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Comment by nkrisc | Hacker News Reader

It's not just the government you need to worry about, it's independent malicious actors as well. Video or audio recordings from your devices could be used to blackmail you unless you're very, very careful what you do or say at all times such devices are around.

With regards to the government, while you may not be doing anything illegal now, it will be illegal when they outlaw it.

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Two minor additions.

Its not just recordings, but raw material to be edited and spliced together.

Its not just illegal stuff you need to worry about but raises concern, adds you to an investigation, adds you to a secret list (no fly list).

> Its not just recordings, but raw material to be edited and spliced together.

"If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged." ~ Cardinal Richelieu

Well, his thing was a culture where everyone was guilty of something and punishment was pretty harsh. To some extent like now. I'm sure I'm not recycling all my garbage precisely legally and that cap needs to be on (or off?) the creamer and I certainly was guilty of speeding this morning like everyone else on the road.

I meant just outright fabrication. Record one conversation about my coworker being on vacation in northern Wisconsin to shoot deer and another conversation about my watching the president make a speech before I went to the boy scout troop meeting on Monday and a semi-skilled editor can cut and paste together fake audio evidence that I'm the ringleader of a military coup with all kinds of detailed elaborate plans. Now that wouldn't result in a guilty verdict, but might result in swatting or just generic harassment, or maybe end up on some .gov list.

Well, I guess the quote also means how the most innocent thing, extracted from its context, can be very damaging. There's no need to edit your audio clips, just to imply it. "Tomorrow the president is going to northern Wisconsin. Mr. VLM is on record discussing shooting opportunities and ammo sale points near this precise area on the same precise day...". As you say, nothing that would stand trial, but enough for character assassination.

In the United States, at least, it's pretty likely that you're committing "crimes" unknowingly with some regularity. No fabrication is likely necessary if the authorities want to put you in a position of taking a plea bargain or gambling that you'll end up in prison. (See https://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp... if this interests you.)

It's technology that enables the problem, not the actors. Technology can advance a position on a matter well ahead of anyone else at that moment, giving the actor temporary power over others. While most won't use this for their own gain, some will and do. If we want to stop this problem, we're going to need a way to slow technology down, at least when interacting with itself.

In the US, ex post facto laws cannot be made.

For now. Doesn't it just take a new law that says ex post facto laws can be made?

It would require an amendment to the US Constitution, which is an incredibly high bar.

That bar seems a lot lower in the last few weeks.

Constitutional amdendments require ratification by 3/4 of states. 20/50 states voted for Clinton. That is still quite a high bar.

I think the era of amendments has passed. Very unlikely we see a new one anytime soon.

Amendment XXVI, 18-year-olds can vote, ratified in 1972. Amendment XXVII, left over from 1789, relates to Congressional pay increases, ratified in 1992.

I didn't even know about the last one (I assume I can trust Wikipedia about it)? Which means the last "real" amendment was 44 years ago. None of the currently unratified amendments seem at all close to reaching the required number of ratification votes.

>In the US, ex post facto laws cannot be made.

Yeah, well, in the UK the government is trying to justify sweeping constitutional and case law changes based on a non-binding referendum barely passing.

But parallel construction is still a thing.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2016/03/10/...

That's nice. But if you decide to run for high office 30 years from now it will become known that drew pony porn in college and never really stopped. That's the meaning of kompromat.

Not if your record is better than their's.

Like Trump, where the worst impropriety they could come up with was that he slapped women's arses? Everyone has something they'd rather not talk about.

Worst?

I hadn't even heard that one.

We just learned about charity self dealing.

For the last few decades we have been hearing about Trump's 'improprieties'.

> In the US, ex post facto laws cannot be made.

That fact has been so inconvenient for the government that the entire system has been redesigned to thwart it. Can't prove Al Capone is a mobster? Prosecute for tax evasion.

Keep passing broad overlapping laws and they can charge anyone with something. Then they don't have to change the law, only who they decide to prosecute.

Are you saying Capone didn't evade taxes?

I'm saying nobody would have been looking at him for tax evasion if he wasn't a mobster, even if he was doing it.

And after Capone the mobsters started paying their taxes, so now they charge them with money laundering, which is essentially a law against paying your taxes on unexplained income.

Oh I understand that, I'm thinking a little more dystopian. Though in some other countries that might be the reality today.

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