Nice hyperbole. I'm concerned about govt listening to our private conversations and mining our inner dialogue. I could not care less if they know when my car passes a camera in public. People are instantly very emotional about this without reflecting on why. If you want to live in a safe country, you must give up some level of freedom. That's life. Otherwise, why not just ban all forms of surveillance? Make it a rule that unless police witness a crime first-hand, no one can be prosecuted? See how that plays out.
I think that a reasonable argument that tracking someone's movements can give significant insight into private communication. If you know who someone is talking to, when, where, and how often, then you can deduce a lot of what they are communicating.
I'm not sure about your argument about giving up freedom for security. One of the quotes that has become embedded in American social consciousness is Ben Franklin's "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety".
So tracking your location without a warrant isn't a surveillance state problem? No right to privacy in public doesn't mean there should be the complete elimination of it, especially by the people supposed to represent us.
>If you want to live in a safe country, you must give up some level of freedom
Is that why prisons so safe and free of crime? How is that life? Electronic mass surveillance is how old, the late 90s?
Yes, let's ban all mass surveillance. I know where that gets you, the 70s or 80s when the height of technology was localized tape CCTV in a handful of places. Did everyone die and everything burn down? How can anyone with a straight face be this hysterical when most people currently alive grew up without any surveillance
Crimes can be investigated without always-on survellience. Like has been done for decades.
Are all these deployed cameras actually solving crimes? What are the numbers? Aren't there already a bunch of other ways to track cars, like onstar sim chips?
Always-on survellience is always abused. It's already abused by US police officers. tracking their x-wives for example, the new boyfriends, etc. And there's room for much worse. Many of us grew up hearing about things that totalitarian communist governments were doing. The East German's would have loved to have such technologies.
New capabilities are being rolled out by flock- facial recognition and bluetooth tracking, for example.
This seems to be another example of the government contracting with private companies to do things that would be illegal for the government to do themselves.
Historically stuff like this ends up being abused by the establishment. facial recognition in Hong Kong. Protesters dissappeared. Stingray phone tracking in Portland. Protesters picked up by black SUVs. Freezing bank accounts in Ottawa. ICE deporting people without due process. Just keeps getting worse.
Think of all the modern niceties we enjoy that protesters earned. Will protesters of the future stand a chance when everyone is tracked all the time?
You don't see anything wrong with being tracked 24/7 ? The fact that it's already possible to be tracked with your phone signals that there is already a problem that needs fixing
Flock is not tracking you 24/7, your phone is. What is so dangerous about the government knowing that your car passed a camera at a particular point in time?
We can make up plenty of scenarios where it's dangerous, but even without those, can we not just... not like something? To use the common analogy, my neighbor staring at me through the window all the time wouldn't be dangerous. But it's weird, it's uncomfortable. Can we just not do it? I want to be able to drive places without my movements being logged. Clearly many millions of people agree, given the backlash against Flock. This isn't some essential technology, we got along just fine without it.
I would also like it if people would wake up to their phones tracking them, etc, and demand that laws be passed to deal with that. But this is a good start!
Imagine having a life you value. Now, imagine you have opinions you express.
Now, imagine expressing those opinions destroys the first.
Before you jump in with a rebuttal, any comment you reply with here must include your full name and address, otherwise, you admit to being a bot and therefore worthless.
Right, and I think that part of Flock should be fixed. But I don't think in general it is a bad idea. Do these same people also think it is bad that the police can get a warrant to read your text messages?
If the warrant is a real warrant, not some rubber stamp or FISA court, then I'd have less of a problem with the Flock cameras. However, that's not how America works.
> I'm certainly not pro-surveillance state
Right after expressing complete acceptance of living in a surveillance state.
Nice hyperbole. I'm concerned about govt listening to our private conversations and mining our inner dialogue. I could not care less if they know when my car passes a camera in public. People are instantly very emotional about this without reflecting on why. If you want to live in a safe country, you must give up some level of freedom. That's life. Otherwise, why not just ban all forms of surveillance? Make it a rule that unless police witness a crime first-hand, no one can be prosecuted? See how that plays out.
