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Massive New Surveillance Program Uncovered by Wall Street Journal

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Re: Massive New Surveillance Program Uncovered by Wall Street Journal

#121

Post by barrkel »

illuminate wrote: post #115
barrkel wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

They're not asking what thoughtcrimes/sins you've committed, they're asking you directly if you've ever been arrested, which they ~do~ know the circumstances of.

"Are you seeking entry to engage in [...] immoral activities"? - what on earth are "immoral activities", and what business is it of the state? Surely they should be asking about illegal activities?

"Are you a drug abuser or addict"? - I think almost every adult has abused alcohol at some point.

Etc.

Re: Massive New Surveillance Program Uncovered by Wall Street Journal

#122

Post by wyck »

aswanson wrote: post #114

They're probably using Palantir. I wonder how Thiel resolves his libertarian/freedom philosophy with supplying the government with such a powerful oppressive tool.

Well there is also this company https://www.recordedfuture.com/ which has the CIA and Google as investors, like anything political the grey area covers a lot.

Re: Massive New Surveillance Program Uncovered by Wall Street Journal

#123

Post by jacquesm »

barking wrote: post #25
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 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?

> What interpretation should they have taken from it?

It wasn't any of their business in the first place, but since they were nosing around where they shouldn't my money would be on 'forgetful'.

Re: Massive New Surveillance Program Uncovered by Wall Street Journal

#124

Post by jacquesm »

alan_cx wrote: post #45
mrgriscom wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really wish people would stop mixing up TSA and USCBP ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Customs_and_Border_Protect... )

Perhaps the worry should be that people just shorten all that to "USA", and give up. I know I would never travel there, and I don't really care which acronym is out to wreck my life.

> Perhaps the worry should be that people just shorten all that to "USA", and give up.

I've done exactly that.

Too bad, there are a lot of really nice people there that I consider close friends.

Re: Massive New Surveillance Program Uncovered by Wall Street Journal

#125

Post by ClayM »

dreamdu5t wrote: post #116

Why I'm worried about a surveillance state? Because the people in charge will have their records protected while everyone else gets the surveillance. Our president committed crimes his justice department jails people for (illegal drugs). Drug testing is a perfect example of the surveillance state. The people who don't get tested? The testers. The legislators. The people in charge. I know there are technical problems…

so, "who watches the watchers" ?

Re: Massive New Surveillance Program Uncovered by Wall Street Journal

#126

Post by btilly »

acabal wrote: post #77
buro9 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To reply to myself, the thing that I took away from his telling of this experience and watching his wife almost cry when they got to the part about boarding the plane back with the children... it's this: Every thing that you ever do is recorded somewhere. Every person has a file whether they think they do or not. This file will only ever be used against you. And Europe remembers such a thing... it was only 1990 that…

I think about this often too. I think the answer ultimately lies somewhere in the realm of "history is cyclical." A society's collective memory seems to fade after a few hundred years. America today is an excellent example of that. The founders came from a time of tyranny and oppression, and worked hard to try to prevent that in their new country. And yet a lot of how our government today works is, I imagine, very mu…

A society's collective memory seems to fade after a few hundred years.

A few hundred years? Try a few decades.

In the 1940s, the USA fought totalitarianism. Then we had a major fight against Communism. In both struggles, a major part of our self image is that we, unlike the totalitarian states we struggled against, were a free country. If, in a movie in the 70s, you saw the German officer saying, "Papers, please", that was a sure sign that they were the enemy - not living in a free state.

Today we live in a state that would be instantly recognizable as a totalitarian state. Just like past totalitarian states, the excuse is our security. Do you think that I'm exaggerating? 20 years ago it was common to not need an ID to board a plane, with it being reasonably common that the person whose name was on the ticket was not the person holding the ticket. (That would generally be because someone had bought someone else's return ticket because that was cheaper than buying a one-way ticket.) Today you not only need ID, you go through a thorough search and most take it for granted that we might go through a virtual strip search to get onto the plane.

Can I make this worse? Actually, I can. Nobody will show you the law requiring ID to fly. There was actually a lawsuit filed about this. John Gilmore lost, and STILL didn't get to see the law. (See http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/news/techpolicy/2004-03-... for random verification.)

Re: Massive New Surveillance Program Uncovered by Wall Street Journal

#127

Post by jacquesm »

barking wrote: post #112
jlgreco wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

.....and, where the cost of false positives is sufficiently high and the rate of false positives is sufficiently high, that is a very relevant consideration that is in fact made by the medical community. That is just a basic of modern medicine. The world is not black and white. These are things that must be weighed and considered rationally with real data, not emotionally with fabricated absolutes. You don't get to d…

I'm sorry but you have gone off on a tangent there. We weren't arguing about the effectiveness of the policy just the rationale behind it, I believe. I don't have any stats on that, do you?

You were never arguing. You were being educated.

Re: Massive New Surveillance Program Uncovered by Wall Street Journal

#128

Post by wolf550e »

Strshps1MoreTim wrote: post #103
godDLL wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

That's a strange question. How do you "pretend" something when the security personnel have your passport information, and for citizens, a lot more?

Re: Massive New Surveillance Program Uncovered by Wall Street Journal

#129

Post by Strshps1MoreTim »

wolf550e wrote: post #128
Strshps1MoreTim wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That's a strange question. How do you "pretend" something when the security personnel have your passport information, and for citizens, a lot more?

E.g. by buying a fake russian passport for $200, stating your nationality is Jewish.
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