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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

#651

Post by FireBeyond »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #565
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…

If the police actually did their job, took property crimes seriously and would bother with the suspicious guy high on fent looking into kids bedroom reports seriously, then we really wouldn't have to be setting up our own surveillance to make up for lacking local government services. But here we are, I'm not sure why libertarians think we don't have a right to defend ourselves (using new tech to make up for a lack of…

> and would bother with the suspicious guy high on fent looking into kids bedroom reports seriously

Wuh? I was a paramedic who probably has responded to nearly 1,000 fentanyl abuse patients.

I've never seen one who is all busy-beavering looking for homes to surreptitiously spy in kids bedrooms.

Symptoms of fentanyl use include: extreme drowsiness, poor responsiveness, nodding off, profound confusion and inability to focus on even simple acts, delayed reactions, poor body control.

The idea of a bunch of fent users sneaking around neighborhoods trying to be pedophiliac perverts seems far more right-wing fearmongering than anything based in reality.

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

#652

Post by wredcoll »

Der_Einzige wrote: post #607
wredcoll wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Things people did, sure, but not why they did them here and not there is a bit trickier. There's a variety of theories, easy access to coal is my favorite, but some people like to blame the magna carta or something.

Jared diamonds an idiot and “guns germs and steel” is among the worst books written in human history - right up there with Republic and whatever the hell sam Harris is doing.

I hope I wasn't coming off as quoting/endorsing that book, but easy access to a major fuel source has got to be at least somewhat relevant

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

#653

Post by wredcoll »

watwut wrote: post #624
wredcoll wrote: post #601

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Western Roman Empire has nothing to do with "the West". I think it's fascinating that that's even suggested. I got that bit from wikipedia, it amused me. As for germans, if they do not share such a viewpoint (and now I want evidence either way), the claim about the west is merely wrong, not "cultural erasure".

French have fairly serious differences against USA too.

I mean, at some level, every single human is different, at another level we're all the same. I'm not sure what we're proving here.

The original claim was something about liberty and security and no one in this chain seems interested in bringing in any actual specifics about who thinks what where.

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

#654

Post by rsync »

tootie wrote: post #629
rsync wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would direct you to George Kennan[1] and his 1997 NYT article where he said, among other things: "... expanding NATO would be the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-Cold War era. Such a decision may be expected to inflame the nationalistic, anti-Western and militaristic tendencies in Russian opinion; to have an adverse effect on the development of Russian democracy; to restore the atmosphere o…

It doesn't matter if he was paid and I have no indication Greenwald ever was either. Only that this line of thinking aligns with Russian propaganda and is also complete nonsense. Saying we should constrain the sovereignty of Eastern European nations to not hurt the feelings of their most dangerous rival is just bullshit. Russia's goals are simply neoimperialist and they obviously had no intention of waiting for Ukrai…

I am not saying these things. I have no strong opinion on this topic.

I am simply pushing back on the notion that anyone who disagrees with my parent was paid to do so.

I don't believe that Kennans position (in 1997) was disingenuous or dishonest.

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

#655

Post by antonvs »

rsync wrote: post #371
wredcoll wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> AFAIC we started the whole conflict. Is this talking point still being paid for? I haven't seen it in a while, but I guess I don't keep track that closely. What are the other russian provided talking points these days?

I would direct you to George Kennan[1] and his 1997 NYT article where he said, among other things: "... expanding NATO would be the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-Cold War era. Such a decision may be expected to inflame the nationalistic, anti-Western and militaristic tendencies in Russian opinion; to have an adverse effect on the development of Russian democracy; to restore the atmosphere o…

Kennan was arguing a Russian position, which makes sense given his long focus on Russia, and time there. What he wrote doesn’t actually support the idea that the West “started” anything.

Strengthening a defensive alliance is not “starting” something, that’s just the usual narcissistic gaslighting used by people with nefarious intent.

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

#656

Post by otterley »

keernan wrote: post #579
otterley wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Respectfully, this is all making me very strongly doubt your bona fides. There are many clues in the above comment that suggest you aren't who you claim to be.

