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Comment by dvdhnt | Hacker News Reader

Faces, DNA, and relationships aren’t particularly new data points. The government has my passport photo, DNA (military record), and can check out my tax returns, Facebook, Twitter, etc to see who my wife, children, business partners, coworkers, and other family are.

The fundamental issue with their new database is that some analysis will be done on all of that data, along with criminal and public records, to characterize someone and store the result in the database. At that point, you’ve been classified and good luck getting out of whatever box they put you in (just see no fly lists for an example).

Now that you’re on some list, it snowballs. Every encounter with agents, every flight, every new relationship, any odd transaction will just make it worse and solidify how much of a threat/person of interest/terrorist/extremist you are.

Source: I’m a former intelligence analyst.

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Now before the WWII German intelligence built databases of polish elites, scientists, politicians, activists, actors and their families, so when the war started they were able to quickly round them up and exterminate. Imagine something like this happens again in the US - enemy gaining access to such database would have everything on a silver platter. Even more plausible motive would be if future government wanted to remove people that they deem enemy to the state (incompatible political beliefs). It would be easy to just deliver them poison disguised as Amazon delivery and have the nation cleansed of the problematic populace. Such database is irresponsible on another level.

This post is 100% spot on. Ask the folks at Palantir under what conditions a person stops being identified as a 'target' in their database... Hint: everything you do, on a daily basis, can be construed as incriminating.

Source: Worked in an intelligence battalion for 5 years.

yes but what do we do about it? mesh networks? private data security? (GDPR doesn't apply to police/state security...)

My solution is not attracting attention. Basically through compartmentalization. My meatspace identity is entirely unremarkable. I'm not outspoken about privacy. Or about anything, really. I do hit the Internet through a VPN, but that's fairly common in my country.

That's not "not attracting attention", that's called living in fear. I don't know the particulars of where you live, but it makes me sad you feel this is necessary.

Maybe so. But fear is rational sometimes. I wouldn't have survived long as an acid dealer without extreme discretion.

Alternatives include conforming to unjust laws, or violating openly and ending up imprisoned. Neither sound like fun. Or, yes, going somewhere else. But in my experience, there's really nowhere to go. So hey.

At a certain point on this trajectory, that strategy will raise red flags too.

Mass surveillance is a direct violation of the fourth amendment, outlawing it completely is the only reasonable solution.

So you say. And perhaps eventually, adversaries will trace every VPN connection. But as I said, VPN usage is pretty common, so that'd be challenging. I'm betting that I'll be dead first. And I guess that we'll see.

It's easy to cite the Fourth Amendment. But it's all in the interpretation. The War on Drugs arguably violates the Bill of Rights in numerous ways. But try telling that to a judge.

And anyway, as I frequently note, the NSA is a military COMSEC organization. And the US is perpetually at war. So the NSA ignores the Constitution and law. At best, it pretends respect.

What you describe reminds me of the stories my significant other's parents tell about living under Stasi in the GDR.

Ok, without the VPN part.

Indeed. The insight is that virtually all modern states are authoritarian. Some just have better PR. And there are too many assholes in the stateless places.

In the former Soviet Union, there weren't VPNs, Tor and stuff. But there was samizat. And much conversation, fueled by vodka and bad cigarettes. It ended up working well enough. Except that Reagan, Bush and Carter went on to screw Russia so badly that it embraced Putin.

Thanks a lot. Never heard of samizat. Had to ask Google and was intrigued. Interesting stuff and something new I learned.

Go talk to your Congressperson or their staff. Get a satisfactory answer. Or, if you don't, go talk to their primary or general election opponent (or their staff). Make it clear what's important to you.

Ignoring that you need to fight against both major parties to attempt to put someone against this in office, think of all the dirt this database could uncover on the politician.

Urgh this is the worst point HN keep making vis-a-vis surveillance. Dirt on politicians is evidence of actual crimes and wrongdoings - not supposition and heresay.

Surveillance doesn't magically generate blackmail material on politicians if they haven't done anything wrong, and politicians have a vastly reduced right to privacy compared to the rest of us.

