I get the sense that most HN commenters are against having police surveil this kind of event in the U.S. Could someone share the reasons for this strong opposition? Personally, I can imagine valid reasons for and against conducting such surveillance. But given how many people feel otherwise, I wonder if I'm missing something.
Police surveilled protests with help from Twitter-affiliated startup Dataminr
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Re: Police surveilled protests with help from Twitter-affiliated startup Dataminr
#12I get the sense that most HN commenters are against having police surveil this kind of event in the U.S. Could someone share the reasons for this strong opposition? Personally, I can imagine valid reasons for and against conducting such surveillance. But given how many people feel otherwise, I wonder if I'm missing something.
Re: Police surveilled protests with help from Twitter-affiliated startup Dataminr
#13I get the sense that most HN commenters are against having police surveil this kind of event in the U.S. Could someone share the reasons for this strong opposition? Personally, I can imagine valid reasons for and against conducting such surveillance. But given how many people feel otherwise, I wonder if I'm missing something.
Re: Police surveilled protests with help from Twitter-affiliated startup Dataminr
#14I get the sense that most HN commenters are against having police surveil this kind of event in the U.S. Could someone share the reasons for this strong opposition? Personally, I can imagine valid reasons for and against conducting such surveillance. But given how many people feel otherwise, I wonder if I'm missing something.
For example, imagine being undocumented and wanting to protest. You may second guess going to a protest (even if it benefits you to do so), because you learned law enforcement is tracking the communications and movements of protesters.
Re: Police surveilled protests with help from Twitter-affiliated startup Dataminr
#15I don’t know how these folks sleep at night, lying to the public, their users, and their customers in the same breath. > The monitoring seems at odds with claims from both Twitter and Dataminr that neither company would engage in or facilitate domestic surveillance following a string of 2016 controversies. Twitter, up until recently a longtime investor in Dataminr alongside the CIA, provides the company with full acc…
Why is this comment downvoted?
Re: Police surveilled protests with help from Twitter-affiliated startup Dataminr
#16I get the sense that most HN commenters are against having police surveil this kind of event in the U.S. Could someone share the reasons for this strong opposition? Personally, I can imagine valid reasons for and against conducting such surveillance. But given how many people feel otherwise, I wonder if I'm missing something.
How about you give us your best "for" argument?
Re: Police surveilled protests with help from Twitter-affiliated startup Dataminr
#17I get the sense that most HN commenters are against having police surveil this kind of event in the U.S. Could someone share the reasons for this strong opposition? Personally, I can imagine valid reasons for and against conducting such surveillance. But given how many people feel otherwise, I wonder if I'm missing something.
But there is more to it. Courts have long recognized that state activity that can be reasonably construed to chill exercise of ones constitutional freedoms is similarly an infringement on those rights, and certainly take a very dim look on any sort of surveillance of political activity.
Re: Police surveilled protests with help from Twitter-affiliated startup Dataminr
#18I get the sense that most HN commenters are against having police surveil this kind of event in the U.S. Could someone share the reasons for this strong opposition? Personally, I can imagine valid reasons for and against conducting such surveillance. But given how many people feel otherwise, I wonder if I'm missing something.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/norman-oklahoma-councilwoman-a...
Re: Police surveilled protests with help from Twitter-affiliated startup Dataminr
#19I get the sense that most HN commenters are against having police surveil this kind of event in the U.S. Could someone share the reasons for this strong opposition? Personally, I can imagine valid reasons for and against conducting such surveillance. But given how many people feel otherwise, I wonder if I'm missing something.
Re: Police surveilled protests with help from Twitter-affiliated startup Dataminr
#20I get the sense that most HN commenters are against having police surveil this kind of event in the U.S. Could someone share the reasons for this strong opposition? Personally, I can imagine valid reasons for and against conducting such surveillance. But given how many people feel otherwise, I wonder if I'm missing something.
How about you give us your best "for" argument?
The main "pro-surveillance" argument that comes to mind is that sometimes these protests devolve into illegal looting and destruction of private/public property. I think my ideal would be for police to have only the surveillance needed to prosecute those crimes, and nothing else.