deeply uncomfortable with rights organizations making pragmatic appeals against internet surveillance. would way rather see them saying something like "human decency recognizes the absolute right of people to have private conversations without government eavesdropping."

@Moon I think there was a typo in your post, or i misunderstood...

Isnt this:

> human decency recognizes the absolute right of people to have private conversations without government eavesdropping.

An example of this

> rights organizations making pragmatic appeals against internet surveillance

@freemo a pragmatic appeal means arguing "we shouldn't do it because it won't work" or "it would be too costly to implement"

I think such arguments come up from assumption that a lot of people don't really give a shit about human rights, privacy, decency, etc but do care about their wallets and their job.

If you stand up and say "internet surveillance is violation of human rights" people will say that you're just another lefty whiner triggered by some meaningless shit. But if you provide a pragmatic argument about implementing surveillance would be too expensive and have too much side effects, they may listen.

@lonelyowl @freemo they are all BS left-wing oriented pragmatic arguments like "women won't be able to keep abortion plans secret from the government" which is a stupid argument on multiple levels if you actually think about it