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Gyges posted:You do have to love the vanity required for the contextualization though. All the things you've done or said electronically will be lost in the sea of data. But pictures of your dick? gently caress, no way those get lost in the shuffle. Your dick is magic. I guess the biggest point it hits at is the reflexive "If you have nothing to hide, why do you care?" defense people throw up. It's an effective reminder that there's lots of things you do care about being private even if you don't have terrorist connections or insider trading to hide. It's probably also a reminder that it takes a lot of trust to think that an apparatus designed to give total information control over a country (and really, the world) will never be abused, and the potential damage an unscrupulous person could do with it. If Nixon were President in the 21st century he wouldn't have needed to break into Watergate, he could've perfectly legally spied on anyone he wanted - or at least done so untraceably. Raising public consciousness about privacy issues is absolutely the only way to get any movement on them.
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Apr 7, 2015 01:19
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JohnSherman posted:A huge part of any conversation on government surveillance is about how privacy is important even if you're not a terrorist, because a ton of people operate with that mindset of "if you have nothing to hide, why do you care?" This was never brought up, and it really should have been. What's the obvious retort to this attitude? I come across it often and I find it very hard to rebut.
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Apr 7, 2015 01:23
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xcore posted:What's the obvious retort to this attitude? I come across it often and I find it very hard to rebut. Well, Edward Snowden actually presented the argument without the question being prompted, and it is that if these records exist, then they can be mishandled, stolen, leaked, etc. So yeah, you might trust the NSA knowing these secrets, but how about China? Russia? Some private insurance company? Some rear end in a top hat who just got records from the NSA in a very strange and unlikely scenario?
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Apr 7, 2015 01:27
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Strobe posted:"Yeah well your country sucks too" is such a wonderful counterstatement. Did you hear a whooshing sound above you just then? That was the point.
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Apr 7, 2015 01:36
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xcore posted:What's the obvious retort to this attitude? I come across it often and I find it very hard to rebut. "Of course you do, you idiot."
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Apr 7, 2015 01:36
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IRQ posted:Did you hear a whooshing sound above you just then? That was the point. Going back and reading, I did miss the point you were trying to make. If only that made your lovely joke worth reading.
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Apr 7, 2015 01:44
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I don't know how to feel about the fact that the best US journalism is coming out of a satire program. Anyway, his journalistic rigor was part of the reason Snowden ok'd the interview.quote:The interview took many months to arrange. Only a handful of American journalists have traveled to Russia to meet Snowden in person. (Snowden has been living there in exile while his lawyers seek a way for him to return to the United States.)
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Apr 7, 2015 01:45
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xcore posted:What's the obvious retort to this attitude? I come across it often and I find it very hard to rebut. Have they ever done anything embarrassing, extremely stupid, or have a completely legal secret they'd like kept? For instance, would they like the world to know what type of porn they like, what they've searched WebMD for, or the content and photos that make up all their texts to their romantic interests? Besides, if they didn't have anyting to hide they wouldn't care if you read their complete medical history, listened in to all their conversations with their Lawyer or broadcast their confessions to their Priest.
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Apr 7, 2015 01:50
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JohnSherman posted:I agree to an extent, but I do think that the whole dick pics thing oversimplifies a serious issue. The fact that NSA employees pass around dick pics for fun is the least horrifying thing about a government agency that has the ability to access pretty much any data it wants with only a kangaroo court to keep it in check. No it is not oversimplifying a serious issue it is making that issue something the average person can relate to. I like how Oliver asked him about how different programs deal with dickpics. It didn't get bound up in abstract jargon but made it very clear to me at least how each program works by keeping the basic premise simple. Lowtechs fucked around with this message at 02:05 on Apr 7, 2015 |
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Apr 7, 2015 01:55
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Strobe posted:Going back and reading, I did miss the point you were trying to make. You really don't find it somewhat ironic that a german was taking america to task for letting our government do lovely things? I mean I know it's  as gently caress but come on! Lighten up.
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Apr 7, 2015 01:57
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Simultaneously the funniest and most important news I've seen in a while.
