake. But it's great to see that you at least think it is something to worry about.

I think wasting government resources on something ineffective is something to worry about, IF it is ineffective vs. resource consumption.

The only concern I would have about NSA spying is if they would start to use that to target more minor offenses, or the government passed laws restricting civil liberties in some other harmful way, and the tool was applied to enforce those laws. This is more of a concern over those laws, rather than the method itself. The method itself is just a form of power, which can be used for good or evil. As long as our governments are trending progressive, I'm not worried.

Their main goal is to catch terrorists and other forms of criminality, right? How many people have died because of terrorism? It's more in the numbers of that of an nuclear energy disaster. Maybe it's better to focus on people falling of roofs while installing solar panels ( ).

That's my point, with regards to use of government resources.

Hundreds of millions of people need to give up their privacy in order to help save a few civilians? That's absurd.

I find it absurd that you find it absurd. The value of a human life is more than the value of not having a few hundred million people's contact lists confidentially indexed and analyzed for links to terror groups (which I see has having virtually no value at all). My only question is the financial and manpower costs of the arrangement. You could probably save more lives by using that money to make vaccinations than using it to spy.

As for the second thing, you should know as no other that the burden of proof is not on my side.

You're the one making the claim here; and you're also missing a lot of information that you don't have access to. Burden of proof is most commonly a bullshit argument for when you don't have evidence.

Obama has the information, you don't. He says it's useful. There's really nothing to contradict here. Either you trust him or you don't. But to not trust that many people, who differ in politics and disagree on almost everything else, IS a conspiracy theory.

The question is whether you really want to resort to some form of oligarchy for these kind of decisions. I know I don't.

That's why the commander in chief is an elected official. Obama has all of this information. We chose to trust him with these decisions when we elected him.

Also, appointed government is meritocratic, appointed and confirmed by elected officials at the top levels, and it's certainly not a small group.

Pure democracy doesn't work for things like this since transparency is impossible; this is as close as we can come, and so far the system seems to work passably.

That's my political conviction.

Why? What rational consequentialist argument can you possibly form that's not based on a conspiracy theory of some inner malevolent purpose behind the government?

If you actually have to hope for it, you know that they have given them enough power to make it possible for them to misuse it. It's very dangerous to give such power without having some other independent and trustworthy body that can verify whether they are in fact misusing it. The only 'body' I can think of that currently does this are the whistleblowers like Snowden, but I think I don't have to tell you that that's not enough.

Through incompetence, sure. Through malevolence, no.
You underestimate how powerful whistleblowers are once behavior veers out of the gray area and into the black; most terrorist plots are foiled by informants for a reason. No matter the risk, when a circle of knowledge becomes even the slightest bit large, people will come forward for sake of conscience. Government relies on loyalty generated through clarity of purpose in doing the right thing; without that, there is no secrecy. It's why good will always defeat evil in these kinds of struggles, and why terrorists can only carry out effective attacks when the circle of trust is limited to a very small handful of people (which also limits their ability to plan and execute those attacks).

That's beyond the scope of my point. It's not that they are winning, it's that we are making ourselves lose (wouldn't necessary call it lose, but I'll do so for simplicity) because we can take terrorists with us in the process.

We're not losing anything of value.

I'll give an example. I just took away all of your drivehatblue points. You had several hundred of them, they're gone now and you can't have them back.

How do you feel about that?
Have you lost? Are you in despair?

Probably not. It would take somebody like Glenn to come along and invent reasons why the imaginary drivehatblue points have great value and how our society will crumble without them to make you feel bad about having lost them.

Who is the real villain in that scenario?

The person who did something innocuous that has no meaning to you, or the person to fabricated a meaning after the fact and made you feel bad for no reason?

Do I smell a bit of fatalism here? I don't think it is to late to do something about it at all. If there is a time to do something about it, it is now. And even if it were hopeless, I can at least say that I took a strong stand against this disgusting authoritarian power.

Again, you sound more like a deontologist than a consequentialist.

You're wasting your effort. Remember the whole discussion about treating adopting an animal from a shelter as a form of charity? It's a delusion. The amount of resources and mental energy you're devoting to this fight is a complete waste, and seemingly for selfish reasons so that you can say you took a stand against it. Why?

I see no reason to believe it's even a bad thing; we don't have enough information on that. For lack of information, it only makes sense to leave it alone, and do something good with our time.

[Volenta]

Thanks for your reply, it's always great to be challenged.

You can't generalize all privacy concerns, because they're not comparable. He was comparing two things that aren't comparable.

I already accepted that, and I think that Greenwald knows this very well. You really can't say he was comparing the two things; then you are not open for other interpretations which are more likely to be true.

1. This isn't for sake of catching drug criminals, it's to interfere with terrorist operations.

Maybe I should have elaborated a bit more in order for you to understand it, but my point was that you shouldn't have to give up freedoms when you're not a suspect yourself. But if you want to change the example to searching bombs in every passenger's ass, that's fine with me too (changing the example that is).

Having fingers in your ass is probably more uncomfortable than having your e-mails read; one is a bit more uncomfortable. The comparison was to show that privacy means different things in different contexts.

Again, I already accepted that privacy means in different things in different contexts, but I don't think that the privacy concerns regarding government surveillance can't just be dismissed by saying that.

Glenn vs a doctor regarding ass fingering, and Glenn vs the NSA regarding e-mail reading. In both cases, Glenn is doing something completely different.

You were the one adding it to the conversation. I just elaborated on it a bit to point out the weakness of it.

Glenn has no business doing either of those things. They're very much alike.
While the doctor, and the NSA, very much have business to do those things, and would be going about them for very different reasons.

