US startup Geofeedia 'allowed police to track protesters' • Hacker News Board

Re: US startup Geofeedia 'allowed police to track protesters'

#51

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Oct 12, 2016, 7:16 PM UTC

mason240 wrote: post #16

crazypyro wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a long history of blocking crucial infrastructure during civil unrest and protesting. Its used as a tactic because its effective. Nothing about it is new or specific to today's society. How does that justify potentially infringing upon the protected rights of the protestors?

> Its used as a tactic because its effective. So are armed mobs that murder political opponents. Might does not equal right. People have a right to protest. They don't have a right to destroy property that doesn't belong them. They don't have the right to circumvent democracy and infringing upon the rights of everyone else by shutting down infrastructure that belongs to the all people.

[deleted]

Re: US startup Geofeedia 'allowed police to track protesters'

#52

Post by hx87 » Wed, Oct 12, 2016, 7:21 PM UTC

weberc2 wrote: post #42

vkou wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a protest doesn't inconvenience anyone, why would the powers that be pay attention to it? "Shut up, go home, you live in a democracy, so complain at the ballot box" isn't a civilized response to a protest issue. When it's used to justify tyranny of the majority, it is borderline fascism.

I'll take the "borderline fascism" of protecting the rights of law-abiding citizens over the actual anarchy of allowing protesters to infringe upon those rights with impunity. Democracy isn't perfect, but anarchy is worse. Further, would your tune change if the protesters were right-wing? Would you support their right to block critical infrastructure (not to mention the violence that characterizes so many of these "p…

A protest is an organized expression of dissatisfaction, not anarchy--they're obeying the law as much as everyone else. If I'm inconvenienced, that's fine--there are ways to get around it, and it's a cost I'd gladly pay for the freedom of association and protest.

> Further, would your tune change if the protesters were right-wing?

Absolutely. Conservatives, reactionaries, and fascists have exactly the same rights that I do.

> Would you support their right to block critical infrastructure (not to mention the violence that characterizes so many of these "protests") in defense of what they perceive as their rights?

Critical infrastructure almost always has redundancies, and in case there isn't one (e.g. a protest in front of a hospital), the police should just clear a route with minimum force and no legal actions afterwards. Violence is another issue entirely--if people are being violent in a protest, then stop and arrest them for being violent, not for merely protesting, and leave the other protesters alone.

Re: US startup Geofeedia 'allowed police to track protesters'

#53

Post by venomsnake » Wed, Oct 12, 2016, 7:24 PM UTC

weberc2 wrote: post #41

vkou wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The United States was founded on the principle that yes, you can harass hundreds, possibly thousands of innocent people just because you feel put upon. I think that even has been called the American revolution (With a little helping of the Civil War.) Not to mention that almost every form of social progress came at the cost of inconveniencing all those poor, poor people who want nothing to do with the struggle for ci…

1. This is a false dichotomy. Protesters can protest without shutting down infrastructure. 2. There is no conclusive evidence that anyone's "basic human and constitutional rights" are infringed upon.

Protests that do not inconvenience anyone could be ignored indefinitely.

Re: US startup Geofeedia 'allowed police to track protesters'

#54

Post by sedachv » Wed, Oct 12, 2016, 7:26 PM UTC

weberc2 wrote: post #35

etherealmachine wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll bite. > Why is it bad for a government to aggregate public data? In the past, this has been problematic. There are several examples of government agencies using their authority to suppress political dissent. The Stasi in Germany, the KGB, Hoover's FBI. True, they had private data as well, but the problem wasn't the source of the data - it was that they used it for political suppression. It's clear that the agenc…

While I can appreciate the slippery-slope argument against mass surveillance and bulk data collection, comparing municipal police with infamous clandestine federal investigative agencies borders on conspiracy theory. While I don't doubt that the police dislike like the criticism, it seems more likely that their strongest incentive is to keep the peace (specifically preventing the destruction, theft, assault, and murd…

> While I can appreciate the slippery-slope argument against mass surveillance and bulk data collection, comparing municipal police with infamous clandestine federal investigative agencies borders on conspiracy theory.

