This is What a Tor Supporter Looks Like: Cory Doctorow

"We can do this the easy way, or we can do this the hard way".

It's a standard line in Hollywood cop dramas in which a detective threatens a suspect in the interrogation room. Or in which a mobster threatens a shopkeeper in an organized crime shakedown.

This strong-arm shakedown line was also used by NSA when it approached US tech companies with the proposal that they "volunteer" to participate in Prism. Specifically, they said: "either you can give us what we want, in which case you'll know what we got from you, or we can just break into your corporate network and take everything". Some of us warned Google that even if they "volunteered", NSA would break in anyway. And of course one thing proven by the Snowden leaks was that we were right: NSA and its sidekick GCHQ were tapping into dedicated data lines used by Google to transfer data across the Atlantic.

A minor variation on the shakedown is gaining currency in the CVE (Countering Violent Extremism) arena as well. The Trumpeteers have moved the norm so far to the right that the new "moderate" view is that:

1. USG can either sponsor state discrimination on the basis of religion (which is blatantly unconstitutional, but SCOTUS has validated so many other unconstitutional actions in the last decade that the Constitution seems increasingly irrelevant in policy debates), or

2. USG can sponsor state discrimination on the basis of

a. national origin (or your parent's national origin),

b. youth and physical health,

c. (male) sex,

d. whether or not you inform on your peers,

e. whom you associate with,

f. what you read on or off line (something to think about if you order books from Amazon: their biggest client is CIA),

g. whether you appear "nervous" around other people,

h. whether you smell (because sweating profusely is interpreted as a sign of nervousness, not a sign that you just went jogging),

etc.,

William Saletan, writing in Slate, thinks 2bcd is a good compromise:

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/12/hillar…
Hillary Clinton’s Line of Attack
The Democratic front-runner is developing a smart political response to the danger of terrorism.
William Saletan
16 Dec 2015

> Clinton is proposing to counter regional or religious discrimination—against Arabs or Muslims—with discrimination based on age and sex.
> ...
> Muir pointed out that most Americans, in the wake of the Paris and San Bernardino attacks, oppose accepting Middle Eastern refugees. Clinton replied that refugees are extensively vetted and we shouldn’t abandon our country’s tradition of welcoming the world’s victims. But then she added: “I would prioritize widows and orphans and the elderly. … That would, I think, give the American public a bit more of a sense of security about who is being processed and who might end up coming as refugees.”
> ...
> [Clinton] called for a “coalition at home” against ISIS, similar to our coalition abroad. In the debate, she used this phrase three times. Our “first line of defense against radicalization,” she argued, is Muslim Americans:

In other words, Clinton is saying to Americans who happen to follow Islam: either you can voluntarily inform on your co-religionists, or we will surveil you in a way you won't like. Sound familiar? It should: "we can do this the easy way, or we can do this the hard way".

Is that government of the People, by the People, for the People? Really now?

American children are already being removed from their homes on the basis of predictive analysis that certain parents are too "mentally defective" to function as parents (remember the lovely but somewhat dim mother in "All in the Family"?--- well, she'd lose her daughter in modern America).

In the UK, the prediction that one or more parent is "susceptible" to "radicalization" is now sufficient to cause the government to remove children from their home:

https://www.techdirt.com
UK Goes Full Orwell: Government To Take Children Away From Parents If They Might Become Radicalized
Tim Geithner
13 Oct 2015

> What started as the British government's attempt to ban extremist thought from social media and television (under the notion that some thoughts are too dangerous to enjoy the freedom that other thoughts deserve) then devolved into the conscripting of teachers that were to be on the lookout for children that might become radicalized. To assist them with this, the government helpfully provided spy-software to use against students. Spy-software which itself was found to be exploitable in the most laughably easy of ways. This employed two of the most horrifying aspects of Orwell's Oceania: the concept of thought-crime and the employ of citizens to fearfully surveil one another.
>
> And now it seems the UK is going even further, adopting Oceania's reputation for the swallowing up of citizens should they be found suspect of thought-crime by those watchful citizens. Specifically, the Family Division of the Judiciary has put out a memo declaring exactly how it will remove children from the homes of anyone it suspects might radicalize those children.

Is this wise and humane governance? Or is it just the latest in a long string of policy decisions which could not be better calculated to thoroughly alienate and embitter millions of ordinary citizens who have done nothing wrong?

Thanks for operating this. Crazy Orwellian government coming.