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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

#131

Post by landemva »

javajosh wrote: post #116
landemva wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As you wrote, redress in the courts is expensive and unlikely to succeed against the government. The USSC made-up doctrine of government immunity should be removed. BLM got side-tracked into ineffectiveness by avoiding this underlying problem.

It's simply because the courts are not in the habit of doing their jobs anymore. They are expected to hold the LEO accountable to the law just as much as the citizen, but the de facto system aligns the executive and judicial completely, such that neither is willing to take action against the other. If the courts were faster, more flexible, they would have more experience holding the executive accountable, and issues…

> but rather legislation about courts.

Government prosecutes criminal law. There are various reasons, including politics or career progression, that government prosecutors overlook some crimes. Individuals don't successfully charge others with criminal violations.

Individuals prosecute civil law. If civil law penalties continue to be unavailable because 'government immunity', then bad actors in government will not be restrained through the courts.

I'm uncertain what court legislation you would propose, other than removal of USSC doctrine of government immunity.

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

#133

Post by javajosh »

landemva wrote: post #131
javajosh wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's simply because the courts are not in the habit of doing their jobs anymore. They are expected to hold the LEO accountable to the law just as much as the citizen, but the de facto system aligns the executive and judicial completely, such that neither is willing to take action against the other. If the courts were faster, more flexible, they would have more experience holding the executive accountable, and issues…

> but rather legislation about courts. Government prosecutes criminal law. There are various reasons, including politics or career progression, that government prosecutors overlook some crimes. Individuals don't successfully charge others with criminal violations. Individuals prosecute civil law. If civil law penalties continue to be unavailable because 'government immunity', then bad actors in government will not be…

Legislation, as far as I understand it, determines the composition, operation and funding of the court system in addition to the law itself. It will probably require significant legislation to, for example, allow justices to run a jury trial entirely online and have the outcome binding. But I'm not a lawyer; perhaps the courts actually have great leeway with how they conduct trials, which would actually be a very good thing for the kinds of reforms I have in mind.

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

#134

Post by bogomipz »

kornhole wrote: post #112
bogomipz wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"Most phones do not actually turn off." Can you elaborate? It is possible to power cycle a phone which implies that it's capable of powering off. Are you saying a powered-off phone still communicates with the network?

In a word, yes. Some relatively rare phones such as Pinephone and Librem have actual power switches, and maybe some others actually go off. The vast majority of consumer phones appear off but are still calling home to the mother ship. Many diagnostic test have been done and published to prove this. If you really need it, I could probably go find them for you.

Thanks. I'm guessing this is when happened when hardware vendors stopped making phones with removable batteries then? I would be really interested in any links you might have yes. I did a cursory search but came up with little more than a stackexchange question.

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

#135

Post by parineum »

hnbad wrote: post #124
lupire wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no "the right to privacy". "Privacy" I'm various particular aappears areas appears in various court rulings, taken as implied via "penumbra." https://www.justia.com/constitutional-law/docs/privacy-right...

That was my point. Roe didn't establish a right to privacy but it was justified with a right to privacy. Roe was overturned because the SCOTUS now argues that there is no constitutionally guaranteed right to privacy so Roe was invalid.

>SCOTUS now argues that there is no constitutionally guaranteed right to privacy

That's not correct. They found that the right to privacy didn't cover abortion in the exact, specific and detailed manner that Roe set precedent for (see my previous comment about the specific rules for each trimester).

14th amendment "liberty" covers privacy covers abortion, only the abortion precedent was overturned privacy was not. Thomas took aim at privacy in his opinion but that's not supported by the rest of the court.

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

#136

Post by us0r »

choeger wrote: post #3

So how does that work? I install some app that "needs" location data to function and in the EULA I "consent" to that data being sold. Police then buys this data via several proxies. So far so "told you so years ago". But how does police use that data? How do they associate account IDs from all these apps to real persons? Is that data collected and sold as well, e.g., via the payment processing? Do they use the email…

Gas buddy is one app that wholesales this data out. I wouldn’t doubt it if the carriers themselves sell it.

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

#137

Post by QuarterReptile »

kornhole wrote: post #103
QuarterReptile wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By all means, let's laud the Chinese firewall with its twin guiding principles of authoritarian censorship and IP theft.

I am not sure how IP theft has any relevance to how they setup their networks. Yes in the western media we hear much about the censorship and surveillance in China. We do not hear as much about their need for data sovereignty and defense against US controlled networks which I think is their higher motivation. In the autocratic state, you do what you are told. In the free west we do what we want, but coincidentally wh…

The IP theft comes in if your org decides to play ball, which requires having a Chinese 'partner' organization to get access to the market.

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

#138

Post by icehawk »

dane-pgp wrote: post #23
pjc50 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why "defund the police" became a slogan: operational control against abuse just doesn't work, so the blunt instrument of reducing the amount of money for toys is the only one left.

But it's exactly the same mistake as the supposed "starve the beast" policy. If someone really doesn't trust the government to spend money on the right programs, then they shouldn't expect that reducing tax revenue will make the government prioritize the same things they would. Besides, governments can produce very bad outcomes with almost no budget at all, since some of the worst things in life are free. If cops lik…

The point isn't to make cops work better by giving them less money, the point is to take that money and spend it on things like affordable housing, vocational programs, cheaper college classes, grief counseling,drug prevention programs, daycare vouchers, etc.

Things that are outside of the purview of police forces.

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

#139

Post by hda2 »

kajecounterhack wrote: post #12
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.

Seems like the obvious answer is no. But if can see that they are doing important stuff, and you're letting your hangups over unrelated political issues keep you from donating to their awesome work, I'd say that's a mistake. They have a 4/5 from Charity Navigator for spending their money effectively.

> I'd say that's a mistake

I wouldn't.

If the EFF really wants my financial support, they can split their org into two; one that focuses exclusively on defending our digital rights (to whom I would gladly donate) and one that focuses on social justice.

This mentality of packaging the bad with the good is precisely what got the US where it is now.

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

#140

Post by jononomo »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #104
jononomo wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

money is fungible

> money is fungible To an extent, depending on the fraction of the budget you're contributing.

No, it doesn't depend on the fraction of the budget you're contributing. Money is fungible even if it is only $0.01.
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