FBI wants to require Facebook, Skype, etc to allow wiretapping

[chenGOD]

I understand the numbers just fine.

 

Let's look at it in small numbers - that might help you understand it better.

 

Year 1: 10 drivers. 2 fatalities per 10 drivers. Total - 2 fatalities.

Year 2: 20 drivers. 1 fatality per 10 drivers. Total - 2 fatalities.

 

So like i said, the number of fatalities has remained essentially static.

[eugene]

right, but what year is safer for driving in your example ? in year 1- 20% of your drivers died, in year 2 - 10%.

the total number doesn't tell you what you need in such cases.

[joseph]

I understand the numbers just fine.

 

Let's look at it in small numbers - that might help you understand it better.

 

Year 1: 10 drivers. 2 fatalities per 10 drivers. Total - 2 fatalities.

Year 2: 20 drivers. 1 fatality per 10 drivers. Total - 2 fatalities.

 

So like i said, the number of fatalities has remained essentially static.

 

do you seriously not understand this?

[goDel]

Chen, you're pretty quick to draw a couple of broad conclusions from some numbers. Way too quick. And trollingly quick if you're going into the "small numbers". This seems more like smatistics. If you want to have any meaningful indicators of the effectivenes of regulation there should be at least a defined counter and denominator. The only numbers I've seen are absolute numbers.

 

For instance, while the amount of travelled miles have increased over the years (from 2,4 bln in '94 to 3,0 bln in '09) the amount of casualties (? not sure about the precise definition) decreased from 40,7 to 33,8 over the same period. Doesn't seem static at all to me.

 

Also look at the rates in the lower parts of the table. The rates of fatalities per 100K registered vehicles dropped significantly over the years. While people have been driving more miles!!

 

I don't know. It's pretty easy to 'understand' numbers (1 + 1 =2), but drawing conclusions from them is something else. From the remarks you've made here, you haven't convinced me at all.

 

From the same numbers I read that from '94 there's been a significant/measurabe/meaningful improvement.

[goDel]

Also, thanks for the lecture on civil liberties. I may not be well versed with the precise definitions.

 

The thing with the right to privacy and the right to safety is an awkward one. There's an area where these two things can bite each other. Take for instance Breivik's actions. What would be the point where some type of government/legal intervention could have been made? Right after the first carbomb? The moment he bought the ingredients to make those bombs? The ingredients in and of itself were largely legal. What would you suggest government should do?

Is it that farfetched the government wants in on what's happening on facebook? I'm not saying I agree, or that it's OK for them to do so. I'm still on the fence. But I do understand their point. And what about the right to privacy when people post their lives on some online page? To me, those people already gave up their privacy the minute they made their own facebook page. Just by participating on the internet, people are practically throwing their privacy out the window. The FBI would be the least of my worries, if you'd ask me. I know their responsibilities and their incentives. I've got more problems with all the other parties which have access to the information.

And on a similar note: where do you stand on bank accounts? Do people have the right to privacy with respect to their Swiss bank account? There's all kinds of point of views on issues like these. The suggestion that definitions are well understood and that the space governments are allowed to operate in are clear cut, doesn't do the facts justice, imo.

[chenGOD]

So the number of fatalities has remained the same, therefore the government hasn't done much to reduce the total number of fatalities.

 

Eugene requested the government enforce some magical bullshit to prevent fatalities. Clearly, this has not worked.

 

It has gotten somewhat safer to drive, relative to the total number of drivers.

 

Now can we please get back to the topic of civil liberties? And how the FBI having unlimited, unrestricted access to your private messages/e-mails/skype chats might be a bad idea?

 

posting on a public facebook page - not private.

Private communication between two people - private.

 

We've gone over this: FBI brings evidence to a judge, judge grants or denies authority to conduct espionage through various measures on subject of evidence.

 

Bank accounts: same accountability.

[goDel]

Let's agree on the feeling we're both discussing with a brick wall.

[eugene]

alright let's not dwell on the traffic accidents issue, it'll "click" for you later, if you're convinced that it has gotten safer to drive you're halfway there.

 

i don't think that anyone is cool about fbi having unlimited and unrestricted access, but the idea that having more crucial intelligence at the cost of privacy can't really be discounted if you're being fair. the way it works now might not cover some extreme, time-critical incidents.

 

they probably shouldn't announce those thing to public and do them anyway so not to get you neo-hippies all riled up

[Kanakori]

I don't agree facebook should be assuming the persons has given up on their privacy.

 

The rest is ok. Godel you speak well. I like you.

 

I'm also drunk

[chenGOD]

 

 

 

Do you fear dying in an automobile accident? dying from cancer? dying from natural disasters?

i'm afraid of all of those thing you mentioned and i expect the government that i pay taxes to to do their best to prevent them.

alright let's not dwell on the traffic accidents issue, it'll "click" for you later, if you're convinced that it has gotten safer to drive you're halfway there.

 

I'm not convinced that it's gotten safer to drive. Nor has the government really done anything to reduce the number of accidents, or prevent them. And the numbers bear that out. The only thing that has happened is that your chance of dying from an accident is somewhat reduced.

 

 

i don't think that anyone is cool about fbi having unlimited and unrestricted access, but the idea that having more crucial intelligence at the cost of privacy can't really be discounted if you're being fair. the way it works now might not cover some extreme, time-critical incidents.

