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Comment by Spooky23 | Hacker News Reader

Why? The surveillance is there.

I used this with some personal video surveillance to identify some thieves who were casing driveways to find cars to get into. Instead of wasting hours looking at footage, I was able to give the police excerpts that helped them identify the perp. Also, because of the circumstances and footage, they were able to charge him with a more serious crime than petit larceny, which means he won't be back next week.

It's an effective tool. If you're allowed to have a camera, you should be allowed to look at it with whatever means you want.

The reality is that the horse is out of the barn. The Federal government has been doing this type of surveillance either using facial or LPR data on interstate corridors since at least the 90s.

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I suspect that total involuntary surveillance is not something the majority of the (United States) populace signed up for.

The legal Expectation of Privacy[0] continues to be important, even if there are people who think that it was a legal handwave that only existed due to lack of adequate technology.

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[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expectation_of_privacy

> I suspect that total involuntary surveillance is not something the majority of the (United States) populace signed up for.

I certainly agree, but just wait until They/Them/Those start telling us this is part of some sacrosanct "social contract," and those who don't like it can simply leave.

Edit: small changes for clarity.

> If you dont like it leave

people start leaving

> wait! dont leave! We're gonna jack up the renounce-your-citizenship fee by thousands of dollars!

actually happened already.

I didn’t know about this. Do you have any links?

Try https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renunciation_of_citizenship

TL;DR: You could renounce your US citizenship for free before 2010. Then it when up to $450. In 2014 the fee was raise to $2,350.

On top of the fee is the exit tax wherein you may be required to pay a tax on the entirety of any gains on your assets as if you had sold them all that day. And, further, if they think you are renouncing to avoid taxes they claim that you must continue to pay taxes for 10 years after you renounce.

The populace really doesn't sign up for the vast majority of policy.

Because the advancement of technology changes the impact of certain classes of surveillance and tracking. Existing law is based on a balance that no longer exists. Bruce Schneier has a nice essay on this and license plates:

https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2007/01/on_police_s...

In short, having a unique id and database of car owners may be okay when the police need to manually look up information. But when they can have every plate in the city regularly scanned by robots and the data fed to an AI to look for patterns, that's not even close to the same thing.

I don’t disagree with you.

My point isn’t that pervasive surveillance is great. It’s that if you’re allowed to have cameras everywhere, why would you limit useful processing of the data?

How do you regulate it? If you can’t hire Amazon to do LPR or facial recognition, can you pay a guy to recognize people walking down the street and note their patterns? Do you license/permit camera placement?

There's a supreme court case that's about this.

The feds had thermal cameras hooked up to a helicopter, flew over some guy's house, saw thermal signatures looking a lot like someone growing marijuana.

Supreme court threw this out as a warrantless search because people are allowed an expectation of privacy against tech that "everyday people" don't have.

IANAL, but if you don't buy this logic, then search warrants are mostly limited by tech? Like if the gov't invented binoculars that could see through walls, does that mean they could just look into your house without a warrant?

The search warrant is about intent and expectations. And while "police officer checks records manually of a person" is kinda expected, "police officer x-rays an entire crowd instantly" seems a bit less so.

We _do_ put up signs about cameras, and there's rules about recording phone conversations too. It sure feels like there's case law around a lot of this.

> It’s that if you’re allowed to have cameras everywhere, why would you limit useful processing of the data?

So that a company doesn't end up doing mass surveillance.

During bad times, you'd see crackdowns and suppression caused by such a system. If you look in the present at the countries that are more authoritarian, you can get a picture. Places like China or Russia, where the internet is censored, monitored and mass surveillance is openly practiced. Russia recently passed Yarovaya law:

"Internet and telecom companies are required to store communications and metadata for 6 months to 3 years. They are required to disclose them, as well as "all other information necessary," to authorities on request and without a court order. It also requires email and messaging service providers to have cryptographic backdoors. The surveillance regulations will take effect on 1 July 2018."

It probably goes without saying that they use this tool to get a tighter grip on their population to maintain power.

> How do you regulate it?

Use vague words in the statutes like "reasonable" and have jurisprudence define how it can be used in practice. At least that's how the law already works.

Even though private surveillance is pervasive in the US, law enforcement is still sometimes rejected from using some of it when it flies in the face of the privacy standards to which we are accustomed[1].

[1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/08/judge-blasts-fbi...

>It’s that if you’re allowed to have cameras everywhere, why would you limit useful processing of the data?

Because what matters is what the result of that processing is. This is not some abstract concept; what's actually being done with the data matters.

>How do you regulate it? If you can’t hire Amazon to do LPR or facial recognition, can you pay a guy to recognize people walking down the street and note their patterns?

That's a silly analogy and I think you know it. Again, this is not some academic debate. The difference between being able to process TB order data automatically and hiring a guy to watch a corner and take notes is the difference between the Hubble telescope and me in my backyard with a pair of binoculars.

"Whatever means you want" just has to not include matching to a database of suspicious people that are not currently under investigation for a real crime. Or to something with a floating definition like "terrorist". Which it won't. Just because Washington County says it's not currently being used for mass surveillance doesn't mean it won't be in the future or for other departments.

