PRISM - Where are all the protests?

[elthingo]

I am honestly completely taken aback by this. America is basically the only nation in the world that considers freedom a huge part of its national identity, so much so that they've named themselves "the land of the free".

And then PRISM happened. A secret police secretly spying on probably hundreds of millions of people from the US, its allies and the rest of the world under a president who made freedom, privacy and transparency a huge point of his campaign and on top of that, the FREAKING DIRECTOR of the NSA lies right in the face of congress UNDER OATH and walks away without any punishment whatsoever.

The American reaction to this? A freaking petition to the white house. No protests, no significant calls for Obama to step down and call for early elections, nothing. Not even any major rallies in defense of the guy who gave up a life of wealth and safety to warn the American people, risking his life and going up against the biggest superpower in the world in the process. There were literally bigger rallies in Hong Kong. Yes. China did more to support a guy who did nothing for them than the Americans, for whom he sacrificed almost everything.

I mean, Sweden, "The land of the midnight sun", not "The land of the free" had massive protests outside the Riskdag (our version of congress, basically) when the government considered doing an incredibly light version of this, and in that case they actually told us beforehand. So, what's going on here?

 

[FalloutJack]

To be fair, the freedom of the U.S. is a few leagues more free than alot of the rest of the world. I can understand comparing to Sweden, though in their case 'light' for a smaller country with not the same kind of runaway budget as us may be about the same as what's happening here. Even still, this country enjoys quite a bit even in bad times, so it's all a matter of perspective on how people should react to anything when they're drinking lattes, playing MMOs, and reclining on comfee chairs while facing a huge freaking TV.

That said...

The idea that we could be being spied upon, even constantly, is a really irritating 'War on Terror' bullcrap in my opinion. It's probably the equivalent of putting a cast on a leg that is infected, not broken. Regardless of all rationales, it IS a slippery slope of having an army of unwanted voyeurs in your life.

 

[Dangit2019]

What's going on here is that people are becoming more and more indifferent to things happening around them because they live with a mentality that they live in their own little bubble.

I mean, how else don't do you explain the huge amount of teenagers who have their "Political Affiliation" status on Facebook as "lol politicians are retarted". It's fascinating really.

People will protest only when there's a clear enemy and a "good side" is involved. Like Kony 2012 for instance. Kony was just something everybody could imagine twirling a mustache and ordering the deaths of hundreds of children, and Invisible Children were the almighty opponents to his slaughter. It was only when the facts were presented to the public about both parties that people utterly lost interest.

With this, it's a huge web of organizations and blacked out meetings, without a single person to pin it all down on, and no clear "good guy" (Snowden's too fishy to take this position). So with that, the public puts it into their "well that sucks" folder and goes about their day.

 

[LetalisK]

My theory is that people saw what the NSA was doing and said "Oh, that's it? I expected way worse. Okay then".

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

What's going on here is that people are becoming more and more indifferent to things happening around them because they live with a mentality that they live in their own little bubble.

I mean, how else don't do you explain the huge amount of teenagers who have their "Political Affiliation" status on Facebook as "lol politicians are retarted". It's fascinating really.

People will protest only when there's a clear enemy and a "good side" is involved. Like Kony 2012 for instance. Kony was just something everybody could imagine twirling a mustache and ordering the deaths of hundreds of children, and Invisible Children were the almighty opponents to his slaughter. It was only when the facts were presented to the public about both parties that people utterly lost interest.

With this, it's a huge web of organizations and blacked out meetings, without a single person to pin it all down on, and no clear "good guy" (Snowden's too fishy to take this position). So with that, the public puts it into their "well that sucks" folder and goes about their day.

Well, to be fair to those teenagers, politicians ARE retarded, and it's really difficult to choose a political party in America when the two primary parties are the democrats, a bunch of spineless cowards who lie to you and spy on you, and the republicans, a bunch of bible thumping inbred jackasses who lie to you and spy on you.

I mean, you could go third party, but considering a third party candidate has about as much chance of getting elected president as me finishing those genetically engineered flying pigs I've been breeding, I'd say their apathy is not unwarranted.

