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Amazon's Ring and Google's Nest reveal the severity of U.S. surveillance state

greenwald.substack.com

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Re: Amazon's Ring and Google's Nest reveal the severity of U.S. surveillance state

#201

Post by shevy-java »

devsda wrote: post #102
oceansky wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone commented on a HN threads on just de-googling and he couldn't even pick up his kids without a gmail or apple account. Just not using it is really unrealistic for the average person at this moment

I know it is probably not the American way but the only way to address this problem is to make laws that prevent a duopoly, penalize anti-competitive behavior and push open-source standards for software/hardware. Unfortunately, the status quo also means the US (and its tech giants) has real power and control over other countries' technology sector. So, no party in America will make or enforce laws that will change th…

In my opinion there is a too strong connection now between these private corporations and "politicians". Everyone can be bribed.

The only way I see a change possibility is for people to think about how to change this collectively. Pushing for open source everywhere would be one partial strategy that could work in certain areas.

Re: Amazon's Ring and Google's Nest reveal the severity of U.S. surveillance state

#202

Post by an0malous »

otterley wrote: post #148
calibas wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're an attorney and you're asking me why the government spying on everyone is a clear violation of the 4th Amendment?

Yes. You’re the one making the assertion (not just that there is a violation but also that the activity is that “the government spying on everyone”); the burden of proof is thus on you. Attorneys challenge each other as a matter of course in every case before a court. This is how the adversarial system works. Perhaps what you meant to say is that “I don’t like the activity that is happening here,” or “I think some of…

> When someone makes a naked blanket assertion about the law, it’s usually a sign that that person doesn’t know what they’re talking about.

Re: Amazon's Ring and Google's Nest reveal the severity of U.S. surveillance state

#204

Post by ori_b »

oefrha wrote: post #85
ori_b wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which statistics are you looking at? Crime has been dropping since the 90s, with the exception of short term regressions. https://jasher.substack.com/p/crime-is-likely-down-an-enormo...

You do realize these are still crap compared to other countries right?

Agreed, the world overall is pretty safe these days.

Re: Amazon's Ring and Google's Nest reveal the severity of U.S. surveillance state

#205

Post by mmaunder »

alejohausner wrote: post #38

Glenn Greenwald is back on substack. Yay! For the past few years, he’s mostly done videos on rumble, and he’s fun to watch, but personally I prefer his writing. In case you’ve been under a rock for 10 years, Greenwald was the guy who published Snowden’s revelations. His focus has always been on censorship, surveillance, and hypocrisy in government.

Laura Poitras' documentary Citizenfour is an excellent introduction to the amazing work that Glenn does and has done, and how he's been personally targeted - although I don't recall whether the doc includes Glenn's partner being harassed by US authorities.

Re: Amazon's Ring and Google's Nest reveal the severity of U.S. surveillance state

#206

Post by otterley »

calibas wrote: post #187
otterley wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. You’re the one making the assertion (not just that there is a violation but also that the activity is that “the government spying on everyone”); the burden of proof is thus on you. Attorneys challenge each other as a matter of course in every case before a court. This is how the adversarial system works. Perhaps what you meant to say is that “I don’t like the activity that is happening here,” or “I think some of…

You seem to be playing dumb here. You realize us "normal people" believe the Bill of Rights is to protect us from the government, and the 4th means the government doesn't get to spy on everybody indiscriminately? And yes, they are spying on everybody. They have access to things like cellphone metadata, which to a normal human being is a very clear violation of privacy. It's also my firm belief that our legal system h…

I'm not going to argue over principles, as that's not law, and I largely agree with them.

However:

> They have access to things like cellphone metadata, which to a normal human being is a very clear violation of privacy.

In the U.S., when you study 4th Amendment law in Criminal Procedure, you learn there is a "third party doctrine" that says that if you voluntarily provide a third party with information--even information you consider private-it's the third party's property and you can no longer object to it being sought by the Government. There's a good overview of this on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_doctrine

The Supreme Court declined to extend the third-party doctrine to tracking one's location via cell-phone metadata in Carpenter v. U.S., 585 U.S. 296 (2018), so it's not absolute.

Re: Amazon's Ring and Google's Nest reveal the severity of U.S. surveillance state

#207

Post by acdha »

joebates wrote: post #200
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the only way it can be in a system with thousands of crimes on the books. People commit minor offenses, and often felonies without knowing it, on a regular basis. If surveillance was consistently used to actually enforce the laws, people would a) notice the surveillance[0] and then actually object to it and b) start objecting to all the ridiculous and poorly drafted laws they didn't even know existed. But they…

I wonder if this is a technique used by certain leaders of authoritarian regimes to take out people in power they they deem threats. Everyone in the party routinely breaks laws, knowingly or otherwise. The person in charge can decide they don't like someone and start an investigation, knowing they'll eventually find something illegal. Then they can delegitimize and remove them under the guise of "corruption".

Very much so: “everyone does it” means that the leader can destroy anyone who doesn’t toe the line while seeming to be following a reasonable law.

Re: Amazon's Ring and Google's Nest reveal the severity of U.S. surveillance state

#208

Post by cgriswald »

Levitz wrote: post #158
WarmWash wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Giving the state control of things to prevent the state from easily spying on people...

The neat thing about the state is that it can act directly off the incentives of the people. The state can supply such service in a private manner, given enough support from the populace.

The “incentives of the people” are famously steadfast and resolute in favor of the rights of others.

Re: Amazon's Ring and Google's Nest reveal the severity of U.S. surveillance state

#209

Post by bdangubic »

alejohausner wrote: post #74
jeffbee wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Greenwald is a vocal and consistent anti-institutionalist, and this creates the conditions for strongmen to take over. Whether he is aware of having this effect is not relevant.

He criticizes the military-industrial complex. Don’t you think that’s an institution worth dismantling?

he not only not criticizes but is the most war-loving president we’ve had in a long time. at least he did right but making DoD what is actually is. america knows nothing but military and he’ll grow it to even more epic proportions once we invade iran and 10 or so other countries as we approach november

Re: Amazon's Ring and Google's Nest reveal the severity of U.S. surveillance state

#210

Post by mmaunder »

acdha wrote: post #183
alejohausner wrote: post #38

Glenn Greenwald is back on substack. Yay! For the past few years, he’s mostly done videos on rumble, and he’s fun to watch, but personally I prefer his writing. In case you’ve been under a rock for 10 years, Greenwald was the guy who published Snowden’s revelations. His focus has always been on censorship, surveillance, and hypocrisy in government.

He became well known for exposing surveillance but that instinct to portray himself as exposing government hypocrisy lead him to parrot Russian intelligence/Trump campaign attacks on Clinton and Biden long after he should have realized that the right posed a much greater threat to civil liberties and were feeding him information in service of their own campaigns, not transparency. It’s really undercut his earlier wor…

Examining Glenn's work through an ideological lens leads to this kind of rhetoric. It's why he's so good at what he does. He's crossed ideological boundaries constantly in pursuit of the truth of a matter, and in defense of the public.
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