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Apr 7, 2015 02:03
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I've decided to share that interview on FB every single day between now and June 1st. I had no idea of the scope of things, or just how easy it was for the gov't to get my dick pics. It was insane when he was talking about how an email between my wife and I might go to a foreign server before coming back to the US and then bam NSA has a copy of it. I was utterly amazed. I have always felt that Snowden and Manning didn't do anything wrong but this just reinforced my beliefs.
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Apr 7, 2015 02:05
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Julian Assange on the interview:quote:Great to see Oliver making it real -- though I felt great sympathy for Edward having to go through that. Public commentators are obsessed with influencing the public, but the reality is the US public isn't going to solve this. A powerful, invisible, intangible, complex, global system, with a scale only the deeply numerate can appreciate has been erected. Until we see the bulk release of individual's emails or SMS messages, the average person isn't going to believe its real. Until then, the pushback is going to come from technical organisations and other state's counter intelligence units. I agree with him. Look at every injustice that has happened recently. Even with public acknowledgement and mass demonstrations, things aren't changing.
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Apr 7, 2015 02:19
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im gay posted:I agree with him. Look at every injustice that has happened recently. Even with public acknowledgement and mass demonstrations, things aren't changing. Although I'm not au fait with the recent happenings in the US around net neutrality, didn't public awareness and people power have at least something to do with the recent ammendments to the proposals?
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Apr 7, 2015 02:38
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It's quite different than net neutrality. It would involve the US Government and multiple agencies reverting domestic and foreign policy in a time when it is at a fever pitch with ISIS.
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Apr 7, 2015 02:47
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im gay posted:I agree with him. Look at every injustice that has happened recently. Even with public acknowledgement and mass demonstrations, things aren't changing. One of the things Snowden revealed was that the NSA has an annual black budget of ~$50 billion. That sort of money isn't going to budge on account of public protest.
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Apr 7, 2015 02:51
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NoEyedSquareGuy posted:One of the things Snowden revealed was that the NSA has an annual black budget of ~$50 billion. That sort of money isn't going to budge on account of public protest. Not to mention it's the type of funding Congress loves approving similar to big defense budget items.
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Apr 7, 2015 03:07
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etalian posted:Not to mention it's the type of funding Congress loves approving similar to big defense budget items. ""WE NEED TO CUT TAXES AND GO BACK TO SMALLER GOVERNMENT!" "So, what about the $700-800 billion on defense spending? Even $50 billion would be a huge saving" "WHY DO YOU HATE AMERICA! WE NEED TO GUT MEDICARE AND SOCIAL SECURITY BECAUSE OF WELFARE QUEENS"
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Apr 7, 2015 03:24
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That was a really great episode especially how john didn't hold back on making GBS threads on him at all. The exchanging of his dick picture with that subtle burn was great.
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Apr 7, 2015 03:40
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im gay posted:Julian Assange on the interview: Maybe if they took their protest to the voting booth we might have some change. You don't change the military industrial complex through protests and media attention. You do it by all going out and voting in primaries and then voting in the general. Every election, no matter if it's for the President or not.
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Apr 7, 2015 03:47
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im gay posted:Julian Assange on the interview: That's because those are all tactics which lead to really nothing in of themselves with out having a specific goal to accomplish. Great you protested and made the public aware of the issue, then you turned it over and said " You, you fix this".
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Apr 7, 2015 03:50
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Gyges posted:Maybe if they took their protest to the voting booth we might have some change. You don't change the military industrial complex through protests and media attention. You do it by all going out and voting in primaries and then voting in the general. Every election, no matter if it's for the President or not. If the M-I complex (which honestly should be called the Military-Industrial-Information complex now) and billionaires suddenly couldn't buy/steal elections and horrifically gerrymander districts, they'd stage a coup. Or if you're into JFK theories, *another* coup. People aren't doing anything because they sense the end coming. They didn't fix *anything* after the 2008 financial crisis, they just taped a balloon to an arterial bleed and have been hoping it won't burst again while they're in charge/during their lifetimes. BIG HEADLINE fucked around with this message at 06:49 on Apr 7, 2015 |
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Apr 7, 2015 06:44
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I wonder how much information has leaked out of the NSA to other countries intelligence agencies and even corporate entities. Apparently Snowden didn't have to do anything too crazy to get that info out undetected, and if he could do it motivated by ethical concerns then I'm sure the money available will have tempted others in the NSA.
