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U.S. Marshals Spied on Abortion Protesters Using Dataminr

theintercept.com

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Re: U.S. Marshals Spied on Abortion Protesters Using Dataminr

#71

Post by kiawe_fire »

Dig1t wrote: post #45

So many people are okay with unconstitutional things as long as it supports their side and beliefs. It is genuinely unsettling. Personally, I don’t care about the underlying thing the protests are about, the important aspect is that if you allow unconstitutional government action like this, eventually it will be used against you. A decade from now we have no idea what the political climate will be. If the precedent i…

Additionally, I find it a bit concerning that people are ok with violating one principle or right on the basis that it’s fighting against another violation.

If we identify A, B, C, and D as potential rights, and you and I agree on rights A and B, but we disagree on the principles of C and D, then it’s ok that my side violates your rights A and B because if we can’t agree on all of them, then you deserve none.

It’s the kind of thing that ensures that compromise, understanding, and legislation won’t happen by way of conversation or respectful debate, but instead by name calling and force.

Re: U.S. Marshals Spied on Abortion Protesters Using Dataminr

#72

Post by CPLX »

I'm struggling to understand the outrage here. It's quite possible I'm missing the point and am open to being educated, but what's being described here is essentially running data analysis tools on the public postings people are making on Twitter right?

Everything described in the anecdotes, unless I missed it, was basically someone going on Twitter, a global media platform designed to convey your postings to a mass audience, and then reading the things people wrote. Right?

I can think of a variety of things that could have been done after that which would be bad, oppressive things. But are they alleging that?

The headline here is "U.S. Marshals spied..."

Did they? Like if I post something WITH THE VISIBILITY SET TO PUBLIC VISIBLE BY EVERYONE WITH AN INTERNET CONNECTION EVEN NON-LOGGED IN PEOPLE and then someone reads it, then I can claim someone is spying on me?

Re: U.S. Marshals Spied on Abortion Protesters Using Dataminr

#73

Post by hiatus »

theGnuMe wrote: post #67
tqi wrote: post #59

Can someone explain the legal theory that diffentiates using something like Dataminr to monitor tweets vs simply having an army of agents manually searching for them? I agree that it feels like the scale of the former makes it different, but is there a principled reason why that is the case?

I don't know, but Congress passed legislation to prevent the digitization of gun records. So they have massive paper files and a small set of agents to match guns to crimes. You would think with AI we could track all guns and bullets to crimes eventually.

> You would think with AI we could track all guns and bullets to crimes eventually.

Not sure how that would be achieved since you can make your own guns and bullets in the majority of states.

Re: U.S. Marshals Spied on Abortion Protesters Using Dataminr

#74

Post by detaro »

beebmam wrote: post #68
falcolas wrote: post #11

A point of context: Dataminr == Tweets, with ML and human filtering. They're one of the few remaining firehose consumers.

If this is true, how can someone claim that collecting public information, like tweets, is "spying"?

It's not exactly unusual that people consider too-detailed and/or large scale attention paid to technically public things "spying" or similar to it. E.g. if the government were to have agents follow members of a group anywhere and watching their homes, without breaking into private spaces, that'd probably be labeled as such too. Even though they are just collecting publicly visible information and report "Mr Smith is getting close to the court house. Mrs Smith spoke to the lawyer again." Social media just makes automating that a lot easier.

Re: U.S. Marshals Spied on Abortion Protesters Using Dataminr

#75

Post by rootusrootus »

CoastalCoder wrote: post #7

This discussion might benefit from distinguishing several issues: (1) the propriety of protesting abortions at all (2) the propriety of protesting anything in a manner that seems to threaten violence (3) the government's use of Dataminr

FWIW, the abortion protesters mentioned in the article were not anti-abortion, they were pro-choice protestors. This was after Roe v. Wade was overturned.

Re: U.S. Marshals Spied on Abortion Protesters Using Dataminr

#77

Post by snarf21 »

tqi wrote: post #59

Can someone explain the legal theory that diffentiates using something like Dataminr to monitor tweets vs simply having an army of agents manually searching for them? I agree that it feels like the scale of the former makes it different, but is there a principled reason why that is the case?

I think the contrast is supposed to be the difference between always monitoring people who post about protesting FOR X and/or protesting AGAINST X versus searching for posts of people who were near some incident related to some protesting or some crime. It is similar to the geo-fence search warrants that were recently discussed here.

tl;dr: I see it as the difference between using search tools to monitor for potential suspects vs search tools to implicate already identified suspects.

Re: U.S. Marshals Spied on Abortion Protesters Using Dataminr

#78

Post by bjt2n3904 »

CPLX wrote: post #72

I'm struggling to understand the outrage here. It's quite possible I'm missing the point and am open to being educated, but what's being described here is essentially running data analysis tools on the public postings people are making on Twitter right? Everything described in the anecdotes, unless I missed it, was basically someone going on Twitter, a global media platform designed to convey your postings to a mass…

People don't communicate well. They use the word "spying", when "surveillance" would be more appropriate.

How would you feel if you found the past three weeks, there was someone parked outside your home, who followed you to work, and logged when and where you left?

I mean, it's all public information, right?

How would you feel if they did this, specifically because of your political beliefs?

Re: U.S. Marshals Spied on Abortion Protesters Using Dataminr

#79

Post by localplume »

redeux wrote: post #76
rayiner wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I’m not sure what relevance this has for a secular nation like the United States.

If you think any western country is actually secular then I have a bridge to sell you. christianity is woven into the very fabric of their culture.

visit a cemetary and see crosses. listen to language and hear references to "christening", christian names, "this book is the x bible", expletives referencing "jesus christ", christmas, easter, the abundance of churches over any other site of worship.

Re: U.S. Marshals Spied on Abortion Protesters Using Dataminr

#80

Post by booleandilemma »

CPLX wrote: post #72

I'm struggling to understand the outrage here. It's quite possible I'm missing the point and am open to being educated, but what's being described here is essentially running data analysis tools on the public postings people are making on Twitter right? Everything described in the anecdotes, unless I missed it, was basically someone going on Twitter, a global media platform designed to convey your postings to a mass…

That's true. It would be more appropriate if the headline was "U.S. Marshals stalked Abortion Protesters" or "U.S. Marshals are creeping Abortion Protesters out".
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