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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

#221

Post by kelnos »

redeux wrote: post #180
rayiner wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America isn’t a “secular” nation. It’s a religiously pluralistic nation. That means that all of the various non-falsifiable moral ideologies, from Christianity to Islam to secular humanism, are on equal political footing. If more people prioritize the mother’s invisible, non-falsifiable “right to bodily autonomy” over the fetus’s invisible, non-falsifiable “right to life” then you can permit abortion. If the opposite…

> Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof … The United States government, which is what we’re discussing is absolutely a secular body. The various religions or non-religions of the citizenry are irrelevant, constitutionally.

Regardless of what the constitution says, it's a little naive to think that US law (especially state law in many jurisdictions) isn't heavily influenced by religion, mostly that of various Christian sects.

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

#222

Post by kelnos »

bjt2n3904 wrote: post #78
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?

I wouldn't be fine with that, but:

1) I would at least have a chance of knowing about it, and could lodge a complaint with the relevant agency, or take them to court, if necessary. This may not work, but there's at least some level of recourse and accountability.

2) The chilling issue is that of mass surveillance. The kind of surveillance you describe is time- and resource-intensive, and doesn't scale. If agencies can collect and analyze data on a vast number of people with a few clicks of a mouse, that's a danger to everyone's freedom.

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

#223

Post by kelnos »

CPLX wrote: post #85
bjt2n3904 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I get the concept. But there's a pretty obvious difference between just sitting in my home and going to work and posting on a global media platform that is literally intended to reach every other living human as its core reason for existing. The argument seems bizarre to me. A much better pre-technology analogy would be if I wrote lots of letters to the editor of a newspaper and people read them. Maybe it would even…

It doesn't really matter what label you put on it. The fact that you say it'd be a "little creepy" should start setting off alarm bells. Do we really want people with guns and the force of the state behind them doing creepy things to the populace, routinely?

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

#224

Post by throw0101c »

pauldenton wrote: post #181
majormajor wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Words won't protect you. Precedent won't protect you. Guns won't protect you. If you are in a society where others want you surveiled or dead or removed or heavily restricted, and you're outnumbered, it's already t…

If guns will not protect you, why did Stalin, Hitler and Castro go to such lengths of seizing privately owned firearms?

> If guns will not protect you, why did Stalin, Hitler and Castro go to such lengths of seizing privately owned firearms?

Yeah:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_gun_control_argument

* https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2019/apr/08/viral-imag...

Chenoweth et al did a study of over 600 movements since 1900, and found those that used violence/force succeeded about 25% of the time, and those that did not succeeded in their goals about 50% of the time. The list is in Appendix A of:

* https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/44096650

Americans learn the wrong lessons: the War of Independence wasn't won on the battle fields, but in the years leading up to it in the change of thinking (Madison wrote a letter to Jefferson on this; Chenoweth discusses in the above book).

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

#225

Post by _8j50 »

kelnos wrote: post #216
_8j50 wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buying data from private companies is not unconstitutional so long as the company selling it to the government didn't break laws. As with so many american issues, just amend the fucking constitution! I swear this country needs to stop everything and do a constitutional convention (can be done, never be done before).

That "just" is doing a lot of work there. Even with a constitutional convention, you still need 3/4 of the states (38 of them) to ratify anything, which I don't think is feasible today. Hell, I'm not even sure the delegates to a hypothetical constitutional convention could even agree enough on what to propose for ratification.

Everyone is unhappy. Plenty of middle ground.

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

#226

Post by hwillis »

Dracophoenix wrote: post #196
hwillis wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basically every way? If the government was tracking everywhere you went via cameras, people would also call that spying. Are you arguing that when a spy follows someone in public and watches everything they do, that isn't spying?

While they don't track other people everywhere at once, the media does record what people say or do and you as an individual have little control concerning what's published about you and how and to what degree other will react. But this form of recording isn't generally called spying, even if the circumstances are disadvantageous or even dangerous to the subject being recorded. When it comes to the media, the general…

Context and scale matter. Drawing a picture of a dollar bill is not illegal, but forgery is. It's not illegal to call someone, or to ask them a question, or to follow someone. It IS illegal to stalk someone.

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

#227

Post by mikrotikker »

pauldenton wrote: post #182
locopati wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty hard to have good faith to people who have bullied and been deceptive to attain their goal of undermining bodily autonomy.

When you're talking about undermining bodily autonomy are you talking about Republican states banning abortion or Democrat states compelling vaccination?

And I'm certain that only scratches the surface.

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

#228

Post by trasz4 »

gadders wrote: post #70
trasz4 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I'd be very surprised if there were zero atheists that were anti-abortion.

>I'd be very surprised if there were zero atheists that were anti-abortion.

Well, sure, there were _some_, eg both Hitler and Stalin have delegalised abortion in their countries. But I'm not sure if that's the kind of moral oracle that todays christian fundamentalists would like to remember.

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

#229

Post by robomartin »

UncleMeat wrote: post #215
robomartin wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> I do realize that a good percentage of the HN college-educated audience is in the grips of ideology that was pounded into their heads. > So you pidgeon-hole and dismiss everyone who might have a different perspective before they even speak Oh, no, you are wrong. They speak plenty. Just try posting even moderate perspectives here on HN and see what reactions you get. Facts are, well, facts. Try it. Go ahead. Create…

> Facts are, well, facts. This is funny coming from somebody who said "The fact that university students will riot when someone their puppeteers do not agree with comes to give a presentation at their school" is funny. The number of disinvitations is in the tens per year , out of thousands of degree granting institutions and roughly zero riots. Oh nooooo. Those indoctrinated college students. You are the one making s…

No, I am not. This is real. The other thing that happens is brutally simple to understand: They just don't hold events featuring people with contrasting opinions. That's how you achieve "disinvitations is in the tens per year".

A parallel example having nothing to do with universities: The easiest way for a company to improve their numbers is to fire thousands of people. Their earnings per share metric will improve almost instantly. Yet, it doesn't mean they went out and got a bunch of new business...they manipulated the landscape to create a result.

I am not making shit up. You are ignoring reality and failing to engage in basic critical thinking. If you don't invite anyone from "the other side"...

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

#230

Post by robomartin »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #208
robomartin wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I interpreted which I interpret as assumption Right. Interpretation, layered upon interpretation, layered upon assumptions. That's why people can't have conversations. They hear what they want and read what they want into what others are saying. My problem isn't at all with a class about XYZ. It's about being FORCED to take a class that has nothing whatsoever to do with the field of study. It's also about wasting p…

American universities can be more competitive than European and even Asian ones. The stories of Singaporean uni students going to Stanford on an exchange and getting caught cheating are not rare. It’s a weird contradiction, where we have the worst and best schools at the same time.

I am not talking about competitiveness. I am talking about wasting a year with non-degree coursework and saddling students with tens of thousands of dollars of debt because of it. Coursework that no employer cares about one bit. Coursework that should be covered in high school, preparing young adults for the world --even if they don't go to college.

Are we sitting here pretending that all is well with our system of education? I would find that disturbing.

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