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The Feds are building an America-wide face surveillance system and ACLU is suing

theregister.co.uk

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Re: The Feds are building an America-wide face surveillance system and ACLU is suing

#61

Post by Ancalagon »

MisterTea wrote: post #45
trenning wrote: post #22

I can't be the only one who gets depressed reading the news on here. Everyday it's another article about your private information being sucked up and sold for advertising or hacked and sold to be used for stealing your identity or other nefarious shit. Then there's the public side of gov't agencies monitoring everything in your life. At any point they can send an email to any tech company and get a full dump of your…

> I can't be the only one who gets depressed reading the news on here. ..... This sounds like some conspiracy tinfoil hat old man rant (I swear I'm non of those), but I hear regular "non-tech" people airing the same complaints more and more. It's just disappointing that there isn't an option to not participate I guess. Sorry for the long (mostly off topic) rant Rant on my friend. Rant on. You're not the only one gett…

Was even more crazy, and to your point, even tech that you wouldn't expect to be watching you is now. Google's new wifi router has microphones and speakers in it! This is insanity to me. I've converted my entire tech environment to mostly apple devices, but apple doesn't make everything, and honestly with their new business model I truly believe its only a matter of time until they too start aggregating data like Google and Amazon do.

Re: The Feds are building an America-wide face surveillance system and ACLU is suing

#62

Post by pmoriarty »

j8014 wrote: post #40
Rooster61 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate getting political, but this is one of Andrew Yang's platform staples and is immediately relevant to your question. Look up his ideas about Data as a Right.

If it is to be political, I would rather target the legislative branch who can actually do something about this. It doesn't make sense to worry about the promises of a politician trying to get elected into the executive branch.

"I would rather target the legislative branch who can actually do something about this. It doesn't make sense to worry about the promises of a politician trying to get elected into the executive branch."

Presidents have a major influence on what lawmakers do.

First, they're the ostensible leader of their party, and to the extent they actually can and do lead, they can influence the rest of the party, including the legislature.

Second, they can also greatly influence the relationship with the opposition party, as has been made eminently clear from the polarizing effect that Obama, Bush Jr, and Trump had on their opposition.

Third, they have one of the world's biggest megaphones that they can use to push for their agenda. Witness the galvanizing effect of Kennedy's call for a space race or the Peace Corps.

Fourth, they have veto power over legislation. While legislation can still pass over a Presidential veto, it has to have a lot more support in Congress, which means that controversial reforms will have a much harder time passing.

Fifth, they can sign executive orders, which (in lieu of legislation) can also have a great effect.

Re: The Feds are building an America-wide face surveillance system and ACLU is suing

#63

Post by sailfast »

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #16
sailfast wrote: post #12

I guess “they have your old drivers license photo” is technically an America-wide surveillance system? Would you not want a law enforcement body to be able to query against photos legally obtained? Now, if they’re running additional programs with broader means (the FBI do not answer the ACLU on this which is why they’re suing) that is a different matter, but the ACLU does not assert this, only that it may be possible…

There's a huge qualitative difference. Prior to this technology, a detective could certainly go with a suspect's name to the secretary of state and compare a driver's license photo with a security camera image. I have no issue with that, and I suspect the ACLU doesn't either. Subsequently, they're able to passively monitor all security camera images and compare them to millions of driver's license photos to track the…

I don't think the ACLU would have a problem with the FBI going to the secretary of state with a picture of someone from a security tape committing a crime. If the FBI has entered into a data sharing agreement around drivers license photos and has governance to keep the data set to a certain use case and there are rules around it I don't think the ACLU would much mind that either.

The issue here is that the ACLU (and citizens) do not know whether the FBI has any of this governance in place or is using additional photo sources for this matching (like public security feeds, or other aggregated security feeds / image capture)

I completely agree that law enforcement agencies will always seek to [reduce barriers to getting what they believe they need] and that we should limit this as a society.

While it's easy to abuse and leads to dark conclusions, all I'm trying to suggest is that the FBI may have actually considered appropriate usage of facial recognition and deliberately NOT gone down the rabbit hole you're discussing. Because we don't know, we have to assume the answer might be yes, but those facts have not been established, which is why the ACLU is suing.

