Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Don't look at the "Family Values" lobby, they get lip service but no serious favorable actions in return for their votes. One reason they're fading away (the main other one is that Carter's attacks on their schools are a distant memory).

The concept of the applying the lessons of the 2nd Amendment lobby was extensively discussed here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6185138

Here's the contents of my top comment, which I think frames the concept well:

"Until we have specific, actual, real privacy atrocities I can't see this effort getting the traction of any of the groups you've specified. Labor had company towns and less but still specifically abusive employers, with plenty of specific people maimed or killed in unsafe workplaces or labor actions. Environmentalists had deformed children from Japanese industrial mercury dumping, and, oh, the Cuyahoga River catching on fire. Gun grabbers have killed, maimed, or otherwise grossly abused thousands of people and that continues to this day.

"What specific incidents, with victims most will empathize with, can the privacy effort point to?"



Martin Luther King was spied on and blackmailed by the FBI. It's a bit dated, but a good place to start.

http://news.firedoglake.com/2013/01/21/the-fbi-wrote-a-lette...


Oh, there's a whole bunch of pre-Church Committee, especially J. Edgar Hoover (died a few years before the former) ... incidents, but the current authorities can and will say they aren't like those abusive folks 4 decades ago.

And in e.g. the case of MLK they were famously unsuccessful. I claim you need atrocities committed upon "victims most will empathize with"; the latter excludes "rioting hippies" and the like, especially after the Weather Underground and company started bombing and killing people.

E.g. I was just past the threshold of becoming politically aware when this happened: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sterling_Hall_bombing and it shocked and appalled the nation.


It's interesting what external events are formative. For me, it was the SSC being cancelled (thus, wanting to be in private business and then funding science vs. government-funded big science at risk always to Congress), the MOVE bombing in a nearby city (learning that even a black mayor can be racist, as well as incompetent), and Challenger ("perfect systems aren't", kind of the Rumsfeld thing).




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: