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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

#291

Post by JudgeWapner »

t-a4550 wrote: post #129
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.…

> “Today it's the war on drugs and terror. Tomorrow it's something else.” > “This train has one destination, and it's not even clear if there will be any stops along the way. To understand where we're headed, try reading the Bill of Rights with the assumption that your government knows everything there is to know about you, and where those who attempt to reveal the extent of these capabilities are imprisoned or execu…

People act differently when they know they're being watched. The government does not have the right to alter my behavior that way.

Next reason is that their laws aren't enforced equally. This tech is more likely to be used for small time crooks (and disproportionately, minorities) than used to stop CEOs or Epstein's, or cops that strangle handcuffed suspects of nonviolent offenses

Re: Pentagon testing mass surveillance balloons across the US

#292

Post by jammygit »

senorjazz wrote: post #213
bamboozled wrote: post #154

Earlier 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…

> but what Hong Kong would be like right now if all citizens hard arms? The chinese are slowly removing democratic institutions away from the people. The people are rising up to protect them without guns. Democratic norms are slowly being eroded from the US as well. Extreme gerrymandering, electoral college / popular vote, overt foreign interference, requested foreign interference, voting irregularities, voter purges…

> but what Hong Kong would be like right now if all citizens hard arms?

Your comment didn’t address the quote.

If Hong Kong citizens were all armed, what would be happening right now? Is there a similar historical situation we could look at?

Re: Pentagon testing mass surveillance balloons across the US

#293

Post by jammygit »

t-a4550 wrote: post #129
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.…

> “Today it's the war on drugs and terror. Tomorrow it's something else.” > “This train has one destination, and it's not even clear if there will be any stops along the way. To understand where we're headed, try reading the Bill of Rights with the assumption that your government knows everything there is to know about you, and where those who attempt to reveal the extent of these capabilities are imprisoned or execu…

How many times can you cite the slippery slope fallacy before the hand is in your pants? Every single step?

Re: Pentagon testing mass surveillance balloons across the US

#294

Post by feanaro »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #174
whatshisface wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can anyone really justify why dictators are bad without resorting to "and they do something bad?" I mean, you couldn't even explain to me why you wouldn't want me as a cosigner on your bank account without resorting to something like, "and then whatshisface does something bad." I think it's reasonable to believe in a slippery slope between "gun is pointed" and "gun is fired." I mean, just to play devil's advocate, yo…

>Can anyone really justify why dictators are bad without resorting to "and they do something bad If a dictator is bad, the citizenship has almost no method of improving the situation. A benevolent dictator may be the best form of government, but there is no reliable way of ensuring it will be attained.

How would a single person be able to choose what is best for everyone, even if benevolent? Benevolent does not mean omniscient and infinitely wise.

The best kind of system is one which ensures no single entity can amass a great deal of power, ending with a state of many smaller entities in continual opposition.

Re: Pentagon testing mass surveillance balloons across the US

#295

Post by maxheadroom »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #280
maxheadroom wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is why many Americans won’t give their guns away. . ...but the way the U.S. laws are written, it's quite illegal to take up arms against or try to depose/overthrow the United States Government - no matter how totalitarian and authoritarian it might get. In fact, nothing in the Bill of Rights or the Consitution or the U.S. Code guarantees such right[s]. This is not to mention the reality that the arms controls…

In fact, nothing in the Bill of Rights or the Consitution or the U.S. Code guarantees such right[s]. Correct, it would be redundant. We have a separate foundational document devoted entirely to that right.

>We have a separate foundational document devoted entirely to that right.

If you're referring to the Declaration of Independence, that is a legal document[0] that doesn't enshrine rights - even if we're to posit that it did, it speaks specifically about the colonies and the United Kingdom (Great Britain), so there's nothing to extend those principles to any other government entity.

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Declaration_of_I...

Re: Pentagon testing mass surveillance balloons across the US

#296

Post by close04 »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #282
close04 wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only way a protest with guns is different from a normal protest is if you're willing to use those guns. And using them usually doesn't end well for protesters more than anyone.

S/he just gave you two examples that ended very well for the protesters in one instance, and for the surviving people on the protesters' side in the other.

You mean with militants being killed, arrested, and/or fined? I can think of better endings. You know things aren't ideal when the cherry picked examples still ended with death and prison without (obvious) lasting changes. Other cherry picked examples ended way worse [0].

These were extremely localized protests in terms of people involved and goals. How would it work out on a national scale involving multiple parties and different goals on different scales? The article we're commenting on is about mass surveillance, how would a protest of 1+ million armed people look like, and how would the authorities treat it? As a protest or as an attempt to overthrow the government? And what happens when some of those people are actually pro-government and they also have guns?

