You absolutely have a point, I just don't see how this is functionally different from western/US policy, especially from the perspective of e.g. BRIC nations:
We have ample evidence that US intelligence siphons data from literally every meaningful company it can tap, is willing to share that data with partners abroad and uses such things without even public sanction against targets picked by the president (see Venezuela).
Sure, the US is still the devil you know, but if Americans want to claim the moral high ground then at least credible pretending is required, and under the current administration we wont even get that.
I have never before felt pressured about what I can or cannot protest about in Europe by China, but I can’t say the same about our most powerful ally, who has threatened every sector of our society – political or non-political – with consequences if we do not act and speak as they do. China absolutely does not care about our society the same way as that.
> And it may sound paranoid but remember that China was caught operating their own "police" force around the world not long ago
Have you heard about ICE? That one's not a paranoid thought. It's a very real personal police designed for oppression. I'd much much rather chineses EVs flooding the market over Teslas.
American citizens being shot and brutalized by a state sponsored force of masked thugs without training. Sounds pretty clandestine to me and it's happening in us soil.
Ragebait would be trying to argue that China running secret police and propaganda operations on Canadian soil, against Canadian citizens, is in any way equivalent to a domestic force taking actions primarily against foreign nationals, in a statutorily authorized way within a legal framework that can be challenged.
There are many cases of law enforcement being imprisoned for shooting people while on duty. It is well established that enforcing laws does not give you carte blanche to shoot people
These two concerns do not need to be mutually exclusive. Either one can be recognized as a threat to our liberties without diminishing the severity of the other.
The more relevant discussion is the lack of policy/legislation to prohibit government agencies from sidestepping the 4th amendment and purchasing access from private corps, like Flock, to surveil individuals without a warrant. It’s ICE today, maybe DEA tomorrow, and the FDA in some broken future. In a decade or two, when nearly all vehicles are inherently advanced optical sensors with wheels, what stops auto manufactures becoming real-time surveillance companies, like Flock?
> Have you heard about ICE? That one's not a paranoid thought. It's a very real personal police designed for oppression.
Oh, come on. ICE may be behaving badly right now, and you might be mad at them, but that's not an excuse for flights of fancy. Stay grounded in the truth. ICE is not "personal police designed for oppression," they're police designed to enforce immigration and customs laws (ICE literally stands for "immigration and customs enforcement").
> The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) removals program contributes to upholding the integrity of Canada’s immigration system by removing people who are inadmissible to enter or stay in Canada.
> ... The CBSA also prioritizes the removal of failed refugee claimants who entered Canada irregularly between points of entry. These cases are prioritized due to their significant impact on program integrity and on Canada’s asylum system.
I'm under the impression that Canada has historically actually been much more strict with enforcing immigration laws and deporting people than the US had been.
Do you know what the word "designed" means? Because I don't think it means what you think it means.
I am in no way saying what that ICE agent did was right. I'm just saying being mad is not an excuse for being a sloppy thinker. What's happening here is the ICE agents' behavior is out of control and they're probably behaving illegally. That's not being anyone's "personal police" (whatever that means) or they are "designed to beat up anyone in the US," but believing such false things will probably lead to stupid slogans that end up doing more harm than good (e.g. "defund the police").
Designed means exactly that I meant: today ICE is designed (meant to) beat up anyone in the US. When ICE agents kill people, they get immunity from the feds (that guy who shot Renee Good will not see a day in prison).
If my comment led you to a conclusion that I support "Defund ICE" you would be correct.
All of this to show you that my understanding of the work designed is correct.
> Designed means exactly that I meant ... designed (meant to) ...
> All of this to show you that my understanding of the work [sic] designed is correct.
All right, I see what's going on here. You just don't know what the word designed means.
To illustrate: if went to the hardware store to buy a claw hammer and meant to use it to murder someone, which you then did, does that mean the claw hammer was "designed" to murder people? No, of course not. The hammer was designed to install and remove nails. It can also be used for other purposes for which it was not meant for, such as murder (as hypothetical you showed), but it was not designed for those purposes.
You're not Humpty Dumpty, words don't mean whatever you choose them to mean. The "defund the police" people thought they could do that, and look where that got us.
If you disagree, find me the design documents for ICE (they're surely public), and show me where it says it's "designed to beat up anyone in the US." Remember that's not going to be a Trump executive order, because time machines aren't real.
> If my comment led you to a conclusion that I support "Defund ICE" you would be correct.
And I guarantee you that even if you do that, some other agency will be tasked with what ICE was designed to do.
Sure, if the red herring is the sloppiness that distracts from what's actually going on, and then digging in to defend that (e.g. the clearly false statements about "design").
But it's not a red herring to insist on not being sloppy. Saying false things helps no one.
Everyone knows. But America is has made it very clear it has no allies, this means every middle power is near obligated to re-position themselves to be roughly in the middle between the two super-powers.
Perhaps in an ideal world, we trade mostly with allies and nations that are ideologically aligned with the US. Unfortunately, the current president is doing everything he can to weaken alliances with those nations and cripple those trade relations.
The hallmark of patriotism is caring more about the surveillance from the other side of the lake than the bugs that are likely planted in your living room.
Please don't make sweeping claims about what HN “is”.
The HN is a large group of people with a range of views that maps to a normal distribution on most topics, with a slight skew to left-libertarianism. It's common for people to notice "too much" of what they dislike on HN, and then to think the site is dominated by that thing.
