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

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

#541

Post by keernan »

keernan wrote: post #465
otterley wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an attorney I’d like to understand why you think there is a “clear” Constitutional violation going on here. What activity, specifically, are you referring to, and what precedent supports your claim?

As a trial attorney for more than 40 years, I'd say these are examples of egregious illegal surveillance of American citizens by the current government: 1. A retired US citizen emailed a DHS attorney urging mercy for an asylum seeker he had read about. Five hours later he received an email from Google advising him the federal government had served Google with a subpoena demanding information about him. Then they foll…

My fault: the link I posted was cut off... full link:

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/13/us/minneapolis-ice-agents...

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

#542

Post by cucumber3732842 »

otterley wrote: post #122
calibas wrote: post #96

It's a clear violation of the 4th Amendment, but the government acts like they've found a "loophole" because it's private businesses doing the spying.

As an attorney I’d like to understand why you think there is a “clear” Constitutional violation going on here. What activity, specifically, are you referring to, and what precedent supports your claim?

Seems to me like someone's security camera footage, even if held by a 3rd party, would pretty clearly fall under "papers and effects" same as my crap sitting in a rented storage unit does.

It's only because we've had a century of legal contrivance that it doesn't IMO.

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

#543

Post by wat10000 »

JCattheATM wrote: post #493
ndr42 wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even getting your neighbors to re-position their Ring cameras (which they have every right to install) can become very difficult. In Germany it's prohibited by law to point your private surveillance camera to public spaces like the boardwalk, no recording of these areas is allowed. I think thats the way it should be. Unfortunately in some areas (e.g. train stations) it is allowed.

You'd prefer train stations don't have CCTV? What about when an attack happens?

If I had a choice, I think I’d prefer not to have my death recorded and viewed by many strangers.

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

#544

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

shimman wrote: post #338
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> control to the House of Representatives

There is an entire branch of government whose purpose is to execute the will of Congress.

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

#545

Post by wat10000 »

like_any_other wrote: post #413
ProllyInfamous wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

How would term limits help? Without term limits, congressmen can be judged by their voting history. With them, we get always new batches of congressmen, while lobbyists stay the same and consolidate their power. It's so easy to get rid of a congressman you don't like with term limits. But why do you think, on average, his replacement would be better? The replacement would only be more unknown.

One problem is that seniority confers power. Throwing out a long-serving incumbent substantially reduces your district’s effective representation.

That could be improved by getting rid of de jure preferential treatment for things like committee memberships. You’d still have informal power from seniority though.

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

#546

Post by SergeAx »

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…

I am almost sure that those two acts refer to human beings reading and listening, not to algorithms. Or at least a decent corporate lawyer will convincingly turn things that way.

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

#547

Post by shimman »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #544
shimman wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> control to the House of Representatives There is an entire branch of government whose purpose is to execute the will of Congress.

Let me know if you find it because the Presidency is no different than a monarch. Might be more believable if the Presidency didn't have a pardon power and wasn't elected in an extremely undemocratic fashion.

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

#548

Post by themafia »

majormajor wrote: post #422
dhbradshaw wrote: post #218

I really like this passage: >It is always the case that there are benefits available from relinquishing core civil liberties: allowing infringements on free speech may reduce false claims and hateful ideas; allowing searches and seizures without warrants will likely help the police catch more criminals, and do so more quickly; giving up privacy may, in fact, enhance security. > But the core premise of the West genera…

We concurrently see failures on both the "attempts to preserve liberty" and "attempts to preserve security" front, so let's stop arguing about abstract principles. Quotes are pointless, discussion should be limited to what's happening on the ground. For any given thing that happens, do we think that it, specifically, is helpful or harmful. It's trivial to reverse that quote: we can, and have, pushed to keep the US po…

> discussion should be limited to what's happening on the ground

Does anyone actually have any idea what's actually happening "on the ground?"

> without actually gaining any protection against authoritarian styles of government use of force

There are three weapons for every man, woman, and child in the USA. You may enjoy more of this protection than you realize.

> While just making civilian-on-civilian violence easier and more lethal.

80% of murders happen after an argument. More suicides happen by firearm than murders by a factor of 2:1. States with lower population densities like Alaska have 6x the suicide rate of states with higher densities like New York. There's a reason people aren't given these statistics.

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

#549

Post by tw04 »

Forgeties79 wrote: post #171
tw04 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have worked with many and they are incredibly sensitive to negative feelings/reactions. And yet there are countless examples that show the exact opposite. This made it through one of the largest marketing budgets in the world… https://youtu.be/uwvAgDCOdU4

All of y'all keep saying variations of this yet the whole point is it’s the exception to the rule. The vast majority of ads aren’t controversial. That’s why it’s such a big deal when one is. It’s newsworthy and everyone has an opinion on that one ad.

The claim wasn’t ads not being controversial… the claim was that the marketers intentionally made an ad that would outrage consumers and incite them to not only not buy the product, but actively abandon already purchased product.

The justification was marketers at large corporations don’t mess up and that’s both ridiculous and provably false.

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

#550

Post by ulfw »

wordsunite wrote: post #32

I know it seems hard, but just stop using Google, Amazon, Meta products. Tell everyone you know to stop using their products. They have all been acquiring and amassing surveillance for years through their products and now they're just double dipping with AI training to sell you more of it. The more you can get people to realize and disconnect the better. I wish more people would use AI to build alternatives with a cl…

No no you see... when Google or Amazon or Meta et al are doing it it's a-okay. But let's ban Huawei or DJI on 'National Security' grounds because they MIGHT be doing this too!
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