Stop the Border Surveillance Bills | Hacker News Reader

Stop the Border Surveillance Bills

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It's better than the plan for towers along the border with remote controlled guns. Israel already has those.[1]

[1] https://www.wired.com/2008/12/israeli-auto-ki/

South Korea has something similar.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_SGR-A1

Incredible. I thought this was the stuff of dystopian science fiction...

How can anybody work on this sort of technology and still feel OK about themselves?

A paycheck I suppose.

Compartmentalize and abstract, keep telling yourself that "if I don't do it, someone else will do it (and they might do it worse than me so it's really best if I do it first)".

https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/the-pentagon-is-buil...

I know the above sounds kinda hyperbolic, but there is a lot of substantiated stuff in there that doesn't need much extrapolation to have the potential to go reeeeeally bad at, well, the flip of a switch, political or otherwise.

"I'm just following orders."

In South Korea's case, I think the rationalization is more obvious. It's more like, "we have a maniac at our border itching to invade, our citizens are scared, we need to intimidate them back."

It probably has more to do with counterintelligence/defence rather than intimidation.

[http://edition.cnn.com/2015/05/21/asia/north-korea-spies/ind...] > Spies and human intelligence play a big role in maintaining Kim Jong Un's regime.

NK "does not care" about security measures at SK borders.

[http://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/1329421/north-korean-s...] > Nearly half of all North Korean spies arrested in South Korea over the past 10 years entered the country disguised as defectors, said a South Korean lawmaker on Friday.

SK "does not need" to engage in reassurance countermeasures because of the population.

[https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/09/south-...] > Residents of South Korea who have friends abroad often share inside jokes about how outsiders are way more alarmed than everyone here, who would actually be wiped out if Kim Jong-un ever ordered a nuclear attack on this country.

This gun is peanuts compared to atomic weapons, which are nearing 100 years old and were encouraged by world leaders and scientists alike. I agree these devices are shocking and incredible, sadly not surprising.

>were encouraged by world leaders and scientists alike

The Nazis (the real kind, not the Internet name calling kind) were working on an atomic bomb. The atomic bomb is a pretty good example of "if I don't do it someone else will".

That answer begs the question though -- "So what?"

It presupposes that we need weapons of every variety in an ever-increasing arms race, which is the very action under examination.

Most people accept "So the Nazis might have won the war instead if things were just a bit different" as at least a bit of justification. Most people consider "The Nazis are more likely to win the war" to be a substantial entry on the debit side of the ledger.

I would agree that doesn't necessarily end the argument instantly; the "instant win because I said 'Nazi' first" button is several decades past its best-by date. But on the other hand it's not something you're going to have much success with dismissing with "So what?" either.

> Most people accept "So the Nazis might have won the war instead if things were just a bit different" as at least a bit of justification.

I don't believe that our nuclear program ended up having any bearing on the European theater -- and the existence of our nuclear program might have (if we're conjecturing timelines) convinced the Germans to make an honest go at it rather than a sabotaged one.

We don't know how this timeline would play out again, either, and so we can't discuss how such a change would (likely) have played out.

Instead, we have to act from principles.

Appealing to "well, what about literal Nazis, huh?" is the worst sort of conversation shutting down -- it did absolutely nothing to stop literal Nazis and your hypothetical Nazis are just that, complete fiction you made up to try and justify your point. You literally invented a story to explain why other stories shouldn't be used as evidence.

> Most people consider "The Nazis are more likely to win the war" to be a substantial entry on the debit side of the ledger.

Completely unsupported supposition of the shallowest variety.

> But on the other hand it's not something you're going to have much success with dismissing with "So what?" either.

How about:

"Your fanfic about how nukes stop Nazis is no more useful for rational debate than mine where not building nukes ended the war early by revealing US moral superiority and breaking German morale, then went on to prevent the Cold War, the formation of a Soviet Bloc, the attrocities across Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and South America."

Your argument doesn't even deserve a "So what?"

