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Cops wanted to keep mass surveillance app secret; privacy advocates refused

arstechnica.com

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Re: Cops wanted to keep mass surveillance app secret; privacy advocates refused

#61

Post by woodruffw »

weberer wrote: post #19
robk wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven’t followed them enough but is it possible to support them without supporting other charitable causes of a political persuasion I don’t support? I fully support everything directly related to their cause but it gets me very upset when charities are supporting other various agendas around gender/immigration for example that are unrelated to their main goal.

Then you want the Free Software Foundation. https://www.fsf.org/

Independent of the FSF's contributions to FOSS, I don't think this is a good direct substitution: I can't think of the last time the FSF was a significant party to a privacy or law enforcement lawsuit.

Re: Cops wanted to keep mass surveillance app secret; privacy advocates refused

#62

Post by kristopolous »

seanw444 wrote: post #54
kristopolous wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An ingroup that is protected by the law but not bound by it. An outgroup that is bound by the law but not protected by it. So maximum liberty for me and law and order for thee. Another example: Best defense against a "bad guy with a gun" (outgroup) is a "good guy with a gun" (ingroup). See also Rhodesia, Jim Crow South, apartheid South Africa, and Western Expansion under the Homesteading acts. This is how some people…

I don't see how the gun example fits here at all.

You have two people: one has the right to take others lives and the other doesn't have even the right to their own life.

How can that system be justified? Label one "good guy" and the other "bad guy".

It's one of the most pure forms of the ideology I've seen.

You have people like George Zimmerman doing pro-gun confederate flag artwork, the connection is rugged and robust

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Confederate_battle_flag...

The tribal ingroup outgroup dynamic happens all the time. Take Kyle Rittenhouse versus Ashli Babbitt for instance.

Re: Cops wanted to keep mass surveillance app secret; privacy advocates refused

#63

Post by smoldesu »

sashahrzg wrote: post #56
maxehmookau wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To say that agendas around "gender and immigration" are unrelated to the EFF's goals is missing the point. You can guarantee that if society moves towards criminializing trans people, or further demonising immigrants, or tracking women's fertility for the purposes of further restricting access to abortion; surveillance technology will be at the forefront of that effort and the EFF's goals of technological privacy and…

People don't realize that once they're done coming after "them" they're coming after you. I think the EFFs efforts to support adjacent groups is awesome and completely inline with their goals. Thanks for pointing this out.

"First they came for the Communists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Communist

Then they came for the Socialists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Socialist

Then they came for the trade unionists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a trade unionist

Then they came for the Jews

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Jew

Then they came for me

And there was no one left

To speak out for me"

- Pastor Martin Niemöller

Re: Cops wanted to keep mass surveillance app secret; privacy advocates refused

#64

Post by CWuestefeld »

hnbad wrote: post #14
robk wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven’t followed them enough but is it possible to support them without supporting other charitable causes of a political persuasion I don’t support? I fully support everything directly related to their cause but it gets me very upset when charities are supporting other various agendas around gender/immigration for example that are unrelated to their main goal.

This assumes "charitable causes" can be apolitical. I guess the ACLU might be closer to what you want then? They have a recent history of criticism for defending the far-right in the name of free speech while generally being thought of as "liberal". The problem you're facing is that "fighting against power structures" is a political gradient starting short of authoritarianism and ending at anarchism (unless you're St…

recent US Supreme Court rulings have shown the implications of that as e.g. Roe v Wade and other decisions that used to cement various civil justice issues ranging from interracial marriage and the abolishment of anti-sodomy laws to legalizing abortion were apparently literally based on the "right to privacy", which the Supreme Court ruled doesn't exist.

The SCOTUS decision in Loving (the anti-miscegenation laws, i.e., interracial marriage)[1] doesn't rest on right to privacy. This decision is built (approximately) on the equal protection clause. As such, the reversal or Roe doesn't put Loving on shaky ground at all. A good thing for me, since my wife and I are of different races.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_v._Virginia

Re: Cops wanted to keep mass surveillance app secret; privacy advocates refused

#65

Post by kornhole »

swader999 wrote: post #29
keyme wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have no power. The moment you'll come close to regainig it in any way, it'll be called an "insurrection" and you'll be neutralized and disgraced.

Doesn't take an army to invent alternatives to our always on, always pinging smart phones. At some point someone will.

It has been done and many of us are using it although we are a small minority. Most people are unable to make the changes needed as the implants are too embedded in them to remove. Try getting someone to switch to degoogled Android from Iphone to see the difficulty.

Re: Cops wanted to keep mass surveillance app secret; privacy advocates refused

#66

Post by CWuestefeld »

quantum_solanum wrote: post #59
shaftoe wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ACLU has increasingly become exactly what he seeks to avoid. https://reason.com/2022/08/31/the-student-loan-debate-shows-... I would support a truly civil-liberties-only ACLU, but not what they currently are.

[flagged]

The word "absurd" doesn't show in the article, that's your characterization.

What the referenced article is saying is that to the extent that these things are "civil rights" issues, everything is thus a civil rights issue, and thus a focus on civil rights is meaningless.

Re: Cops wanted to keep mass surveillance app secret; privacy advocates refused

#67

Post by woodruffw »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #66
quantum_solanum wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

The word "absurd" doesn't show in the article, that's your characterization. What the referenced article is saying is that to the extent that these things are "civil rights" issues, everything is thus a civil rights issue, and thus a focus on civil rights is meaningless.

"If X is Y, then all Z are Y" is a kind of reduction to absurdity argument. The GP's characterization is correct, and nitpicking the fact that Reason doesn't actually use the word "absurd" doesn't meaningfully change the argumentative tack they use.

Re: Cops wanted to keep mass surveillance app secret; privacy advocates refused

#68

Post by fsflover »

swader999 wrote: post #29
keyme wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have no power. The moment you'll come close to regainig it in any way, it'll be called an "insurrection" and you'll be neutralized and disgraced.

Doesn't take an army to invent alternatives to our always on, always pinging smart phones. At some point someone will.

It's already invented: https://puri.sm/products/librem-5. Needs early supporters to help (I preordered).

Re: Cops wanted to keep mass surveillance app secret; privacy advocates refused

#70

Post by superkuh »

There is a simple way to avoid this. You do not have to carry a cell phone/tracker at all times. Stop taking your tracker transmitter with you everywhere. Or simply turn it off/remove the battery.

I know a lot of people will say that cell phones are too useful to turn them off. And that's fine and reasonable. Just be aware they literally are tracking devices and it is your choice. There will be no legislative solution for this. The government spying ratchet only goes one way.

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