HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

⬐ mtgx

Passing the Patriot Act must've been the most anti-patriotic thing the US has ever done. It destroyed Americans' beliefs about what it means to be American, and it also destroyed the foreigners' belief and hopes about America, too.

As a non-American, that's how I see it, and that's why I was hoping Ron Paul became president, because I knew he was probably your only hope to keep America what it used to be, and revert this awful trend of the government killing every American value and the American Constitution.

The worst thing about "tyranny" or anything similar, is not the tyrant himself. That's the easy part, because he can at least be removed. But what do you do with the destroyed culture? The culture that you have free speech and rights to privacy, and the culture that authorities need to respect the spirit of the law, not just the letter (while always seeking loopholes, so they can still "respect" the letter of the law, but do whatever they want. And what do you do with all the millions upon millions of people that believe in the "new" culture, of spying on everyone, and so on?

Once the culture is changed, it takes decades to bring it back.

⬐ Ygg2

There's an interesting thought that tyranny usually appears when a country is in a state of crisis and that tyranny is abolished once that state of crisis is abolished, at least in mind of majority of people.

The "War against Terrorism" might just be a kind of crisis that enables people to achieve a form of tyranny. It doesn't seem to be achieved yet, but who knows.

⬐ jes

Decades, or centuries, perhaps.

I admire Ron Paul when he defends individual rights.

⬐ jmduke

Passing the Patriot Act must've been the most anti-patriotic thing the US has ever done

I'm not defending the PATRIOT Act by any means but I think calling it this makes you a prisoner of recency. I don't understand how someone could genuinely compare the PATRIOT Act to things like the Trail of Tears, Jim Crow, or Japanese-American internments.

⬐ codehalo

The Patriot Act is a precursor to worse things than these. We are just beginning to see their manifestations. It is still early...

⬐ lifeformed

I dunno, the Trail of Tears was pretty bad. I would hope the patriot act doesn't lead to a genocide of 60,000 people.

⬐ stesch

What he says about the picture of the USA during the cold war, that's what we all thought around the world, especially in Germany.

A few people criticized the imperialism, but most people just saw the USA as an example of how the free world should function.

This was shattered during the time of George W. Bush. He ruined it. We all mourned 9/11. We were at shock and couldn't realize what happened. There were minutes of silence around the world. And George W. Bush ruined it. Destroyed the trust and solidarity.

Then came Obama. We thought he will bring peace and undo any wrongdoing of the former government. He even got a Nobel Peace Prize because we thought it was inevitable that things get better.

And now?

⬐ felixmar

In Europe i am hoping that Germany will lead the way. The German people seem to care most about personal freedom. If they can convince the government not to give in to outside pressure to take away more and more liberty it could become not only the economic but also moral leader of Europe.

⬐ ippisl

How did german people,and specifically people who lived in soviet east germany or those close to them, treated online privacy and google/facebook etc, before the NSA scandal ?

⬐ lazyjones

> The German people seem to care most about personal freedom

That may be the case, but they still don't manage to get rid of their corrupt CDU/CSU politicians who are also most active in implementing US- and US-friendly policies in Germany.

My belief is that with proper education, people would find out on the long run how governments should behave and what policies should not be tolerated. But for some reason, education is no longer a priority for these governments, I wonder why...

⬐ mathieuh

The USA has always had fascist policies since far before Bush, and when the EU and Obama are getting peace prizes it kind of detracts from the idea to be honest.

⬐ jes

Respect for individual rights has been under attack for a long, long time in the United States. It didn't start with Bush, and it didn't end with Obama.

⬐ outworlder

Precisely

Even people who didn't ordinarily like the USA were supportive back then. The USA completely ruined all that goodwill.

Heck, done right, that would be way more efficient to prevent further attacks than all the money spend in the NSA.

I had very, very high hopes for Obama. But I guess he too is just a cog in the system. He seems better than Bush, at least.

⬐ coldtea

>What he says about the picture of the USA during the cold war, that's what we all thought around the world, especially in Germany. A few people criticized the imperialism, but most people just saw the USA as an example of how the free world should function.

A few people? Speak for yourself, or maybe Germany, but surely not for "throughout the world".

Well, West Germany was the pet child of the US, to serve as a counter-weight to USSR's influence in East Germany/Europe. But even there, there was tons of popular anti-US sentiment. And even more so in places like Italy, France, Spain, Greece, etc etc.

Not to mention that during the cold war, most of third world and developing countries were anti-US, from Africa to Asia to Latin America. And they have had very bad experiences from the US military and diplomatic influence to justify them too, from toppling Mossadegh to being in bed with Pinochet, and from the Vietnam war to supporting Death Squads in El Salvador.

So, "most of the world"? I beg to differ.

Actually, there were two sentiments. People digged American popular culture (rock music, folk, blues, movies, books, the activism, etc etc) and disliked American policy and interventions.

⬐ aidos

I think you need to look at how the American system treated it's own people (well, at least those lucky enough to be born into one of the more well-off segments of society).

I'm no expert on the matter but I would say a general outsiders perception was that internally the American system treated it's own people fairly. They had good rules in place to fight the issues we're seeing now.

What they did to the rest of the world is, of course, another matter altogether.

⬐ coldtea

>I'm no expert on the matter but I would say a general outsiders perception was that internally the American system treated it's own people fairly.

More or less, yes, that's true. People admired the economic affluence of the US and the political stability and rule of law (if they came from corrupt/troubled/colonised/etc countries). Younger people also admired american pop culture.