If you look at the events of the last three years in the United States, municipal police have been much more aggressive in punitive actions against innocent people they perceive as inconvenient:

https://theintercept.com/2016/09/30/lawmaker-who-pushed-bill...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/03/ramsey-orta-arreste...

https://theintercept.com/2016/10/06/in-the-chicago-police-de...

This includes things like voter suppression at the request of the Republican party:

https://theintercept.com/2016/10/04/police-raid-indianas-lar...

Re: US startup Geofeedia 'allowed police to track protesters'

#55

Post by aeze » Wed, Oct 12, 2016, 7:58 PM UTC

Twirrim wrote: post #28

Unless I'm missing something, and I may be, this is relying on the geotagging information you include in tweets, something you can control. I'm not sure I see much advantage in having your location broadcast every time you tweet.

Only something like 2% of posts have geolocation enabled, though services like Geofeedia also try to discern your location through other means (eg. mentioning you're at a particular area/place).

Re: US startup Geofeedia 'allowed police to track protesters'

#56

Post by vkou » Wed, Oct 12, 2016, 8:13 PM UTC

Karunamon wrote: post #46

vkou wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So at what point does a cause become "serious" enough that you have special dispensation to ignore laws in its pursuit, and who decides that? Historians do. The rule of law made slavery legal. The rule of law made apartheid legal. The rule of law made sending black people to the back of the bus legal. The rule of law made killing millions of Jews legal. The rule of law sent 15 million people to the Gulags. The rule…

Excellent job at evading the fairly direct question that was asked of you, and lumping it in with a bunch of irrelevant comparisons to slavery. So, let's try this again. What are your thoughts on those gentlemen in Oregon who took over an empty building on federal land? What about the 2011 riots in Vancouver when their hockey team lost? What about the Trump rally in California this year? What about Ferguson a couple…

They were morons, but they were protesters. It's really unfortunate that one of them was killed. Their cause doesn't have all that much public support, though. I also doubt that they've exhausted other options - generally, you don't escalate from 'petitioning the government' to 'martyrdom through a suicide pact'. They missed the 'block some freeways, chain themselves to city hall, march on Washington' steps. They were living a libertarian fantasy, not aiming for real change.

Hockey riots aren't drunken looting - they aren't politically motivated, and they aren't for a political cause.

Not familiar with the Trump rally.

Ferguson is a pretty classic civil rights protest. A cause with large public support, but one that the government does not care to address - and judiciously uses violence to suppress.

Re: US startup Geofeedia 'allowed police to track protesters'

#57

Post by ep103 » Wed, Oct 12, 2016, 8:33 PM UTC

mwfunk wrote: post #49

Based on this article at least, this doesn't sound like a big deal? It sounds like the service helped police discover when and where protests were happening. If bad cops used that information to illegally interfere with those protests (or the protesters themselves), that's obviously a bad thing, but that wasn't stated in the article. I would expect good cops to also want that same information as part of doing their j…

Because in practice, cops use this sort of data to lock down protest sites, before the protests ever actually happen. People start attempting to congregate in a given area, and are immediately escorted out by police.

That forces protest movements to organize more and more potential protest sites, and have more and more logistical organization to gather people into same location.

It becomes an escalation of logistical requirements to even get people organized enough _to_ protest. When you add in the fact that police are also using social network monitoring (and I mean that not just in the online term of social network websites, but as in social network monitoring overall), and regularly use face recognition at protest events (I'm speaking mostly about nypd here), and what you're left with is the bitter truth that if the NYPD truly doesn't want you to have a protest, you're not going to be able to do it. The sites you try to go to will be locked down before people arrive. The people you send to help route people to impromptu backup collections will be arrested on first sight. etc, etc, etc.

