If I really gave a damn, had 1000 bucks to blow, and had no life I could go plant hidden microphones, pinhole video cameras, and more in just about every conceivable public place too. If anyone argued or brought me to court - I could demonstrate how this is absolutely no different than everyone "secondhand recording" me in their little snap stories and instagrams which do go online forever. My point is, this is some small potatoes 1980's style shit that is nothing compared to NSA Echelon (which I find to be actually a fascinating technology if it weren't so malleable to abuse by human nature) If Echelon were an independently operating AI system that had algorithms that identified criminal activity, then used soft paternalism in the form coercing unaware law enforcement personnel into making "chance" encounters with would-be criminals (random traffic stop, or passing them by on the street), the psychology of the criminal would be to stop doing whatever their doing because they feel more watched when they are doing said crime; although the law enforcement agent may never be directly aware of the criminals communications or conduct. I can deal with surveillance all day, no sweat. Totalitarian censorship is my problem, and that doesn't appear to be happening stateside.
Hidden Microphones Part of Government Surveillance Program in the Bay Area
111–120 of 293 posts
Re: Hidden Microphones Part of Government Surveillance Program in the Bay Area
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
If that's true we are moving into a scary world pretty much like 1984 where everything you do is monitored all the time. Well, not everything. Plant a GPS tracker on a police car or a bug in the restroom at FBI headquarters and you'll soon discover some troubling asymmetries in the modern post-privacy paradigm.
Theres no need to plant a GPS tracker, the radio protocol almost all police/fire/EMS use is called P-25[0]. Even when both parties remember to enable encryption, the protocol still has a long list of security of security vulnerabilities including the ability to jam it (both broad range and single user jamming) with the radio embedded in a childrens' toy because of poor implementation [1,2]. The protocol is so bad in…
Or just go to your friendly local TV station's website:
http://komonews.com/live/live-police--fire-scanner-11-20-201...
Re: Hidden Microphones Part of Government Surveillance Program in the Bay Area
#113> If you're going to conduct criminal activity, do it in the privacy of your own home. > That was the original intention of the 4th amendment. Wat. The intention of the 4th amendment was to enable criminal activity, but confine it to private property? Not to protect citizens' privacy from government snooping without probable cause? The intent was to prevent the executive branch from indiscriminately "searching" (and…
I'm pretty sure she was just being sarcastic...
Re: Hidden Microphones Part of Government Surveillance Program in the Bay Area
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can't have an expectation of privacy in public places. Facial recognition can be beat by a hat + sunglasses (which is the hugest plot hole in Person of Interest, the characters never even attempt to disguise themselves).
Your walking style identifies you better than face. Are you going to walk differently once you put a hat and sunglasses on?
Do you have a database of walking styles? Does anybody?
They definitely have access to most people's photos - driver's licenses, passports.
I personally don't care if they know where I go in public. They can just tail me if they really want to know.
Re: Hidden Microphones Part of Government Surveillance Program in the Bay Area
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or David Brin's view that transparency solves everything.
That is not David Brin's point[1]. Brin's point is more that the government will inevitably surveil citizens, and since citizens cannot reasonably prevent it, the best option is to try to level the playing field so that citizens can surveil the government back. In other words, reciprocal transparency is the least bad option. [1] Transparent Society, by David Brin
I discuss this pretty regularly with Brin (on G+). We disagree strongly.
His point is that souveillance is the solution. I disagree for the reasons expressed by Bruce Schneier (in his famous exchange with Brin) and Yonatan Zunger (in a comment included on my G+ profile page links). Surveillance amplifies power imbalances.
Power and People have different mixes of power and vulnerability. Each exploits its strengths and fears its weaknesses. Transparency doesn't of itself balance those differences though. If anything, it amplifies them.
That said, I'm for transparency punching up. Less so punching down absent clear justification -- much as the US founding fathers established in the Bill of Rights.
Re: Hidden Microphones Part of Government Surveillance Program in the Bay Area
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
Theres no need to plant a GPS tracker, the radio protocol almost all police/fire/EMS use is called P-25[0]. Even when both parties remember to enable encryption, the protocol still has a long list of security of security vulnerabilities including the ability to jam it (both broad range and single user jamming) with the radio embedded in a childrens' toy because of poor implementation [1,2]. The protocol is so bad in…
Subversive art project idea: A RaspberryPi(or similar) with a $12 TV tuner software defined radio, and a small database of the various frequencies and bands particular flavours of your local LEO and/or federal TLA use. I know our local highway patrol, for example, use at least: P25, police issued cell phones, iPads with cellular data, HF radio (at least on rural/country cars), and whatever they use for the data conne…
Already exists: http://www.broadcastify.com/listen/
Re: Hidden Microphones Part of Government Surveillance Program in the Bay Area
#117If that's true we are moving into a scary world pretty much like 1984 where everything you do is monitored all the time. Add voice, face recognition, surveillance drones, cheap data storage and AI to the mix it seems pretty soon everything you do in a public place will be recorded and analyzed. And all this can be done fully automated. I hope people will recognize that some laws need to change. Surveillance makes sen…
Google has vastly more information on everyone in America. Orders of magnitude. (and by extension maybe foreign intelligence agencies) The government is just playing catch-up! I rather our slightly dysfunctional government have more information about me than an ad company that's the play toy of tech-utopian billionaires
Re: Hidden Microphones Part of Government Surveillance Program in the Bay Area
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a possibility, but if they don't cave, Clinton is not putting in Merrick Garland. And I don't know that Merrick Garland has any sympathy for Scalia's argument. This is a case where the more liberal justices tended towards an anti-fourth argument as long as the surveillance was done in a public place, and neither Obama nor Clinton have shown themselves to have a problem with universal surveillance that I'm awa…
There's no reason they won't cave. McConnell even put forth Garland as a nominee they'd like to see from Obama, even though "he'd never nominate him". I was going to say this is the devil they know, but in this case, it's actually the devil they've wanted.
> There's no reason they won't cave.
Before the election, sure there is. The optimal course would be to wait until the elections happen (or at least until polling shows a clear advantage one way or another), then either approve Garland or refuse until Trump is inaugurated.
Re: Hidden Microphones Part of Government Surveillance Program in the Bay Area
#119Even if judges prohibit such evidence on the grounds of it being illegally obtained, you will still find that prosecutors will use that evidence to find other evidence and for constructing a case that doesn't use that illegally obtained evidence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction
Re: Hidden Microphones Part of Government Surveillance Program in the Bay Area
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't want to live in a world where I have to wear a hat + sunglasses.
You don't have to. But throwing a tantrum isn't going to change reality. We have the laws allowing anybody to film anything visible from public places, with a few security exceptions. That's more important than you getting upset that you are not invisible.
We're talking about limiting the actions of government here. It's hardly a "tantrum".