Police surveilled protests with help from Twitter-affiliated startup Dataminr • Hacker News Board

Re: Police surveilled protests with help from Twitter-affiliated startup Dataminr

#181

Post by titzer » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 8:33 AM UTC

darawk wrote: post #164

titzer wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Last I checked, we lived in a democracy. The United States is a Constitutional Republic with rights explicitly enshrined therein, including its amendments. You are more than welcome to your opinion on violating constitutional rights but if you want the rule of law then you should follow the constitutional process to add an amendment in order to revoke said rights. > So, you are opposed to government surveillance of…

> The United States is a Constitutional Republic with rights explicitly enshrined therein, including its amendments. You are more than welcome to your opinion on violating constitutional rights but if you want the rule of law then you should follow the constitutional process to add an amendment in order to revoke said rights. Tell me: which constitutional rights are violated by the police reading your public twitter…

It's the chilling effect[1] of both mass, pervasive and targeted surveillance.

This has a specific legal definition which is complex and not going to be communicated in a hackernews comment, but if you want to dig deeper,

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilling_effect

Pro tip: pretend like your free speech is out of favor with the current extremist government.

Oppose tyranny.

Re: Police surveilled protests with help from Twitter-affiliated startup Dataminr

#182

Post by pnako » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 8:40 AM UTC

aspaceman wrote: post #178

due737y3 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure the crime solving utility is wholly relevant here, police have other duties like maintaining public safety. The obvious utility seems to be monitoring different protest zones for signs that violence is beginning to break out. If x people are suddenly tweeting about a fire or gun shots near an active protest then you know it would probably be wise to at least send a scout over there to evaluate the situat…

> The obvious utility seems to be monitoring different protest zones for signs that violence is beginning to break out. There's an easier way of knowing when violence is happening. Just have the cops report when they decide to start beating and shooting innocent civilians. I'm sure they'll be thrilled to let folks know when their partner decided to kill someone innocent or beat some faces in. After all, their duty is…

I would say this is a 5-year-old's understanding of the police, if not for the fact that 5 year olds (at least boys) typically like anything related to the police.

Re: Police surveilled protests with help from Twitter-affiliated startup Dataminr

#183

Post by pnako » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 8:41 AM UTC

mintplant wrote: post #128

TeeMassive wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem right now is that there are a lot of people who want to (and did) commit violent acts and use black block tactics. They openly encourage lawful protesters to dress homogeneously all clad in black under the pretense of protecting protesters against police but in fact they do so to commit acts of violence and then meld away in the crowd, effectively taking hostage the lawful protesters. The argument can be…

You write with such conviction and certainty, and yet I must point out that it's black bloc , not "block".

Do you have a problem with grammar anarchists?

Re: Police surveilled protests with help from Twitter-affiliated startup Dataminr

#184

Post by zimpenfish » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 8:44 AM UTC

TeeMassive wrote: post #119

nullc wrote: post #107

This kind of surveillance is not very effective for preventing or solving crimes. It is much more effective at making lists of people willing to lawfully and peacefully stand for the human rights or others, -- "potential subversives", as the parties monitoring might call them. Imagine, instead, if law enforcement were to stand outside of a marijuana-legalization rally and collect the sort of data effectively collecte…

The problem right now is that there are a lot of people who want to (and did) commit violent acts and use black block tactics. They openly encourage lawful protesters to dress homogeneously all clad in black under the pretense of protecting protesters against police but in fact they do so to commit acts of violence and then meld away in the crowd, effectively taking hostage the lawful protesters. The argument can be…

> dress homogeneously all clad in black

Much like the police when they obscure or remove their names and/or badge numbers, no?

> but in fact they do so to commit acts of violence and then meld away in the crowd, effectively taking hostage the lawful protesters.

Yep, you got that right.

Re: Police surveilled protests with help from Twitter-affiliated startup Dataminr

#185

Post by pnako » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 8:50 AM UTC

darawk wrote: post #166

toofy wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you really want to take the position that the government cannot monitor any group until it commits a crime? There is an ocean of options in between “do nothing” and “surveil and database every citizen who potentially maybe, might, could exercise their constitutional protections and protest.” A vast amount of options.

Let's keep in mind what we're actually discussing here. We're talking about police monitoring public Twitter feeds. They're not tapping phones. They're not secretly infiltrating groups with undercover agents. Just reading stuff that's published in public, for all the world to see. Reading public messages seems like a super reasonable thing for the police to be doing, to keep tabs on groups that have recently engaged…

It's hard to disagree with this point, really.

I don't see how you can prevent the police from reading stuff that's being broadcast for everyone else to see.

