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“We kill people based on metadata” and other metadata things

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Re: “We kill people based on metadata” and other metadata things

#101

Post by monopoliessuck »

throwaway0asd wrote: post #20

To me discussions about privacy often seem like bullshit. Here is a comment I wrote yesterday about a former AdWords employee as privacy violation apologist: Hypocritically people bitch about intrusive data collection from governments and yet simultaneously give away the same data, and encourage others to do the same, and more to private companies knowing that data will be weaponized against them. As such it’s almost…

People don't have a choice about giving information to governments. There's a fourth amendment for a reason so I'm obviously anti dragnet. Private parties though may opt into providing anything legal to other private parties at their sole discretion and that's the nature of things. Despite the fact that the majority of Americans are making market choices that many of us would consider "not privacy respecting", that does not make these interactions "public" de facto.

I don't have a Google account. I don't have a Facebook account. I don't take commercial genealogy tests, I'm not an Amazon Prime member. I would prefer to not have the government use the ubiquity of this kinds of behavior as a lever to usurp more information.

I agree that people that bitch about corporate overreach should just not interact with bad actors instead of bitching to the government to somehow safeguard themselves from contracts they sign. At this point, it's not even an information asymmetry situation. Lots of people know Facebook and Google are untrustworthy stewards of this kind of information, but to them the ends justify the means... and that's their market decision I guess.

Re: “We kill people based on metadata” and other metadata things

#102

Post by mcguire »

thekiptxt wrote: post #30
TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So? why is that distinction important to you?

I think OP is suggesting that “just metadata” is a sensationalist title, because to a lay person it suggests that decisions predicated on metadata are uninformed compared to decisions predicated on “data,” even though this isn’t necessarily true. If the title were “We kill people based on data,” then the knee jerk response might be “… obviously.”

How about "We kill people based on poor quality, indirect data"?

Re: “We kill people based on metadata” and other metadata things

#103

Post by [deleted] »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #46
Consultant32452 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you aware that Trump could have tweeted a copy of every top secret document the government has and it would have been perfectly legal?

Maybe. That's not what he did, though. If you think it's a good idea to allow a former POTUS to retroactively and implicitly declassify information he is caught with after leaving office, or to issue a sweeping declaration that any documents he takes out of the Oval Office are automatically declassified, I suspect you won't be as blasé when someone of the opposing political party does it.

[deleted]

Re: “We kill people based on metadata” and other metadata things

#104

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

hammock wrote: post #96
the_lonely_road wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a false equivalence though and not what the alternative option is here. The government was killing its enemies 100 years before the word digital was invented and will continue to do so as long as government exist. They will use every technology invented in the pursuit of doing so. Blaming metadata signature based approaches is no different than blaming their use of satellites, metallurgy, hell the wheel is a b…

> The government was killing its enemies 100 years before the word digital was invented Citation needed. The current pattern of extrajudicial remote targeted killings outside of a Congressionally-declared battlefield is completely novel and only began in the Predator drone age, as far as I can see Edit: some data https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assassinations_by_the_...

Where is the battlefield when dealing with asymmetrical enemies like terrorists? If only they'd wear uniforms, not hide behind civilians, and stay in the designated battlefield area we wouldn't have this problem.

Re: “We kill people based on metadata” and other metadata things

#105

Post by pclmulqdq »

buildbot wrote: post #82
pclmulqdq wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 2010, an American citizen was killed in a drone strike by the US military, without a trial or any attempt to make an arrest. This was the first time in history that a US civilian was killed by the US military. Before 2010, we were doing just fine without executing citizens on suspect legal grounds. Edit: Edited to state that this was not fire of combatants in a combat zone.

Kent state does not count? It has happened probably a lot, it is just hard to find good records about now and they actually tell people. Pre-1900s, you just are not hearing about it probably. I don't buy the military getting less moral recently.

State national guard units are not the US military. A dead giveaway is that if something happened on US soil, it is not a US military operation.

Re: “We kill people based on metadata” and other metadata things

#106

Post by engineer_22 »

A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #67
ImHereToVote wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would prefer to be tried in a court of law, you?

This is likely the most upsetting part. As flawed as US judicial system is, it is a system that still has to move within certain known parameters. The fact that judicial system stops applying the moment 'the government' decides it doesn't apply is in itself a big problem that effectively undermines basic trust in the system. I don't want to say that it started with Bush, because each president had their sins, but war…

-> some basic rules have to be followed if only to ensure citizenry that they are followed.

I guess one of those rules could be: Don't travel overseas to participate in a war against the US government. Yes, I understand, this is a hard rule to follow, especially if you're of the rebellious bent, but comfort requires compromise.

Re: “We kill people based on metadata” and other metadata things

#107

Post by r2_pilot »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #42
CamperBob2 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, yes, poorly phrased. We don't know if he's guilty beyond reasonable doubt, and probably won't, because presidents and former presidents are immune to prosecution in this country. It's always possible the he had legitimate reasons for storing SC information outside a SCIF. No one can think of any, including his own legal team, but hey, ex-President, right?

Are you aware that Trump could have tweeted a copy of every top secret document the government has and it would have been perfectly legal?

This is not a true statement. The AEC has its own Restricted Data classification which is not under the purview of the president to declassify. There are other cases of classification but this is one that is not easily debatable.

Re: “We kill people based on metadata” and other metadata things

#108

Post by chasd00 »

arminiusreturns wrote: post #64

Please, with the anniversary coming up shortly, remember the event that they used as an excuse to start "programs" like these: 9/11. I was too young and dumb and propagandized to know what I was getting myself into, signing up to go fight "those evil terrorists", but it didnt take long for me to realize something wasnt right. I spent the vast majority of my life since I got out of the Corps trying to understand the w…

> totalitarian surveillance state

never let a good crisis goto waste! As soon as the first plane hit i bet the lights started getting turned on and the servers booted up.

Re: “We kill people based on metadata” and other metadata things

#109

Post by tfigment »

ta8645 wrote: post #79
pclmulqdq wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 2010, an American citizen was killed in a drone strike by the US military, without a trial or any attempt to make an arrest. This was the first time in history that a US civilian was killed by the US military. Before 2010, we were doing just fine without executing citizens on suspect legal grounds. Edit: Edited to state that this was not fire of combatants in a combat zone.

> This was the first time in history that a US citizen was killed by the US military. That seems incredibly unlikely. Friendly fire incidents have been a fact of war, pretty much forever.

The definition of war has become extremely loose in modern times.

Re: “We kill people based on metadata” and other metadata things

#110

Post by bragr »

chasd00 wrote: post #37
mikece wrote: post #8

"Signature strikes" -- the target has a signature (movement, data, use of a satellite phone or specific cellular number, entourage, etc) that matches that of an HVT (high value taget) that is authorized for termination by drone strike. The CIA has killed lots of the wrong people because "signature strikes" don't require second source intelligence to verify who the target is (eg: is the person using the satellite phon…

Don’t forget American citizens are on the table too, no due process required! EDIT: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki Thank you Jaywalk for the correct link

>Another U.S. administration official speaking on condition of anonymity described Abdulrahman al-Awlaki as a bystander who was "in the wrong place at the wrong time," stating that "the U.S. government did not know that Mr. Awlaki's son was there" before the airstrike was ordered.

I'm not for drone strikes, but it seems to me if your dad is an armed militant working against the US and killed in a US military operation, and then you go around associating with even more armed militants working against the US, you're asking a lot of your US citizenship to protect you from getting droned.

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