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Apr 7, 2015 06:51
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IRQ posted:"Man on the street" segments are intended to prove a point, confirm a bias, land a joke/etc. Not to be accurate. Are you really pulling Godwin here? For gently caress's sake.
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Apr 7, 2015 07:52
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pentyne posted:""WE NEED TO CUT TAXES AND GO BACK TO SMALLER GOVERNMENT!" Living in a VERY red part of California (the land o Nixon and Reagan) that's a little too close to conversations I have on a daily basis.
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Apr 7, 2015 08:35
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Narcissus1916 posted:Living in a VERY red part of California (the land o Nixon and Reagan) that's a little too close to conversations I have on a daily basis. The greatest accomplishment of modern American politics is the success on behalf of both parties to get the American populace to argue about which side's dick feels better in their asses as they're being systematically hosed out of their futures. *AND* convincing them that they only have a choice between two dicks. BIG HEADLINE fucked around with this message at 09:22 on Apr 7, 2015 |
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Apr 7, 2015 09:20
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BIG HEADLINE posted:The greatest accomplishment of modern American politics is the success on behalf of both parties to get the American populace to argue about which side's dick feels better in their asses as they're being systematically hosed out of their futures. *AND* convincing them that they only have a choice between two dicks. Also, at least the Democrats don't really care when they're assraping your life. It's just kind of a formality for them. With the Republicans, it's unlubed, rough butt-pounding. Metaphorically. (Mostly.)
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Apr 7, 2015 10:05
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JT Jag posted:Also, at least the Democrats don't really care when they're assraping your life. I'd like to think Elizabeth Warren cares - too bad she's likely going to have one term in office. The banks and billionaires can't 'afford' to have her stick around, lest people start listening to her, and will likely pump ungodly sums into her challenger's coffers in 2018, provided she even decides to run again.
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Apr 7, 2015 11:29
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BIG HEADLINE posted:I'd like to think Elizabeth Warren cares - too bad she's likely going to have one term in office. The banks and billionaires can't 'afford' to have her stick around, lest people start listening to her, and will likely pump ungodly sums into her challenger's coffers in 2018, provided she even decides to run again. I highly doubt that will come to pass. An incumbent Democratic senator in Massachusetts is a very very hard thing to dislodge. The only reason Scott Brown was able to win the seat in the special election was due to the local Democrats taking for granted that because it was Kennedy's seat, Coakley would easily win it. You also had the Tea Party still riding high at that point in time, so there's that as well. Coakley was also a poo poo candidate (not a bad AG, but she did not have the bones or the organization for neither her senate run or the one for governor last fall). Once Brown (and the funding that came with him) went up against a solid candidate, he was toast. Unless Warren decides not to run in 2018, or it comes out that she is somehow conducting human sacrifices, she's very safe. Anyways, so far as the interview went, I thought it was great. I appreciated Oliver pushing Snowden to account for the release of materials that may actually cause/have caused harm, but that he was also very good about contextualizing the issue in such a form that the "man on the street" would understand and care about. I'm in awe in how far this show has come in the short time that it's been around.
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Apr 7, 2015 14:50
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I think Oliver did a good job in general of balancing the idea that some people don't approve of what Snowden did with the idea that his leaks divulged information that's genuinely in the public interest to consider, but I think he did throw him a little bit of a softball when it came to the foreign surveillance activities Snowden outed. "No one gives a poo poo" is one way of putting it, but "this is why people think you betrayed your country" is probably more accurate. In fairness, flying out to Russia to tell the guy you're interviewing that he actually is a traitor and risking him standing up and leaving might not have made for great television.