It's an outright fallacy of emotional, Nazi based appeal. (Despite your disclaimer at the bottom.)

I can't help but think you didn't notice the name change on the comment chain here. Especially since you seem to have comprehensively missed all my points, since you were so busy replying to what you expected to have been written, rather than what was.

You presented a common argument in response to my post, even if you weren't personally advancing it; I addressed that argument with the rhetorical liberty that I was speaking in a dialog continuing the original exchange in which that argument was advanced. (This causes less indirection dereferences for people who do believe that argument trying to understand why I don't.)

The crux of why that argument is wrong is that it begs the question is precisely the same fashion, but dresses up that fallacy is faux predictive powers (eg, we can know what would happen if history changes) and emotional reaction to Nazis, which makes it wronger than the post I was originally replying to.

In all honesty, your post is so full of weasel words, it's unclear what point, if any, you're actually trying to make.

Looks like an amazing piece of tech, I'd totally work on that if they would let me anywhere near it. Why should I be ashamed of working on something designed to protect a country's border? Yet, I'm probably supposed to feel proud, had I worked for, say, Facebook, whose sole purpose of existing is to waste billions of man-hours a day?

You don’t understand. Thanks to Facebook, we live in an era after history, in which humans don’t have conflicting interests that must sometimes be resolved through violent confrontation.

tell that to a Trump supporter in Berkeley. While Facebook (IMO) does not force people to waste their time, but much like booze, it doesn't discourage it either. The result of overuse of either is much the same - a wasted life.

Nah bro, I'm pretty sure Francis Fukuyama accomplished that for us.

You say "protect a country's border", I say "potentially kill innocent people without human judgment or intervention". Regardless of your personal stance on the moral / practical utility of national borders, surely there are better and more humane ways to protect a border than to treat anyone who approaches it as expendable machine gun fodder.

I'd much rather work on Facebook, which at least provides some tangible benefit to me as an occasional event organizer in exchange for wasting my time and trying to sell me crap, than this. Hell, I'd work on XKEYSCORE before working on this, and that's an extremely strong statement coming from me.

Can you please read again the wiki article on what the gun's capabilities are and where it's deployed, as I don't think we are talking about the same thing?

First, masses of innocent people don't usually charge at borders of countries with which they are technically at war. Second, this is not a "gun see, gun kill" technology. There are humans involved and I'm pretty sure the level of automation is directly related to the assumed probability of border being attacked. In more peaceful times, it will be almost all manual. In a full fledged war - mostly automated. You can't afford to be sentimental when your country is being invaded.

In the case of Israel and South Korea, the hostility of the people on the other side to your people would keep you warm at night.

Are they really much worse than other weapons? If they're firing at someone who is running at the border in the DMZ (where these are placed) during an invasion, the chance that you're going to hit a civilian is effectively zero. Compare that to, say, the large number of civilians killed by airstrikes or drone strikes.

Compared to land mines? I'd argue this is better. Both indiscriminately and automatically attempt to kill someone for entering an area. One seems a lot easier to tear down post conflict. (Though, as I've been told, land mines can now be set with an "expiry date" when they self defuse.)

"Both indiscriminately"

Remote controlled guns do not kill people 'indiscriminately'.

There is technically a war on between North and South Korea, and tensions are high. It's responsible to have defences in place given the fact that 500 000 N. Korean soldiers could decided one day to come rolling in.

The moral implications of the management of violence are real, but it's often necessary.

In a more limited case: you're a cop, a guy robbed a bank, he has a gun, he's running at you pulls up his gun and aims it you. Do you shoot? You could kill a man. You do and he dies. Are you 'guilty of murder'? Or have you actually done a 'moral act'?

I'm personally weary of all this border stuff, but the underlying motivation of basic security is real. That said, I don't think there are any reasons for weapons at the US border, surely there are criminal gangs but mostly I'd imagine it's just people.

If the US were to have had it's border problems solved 'normally' - over a long period of time and managed issues as they came up, we wouldn't be having this discussion. It's all due to a dereliction of responsibility over a period of time.

