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Baseless Calls to Expand Surveillance Fit Familiar, Cynical Pattern

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Re: Baseless Calls to Expand Surveillance Fit Familiar, Cynical Pattern

#91

Post by gknoy »

mason240 wrote: post #86
staunch wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Criminals do much more actual harm to society, and yet no is calling for local police to have access to everyone's email and phone records. Imagine how many crimes local police could prevent if they did have access? Unlike finding small terrorist cells among tens of millions of people, busting local criminals is very easy if you can spy on their communication. They could probably save thousands of children from serio…

>Criminals do much more actual harm to society, and yet no is calling for local police to have access to everyone's email and phone records. They are calling for mass video surveillance of everyone's encounters with police.

> > no is calling for local police to have access to everyone's email and phone records. > They are calling for mass video surveillance of everyone's encounters with police.

That's because there are serious problems with police accountability. Citizens benefit because bad police (which we hope are a minority) are discouraged from acting poorly, due to pervasive evidence, and the police benefit because there is a clear documented record of What Happened, which helps prevent spurious claims of police misconduct.

It's something that most of the police seem not to want, judging from reactions towards journalists and people with cameras, so it's not the __police__ asking for more surveillance. (Well, I mean, they are, but not in this way.)

Re: Baseless Calls to Expand Surveillance Fit Familiar, Cynical Pattern

#92

Post by dalke »

victorNicollet wrote: post #41
happyscrappy wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>to get blackmail material on 100% of people Nonsense.

We had an example not even a month ago. In many cities, there are enough parking spots for everyone, so many citizens will leave their cars for the night near their homes in places where they do not cause significant disturbance, and the police will tolerate this behavior and not ticket them for it. This is a win for everyone: the citizens have a spot to park, and the mayor doesn't have to spend public funds to set u…

That sounds more like a work-to-rule labor action than an example of harassing dissenters.

"This is a win for everyone"

Except as you pointed out, it's not a win for everyone all the time.

Re: Baseless Calls to Expand Surveillance Fit Familiar, Cynical Pattern

#93

Post by mindcrime »

etangent wrote: post #84
mindcrime wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now, someone who completely doesn't care about whether terrorist attacks happen or not -- is that a rational party to have discussion with? I doubt there is anybody who truly "doesn't care if terrorist attacks happen". But there are people (like myself) who can look at the numbers, realize that you are MANY times more likely to die by slipping and falling in your own bathroom, being in a car crash, drowning in your o…

> But there are people (like myself) who can look at the numbers, realize that you are MANY times more likely to die by slipping and falling in your own bathroom That's another example of a wrong argument often used. All animals (and yes, humans are animals) pay more attention to predators than to random accidents, and there is an evolutionary reason for that.

There's an evolutionary reason for all manner of cognitive biases. That doesn't mean that behavior is correct.

Re: Baseless Calls to Expand Surveillance Fit Familiar, Cynical Pattern

#94

Post by pharrington »

adam419 wrote: post #42
cryoshon wrote: post #6

Why should we listen? France already massively ramped up their surveillance state after the Hebdo attacks (the perps were known to them beforehand anyway), and that did absolutely nothing to stop a much larger and more complex attack, also with known perps. A panopticon can't stop terrorists from lashing out violently, but it can certainly chill speech and promote totalitarian government. That's their angle: use the…

"And that did nothing to stop a much larger, more complex attack" Perhaps, but I think the best way to measure the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of the program is not the number of attacks that have slipped through, but the proportion of those that were prevented compared to those that slipped through.

When developing complex and robust systems, the measure of effectiveness of a program is how little the original system changes in response to new stimulus. If the system constantly needs to change, it's not meeting the stating requirements.

Re: Baseless Calls to Expand Surveillance Fit Familiar, Cynical Pattern

#95

Post by talmand »

revelation wrote: post #64
adam419 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"And that did nothing to stop a much larger, more complex attack" Perhaps, but I think the best way to measure the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of the program is not the number of attacks that have slipped through, but the proportion of those that were prevented compared to those that slipped through.

Soo... which were prevented? These must somehow end up as court cases eventually, right? Didn't think so.

Those cases are handled in "secret courts" run by "secret judges" with "secret prosecutors".

Apparently the defense counsel is also secret since they don't come out afterwards to say what happened to their clients. Assuming the prosecuted had defense counsel.