Any major civil unrest is all but guaranteed to not end well (in general) because simply organizing it might be treated as a crime. And the fight is unlikely to be just 2 sided, "the people" vs. the government.

If you have to hang on to your guns because that's the only sure way to effect change then something somewhere went terribly wrong. And reality is that it was much easier to very slowly erode the freedom and not one single change was severe enough to trigger unrest on more than localized issues that only affected one tiny group of people. By the time people look back and realize what they had and lost, even guns won't help.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waco_siege

Re: Pentagon testing mass surveillance balloons across the US

#297

Post by dredmorbius »

close04 wrote: post #296
CamperBob2 wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

S/he just gave you two examples that ended very well for the protesters in one instance, and for the surviving people on the protesters' side in the other.

You mean with militants being killed, arrested, and/or fined? I can think of better endings. You know things aren't ideal when the cherry picked examples still ended with death and prison without (obvious) lasting changes. Other cherry picked examples ended way worse [0]. These were extremely localized protests in terms of people involved and goals. How would it work out on a national scale involving multiple parties…

The point is that the State Blinked.

It happens.

For numerous reasons. Social resistance: the Prohibition, Civil Rights, and AntiWar (Vietnam) movements in the US, India's liberation movement, pro-democracy protests in South Korea during the 1980s, anti-globalism and 99% resistance movements in the 1990s and 2000s, Black Lives Matter and (to a point) the Alt-Right and militia protests (the latter being very prominantly armed).

The state, and power generally, gives up nothing without a fight. But a sufficiently credible threat will make it at least blink, particularly if there isn't a single central point that can be identified to remove a threat. Or if the power balance as a whole shifts.

While most of my examples don't rise to the level of direct overthrow, they do very much represent an armed resistance to central government authority. And yes, that's gone quite poorly for the opposition in many, almost certainly most cases. But not all.

The exceptions might prove illuminating.

Re: Pentagon testing mass surveillance balloons across the US

#298

Post by boomboomsubban »

feanaro wrote: post #294
boomboomsubban wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Can anyone really justify why dictators are bad without resorting to "and they do something bad If a dictator is bad, the citizenship has almost no method of improving the situation. A benevolent dictator may be the best form of government, but there is no reliable way of ensuring it will be attained.

How would a single person be able to choose what is best for everyone, even if benevolent? Benevolent does not mean omniscient and infinitely wise. The best kind of system is one which ensures no single entity can amass a great deal of power, ending with a state of many smaller entities in continual opposition.

>How would a single person be able to choose what is best for everyone, even if benevolent? Benevolent does not mean omniscient and infinitely wise.

A benevolent dictator can still make mistakes, but so can the smaller entities you describe. The benevolent dictator would be focused on the good of everyone though, while the smaller entities in opposition would be focused on the good of their own group.

The process of setting up a longstanding benevolent dictatorship is what makes the idea ridiculous.

Re: Pentagon testing mass surveillance balloons across the US

#299

Post by CamperBob2 »

maxheadroom wrote: post #295
CamperBob2 wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fact, nothing in the Bill of Rights or the Consitution or the U.S. Code guarantees such right[s]. Correct, it would be redundant. We have a separate foundational document devoted entirely to that right.

> We have a separate foundational document devoted entirely to that right. If you're referring to the Declaration of Independence, that is a legal document[0] that doesn't enshrine rights - even if we're to posit that it did, it speaks specifically about the colonies and the United Kingdom (Great Britain), so there's nothing to extend those principles to any other government entity. [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wik…

Doesn't sound like you've actually read it. The declaration is a litany of complaints against the regime of George III, but it is also a sweepingly-encompassing document that explicitly endorses overthrow as a core human right.

Re: Pentagon testing mass surveillance balloons across the US

#300

Post by nosianu »

lovemenot wrote: post #194
nosianu wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>> ... the orders of magnitude of difference in effectiveness between a cohesive, trained and organised force and a bunch of individuals True for a head-on conflict, but the story in the article has the organised forces' equipment in a vulnerable place - 65Kft above a city. Asymmetric activity in such a theatre would favour the armed civilian, for now at least. Ground-based coordinated tracking with 1W laser on rudim…

You keep making really ridiculous assertions, my dear keyboard warrior. You and all the American gun nuts.

Mind you, I served in the army (not the US one), battle tanks, so I'm hardly a pacifist. But you guys are just loudmouths who play too many video games and see too many Hollywood hero movies. No you won't win - and you will not even fight, apart from some very few not so bright people. Because you value your life way too much, liker 99.9% of everybody else faced with overwhelming odds.

The forces the US army is up against are not unorganized, they have pretty good training and equipment - and support from foreign governments. They are not desperate lone fighters.

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