Sorry but it is a pretty big leap from listening to phone calls and reading emails to "stripping an entire nation of its freedoms". There are several steps in between and none of those steps are inevitable. The closest I can get to "stripping an entire nation of its freedoms" is "strip an entire nation of some of its privacy".
worth saving a few theoretical citizens from outside attacks.
Tell that to the people of France.
The security services infiltrate the group, which causes the group to talk to them.
How does the security service infiltrate the group when it has no ties to existing groups and can go from inception to action in a couple of weeks? The security service has to find the group before they infiltrate it.
Berating me is doing nothing to change my mind. I do not respond well to bullies.
It never ceases to amaze me how many people don't understand the difference between saying two things are exactly alike and using analogies.
And I showed him how the differences make them not comparable.
So you've arbitrarily decided that everything in your house is magically private while everything outside of your house isn't,
And you have a similar arbitrary line between what is private and what is public. Everything you say about my line could be said about yours.
Personally, I'd rather have a few crimes occur and not live in a surveillance state thanks.
You are looking at this form a standpoint of everyday crime. That is not what mass surveillance is about. Pre-1995 there were very few terrorist attacks in North America. Today we have ISSIS and their supporters planning attacks. Another issue is that the internet speeds communications so that planning can be done much more quickly. The police need faster methods to keep up. So you would rather have a few incidents like what happened in France?
It is amazing that you equate gathering masses of data where 99.999% of it is never seen by a human with someone following me 24/7.
All it does is notify you when police are known to be nearby.
One of the deterrent effects of police is never knowing where they are. They could pop up anywhere. If criminals know where the police are they will just do their crimes elsewhere. Another issue is that there have been a number of police offices murdered while sitting in their cars. Knowing where the police are just makes those attacks easier.
Another issue is that mass storage and scanning of communications does not lead to public disclosure of an individual's location.
You make it sound like the government has thousands of people reading individual emails and tracking all metadata that is produced. That is nowhere near what is happening. Most communications are scanned for key words and phrases. The few that are flagged are gone over by a person and them most of it is discarded. Only when something pops does it get thoroughly investigated.
when it's the police, we should have no restrictions or preventative measures unless someone can document that the police have committed a crime.
I never said anything of the sort. I completely believe in the need for a warrant/probable cause for physical searches.
They should be held to standards at least as high as you're proposing for civilians, and probably higher, given the special powers we invest in them.
So put so much restrictions on them that their special powers can not be used.
It's called "intelligence work", and it requires well-trained people gathering intelligence on these targets.
And how does one find those targets in the first place if they have no connection with known targets? How does one find the group to infiltrate? The point is that there are many new cells that are popping up that have no connection what so ever with known terrorists. How do you find those new cells?
In the information age the speed of communications has increased greatly. What used to take months and many meetings to plan now can be done in weeks. There is not enough time to befriend and infiltrate. By the time the information is gathered the deed is already done.
You can't separate the two, you insufferable moron.
Learn to debate. I do not converse with people who can not refrain from personal attacks.
You would rather the government unlimited power so you can have your perfect safety, all the while you pretend the people in the government are perfect beings.
How did you go from gathering communications to "unlimited power"? They are very different things. There is a continuum between a government with no power and a government with unlimited power. Somewhere on that line is where one is comfortable living. My line is nowhere near "unlimited power". I suspect your line is closer to "no power" than mine.
It's funny how you hardcore authoritarians are always on the opposite side of organizations dedicated to protecting our liberties and privacy.
The issue is that many of these organizations want complete liberty and complete freedom. Sometimes that means freedom from taxes and liberty to what ever they want when ever they want no matter the consequences. The problem is that it is the government who gets blamed for not stopping terrorist attacks when they occur even though those organizations take away the tools needed to stop them. I look for more of a balance between the individual and society.
That should make you feel bad, but you don't care about freedom one bit.
I care about freedom a lot and am fine with sacrificing unnecessary freedom for necessary security.
You, though, are a coward, and don't belong in any free country.
Nice personal attack which negates anything else you said.
If you are calling trying to stop things like the Charlie Hebdo a Nanny State then I think your definitions are a bit off.
Bank robbers used dynamite to blow open banks and their safes - by your logic you have no problem with police using dynamite to blow up your house looking for robbers.
False parallel as blowing something up causes physical damage while surveillance does not.
So you'd have no problem with government-sanctioned cameras in your bathroom filming everything
Another false parallel as I am generally alone and doing something very private. Anything that happens in my house is very private. Once it gets out of my house it is a different matter.
you not only risk them finding things you've done which they might not like (either now or in the future), but you give them the opportunity to put things there for them to find.
By that logic search warrants are also flawed because they could plant evidence.
No. Its really not. Its called regular police work. And police have been identifying suspects, building cases against them, culminating in search and arrest warrants for a hundred years now without "mass surveillance".
Of those hundreds of years there has only been thirty where large numbers of people can communucate and plan operations without ever meeting. The criminals are allowed to use modern technology by the police are not?
Why should the EFF apologize for pushing for policies that make us all more free; even if a tiny handful of people die as a result?
Surveillance does not make people less free. Does an audience at a theater make an actor less free? If repressive things happen with the gathered data then that would be a problem but not the surveillance itself.
Should the police be allowed to just randomly stop and frisk you? Maybe give you an anal probe right on the street? Maybe come into your house at night, and search the place for evidence of terrorism? No? You don't think that's ok?
Physically intrusive searches are very different than electronic surveillance.
Will you personally apologize to the families of those killed by attacks that could have been stopped if these searches had been allowed?
I am not sure what you mean by this. You might mean something like "Will you personally apologize to the families of those killed by attacks that occured even though these searched were allowed?" To those families I would say "We did the best we could and used every means possible. I am sorry for your loss." Which is much better than "Your family died because I didn't want a computer scanning my email".
Real Users know your home telephone number.
