Thoreau, Snowden, and The Duty of Civil Disobedience

[Lokasenna]

The way ad agencies select the kinds of ads we get on a smart phone or tablet or even on lit net implies they know a lot about each of us or rather our devices. We sort of want them to do this. I don't want to receive ads I'm not interested in. Of course, some of us don't want to receive ads at all.

We installed an app, Life360, (https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...oid.safetymapd) on our phones to make sure we know where the kids are when they haven't called in. It also gives a history of where each of us have been. Individuals can get a lot of information about others as well.

I use AdBlock, so I'm not deluged in adverts - but I'm not particularly keen on my devices keeping tabs on my purchasing habits/browsing history in order to target their adverts at me. I've very much in the camp of not wanting to get any adverts at all.

Monitoring your children is part of your parental responsibility - if they're young, it's your duty to keep tabs on them. But if they're capable adults, then they have a right not to be monitored, by their parents or anyone else. The idea of a government, say, monitoring children is deeply sinister. I assume your kids aren't in their thirties or anything?

Haha! Funny you say that. For a security clearance over here, you get an extensive background check and an interview every 5 years. My last one was in 2010 (I've since retired from the AF Reserve). Since it was my last one, and I didn't really give a rip anymore, I made sure to visit just about every red-flag web site I could think of before the interview (Al Qaida's social network, where to buy a truckload of ammonium nitrate, how to build a thermo-nuclear device, stuff like that) and sure enough my clearance was held up for a couple of weeks, but then they gave it to me anyway - woo-hoo!

Goodness - I think you were lucky to get cleared!

[Sancho]

^I just wanted to know if they were tracking my online habits - pretty sure they were. I'll bet it was that degenerate website The Litnet that really had them scratching their heads.

mortalterror, I agree, Thoreau's jail time wasn't much and he probably knew in advance it wouldn't be much. I heard that Ralf Waldo Emerson visited him while he was in. Evidently, Emerson said something like, "Dave, what the hell are you doing in here?" Thoreau replied with something like, "Ralfy, why the hell aren't you in here?"

Whatever the case, there were many abolitionists voices being heard back then. Twenty or so years later, the U.S. would fight its bloodiest war ever over it. John Brown, a true crackpot, and his raid on Harper's Ferry seems to have been a tipping point.

I totally agree with your other examples. Nelson Mandela had conviction and did serious jail time. MLK not only did jail time in Birmingham, but paid for his convictions with his life. Gandhi worked his entire life for equality from without as well as within.

Socrates had the conviction to drink the hemlock tea when he didn't really have to. He thought his convictions would be a sham if he didn't drink the potion. But then, years later Aristotle fled Athens, with the statement that he could not allow Athens to commit a second crime against philosophy.

At any rate, I think jail time is a means, not an end. Snowden still has a voice in exile. Just last week Brian Williams secretly traveled to Moscow to get an interview with him. I watched it. He didn't seem unhinged or crazy. Rather he seemed thoughtful and reflective. This is pure speculation, but I'll bet he eventually comes back to face the music. As for now, hope he's enjoying the borscht.

[YesNo]

Monitoring your children is part of your parental responsibility - if they're young, it's your duty to keep tabs on them. But if they're capable adults, then they have a right not to be monitored, by their parents or anyone else. The idea of a government, say, monitoring children is deeply sinister. I assume your kids aren't in their thirties or anything?

My children are still in school, but there is no need to cyber stalk them anymore. Once they are finally on their own, paying their own phone bills, insurance, gas, and so on, they may find there is no need to have that app on their phone except to stalk us.

[AuntShecky]

I saw Brian Williams interview Ed Snowden on TV and thought that he (Snowden) seemed earnest. I was waiting for him to say that if he hadn't spilled the beans he wouldn't have been able to sleep at night. And he did!

Now that the above seems like I'm defending him, I wonder if that intensifies the redness of flags the NSA has supposedly already put on my emails and text messages.

I have a feeling, though that "doubleclick" and other Internet entitities out there spy on us more than the government does. That's not counting all the folks who willingly submit personal info -- and photos of their kids, yet! -- on Facebook, Twitter, etc.

hope he's enjoying the borscht.

Now that's asking for the impossible!