Re: Baseless Calls to Expand Surveillance Fit Familiar, Cynical Pattern

#96

Post by talmand »

implicitdef wrote: post #80
cryoshon wrote: post #6

Why should we listen? France already massively ramped up their surveillance state after the Hebdo attacks (the perps were known to them beforehand anyway), and that did absolutely nothing to stop a much larger and more complex attack, also with known perps. A panopticon can't stop terrorists from lashing out violently, but it can certainly chill speech and promote totalitarian government. That's their angle: use the…

(French here) "France already massively ramped up their surveillance state after the Hebdo attacks" I don't think that's true. When France passed the big intelligence law this summer, the goal was to explicitly legalize the surveillance programs that were already in effect, but were until then in a grey area, legally speaking. Nobody talked about actually increasing the surveillance, or you have information that we d…

Well, I would assume any expansion would not be mentioned because anytime someone mentions that type of information they are immediately attacked as "helping the enemy". The conspiracy theorist in me suggests that making the then current levels of surveillance proper under the law just causes them to increase the levels again afterwards. I expect in a year or two there will be talk of making the new higher levels of surveillance, previously hidden, properly legal. Rinse, repeat.

Re: Baseless Calls to Expand Surveillance Fit Familiar, Cynical Pattern

#97

Post by nickff »

The most interesting part of this debate is how it mirrors the gun control debate, with the biggest difference between the two being the people advocating each position.

Both debates are about the attempt to restrict something which is very difficult to restrict. In both cases,there is a fundamental principle of liberty at stake, but only the advocates for that liberty appear to care about that principle. Relatively few could be argued to be harmed by the weapons/encryption (in the manner which proponents of restriction believe they can prevent), and even where governments have abridged those rights, the results do not clearly demonstrate that restrictions are efficacious. Proponents also make their strongest pushes for increased restriction in the face of great tragedies in both cases.

The only groups which seem to have consistent positions through these two debates are the libertarians, anarchists, and statists (; a strange list in my opinion).

Re: Baseless Calls to Expand Surveillance Fit Familiar, Cynical Pattern

#98

Post by ArkyBeagle »

cryoshon wrote: post #6

Why should we listen? France already massively ramped up their surveillance state after the Hebdo attacks (the perps were known to them beforehand anyway), and that did absolutely nothing to stop a much larger and more complex attack, also with known perps. A panopticon can't stop terrorists from lashing out violently, but it can certainly chill speech and promote totalitarian government. That's their angle: use the…

Terrorists make common cause with established governments when they inspire fear in the governed.

The design goal of terrorism it to provoke overreach on the part of the authority being targeted. But you can't get an allocation of funds for your open-ended anti-terror programme if you say this.

After fiftyish years of television and 100 years of movies, people's willing suspension of disbelief impulse is ragged and raw. It's both hair-trigger and numbed. And since the mode of the terrorists is akin to blood sacrifice, it's even more profound.

Re: Baseless Calls to Expand Surveillance Fit Familiar, Cynical Pattern

#99

Post by AnimalMuppet »

rasz_pl wrote: post #44
happyscrappy wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>to get blackmail material on 100% of people Nonsense.

We are talking about a country that routinely acts like a terrorist organisation. Look up who blew up Greenpeace boat ~30 years ago.

One incident 30 years ago != "routinely".

Re: Baseless Calls to Expand Surveillance Fit Familiar, Cynical Pattern

#100

Post by talmand »

kzhahou wrote: post #59
logn wrote: post #47

Notice we don't see calls for more surveillance after domestic shootings/terrorism. Well, body cams for police is maybe an exception. But schools, churches, and movie theaters get shot up weekly. I think the illusion that somehow the surveillance apparatus filters out white people and only focuses on terrorism lets Americans feel okay with it. Also I don't think most people realize how almost every action and thought…

> Notice we don't see calls for more surveillance after domestic shootings/terrorism. I think the reasoning is that in domestic school/church/theater shootings, the perpetrator isn't engaged in long communications (and receiving instructions from) a leadership group.

It wouldn't be surveillance on you as part of a group, it would be on you as an individual. Most likely it would involve just enlarging the number of incidents or situations that would trigger a surveillance order on you.

Doesn't matter, that type of surveillance will be incredibly easy in the near future. Whether we want it or not.

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