Nice. The government cannot collect and put the names of peaceful anti-government protestors into a government database; or show up at their homes when they violated no law; or the government issuing a subpoena to google for personal data about a man who wrote a one sentence letter to a DOJ prosecutor asking for leniency for the defendant in a case he read about. These are all actions taken by the government in respo…

Then you haven't really studied 1A law in a long time, if you ever did. These fact patterns have not been well tested in court. They look similar to some cases, but are quite distinguishable, too. They might be 1A violations because of the chilling effect they could have on speech, but I'm not going out on a limb to say with certainty that they are; and I don't know any competent attorney who would.

> The government cannot ... show up at [people's] homes when they violated no law

This happens all the time. It depends on the purpose. Is it purely to harass someone, or is it to perform an investigation or for some other legitimate purpose? It's not prima facie unlawful.

You might find this poster to be instructive. It is very difficult under current law to prevail in a harassment case. https://ij.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Infographic_First-...

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

#657

Post by synecdoche »

yencabulator wrote: post #560
logicchains wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it's not. There are no human rights for the lowest castes in Hinduism, there are no human rights for polytheists in Islam, there were nothing like the modern idea of human rights in Japan or China before they westernized. That's why the west was able to leapfrog other nations economically (and hence militarily), because it was the first place where people had enough rights for something resembling a modern economy…

And there were no human rights for the slaves of the Western nations.

As opposed to slaves in non-western nations? May I remind that slavery was not exclusively a western thing, and that there are more slaves today than there ever was, in absolute terms, almost none in western nations.

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

#658

Post by seanmcdirmid »

FireBeyond wrote: post #651
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #565

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the police actually did their job, took property crimes seriously and would bother with the suspicious guy high on fent looking into kids bedroom reports seriously, then we really wouldn't have to be setting up our own surveillance to make up for lacking local government services. But here we are, I'm not sure why libertarians think we don't have a right to defend ourselves (using new tech to make up for a lack of…

> and would bother with the suspicious guy high on fent looking into kids bedroom reports seriously Wuh? I was a paramedic who probably has responded to nearly 1,000 fentanyl abuse patients. I've never seen one who is all busy-beavering looking for homes to surreptitiously spy in kids bedrooms. Symptoms of fentanyl use include: extreme drowsiness, poor responsiveness, nodding off, profound confusion and inability to…

I live in a dense neighborhood, and my kid's bedroom is on the bottom floor. So when they are scalking around looking for something to steal sot hey can buy more drugs, it happens anyways. I'm sure that stealing things is their actual focus, its just an accident of house construction that they wind up at my kid's bedroom window.

> The idea of a bunch of fent users sneaking around neighborhoods trying to be pedophiliac perverts seems far more right-wing fearmongering than anything based in reality.

This is why I hate the far right and the far left. The far left is like "we should just let the fent users steal all of our stuff because they are humans to! Let them poop freely on the sidewalks!", the far right are like "Those are all illegal immigrants lets deport them to El Salvadore". As a moderate, I hate both sides. It is just too bad that Trump is in power right now so the far left gets a huge electoral boost in local elections.

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

#659

Post by yencabulator »

synecdoche wrote: post #657
yencabulator wrote: post #560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And there were no human rights for the slaves of the Western nations.

As opposed to slaves in non-western nations? May I remind that slavery was not exclusively a western thing, and that there are more slaves today than there ever was, in absolute terms, almost none in western nations.

The parent comment was making it seem like the West is some kind of beacon of virtue.

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

#660

Post by dwoldrich »

convolvatron wrote: post #636
dwoldrich wrote: post #597

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good hit him with her car and he is law enforcement. She should have put her car in park and surrendered to the officers as they were instructing her to do. The agents and the Goods both didn't appear there in the street out of a vacuum, clearly she was there to obstruct. Seemed like Good was afraid and chose to flee consequences. Pretti may have had an accidental discharge of his gun, which he took to a confrontatio…

if government agents can kill people on their own authority, without following due process, when they aren't threatening the safety of anyone, without any investigation, then all the other freedoms you supposedly have are useless. I would hardly call that a distraction from real issues.

She hit him with her SUV. She acted first. He was the authority, not Good. On whose authority? 80% of the electorate, that's who.

Defund the police is a loser latest craze issue engineered by scoundrels, no matter how you package it.

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