Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Today Is One of the Biggest Surveillance Votes. Will the FBI Stop Spying?

tuta.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 192 posts

Re: Today Is One of the Biggest Surveillance Votes. Will the FBI Stop Spying?

#121

Post by madamelic »

madamelic wrote: post #22
graphe wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The self checkout tsa is the opposite.

Only because we have been boiled to be ok with it. It used to just be x-ray and a bag scan. Now it is a backscatter plus a pat-down if required plus a bag scan. If you get flagged on either, your hands get swabbed down as well. The tech and number of searches is only going to increase over time as more contracts get in on the TSA grift. I have zero doubts at some point they will also begin domestic device scans ("jus…

> x-ray

I am aware I am mildly dumb. Metal detector! Hah!

Re: Today Is One of the Biggest Surveillance Votes. Will the FBI Stop Spying?

#122

Post by ink_13 »

oh_sigh wrote: post #118
electrondood wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fun fact, "open borders" is a complete myth.

Well, our borders might be legally closed, but with 2.2 million people illegally crossing them from the southern border per year, that is the entire population of Houston, maybe it's fair to say they're closed but effectively open. Coupled with the fact that if you're caught, you can just say you're claiming asylum and you get to stay.

They are not "legally closed", they are controlled. A closed border permits no crossings, which is clearly not the state of reality.

Re: Today Is One of the Biggest Surveillance Votes. Will the FBI Stop Spying?

#124

Post by psychlops »

ethbr1 wrote: post #108
solardev wrote: post #18

"Today, corrupt politicians put on another dog and pony show while continuing business as usual. Is our democracy secretly a farce? Details at 11."

Or, everyone could get off their asses and carry their weight as a citizen in a democracy. Nihilistic dismissal of the right to vote is lazy. Nobody said upholding your rights was going to be easy . Organization, affiliation, communication all take work. Get involved in primaries, for either party! Fewer voters and even more power there. Yard signs are cheap. Make your own. Make this an issue. Or, if you need to hear…

Decades of a democracy that worked has created generations of complacent people who do not participate, follow the rules, and expect things to continue to work out as they always have. I highly doubt anything except absence of democracy will change this perception.

Re: Today Is One of the Biggest Surveillance Votes. Will the FBI Stop Spying?

#125

Post by TriangleEdge »

As an engineer, what I want to see is metrics.

Bar charts for events the surveillance program helped with:

y = count of terrorist plots stopped, x = time bucket

y = cost of surveillance programs, x = time bucket

y = count of petty crimes caught, x = time bucket

y = count of total analyst caught abusing power, x = time bucket

y = count of total Americans profiles, x = time bucket

y = count of total world wide profiles, x = time bucket

y = count of illegal immigration caught, x = time bucket

Re: Today Is One of the Biggest Surveillance Votes. Will the FBI Stop Spying?

#126

Post by photochemsyn »

The FBI has become little more than the enforcement arm of the organized white-collar crime system run out of Wall Street offices with the active support of the White House and the Congress.

This is why, despite the FBI's sweeping surveillance powers, no coordinated prosecution targeting the subprime mortgage fraudsters who brought down the economy in 2008-2009 was conducted - instead, they were all bailed out with taxpayer dollars in a coordinated Republican-Democrat left-right operation. In contrast, little Iceland put 39 of its top bankers in jail for their role in that event.

It's true that an entity like the FBI is needed to police white-collar crime, because otherwise corporate conflicts over market share etc. would soon escalate into violent conflict (e.g. Mexican drug cartels, Prohibition-era alcohol distribution gangs, etc.), but they've become an organization that does more to protect the extremely wealthy white-collar criminals from prosecution than to gather evidence that would put them in jail. The fact that top-tier FBI officials so often 'retire' to lucrative private positions in Wall Street firms should serve as solid evidence that the organization is corrupt.

As far as why they want to retain warrantless surveillance powers that don't require them to go before a judge and leave any kind of evidenciary record in support of that surveillance, well, would STASI have wanted to do that in East Germany, either?

Re: Today Is One of the Biggest Surveillance Votes. Will the FBI Stop Spying?

#127

Post by geodel »

TriangleEdge wrote: post #125

As an engineer, what I want to see is metrics. Bar charts for events the surveillance program helped with: y = count of terrorist plots stopped, x = time bucket y = cost of surveillance programs, x = time bucket y = count of petty crimes caught, x = time bucket y = count of total analyst caught abusing power, x = time bucket y = count of total Americans profiles, x = time bucket y = count of total world wide profiles…

I am pretty sure if one wants metrics one will get metrics. Law enforcement, like corporate management nowadays, is big on metrics.

After all, the big enshittification of internet which is popular topic here is based on metrics of ad networks effectiveness.

Re: Today Is One of the Biggest Surveillance Votes. Will the FBI Stop Spying?

#128

Post by unethical_ban »

PKop wrote: post #114
ethbr1 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, everyone could get off their asses and carry their weight as a citizen in a democracy. Nihilistic dismissal of the right to vote is lazy. Nobody said upholding your rights was going to be easy . Organization, affiliation, communication all take work. Get involved in primaries, for either party! Fewer voters and even more power there. Yard signs are cheap. Make your own. Make this an issue. Or, if you need to hear…

And belief that the masses organizing and voting can have power over Leviathan and its bureaucrats is delusional. They just keep pushing these policies and power grabs until they go through, and/or lie about the components of them. There's no practical check on deep state power such as this in today's so-called-democracy. You would need some counter-elite faction that already has foothold on power to oppose current p…

I don't think that American electoral systems allow proper accountability of political leaders. That isn't a criticism of democracy, it's a criticism of a two-party system with no ability for change from the outside.

Re: Today Is One of the Biggest Surveillance Votes. Will the FBI Stop Spying?

#129

Post by dragonwriter »

alwaysrunning wrote: post #109
jancsika wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you LARPing based on first principles? Just give examples: * Trump's First Step Act. E.g., title III-- can no longer use restraints on prisoners during pregnancy-- and IV-- reducing mandatory minimums for drug felony convictions * Trump's Affordable Clean Energy rule which removed caps on emissions * Clinton's repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act back in 1999 * Carter's Airline Deregulation Act back in the late 7…

The Patriot Act (2001), The Homeland Security Act (2002), The Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) (2002), The National Defense Authorization Act, The Affordable Care Act (2010),The Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA) (2015), The Real ID Act (2005),The USA Freedom Act (2015), The Executive Order on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity (2021), The Economic Stabilization Act (2008), The Executiv…

> The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) (1978),

FISA is an example of what you are arguing against, unless you are arguing that is a net increase in power because the restrictions on government power came packaged with a government power to prosecute government agents who violated the new limits, which is kind of silly.

(You may be confusing the 1978 act with the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, the War on Terror act undercutting the FISA limits, which is kind of like confusing the 18th and 21st Amendments.)

Re: Today Is One of the Biggest Surveillance Votes. Will the FBI Stop Spying?

#130

Post by solardev »

reedjosh wrote: post #70
solardev wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having enough trouble with the shallow state already. Can we upgrade that first?

The existence of a deep state precludes fixing a shallow one.

Are you saying we need a whole rewrite of the government?
Post reply on HN