 

[Kolby Jack]

People are willing to put up with things as long as it doesn't really affect them. As it stands, it doesn't seem like the NSA or government has done anything malicious with this program (beyond the initial breech of privacy). Whereas they've apparently now come out and listed several terrorist plots that the program helped thwart (I know they've SAID this, but I'm not sure they've actually proven it yet). So for now, most people seem content to just leave it be as it doesn't really affect them and nothing bad has come of it. When something bad does happen, I'm sure the response will be more enthusiastic. Until then, who really cares?

And I have nothing against Sweden (I am of Swedish heritage, myself) but it's not really fair to compare it to America. Sweden is a fine country, but let's be fair here: it's small, less populous, and it has few enemies. America is a superpower, and the only one in the world by many accounts. We have many people looking to knock us down a peg or two, a very large military force which is large not only to defend us but also to provide hefty support to our less militarily capable allies (like Sweden), and a combination of a huge landmass and equally impressive population to keep track of. I'm not saying these are excuses for shifty dealings, but certain considerations have to made to keep us as secure as we've become accustomed to.

 

[Dangit2019]

Well, to be fair to those teenagers, politicians ARE retarded, and it's really difficult to choose a political party in America when the two primary parties are the democrats, a bunch of spineless cowards who lie to you and spy on you, and the republicans, a bunch of bible thumping inbred jackasses who lie to you and spy on you.

I mean, you could go third party, but considering a third party candidate has about as much chance of getting elected president as me finishing those genetically engineered flying pigs I've been breeding, I'd say their apathy is not unwarranted.

See, you're giving people my age too much credit; the people I'm talking about think politicians are retarded because they themselves don't understand anything about politics.

I mean, people in my class legitimately still believe that we should (depending on the left/right affiliation):

A. Drop a shitload of nukes on the Middle East (nowhere specific, just the whole Middle East)
-or-
B. Just stop having any structure or diplomacy and run free through the meadows.

 

[Angelblaze]

Its more like 'Oh, they saw my porn and I'm not arrested? Holy shit - that's the most dangerous thing about me! Mkay I'm good with it~'.

 

[Vegosiux]

The American reaction to this? A freaking petition to the white house. No protests, no significant calls for Obama to step down and call for early elections, nothing.

What would that accomplish, though? You don't fix a system simply by replacing a figurehead. Especially one dominated by two entities because of the first-past-the-post way of doing things, and both said entities having a vested interest to continue these practices.

 

[elthingo]

Its more like 'Oh, they saw my porn and I'm not arrested? Holy shit - that's the most dangerous thing about me! Mkay I'm good with it~'.

Yeah, because you're a standard issue citizen flying far below the radar, but what if it was someone more important? Like, let's say there's a period where journalists are really screwing the government over by finding out some awful stuff the government wants to keep secret, so they decide they're going to put all the important journalists on the secret watchlist. This is already pretty bad, but what if they decide they're going to act on this information?

All they'd need to do would be to wait for the journalist to slip up in an email or call the wrong person and voila, blackmail just got really, really easy. If that fails, just use the heaps of information you've collected on him/her to find something bad and you've got what you need to gag the bastard if he finds out about all that covert support going to that especially awful ruler.

This applies to politicians, activist leaders, political opponents to the incumbent party, anyone. Sure, it's not that bad yet, but allowing this can let it become that bad really easily.

 

[Thaluikhain]

I am honestly completely taken aback by this. America is basically the only nation in the world that considers freedom a huge part of its national identity, so much so that they've named themselves "the land of the free".

Well, from an outside perspective, that seems to be mostly empty words.

Likewise, the US is, as a whole, very big on democracy, and how it makes them the greatest nation on Earth. And yet half the voters don't bother voting, and massive slabs of the nation truly despise other massive slabs.

 

[O maestre]

to be fair Prism seemed to come out of nowhere, still I am curious as to how the news media, especially fox has been so lazy to report on this, the patriot act got a lager response than this. Then I found out that a lot of americans are in favour of prism, even after the leak scandal. The fear of terrorism has made people complacent. Those americans who are not gripped by fear have apathy that is astounding, when people are comfortable they don't seem to care about civil liberties and rights. If I was an american citizen I swear I would have been actively campaigning.

On the other hand though I am not surprised by Prism at all, google, apple and all the other companies are logging this data anyway, the difference now is that the government has a permanent warrant to access that data.

Also people who say "if you got nothing to hide then you shouldn't be scared" should have their citizenship revoked. On another side not I find it ironic how the military didn't want the Xbone kinect to always be online due to any secrets it could record.

