Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it sounds scary anyway. I mean, I'd know everything about you -- where you lived, where you shopped, where you worked, where you ate out, where your friends lived, what you did with your friends, when you did it, etc. I could even get further than you might imagine: I probably have a really good guess (>0.99) what you do at your work, given your activities outside of work and the people you associate with. I…
I believe this surveillance can be slowed down? We need to stop being so complacent with our photo being taken? We could start be not shopping at stores like Home Depot. Home Depot takes my photo multiple times for the purchase of a screw? I know all stores treat their employees and customers like convicted felons, but some are worse than others? Then, maybe we could slow down on the posting of pictures? Show up at l…
FBI operating fleet of surveillance aircraft flying over US cities
111–120 of 229 posts
Re: FBI operating fleet of surveillance aircraft flying over US cities
#112Re: FBI operating fleet of surveillance aircraft flying over US cities
#113To me it makes sense that the FBI needs a fleet of surveillance planes for investigations. It also makes sense that these aircraft carry civilian livery to be low-profile (same idea as an unmarked pursuit car). What seems f-ked up are the shell companies. Why not come out and say "we have surveillance planes; we need them for investigations; here's how much money we've allocated in our budget to operate them." The FB…
The FBI using front companies for aerial surveillance of suspects seems fine to me; That's just doing their job of criminal investigation. The worrying part is seeing their planes overhead for hours at a time, which looks more like potential persistent surveillance, or a dragnet that sweeps up hundreds or thousands of people into whatever video/cellphone recording they're doing.
That hasn't been the FBI's job for some time now. They joined the "intelligence community" club and now claim is now about "national security".
http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/01/05/fbi-drops-law-enforcemen...
So why is it necessary to fly spy planes domestically to protect "national security". That would imply we've already been invaded... or their purpose is something else entirely.
Re: FBI operating fleet of surveillance aircraft flying over US cities
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because now they can spy on millions vs 1. I think that makes the difference.
> Because now they can spy on millions I didn't see that part of the article, can you link me to some resources for the planes having that level of camera and computer vision technology?
"ARGUS is an advanced camera system that uses hundreds of cellphone cameras in a mosaic to video and auto-track every moving object within a 36 square mile area.
ARGUS is a form of Wide Area Persistent Surveillance that allows for one camera to provide such detailed video that users can collect 'pattern-of-life' data and track individual people inside the footage anywhere within the field of regard."
Re: FBI operating fleet of surveillance aircraft flying over US cities
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree that some of the possibilities of such tech are scary. However, putting on my optimist hat, they are only possibilities. Of course it will be possible to do such things. The question then becomes: why would anyone do them, and (somewhat linked) what are the chances that anyone will do them to you? > I tell your boss when you lie about being sick, I tell your insurance how often you do risky things when not dr…
> The question then becomes: why would anyone do them, and (somewhat linked) what are the chances that anyone will do them to you? Let me rephrase the items from the GP comment: 1. A company that your boss hires will tell him when you lie about being sick. 2. Your insurance company pays to find out how often you do risky things when not driving 3. where-is-she.com charges 29.99 per month to report on someone's locati…
It doesn't change the point about motivation and the underlying reasons such information would be used not changing as a result of it being easier.
Let's further deconstruct those three examples:
1. If your boss pays for such a service, it probably points to a wider issue with them, or you. Either your boss is happy with you and your performance, or they aren't. If the former, what incentive do they have to catch you red-handed lying about sick days? Do they even care, ultimately, if you're getting the job done? If not, why would they pay for and/or use such a service? However, if in their opinion you're not getting the job done, and they're actively looking for evidence presumably to support firing you, and you're actually guilty of lying about sick days - well... that sounds like an extremely unhealthy situation that would probably come to a bad end anyway, with or without them using such a service.
2. (Disclaimer, this may be wildly wrong or pure fantasy, IANAEconomist) How do they feed this data into their risk models exactly? This won't increase everyones' premiums - rather it would result in some premiums going up, others down. If, due to poor models, it results in some premiums going up unfairly, then presumably some other insurance company will figure this out so those actually-not-that-risky clients will switch to them for lower premiums. There will be disruption, and temporarily some people will be treated unfairly, but the market will adjust and actually may become fairer all round eventually. Transparency in this case should actually be a good thing, right? Or are we saying that people who are actually riskier should be subsidised by the less risky?
3. The type of person to use such a service would not just do so because it's easy. This is a fundamental matter of morals. The type of person to use this service would be incredibly likely to do bad things anyway, regardless of the tools available to them to do bad - technology will not take otherwise moral people and suddenly make them immoral just because it's easier now than it was yesterday. In rather simplistic terms, don't blame the weapon for violence, blame the person making the decision to use the weapon.
Re: FBI operating fleet of surveillance aircraft flying over US cities
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorgon_stare
Those links don't support the ability to active track a million people. It's just a 360 degree camera used to track insurgents during combat. It's not tracking every person in a city over a period of time.
The array of cameras on the aircraft that flew over
Compton can record high-resolution images of a 25-square
mile area for up to six hours. It can track every person
and vehicle on the ground, beaming back the pictures in
real time.
It’s city-wide surveillance on an unprecedented scale.
What we essentially do is a live version of google earth
only with a full TIVO capability, it allows us to rewind
time and go back and see events that we didn’t know
occurred at the time they occurred.
[0] http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/new-police-surveillance-techn...Re: FBI operating fleet of surveillance aircraft flying over US cities
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, actually; enforcing all of the laws all of the time is completely impractical. If you want always-on enforcement of every law, then we're going to have to seriously reform all of the laws. So, WRT your comment, I would tell you that it is my preference that laws be enforced to solve a specific social problem, not merely for the sake of enforcing a law.
The FBI isn't handing out parking tickets.
Re: FBI operating fleet of surveillance aircraft flying over US cities
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
The FBI using front companies for aerial surveillance of suspects seems fine to me; That's just doing their job of criminal investigation. The worrying part is seeing their planes overhead for hours at a time, which looks more like potential persistent surveillance, or a dragnet that sweeps up hundreds or thousands of people into whatever video/cellphone recording they're doing.
> doing their job of criminal investigation That hasn't been the FBI's job for some time now. They joined the "intelligence community" club and now claim is now about "national security". http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/01/05/fbi-drops-law-enforcemen... So why is it necessary to fly spy planes domestically to protect "national security". That would imply we've already been invaded... or their purpose is something else…
Re: FBI operating fleet of surveillance aircraft flying over US cities
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
Stopping tax payments isn't the only way to protest.
I'd love to hear ideas on this. I am dismayed, nay, infuriated that we waste taxpayer dollars in such a manner when the returns have been found to be non-existent. Yet, I read about atrocities committed every day by ISIS and the US government sits back and does little. This is not the world I want to live in, and I have no idea how to solve these non-technical problems. EDIT: Regarding downvotes and the replies as of…
Re: FBI operating fleet of surveillance aircraft flying over US cities
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
Without knowing the details, it seems like they shouldn't really distil 'expectation of privacy' down a simple binary "could someone not breaking the law observe them or not" test. IMO, the efforts to which that hypothetical person would have to go should influence just how much privacy a person could 'expect' to have. Otherwise why do people bother putting up privacy fences around their garden, when anyone could jus…
The Illustrated Guide to the Law has some discussion of this question here: http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=2201
This panel explains why there is no 4th amendment protection of information you store in the cloud: http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=2210.