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Comment by omouse | Hacker News Reader

That's a stupid idea; helping law enforcement do their jobs. THey have large budgets, they can figure this shit out on their own and there's no need to help them oppress your fellow human. Drug laws in most countries are insanely stupid where non-violent drug offenders are locked up for a long time with violent offenders.

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You should consider that not everyone agrees with your opinion. That doesn't make them stupid.

They do not always have large budgets. But for those agencies that do, why can't they invest in projects such as this?

I'm still trying to figure out why people are against practical applications of this project. It's datamining illegal online activities. Isn't law enforcement a no brainer here?

Please let me know what I'm missing.

I apologize if I seem harsh in my comments regarding this subject.

The practical applications will be abused. There are already projects by the CIA and NSA to massively monitor various communications platforms. The datamining isn't of only illegal activities, it's datamining of everything.

It's just not as simple as "datamine illegal online activities". You're basically going to have to monitor everyone using bitcoin, and then monitor all of silkroad, but once the users catch wind of surveillance they'll abandon it and move elsewhere and now you might as well monitor freaking everything to catch them.

You should check out the idea of a panopticon and Michael Foucalt's writing on it. Helping to create this project furthers the idea of a panopticon and that's a scary thing. The panopticon is a building that forces people in it to behave by having complete transparency. If you're watched all the time, you're less likely to do something illegal or morally wrong. Maybe that's a bit too philosophical for this discussion... http://cartome.org/foucault.htm

Judging from past conversations HN has had about things like Silk Road, psilocybin experiments, SOPA/Protect IP, Wikileaks, surveillance, and censorship, the majority have expressed a vehement moral opposition to helping "oppressors" of any kind. They'd probably see writing software for law enforcement the same way you might see writing software for terrorists (though they'd be opposed to writing software for terrorists, too).

It does make them stupid when they don't consider how much harm has been caused by people helping the government or law enforcement to implement things that cross ethical and moral lines.

Law enforcement agencies use contractors and buy software all the time...

Are you saying that's not a valid market to target?

Or do you have ideological objections to selling work and products for the purposes of enforcing laws you personally disagree with?

I personally (and I hope most of the people on this site) would take issue with building and selling products that had no legitimate use other than torture. But I have no problem selling software that could be used to gather information and profile suspected drug dealers or others breaking the established law of the land; even if I disagree with drug prohibition as a policy.

The ideology that you subscribe to is capitalism which says that markets and profits rule. Your ideology is in line with law enforcements. My objections are of course ideologically because I'm opposed to the ideology of capitalism.

You cannot even help them gather information and profile suspected drug dealers because that technology and that infrastructure will be abused and will be turned on everyone else. It already has been.

I disagree with drug prohibition but I'm more in disagreement with the future potential abuses of the products created for this purpose.

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