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

Massive New Surveillance Program Uncovered by Wall Street Journal

slate.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 203 posts

Re: Massive New Surveillance Program Uncovered by Wall Street Journal

#101

Post by capnrefsmmat »

hermannj314 wrote: post #66

I have an aquaintance that was falsely accused of vehicular homicide because he had a car whose description was close enough for the police and he had to spend a decade in the legal system fighting for his freedom. And all of this is made possible because the police have access to records of which cars are owned and by whom and they can look at it. Should we not let the police use this information since this one indi…

> Should it be illegal to gather information on people simply because they didn't authorize it? Should individuals have the power to control what others do with the information that is publically knowable about them? I, personally, say no.

I think this is the third time I'll make this post on HN, but it's been relevant every time.

Privacy is not about having something to hide, or about keeping things secret. Giving the government the power to store all this data about you isn't bad because they might learn embarrassing things; after all, it will most likely only be read by a computer.

But it gives the government enormous power to make decisions about you -- decisions about whether you may take a commercial airline flight, get a security clearance, or even get a job -- without your knowledge or consent, and without you knowing how they make the decisions. It's not Orwellian, it's Kafkaesque.

In short, a lack of privacy gives the government the power to be even less transparent in its decision-making, and gives it yet more power over its citizens. It's not a question of discovering your fetishes or being embarrassed, and we shouldn't respond to the "but I have nothing to hide" argument as though their conception of privacy is right and having nothing to hide really is an excuse.

There's a rather good paper I can recommend on the subject:

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=998565

Re: Massive New Surveillance Program Uncovered by Wall Street Journal

#102

Post by barrkel »

nikcub wrote: post #32
buro9 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's been happening in the other direction for a number of years now. My brother was turned back when he flew to Miami with his family to take his children to Disney World. It turned out that because he had been arrested aged 19 and failed to declare it that the border people felt that he had answered fraudulantly when challenged on "Have you ever been arrested?". My brother answered no because whilst he was arrested…

It sucks that this is how it works, but that is what the survey is for. They already know all the answers, they just want to see how you respond. For eg. they already know the date, your flight number, your passport number, your history - it is all about getting you in a situation where you answer questions and can be analyzed. The Isrealis are really good at it. They realized that security through innspecting every…

They already know all the answers

That's nonsense. Ever commit "moral turpitude"? You'd need to be a historian of the law to know what they're on about, and the peons behind the desks certainly don't know all the answers.

They also didn't know how to interpret my H-1B after my division was purchased by another company, even at the supervisor level, though I had a thick binder from the company lawyers to explain it all - I didn't use it in the end, I did the visa waiver instead.

I'd maintain that almost all people would be turned back by CBP if their lives were inspected closely enough and the laws and questions interpreted literally enough. It's a game; you need to know which questions they think they have the answer to, and answer as expected for them; and admit no wrongdoing elsewhere. And you may still end up with a jobsworth behind the counter - though my experience of most CBP personnel is that they are reasonably cheerful and pleasant.

Re: Massive New Surveillance Program Uncovered by Wall Street Journal

#103

Post by Strshps1MoreTim »

godDLL wrote: post #84
nikcub wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sucks that this is how it works, but that is what the survey is for. They already know all the answers, they just want to see how you respond. For eg. they already know the date, your flight number, your passport number, your history - it is all about getting you in a situation where you answer questions and can be analyzed. The Isrealis are really good at it. They realized that security through innspecting every…

It works so well for us because nobody, and I literally mean no other state in the world speaks THE LANGUAGE. When you grow up here you get used to being around all kinds that you previously never fully visualized as actual, walking-talking flesh-and-blood people. There's the Russian-speaking section to which I belong, the local Palestinians, the Ethiopian section, quite a lot of the Moroccan people, as well as many…

Interesting, do Arabs pretend to be Jews to pass the security?

Re: Massive New Surveillance Program Uncovered by Wall Street Journal

#104

Post by Strshps1MoreTim »

alan_cx wrote: post #51
barking wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None. By their nature, measures like this annoy people. If this was the 12th of September 2001 would your opinion be different and if so, why?

As a Brit, I have a huge problem with all this. In the old days of US funded IRA attacks against amongst other things, our government, we never let the terrorists win. We didn't budge our principles or give up core freedoms. Sure our side did some very iffy things to combat the terror, but it was still illegal. We didn't try to legitimise it by tearing up principles that applied to normal people. But once 9/11 happen…

9/11 was an inside job, designed (along other things) to take away personal freedoms.