You don't get the full extent of the damage. You are making the assumption that the government and police departments are the only ones that will do mass-surveillance.

You could not be more wrong. Everyone will do mass-surveillance. Everyone. The police is worst, because they will legally use violence against (true AND false) matches, with limited to no recourse for their victims. But the cats' out of the bag. Legal or not, mass surveillance is not going to happen ...

It is happening.

They will even sell that information on. "Alexa, which bar has the most blonds going into it ?" coming up soon. Or worse: "Alexa, can you tell me who is my daughter's boyfriend with face recognition ?" "That'll be $0.45, buy ? $1 extra if you want to know if they have sex. Included for free with Prime ! Order that instead ?".

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/the-surprisi...

the ACLU really needs to update https://www.aclu.org/ordering-pizza

I know it’s cliche to bring up in these examples but there was an unintended negative outcome to Germany requiring people to register and pay some of their taxes to their church before ww2. The Nazis used that information to collect up and brand Jewish people and ultimately kill them. It is hard to imagine this tech will solely be used for good forever.

Los Angeles police already use gang databases to fault people for being in the "wrong" part of the city based on their database entry. This stuff is gonna turn into some kinda crazy 21st century internet apartheid.

if only there were a hero among us who could free us from our database driven shackles

>If you're allowed to have a camera, you should be allowed to look at it with whatever means you want.

You aren't allowed to look in to people houses with it or in to schools, up girls skirts, inside some banks etc.

You may have rights to own a camera -- I have the right to go around swinging my fists in to thin air but my right to swing fists stops where your head begins.

Actually, you are OK to do most of these things in many parts of US.

Ahh the old "if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear" defense for mass surveillance. Don't study history much do you?

If you believe this will only ever be used to stop thieves and people that victimize others you are naive at an unfathomable level

>The Federal government has been doing this type of surveillance either using facial or LPR data on interstate corridors since at least the 90s.

lol... You believe that is justification or a defense. The fact that the Federal Government is doing something that people that value privacy oppose does not mean we should allow local law enforcement to do it even more efficiently

It does suggest, however, that a slippery-slope argument of "More surveillance plunges us immediately into a 1984-esque dystopia" has a big [citation needed] banner hovering over it though.

I feel we are already in a 1984 Style Surveillance state they are just better at hiding it then the book's government

So no I do not think it is "slippery slope" at all, we have already slide down the slope; arriving at the bottom. We long ago surpassed the level of government surveillance I believe is ethical, constitutional, or proper for government

if the government having a database filled with everyone Bio metric data they can then use technology to follow, trace, and monitory your every movement is not a "surveillance state" I shutter to think what it would take for you to classify such as system? a Brian implant that reads your every thought?

I know the opinion will vary from person to person, but if this is a 1984 dystopia, then Orwell over-hyped the downsides to a 1984 dystopia.

(... I don't actually think it's a 1984 dystopia, mind ;) ).

The boring observation that I can make is that the folks living in that dystopia were very good at thinking that it was a dystopia. I know that's a circular epistemic wormhole to get into, but simply liking the authoritarian surveillance you live in doesn't remove the features that make it authoritarian and intimately surveilling you.

Right, but doesn't it remove the notion that the authoritarian, intimate-surveillance features are necessarily bad things?

To stay in dystopian sci-fi: The computers on the Enterprise (TNG at least) were aware of crewmember's positions and health situation at all times as long as they were aboard ship. Do we imagine they felt spied upon? It seems instead being born into a world where surveillance is ubiquitous and benign-to-benevolent, they were fine with it.

Maybe we can build that world instead of assuming the end-result is 1984 every time.

The Enterprise was a flagship Starship, the people aboard were the best of the Starfleet Academy, aboard for a limited duration pseudo-military expedition.

This is akin to saying "humans on board the IIS are monitored intensely, do they feel spied upon? Therefore we should all be willing and able to live for a lifetime with that level of monitoring".

And not taking into account that IIS visits are undertaken by very unusual, pre-selected people, for limited durations, being monitored by a single organization, mostly for the purposes of research and protecting their investment.

Which is completely not anything like reality for most people, where things are operated by goodness knows who, for goodness knows what reasons, and barely or not at all regulated against potential abuse.

>>Maybe we can build that world instead of assuming the end-result is 1984 every time.

The Key difference between the 2 is Resource Limitation.

In 1984 Society had limited resources, in Star Trek it was a Post Scarcity Civilization.

Star Trek is not possible while we have limited resources, invent replicator tech then you might have the ability to create a Star Trek society, no replicators no Star Trek

It is sad that people have the delusion they are really free, unable to see they are actually in a guided cage.

I am sure there were many in Oceania perfectly content with their life, thinking they were free because they never butted up against the edges of their cage, they never tested the limits of their "freedom", they were "respectable" citizens doing as the government said

> I am sure there were many in Oceania perfectly content with their life, thinking they were free because they never butted up against the edges of their cage

I do not recall getting that impression when I read 1984. Rather, the majority of the proles were absolutely under the figurative boot, and kept there via fear. Even the Inner Party were aware of the edges of their cage -- either they tested them and got reconditioned, or they were all-in on the dystopia, but I don't think that counts as thinking that they were free. Rather, they traded freedom for power over others.

