The Blinded Public

[Seth]

Not to suggest that I'm on the side of Big Brother here, but could anyone explain why they think they have any right to privacy from surveillance on Facebook, or on a Web forum like this? These are not private spaces any more than a pub or a park bench. Your email must stay private, like your paper mail, unless there has been just cause established to search it. But when you put something on the internet, it's there for the world to see, whether you like it or not. If you rant to your friends on Facebook or on here about how you'd seriously consider shooting your head of state, why should you be any more surprised when the secret service decide to have a chat with you than if you had muttered the same thing in a corner of a bar or in front of bystanders at a bus stop?

Facebook is supposed to be private within whatever scope you set. If you share only with Friends, then your stuff is only available to you and your friends. If big brother is accessing that, it's bypassing the site's privacy protocols.

You're right, if you say/type something in public, then it is open information. But it's a bit like the idea of surveillance cameras on every corner (like in London). You're in public, so you are technically fair game, but people expect a certain level of privacy from their government. It's not about what's right in a technical/legal sense. It's about what's morally right within the concepts of liberal enlightenment that we all went through over the last 100+ years, supposedly.

Well, if all you wankers had guns and could defend yourselves against terrorist attacks, the government wouldn't need to surveil everyone and anyone all the time, they'd just say "Hey, when you see a terrorist, shoot him" and then they'd come clean up the mess.

If ten people on any one of those airliners that was hijacked on 9/11 had been armed, none of this would have happened.

[pErvinalia]

Yeah, but then we'd have more deaths from shootings instead of terrorism. The threat of terrorism is tiny.

[Seth]

Yeah, but then we'd have more deaths from shootings instead of terrorism. The threat of terrorism is tiny.

Except to those who get killed by terrorists. For them it's a 100 percent guaranteed threat.

[pErvinalia]

Great logic. But for those alive, the threat is tiny.

[RESiNATE]

It is the erosion of our civil rights that concern me, not the level of surveillance per se!!!!

If you've done nothing wrong, then you have nothing to fear. However, it could be argued that the use of that information could be used in a nefarious way if we consider certain movies and indeed real-life instances. This is where our civil rights could be beginning to fail us - the rights that a lot of less educated or aware folk seem happy to give up in the name of 'national security'. Guantanamo Bay is a perfect case in point!

This is what I am worried about! this is the thrust of my argument!

Just as the conversation was taken on my Facebook debate - the point I am trying to make has been misunderstood.

Do not insult my intelligence and suggest that many of the events that happened on September 11th could not have been avoided. A plane is allowed to hit the Pentagon? Flight 93 crashed where they said? No military planes could be scrambled in time?

What the fuck are you paying your taxes (in America) for?

Use your common sense and intelligence.

[RESiNATE]

A plane, so called, hits the pentagon and leaves absolutely no trace of a plane wreckage!!!!

A plane hits the ground and leaves nothing more than a scar on the ground with absolutely no evidence of plane wreckage!!!

Really??

[RESiNATE]

Apologies for the above posts - I have had some disappointing news lately and I took my frustration out in that post and probably out on some of the members at the same time

Whilst I meant what I said, I like to pride myself on being passionate but respectful - that was not very respectful.


Res...

[Ian]

So are you into 9/11 conspiracy theories then?

[klr]

Oh dear God ... it's tinfoil hat time again.

[Brian Peacock]

Not to suggest that I'm on the side of Big Brother here, but could anyone explain why they think they have any right to privacy from surveillance on Facebook, or on a Web forum like this? These are not private spaces any more than a pub or a park bench. Your email must stay private, like your paper mail, unless there has been just cause established to search it. But when you put something on the internet, it's there for the world to see, whether you like it or not. If you rant to your friends on Facebook or on here about how you'd seriously consider shooting your head of state, why should you be any more surprised when the secret service decide to have a chat with you than if you had muttered the same thing in a corner of a bar or in front of bystanders at a bus stop?

Facebook is supposed to be private within whatever scope you set. If you share only with Friends, then your stuff is only available to you and your friends. If big brother is accessing that, it's bypassing the site's privacy protocols.

You're right, if you say/type something in public, then it is open information. But it's a bit like the idea of surveillance cameras on every corner (like in London). You're in public, so you are technically fair game, but people expect a certain level of privacy from their government. It's not about what's right in a technical/legal sense. It's about what's morally right within the concepts of liberal enlightenment that we all went through over the last 100+ years, supposedly.