Re: Massive New Surveillance Program Uncovered by Wall Street Journal

#105

Post by flatline »

chmike wrote: post #17

I don't understand the critics. Do you think that terrorists or criminals are detected by oracles ? You ridiculed the security agencies after 911 for not beeing able to detect such a plot and now you are in shock because they do their job ? There is no way to detect a plot while staying eyes shut. There is a problem, more precisely a risk, but it is not in collecting the data and processing it to detect a plot. It is…

I don't necessarily disagree, it doesn't bother me nearly as much as it does a lot of people on here. However, we had actionable intelligence about 9-11 well in advance of the attacks, and yet there were simply too many threats for us to identify this one as plausible. On the one hand this was failure of analysis. On the other hand, as the 9-11 commission concluded, there was a failure of imagination: for some reason no one took this type of threat that seriously, even though similar scenarios had been proposed by analysts before.

My question, then, is how are orders of magnitude more data going to help? I honestly think it will make our predictive power worse, not better, at least for decades to come until we have learned enough to start making sense of data on the scale we are talking about here.

It is really just a case of doing it because our technology will allow it, and a general hand-waving of "more is better" and "it will make everyone safer", than facing the reality of actually detecting a terrorist threat.

It is, in fact, just more security theater.

Re: Massive New Surveillance Program Uncovered by Wall Street Journal

#106

Post by nikcub »

barrkel wrote: post #102
nikcub wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sucks that this is how it works, but that is what the survey is for. They already know all the answers, they just want to see how you respond. For eg. they already know the date, your flight number, your passport number, your history - it is all about getting you in a situation where you answer questions and can be analyzed. The Isrealis are really good at it. They realized that security through innspecting every…

They already know all the answers That's nonsense. Ever commit "moral turpitude"? You'd need to be a historian of the law to know what they're on about, and the peons behind the desks certainly don't know all the answers. They also didn't know how to interpret my H-1B after my division was purchased by another company, even at the supervisor level, though I had a thick binder from the company lawyers to explain it al…

I'm talking about customs and immigration clearance, not visa applications. All flights into the USA are now pre-screened with airlines forwarding all passenger info prior to departure. They literally know all the answers and have no real need for the cards you fill out.

edit: I don't have the link with me atm, but there was a Wired (I believe) story about the center that is responsible for collecting all the data in pre-screening and the technical challenge. As inputs they have airline data and data exchange agreements with governments that are part of the visa waiver program, amongst others

Re: Massive New Surveillance Program Uncovered by Wall Street Journal

#107

Post by wololo »

buro9 wrote: post #35
barking wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It turned out that because he had been arrested aged 19 and failed to declare it that the border people felt that he had answered fraudulantly when challenged on "Have you ever been arrested?". What interpretation should they have taken from it?

The UK has a law called the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act, within that is the notion of classes of criminal record being spent. I don't know the specifics, but you always have to declare the equivalent of felonies, but for misdemeanours you can lawfully not declare them after some period of time in which your debt is considered repaid and the record spent. The whole of the EU has such laws. I think most people with…

> The whole of the EU has such laws. I think most people within the EU would regard this as just a part of living in the civilised west.

The US is not all that different. You'd get a court order for the record to be expunged. Although each state has its own laws

Re: Massive New Surveillance Program Uncovered by Wall Street Journal

#108

Post by jivatmanx »

Vivtek wrote: post #56
sliverstorm wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it that any kind of attempts to predict future criminal activities is always labeled "1984"? It seems to me that so long as you don't take it further than "being ready", done right it could be a good thing.

"Done right". There's your problem. Done right, Marxism is a good thing. Done right, a dictatorship is the most efficient form of government. But we are, in fact, dealing in sloppy reality, where many things - by their very nature - cannot be done right. No matter how hard we try, or how earnestly we believe in fairies, these things will not be done right. They will inevitably devolve into tyranny.

"Done Right" means that he wants to provide a default assumption of trust for government actions.

However, the bill of rights is based upon a default distrust, and he may want to research why that was the case.

Re: Massive New Surveillance Program Uncovered by Wall Street Journal

#109

Post by underdown »

buro9 wrote: post #35
barking wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It turned out that because he had been arrested aged 19 and failed to declare it that the border people felt that he had answered fraudulantly when challenged on "Have you ever been arrested?". What interpretation should they have taken from it?

The UK has a law called the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act, within that is the notion of classes of criminal record being spent. I don't know the specifics, but you always have to declare the equivalent of felonies, but for misdemeanours you can lawfully not declare them after some period of time in which your debt is considered repaid and the record spent. The whole of the EU has such laws. I think most people with…

In many (most? all?) states here you can have misdemeanors expunged from your record after a couple of years without incident as well.

Re: Massive New Surveillance Program Uncovered by Wall Street Journal

#110

Post by thwarted »

barking wrote: post #21
dendory wrote: post #10

"Pre-crime" You thought it was a movie, now it's reality. Soon, it'll be something you get arrested for. Mark my words.

If you have a record then isn't it understandable that you might attract more attention than someone with a blameless past? It seems logical to me anyway. Obviously not to the extent that you'd be held but keeping an eye on you is fair enough imo.

Eventually, having a blameless past will be cause for suspicion, if it's not already. Because at some point, not having a record is is sufficiently different from everyone to not be "normal".
Post reply on HN