At this point why not privatize the government? It will save the US billions of dollars in deals.
The U.S. Treasury is buying private app data to target and investigate people
61–70 of 386 posts
Re: The U.S. Treasury is buying private app data to target and investigate people
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
> "the west" is effectively building their own version of China's social credit. China's social credit system allegedly assigns (or will assign?) all citizens scores and punishes them for social wrongdoings. The IRS has always been tasked with auditing and catching tax cheats, the Treasury always went after people who violate economic sanctions. What's the similarity other than data collection?
Why do you need more similarities? The mass data collection completes the system.
You're assigning intent without any basis in fact.
Re: The U.S. Treasury is buying private app data to target and investigate people
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because we need to understand the purpose of the data collection and what bad things might happen because of it. If Treasury is using this data to catch people who violate economic sanctions, ok. If the IRS is using this data to catch people who cheat on their taxes, ok. I don't love either of those things, but they are using the data only to do things that have been defined as their job to do for a long time now. Th…
>> There doesn't seem to be any evidence that any of this data is going to be used to penalize people financially/economically for "social infractions" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRS_targeting_controversy
>>> In January 2014, James Comey, who at the time was the FBI director, told Fox News that its investigation had found no evidence so far warranting the filing of federal criminal charges in connection with the controversy, as it had not found any evidence of "enemy hunting", and that the investigation continued. On October 23, 2015, the Justice Department declared that no criminal charges would be filed.
Re: The U.S. Treasury is buying private app data to target and investigate people
#64This is not a new take, but I think "the west" is effectively building their own version of China's social credit. It's just distributed among a range of private companies and accessed via subpoena or contract. The fact that the government doesn't operate most of it directly is largely irrelevant to those negatively affected by it and in some ways makes the situation worse (who do you even contact to correct inaccura…
From what I've read China's social credit system does not yet incorporate any non-financial information; that part is more aspirational.
That is the narrative the CCP pushes. 'It is just like a government run checking score.' But it isn't. Crimes, including political ones, will penalize your social credit score. If your score falls too low, you and your children will become ineligible for government programs and assistance.
Re: The U.S. Treasury is buying private app data to target and investigate people
#65a) Both contracts are tiny ($150k each) although obviously these may be pilot programs. b) Finding evaders of sanctions seems like it should fall under a national security agency's purvue. We all take it for granted that the NSA could pinpoint our locations pretty easily, right? One thing that's particularly insane about the US government is how many departments have intelligence agencies. Obviously the ideal would b…
> We all take it for granted that the NSA could pinpoint our locations pretty easily, right? In the same way we take it for granted that a SWAT team could kill any of us pretty easily. They have (and probably should have) the ability , but the authority to use it should be very limited and subject to stringent oversight.
No doubt. But, say that the NSA were given the purvue over enforcing sanctions (because they are the national security agency). Should they be able to monitor who is visiting the country with the sanctions?
Sanctions are kind of like the tax agency situation - if you're going to wield them as a national security tool, then you want to be able to enforce them, otherwise they're relatively meaningless. And enforcing them necessarily involves watching to see if your country's citizens are evading them.
Re: The U.S. Treasury is buying private app data to target and investigate people
#66We need a Supreme Court ruling or law that says if the government doesn’t have a warrant to collect your data, they also can’t buy it from third parties. We also need privacy protections so these companies wouldn’t exist in the first place.
I absolutely think that the government should be able to purchase data in order to conduct investigations. Unlike private actors, governmental actors are publicly constrained in their actions and representatives of the will of our society.
>> Unlike private actors, governmental actors are publicly constrained in their actions and representatives of the will of our society.
Are you aware of the term 'unelected bureaucrat', and do you know how many of them exist? They are accountable to no one. They continually prove to be significant problems.
Re: The U.S. Treasury is buying private app data to target and investigate people
#67How much do you think this has to do with the government trying extra hard now to tax crypto?
Re: The U.S. Treasury is buying private app data to target and investigate people
#68If one sees the U.S. constitution and its amendments merely as dated conventions, there is no reason for the IRS and other agencies not to leverage tech to drive enforcement numbers, and for the agencies themselves to just become the policy levers they want to have. However, there are others who believe the rules are in place to prevent this precise type of eventuality, where a technological change shifts the balance…
> There is no reason to believe your phone that tracks everything about you will not be used by people in government without accountability as leverage against you personally.
I have one small revision: There is no reason to believe your phone that tracks everything about you will not be used by people without accountability as leverage against you personally.
Re: The U.S. Treasury is buying private app data to target and investigate people
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
Credit score can affect employment, I.E. you can't get hired because you are too poor.
Is this actually true, or is it the case that you can't get financial related jobs because your credit score has been lowered by your past cases of poor handling of money?
Failure to navigate a capitalist system of hoop-jumping due to lack of funds causes a self-fulfilling prophesy of poor performance at said hoop-jumping and associated poor credit scores. Blaming the victim comes to mind.
Re: The U.S. Treasury is buying private app data to target and investigate people
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
I absolutely think that the government should be able to purchase data in order to conduct investigations. Unlike private actors, governmental actors are publicly constrained in their actions and representatives of the will of our society.
the subpoena system, for all its failings, is that public constraint. if it can be circumvented, that constraint effectively no longer exists.
The requirement of a subpoena doesn't prevent the government from taking actions that private actors could legally do, it compels private actors to act according to state whims.
If someone volunteers information, it is not a "circumvention" of the subpoena.
Breaking into Google and stealing information for a criminal investigation would be circumventing it.