And threats of violence, or evidence of organizing to cause violence, should be investigated.

Re: Police surveilled protests with help from Twitter-affiliated startup Dataminr

#186

Post by pnako » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 8:52 AM UTC

squeaky-clean wrote: post #134

darawk wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well if you're willing to accept that the government should not keep tabs on racist organizations or militias, then I guess we've cashed out our disagreement to terminal values. We'll just have to agree to disagree.

I see you post on forums involving hackers and encryption. We're just going to keep tabs on you and other potential members of your militia, ok?

I suspect you're just disagreeing on what "keeping tabs" actually means.

The government shouldn't put someone under (specific|personal) surveillance without strong evidence of course. But I don't see what prevents them from reading twitter, going into public chat rooms, etc.

Re: Police surveilled protests with help from Twitter-affiliated startup Dataminr

#187

Post by pnako » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 8:56 AM UTC

monadic2 wrote: post #85

darawk wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am thinking about it. Think about what you are proposing. Do you really want to take the position that the government cannot monitor any group until it commits a crime?

The FBI doesn’t appear to do a great job at preventing white supremacist domestic terrorism, so I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make.

The last few cases that come to mind (Breivik, Tarrant) are from lone wolves that had radical ideas but were not affiliated with any group.

It must be very difficult to catch (unless you want a surveillance society where everyone is suspect).

Even in cases where it's planned and announced it's difficult to stop (Al Qaeda did announce they would assassinate Charb, editor in chief of Charlie Hebdo, and despite police protection they managed to do so).

Re: Police surveilled protests with help from Twitter-affiliated startup Dataminr

#188

Post by onion2k » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 9:00 AM UTC

nullc wrote: post #107

This kind of surveillance is not very effective for preventing or solving crimes. It is much more effective at making lists of people willing to lawfully and peacefully stand for the human rights or others, -- "potential subversives", as the parties monitoring might call them. Imagine, instead, if law enforcement were to stand outside of a marijuana-legalization rally and collect the sort of data effectively collecte…

Imagine, instead, if law enforcement were to stand outside of a marijuana-legalization rally and collect the sort of data effectively collected here: name, address, duration of involvement.

They sort of do, by filming it and using facial recognition to identify people.

Re: Police surveilled protests with help from Twitter-affiliated startup Dataminr

#189

Post by darawk » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 9:26 AM UTC

titzer wrote: post #181

darawk wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The United States is a Constitutional Republic with rights explicitly enshrined therein, including its amendments. You are more than welcome to your opinion on violating constitutional rights but if you want the rule of law then you should follow the constitutional process to add an amendment in order to revoke said rights. Tell me: which constitutional rights are violated by the police reading your public twitter…

It's the chilling effect[1] of both mass, pervasive and targeted surveillance. This has a specific legal definition which is complex and not going to be communicated in a hackernews comment, but if you want to dig deeper, [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilling_effect Pro tip: pretend like your free speech is out of favor with the current extremist government. Oppose tyranny.

That's exactly what i'm doing. I understand chilling effects. I don't see how reading public Twitter feeds cause them in a way we should be worried about.

Re: Police surveilled protests with help from Twitter-affiliated startup Dataminr

#190

Post by belorn » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 9:29 AM UTC

stefan_ wrote: post #17

DoofusOfDeath wrote: post #9

I get the sense that most HN commenters are against having police surveil this kind of event in the U.S. Could someone share the reasons for this strong opposition? Personally, I can imagine valid reasons for and against conducting such surveillance. But given how many people feel otherwise, I wonder if I'm missing something.

The first obvious point is that protesting is a constitutionally protected activity, as is any political speech on Twitter, and this is interpreted extremely widely - so why are public institutions in the business of surveilling this legal, ney protected activity? But there is more to it. Courts have long recognized that state activity that can be reasonably construed to chill exercise of ones constitutional freedoms…

> protesting is a constitutionally protected activity

As someone who don't live in the US but which country has a bunch of laws protecting protesting under specific conditions, I wonder a bit about that statement.

Looking around for an answer, while the US governments may not deny a person's constitutional right to peacefully protest, they may regulate the time, place, and manner in which the protest is conducted. They can also deny permits as long as they have a compelling, objective reason to do so.

So its a mixed bag when it comes to the US courts, and the question that seems to have most significance is what is or isn't an compelling objective reason. In order to sue the court you would need to both demonstrate the infringement of the right, and that the government does not have objective reasons (such as keeping order). I suspect the result of such court case would not be obvious, but rather uncertain with a lot of variation based the judges in question.