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FBI agents track cell phones that pinged near the Capitol

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Re: FBI agents track cell phones that pinged near the Capitol

#221

Post by exporectomy »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #214
exporectomy wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing wrong with that as long as the law enforcement is trustworthy and competent. We do want to catch criminals. That's the whole point of having law enforcement. It's funny that in America, people seem to have so given up on the idea of the police being honest and competent that all they want is to reduce their power. They don't seem to want reform and instead would rather suffer from crime than be invest…

Because basing the system on the assumption that police will always be honest and competent is what got us into the situation we're in. Once bitten, twice shy.

I'm talking about accountability, not blind trust.

Re: FBI agents track cell phones that pinged near the Capitol

#222

Post by amerine »

systemvoltage wrote: post #192
sam_goody wrote: post #177

The big deal here is not the technology, it is that the FBI is involved in tracking participation of a protest. For the past year we have had not-always-fully-peaceful riots with many deaths and tremendous amount of property loss. Through all this, the FBI never breathed down the neck of the protestors- not even those who could have been actually committing a crime. Most of the people who went to DC did so peacefully…

> The fact that all protestors are being tracked If the riotors in Portland decided to travel to DC en masse to take down the US government, to hang members of Congress, you betchya it would be the same. I condemn all violence but there is a major difference of the context.

Exactly. OP paints an extremely false equivalency. It’s oranges and tomatoes.

Re: FBI agents track cell phones that pinged near the Capitol

#223

Post by adriancr »

kuyan wrote: post #213
sam_goody wrote: post #177

The big deal here is not the technology, it is that the FBI is involved in tracking participation of a protest. For the past year we have had not-always-fully-peaceful riots with many deaths and tremendous amount of property loss. Through all this, the FBI never breathed down the neck of the protestors- not even those who could have been actually committing a crime. Most of the people who went to DC did so peacefully…

> For the past year we have had not-always-fully-peaceful riots with many deaths and tremendous amount of property loss. Through all this, the FBI never breathed down the neck of the protestors- not even those who could have been actually committing a crime. I don't think this claim is accurate. Federal, state, and local law enforcement have always been happy to investigate and suppress nonviolent protest activity (m…

> Through all this, the FBI never breathed down the neck of the protestors

Someone should remind him of vietnam war protests I guess...

Re: FBI agents track cell phones that pinged near the Capitol

#224

Post by satellite2 »

exporectomy wrote: post #203
suifbwish wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3 raises a very interesting and somewhat concerning possibility. In the near future as AI develops more in the crime detection arena you may become a suspect for crimes occurring in your geographical area based on things you are not doing or based on some set of states your smart devices have that match a statistical model of a suspicious person. The idea of becoming a suspect because you didn’t touch your smartphone…

There's nothing wrong with that as long as the law enforcement is trustworthy and competent. We do want to catch criminals. That's the whole point of having law enforcement. It's funny that in America, people seem to have so given up on the idea of the police being honest and competent that all they want is to reduce their power. They don't seem to want reform and instead would rather suffer from crime than be invest…

It's generally well accepted in the criminology field that you can reduce crime and that actually the most effective way to reduce crime happen well before and are not related to policing anyone. No one wants to suffer from crime by inaction.

Re: FBI agents track cell phones that pinged near the Capitol

#225

Post by throwaway3699 »

DennisP wrote: post #159
trident5000 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually no. You cannot believe in curbing privacy-invading legislation and also cheer on warantless mass cell phone location tracking at the same time. You need to pick one.

Great: no surveillance Not so great: surveillance on everyone and catching criminals with it, but within a democratic framework Disastrous: surveillance on everyone, while giving a pass to insurgents attempting to overthrow democratic governance, because if they take over the surveillance infrastructure you're doomed

How were a bunch of crazies in the capitol going to take control of the US surveillance infrastructure?

Re: FBI agents track cell phones that pinged near the Capitol

#226

Post by dragonwriter »

syshum wrote: post #209
breck wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a big deal. Good engineering demands logged pings. Not doing that would be bad engineering. Could it be abused? Sure. But that's why we need to continue to engineer a better democracy as well. We can do both.

No we cant, the US was never to be a democracy, and you can not engineer a better one We are a constitutional republic with a LIMITED government, we as a society has lost respect for those constitutional limits and instead of taking principled stands to restrict government we have taken unprincipled stands based on the outcome we desire for society Attempting to "engineer" a better society is the exact problem we hav…

> the US was never to be a democracy, and you can not engineer a better one

If it wasn't designed to be democracy, it should be trivial to design a better one, just like it's trivial to build a better automobile than a tricycle, which wasn't designed to be an auto.