Your starting point is the current situation and you're working from there to justify it, that's circular reasoning. You first need to prove that NSA actually should have business to do with you.

Please explain how the government is harming you individually.

Here are some reasons:
- By not being in control of your own personal information. The absence of having anything to say about what happens to personal and most like also very sensitive information. And the incapacity to do something about or have knowledge of abuse. And abuse is taking place, and has historically taken place as well—that's factually true, just go and read the files that have been leaked by Snowden. You should always be scared of putting personal and sensitive information in a black box.
- The psychological effects of trying to behave conformist and the discomfort when you don't. It might even stop you from doing certain activities because you might look suspicious. Thereby limiting your freedom and opportunities. (read on for evidence)
- Security in technology isn't progressing as fast as it should, putting citizens at risk. Data has to be transferred insecurely in order to be valuable for the NSA, so it's no wonder that NSA has deliberately weakened internet security and worked together with software companies to establish backdoors. This is making individuals more vulnerable for attacks from people with malicious intentions.

Also, please explain why the government wants to catch criminals, if not to protect the people (which includes you).

That's part of it, yes. But it's not really about catching terrorists themselves, that's just a joke how small of a problem it really is. It's mostly about the governments public appearance/image and creating calmness in society and trust in the government. And of course thereby also trying to discourage other terrorists from attacking.

But you can justify everything with saying it's for sake of catching terrorists, it makes impression on people. Governments know how to make use the fear of people.

This is something only deontologists should really care about.
Blindly collecting metadata on internet usage which harms only criminals in any material way, and saving lives; it's not a very tough question morally for consequentialists.

It would surely be a hell of a lot easier for a deontologist to make her case, that's true. It's mostly a though question for consequentialists because you're dealing with power and (potential) harms in the exercise of that power. It's not always easy to be specific about it, or know anything about it all due to the closed nature of intelligence agencies (which in itself should also be a warning sign).

Why would you value freedoms that are more harmful than helpful?

That way you could make a case against freedom of expression as well, or even taking it to the extreme: maybe you could even manage to defend having Huxley's Brave New World being realized. Fundamental freedoms like the right to be left alone or freedom of expression are at the end of the day doing more good than harm. Like you said yourself, freedom is power. When you as a citizen are at the control of this power it can't be backfired at you. With it comes a great deal of responsibility, yes, and that can be misused by other individuals. But when giving the power out of your own hands to something as big as the NSA (and you may include the government as well), you certainly don't want it to turn against you.

And to make it a bit more concrete for your consequential needs ( ), it is largely the psychological benefits and risk reduction that freedom offers you that counts. We are not robots without certain psychological needs, therefore we have to ensure that our mind doesn't become a prison.

Do you value the freedom for people to torture and kill animals?

No, it's violating the harm principle in it's complete essence. And the right to privacy is not—in fact the opposite is true.

The only meaningful question I see here is whether the programs are actually cost effective.

If you wanted to discuss the cost effectiveness of government programs, though, we would need a lot more information that we don't have.

I'm not really interested in that, but I think I would agree with you on that.

It is not harmful for the government to spy on people because it's not a meaningful violation of privacy -- unless you're engaging in terrorist activities, in which case they will judge you and affect you personally. Otherwise, this metadata is very impersonal and non-judgmental.

False. Metadata is personal in the sense that it describes exactly what you are doing. That day that you visited a brothel or the cannabis coffee shop (well, maybe not in the USA): they know. Or even more ordinarily things like calling your mother, or whatever it is: it is personal data. They might not know what you said or something very detailed, but does that really matter?

I'll use another analogy to help you.

Is it a violation of privacy for a pervert to install a camera in a bathroom, streaming that feed to his bedroom where he enjoys it?

OK, now: Is it a violation of privacy for the same camera to be there, but streaming into an empty locked room where nobody sees it or will ever see it?

What if there was a houseplant in that room, exposed to the light from the screen?
What if there was a fly in that room, who saw the feed?

Privacy is like a quantum phenomenon in the Copenhagen interpretation; the act has to be meaningfully judged on a personal level in order to become a violation of privacy.

I can see your point, but there are different things that I have to say about it:
1) The empty room scenario doesn't quite resemble what's happening at the intelligence agencies. There your personal data is being processed and stored afterwards. Even though it's done by automated software programs, why wouldn't you consider that in itself a privacy violation? Isn't protection and empowerment of your own personal information not a huge part of privacy as well?
2) The psychological harm that will be the result of discovering the camera has been placed for an unknowable duration, not knowing whether someone has actually watched the feed, will be exactly the same.

Because it's an absurd ad hoc hypothesis with no evidence, invented by fear mongers as an excuse to oppose NSA spying.

Then don't take my word for it, here is a bit of evidence:
- Surveillance Cues Enhance Moral Condemnation
- Do Surveillance Cameras Affect Unruly Behavior? A Close Look at Grandstands
- Tearing the Veil of Privacy Law: An Experiment on Chilling Effects and the Right to Be Forgotten
- In the Best Families: Tracking and Relationships
- Chilling Effects: NSA Surveillance Drives U.S. Writers to Self-Censor

Most people you speak to probably aren't very skeptical.

That's absolutely true and that's why I have fun having these discussions with you, but you did surprise me with this one, since the science is available at your fingertips.

Again, more ad-hoc speculation and no evidence.

