5 ms·

It's not intended to stop criminals. It's intended for surveillance and tracking of the population. Otherwise it would be a waste of time and money.

• fauigerzigerk 11y ago
  How is survaillance of the entire population not a waste of time and money if it's not ultimately intended to catch criminals?
  • CiPHPerCoder 11y ago
    Define "criminals" in the context of a panopticon.
    • fauigerzigerk 11y ago
      Why would the definition change in that context?
      • jobead 11y ago
        I think his point is that when you watch anyone long enough, they become criminals. So if you watch everyone, everyone becomes a criminal.
        • fauigerzigerk 11y ago
          Possibly, but that doesn't change the definition of "criminals".
          • wolfgke 11y ago
            It does: One is a criminal if the prosecution in a lawsuit can convince the judge that the accused is a criminal. Some evidence can only be collected in a panopticon which can make a difference in the trial. It would only make no difference if the result of the trial would be independent of the additional evidence that a surveillance state could in principle collect. But this would mean that the surveillance state is not necessary.
            • fauigerzigerk 11y ago
              Then the source of our disagreement is simply this: Is the definition of "criminal" (a) Someone who has committed a crime (b) Someone who was convicted of a crime he may or may not have committed I was using (a). If you are using (b) then I understand where you're coming from. But I think it's not a good idea to use (b) because that would make everyone who is the victim of a miscarriage of justice a criminal when in fact they are not.
              • elbear 11y ago
                Almost every person on this planet has committed a crime at some point. Sometimes we do it, because we believe it to be insignificant. Sometimes we are not aware that we are committing that crime. I watched an excellent speech of a law professor giving examples of people who broke the law without realising. Unfortunately, I don't remember how to find that video.
                • fauigerzigerk 11y ago
                  Absolutely, and I'm not a proponent of the surveillance state as some here seem to think. My point is that law makers define what a crime is. The effectiveness of law enforcement doesn't change that fact. It's not good to have laws on the statute book that wouldn't be there if only they could be enforced. So if the surveillance state highlights the fact that we're all criminals, what that should tell us is that criminal law is in urgent need of a root and branch review. The surveillance state is a very bad idea for many reasons. But saying that we reject the surveillance state because then laws could actually be enforced is a questionable argument. There are many better ones.
                  • CiPHPerCoder 11y ago
                    Start over from zero: We have these civil rights and no one, not even the government, may not impede on them. And then criminalize things that make sense to criminalize. Odds are, in a few hundred years, we'll end up right back where we started.
      • wolfgke 11y ago
        For example the case of the social scientist Andrej Holm (https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Andrej_Holm&oldid=150411384#Ermittlungsverfahren_wegen_Verdachts_der_Mitgliedschaft_in_einer_terroristischen_Vereinigung https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Andrej_Holm&oldid... - in German) who researched in the internet using some keywords ("Gentrification" and "Prekarisierung" (casualization)) that were also used by the terror group mg (militante gruppe ("militant group")) and thus got into the crossfire of the surveillance state.
        • fauigerzigerk 11y ago
          So someone was wrongly accused of a crime because the methods of catching criminals (that is the surveillance state) turned out to be flawed. I still don't see how that changes the definition of what "criminals" are.
          • wolfgke 11y ago
            If there weren't the surveillance state, he'd never be put into pretrial imprisonment (for which strong prior evidence that he is indeed a criminal is necessary). So thanks to the surveillance state he was handled as a criminal.
            • fauigerzigerk 11y ago
              Yes he was accused and then acquitted. That doesn't change the definition of "criminals". The surveillance state may change the likelihood of a miscarriage of justice. But in my view, the much more important problem is that the surveillance state makes people afraid of getting wrongly accused of a crime. They stop doing perfectly legal things because they might be difficult to explain. I have observed that in my own behavior and I know others who have become very defensive in their use of the internet.
  • chongli 11y ago
    It's not ultimately intended to catch criminals, it's ultimately intended to gather dirt on dissidents and rivals for sleazy purposes.
• rtpg 11y ago
  I think you might be overestimating how valuable mass surveillance is for any individual actor in the government, and perhaps the level of foresight necessary... and the amount of thought that goes into this. " We keep on getting stuck in investigations because of SIM cards not associated to a name!" " Well let's ban anonymous SIM cards. People should be alright handing over their name for a cell phone." "Alrighty then, sounds good" Things like this happen because nobody in the room mentions the drawbacks. This can mainly be a question of social status ("Why would people be afraid of the police? They help you!"). Also, some people's value systems are different...