Dragnet searches are controversial in many societies, not just the US.
There’s a balance between individuals rights to privacy and what makes law enforcement easier.
One argument against broad surveillance measures like this one is that surveillance infrastructure is easy to implement and hard to get rid of again. You might be fine with the laws that are enforced with it today, but you might not be with what it’s used for in the future.
Because law enforcement must be costly and non-automated to avoid the unbalanced power distribution between an individual and the gov, which only serves the individual and not rules them.
A cost to catch a criminal should be a manual and expensive work from an agent and thus provide no ability to mass abuse human rights on scale. Only on actual criminals when needed.
> "A cost to catch a criminal should be a manual and expensive work from an agent and thus provide no ability to mass abuse human rights on scale. Only on actual criminals when needed."
The problem is that we're expending huge amounts of engineering power to avoid the issue when we could instead be using it to provide a privacy-first option that still safely enables law enforcement efforts to track down violent people whilst not enabling this hypothetical power-inbalance of government over individuals.
Let's be honest though, it's a hypothetical boogeyman. The real problem is that we all secretly know that we don't live in a rainbow world where we all agree on what is "right". We can't even agree on supposedly simple concepts like protecting children's bodily autonomy and safety, so who's to say we will ever be able to agree on any other political issue which arguably pales in comparison.
This is something often implied but rarely stated, so thanks for spelling it out.
But I don’t think it’s an inherent tradeoff? In theory, anyway, the police work for us. They’re spending taxpayer money. It’s expensive. If there’s a way of making them more efficient then we should want them to use it. Maybe there are ways?
This doesn’t mean skimping on necessary safeguards, but that doesn’t mean we need to put up unnecessary obstacles about knowing where to look. We should still want them to win at finding criminals and we don’t want “game balance” because it’s not a game.
Catching the bad guys and not prosecuting the wrong people both involve having more accurate information. Bad information means more mistakes.
It doesn’t mean just trusting them. Defense attorneys, judges, and juries benefit from better information, too.
There was a time, not that long ago, when there was no such thing as Google Location History storing the geographical movements of all Android users by default. Now, in your mind, go back to that time period, and lets say there are elections coming up in your country.
Are you there yet? OK. Now, the manifesto of the candidacies in the upcoming elections is proposing that the location history data of every citizen in your country should be stored in a database, just in case law enforcement needs to know the exact location of any individual at any time to be able to do their investigations. Suppose that their plan to implement it is technologically feasible and requires no additional effort from the citizens.
Would this make you more or less likely to vote for them?
I still don't understand this perspective, other than slippery slope povs ('what if the Nazis take over?').
My bank knows everywhere I go (if I spend money). The main mobile phone companies know everywhere I go (in real time, and who with [if they have a phone]). Shops and supermarkets track you around the building by Bluetooth, et cetera.
So, what's the problem if the police get access to this data to solve heinous crimes. I'm not talking the RIP Act (UK, regulatory investigation powers) - which lets a ridiculously broad swathe of people see, eg your internet history - but major crimes ... why not?
To answer your question, as long as the parties had a sound moral basis, supported individual rights, then it wouldn't alter my voting intention. I guess I'm happy to limit the liberty to commit serious crimes.
Statistically, you can't rely on having a non-repressive government for your entire lifetime. The US has been fortunate in missing out on it for quite a while, but even then there has been HUAC and J Edgar Hoover, even if they didn't take over the whole government.
Not just those, the goverment has been historically repressive of many minorities, using the police to do this, from blacks to native americans, labour advocates, activists, and other categories, that's not confined to the HUAC and Hoover era.
This is 'drunk-driving kills so we should ban vehicles' level thinking.
If you don't want fascists then vote/act against that. You can't avoid fascists by making it harder to catch criminals for non-fascists. Then you get "well at least the fascists keep crime rates down".
Is it your thought that government agencies are generally competent and respectful of your data? Do you think the kind of people who run bureaucracies with zero accountability are likely to keep your info private?