Actually, I was pointing out that you did not have anything to back your claim up, and making a huge mistake by saying that because people don't think about trying to behave conformist, that they therefore do not behave conformist. You have to demonstrate these things through the use of science, not speculation. (it's not a one-way street here)

The lack of significant behavioral differences between Christians and Atheists should be a sufficient enough model to demonstrate this; or do you think that, when we control for intelligence and education, that Christians murder fewer people than Atheists do because they believe god is watching them?

That might be true (although some murder is actually glorified). But then again, there are many other barriers to be broken before someone is going to murder. I don't know how much impact this concept has in this specific case, it's probably has a stronger influence on things like lying and blasphemy.

If that were true, then we should be promoting religion, shouldn't we?

No, of course not, because the idea of having an ultimate dictator watching over you also comes with it's harms (similar to that of indiscriminate mass surveillance). To free these people from this self-deprivation and thought-censorship is a good act, for sake of these people. I thought you knew the works of Hitchens pretty well and agreed to it to some extend at least?

But remember that religion is a package deal. You are inheriting the bad things of the religion as well. And of course there are other ways of preventing murder.

I forgot what peaceful places prisons were. It's also completely irrelevant.

No, they are just wasting their money on useless video surveillance. Although Jeremy Bentham never finished his work on the panopticon, the same concepts have been used over and over again in modern times as well. Nowadays, it's the video surveillance that does this job, and the research that has been done in this field is only supporting my views. But it is irrelevant indeed, although useful as a metaphor.

Or is the NSA planning to build a tower to help remind us? Is that what Glenn is helping them do? Is he an NSA contractor?

It's at least not the people that want to keep the public ignorant about government decisions, that's right. You should really try to embrace information and education a bit more.

You're wrong in asserting it without evidence; I'm correct in denying it.

Not anymore. I actually hope that you do change your mind according to the science, it's something what we always like to embrace.

Nonsense.
They do the same kinds of things when there's a security camera around. In parking lots, in elevators, etc. where they know for a fact that they can be watched but probably won't be, or that the person watching them won't care. There are even signs up telling them they're being watched.

Can you demonstrate this is true?

We care about privacy because we care about judgement, and particularly judgement for people we may see or interact with.

Unless you're a terrorist, the NSA is not judging you. And you won't see your local neighborhood NSA agent when you go to get your nails done to be embarrassed about those e-mails you exchanged last week with the pool boy.

It's completely irrelevant that the NSA is spying on you. Just like god, or Santa, unless you're actively reminded about it and engaging specifically in the behavior you're supposed to be judged on.

Then your notion of why privacy matters is much too narrow. But I'm not going to repeat myself here.

No, you're not really recognizing those differences. There are more categories of observation than next door neighbor and friends/family.

It's great that you think you know my position better then I do.

They seem to when they're children, or when strongly primed, but otherwise data on crime rates, and things that god should really care about, don't seem to show much difference. Anecdotes don't really overcome hard data on criminal behavior.

What? That's all you got? Try to make your case more concrete then that.

You're only likely to alter your behavior (when you actually think about it), if you consider doing something you think the NSA might have a serious problem with, like joining a terrorist organization.

Reason alone is not sufficient for convincing me, I have to see some empirical evidence.

No it doesn't, not unless you're a terrorist.

You don't know that, but that's most likely to be true, yes. Although the NSA has not limited itself to terrorism either, it also has been used for spying on companies of other countries for economical benefit, and even personal things done by employees (read on for evidence).

For the same reason the doctor doesn't care if your boobs are lopsided, or your penis is a strange color; that is, he only cares in a diagnostic capacity, just as an NSA agent only cares if you're a terrorist or not.

You can't even make this point. The doctor is not emotionally or psychologically detached. She does have thoughts, but it's part of her profession to do nothing with those thoughts.

They are not sitting around the office laughing at your bad love poems, or that explicit selfie you sent.

Of course it's not their goal to target ordinarily people that are not doing anything wrong. If that were the case, things would be even worse. But it does imply that you should be loyal to the government. And like Greenwald rightly noticed, governments have a different conception of what good and bad is: we should also care about how the government treats it's dissidents. Society is always moving, and what is unacceptable now, might become honorable later. These people should be protected from interference at such authoritarian level.

If you think they're doing this, or worry about them doing this, that's a paranoia issue.
Yes, some small percentage of the population is deeply paranoid, tin-foil hat paranoid, and this probably doesn't make them feel good; but they'd be paranoid about it even if it wasn't happening in some sense (or had less of a chance of happening). I don't see where the fact of the matter has much bearing on those delusions.

I agree that you shouldn't go paranoia about it, but I think a bit of paranoia will lead to better protection for yourself and those around you. If you were to completely ignore it altogether and gladly accepting your chain, then you're just as stupid.

It's not just those people. Everybody will assume they're those people. In many cases (like smoking), they're wrong. In this case, they're almost all right.

The change of getting picked out is increasing if you're the one acting differently then those around you.

You're misunderstanding the issue. Why do you think mass surveillance is bad?

No, you're the one who don't, seriously. If you really think that people are concerned about government people watching how , then I can understand why you are not on my side. It's a much more complicated issue (and subtle at certain places) then you want to admit.

Explain to me why this surveillance is bad, or why it matters at all?

I tried to explain to you why it's a threat to fundamental human rights, but you either seem to be unable to understand it, or dismiss relevant information as useless or false.

Yes, if it bothers people, that is a problem, but it clearly does not. What's the problem then?

If that were the case, then there are still are dangers for power abuse, the vulnerability of people, etc.

Seems like it's just people like Glenn who are bothering people about it.

What's it like to be 'like Glenn'? Whatever it is, it's probably false: almost half of the general public seems to care (but yes, they are still in the minority), especially liberals, writers, journalists care much about it.

