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Pentagon testing mass surveillance balloons across the US

theguardian.com

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Re: Pentagon testing mass surveillance balloons across the US

#61

Post by resters »

tlb wrote: post #12
davisr wrote: post #5

I don't comment much, but I feel compelled to mention how this currently has a 36:1 vote-to-comment ratio. The kinds of thing the US military is testing on their own people is horrific, and it's our duty as American citizens to oppose this kind of surveillance. I sometimes feel I'm talking to a ghost. It is truly terrifying that my fellow Americans are selling themselves out. Ring will let the government, Amazon, and…

The fact that people haven't commented "this is bad" doesn't mean lots of people don't think it's bad. But such comments don't change anything, and the site guidelines specifically discourage them because they just add noise. Insulting people, however, tends to derail any useful discussion.

> Insulting people, however, tends to derail any useful discussion.

She didn't insult anyone, please explain how you got that from the text of the comment.

Most likely HN users are fearful of retaliation from the mods for participating in a discussion that will likely be deemed "political" or a "flame war".

I suggest you not reply to this or else your account might get shadow banned.

YC is heavily invested in Palantir and many similar "defense contractor" style firms, so it's reasonable that the mods try not to let content exist that might agitate investors.

Re: Pentagon testing mass surveillance balloons across the US

#62

Post by algaeontoast »

I’m somewhat against this tech. But if it means stopping drug traffickers and illegal immigrants I’m all for it.

I have a similar stance on border checkpoints 100 miles inland from the border - it’s a mild inconvenience for me but I’m more thank okay with it if it stops criminals or those breaking the law.

Re: Pentagon testing mass surveillance balloons across the US

#63

Post by auslander »

davisr wrote: post #5

I don't comment much, but I feel compelled to mention how this currently has a 36:1 vote-to-comment ratio. The kinds of thing the US military is testing on their own people is horrific, and it's our duty as American citizens to oppose this kind of surveillance. I sometimes feel I'm talking to a ghost. It is truly terrifying that my fellow Americans are selling themselves out. Ring will let the government, Amazon, and…

> then shutting up for matters of grave importance. You all deserve the tyranny that is coming.

Rather than whining online about surveillance, it is more effective to build your personal defences and do your research on OPSEC. It is perpetual cat and mouse game.

Re: Pentagon testing mass surveillance balloons across the US

#64

Post by propogandist »

algaeontoast wrote: post #62

I’m somewhat against this tech. But if it means stopping drug traffickers and illegal immigrants I’m all for it. I have a similar stance on border checkpoints 100 miles inland from the border - it’s a mild inconvenience for me but I’m more thank okay with it if it stops criminals or those breaking the law.

Illegal immigrants in the midwestern states, crossing state boundaries?

The article notes there is no known operation nor investigation this effort supporting (drug trafficking or otherwise), its a surveillance experiment.

Re: Pentagon testing mass surveillance balloons across the US

#65

Post by cmurf »

davisr wrote: post #5

I don't comment much, but I feel compelled to mention how this currently has a 36:1 vote-to-comment ratio. The kinds of thing the US military is testing on their own people is horrific, and it's our duty as American citizens to oppose this kind of surveillance. I sometimes feel I'm talking to a ghost. It is truly terrifying that my fellow Americans are selling themselves out. Ring will let the government, Amazon, and…

The guidelines literally consider politics contrary to intellectual curiosity, and in the category of cat photos and disaster videos. As someone who studied political science in school, it's an abomination of a guideline. The mixing of ideology, politics, and technology is obvious, and the ensuing conflicts are inevitable, and HN guidelines say take it elsewhere, this is not the place for those conversations. Meanwhile, objective trash ends up on the front page all the time, and stories involving technology used to subvert human freedom routinely gets rank demoted contrary to the HN community's votes.

So I think it's possible your complaint is really not with the community but with the guidelines. If people don't care for an article, they don't have to vote for it. If people don't like heated debates, they don't have to participate in them. But the guidelines make that decision for the community.

Re: Pentagon testing mass surveillance balloons across the US

#66

Post by cmurf »

netsharc wrote: post #23
davisr wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most important thing one can do is write, AND call, their legislature. Don't ever shut up about it. Does it stand a chance against corporate lobbyists? Probably not, but it leaves one with a clear conscience.

[flagged]

Pelosi is appeasing a dictator? The current POTUS can't get enough of blowing kisses to the world's dictators.

Re: Pentagon testing mass surveillance balloons across the US

#67

Post by bob7834 »

apo wrote: post #49

> The new balloons promise a cheap surveillance platform that could follow multiple cars and boats for extended periods. And because winds often travel in different directions at different altitudes, the balloons can usually hover over a given area simply by ascending or descending. Stepping back from the details of this story reveals a striking pattern that most public discussions on mass surveillance miss entirely.…

I’ve maintained for a long time that the only reason we have a “war on terror” is that the ability of the “war on drugs” to strip us of our civil liberties had mostly run its course by 2001. These are the political issues I care most about. I really hoped Obama would curtail the surveillance state. For 8 years I thought “soon, he will try to rollback the patriot act.” That never happened.