Re: The Feds are building an America-wide face surveillance system and ACLU is suing

#64

Post by homonculus1 »

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #16
sailfast wrote: post #12

I guess “they have your old drivers license photo” is technically an America-wide surveillance system? Would you not want a law enforcement body to be able to query against photos legally obtained? Now, if they’re running additional programs with broader means (the FBI do not answer the ACLU on this which is why they’re suing) that is a different matter, but the ACLU does not assert this, only that it may be possible…

There's a huge qualitative difference. Prior to this technology, a detective could certainly go with a suspect's name to the secretary of state and compare a driver's license photo with a security camera image. I have no issue with that, and I suspect the ACLU doesn't either. Subsequently, they're able to passively monitor all security camera images and compare them to millions of driver's license photos to track the…

>This does far more than make it more difficult for the guilty to get away with crimes. That's not a cause anyone would advocate for.

Actually, I'll advocate for it. What you're saying assumes a perfect law, but actually there are plenty of crimes that should not be crimes. People should be able to get away with those, despite being legally guilty according to a standard set by whatever group is in power.

Imagine if everyone who ever carried an ounce of weed got caught and locked up for it. A perfectly effective law enforcement system leaves no room for societal adjustment and changing norms through noncompliance. There has to be cost and human effort involved in enforcing the law.

Re: The Feds are building an America-wide face surveillance system and ACLU is suing

#65

Post by coldtea »

mikece wrote: post #28

I recall a story about street performers in London demanding -- and getting -- copies of the videos of them doing their thing which were captured by CCTV. Just because something is performed in public doesn't make it legal to record it, and unless you sign a contract to the contrary, in the US you retain copyright to all original performances. So... if you posit that your life is an act of performance art can you sue…

>I recall a story about street performers in London demanding -- and getting -- copies of the videos of them doing their thing which were captured by CCTV.

If I recall correctly, a pop bad, played in different streets, and then asked for, and made a video with those recordings of them...

Found it -- though it appears it was not entirely accurate:

https://observers.france24.com/en/20080516-hoax-cctv-video-g...

Good idea though!

Re: The Feds are building an America-wide face surveillance system and ACLU is suing

#66

Post by everybodyknows »

linuxftw wrote: post #25

Weird. Nobody wants to limit the authority of the government until the government is infringing upon something they care about. If only there was some concept where we could specifically enumerate powers to the government, and that's all the government was allowed to do.

How about this for a start:

>The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/tenth_amendment

Re: The Feds are building an America-wide face surveillance system and ACLU is suing

#68

Post by daerogami »

kd3 wrote: post #60
linuxftw wrote: post #25

Weird. Nobody wants to limit the authority of the government until the government is infringing upon something they care about. If only there was some concept where we could specifically enumerate powers to the government, and that's all the government was allowed to do.

The best government is no government.

Only on paper in a utopia. That does not work on a landmass with 327 million people that are trying to engage in commerce, build homes and maintain infrastructure in their communities. You need some managing body to orchestrate the funding, management and execution of a civilization whether its a handful of families or a nation covering half a continent. Having no government for those is a logistical impossibility.

Better to say "the best corruption is no corruption". That is at least marginally less refutable.

Re: The Feds are building an America-wide face surveillance system and ACLU is suing

#69

Post by proverbialbunny »

trenning wrote: post #22

I can't be the only one who gets depressed reading the news on here. Everyday it's another article about your private information being sucked up and sold for advertising or hacked and sold to be used for stealing your identity or other nefarious shit. Then there's the public side of gov't agencies monitoring everything in your life. At any point they can send an email to any tech company and get a full dump of your…

>This sounds like some conspiracy tinfoil hat old man rant (I swear I'm non of those), but I hear regular "non-tech" people airing the same complaints more and more.

Nah, people here are savvy enough to recognize it.

The term conspiracy theory was created as a way to disenfranchise reports when the government actually does something harmful. But you, like most people here, can tell the difference between something manufactured like flat earthers and NSA's machine learning projects.

I worked at a CDN and did analytics over a lot of the worlds http traffic. So yah.. sadly, it's a real problem.

Re: The Feds are building an America-wide face surveillance system and ACLU is suing

#70

Post by justinclift »

buboard wrote: post #20
drumttocs8 wrote: post #19

Real question- could face surveillance be one of the reasons multiple governments have banned niqabs or face veils?

It's certainly the excuse given. "You can't hide your face in public spaces with niqabs or balaclavas for security reasons". The worrying part is that people are OK with it

Perhaps the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster should add niqabs to their official clothing list, as an initial counter to this face surveillance crap. Could be useful at least in the jurisdictions that don't ban them.
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