Well, if all you wankers had guns and could defend yourselves against terrorist attacks, the government wouldn't need to surveil everyone and anyone all the time, they'd just say "Hey, when you see a terrorist, shoot him" and then they'd come clean up the mess.

If ten people on any one of those airliners that was hijacked on 9/11 had been armed, none of this would have happened.

And the Madrid bombing? And the London bombings? How would an armed public have helped there? Seems to me that certain people are woefully over-invested in their personal hero narrative, and mistaking a capacity for violence for some form of righteous justice. Possessing the means to commit violence - explosives or guns or whatever - just bolsters their user's sense that they are not only entitled to use them, but also that it right to do so, particularly where it tallies with their heroic fantasy.

[klr]

Excellent words.

A minor point for Seth (not that it will make any difference): Having lots of people with guns on a pressurised plane is not exactly a good idea.

[piscator]

Excellent words.

A minor point for Seth (not that it will make any difference): Having lots of people with guns on a pressurised plane is not exactly a good idea.

How much pressurization do you think a plane has to have @ FL320? Hint: No one is going to be sucked out through a bullet hole or even a shot out window due to the pressure differential, but anyone with bad teeth will suffer like the damned while the aircraft emergency dives down to FL120 ...

Seth would probably handload frangible rounds to carry on aircraft anyway, if they'd let him.

[piscator]

Not to suggest that I'm on the side of Big Brother here, but could anyone explain why they think they have any right to privacy from surveillance on Facebook, or on a Web forum like this? These are not private spaces any more than a pub or a park bench. Your email must stay private, like your paper mail, unless there has been just cause established to search it. But when you put something on the internet, it's there for the world to see, whether you like it or not. If you rant to your friends on Facebook or on here about how you'd seriously consider shooting your head of state, why should you be any more surprised when the secret service decide to have a chat with you than if you had muttered the same thing in a corner of a bar or in front of bystanders at a bus stop?

Facebook is supposed to be private within whatever scope you set. If you share only with Friends, then your stuff is only available to you and your friends. If big brother is accessing that, it's bypassing the site's privacy protocols.

You're right, if you say/type something in public, then it is open information. But it's a bit like the idea of surveillance cameras on every corner (like in London). You're in public, so you are technically fair game, but people expect a certain level of privacy from their government. It's not about what's right in a technical/legal sense. It's about what's morally right within the concepts of liberal enlightenment that we all went through over the last 100+ years, supposedly.

Well, if all you wankers had guns and could defend yourselves against terrorist attacks, the government wouldn't need to surveil everyone and anyone all the time, they'd just say "Hey, when you see a terrorist, shoot him" and then they'd come clean up the mess.

If ten people on any one of those airliners that was hijacked on 9/11 had been armed, none of this would have happened.

And the Madrid bombing? And the London bombings? How would an armed public have helped there? Seems to me that certain people are woefully over-invested in their personal hero narrative, and mistaking a capacity for violence for some form of righteous justice. Possessing the means to commit violence - explosives or guns or whatever - just bolsters their user's sense that they are not only entitled to use them, but also that it right to do so, particularly where it tallies with their heroic fantasy.

So what you're saying is the power balance is beyond your tastes, and moreover the power-psychology effects of carrying a weapon affects the gun wearer's sense of justice?

[Seth]

A plane, so called, hits the pentagon and leaves absolutely no trace of a plane wreckage!!!!

A plane hits the ground and leaves nothing more than a scar on the ground with absolutely no evidence of plane wreckage!!!

Really??

Where DO you get your information?

What's your explanation of the damage to the Pentagon, which evidence shows intrusion of an aircraft into the side of the building at extremely high speed?

Do you think that every photo by every private person and news agency of the airliners crashing into the Twin Towers were manufactured by the CIA, and that every one of the millions of people who saw it happen have been brainwashed or are CIA agents.

Dude, take some antipsychotics and step away from the keyboard.

[Seth]

Great logic. But for those alive, the threat is tiny.

So what you're saying is that you get to place others at risk of death because they are unable to defend themselves based on your personal analysis of the risks involved?

My guess is that when it's you standing up against the coffee shop window with a gun pointed at your back by some terrorist you're going to be pissing your pants and praying that somebody, somewhere has a gun with which to save you. Well, why should we? Your life is statistically unimportant by your own argument, so why shouldn't we just let the terrorist kill you, or better yet just ram a Hellfire missile or RPG into the shop to kill the terrorist and fuck you and the rest of the hostages. All of you are statistical insignifance and won't be missed at all.