Instead, we got assisinated citizens.

It was just more of the same power mongering bullshit. By the time his presidency ended, I had lumped all politicians, nay, public officials into the same cauldron of corrupt blight. In my eyes, Trump, Obama and Bush are the same. When will a statesman/women/person have the metaphorical balls to put an end to this madness?

Law enforcement (and Hollywood [1]) can go fuck itself. I would rather fear a criminal/terrorist/crack pipe than my own putative government. I’m white. I can’t even imagine how minorities feel about these incessant overreaches.

[1] For some “bizarre” reason, Hollywood leans strongly toward lionizing rogue cops/gestapo agents who trample civil rights.

Re: Pentagon testing mass surveillance balloons across the US

#68

Post by rashkov »

resters wrote: post #60
davisr wrote: post #5

I don't comment much, but I feel compelled to mention how this currently has a 36:1 vote-to-comment ratio. The kinds of thing the US military is testing on their own people is horrific, and it's our duty as American citizens to oppose this kind of surveillance. I sometimes feel I'm talking to a ghost. It is truly terrifying that my fellow Americans are selling themselves out. Ring will let the government, Amazon, and…

> I can't believe how stupid the "Hacker" "News" community is--commenting on things that don't matter, then shutting up for matters of grave importance. Topics like mass surveillance are considered by HN moderators to be "political" and any commentary about them is considered the equivalent of graffiti that defaces the site for everyone else. As hackers we have a social responsibility to participate in important poli…

I would guess that surveillance gets discussed here almost daily, and most readers are probably familiar with why it’s bad and that we should oppose it and write our legislators and etc. Parent poster’s comment - a call to arms - is almost free of novel content, and we can find similar comments at the top of our newsfeeds on every other social network and forum.

The next highest post in this comments section, written by Apo about the dynamics of the falling costs of surveillance and the tendency for states to slide towards authoritarianism, is an example of the kind of insightful and thought provoking comment that I come to hacker news for. This thread that we’re all commenting on is a red blooded, knee jerk reaction fest by comparison.

Of course it’s important that we get angry about surveillance and inspire others to be activists about it, I just don’t think that it makes for an interesting or unique discussion. We can get that on any news site and social network. By contrast, hacker news’ moderated discussion can shift your worldview and provide useful points of debate, and a wide perspective that you can bring back to the world.

With that in hand we can get a lot further by fighting smarter and more strategically. I’ll take hacker news’ gentle discussion guidelines over red blooded calls to action any day, because honestly the internet is already full of those, and there aren’t enough discussion spaces like hacker news.

Re: Pentagon testing mass surveillance balloons across the US

#69

Post by aero142 »

imglorp wrote: post #27
davisr wrote: post #5

I don't comment much, but I feel compelled to mention how this currently has a 36:1 vote-to-comment ratio. The kinds of thing the US military is testing on their own people is horrific, and it's our duty as American citizens to oppose this kind of surveillance. I sometimes feel I'm talking to a ghost. It is truly terrifying that my fellow Americans are selling themselves out. Ring will let the government, Amazon, and…

Dayton OH tried this crap with Persistent Surveillance Systems equipment that's basically a time machine: a high altitude camera that photographs the whole city and lets you follow a vehicle forward or backward in time, inferring meeting places, routes, etc. The outcry that arose cancelled the project. So yes, protest works! https://www.acluohio.org/archives/issue-information/warrantl... The one over Baltimore is JLE…

The tech here is so good I don’t believe it went away. I just think it will exist in secret and only used when they really need to. We will get a snowden style leak about it in 10 years.

Re: Pentagon testing mass surveillance balloons across the US

#70

Post by rashkov »

resters wrote: post #61
tlb wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that people haven't commented "this is bad" doesn't mean lots of people don't think it's bad. But such comments don't change anything, and the site guidelines specifically discourage them because they just add noise. Insulting people, however, tends to derail any useful discussion.

> Insulting people, however, tends to derail any useful discussion. She didn't insult anyone, please explain how you got that from the text of the comment. Most likely HN users are fearful of retaliation from the mods for participating in a discussion that will likely be deemed "political" or a "flame war". I suggest you not reply to this or else your account might get shadow banned. YC is heavily invested in Palanti…

This is, in my opinion, a really baseless claim. There’s plenty of critical discussion on HN that runs against YC interests. There’s also plenty of intelligent political discussion on here. The modded stuff is modded because it is content-free, off topic for the discussion, trollish, or ad-hominem and other low forms of debate. I’m personally very thankful that it gets moderated.
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