Irrelevant. You still have to be a conspiracy nut to really care. Tell me, what evil agenda is the government planning to use all of our e-mails for?

You really are not aware of what's happening, are you?

NSA broke privacy rules thousands of times per year, audit finds

It might not be there intention to be a system of abuse (or sometimes at least), but they still are.

You don't understand the attitude, because drawing cartoons of Muhammad has nothing to do with it.

I was talking about hiding or not publishing information out of fear, which you seem to encourage. That's the attitude I don't like.

People are informed about it. There's a difference between informing people, and fear-mongering and spreading absurd conspiracy theories and wild ad hoc hypotheses about a zombie society without art or freedom caused by the surveillance state.

Maybe because the truth isn't really that rosy. It's Greenwald who has access to the documents, and I never got the impression that he didn't know what he was talking about. And I don't get the impression that even you are really informed about it (there just is a lot to know, so I don't blame you for that, and I'll include myself to that list—I have seen only a small amount of the things going on), so let alone the (rest of the) general public.

The only concern I would have about NSA spying is if they would start to use that to target more minor offenses, or the government passed laws restricting civil liberties in some other harmful way, and the tool was applied to enforce those laws. This is more of a concern over those laws, rather than the method itself. The method itself is just a form of power, which can be used for good or evil. As long as our governments are trending progressive, I'm not worried.

You're actually helping to prove my point, because you're just hoping that governments are trending progressive, but the fact is that you don't know that. They are the ones wielding the power now (and are seeking for more), and when it would progress towards things you don't like, you no longer have the ability to say anything against it. That's part of the bet you're willing to make.

I find it absurd that you find it absurd. The value of a human life is more than the value of not having a few hundred million people's contact lists confidentially indexed and analyzed for links to terror groups (which I see has having virtually no value at all).

How small the psychological effects might be, the numbers are enormous. It's hard to weigh the moral value a human life, and to compare it to the harms that hundred of millions of people experience—and are going to (potentially) experience—but judging by the enormous magnitude of numbers and taking it as seriously as I do, I have to conclude that it's indeed absurd.

You're the one making the claim here; and you're also missing a lot of information that you don't have access to. Burden of proof is most commonly a bullshit argument for when you don't have evidence.

Obama has the information, you don't. He says it's useful. There's really nothing to contradict here. Either you trust him or you don't. But to not trust that many people, who differ in politics and disagree on almost everything else, IS a conspiracy theory.

Obama has surely proved himself to be trustworthy on this subject... You are just making up excuses to talk yourself out of an appeal to authority fallacy.

Snowden should know as well, having all this data and working there for a long period, but doesn't benefit from lying like Obama exactly would. Recently he has stated that it's not effective: http://www.china.org.cn/world/2015-01/2 ... 626530.htm

I think I was being fair by saying it has not yet been demonstrated to be effective, but I will change my statement for you: I have not seen it being demonstrated to be effective yet, and there doesn't seem to be much agreement about it either.

Pure democracy doesn't work for things like this since transparency is impossible; this is as close as we can come, and so far the system seems to work passably.

You really think it works 'passably'?

Through incompetence, sure. Through malevolence, no.
You underestimate how powerful whistleblowers are once behavior veers out of the gray area and into the black; most terrorist plots are foiled by informants for a reason. No matter the risk, when a circle of knowledge becomes even the slightest bit large, people will come forward for sake of conscience. Government relies on loyalty generated through clarity of purpose in doing the right thing; without that, there is no secrecy. It's why good will always defeat evil in these kinds of struggles, and why terrorists can only carry out effective attacks when the circle of trust is limited to a very small handful of people (which also limits their ability to plan and execute those attacks).

I don't think I'm underestimating it at all; I just wonder whether it's really necessary for people to throw away their current life and being in danger for the rest of their life, just in order for the system to work.

Again, you sound more like a deontologist than a consequentialist.

Oh come on, that's just silly and you know that. Do you call everybody that strives for certain ideals a deontologist?

You're wasting your effort. Remember the whole discussion about treating adopting an animal from a shelter as a form of charity? It's a delusion. The amount of resources and mental energy you're devoting to this fight is a complete waste, and seemingly for selfish reasons so that you can say you took a stand against it. Why?

I did not say that for selfish reasons, I did it to because I care about making the world a better place—it's called idealism. If this is really your mentality, then you're just one of those who used to call Nelson Mandela (or pick any other hero who was paddling upwards the waterfall) a fool for trying to change something. But I don't believe you actually are like this; otherwise you wouldn't have it in you to be a vegan.

I see no reason to believe it's even a bad thing; we don't have enough information on that.

There is enough information already, maybe you're just not aware of it.

For lack of information, it only makes sense to leave it alone, and do something good with our time.

Then it's only you who thinks he is wasting his time.

[Neptual]

That's bullshit. It wouldn't be a terrorist group if they didn't hurt people or advocate it. It is meaningful to interfere with terrorist "events" and "activities", even if they aren't that glamorous.
It doesn't matter if Mr. Moalin was giving the terrorists money to buy groceries; he was supporting their terrorist activities. If they bought groceries with it this time, that is only to have more money to buy guns or explosives elsewhere.

The NSA stopped this guy from sending this group potentially substantial sums of money (particularly in Somalia).
Maher has no idea what that means, or how many lives that saved -- none of us do. But apparently saving the lives of Somalians isn't important, so never mind that.

The West is substantially sheltered from terrorism; even if all we do is stop a cab driver from sending ten thousand dollars to a Somalian group who print pamphlets propagandizing radical Islam, that's meaningful.

