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Hidden Microphones Part of Government Surveillance Program in the Bay Area

sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com

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

#201

Post by djsumdog »

maxxxxx wrote: post #2

If 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…

In this article, they seemed to be targeting one person. They fucked up because they didn't get a warrant. They shouldn't need one. It is a public place.

I don't want to get into the situation where regular citizens are not allowed to take pictures of people in public places. Still, I can see their lawyer's argument for expectation of privacy. What about the homeless? Do they have no expectation of privacy? Unless they are in their tent? (If they even have a tent).

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

#202

Post by rangibaby »

fucking_tragedy wrote: post #190
pjlegato wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Entrenched and permanent" is a bit exaggerated, as the governments of pervasive-surveillance East Germany and the Soviet Union discovered.

The Stasi and KGB couldn't dream of the technology and telecommunications networks that enable today's surveillance society.

They would have considered every citizen paying money to carry around a tracking device with attached cameras and microphones and broadcasting nearly every detail of their private life to public forums fanciful science fiction.

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

#203

Post by spacemanmatt »

dragonwriter wrote: post #61
awqrre wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why?

Because it will make hit and runs easier to get away with. It won't make liability insurance worse, but it will make coverage that pays for damages in those cases much more expensive.

Austin police do not follow up on hit and runs unless there is a crime - vehicular assault or manslaughter. Even if you have the plate number and video footage.

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

#204

Post by woodman »

djsumdog wrote: post #201
maxxxxx wrote: post #2

If 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…

In this article, they seemed to be targeting one person. They fucked up because they didn't get a warrant. They shouldn't need one. It is a public place. I don't want to get into the situation where regular citizens are not allowed to take pictures of people in public places. Still, I can see their lawyer's argument for expectation of privacy. What about the homeless? Do they have no expectation of privacy? Unless th…

> In this article, they seemed to be targeting one person.

That is an interesting interpretation, because the same article left me with the impression that they recorded everybody within earshot of the bugs for 10 months.

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

#206

Post by spacemanmatt »

smsm42 wrote: post #185
bigiain wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's pretty much exactly what Snowden is telling us we do when we choose to carry a cell phone...

Cell phone is not designed to listen to you all the time. But yes, it is designed for you to be contact-able all the time, so the premise of somebody knowing your (rough) location is there.

Your cell phone is designed to do is maker's bidding. It only has to record when they want it to. You aren't interesting, today. Tomorrow is another day.

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

#207

Post by jflatow »

throwawaykf05 wrote: post #194
jflatow wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What Clinton tells her is not what Clinton actually does. Campaign promises are exactly that. The government lies to your mom to get her support and 'keep her in line'.

Are you saying the government does not do "vigorous enforcement of drug laws, long punishments for criminals"? These are topics that are the source of perennial complaints on HN. I think rayiner's point is that outside the HN echo chamber, there is a lot of implicit support for all kinds of empowerment of government and law enforcement agencies to "keep people in line". These same people may possibly even condone sur…

The original point was that people should fear corporations more than the government, because the government is the instrument of the people, whereas corporations have other less savory motives.

But its not true - the government is not to be trusted. It has a monopoly on military / police force, which it abuses incessantly. Moreover, it is effectively controlled by a private duopoly (Democrats + Republicans), with the same motives as any corporate coalition. What's more, corporations effectively control the duopoly. Just look at what happened with TTIP (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/04/secrets...).

And it is not doing what most of the populace wants, if that's not clear from the current election, look at the Congress approval ratings (http://www.gallup.com/poll/1600/congress-public.aspx). It's barely gone above 20% in the last 6 years. And has only once briefly gone above 50% in the past 30 years.

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

#208

Post by simoncion »

srtjstjsj wrote: post #170
rayiner wrote: post #158

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.

As Pinker's research has demonstrated, when we move from vigilante "justice" to a centralized system of rules and punishments, over-all violence is greatly reduced and over-all social stability is greatly increased.

It turns out to be a really good thing to give The People In Charge a monopoly on violence and punishment. For optimal stability, The Punishers must also be accountable to the people that they serve. Lamentably, we're doing poorly on the whole accountability part, but the alternative to a State monopoly on violence is -historically- far, far, far worse than the situation that we have today.

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

#209

Post by simoncion »

> You're reading "unlimited rule" into my comment.

To be fair, you did say that the "whole point" of government was to run the police. That is to say "The sole purpose of government is to run the police". Perhaps you can see where the misunderstanding lies?

Given your comment history, it wouldn't be entirely surprising to see you emit that reformulation of your statement, but that's neither here nor there.

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

#210

Post by optforfon »

iamnothere wrote: post #198
optforfon wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google wants to manipulate you into buying things and hading them over more information. If you know even a little about marketing/sales you know how powerful these forces are especially when targeted at a whole nation. On an individual level we never feel like the CocaCola ad makes us buy more coke, but it does. "your life will be made a living hell until you are rendered neutral" ... sorry, but that just doesn't ma…

Many journalists, lawyers, political activists, and civil rights advocates would disagree with your characterization. Just because you personally aren't aware of abuses doesn't mean that they don't occur. Bush-era antiwar groups, Occupy Wall Street, leftist political groups, security researchers, environmental activists, whistleblowers, lawyers representing "sensitive" clients, and MLK himself... all have faced some…

Yeah, but wouldn't you agree that each time the government does overstep it's authority there is a backlash and they stop? Society seems to keep the government in check. Things like the MLK scenario are a lot less likely now-a-days. If you're say prodrug legalization, it's very very unlikely you'll be blackmailed for your extramarital affairs by a government official (in fact that seems kinda absurd). Yes bad things happen on a small scale, I wouldn't deny that, but I just don't see it as something slipperyslopping anywhere. There isn't a direct mechanism keeping the government in check other than education (and the values that it fosters) along with citizen outrage. Government's fear of it's citizens seems to have worked everywhere in the 1st world.
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