Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[nenjin]

They're responsible to the military CoC, and to their superiors. That's it. That's how they're able to do their jobs. You cannot be a soldier if you question your orders, even if us civvies would have no problem going "Uh, that's totally a breach of morality." That's why we're civvies.

And unfortunately, government service is seen as a form of pseudo military service, so the same mentality applies there. Even when it shouldn't because they're dealing with far more complicated issues than what a soldier is asked to do.

[Kandi Apple]

All levels of a chain of abuse hold responsiblity for that abuse, not just the ones giving orders. Those that call the shots may tell the individual agents to do these things, but the acts are still commited by the agents. They are responsible for the infingement of civil liberties as much as their superiors, and should be no less opposed.

That's not completely fair but I understand your point.

[Aqizzar]

And unfortunately, government service is seen as a form of pseudo military service, so the same mentality applies there. Even when it shouldn't because they're dealing with far more complicated issues than what a soldier is asked to do.

No, no it doesn't.  Mainly because the vast, vast majority of intelligence analysis today is carried out by private contractors, an increasingly large number of whom got into it purely for the money.  Prior to 9/11, Richard Clarke was essentially the government's entire Osama bin Laden unit, which gives you an idea of what the scale of the apparatus was as a whole.  In the past ten years, just in D.C. alone, new office space three times the floorspace of the Pentagon had to be built to house all the new departments and contracted agencies.  Every single one of them got into the game as a purely personal decision, most of them by leaving government service to do the same job for more pay with less standards.

[Nadaka]

They're responsible to the military CoC, and to their superiors. That's it. That's how they're able to do their jobs. You cannot be a soldier if you question your orders, even if us civvies would have no problem going "Uh, that's totally a breach of morality." That's why we're civvies.

And unfortunately, government service is seen as a form of pseudo military service, so the same mentality applies there. Even when it shouldn't because they're dealing with far more complicated issues than what a soldier is asked to do.

And? We need to resist this on every level, in every way. We need to apply the full spectrum of pressure. We need to make it pointless and expensive because some people don't care about morality, legality or public opinion. You can no more convince some of the people in power with protests and letter writing that a secret police state is wrong, illegal and anti American than you could convince Osama Bin Laden that America isn't the great Satan.

[Virex]

There may be some purpose to acting like a dick, but it does not excuse being a dick. Not to mention a vital thing to understand about chain of command/responsibility, which I'm sure Strife would make a bit clearer than I.

I thought the right to be a dick was one of the fundamental parts of the constitution?


Also someone abusing the power of a wiretap to find out what his neighbor is doing is in my opinion far less a problem then someone abusing the power of a jet liner to deconstruct a building or someone abusing the power of a block of concrete to give a reporter swimming lessons.

[nenjin]

And unfortunately, government service is seen as a form of pseudo military service, so the same mentality applies there. Even when it shouldn't because they're dealing with far more complicated issues than what a soldier is asked to do.

No, no it doesn't.  Mainly because the vast, vast majority of intelligence analysis today is carried out by private contractors, an increasingly large number of whom got into it purely for the money.  Prior to 9/11, Richard Clarke was essentially the government's entire Osama bin Laden unit, which gives you an idea of what the scale of the apparatus was as a whole.  In the past ten years, just in D.C. alone, new office space three times the floorspace of the Pentagon had to be built to house all the new departments and contracted agencies.  Every single one of them got into the game as a purely personal decision, most of them by leaving government service to do the same job for more pay with less standards.

While I know that a lot of government work from defense to logistics to intelligence is contracted out, the question and the problem still comes up with government operatives too. Torture and detention for information gathering, and what government employees are asked to do, comes into the same conflict a soldier faces when being asked to, say, fire on an enemy compound that obviously has non-combatants inside. They're forced to make the same decision between following orders and listening to their conscious. And while the post 9/11 mentality has died down, in Bush's era lots of non-military government personnel were treating their loyalty to the job as more important than their own moral compass, saying disobeying orders could lead to theoretical millions dead.

For soldiers, I can buy that because the alternative may get you shot in the face. For government employees, I expect a little more faithfulness to their conscious.

