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Hidden Microphones Part of Government Surveillance Program in the Bay Area

sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com

171–180 of 293 posts

Re: Hidden Microphones Part of Government Surveillance Program in the Bay Area

#171
post #169

As this seems to come up more and more. I can't fathom why most people can't get what's being fed to them by our media sources. http://craigbhulet.com/10%20Mega-Corporations.jpg This chart albeit a bit big of a image demonstrates which media entities are owned/connected to whom. Pretty interesting

Perhaps I've been reading the wrong newspapers, but I can't recall Kraft, Coca Cola, Nestle, P&G, Coca Cola, et al ever being considered media companies.

Re: Hidden Microphones Part of Government Surveillance Program in the Bay Area

#172

Hmm I wonder how this would work considering its all things openly available to be recorded. Follow a federal agent home from work and film them and their house. Film their children going to school and post pictures locations and times online, also taking photos of other relatives, friends etc and where they live and their phone numbers and post it all online. Have your friends join in and keep posting every detail a…

I don't see how that's relevant. The whole point of the government is for it to have a monopoly on law enforcement. They're supposed to be able to do stuff you and I can't do.

Small point but still relative. A citizen can make a citizens arrest, which is law enforcement (USA).

Also as far as being relative it was posed frome the idea that just because something may be legal, it doesn't mean it's a good idea.

Re: Hidden Microphones Part of Government Surveillance Program in the Bay Area

#173

Haven't you guys ever seen The Wire? Is this seriously a surprise to anyone?

Cops in The Wire made an extreme point of getting warrants for limited targeted surveillance

You forget when Herc went and grabbed the portable mic from the spy store and stuck it in a tennis ball. Or when they stuck the video camera in the park and got it stolen.

It's pretty much the same thing that happened here. They knew the discussions were happening, they knew where the discussions were happening, and since it was in a public space they didn't need a warrant. It's not like they are running around town putting microphones in all the bus stops hoping to catch anybody saying something. They were looking for a specific type of criminal activity and they placed the mics accordingly.

Re: Hidden Microphones Part of Government Surveillance Program in the Bay Area

#174

> 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…

The formet FBI agent was lying through his teeth, and that's why he caged by adding the line about the judge. The FBI believes (as do criminals and defense attorneys) that whatever they do is legal unless they are caught, tried, and convicted -- facts in the court, not facts on the ground. And the FBI gets the privilege of being mostly free from law enforcement oversight in the first place.

Re: Hidden Microphones Part of Government Surveillance Program in the Bay Area

#175
post #169

As this seems to come up more and more. I can't fathom why most people can't get what's being fed to them by our media sources. http://craigbhulet.com/10%20Mega-Corporations.jpg This chart albeit a bit big of a image demonstrates which media entities are owned/connected to whom. Pretty interesting

It's a pretty picture, but it doesn't really seem to mean much. Not one of those companies is in the 50 largest by revenue [1]. This seems to be a picture of what food and health brands are related to each other?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_companies_by_r...

Re: Hidden Microphones Part of Government Surveillance Program in the Bay Area

#176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your quote says nothing about the police having unique or extreme powers, it says only that individuals have no right to opt out of society's defense mechanisms. Further, your quoted line, that conflates aggregate consent with individual consent, while trying to distinguish them, making the utterly self-contradictory claim that "no individual can chose to withdraw his or her consent" , which comes from a 2012 comment…

Individuals can withdraw their consent from interactions with other individuals. They cannot do so in interactions with the police. That's a unique power. And while the Home Office stated it, it's the basis for policing in every developed country. And there is nothing contradictory about the Home Office quote. The government is the instrument through which the people, acting collectively, coerce individuals to behave…

You just repeated the Home Office's mistake:

> They cannot [withdraw their consent] in interactions with the police.

> The collective needs to consent, but the individual doesn't need to

Do you see how you contradicted yourself?

The police can act without an individual's consent. That doesn't mean they have the individual's consent.

Re: Hidden Microphones Part of Government Surveillance Program in the Bay Area

#177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a statist perspective, but hardly radically-so. From your link: > The Home Office has explained this approach as "the power of the police coming from the common consent of the public, as opposed to the power of the state. It does not mean the consent of an individual. No individual can choose to withdraw his or her consent from the police, or from a law." That's the difference between the police and private citi…

BTW, is it really your opinion that the state has a legitimate claim to nigh-unlimited rule over the public? The Constitution and Bill of Rights was a best-effort attempt to prevent tyranny, not an effort to draw a line for rulers to toe and reach over as far as they can.

You're reading "unlimited rule" into my comment. All I said was that the police are, by design, empowered to do some things ordinary people are not empowered to do.

Re: Hidden Microphones Part of Government Surveillance Program in the Bay Area

#178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pessimizer, I think you are wrong, I agree with Stanislav. Republicans don't believe in the right to privacy, they use that as the reason why Texas should be able to restrict dildo sales (among many other things :-)), for instance, and conservatives use their disbelief in privacy to argue they should be able to legislate against consensual sex practices they don't like. Dems generally do support a right to privacy in…

Instead of depending on generalizations, I'd say that without Clarence Thomas and Scalia (and also Ginsberg, Breyer, and Souter), it would be legal today to record what goes on inside your home without a warrant. So to generalize about conservatives or liberals in this case would probably not be helpful because both the liberal-leaning and the conservative-leaning justices split. What is absolutely true is that the t…

Obama may be anti-4th, as nearly every President is (being an Executive whose rights are limited by the 4th), but his SCOTUS appointee isn't, at least as seen below:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201...

Re: Hidden Microphones Part of Government Surveillance Program in the Bay Area

#179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how that's relevant. The whole point of the government is for it to have a monopoly on law enforcement. They're supposed to be able to do stuff you and I can't do.

That's not the whole point of government, that is a radical statist perspective. See, for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peelian_principles > the police are the public and that the public are the police, the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.

Monopoly on police power is not a radical statist perspective. It's fundamental to sovereignty which is itself a very basic concept.

A radical statist perspective would be, e.g. suggesting the state has powers that the founding document of that state says it does not have (or doesn't grant that or a superseding power).

Re: Hidden Microphones Part of Government Surveillance Program in the Bay Area

#180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

finally a voice a reason! I actually think the tech world's outrage is the equivalent of survivalist doomsday paranoia. In their minds once the evil government people have our data it's just a slippery slope to fascism. (the survivalist at least have their guns! so they can go shoot cops that day) Of course grounding yourself in reality you should realize that a 1984-dystopia-scifi government is effectively impossibl…

I think you're onto something there with that comparison to survalist doomsday scenarios. Some people have very vivid imaginations and they fail to see how there theory is basically impossible and then when challenged they fall back to some trope about slippery slopes.

I think in some part it's actually a part of a bigger American cultural trope. We also have this unique obsessions with zombies and pandemics etc. etc. Kinda thinking I'm special, the rest of the riff raff die and I'm left alone to "make it" from a feral rock bottom.

My guess is it's American individualism and it's unique inflated sense of self worth (not to knock it =] it's got its plus sides!) + fascination with the biblical apocalypse. I'm not as familiar as I should be with the faiths of the founders of the colonies, maybe it's something that traces back to then?

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