No. "The cyberattack and data breach were reported to be among the worst cyber-espionage incidents ever suffered by the U.S., due to the sensitivity and high profile of the targets and the long duration (eight to nine months) in which the hackers had access."[0]
8 to 9 months of undetected access. Not hours. Not minutes. Months.
This seems an entirely different argument - the whole point of using movement data is to increase accountability. Why, excepting being immoral, wouldn't those supporting it agree to higher levels of accountability?
konha|1 year ago
There’s a balance between individuals rights to privacy and what makes law enforcement easier.
One argument against broad surveillance measures like this one is that surveillance infrastructure is easy to implement and hard to get rid of again. You might be fine with the laws that are enforced with it today, but you might not be with what it’s used for in the future.
dmantis|1 year ago
A cost to catch a criminal should be a manual and expensive work from an agent and thus provide no ability to mass abuse human rights on scale. Only on actual criminals when needed.
zo1|1 year ago
The problem is that we're expending huge amounts of engineering power to avoid the issue when we could instead be using it to provide a privacy-first option that still safely enables law enforcement efforts to track down violent people whilst not enabling this hypothetical power-inbalance of government over individuals.
Let's be honest though, it's a hypothetical boogeyman. The real problem is that we all secretly know that we don't live in a rainbow world where we all agree on what is "right". We can't even agree on supposedly simple concepts like protecting children's bodily autonomy and safety, so who's to say we will ever be able to agree on any other political issue which arguably pales in comparison.
skybrian|1 year ago
But I don’t think it’s an inherent tradeoff? In theory, anyway, the police work for us. They’re spending taxpayer money. It’s expensive. If there’s a way of making them more efficient then we should want them to use it. Maybe there are ways?
This doesn’t mean skimping on necessary safeguards, but that doesn’t mean we need to put up unnecessary obstacles about knowing where to look. We should still want them to win at finding criminals and we don’t want “game balance” because it’s not a game.
Catching the bad guys and not prosecuting the wrong people both involve having more accurate information. Bad information means more mistakes.
It doesn’t mean just trusting them. Defense attorneys, judges, and juries benefit from better information, too.
Mordisquitos|1 year ago
Are you there yet? OK. Now, the manifesto of the candidacies in the upcoming elections is proposing that the location history data of every citizen in your country should be stored in a database, just in case law enforcement needs to know the exact location of any individual at any time to be able to do their investigations. Suppose that their plan to implement it is technologically feasible and requires no additional effort from the citizens.
Would this make you more or less likely to vote for them?
pbhjpbhj|1 year ago
My bank knows everywhere I go (if I spend money). The main mobile phone companies know everywhere I go (in real time, and who with [if they have a phone]). Shops and supermarkets track you around the building by Bluetooth, et cetera.
So, what's the problem if the police get access to this data to solve heinous crimes. I'm not talking the RIP Act (UK, regulatory investigation powers) - which lets a ridiculously broad swathe of people see, eg your internet history - but major crimes ... why not?
To answer your question, as long as the parties had a sound moral basis, supported individual rights, then it wouldn't alter my voting intention. I guess I'm happy to limit the liberty to commit serious crimes.
ajb|1 year ago
coldtea|1 year ago
pbhjpbhj|1 year ago
If you don't want fascists then vote/act against that. You can't avoid fascists by making it harder to catch criminals for non-fascists. Then you get "well at least the fascists keep crime rates down".
_zoltan_|1 year ago
tomcam|1 year ago
dylan604|1 year ago
8 to 9 months of undetected access. Not hours. Not minutes. Months.
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_federal_gov...
pbhjpbhj|1 year ago
This seems an entirely different argument - the whole point of using movement data is to increase accountability. Why, excepting being immoral, wouldn't those supporting it agree to higher levels of accountability?
miramba|1 year ago
coldtea|1 year ago
No, plain old respect of privacy against state surveillance.
The "official law infrastructure" also doesn't have other powers that Gestapo, GPU and Stazi used to have. Perhaps they should get them too?
jasonvorhe|1 year ago