The inability of the US to just put 'normal' and 'basic' controls at it's border over time has caused massive political upheaval, to the point wherein I don't think a guy like Trump would have been elected were things to have been done properly. So now you have crazy politics, and crazy border proposals. Now the pendulum has swung a little too far.

So this is all a symptom of the governments inability to operate normally and deal with such problems normally. This never needed to happen. But here we are.

Granted, arguendo, that South Korea has a right to defend its border, and that that right extends to killing any and all North Korean forces that cross said border. There's still a difference between a defense that can attempt to kill anyone and a defense that will attempt to kill anyone.

Automated defenses will attack North Korean troops. They could also attack lost North Korean children, South Korean military convoys moving to the new front 50 miles north a week after the bombing of Seoul in 2034, and hikers living in Unified Korea in 2067.

"Indiscriminate" doesn't necessarily mean "unjustified" or "illegal", but it's still enough of a marked category difference to be worth some separate ethical consideration.

As a German this reminds me of the good old times where we had such a wall straight through the country - in particular, straight through Berlin. The towers were also kind-of remote controlled, but the commands were executed by humans rather than machines.

</sarcasm>

Depending on your point of view, that wall protected the outside from the inside, the inside from the outside, or the inside from the inside.

Being better than killing people is not the problem here.

I don't understand. Aren't those supposed to shoot down invaders only? What's the problem?

As a European I'm rediscovering my faith in Odysseus. Without the Med the refugee crisis would be much worse.

The only part of these provisions I object to, is the social media scanning. That looks a lot like thought police to me.

Especially of U.S. citizens. Never understood why the 4th amendment of the U.S. constitution ("unreasonable search and seizure") doesn't protect citizens from being searched at the border.

And by "border" you mean the actual border + 100 miles inland, right?

https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights-governments-100-mile-b...

No. The 100 mile thing just means that you don't have to be exactly at the border and that if the search area is moved a bit for geographic convenience that's fine. You still have to have recently crossed a border to be searched.

There is no reason to be alarmist.

Big difference between "not exactly at the border" and 100 miles away from it.

Also not very helpful that the search is illegal if you haven't crossed a border and have to get relief in court against a federal agency.

No one is being searched by border patrol who hasn't actually crossed a border. There's no need for anyone to get relief.

There is no reason to be alarmist.

>who hasn't actually crossed a border

You mean like ever in their lifes? If not, some people might disagree with you:

http://www.concordmonitor.com/New-Hampshire-interstate-borde...

Or you can claim that border patrol tracked these people for 75 miles and then held them up at the road block.

Border Patrol also stops people in the 100 mile zone to inquire about their immigration status. You can be detained or searched in this way regardless of anything having to do with a border crossing.

Because “unreasonable” is the qualifier, and searches at the border have (since the 4th Amendment was written) been considered per se reasonable as an exercise of a sovereign nation’s powers to create and maintain a border.

Yes, I understand the qualifier is what gives the government legal wiggle room, but I don't understand why it's reasonable that you lose constitutional rights the second you cross a border and come back. Constitutional rights should travel with you.

Eff is doing awesome work! If you donate they will send you a sweet hoodie

I donate every year. I've run out of schwag to collect! They need a good coffee table book or something.

I support the EFF. I really appreciate their efforts. But I think at some point I just got too tired of perpetually being in a state of having just barely fended off the latest attack, and getting ready for the next wave. Something shifted in my mind, and I refuse to be worried about it any more. At the border, I'm just going to do whatever I want, whatever I think is appropriate, and I'll just deal with the consequences. I just don't care. They're just hostile people between me and my destination and I won't spend my life in fear of being illegal. I'm resigned they'll do whatever they want, so I will too.

I do love the EFF, but I wish I could give enough so that they would be able to stop taking money from Google and other silicon valley companies. It would make them more independent. I suspect EFF would advocate more on issues such as internet platform monopolies if they were more independent.

Liberty isn't something you just earn. It is something you earn and actively defend.

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