As for the contractors, I expect them to get treated like we say most businessmen should be, and be held accountable to the law. Unfortunately, the military-industrial complex has never been healthier, because the lines between businessmen, government operative and criminal and have never been blurrier.

[Sergius]

Poor poor wiretappers, having their constitutional right to not be overworked being violated by mean pre-terrorist citizens.

[Bauglir]

I think the principle at work here is the same as, "Don't be a dick to soldiers for being soldiers, because chances are the motivation for signing on was to serve their loved ones, not to stomp all over some other culture," or "Don't be a dick to telemarketers for being telemarketers, because they probably took the only job for which they were qualified and likely to be hired, and are as a consequence stuck in a job that's as exploitative of employees as of customers". Somewhere in between those two, really, since it seems to have elements of both, but to not be as extreme as either.

But not "The government is infallible and you should be ashamed of yourselves for ever questioning it." That is silly.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

There's a difference. I feel sympathy for soldiers who want to do good and end up in geopolitical conflicts that are out of their hands, but not those that, for example, would shoot civilians because their CO told them to.
These wiretapping agents have far less benevolent intentions in any case, and so I will never feel sympathy for them untill their organizations change in their entierty.
Telemarketers are annoying, but they don't end with people dead/imprisoned in secret facilites because they're "suspected" of being a "terrorist". I can just hang up on telemarketers.

[Phmcw]

There may be some purpose to acting like a dick, but it does not excuse being a dick. Not to mention a vital thing to understand about chain of command/responsibility, which I'm sure Strife would make a bit clearer than I.

I thought the right to be a dick was one of the fundamental parts of the constitution?


Also someone abusing the power of a wiretap to find out what his neighbor is doing is in my opinion far less a problem then someone abusing the power of a jet liner to deconstruct a building or someone abusing the power of a block of concrete to give a reporter swimming lessons.

What does your second argument mean? They are doing it to keep the mean terrorists out? And we're supposed to accept that excuse?

[Virex]

Difference of views I guess. It's just that I can't really see how privacy would be valued over the protection of life and property. I mean I've always been told that privacy is valuable, but I don't get why it's so valuable that we should put the lives of others on the line for it? Maybe I'm thinking too much for myself here, but the idea just doesn't click. (I seem to have the same problem with a lot of other topics that are considered 'civilized ideas' so maybe I should just stop thinking about these things)

[Zrk2]

Is not your privacy also your property?

Anyway, this proves my point; Obama is not the magic Jesus saviour dude many make him out to be, he is just another president promising to solve all the problems in a long line of presidents promising to solve problems.

As well, Rand Paul is still my favourite senator. BRO IS BRO.

[Virex]

Is not your privacy also your property?

I don't think that peeking in your letters is at the same level as throwing a stone through your window...

[Phmcw]

Difference of views I guess. It's just that I can't really see how privacy would be valued over the protection of life and property.

Not really, just scale : let's be serious for one second : how many horrible death are caused by serial killers per years in the US? How many people die everyday from car crash? And so on...
You can't  destroy all privacy to stop the serials killers (or rather, you CAN do that, but under very serious scrutiny) I don't see why you gobble the excuse that a few lone terrorist (because we're not speaking about al Quaida there, they are clever enough to encrypt their communications, which is easy as pie by the way) warrant the wiretapping of the whole nation.
If you want to save peoples, you have better things to do.

[Eagleon]

Is not your privacy also your property?

I don't think that peeking in your letters is at the same level as throwing a stone through your window...

Both are violations. Privacy is valuable because we value privacy, no other reason is needed, but you could do a lot of horrible things to a person if you could just look through their mail without restriction. It's always been a federal crime to do so, and changing that is one giant leap towards a dictatorship, pretty clearly. Wiretapping and intercepting electronic communications (functionally becoming the same thing) has been illegal for the exact same reason, and it's difficult to argue that they're any different - both can provide sensitive information, both can be used to oppress, and both have that 'ick' factor that makes most people that think about it long enough pretty pissed off.