"Politicians could be blackmailed!" is a weak as hell argument because if they can be blackmailed then they are corrupt and should be exposed.

The problem is what happens to all the rest of us - private citizens who do not wield power and influence, do not write the laws, and as is noted in the OP here, who suffer very real consequences to our lives from being categorized by intelligence systems.

> Dirt on politicians is evidence of actual crimes and wrongdoings - not supposition and heresay.

$politician went with some supporters to a strip club. News at 11.

You think that won't affect the electoral outcome, even if it is perfectly legal? And if it does, that it could not be used in collusion with security forces to preserve an entrenched power?

The point is actually about politicians being above the law, specifically the unequal power between surveilled (us) and surveillant (politicians), not that people under surveillance can be made to look guilty (which is pretty obvious).

Furthermore, if politicians want power X but only if X can't be used on themselves, then that power can easily be used corruptly.

>Urgh this is the worst point HN keep making vis-a-vis surveillance. Dirt on politicians is evidence of actual crimes and wrongdoings - not supposition and heresay.

There are a wide range of things that count as dirt. Legal yet scandalous behavior, various social gaffes, past political stances that may not represent their current views, or criminal acts from one of the many "relationships" tracked. All of these things have been used to attack candidates.

>Surveillance doesn't magically generate blackmail material on politicians if they haven't done anything wrong, and politicians have a vastly reduced right to privacy compared to the rest of us.

If we know these organizations have these extreme surveillance capabilities, they largely can magically generate blackmail. The amount of proof needed to generate a scandal is low, and falsifiable.

>The problem is what happens to all the rest of us - private citizens who do not wield power and influence, do not write the laws, and as is noted in the OP here, who suffer very real consequences to our lives from being categorized by intelligence systems

One of those consequences is the hidden destruction of our democracy. As these powers become stronger, we lose our ability to reject them in our political system.

Trouble with all this guilt by association is we don't choose friends and neighbours via criminal and national security background checks. Friends come from mutual situations such as work, or events, and chance via already existing friends and you just get along (or are attracted).

If you live nearby you might even be visiting a possible terrorist for barbeque or beer entirely innocently. I suspect few will be discussing, or have any idea of, their plans for a bank raid.

We may have a lot of data and meta data but we seem to be asking very unintelligent questions worthy of McCarthy / Stasi era paranoia.

Stalins' sidekick was fond of saying, "Show me the man and I’ll find you the crime." --- Lavrentiy Beria

DNA records would be new for the vast majority of Americans (i.e. non-veteran civilians).

True, but the actual percentage of “vast” is debatable. There are many ways that your DNA can be collected including when being arrested, for medical treatment, military or civil service, or just at birth [1].

1. http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/02/04/baby.dna.government/ind...

Or volunteered to an online genetic testing service.

Or a blood relative.

its "vast" if the actual amount thats been collected previously is negligible and now its to be generalized to the whole population.

It's likely the government has your DNA, especially if you've been born in the US in the last 20-30 years due to newborn blood banks. An example of California having a database going back to 1983:

http://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2018/05/14/california-newborn...

They asked for my child's DNA when they were born (in case they get kidnapped, they said), but I declined (this was Florida).

Some states are opt-in, California is not. The state is required to inform new parents that they can make a request to have it destroyed, but there is some contention that most new parents aren't told and/or don't understand. So, the state collects this DNA data in to a large database and then makes it available for law enforcement and also sells it to "outside researchers" -- whatever that means [0]. There's no consent here and not much awareness or knowledge of the fact that this goes on.

[0]: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/california-biobank-dna-babies-w...

I got stopped at airport Port of entry and they had all the details of my roommates, roommates spousses. This was back in 2006. I can't even imagine what they have now.

>Source: I’m a former intelligence analyst.

In your (formerly) professional opinion, how should we be identifying and characterizing threats? Where does emerging technology (ML/AI, etc) perform well?

Why do you people keep calling it ‘Intellegence’, it’s ‘Insecurity’.

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