NSA Surveillance and What To Do About It - Bruce Schneier - Stanford Center for Internet & Society

NSA Surveillance and What To Do About It - Bruce Schneier - Stanford Center for Internet & Society ( youtube.com )

submitted 2014-12-01T19:40 by GizaDog

3 comments

DukeofAnarchy 2014-12-01T22:44

Thank you for linking this interesting talk. I agree with his ideas for reform, and with the point that wider adoption of encryption can make mass surveillance impracticable.

Things I didn't like:

Spreading US propaganda about Syria.
Using the pronoun "we" when referring to the actions of the US regime. The government is not us.
The idea that the problem more or less began with the GW Bush administration. Not true; contrary to popular myth, 9/11 really didn't change much.
(Related to 1, 3, and perhaps especially to 2.) The implicit wikipedian-like assumption of good faith applied to the US government. Schneier seems to think that having secret police institutions for the purpose of oppression is something only foreign governments do. American agencies must have been basically well intentioned and have gone astray mainly by innocent mistake.

link

flyawayhigh 2014-12-01T22:48

Great points. I especially like the "we" thing. We need to get away from calling the government "we."

9-11 changed things. They pulled the monster out of the closet and dressed it in a suit. Same monster though.

I am in the middle of watching the video myself.

link

DukeofAnarchy 2014-12-01T23:49

Yeah, I should have said something more like, "9/11 didn't change the direction western countries were going." It did allow an acceleration, and boosted public support for the growing police state.

link