[asveikau]

The difference is that a government can take personal liberty away from people in the most direct way. A private company can't decide to lock somebody away in prison or send them to death row. (Hopefully anyway.) So we put a higher standard on government.

That said, I do believe there ought to be more restrictions on private use of these technologies.

[pixl97]

>A private company can't decide to lock somebody away in prison or send them to death row.

A private company can 100% do this in many ways. They already do this buy putting up and using their technology in minority areas, for example.

[unethical_ban]

It's a distinction. Private companies are partnering with the government to take away personal liberty.

We should ban the government from accessing data gathered by private companies by default, perhaps. I need to mull on it.

[helterskelter]

Yeah but these companies are operating hand in glove with govt such that there's no discernible difference between the current system and government just doing it themselves. Ban it outright.

[asveikau]

I don't disagree with the sentiment. I feel like what we're seeing lately is that private companies are doing the thing that would violate the 4th amendment if government did it, then they sell to the government. The idea that it's not the government itself violating the constitution because they did it through a contractor is pretty absurd.

What specific legal measures you do to enforce this, I don't know, there's some room for debate there.

[mrguyorama]

Cops are legally forbidden from surveilling everyone at all times using machines. Explicitly so. Yet, if a company starts up and surveils everyone at all times, and their only customer is Cops, it's all Okay somehow. The cops don't even need a warrant anymore.

What's worse, is that third party doctrine kills your rights worse than direct police surveillance.

Imagine if you will, back in the day of film cameras: The company developing your film will tell the police if you give them literal child porn but otherwise they don't. But imagine if they kept a copy of every picture you ever took, just stuffed it into a room in the back, and your receipt included a TOS about you giving them a license to own a copy "for necessary processing". Now, a year after you stopped using film cameras, the cops ask the company for your photos.

The company hands it over. You don't get to say no. The cops don't need a warrant, even though they 100% need a warrant to walk into your home and grab your stash of photos.

Why is this at all okay? How did the supreme court not recognize how outright stupid this is?

We made an explicit rule for video rental stores to not be able to do this! Congress at one time recognized the stupidity and illegal nature of this! Except they only did that because a politician's video rental history was published during his attempt at confirmation.

That law is direct and clear precedent that service providers should not be able to give your data to the cops without your consent, but this is America so precedent is only allowed to help businesses and cops.

[WrongAssumption]

But that is his point with "or the government can always do it indirectly with the same effect"

The company doesn't have that power, but the government can compel companies to provide them with the same data as long as it exists, and then abuse it in the same way as if they had collected it themselves.

[heavyset_go]

A private company can put you on a list and you'll never have a home again.

[kristopolous]

The separation between private and the government is purely theatrics - a mere administrative shell.

I really don't understand why people treat it with such sacrosanct reverence.

It reminds me of a cup and ball street scam. Opportunistic people move things around and there's a choir of true believers who think there's some sacred principles of separation to uphold as they defend the ornamental labels as if they're some divine decree.

I mean come on. Know when you're getting played.

[asveikau]

In some cases yes, especially when it comes to surveillance, the distinction doesn't feel like very much. When the government hires a contractor specifically because they break the spirit of the 4th amendment, it's hard to argue that it's not the government breaking the law.

[digiown]

A private company can rat you out the government in the same way that a private citizen can report you to the police. I don't see a reasonable way to change this.

The government should be held to higher standards in terms of being able to appeal its actions, fairness, evidentiary standards. But the government shouldn't necessarily be prevented from acquiring and using information (which is otherwise legally obtained).

I don't disagree that we should perhaps more restrictions on private processing of data though -- GDPR style legislation that imposes a cost on data collection is probably sufficient.

[keybored]

> The difference is that a government can take personal liberty away from people in the most direct way. A private company can't decide to lock somebody away in prison or send them to death row. (Hopefully anyway.) So we put a higher standard on government.

We put higher standards on the government because companies have the biggest propaganda coffers.

It’s not some rational principle. Money goes in, beliefs come out.

[tintor]

People die all the time, because of decisions made by private companies.

[bcrosby95]

Uh, the government can pay the private company for the data so they can lock those people up.