What edges of your cage do you bump up against?

In 1984 they had audio/video monitoring inside every home. Today governments only have such monitoring in select public areas. That's a significant distinction.

hmm Cell phones in everyone pocket, Echo / Home Devices, etc etc etc

Keep believing the government has no access to this data..

The government has no access to that data without due process mediated by a judge. That is not the same as continuous surveillance.

Yea, sure, you betcha....

That assumes 2 things

1. that the Warrant process today is more than a superficial formality to give people the illusion of check on government power. When in reality to get a warrant they simply have to fill out a form, there is hardly ever any push back and it has been proven countless times that law enforcement lies via omission, or stretched the truth, or any number of dishonest unethical things to get warrants, on top of the fact the most judges simply approve 99.9% of all warrant applications. "Getting a warrant" should not be viewed as some panacea of government restraint

2. Assume that "if they got a warrant" then people like me would approve of government having access to that data. That "Getting a warrant" is a valid justification for obtaining data.

Snowden proved this was false.

They still need warrants to get information on specific people.

no they didn't. it was self-reported abuses and no consequences.

I guess you haven’t been watching what they’ve been doing to Trump for the last couple of years?

Why? <Insert any bad/questionable/controversial thing> is already there.

Just because something is out there does not mean you want more of it.

"Who's watching the government?"

"Voters" is generally considered the correct answer in democracies and republics, I believe.

Oh did someone vote for the NSA for example? As far as I know no candidate on the major sides were against it.

Indeed, though more generally the "four boxes of liberty".

It is left as an exercise for the reader to assess where we are at with each box in contemporary America.

Can you expand on "literally everyone is worse off", and I'll assume you meant literally in the colloquial sense, as an emphasis.

OP gave an example where he was better off. Do you mean that the trade-off is not worth risk/down side?

Only if you consider privacy as a means to an end rather than a goal by itself. Facial recognition has a negative effect on literally everyone's privacy.

Privacy is a means to an end.

That end is peace-of-mind.

People who have been damaged by random acts of crime may very well find more peace-of-mind sacrificing a bit of privacy to not have those acts repeated on their persons.

Should we install security cameras in public toilets? It would certainly reduce crimes such as assaults that occur in public toilets. There would be very little impact on our personal security.

Privacy is an fundamental aspect of our quality of life. Privacy is not of secondary importance to security but exists alongside it. If that were not so, then there are plenty of places we could be putting surveillance cameras in order to improve our security.

However, people install security cameras in their own homes all the time---some of which are even wired to cloud services or outside security monitoring agencies.

I agree that privacy exists alongside security. Where the balance-point is best placed varies from person to person. In public spaces not scoped for private activities (such as the streets of a city), the balance point has to be agreed upon by the citizenry in general and is almost certainly somewhere past both "toilet stall" and "personal residence" in terms of collective value for surveillance.

After all, we already put up security cameras on street corners.

Until we have 100% transparency into situations where executives/operatives/etc are meeting behind closed doors to screw over thousands if not millions of people then they should not be allowed to have any of those privileges on us.

OP gave the example where they felt better because someone got a harsher punishment.

No, I didn’t say that.

When you take a GPS from an unlocked car, you get charged with petit larceny, which is an appearance ticket and $50-500 fine.

When you get charged with a higher crime, you get a few weeks in jail. In my case, the offender was a known “frequent flyer” who victimized my neighborhood for months, and was arrested 6 times. He was charged with a more serious misdemeanor, and was charged with 30 days in jail. He has not returned.

My objective as a citizen is to peacefully enjoy my home. Some lowlife doesn’t have the right to pillage our yards.

It's funny how many people come out in defense of Amazon, compared to when it's done in China. It really reminds me a really wise saying I heard somewhere, that nothing is really sinister or even when it's happening in your own backyard :)

Monitoring heavy trafficked interstate corridors is one thing. This is entirely a different. Amazon/tech is at a point where we could get blanket surveillance on most streets, in our homes, in our offices, etc. It's the difference between monitoring areas/locations and monitoring people ( us ).

But I agree that the pandora's box has been opened and there is no going back.

How many times do we have to learn this lesson?

> "they were able to charge him with a more serious crime"

Isn't charging defendants with overwhelming charges part of the problem?

I have concerns over misuse but I’m glad to see this is available to the public.

When all they probably needed was a real drug rehab program.

Edit: Just saying because almost all petty thievery is committed to get goods to trade for drugs.

Edit 2: Also, I'm not saying that this wasn't a good use of home surveillance, or to whatever parent's comment referred, although (s)he is probably wrong that they won't be back next week. I have acquaintances that having got hooked on meth, began stealing cars. Once caught, I thought she'd be put in prison or a drug rehab program. No. She basically served no time because the judge and everyone else know she was just a junky and there was no funding for rehab, and little room in prison.

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