I think that a reasonable argument that tracking someone's movements can give significant insight into private communication. If you know who someone is talking to, when, where, and how often, then you can deduce a lot of what they are communicating.
I'm not sure about your argument about giving up freedom for security. One of the quotes that has become embedded in American social consciousness is Ben Franklin's "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety".
2 replies →
So tracking your location without a warrant isn't a surveillance state problem? No right to privacy in public doesn't mean there should be the complete elimination of it, especially by the people supposed to represent us.
https://www.aclu.org/news/national-security/victory-federal-...
1 reply →
>If you want to live in a safe country, you must give up some level of freedom
Is that why prisons so safe and free of crime? How is that life? Electronic mass surveillance is how old, the late 90s?
Yes, let's ban all mass surveillance. I know where that gets you, the 70s or 80s when the height of technology was localized tape CCTV in a handful of places. Did everyone die and everything burn down? How can anyone with a straight face be this hysterical when most people currently alive grew up without any surveillance
2 replies →
Crimes can be investigated without always-on survellience. Like has been done for decades.
Are all these deployed cameras actually solving crimes? What are the numbers? Aren't there already a bunch of other ways to track cars, like onstar sim chips?
Always-on survellience is always abused. It's already abused by US police officers. tracking their x-wives for example, the new boyfriends, etc. And there's room for much worse. Many of us grew up hearing about things that totalitarian communist governments were doing. The East German's would have loved to have such technologies.
New capabilities are being rolled out by flock- facial recognition and bluetooth tracking, for example.
This seems to be another example of the government contracting with private companies to do things that would be illegal for the government to do themselves.
Historically stuff like this ends up being abused by the establishment. facial recognition in Hong Kong. Protesters dissappeared. Stingray phone tracking in Portland. Protesters picked up by black SUVs. Freezing bank accounts in Ottawa. ICE deporting people without due process. Just keeps getting worse.
Think of all the modern niceties we enjoy that protesters earned. Will protesters of the future stand a chance when everyone is tracked all the time?
You don't see anything wrong with being tracked 24/7 ? The fact that it's already possible to be tracked with your phone signals that there is already a problem that needs fixing
Flock is not tracking you 24/7, your phone is. What is so dangerous about the government knowing that your car passed a camera at a particular point in time?
> What is so dangerous
We can make up plenty of scenarios where it's dangerous, but even without those, can we not just... not like something? To use the common analogy, my neighbor staring at me through the window all the time wouldn't be dangerous. But it's weird, it's uncomfortable. Can we just not do it? I want to be able to drive places without my movements being logged. Clearly many millions of people agree, given the backlash against Flock. This isn't some essential technology, we got along just fine without it.
I would also like it if people would wake up to their phones tracking them, etc, and demand that laws be passed to deal with that. But this is a good start!
4 replies →
If I'm the ex-partner of a government employee?
Ideally we'd democratically decide whether we want this or not. We can make spurrious tracking (which is usually for profit) illegal, if we want.
People in former communist countries and other oppressive places often have a different attitude about such things. They learned the hard way.
Tread on us harder!
What are you so concerned about exactly?
Imagine having a life you value. Now, imagine you have opinions you express.
Now, imagine expressing those opinions destroys the first.
Before you jump in with a rebuttal, any comment you reply with here must include your full name and address, otherwise, you admit to being a bot and therefore worthless.
That's the concern.
4 replies →
It's just that flock is insecure and is also used in a negative manner by those who wield it.
I mean functionally, given cell phones and ring doorbells we're already in a surveillance state.
Right, and I think that part of Flock should be fixed. But I don't think in general it is a bad idea. Do these same people also think it is bad that the police can get a warrant to read your text messages?
If the warrant is a real warrant, not some rubber stamp or FISA court, then I'd have less of a problem with the Flock cameras. However, that's not how America works.
They certainly think it would be bad for police to read your text messages without a warrant.
3 replies →