Smapti is Pitted

[andros]

@Smapti

cause to suspect him of a come and a warrant to search his net activity.

Jesus, that’s a crime?

[andros]

@Smapti

He was sorely misguided.

How so? HUAC, under his leadership, was opposing the enemies of the State.

[Smapti]

@andros

Jesus, that’s a crime?

No, that would be my autocorrect acting against me. I meant to type “crime”.

[Smapti]

@andros

How so? HUAC, under his leadership, was opposing the enemies of the State.

Which is admirable, but he was seeing enemies of the state where none existed.

[andros]

@Smapti

No, that would be my autocorrect acting against me. I meant to type “crime”.

Yes, I know.

Which is admirable, but he was seeing enemies of the state where none existed.

In the early 20th century, the Communist Party of the United States of America had some 50,000 members. The Socialist Party of America had around 40,000. The IWO numbered 200,000. Were these people not enemies of the State?

[marshmallow]

Smapti might be a facist (who isn’t nowadays?), but his logic makes about as much sense as democracy worshippers who believe the electorate is filled with idiots voting against their own self interest. Voting “wrong,” in other words. If only everyone voted correctly, the ship of state would right itself. Delusional.

[Smapti]

@andros

In the early 20th century, the Communist Party of the United States of America had some 50,000 members. The Socialist Party of America had around 40,000. The IWO numbered 200,000. Were these people not enemies of the State?

It has never been illegal simply to be a member of any of those parties, and very few of those people ever engaged in any treasonous behavior.

In any event, McCarthy was much more interested in imaginary spy rings and conspiracy theories than he was in rooting out actual traitors.

[Smapti]

@marshmallow

Voting “wrong,” in other words. If only everyone voted correctly, the ship of state would right itself. Delusional.

What’s delusional about it?

[PaulParkhead]

@Smapti

I agree. But that’s not what we’re talking about; Steve MB is arguing that it should be impossible for the police to snoop on him even if they had cause to suspect him of a come and a warrant to search his net activity.

No, as I read his argument, it’s more along the lines that he should not be prohibited from locking the door to his house just because the police might, hypothetically, be granted a warrant to search the place.

[Smapti]

@PaulParkhead

No, as I read his argument, it’s more along the lines that he should not be prohibited from locking the door to his house just because the police might, hypothetically, be granted a warrant to search the place.

He’s gone on so many times now about how great it is that "the tech community is developing encryption that can never ever be cracked. He appears to be arguing that he should be able to put up an armored door that can’t be unlocked or broken down, retrofit his entire house into a giant panic room, and ignore the cops and their warrant.

[andros]

@Smapti

It has never been illegal simply to be a member of any of those parties, and very few of those people ever engaged in any treasonous behavior.

In any event, McCarthy was much more interested in imaginary spy rings and conspiracy theories than he was in rooting out actual traitors.

Yes. And yet, people doing perfectly legal things were persecuted, and prosecuted, by an overreaching arm of the government. Which, interestingly enough, involved surveillance including wiretapping, whisper campaigns, and mail tampering. Careers were destroyed. Lives were destroyed.

And you wonder why some of us might be concerned about keeping our perfectly legal activities private?

[Velocity]

@Smapti

It has never been illegal simply to be a member of any of those parties, and very few of those people ever engaged in any treasonous behavior.

Coming from someone who said Obama ought to classify the Republican Party as a terrorist organization?
Ever heard of hypocrisy?

[PaulParkhead]

@Smapti

He’s gone on so many times now about how great it is that "the tech community is developing encryption that can never ever be cracked. He appears to be arguing that he should be able to put up an armored door that can’t be unlocked or broken down, retrofit his entire house into a giant panic room, and ignore the cops and their warrant.

Is it illegal to secure one’s house? I mean, I’m in the UK so maybe things are different, but I’m not aware of any law which states that your house must be accessible to the police regardless of how it is secured. The police may obtain a warrant to force entry, but you’re not obliged to give a key to the government just in case this happens.

[Smapti]

@Velocity

Coming from someone who said Obama ought to classify the Republican Party as a terrorist organization?
Ever heard of hypocrisy?

The legal authority did not exist in the early 20th century for the president to deem a group terrorist and take legal action against it. Had it, things might have been different.

Thanks to the GOP and the voters who put them in office and kept them there, it does now.

[Smapti]

@andros

Yes. And yet, people doing perfectly legal things were persecuted, and prosecuted, by an overreaching arm of the government. Which, interestingly enough, involved surveillance including wiretapping, whisper campaigns, and mail tampering. Careers were destroyed. Lives were destroyed.

And you wonder why some of us might be concerned about keeping our perfectly legal activities private?

The fact that authority can be abused is not an argument for anarchism.

[Steve_MB]

@Smapti

I agree. But that’s not what we’re talking about; Steve MB is arguing that it should be impossible for the police to snoop on him even if they had cause to suspect him of a come and a warrant to search his net activity.

@Steve_MB

Realistically, what can be created is a security system that is extremely difficult but not utterly impossible to crack. Ordinary people won’t be able to get in at all (unless you do something stupid like use your name spelled backwards for a password); megacorps and governments will be able to get in (or bypass) the security with significant effort. The end result will be to make mass fishing-expedition surveillance impossible while leaving enough leeway for a reasonable number of individually targeted surveillance operations, each of which would need justification for the resources expended. Ideally, the encryption itself would be prohibitively difficult to break, leaving the option of using bypass measures such as keylogging (thus inhibiting the government from spying on people for illegitimate reasons such as political opposition, because any significant risk of getting caught tips the cost-benefit analysis away from such dirty tricks).

Given that this situation satisfies the legitimate needs of law enforcement and national security, arguments based on those concerns may be dismissed out of hand as irrelevant to this issue.

Now, you’ve left yourself two options.

Do you prefer to confess to illiteracy, or to dishonesty?

[Steve_MB]

@Smapti

The legal authority did not exist in the early 20th century for the president to deem a group terrorist and take legal action against it.

“Illiteracy” pulls ahead by a nose!

Much of the Act’s enforcement was left to the discretion of local United States Attorneys, so enforcement varied widely. For example, Socialist Kate Richards O’Hare gave the same speech in several states, but was convicted and sentenced to a prison term of five years for delivering her speech in North Dakota. Most enforcement activity occurred in the Western states where the Industrial Workers of the World was active.[22] Finally Gregory, a few weeks before the end of the war, instructed the U.S. Attorneys not to act without his approval.

A year after the Act’s passage, Eugene V. Debs, Socialist Party presidential candidate in 1904, 1908, and 1912 was arrested and sentenced to 10 years in prison for making a speech that “obstructed recruiting”. He ran for president again in 1920 from prison. President Warren G. Harding commuted his sentence in December 1921 when he had served nearly five years.[23]

[Smapti]

@Steve_MB

“Illiteracy” pulls ahead by a nose!

I’m sorry, I missed the part of the Espionage Act that empowers the president to declare an organization as a terrorist group. Could you read it to me?

[Smapti]

@Steve_MB

Now, you’ve left yourself two options.

Do you prefer to confess to illiteracy, or to dishonesty?

Neither.

[andros]

@Smapti

The fact that authority can be abused is not an argument for anarchism.

No shit. Gosh, it’s a good thing I have not tried to use it as an argument for anarchism, huh?
So you’re arguing that if I were, say, a Hollywood actor and a member of the Communist Party during the Red Scare, doing absolutely nothing illegal, and I were to take steps to keep my political affiliations private from the government (including, say, installing a secure phone line), that I would be…an anarchist?