 

they probably shouldn't announce those thing to public and do them anyway so not to get you neo-hippies all riled up

 

I will use the September 11, 2001 incident as the basis - I'm no conspiracy nut. That said, there is ample evidence that the FBI and CIA, simply by cooperating with each other, using already on the book methods before the "war on terra" started, could have easily prevented the attacks.

They should probably get rid of investigative reporting, so as to not to get you fascists all riled up.

[eugene]

It has gotten somewhat safer to drive, relative to the total number of drivers.

I'm not convinced that it's gotten safer to drive.

 

The only thing that has happened is that your chance of dying from an accident is somewhat reduced.

 

I will use the September 11, 2001 incident as the basis - I'm no conspiracy nut. That said, there is ample evidence that the FBI and CIA, simply by cooperating with each other, using already on the book methods before the "war on terra" started, could have easily prevented the attacks.

They should probably get rid of investigative reporting, so as to not to get you fascists all riled up.

 

well great, but again, is their current capability and authorization enough to deal with every possible scenario, i understand it'll never come to 100%, but isn't there a room for some maneuvering ?

[chenGOD]

Sure there's room for maneuvering - but not at the expense of people's rights. The speed issue thing is a moot point. It takes time to plan attacks, especially ones as large (relatively speaking) as the 2001 attack.

[eugene]

you're usually quick to come up with a bunch of tl;dr on topic but this time you haven't provided anything. suppose privacy and crime are easily quantifiable - what if this kind of wiretapping decreases the sense of privacy by 5% but also decreases crime rate by 10%, is it justifiable then ? because clearly those two fields are overlapping.

[goDel]

The FBI/CIA might have caught the '01 terrorists with "on the book methods". But what about the Breiviks and those other "lone wolves"? Or the high school shootings? What should government do about those?

Especially given the right people have (???) to carry guns. I mean, at what expense of people's rights?

 

Would it be a simple choice between saying: a. you're not allowed to carry guns, or b. we're allowed to look at what you do on facebook? Should government do nothing? What do you propose?

 

 

also, statistics does not seem to be your stronger point. sorry. and yes it's moot.

[chenGOD]

Suppose nothing. The civil rights laid out in the various documents I've mentioned are held to be inalienable. There are already provisions for when those rights may be violated (such as detaining an individual for trial, even though freedom of movement is one of the basic rights), and they have served very well. Crime has been on the decline in Canada for 20 years, same in the States.

 

I haven't provided a lot because it's 2:30 in the morning, I'm high, and I;d rather not have to argue what should be obvious.

But no, you're right, we should let the government do what it wants, including colluding with media cartels to arrest international copyright infringers.

 

 

I suck at stats. Fully admit that. I know exactly what eugene and you are saying. The rate of incidence has declined. What I am saying is the total number has remained static. Can this be attributed to government intervention?

 

Breivik's internet usage has been analyzed, and according to wiki (yes yes not the most reliable source, but I'm not willing to research further) he "deliberately desisted from violent exhortations on the net [and] has more or less been a moderate, and has neither been part of any extremist network"

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anders_Behring_Breivik#Writings_and_video

 

I don't believe the right to carry guns is inalienable.

[goDel]

Final point, which is imo not the least important: nowadays it's not as much about the right to privacy, but moreso the responsibility to maintain your privacy. With all the freedom and opportunities have people nowadays, there's a fundamental difference with most of our history: we have to work hard for our privacy.

For instance, how many people hide their personal wifi? How many even know they should, or how they could? It takes effort, and people in general hardly seem to care, or don't understand. It might be time for the government to make laws about digital seatbelts. And check wether people wear them. It'd be for their safety/privacy.

[chenGOD]

Yeah i maintain my privacy very well thank you. As you might have noticed there are very few pictures of me in here.

My wifi is secured, wpa2/psk. I control as much as possible who gets to see what on my facebook page.

I would use public keys for my e-mail correspondence if other people could get their act together, although I don't really have much to say in my e-mail correspondence (which does not mean "if you want to hide something, you must be guilty" is a valid argument).

 

That still doesn't invalidate the right to privacy.

[goDel]

I know exactly what eugene and you are saying. The rate of incidence has declined. What I am saying is the total number has remained static. Can this be attributed to government intervention?

 

The total number not very relevant. If the world would be static on all accounts (implying governments intervention would not do a thing) , but the number of drivers would grow and the number of miles they drive would grow as well, statistically speaking the total number should increase. Fact is, it hasn't. So what do you think would cause the number to be static/slighlty decrease? Something happended, right? It might be government interventions. And arguably, the difference between the projected total numbers and the actual total numbers might be the effect of those interventions.

 

Who knows. The point is, absolute numbers are almost meaningless in itself. And two, it's always hard to draw conclusions from numbers in real-world situations (such as these).

 

If you see anyone implying otherwise, you shouldn't take him/her serious. Period.

 

I don't believe the right to carry guns is inalienable.

 

There's quite some people in you know where disagreeing. Government has to do something if the right to carry guns is set in stone. Again, I'm not agreeing on giving the FBI carte blanche.

[goDel]

That last sentence might be confusing. Make that: I'm not saying the FBI should be given cart blanche. ...etc.