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The Privacy Lesson of 9/11: Mass Surveillance Is Not the Way Forward

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Re: The Privacy Lesson of 9/11: Mass Surveillance Is Not the Way Forward

#51

Post by owl_troupe »

specialist wrote: post #43

Scanned this article. I remain ambivalent about ACLU's efforts to defend privacy rights. What is privacy? What would ACLU's future perfect privacy protecting world look like? How, specifically, does our world differ from that world? Is the ACLU just rearranging the deck chairs, as The Titanic sinks? This is a complicated topic. Firstly, I don't trust that the ACLU understands our current surveillance economy. One imp…

> Secondly, I'm not convinced that mass surveillance is entirely ineffective. Wholly I agree that it's illegal, unconstitutional, immoral, overwrought, wicked expensive, and overreaching. But in our reform efforts, I want an account of how our intelligence services performed. I simply cannot believe that there haven't been many more attempted terrorist attacks.

When the US government takes away its citizens' rights (of which privacy is one), the onus is on the government to justify this action. We cannot just assume surveillance works, the government has to prove it--show us the examples. Luckily we know just how effective these programs are and, as the authors here correctly point out, the answer is "not much." [1]

From the link in the article, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board concluded in 2014,

> Moreover, we are aware of no instance in which the program directly contributed to the discovery of a previously unknown terrorist plot or the disruption of a terrorist attack. [1]

[1] https://documents.pclob.gov/prod/Documents/OversightReport/e...

EDIT: As to the question of 'what's at stake with privacy rights?', there are great films [2], talks [3], and reading [4] on what's at stake with privacy.

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lives_of_Others

[3] https://www.ted.com/talks/glenn_greenwald_why_privacy_matter...

[4] https://bookshop.org/books/the-age-of-surveillance-capitalis...

Re: The Privacy Lesson of 9/11: Mass Surveillance Is Not the Way Forward

#52

Post by AnimalMuppet »

slibhb wrote: post #46
owl_troupe wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK I'll bite. From this article: >The public learned about the NSA’s “PRISM” and “Upstream” programs, which involve [...] warrantless surveillance of Americans’ international communications on a massive scale. The US executive branch engineered an automated, massive breach of the constitutional rights of US citizens and the rights of people abroad. > The executive branch’s Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board…

The article provides no principle by which we can say that mass surveillance is wrong. It does observe (per your quote) that mass surveillance has not worked very well. This raises an obvious question: if mass survillance did work well, would it be acceptable? The broader point here is that there are arguments against mass surveillance on principle, the ACLU just doesn't find them convincing.

We don't actually need to worry about your obvious question, because it doesn't work. Yours is hypothetical. (And hypothetical questions can be interesting. Also, it can be good to have answers while they're still hypothetical, because sometimes they quit being hypothetical, sometimes very abruptly. But for the current discussion, we can reject mass surveillance on pragmatic grounds without worrying about the theoretical.)

Re: The Privacy Lesson of 9/11: Mass Surveillance Is Not the Way Forward

#53

Post by gambiting »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #48
gambiting wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>To them, who are these people who would invade their right to bathroom privacy? Do their rights not matter? Can you please tell us which rights are being violated here exactly, I'm super curious. Most people just go into a stall, close the door, do their business and leave - who cares if they are trans or not. Do you peek into people's pants when you go into a public bathroom??

Maybe you are a mom who is changing an infant, and having a trans person (because they can sometimes be off-putting) enter the room is disturbing enough to be on a similar emotional level to a trans person being denied bathroom access. You might say, well whatever, she's transphobic - but you are prioritizing the trans' persons emotions over the mom's however you slice it.

>>Maybe you are a mom who is changing an infant

I'm a father who has been changing infants in public bathrooms for quite a while and I'm sorry, but that's a crazy argument. Absolutely completely 10000% bonkers.

>>(because they can sometimes be off-putting)

Your chances of running into a non-trans off-putting person in a public bathroom are several orders of magnitude higher. If I'm changing my baby and a drunk dude stumbles into the bathroom I'm feeling all tense, but only because they might be an actual threat, even accidentally(stumble and trip or something). But hey, it's a public bathroom - should we ban people that make me uncomfortable in public places?

Like, you're literally making the same argument as people saying that gay people shouldn't be allowed to display affection in public because it can make them uncomfortable - and why should you prioritise their emotions over your own?? Think of the children!!! /s

>> and having a trans person enter the room is disturbing enough

How. Please explain how is that disturbing. In fact how can you even tell someone is trans unless you

1) asked - and why would you in a public bathroom

2) looked them in the pants, and probably even that is not a good indicator.

Do you imagine that all trans people look like men in drag or something? Have you ever met a trans person outside of a South Park episode?

>>You might say, well whatever, she's transphobic

She is transfobic in your specific example, because she's immediately judging someone without any reason. Same as if she was uncomfortable with a black lady walking in - we would call that racist, and I would say her emotional state about black people is unfortunately worth exactly jack shit and we shouldn't care about it.

