> We really have a problem with targeted surveillance of specific communities like visitors of a specific mosque?
Yes? Have you opened a history textbook, like ever?
Yes? Have you opened a history textbook, like ever?
Either way, surveillance is just a symptom of deeper political failures.
I'd say, limited surveillance is trying to unify tolerance and openness while not putting all people of one belief/religion for example in the same category.
We surveil everyone all the time then?
That's factual. For feds at least - it likely is for local police too but we don't have numbers to evaluate.
If you talk about women or Muslims, for example, they are objects of examination - what are they like? what do they do? They aren't participants, mostly; you don't have a lot of women and Muslims posting about it - think about it: if we want to know about Islam, why don't we listen to Muslims, who would actually know from a lifetime of direct experience? What we see is mostly from the perspective of someone looking at Muslims - they are on the outside. A predictable result of the ignorance is stereotypes and prejudice. And even prejudiced and hateful ideas are treated as 'curiosity' - the curiosity of (mostly) white males. Nobody is curious about racism or sexism, for example.
My sense is that what I see on HN, maybe unconciously, is moderated to accomodate the insiders.
Think hard on that one, it says a lot about what kind of person you are, what your morals and personally held values are.
People share beliefs, they join a movement, and they do that mostly via small organizations like religious groups, political parties, friendship circles, internet forums and so on.
1) People are not borgs or hive mind enjoined entities. Yes, they may share beliefs or have friendship circles etc. but it’s irresponsible and reaching to believe that everyone thinks or will act the same simply by virtue of being in the same mosque or temple or church etc.
2) So because people are not borgs, there is a lot of factionalization, even in the same religious group, political party, Internet forum.
3) Even still, unless someone is actively going out to do something for some organization, you cannot penalize them for thought crimes by their association. Why? Because doing so usually leads to spread of authoritarian control.
This is a rough response to your comment because people already know these things on some level. I think some people willfully choose to be stupid because of their biases.
I am strongly opposed to surveillance in general and happy that they unearthed this as a violation, but at some point people will inevitably fall into buckets when an investigation is happening. There is nothing new about this.
A tip comes in about someone who frequents church X organizing a terrorist attack. Do you do a background check on church goers, look for suspicious activity, or sit back and twiddle your thumbs because this is “unfair targeting”?
Several attacks have actually happened in NL over the past decades, and recently scary connections with extremist groups found. It’s not hypothetical.
Obviously no one will agree that the situation you described merits inaction. Preemptive surveillance “in case there is a terrorist” is a human rights violation because no one should be deprived of their privacy. Privacy is fundamental to psychological well being, creativity and self-determination.
Moreover, what’s to stop ideological enemies of one faction from sending false tips? Or to prevent progressive political action. For example, the FBI certainly considered civil rights activists as terrorists at one point (some still do, in different contexts). What if someone creates false flag terrorists to target a whole race? What if someone radicalizes someone by targeted harassment and stalking, and then blames their religion or culture if the target does something violent?
Yes, violence is scary and psychopaths doubly so. The response to violence and psychopaths is not to sacrifice human rights. We need to understand people and create more social cohesion. I think this also means understanding and identifying psychopathic and anti-social behaviors.
I don’t think killing people or locking them away from society is ever the answer because we will never run short of people to kill or lock away. We need less barbaric ways to deal with people, while also understanding the need for justice and revenge that being subject to such violence can create. The solution is not brute force surveillance. All this does is create resentment and political strife, and might lead to genocide.
I'm thinking about extremists and terrorists. So you're against surveillance of a mosque that is known to interact on the regular with terrorists? Or a nazi pub where attacks on the state are planned?