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Apr 7, 2015 14:58
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Sinteres posted:I think Oliver did a good job in general of balancing the idea that some people don't approve of what Snowden did with the idea that his leaks divulged information that's genuinely in the public interest to consider, but I think he did throw him a little bit of a softball when it came to the foreign surveillance activities Snowden outed. "No one gives a poo poo" is one way of putting it, but "this is why people think you betrayed your country" is probably more accurate. In fairness, flying out to Russia to tell the guy you're interviewing that he actually is a traitor and risking him standing up and leaving might not have made for great television. Agreed. I especially liked how he introduced the topic with (paraphrasing here) "Some people love Snowden, others hate him for what he did, but regardless of how you feel about him or his motives, the information he revealed is out there now and we need to have a discussion about it."
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Apr 7, 2015 15:20
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xcore posted:What's the obvious retort to this attitude? I come across it often and I find it very hard to rebut. The big thing when people take this attitude is that they're assuming that the government/whoever is somehow only tracking things which are illegal, rather than literally everything. There is a huge gray area of things which are perfectly legal, but embarrassing, which is the whole reason privacy laws exist in the first place. One problem is that a lot of people also tend to take a very moralistic stance on things like porn and other embarrassing habits and claim (read: lie) that they don't do it themselves, but no matter how "moral" they claim to be, everyone has some moment in their daily life when they want privacy. Do they want people watching them while they bathe? They've got nothing to hide, why not? That's why the "dick pics" argument is able to reach people when more abstract and important arguments don't. It makes the issue something that affects them, personally, rather than something that affects society, globally. Just going by voter turnout alone, your average American is NOT politically conscious enough to give a poo poo about the latter, so if you want to get them to care about important issues, you have to make it something that affects them.
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Apr 7, 2015 16:54
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The biggest thing I got out of that interview is that Snowden really expect America to have a conversation about this and it didn't happen. The whole thing really made me feel bad for him.
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Apr 7, 2015 16:55
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Two things from Glenn Greenwald, one of them regarding this: 1) Why privacy is important https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcSlowAhvUk 2) Why nobody knows who Snowden is (and why it's just a symptom of America's political rot) https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/04/06/john-oliver-interview-political-disengagement-american-public/ Probably a lot of preaching to the choir in here, but some of you might be interested.
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Apr 7, 2015 17:14
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BIG HEADLINE posted:If the M-I complex (which honestly should be called the Military-Industrial-Information complex now) and billionaires suddenly couldn't buy/steal elections and horrifically gerrymander districts, they'd stage a coup. Or if you're into JFK theories, *another* coup. Staging a coup is a whole lot harder than I HAVE MONEY! If the populous actually turned out and voted every election, and did so with a mind toward electing politicians interested in their interests, the power of money in elections would be severely curtailed. Besides the end isn't nigh, we've been here and worse before. It was only after the Great Depression that we tamed Wall Street enough to end disastrous crashes for generations. We've fallen back to worse times than our parents with deregulation, but we're nowhere near finished. There are still triumphs, setbacks, and new status quos for us. Giving up just makes it easier for you and your children to be hosed over and sets the burden more heavy on your grand children and great grand children to change it.
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Apr 7, 2015 17:33
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DivisionPost posted:I actually wasn't a big fan of Snowden myself, but Oliver actually turned my opinion more to his favor. What an interview. I hadn't heard Snowden speak until that interview until that interview and he has a good speaking voice as well.
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Apr 7, 2015 18:47
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Raenir Salazar posted:I hadn't heard Snowden speak until that interview until that interview and he has a good speaking voice as well. Well, if you're interested, he actually did a TED talk at one point, and it's worth watching. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVwAodrjZMY
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Apr 7, 2015 18:56
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He also did a whole bunch of interviews. Seriously how can you never have heard this man speak 
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Apr 7, 2015 18:57
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Orange Devil posted:He also did a whole bunch of interviews. Seriously how can you never have heard this man speak Because nobody gives a poo poo unless it's put forward to them in a funny engaging package that apes the entertainment they enjoy spending their leisure time on. Otherwise it's like homework....booooooring. Change channel/stop video!
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Apr 7, 2015 19:04
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Megaman's Jockstrap posted:Because nobody gives a poo poo unless it's put forward to them in a funny engaging package that apes the entertainment they enjoy spending their leisure time on. So basically every network needs their own version of Naked News and suddenly everyone will pay attention.
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Apr 7, 2015 21:53
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