Re: The Privacy Lesson of 9/11: Mass Surveillance Is Not the Way Forward

#55

Post by throwawaysea »

spqr0a1 wrote: post #36
Ekaros wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have every right to protect yourself. I don't think police will stop you from wearing gas mask and bio hazard suite. As such you have every right and capability to protect yourself. Or just don't leave your own home. Simple. No need to force others to do something against their rights.

~40% of Americans live in states that have laws against wearing a mask in public spaces. Preventing people from protecting themselves is absolutely a live issue. http://www.anapsid.org/cnd/mcs/maskcodes.html

I can see the mask bans being useful to prevent crime. It’s hard to bring criminals to justice if their identities are hidden.

Re: The Privacy Lesson of 9/11: Mass Surveillance Is Not the Way Forward

#56

Post by slibhb »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #52
slibhb wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article provides no principle by which we can say that mass surveillance is wrong. It does observe (per your quote) that mass surveillance has not worked very well. This raises an obvious question: if mass survillance did work well, would it be acceptable? The broader point here is that there are arguments against mass surveillance on principle, the ACLU just doesn't find them convincing.

We don't actually need to worry about your obvious question, because it doesn't work . Yours is hypothetical. (And hypothetical questions can be interesting. Also, it can be good to have answers while they're still hypothetical, because sometimes they quit being hypothetical, sometimes very abruptly. But for the current discussion, we can reject mass surveillance on pragmatic grounds without worrying about the theore…

It's not obvious that mass surveillance doesn't work. It seems to work pretty well for the Chinese.

Anyway, we have a mass surveillance program because people thought it would work. Perhaps we could have avoided the program if we had more people in that room who had effectively argued that, even if it worked, it was not to be pursued for reasons that have nothing to do with its efficacy. Sometimes principles come in handy.

Re: The Privacy Lesson of 9/11: Mass Surveillance Is Not the Way Forward

#57

Post by throwawaysea »

haberman wrote: post #30
hzzg000 wrote: post #7

This is from the ACLU nagware banner: "Efforts to erase voting rights, trans rights, and abortion rights for millions of people are escalating across the country. We’re responding on all fronts — from courts to legislatures in all 50 states, D.C., and Puerto Rico — but we need your help to win." Has the mission statement changed? Why are trans people, who are on every front page daily as needing more rights, being dr…

The statement about voting rights is particularly rich, given that the ACLU just won a lawsuit in Seattle to remove Charter Amendment 29 from the ballot for this fall's election. https://www.aclu-wa.org/news/transit-riders-union-seattlekin... Charter Amendment 29 is (was?) a popular measure concerning homelessness that polls at around 60% in Seattle, with only 20% opposed. The ACLU sued to remove it from the ballot o…

The ACLU has basically grifted vast sums of donations from people who believe in classically liberal values and foundational (to America) civil liberties while pivoting to a partisan progressive political organization in the Trump era. Their work now often resembles election campaigning more so than nonprofit work.

Re: The Privacy Lesson of 9/11: Mass Surveillance Is Not the Way Forward

#58

Post by marcosdumay »

specialist wrote: post #50
Beldin wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've encountered this statement before. Without reading the article, here's the argumentation I heard: Basically, the perpetrators were already known - there basically was already (close to) enough information to foresee serious problems (in hindsight * ), just no one connecting the dots. Adding mass surveillance to this doesn't make things easier: signals were already swamped under, that's not going to improve just…

I've read many scathing critiques of intel services preferring SIGINT over HUMINT. Hard to disagree.

SIGINT doesn't imply on mass surveillance, and HUMINT doesn't imply in targeted actions.

Re: The Privacy Lesson of 9/11: Mass Surveillance Is Not the Way Forward

#59

Post by darepublic »

specialist wrote: post #43

Scanned this article. I remain ambivalent about ACLU's efforts to defend privacy rights. What is privacy? What would ACLU's future perfect privacy protecting world look like? How, specifically, does our world differ from that world? Is the ACLU just rearranging the deck chairs, as The Titanic sinks? This is a complicated topic. Firstly, I don't trust that the ACLU understands our current surveillance economy. One imp…

> Start the whole debate from scratch. Get down to first principles.

Been hankering for this from media and politics for a long time, an outline of the general principles or overall vision that informs individual takes on various issues, but not expecting to ever see it in my lifetime. Disillusioned with the collective ability of humanity to reason together

Re: The Privacy Lesson of 9/11: Mass Surveillance Is Not the Way Forward

#60

Post by j0hns0n »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #14
AndrewUnmuted wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ACLU has been useless as a civil rights organization for quite some time. If you haven't already, I'd say it's definitely time to find a new defender of these sorts of issues.

The ACLU has let the government increase surveillance, force mask usage, and now enforce vaccine usage across millions during the pandemic. They're staying silent because they agree with the policies - and you may too - but there is no denying that in terms of invasion of personal freedom it's very great and they're turning a blind eye to it.

The ACLU is a non-profit organization. They aren't responsible for your "freedom". Go put mask on and take a civics course.
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