These butterflies flap their wings and cause hurricanes; you can't always connect the dots in this chaotic world, because causation is rarely so linear.

While I value every human life equally in this case the lives of Somalians are irrelevant. The programs were made to stop domestic attacks. And even if this one case was valid and he did have violent intentions, the question remains why did the Director of the NSA lie to us about how effective these programs were?

You need to remember these programs were not made to stop terrorism all together, they were made to stop another 9/11. The reason these programs will never do this is because it's mindlessly collecting useless information and then storing it. Day after day more and more useless information being piled up on what could potentially be useful information in actually stopping attacks such as the Boston bombings.

The NSA keeps piling more hay onto the haystack and we're no where near to finding the needle.

[brimstoneSalad]

The programs were made to stop domestic attacks. And even if this one case was valid and he did have violent intentions, the question remains why did the Director of the NSA lie to us about how effective these programs were?[...]
You need to remember these programs were not made to stop terrorism all together, they were made to stop another 9/11.

I'm not very worried that programs are being used for something they're not made for. That's a political argument, and I don't care much for politics. If the director lied, he probably did it for political reasons.

I only care that something is doing more good than harm, and that the opportunity cost isn't the sacrifice of a greater good.

The reason these programs will never do this is because it's mindlessly collecting useless information and then storing it. Day after day more and more useless information being piled up on what could potentially be useful information in actually stopping attacks such as the Boston bombings.[...]The NSA keeps piling more hay onto the haystack and we're no where near to finding the needle.

The reason is that the needle isn't in that haystack, it's hiding somewhere in the field.

We can't usually stop those kinds of terrorist attacks because they're planned and executed by a very small number of people in very close-knit groups. With larger groups, we don't need that kind of information to stop them because we have informants.

I see the government as incompetent, but not quite that incompetent. This may be a waste of money, but it's not making their jobs harder by burying information. It is marginally useful.

[brimstoneSalad]

I already accepted that, and I think that Greenwald knows this very well. You really can't say he was comparing the two things; then you are not open for other interpretations which are more likely to be true.

I think in giving him the benefit of the doubt (which is a good thing to do), you may be bolstering his arguments in your mind to something much more intelligent than they actually are. He's fear-mongering. I know the type pretty well. I really don't think he's the intellectual powerhouse you've taken him for.

To me, it's all rhetoric and publicity.

Maybe I should have elaborated a bit more in order for you to understand it, but my point was that you shouldn't have to give up freedoms when you're not a suspect yourself.

But you are a suspect. Everybody is suspect when the terrorists are hiding in the population at large. It's just a question of how much of a suspect you are. Nobody is completely beyond suspicion.

But if you want to change the example to searching bombs in every passenger's ass, that's fine with me too (changing the example that is).

And we do that. We just do it with X-rays, because fingers are unnecessary. Those things see right through you, and generate unnervingly detailed images (somebody is looking at pictures of you naked in another room). I think they're more looking for drugs than bombs though, since hiding a bomb in your ass isn't a very realistic scenario.

Again, I already accepted that privacy means in different things in different contexts, but I don't think that the privacy concerns regarding government surveillance can't just be dismissed by saying that.

I don't know what you're saying here.

And I don't think you understand the context of government surveillance, and how that obviates privacy issues. There really seems to be a huge gap in communication there.

I just elaborated on it a bit to point out the weakness of it.

You didn't do that. The original comparison is valid.

You first need to prove that NSA actually should have business to do with you.

See above. You ARE a suspect. And that's precisely their job. Whether it's useful towards those ends is debatable, but we don't have the information to determine that. If it is useful, it is inherently their business.

And the incapacity to do something about or have knowledge of abuse.

What kind of abuse is it that you would have no knowledge of?

- The psychological effects of trying to behave conformist and the discomfort when you don't. It might even stop you from doing certain activities because you might look suspicious. Thereby limiting your freedom and opportunities. (read on for evidence)

As I said, when primed. The NSA isn't priming people to fear being watched; it's doing its best to hide that fact, because that's the only way its surveillance is most effective. It's people like Glenn who are priming the public and creating the chilling effect.

I think you missed that point.

- Security in technology isn't progressing as fast as it should, putting citizens at risk. Data has to be transferred insecurely in order to be valuable for the NSA, so it's no wonder that NSA has deliberately weakened internet security and worked together with software companies to establish backdoors. This is making individuals more vulnerable for attacks from people with malicious intentions.

If somebody's identity were stolen because of that, then it would have to be weighed against the good done in saving lives (e.g. in Africa, by denying funds to terrorists).

That's the first item with actual reasonable potential negative consequences you've mentioned.

Of course, we don't have the information to weigh these things against each other, so I don't think it's very useful to discuss unless somebody has security clearance.

That's part of it, yes. But it's not really about catching terrorists themselves, that's just a joke how small of a problem it really is. It's mostly about the governments public appearance/image and creating calmness in society and trust in the government. And of course thereby also trying to discourage other terrorists from attacking.

I think you have the opposite idea from what the NSA want, but it's kind of irrelevant.

But you can justify everything with saying it's for sake of catching terrorists, it makes impression on people. Governments know how to make use the fear of people.

That's irrelevant. I care about harm vs. benefit, not political rhetoric.

It's not always easy to be specific about it, or know anything about it all due to the closed nature of intelligence agencies (which in itself should also be a warning sign).

It's not a warning sign, it's just how they work. But these agencies, as I have explained, are only closed to the public; our representatives, which we have trusted and elected, have high security clearance by virtue of their positions and they make decisions on these matters.