Sure, is this all wildly illegal and unconstitutional behavior on the part of the police? Absolutely. But anyone who has ever worked for any politicized cause knows that its also par de course. New York, Chicago, and Oakland are famous for a break-the-law-now, pay the fines later type of police enforcement, but I've watched cops plow SUVs through 50 person hippie protest marches, light their own cars on fire, or attack protestors with knives and chainsaws (seriously, chainsaws) in more places than I care to admit, just so tomorrow's papers can say "Peaceful protest goes violent", and anyone who sells this sort of data to the police is aware that that's the reality on the ground.

When the governor says jump, the police always do, regardless of legality, and this type of info just makes them that much more effective.

Re: US startup Geofeedia 'allowed police to track protesters'

#58

Post by mason240 » Wed, Oct 12, 2016, 8:34 PM UTC

hx87 wrote: post #52

weberc2 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll take the "borderline fascism" of protecting the rights of law-abiding citizens over the actual anarchy of allowing protesters to infringe upon those rights with impunity. Democracy isn't perfect, but anarchy is worse. Further, would your tune change if the protesters were right-wing? Would you support their right to block critical infrastructure (not to mention the violence that characterizes so many of these "p…

A protest is an organized expression of dissatisfaction, not anarchy--they're obeying the law as much as everyone else. If I'm inconvenienced, that's fine--there are ways to get around it, and it's a cost I'd gladly pay for the freedom of association and protest. > Further, would your tune change if the protesters were right-wing? Absolutely. Conservatives, reactionaries, and fascists have exactly the same rights tha…

>A protest is an organized expression of dissatisfaction, not anarchy--they're obeying the law as much as everyone else.

No on is disputing this, the key part being "obeying the law."

>Critical infrastructure almost always has redundancies, and in case there isn't one (e.g. a protest in front of a hospital), the police should just clear a route with minimum force and no legal actions afterwards.

And here is the bait the switch. Now the protesters are no longer law abiding.

>Absolutely. Conservatives, reactionaries, and fascists have exactly the same rights that I do.

So you supported the Oregon protesters that occupied Federal land in protest?

Re: US startup Geofeedia 'allowed police to track protesters'

#59

Post by hx87 » Wed, Oct 12, 2016, 8:49 PM UTC

mason240 wrote: post #58

hx87 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A protest is an organized expression of dissatisfaction, not anarchy--they're obeying the law as much as everyone else. If I'm inconvenienced, that's fine--there are ways to get around it, and it's a cost I'd gladly pay for the freedom of association and protest. > Further, would your tune change if the protesters were right-wing? Absolutely. Conservatives, reactionaries, and fascists have exactly the same rights tha…

>A protest is an organized expression of dissatisfaction, not anarchy--they're obeying the law as much as everyone else. No on is disputing this, the key part being "obeying the law." >Critical infrastructure almost always has redundancies, and in case there isn't one (e.g. a protest in front of a hospital), the police should just clear a route with minimum force and no legal actions afterwards. And here is the bait…

> And here is the bait the switch. Now the protesters are no longer law abiding.

You mean bait & switch. It isn't--in many cases marches and protests are lawful even if they block roads. If they aren't, use muscle, batons, and shields so that the law is no longer being violated. Don't go after them afterwards.

> So you supported the Oregon protesters that occupied Federal land in protest?

Absolutely, up to the point where guns became involved.

Re: US startup Geofeedia 'allowed police to track protesters'

#60

Post by M_Grey » Wed, Oct 12, 2016, 8:53 PM UTC

whybroke wrote: post #44

weberc2 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I can appreciate the slippery-slope argument against mass surveillance and bulk data collection, comparing municipal police with infamous clandestine federal investigative agencies borders on conspiracy theory. While I don't doubt that the police dislike like the criticism, it seems more likely that their strongest incentive is to keep the peace (specifically preventing the destruction, theft, assault, and murd…

No doubt the vast majority of police departments have good intentions. But when the group protesting police malfeasance is then monitored by those same police in order to keep what those police consider to be the peace over them. And then they must rely on those same police not to target individual participants after the protest for retaliation, then that monitoring is obviously a very serious problem if the proteste…

I really doubt that at this point. As a system, it's hard to ascribe good intentions to the behavior we've seen over the last few decades alone. The history of US policing is not a history of good intentions.