<story><title>NSA secretly conducted illegal searches on Americans for years</title><url>http://circa.com/politics/barack-obamas-team-secretly-disclosed-years-of-illegal-nsa-searches-spying-on-americans</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>captainmuon</author><text>Start a revolution. I&amp;#x27;m only half joking.&lt;p&gt;I think we can&amp;#x27;t solve these problems within the current political and economical and system. We have to found a new radical political movement.&lt;p&gt;A lot of the problems we face: the crisis of representational democracy, populism, unemployment, xenophobia, the surveillance state, terrorism, ... cannot be solved individually, but I believe must be fixed simultaneously.&lt;p&gt;We got to get over the fear of the last 40 years against dreaming up Utopias. We should look at the past, at western democracy, socialism, meritocracy, communism, and see what worked and what didn&amp;#x27;t, and come up with an alternative. It will be as big a break as hundreds of years ago when people came up with the idea of a republic in absolutist times.&lt;p&gt;And here&amp;#x27;s why I believe the movement will grow: we can make the same promises Trump made, about prosperity, keeping one&amp;#x27;s identity, leading a meaningful life again... But as opposed to him, we can actually fulfill these promises.&lt;p&gt;And then we become really powerful, create parallel structures, and question the power of governments head on. It worked several times in history.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m intentionally leaving the deals vague, since I can&amp;#x27;t speak for everybody. But I believe core values will be tolerance, individual rights, decentralism, and openness to learn from mistakes and change.&lt;p&gt;I know it sounds crazy, but I think we won&amp;#x27;t get more freedom without a major rewrite or at least refactoring of society...</text></item><item><author>lmm</author><text>What do I do, as someone who cares? No, seriously. Should I throw a bit more money at the EFF? Start my own political party, or enter an existing one and try to steer it in my direction? Try to get employed by one of these organizations and then promote a better understanding of their mission internally? Move to another country where people care more (which?)&lt;p&gt;Identifying the problem is a good first step, but what can we do about it?</text></item><item><author>endymi0n</author><text>I think the most dangerous thing is that what Snowden predicted actually happened by now. After all the revelations, nobody is interested anymore. There&amp;#x27;s this general fatigue and powerlessness that leads to a feeling of &amp;quot;well, yeah, everbody knows by now... what&amp;#x27;s the news here?&amp;quot; - even for me as a security expert and privacy proponent.&lt;p&gt;The real danger is nobody cares anymore, as this enables all further constitution violations and hollowing of citizen protection worldwide.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>SmirkingRevenge</author><text>The American Revolution is one of the few outliers in history were such revolutionary action actually lead to such good results (relative to more likely possible alternatives).  The cost of a revolution is heavy, and generally the outcome is almost certainly as bad or worse as the states of affairs that sparked it.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m a hopeless cynic, but I always find a bit of reluctant optimism about the present after reading a bit of history.  Especially the dirtier sides of American history, politics, business, social norms, discrimination, etc.  When I do, I can&amp;#x27;t help but conclude we Americans are living in the best version of America that has ever existed, to date, even with all the shit in front of us.  And possibly even one of the &lt;i&gt;least divisive&lt;/i&gt; and polarized versions of it as well, even though the popular consensus is just the opposite.&lt;p&gt;Basically, the system actually seems to kind of... sort of... work.  No thanks on the revolution.</text></comment>
<story><title>NSA secretly conducted illegal searches on Americans for years</title><url>http://circa.com/politics/barack-obamas-team-secretly-disclosed-years-of-illegal-nsa-searches-spying-on-americans</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>captainmuon</author><text>Start a revolution. I&amp;#x27;m only half joking.&lt;p&gt;I think we can&amp;#x27;t solve these problems within the current political and economical and system. We have to found a new radical political movement.&lt;p&gt;A lot of the problems we face: the crisis of representational democracy, populism, unemployment, xenophobia, the surveillance state, terrorism, ... cannot be solved individually, but I believe must be fixed simultaneously.&lt;p&gt;We got to get over the fear of the last 40 years against dreaming up Utopias. We should look at the past, at western democracy, socialism, meritocracy, communism, and see what worked and what didn&amp;#x27;t, and come up with an alternative. It will be as big a break as hundreds of years ago when people came up with the idea of a republic in absolutist times.&lt;p&gt;And here&amp;#x27;s why I believe the movement will grow: we can make the same promises Trump made, about prosperity, keeping one&amp;#x27;s identity, leading a meaningful life again... But as opposed to him, we can actually fulfill these promises.&lt;p&gt;And then we become really powerful, create parallel structures, and question the power of governments head on. It worked several times in history.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m intentionally leaving the deals vague, since I can&amp;#x27;t speak for everybody. But I believe core values will be tolerance, individual rights, decentralism, and openness to learn from mistakes and change.&lt;p&gt;I know it sounds crazy, but I think we won&amp;#x27;t get more freedom without a major rewrite or at least refactoring of society...</text></item><item><author>lmm</author><text>What do I do, as someone who cares? No, seriously. Should I throw a bit more money at the EFF? Start my own political party, or enter an existing one and try to steer it in my direction? Try to get employed by one of these organizations and then promote a better understanding of their mission internally? Move to another country where people care more (which?)&lt;p&gt;Identifying the problem is a good first step, but what can we do about it?</text></item><item><author>endymi0n</author><text>I think the most dangerous thing is that what Snowden predicted actually happened by now. After all the revelations, nobody is interested anymore. There&amp;#x27;s this general fatigue and powerlessness that leads to a feeling of &amp;quot;well, yeah, everbody knows by now... what&amp;#x27;s the news here?&amp;quot; - even for me as a security expert and privacy proponent.&lt;p&gt;The real danger is nobody cares anymore, as this enables all further constitution violations and hollowing of citizen protection worldwide.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Ntrails</author><text>&amp;gt; But as opposed to him, we can actually fulfill these promises.&lt;p&gt;Man on internet claims that his statements are totally more trustworthy than man on TV.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m not disagreeing with you per se - but &amp;quot;fuzzy on the details but this will totally work I promise&amp;quot; is not exactly a radical new line of thought</text></comment>