If you don't trust your representatives, then elect new representatives that you trust. If you don't trust them, then run for office yourself. These are choices available in a republic.

My only concern is that most of our representatives are deontologists, so they won't necessarily make useful decisions, but that's another matter.

My point is and has been that you don't have enough information, as a consequentialist, to say the NSA is doing something bad. You can't fulfill your burden of proof, and won't be able to for decades (when things are declassified).
So, it's kind of pointless to make these kinds of claims.

That way you could make a case against freedom of expression as well,

You can, yes. In certain limited cases.

The slope is not as slippery as you're making it out to be.

Fundamental freedoms like the right to be left alone or freedom of expression are at the end of the day doing more good than harm.

Are they?
I think the bigger issue is that cracking down on them severely usually causes more harm than does good, and not that the freedoms themselves are important. Spying is a limited case where it's mostly harmless.

You demonstrated one plausible method of harm I will accept, which has less to do with the spying itself and more to do with policies regarding internet security as a consequence (but not an inherently necessary one).
That's what we should be addressing, not the whole spying issue. I have no problem with campaigning to get them to tighten the security of their back doors if there's a danger there.

Like you said yourself, freedom is power. When you as a citizen are at the control of this power it can't be backfired at you.

Of course it can, by other citizens which use this freedom to build bombs and randomly kill you when you're out enjoying a marathon.
All freedoms also have costs.

But when giving the power out of your own hands to something as big as the NSA (and you may include the government as well), you certainly don't want it to turn against you.

That's what makes it much harder to be turned against the people.

Conspiracies of any stripe are only possible within the context of a small close-knit group. The NSA isn't one; if they do anything against the public interest, it will come out. We can thank people like Snowden for reminding them of this even on something small. Sometimes it will take a couple years if it's a small matter (the smaller, the easier it can be ignored), but big things just don't fly in those contexts. You only keep secrecy through loyalty, and you only maintain loyalty through shared purpose; for a large organization like that, it's for the good of the country and its people.

And to make it a bit more concrete for your consequential needs ( ), it is largely the psychological benefits and risk reduction that freedom offers you that counts. We are not robots without certain psychological needs, therefore we have to ensure that our mind doesn't become a prison.

I reject completely the idea that our minds become psychological "prisons" when we are watched; that's an extreme exaggeration for the sake of rhetoric. The effect on behavior is only marginal, and it's only pronounced when we are primed and constantly reminded that we are being watched (regardless of whether we actually are).

It's an absurd hypothesis created for the purposes of fear mongering. It just isn't true for what the NSA is doing.

The only people priming the public now are the journalists.

And the right to privacy is not—in fact the opposite is true.

I disagree. You've only mentioned one plausible harm- loosening of internet security protocols. Otherwise, there's nothing but potential benefit from what I can see.

I would agree with you on trying to get them to tighten security more in dealing with our data. They probably aren't as careful with the back doors as they could be.

False. Metadata is personal in the sense that it describes exactly what you are doing.

That's not personal, just as your medical records aren't personal for doctors. You're a patient.

Now if your medical records (or NSA data) were released to your neighbor, then it would become personal information.
Your neighbor knows you, will judge you, and read the data in a personal context.

Anything can be personal or impersonal, depending on context.

I can see your point, but there are different things that I have to say about it:
1) The empty room scenario doesn't quite resemble what's happening at the intelligence agencies. There your personal data is being processed and stored afterwards.

It's not personal information until it crosses into a personal context. It's impersonalized.

im·per·son·al
ˌimˈpərs(ə)n(ə)l/
adjective
1.
not influenced by, showing, or involving personal feelings.
"the impersonal march of progress"
synonyms: neutral, unbiased, nonpartisan, unprejudiced, objective, detached, disinterested, dispassionate, without favoritism

Nobody at the NSA cares that you visited a brothel. It's impersonal in that context.

The NSA doesn't care what you're doing, unless you make terrorist noises.
The Fly also doesn't care what you're doing, unless you're making a move to swat it.

The fly is also processing that information -- just like the NSA, it's only looking for threats.
Recording data is irrelevant unless it's actually seen and judged in a personal sense.

Even though it's done by automated software programs, why wouldn't you consider that in itself a privacy violation? Isn't protection and empowerment of your own personal information not a huge part of privacy as well?

[/quote]

No, that's not how privacy works. It's not personal information until it's personalized. The only thing that would do that is if there was a serious risk of the NSA posting that information publicly to have a laugh at the picture of you in your underwear. It's not a realistic scenario. They know people wouldn't stand for that even if they wanted to do it (which they don't).

2) The psychological harm that will be the result of discovering the camera has been placed for an unknowable duration, not knowing whether someone has actually watched the feed, will be exactly the same.

Completely true of the camera in the changing room. This is where the analogy breaks down. The NSA isn't Schrödinger's pervert, who may or may not be at the other end of the camera enjoying what he sees.

Back to the doctor analogy; the NSA are professionals with security clearance. You should be as worried about them sitting around and having a laugh over your newly personalized information as you should be about doctors doing the same; or much less so, because of the mountain of information they're buried under. Sheer volume, if nothing else, restores your anonymity with the exception of being flagged by the automated systems for something.

Then don't take my word for it, here is a bit of evidence:
- Surveillance Cues Enhance Moral Condemnation
- Do Surveillance Cameras Affect Unruly Behavior? A Close Look at Grandstands
- Tearing the Veil of Privacy Law: An Experiment on Chilling Effects and the Right to Be Forgotten
- In the Best Families: Tracking and Relationships
- Chilling Effects: NSA Surveillance Drives U.S. Writers to Self-Censor

I can't read all of those now, I skimmed.

