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0 pointsthewebguyd7mo ago0 comments

> revolves around being able to do illegal things.

The problem is, what is legal today might not be tomorrow. Especially depending on the regime in power at the time.

Mass surveillance can implicate someone in a crime if later on some regime decides that what they did or where they went is now a crime when it wasn't before.

Remember the push back against Apple's proposed client side scanning of photos to look for CSAM? What happens when the hash database starts including things like political memes, or other types of photos. What used to be legal is now not, and you get screwed because of the surveillance state.

Absolutely no data should be available without a warrant and subpoena, full stop. Warrants issued by a court, not a secret national security letter with a gag order either. Warrants only issued with true probable cause, not "acting suspicious."

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8 comments · 3 top-level

sroussey7mo ago· 4 in thread

Absolutely all your data is available for sale by data brokers. Need to get rid of those first. Then the government would need warrants where they don’t need warrants to just buy your data.

Spooky237mo ago

If you've worked in government, you'd know that that bar for getting a subpoena or warrant is far lower and less strenuous than getting a purchase order.

thewebguydOP7mo ago

Which is also a problem that needs fixed. A search warrant should be extremely difficult to get. "The person is suspicious and we think we will find xyz illegal item" is not enough. An arrest alone shouldn't be enough either. Police/detectives should have to prove, beyond all reasonable doubt, that what they are looking for is actually there to get the warrant.

2 more replies

mrguyorama7mo ago

Police are not filling out purchase orders to query an API they already have a contract with.

The purchase order was already taken care of a long time ago, because police loved being able to get around warrants and love dragnet surveillance.

sroussey7mo ago

Ouch

johnnyanmac7mo ago· 1 in thread

Generally, laws can't be applied retroactively. If you're in a regime that ignores that, then there really isn't a sense of law anymore to worry about.

pseudalopex7mo ago

A binary view is incorrect. Governments not having records of Jews would not have stopped the Holocaust. But this killed some people who could have escaped.

And the problem is not limited to retroactive laws. Phone scanning was another example in their comment. A regime could use this to restrict future communication even if they did not punish past communication.

ActorNightly7mo ago

The idea that US citizens actually give a fuck about defending anything is laughable. All of this is performative virtue signaling.

US literally has ownership of guns codified into constitution, specifically to allow citizens to defend themselves from oppressive regimes that fit CBP to the letter (i.e violence against US citizens), however a CBP officer is yet to be shot in a confrontation.

Its to the point where Trump can literally start confiscating guns, and the amount of armed resistance will be negligible, and most of it originating from organized gangs. When it comes to all the "dont tread on me" people, when armed forces are surrounding their house, and the chance of losing the easy comfortable life they have lived for the past 3 decades is very real, all of them are going to bend over and lube up so fast that they will get whiplash, without a doubt.

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