Comment by benjiro29

2 days ago

1. They are criminals. Criminals are not bound by laws. 2. Trying to reduce anonymity to go after criminals, simply means giving up anonymity for all but the criminals. See point 1 ... Criminals do not care and will find ways to not get caught. 3. I find the idea of this blanked statement that protesters are criminals insane dangerous and smells of authoritarianism. Peaceful protesters are just that, peaceful. Those that do crimes during protests, are criminals who can be literally caught. 4. The issue of "ability of rioters far exceeds that of the authorities", is more that the authorities do not have their ducks in a row. Blanked mass surveillance is not the solution. 5. Where does it stop? A what point are we running Russia like Max surveillance software on our smartphones, tracking where we go, who we talk too, ... all in the name of catching maybe, some criminals.

> Something need to be done for this.

Its called a better and responsive police force.

> radicalize the youth into wrong paths overnight using social channels

Imaging, that those people who radicalize youth are, ... not using social channel to do so. Wait, ... how did most of the people who ended up going to Syria get radicalized? Most was not via social media, it was with direct contact. Do we ban social contact?

This is just the typical quick fix type of answer. Problem, must be X. No, lets not invest money into police, social councils, case workers, etc...

Thing is, we have seen police getting lazy because, hey, why do investigation work if we can just get free evidence from criminals phones. O, those criminals now encrypted / try to hide data. Ok, so we now need to make it illegal because screw society, we want easier jobs.

No, everybody needs to give up their privacy "for the greater good". You must have something to hide, if you do not let the government read what you wrote, today, yesterday, 10 years ago ...

Have you ever been to China or other countries where saying the wrong thing, can be unpleasant to life changing? Where people learn to not talk what they rally think outside their little family corner. Where corruption is rampant because nobody can protest. Remember, today its your criminal protesters, tomorrow if a government changed into one you do not like, you become the criminal protester.

The right answer is a better funded and accountable police / social structure / help systems. And accountability, to ensure proper policing.

Not step by step removal of privacy.

> No, everybody needs to give up their privacy "for the greater good"

You can bargain (via voting) about how much of the stuff you need to forgo. But you can't have 100% privacy, if the nation has to function.

You don't need to give up any privacy at all, if you don't expect anything from government. But the concept of a nation is hinged upon it's citizens foregoing a bit of privacy, a bit of their income, a bit of their freedom. The nation imposes rules that you need to follow (loss of freedom), asks you to pay up taxes and makes your identity linked to the citizen services.

The nation comes into existences precisely from the things that you forego.