Psychology is among the softest sciences, and their methods aren't very good for the most part. However, I don't disagree that there is an effect when people are primed immediately beforehand. I have mentioned this.

Do any of these studies examine the effects without priming, and use controls?

Actually, I was pointing out that you did not have anything to back your claim up, and making a huge mistake by saying that because people don't think about trying to behave conformist, that they therefore do not behave conformist. You have to demonstrate these things through the use of science, not speculation. (it's not a one-way street here)

People are inherently conformist, they don't need the NSA spying on them for that, but it also has no demonstrable effect on behavior when people aren't primed (and when they are, so does being watched by "god").

This is the same argument theists make against atheism, and I reject it too on the same grounds.

If you'd like to prove that mere knowledge of observation without priming affects behavior in any significant way, you'd be doing the theists a big favor.

I don't know how much impact this concept has in this specific case, it's probably has a stronger influence on things like lying and blasphemy.

It depends both on priming, and how much the subject thinks the observer cares about the action. We know the NSA doesn't care if we visit prostitutes, so it wouldn't affect behavior like that any more than Christians doing something like being assholes to gay people, which they think god approves of but that is socially unacceptable.

It's all about context.

No, of course not, because the idea of having an ultimate dictator watching over you also comes with it's harms (similar to that of indiscriminate mass surveillance).

The harms I see are making them behave like jerks, and giving them perceived justification to do immoral things like eat meat. It would depend on the deity and the religion as to whether these things were condoned.

To free these people from this self-deprivation and thought-censorship is a good act, for sake of these people. I thought you knew the works of Hitchens pretty well and agreed to it to some extend at least?

Not much. Meat eaters think they're freeing vegans from self-deprivation when they make bad arguments for eating meat. Self-deprivation usually isn't a very big deal; you get used to it. Beyond the extremes of misery, our experiences are largely relative to the norms we are accustomed to, especially when we choose them.

But remember that religion is a package deal. You are inheriting the bad things of the religion as well. And of course there are other ways of preventing murder.

Yes, it depends on the religion though. Religion is reforming, and you might have to advocate a more progressive form of theism.
There are many ways of preventing murder, but they work best when they work together.

If a million people being theists prevents one murder, is the harm done due to that greater than the harm of the murder?

Theists would have a strong cost-benefit argument to make if it were even remotely true that theism helps reduce murder rates.
BUT the statistics don't seem to suggest that it does, and that's the issue. The largest and longest running "mass surveillance" program for purposes of human behavior with a pretty good control (atheism), hasn't borne out clear results to suggest that surveillance is useful EXCEPT for when recently primed. E.g. people are probably less likely to murder in a church... they'll wait until they get home. Or Monday.

It's at least not the people that want to keep the public ignorant about government decisions, that's right. You should really try to embrace information and education a bit more.

I embrace education on useful subjects, not to promote paranoia. I also don't support mandatory labeling on food as GMO, because it only causes useless panic, and scares people into avoiding perfectly good foods with better agricultural yields (more environmentally sound), in favor or crops with poorer yields (that harm the environment more).

Not anymore. I actually hope that you do change your mind according to the science, it's something what we always like to embrace.

If the evidence is really there, without priming, and with controls, I would have to accept it, but you will need to find concordance in the theist:atheist situation, or I will be unable to accept it with such a large body of conflicting evidence.

As a consequence, that would also force me to change my views on theism.

Can you demonstrate this is true?

There are a lot of videos on youtube. I'm not sure if there have been studies on this.

Then your notion of why privacy matters is much too narrow. But I'm not going to repeat myself here.

I think yours is too deontological, and maybe too fearful of government power. I care about effect.
(Ideology does lean deontological.)

If NSA policies are harming internet security, then those particular policies and protocols may be misguided (depending on the cost), but that doesn't necessarily condemn spying in general.

It's great that you think you know my position better then I do.

You're talking about a computer analyzing and recording data like it's in the same category above. Either you're waxing deontological, or you're not making a sufficient distinction between computers analyzing impersonal information, and a human being witnessing something very personalized.

I feel like my most fundamental point is being missed.

What? That's all you got? Try to make your case more concrete then that.

Criminal data is about the best body of data you can get. If you can control for something that was missed and prove that religion makes people less prone to criminal activities without being primed, then that would be evidence.

Reason alone is not sufficient for convincing me, I have to see some empirical evidence.

There are (or were) a lot more studies suggesting that homeopathy worked than that it doesn't. Why?
Publication bias. People usually do studies to prove what they want to prove, and publish things that are exciting or confirm their beliefs.

I'm not very easily excited by things that come out of the field of psychology. Psychology is a very soft science. It's not biology or physics, or anything like that. Psychological and sociological experiments are plagued with difficulties in establishing controls, small samples, and very little repetition.

Can you cite one study which doesn't use any priming (Something I have already acknowledged has an effect) and has something resembling controls?

The only body of subjects I know of that fit that definition (decent controls) is comparing theists and atheists. Even that is a bit weak, but it's something I would accept.

To do a good experiment regarding the NSA, you'd have to find a large number of people who didn't know anything about it, and some who did, and only poll them AFTER the experiment concluded to find out which group they were in to avoid priming them. Then there would be a number of controls you'd have to address in the analysis.

She does have thoughts, but it's part of her profession to do nothing with those thoughts.

That's the essence of being impersonal about it, objective; the only issue is that it's not perfect. The NSA's computers come much closer.

Of course it's not their goal to target ordinarily people that are not doing anything wrong. If that were the case, things would be even worse.