 

[O maestre]

Its more like 'Oh, they saw my porn and I'm not arrested? Holy shit - that's the most dangerous thing about me! Mkay I'm good with it~'.

god you are really self centred, people who say stuff like this would be happy to live under dictatorships with this level of apathy( I apologise if you only meant your statement as an example) Imagine Prism used for political purposes like the recent IRS scandal involving the IRS hounding Obama's political opponents, that already is not far off from a virtual watergate already, what if the government used the knowledge gathered from Prism for black mail. Or activist journalists and whistle blowers. American freedom is more and more becoming a rhetorical illusion. This is the kind of stuff that tinfoil hat conspiracy theorists have been raving about for ages, except this is real.

My countries government is small and I also know they are far too powerless and most of simple minded to come with some of the covert schemes the US government has had in effect. Albeit most of those programs and experiments were from the cold war, I doubt that the mentality has changed at all.

I wish I could do something, but my lack of american citizenship and my governments obsession with being americas ***** means I cant do anything but rant on the internet.

 

[Nickolai77]

What's going on here is that people are becoming more and more indifferent to things happening around them because they live with a mentality that they live in their own little bubble.

I mean, how else don't do you explain the huge amount of teenagers who have their "Political Affiliation" status on Facebook as "lol politicians are retarted". It's fascinating really.

I think the trouble is we are comparing ourselves to our parents generation who came of age in the 60's and 70's. Then, politically and demographically all the conditions were in place for social activism. You had two world wars which drastically altered society- It changed how we view other races, our stance on colonialism and women for instance. And then right after the world wars you had the baby boomer's which meant that for a limited amount of time there were a lot of young people being raised in a post-war world which was very different to the pre-war world.

What i'm saying is that the mid-20th century was a time of historically unusual high levels of social activism, and the activism you see today is therefore inevitably going to pale in comparison.

 

[Naeras]

This isn't just the Americans, though. The current government here in Norway didn't even bat an eye in reaction to this. There were no debates on the subject of Norwegians being spied on illegally, no public statements regarding it, and no comments or condemnations given in direction of the US government. Just a big fat nothing, as if they were just hoping the case would die down so they could get back to the elections in September.

Sigh. Is there any wonder why the focus always seems to be on the fact that Snowden has fled to China, rather than "guys, NSA is spying on us, fuck those guys"?

 

[Esotera]

I have no idea, the reaction appears to be the same in the UK for our government agency. There's been no statement apart from "trust us, it's legal" and apparently everyone has accepted that.

The whistleblower reminds me of Daniel Ellsberg, except this time round the public don't seem to care at all. At the very least I was hoping that this would damage the trust in the administrations carrying out this blanket surveillance.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

I don't know, really. I assume it's somewhat because large parts of the public consider it necessary to counter terrorism, which is probably bullshit, but yeah. Let's see some rioting guys. Your government spies on you without telling you. Oh wait, I've got a new application for the Joker meme: "Monitor internet and telephone usage, no-one bats an eye. Suggest that maybe assault weapons shouldn't be carried in public and everyone loses their minds!"

But of course every other country should be annoyed as well, doubly so if their own intelligence agencies are likely to have used the data.

 

[Ieyke]

I think a big part of it is that the NSA is a nebulous shadowy thing that people are afraid of and don't really know how to face.
People, I don't think, are super clear on where they might go to be angry at the NSA in a direct way.
That takes a lot of wind out of the sails of protest.

 

[Thaluikhain]

This is the kind of stuff that tinfoil hat conspiracy theorists have been raving about for ages, except this is real.

Well, there's that, but then it's not just conspiracy theorists saying it. People have known, or at least suspected, the US government of doing such things for years, the conspiracy theorists just exaggerate it.

Plenty of examples of the US doing this sort of thing in the past, nobody is that surprised to learn they are still doing it.

 

[Roxor]

I see I'm not the only one puzzled at the lack of a reaction to this.

When the government in Turkey got too authoritarian and tried to bring in religiously-motivated laws, it resulted in mass protests across the country.

When the US government does something far worse by spying on its own people nobody seems to care.

Did the Yanks take a look at 1984 and think "Yeah, I wouldn't mind living there."?

Solvemedia: blaze a trail

Yes, that's what you should be doing. Blazing a trail to throw out all those corrupt politicians who think spying on people is a good idea.