But all those still hated the US for its foreign policy.

And the more leftist ones, also had a dislike for the rampant capitalism in the US (they sided with worker's unions and such), and a cultural dislike for the emptiness of consumerism (they sided with the beatnicks, the hippies, etc).

⬐ marcosscriven

No dazzling insights, but Woz's obviously genuine character always gives me a warm fuzzy feeling. Such a lovely guy.

⬐ dmazin

When Woz talks about being proud that American soldiers didn't torture, I feel like I'm listening to a simpleton who happens to be utterly genius but was still brainwashed into seeing any agressive war as commendable.

But then he impressively says some very radical things, such as comparing America to the Stalin-and-on's Soviet Union, which I know many see obvious holes in (e.g. no dictator in America has killed tens of millions of dissidents or forced a territory to starve, though we are obviously committing other atrocities). He mentions property ownership but he chooses the cloud as an example which seems to loop him back to talking about privacy, though I was really interested to hear if he had an explanation for saying private property beyond what is convertible to digital is somehow threatened in America.

He's wonderful though.

⬐ beloch

There's a vast difference between a state whose agents sometimes use torture illicitly and a state whose policies officially sanction and prescribe torture.

There was probably a gradual shift towards the use of torture in U.S. intelligence culture such that Bush's policies were just a rubber-stamp after the fact. The use of techniques such as the "Bell telephone hour" during the Vietnam war were heavily encouraged by pressure from above on intelligence agents to gather confessions and enemy troop positions in quantity, veracity being heavily undervalued. However, even during this period, being caught (by the wrong people) was a danger. It was very much a situation of, "I don't care how you do it so long as you do it, but don't tell me how you did it and, for pete's sake, don't get caught!".

The knowledge that torture was not officially sanctioned, even if routinely ignored, still served to restrain its use. That's why Bush's rubber stamp is still a truly heinous and evil thing. It's the difference between agents re-purposing telephone equipment in the field and permanent torture facilities. To a prisoner, it's the difference between hours of torture and years. That's why I'm still upset with my own government for handing over prisoners to U.S. forces in Afghanistan despite knowing full-well what treatment awaited them.

⬐ dakrisht

With Woz We Stand

⬐ wangweij

Evil, is what Woz says is evil.

⬐ beloch

That's how a reasonable american feels about this. Imagine what is now being felt by people who aren't U.S. citizens, who aren't protected by the U.S. constitution, but who use the same services and who now have their personal data under the noses of the NSA! Imagine how we feel every time Obama or other U.S. government officials try to reassure americans that it's okay and everything is all right because U.S. citizens are protected!

As Woz predicts, most people outside the U.S. are going to ignore this just as most people inside the U.S. will. Some might even laugh! "Haha. Look at the silly americans. They're acting like a banana republic again!". However, at least some of us feel deeply betrayed. Gmail, facebook, and other social/cloud services run by U.S. companies might be constantly trying to sell us stuff, but until now we could reasonably expect U.S. companies to behave according to laws we expect from a free and open first-world democracy. Instead, now we have found out that U.S. laws are being applied to force these companies to violate our privacy, and if we're not U.S. citizens we have absolutely no idea how far it goes.

Facebook: goodbye.

Dropbox: goodbye.

Gmail: goodbye.

Sadly, that's only the start. I'm Canadian. After the patriot act was passed, there was some concern about the privacy implications North of the border. For example Canadian banks, such as CIBC, often outsource some financial services to U.S. companies, and the patriot act greatly reduced the requirements for gaining access to our personal information through this conduit. When this happened it greatly concerned some people, but most of us laughed it off and said that we didn't need to worry if we didn't have a shady account in the Cayman's!

No longer.

CIBC: goodbye.

Am I overreacting? Am I paranoid? The sickening thing is I have no idea what the U.S. will do with all this information about me they have access to. They have no accountability to me and under their laws I have no rights. I am a non-citizen on foreign soil. I am the enemy. I can either try to ignore this or I can start avoiding companies that have anything to do with the U.S. as much as possible. This protects me and allows me to exert the only influence that I, as a foreigner, have on the U.S.: I can deny U.S. companies my money.

⬐ znowi

> Am I overreacting? Am I paranoid?

I think you're saner than many of us. As already being noted a few times, RMS, who is a designated "crackpot", has seen it coming a decade ago.

I think a boiling frog metaphor is very appropriate to what's happening :)

⬐ ra

Totally man. I'm in the process of switching my email from google apps to lavabit + imap client. I've already blocked cookies on www.google.com.au so my searches aren't logged, and I'm running Ghostery to cut all third part cookies.

I hardly ever use facebook but it's definitely going. I'll still use dropbox to accept files from others, but I'll no longer use it as a defacto network drive.

Sad, but the NSA and Whitehouse really fucked this up.

⬐ lemming

FWIW you're not alone in feeling like this. Fortunately I deleted my Facebook and LinkedIn accounts years ago, but losing Google services is going to hurt. It also feels a little futile since my country, like yours, participates in Echelon so I'm not sure how much material difference it really makes. However I have absolutely no control over US policy, and the only thing I can do is hope to motivate Google to lobby for a sane internet by showing them that they are directly affected by the US administration's actions. That, and donate to the EFF.

It's a shame, because there's a lot I really like about Google as a company, and I really think that they're trying to push the bar when it comes to privacy (elliptic cryptography etc) and I love things like Project Loon. But at the end of the day they're screwed for me by the jurisdiction they operate under.