I wouldn't say "even worse", I'd say that would make it bad. Because that's not the case, I don't see it as less bad, I see it as innocuous.

But it does imply that you should be loyal to the government. And like Greenwald rightly noticed, governments have a different conception of what good and bad is: we should also care about how the government treats it's dissidents.

The US court system, which is what we really need to focus on, treats dissidents very well.

Society is always moving, and what is unacceptable now, might become honorable later. These people should be protected from interference at such authoritarian level.

And they are; by the court system.

If you have a problem with the justice system, that's another issue entirely, which I do not think is relevant to spying itself.

I agree that you shouldn't go paranoia about it, but I think a bit of paranoia will lead to better protection for yourself and those around you. If you were to completely ignore it altogether and gladly accepting your chain, then you're just as stupid.

I don't agree. It seems to come down to how you see the government. The government is made and elected by the people, and its workers are human beings who have the interests of their friends and families at heart. The western world is not run by theocracies or dictators. If it were, I would be more inclined to agree with you.

There is no chain. That's not true everywhere in the world, but it is of the western world, and the U.S. probably more than most. And in the East, particularly China, great progress is being made to reduce corruption. There's not just a war on terror going on; there's a war on government corruption, and a move to greater transparency world-wide.

Maybe you're a pessimist.

The change of getting picked out is increasing if you're the one acting differently then those around you.

And if I get picked out, they'll read a few e-mails, and then they won't waste any more of their time. Okay. I'm probably on a watch list. That's fine. Not a big deal. Like a doctor. Not perfect, but these people are professionals and I don't think that counts as a violation of privacy. I don't know them, and they don't know me, and nobody who does will ever see that content.

It's impersonal.

If that were the case, then there are still are dangers for power abuse, the vulnerability of people, etc.

I get that, and if the government was waxing conservative and being taken over by the religious right, I would worry about that more, but that's only going to happen if the population does that, and the trend is precisely the opposite.

That outcome just is not the trajectory we're on. Government, and society in general, is on a continual track toward secularization and transparency. It's not without its bumps, but I don't feel so pessimistic about it that I'm worried that something like 1984 is a real possibility.

Whatever it is, it's probably false: almost half of the general public seems to care (but yes, they are still in the minority), especially liberals, writers, journalists care much about it.

If it were to get bad for some reason, the public would push against it, and it would get better. It's a balancing act.

I was talking about hiding or not publishing information out of fear, which you seem to encourage. That's the attitude I don't like.

That's not something I encourage. I'm talking about not publishing information out of ethics, not fear. I don't fear the NSA if I criticize them; I think it's anti-productive to do so at this time. I think it stirs up useless panic, and is a waste of time and energy for journalists and the public, particularly for consequentialists who can't really prove it's doing harm.

We have elected officials who have access to this information. We elected them because we trusted them. Obama made a judgement call. Either trust that, or elect somebody else next time (of course his term is up, another party if you want). That's what democracy is for. This is not a topic to be addressed directly due to security issues.

It's Greenwald who has access to the documents,

He has security clearance?

You're actually helping to prove my point, because you're just hoping that governments are trending progressive, but the fact is that you don't know that.

Government has been on a very slow (sometimes rocky) progressive trend for thousands of years. I don't see that making a U-turn now.
There are things that set it back, like the cold-war damaging socialist politics, but we're getting past that now too.

There are things that could happen, but as a general trend over decades, it's progressive.

They are the ones wielding the power now (and are seeking for more), and when it would progress towards things you don't like, you no longer have the ability to say anything against it. That's part of the bet you're willing to make.

Correct. I will bet the farm on that. And I'll give you a hundred to one odds.
It's a pretty safe bet.

How small the psychological effects might be, the numbers are enormous.

That's part of my point regarding the media. The numbers would be very very small if the media and fear-mongers would stop reminding people about it and making them paranoid.

They need to leave it alone, not out of fear, but out of ethical obligation to not stress people out for no reason, and report something more useful like the Cardassians.

This is a thing that's apparently big right now, but it's not really a big deal.

Obama has surely proved himself to be trustworthy on this subject... You are just making up excuses to talk yourself out of an appeal to authority fallacy.

It's not an appeal to authority. You misunderstand.

Snowden should know as well, having all this data and working there for a long period, but doesn't benefit from lying like Obama exactly would. Recently he has stated that it's not effective: http://www.china.org.cn/world/2015-01/2 ... 626530.htm

Well, then elect Snowden president if you trust him more.
That's how democracy works. If the people don't like it, they'll change it.

I don't think this is a good litmus test for presidential candidates though. There are things to worry about in politics that are actually meaningful.

You really think it works 'passably'?

Yes. Why do you think it does not?

I don't think I'm underestimating it at all; I just wonder whether it's really necessary for people to throw away their current life and being in danger for the rest of their life, just in order for the system to work.

I don't see it that way at all. That seems like an extreme exaggeration, beyond anything I can understand somebody thinking. Throw away their lives?

There's too much political rhetoric here.
I'm kind of getting the feeling you aren't taking this discussion seriously as a philosophical issue, and it's more political for you, far too ideological, and being generally politics averse, I'll quit here.

[EquALLity]

So, the Senate didn't renew some Patriot Act provisions.

Opinions on the Freedom Act?

[brimstoneSalad]

The updated bill will probably be improved, hopefully changes make people more comfortable and focus on making the most effective programs easier.
The idea of telephone companies keeping the data and law enforcement needing an individual warrant to access it sounds like a reasonable compromise.
There will be a lot of political pressure to push that through.

I would guess it won't take very long.