I am not advocating this in the US or anywhere, but how would one disable a surveillance balloon as an act of civil disobedience if necessary (without ending up in jail)?
maybe concentrated solar light could burn them
Pentagon testing mass surveillance balloons across the US
181–190 of 315 posts
Re: Pentagon testing mass surveillance balloons across the US
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is why many Americans won’t give their guns away. Imagine (not saying it would be a good outcome), but what Hong Kong would be like right now if all citizens hard arms? Well maybe the whole thing wouldn’t have even started. But wow, it would be a very different scene. Instead it’s more a case of if the military wants to walk in and shutdown the place, it’s going to be a lot easier. Not entirely a gun rights advo…
Can't tell if the comment is satire. I guess it's best to assume it is and move on, since any discussion based on the assumption that it's not satire has already taken place many times, following predictable paths. Except that I can't keep myself from pointing out the orders of magnitude of difference in effectiveness between a cohesive, trained and organised force and a bunch of individuals, even if they were equall…
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Re: Pentagon testing mass surveillance balloons across the US
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is why many Americans won’t give their guns away. Imagine (not saying it would be a good outcome), but what Hong Kong would be like right now if all citizens hard arms? Well maybe the whole thing wouldn’t have even started. But wow, it would be a very different scene. Instead it’s more a case of if the military wants to walk in and shutdown the place, it’s going to be a lot easier. Not entirely a gun rights advo…
Can't tell if the comment is satire. I guess it's best to assume it is and move on, since any discussion based on the assumption that it's not satire has already taken place many times, following predictable paths. Except that I can't keep myself from pointing out the orders of magnitude of difference in effectiveness between a cohesive, trained and organised force and a bunch of individuals, even if they were equall…
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Re: Pentagon testing mass surveillance balloons across the US
#184Re: Pentagon testing mass surveillance balloons across the US
#185Cheesy, but this reminds me of Captain America: Winter Soldier with the massive gunships that target anyone considered to be a “threat”. The government seems to make the case that this is “necessary” to stopping crime. Is it? I’m sure it makes it really easy to catch criminals—but what’s wrong with increasing the police force/improving non-technological techniques/etc.?
>...but what’s wrong with increasing the police force/improving non-technological techniques/etc.?
You mean actual work? We can't be having any of that! Plus, think of the !
Re: Pentagon testing mass surveillance balloons across the US
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
If a future administration ever has the political power to implement totalitarianism we're stuffed. The lack of a mass surveillance system will not stop them as they will build one. Horrible totalitarian regimes have existed in the past with quite low-tech systems (e.g. East Germany, USSR).
I lived in a totalitarian regime similar to the ones you mentioned (Ceausescu’s Romania back in the ‘80s) and if his bad guys had had access to today’s surveillance tools we would have been really, really stuffed. As things were you “only” had to watch out for people who would rat you out to Securitate or to Stasi (in East Germany), not an ideal situation but manageable from a certain point on, one could live a decen…
天高皇帝远 (Tian gao, Huangdi yuan)
"Heaven is high and the emperor is far away."
Re: Pentagon testing mass surveillance balloons across the US
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure. They parked a visible radar blimp over I95 outside of Baltimore and operated it for a couple of years. What’s the difference between “test” and “really using it” when the tests last that long? There are many loopholes for domestic stuff too. A National Guard member controlling the thing for example.
Full season durability testing. Developing operational procedures to deal with routine issues. These could easily take a few years.
and then you can test again, and again, and again. Each time for a few more years.
Re: Pentagon testing mass surveillance balloons across the US
#188[dead]
Re: Pentagon testing mass surveillance balloons across the US
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can think of a system : at the next election, vote for a president with a program about systemic transparency and openness for all the agencies and organizations.
Transparency is not a passive feature, it requires active and vigilant maintenance to be effective. In this case, any and all access to any and all instances of any and all imagery must be controlled and accounted for in perpetuity or you lose transparency. Allowing a system like this to be implemented under the guise of 'full transparency' is like a political trojan horse. All it takes is a loss of priority in that…
> Allowing a system like this to be implemented under the guise of 'full transparency' is like a political trojan horse. All it takes is a loss of priority in that objective by the same or subsequent administration
I didn't mean we could implement transparency with Pentagon's balloons, I meant : eventually, vote for a president or a party that would cancel that project for the name of privacy and transparency.
Re: Pentagon testing mass surveillance balloons across the US
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can think of a system : at the next election, vote for a president with a program about systemic transparency and openness for all the agencies and organizations.
What do you do if the president doesn't implement that plan after they are elected? Not vote for then again in four years and hope your next choice follows through?
You would first try to understand why it didn't work, then judge afterward. The party or president you will vote for won't change everything overnight. The president decides about a direction to take, and the administrative and legal machineries work toward it. Fundamental new concepts such as transparency (build upon new communication technologies) will take time to include in every decisions. Anyway, if after 5 years you feel betrayed, take a look at the recent news about how people deal with it : Sudan, France, Algeria, Hong Kong, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, people riot. If you cannot riot because everyone owns a gun, then you are out of luck, I guess.