Dear citizens of the US:
Please stop funding, allying with and protecting the manufacturers of surveillance tools. Stop exporting Palantir products and importing privacy-destroying devices from businesses like Greyshift and Cellebrite. Insist that the US government stop shielding hackers-for-hire like NSO Group who indiscriminately lease their products for discriminatory and illegal purposes. Stop defending "OEM" control that we have all known is a stand-in for federal steering since the Snowden leaks. Stop marketing E2EE while backdooring server and client hardware for "emergency" purposes.
Do that, and you'll never be accused of hypocrisy again. Signed, a US citizen.
Collective guilt projection is incredibly unfair. What is the average US citizen expected to do in this?
I hereby promise not to buy any weapons systems from Palantir or use Cellebrite if I forget my phone's PIN code. Am I one of the good ones now?
A bunch of people pursuing or considering careers at those companies are hanging out here. Changing their minds should count for something.
My point is to highlight the hypocrisy in HN casting stones from a glass house. I don't really believe you're beholden to fixing it (as I said, I'm a US citizen too). We just have to accept that the United States started this and is the only nation on Earth that can stop it. American surveillance technology is the role-model for abusive regimes and perfectly sensible governments around the world.