> We are a constitutional republic with a LIMITED government

That's not incompatible with democracy, and suggesting that they are exclusive alternatives just means you don't understand at least one of “democracy”, “constitutional republic”, or “limited governmemt”.

(And more fully, you want to say “federal republic with constitutionally-limited government and both the federal and state levels, and reserved powers for the states”, but that still isn't exclusive with “democracy”.)

> we as a society has lost respect for those constitutional limits

I don't see any evidence that respect for Constitutional limits has declined, which seems to be a result of combining a cynical view of the present with a rosy view of the past (the First Amendment is a beautiful set of Constitutional limits, but the Alien and Sedition Acts were adopted when the ink on it was barely dry.)

> and instead of taking principled stands to restrict government we have taken unprincipled stands based on the outcome we desire for society

Stands made on different sets of principles than you prefer do not thereby become “unprincipled”.

Re: FBI agents track cell phones that pinged near the Capitol

#227

Post by flyinghamster »

sam_goody wrote: post #177

The big deal here is not the technology, it is that the FBI is involved in tracking participation of a protest. For the past year we have had not-always-fully-peaceful riots with many deaths and tremendous amount of property loss. Through all this, the FBI never breathed down the neck of the protestors- not even those who could have been actually committing a crime. Most of the people who went to DC did so peacefully…

Equating people protesting police brutality with people attempting to overturn an election by force is quite a stretch. But words mean precisely nothing to the right. One moment they'll be screaming "Blue Lives Matter!" and the next they'll be braining Capitol cops with fire extinguishers. Did a store owner kick out a kook ranting at and bullying people? Great! Did $WEBSITE boot a kook for doing likewise online? CENSORSHIP!

Here's what I think: Smash out a store window and steal stuff because the cops killed someone you might or might not know? Go to jail. Rampage through the halls of Congress, carrying zip ties and looking for elected officials to kidnap and hold hostage or kill, in the name of overturning the election, because your presidential candidate lost? You damn well better go to jail for a long time.

Re: FBI agents track cell phones that pinged near the Capitol

#228

Post by mc32 »

adriancr wrote: post #223
kuyan wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For the past year we have had not-always-fully-peaceful riots with many deaths and tremendous amount of property loss. Through all this, the FBI never breathed down the neck of the protestors- not even those who could have been actually committing a crime. I don't think this claim is accurate. Federal, state, and local law enforcement have always been happy to investigate and suppress nonviolent protest activity (m…

> Through all this, the FBI never breathed down the neck of the protestors Someone should remind him of vietnam war protests I guess...

Surveillance in 2021 is way different than it was in the 60s.

Re: FBI agents track cell phones that pinged near the Capitol

#229

Post by exporectomy »

simple_phrases wrote: post #121
suifbwish wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3 raises a very interesting and somewhat concerning possibility. In the near future as AI develops more in the crime detection arena you may become a suspect for crimes occurring in your geographical area based on things you are not doing or based on some set of states your smart devices have that match a statistical model of a suspicious person. The idea of becoming a suspect because you didn’t touch your smartphone…

ML is really good at picking up anomalies, and that is scary if, say, law enforcement or prosecutors are doing dragnet surveillance for anomalies in order to drum up charges.

They already do that with their human brains. I've been stopped by the police for:

- Sitting in a parked car in a suburban street for too long.

- Going shopping at 2am.

- Walking under a bridge at night.

It's OK as long as they quickly realize you're harmless and leave you alone.

Re: FBI agents track cell phones that pinged near the Capitol

#230

Post by ihsw »

flyinghamster wrote: post #227
sam_goody wrote: post #177

The big deal here is not the technology, it is that the FBI is involved in tracking participation of a protest. For the past year we have had not-always-fully-peaceful riots with many deaths and tremendous amount of property loss. Through all this, the FBI never breathed down the neck of the protestors- not even those who could have been actually committing a crime. Most of the people who went to DC did so peacefully…

Equating people protesting police brutality with people attempting to overturn an election by force is quite a stretch. But words mean precisely nothing to the right. One moment they'll be screaming "Blue Lives Matter!" and the next they'll be braining Capitol cops with fire extinguishers. Did a store owner kick out a kook ranting at and bullying people? Great! Did $WEBSITE boot a kook for doing likewise online? CENS…

How does robbing businesses, smashing people in heads with bike-locks, and committing arson factor into "protesting police brutality"?
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