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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

#331

Post by js2 »

zugi wrote: post #269
roywiggins wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the security/liberty tradeoff is actually often a false promise. You can end up trading away liberty for nothing at all. I don't like buying into this, even to say "liberty is better, we should do that instead" because it implicitly concedes that you would really get the security on the other side of the bargain. And if you don't get the security you were promised, it's too late to do anything about it.

> " Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety " -- Benjamin Franklin The key phrase is "a little temporary safety". 250 years ago people understood that the "security" gains were small and fleeting, but the loss of liberty was massive and permanent.

FWIW, the context of the Franklin quote is him defending the ability of the legislature to tax a family that was trying to bribe/lobby the governor to do otherwise.

The quote is in defense of the government: WITTES: It is a quotation that defends the authority of a legislature to govern in the interests of collective security. It means, in context, not quite the opposite of what it's almost always quoted as saying but much closer to the opposite than to the thing that people think it means.

https://www.npr.org/2015/03/02/390245038/ben-franklins-famou...

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

#332

Post by notepad0x90 »

bigyabai wrote: post #283
notepad0x90 wrote: post #234

I don't think people grasp the gravity of the situation. I see everyone talking about how to stop using products. I even thought about legislation that could help. But that's just it, none of that is possible. You can't even employ a "torches and pitchforks" approach. For any of this to be possible, people would have to coordinate. The means by which people communicate and coordinate are under the influence and contr…

> The only way to win this war is by means of economic warfare. We are only in this situation because the economic war was lost. You want the world to fight Amazon and Google while they're in the middle of counting their spoils?

That's not what I meant.

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

#333

Post by otterley »

alt227 wrote: post #329
otterley wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To say that something is a belief or should be and to say that something is a fact are two different things. When you say the latter, you are putting yourself at a significantly greater risk of being incorrect. You don’t have to be a lawyer to know this. And I’d expect someone with your background to know this better than most! HN is a forum of written communications. Clarity and accuracy are essential skills for par…

This is an internet forum, not a court of law.

And therefore what, exactly? When you distill the two down to their essence, they’re similar in that they’re groups of people making written arguments against each other. (And, frequently, complaining about mistreatment.)

Are you trying to argue that people shouldn’t be taken at their word? Or that we shouldn’t challenge people who make unqualified legal assertions? I’m not sure what your point is.

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

#334

Post by wredcoll »

mmaunder wrote: post #210
acdha wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"pursuit of the truth" is an ideology. What are you trying to say here?

Glenn is, essentially, hypocritcal because he ignores things that go against his predetermined narrative.

Does he post true things sometimes? Sure, but is it really worth filtering through the rest?

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

#335

Post by aydyn »

embedding-shape wrote: post #304
aydyn wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait a second, I instantly recognized your post as self-deprecating humor and not glazing and had a light chuckle. You mean that: >That's why I hang out here on HN with my fellow crazies who can separate ideas, thoughts and knowledge from the person. Is unironically what you think and posted in earnest? Thats WILD.

> Is unironically what you think and posted in earnest? Thats WILD. That's exactly the point! We're both thinking very different, yet neither of us have explicitly (only implicitly) tried to insult each other. What place on the internet does that better than HN?

Purely in terms of "more different point of views"? Pretty much anywhere. Facebook, Steam forums, Nextdoor, twitter, even Reddit if you delve into various subreddits.

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

#336

Post by pocksuppet »

ProllyInfamous wrote: post #273
hermannj314 wrote: post #252

We have a branch of government called Congress, here are some things they used to do that made it a crime to read your mail or listen to your phone calls. 1. Postal Service Act of 1792 2. Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) of 1986 Anyway, Facebook can read your DMs, Google can read your email, Ring can take photos from your camera. We can very easily make those things a crime, but we don't seem to want to d…

3. Video Rental Protection Act (1988) >we don't seem to want to Congress protects only itself and its actual constituents — wealthy corporate persons. ---- Citizens United (2012) and the surveillances themselves make this monitoring self-capturing: the only way to prevent it is to convince most people to not install, but most people want the installed benefits. Even getting your neighbors to re-position their Ring ca…

The Video Rental Protection Act was passed when a video rental employee blackmailed a congressman and there was no law against it. So it's clear how to make congress write new privacy laws.

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

#337

Post by mathgradthrow »

Terr_ wrote: post #316
zugi wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> " Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety " -- Benjamin Franklin The key phrase is "a little temporary safety". 250 years ago people understood that the "security" gains were small and fleeting, but the loss of liberty was massive and permanent.

Aside, the original meaning of Franklin's words are less-inspiring but perhaps more-interesting. He's saying the local democratic legislature must not give up its "freedom" to pass laws taxing the powerful Penn dynasty which almost owns Pennsylvania. He wants to reject a deal offered by the Penns: A big lump of money for temporary military security now, in exchange for an agreement that they can never be taxed ever a…

That's not an aside. The quote is pernicious because of its attribution to Ben. People invoke it without ever asking themselves if its true because they think of it as the hard won wisdom of a great man.

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

#338

Post by shimman »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #144
bloak wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternatively, basic stuff like e-mail and payment processing should be provided by the state. After all, the state provides a road network, which is similarly essential and rather more expensive.

> basic stuff like e-mail and payment processing should be provided by the state You're looking at America in 2026 and concluding we want to give the state more control over private lives?

Yes, you can give control to the House of Representatives. The House should have way more control over government agencies, it's the people's house. The people deserve to have control.

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

#339

Post by syngrog66 »

The surveillance industry has gotten out of hand. It is also true that there is ample reason to ignore and avoid anything coming out of the OA's author, who has a strong history of Russian-aligned propaganda efforts. Please don't cite him or amplify him further. Propaganda and disinfo ops worldwide are just as big of a problem as accelerating, unchecked, abused surveillance.

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

#340

Post by mschuster91 »

hermannj314 wrote: post #252

We have a branch of government called Congress, here are some things they used to do that made it a crime to read your mail or listen to your phone calls. 1. Postal Service Act of 1792 2. Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) of 1986 Anyway, Facebook can read your DMs, Google can read your email, Ring can take photos from your camera. We can very easily make those things a crime, but we don't seem to want to d…

> We have a branch of government called Congress

... that has been virtually useless as it has been rendered ineffective by Republican obstructionism and the unwillingness of the Democrats to counteract it, leading to the current state of Trump being able to do what he wants completely unchecked.

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