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The problem is that domestic mass surveillance is not that effective at stopping these people. Everytime there is a terrorist attack or mass shooting it seems t

by knz 10y ago

The problem is that domestic mass surveillance is not that effective at stopping these people. Everytime there is a terrorist attack or mass shooting it seems that we get the same story of "they were known to the local police/FBI" or that their family had concerns. Spying on everyone is just increasing the size of the haystack and making it harder for someone to follow up on actual hard intelligence. Another alternative is to have limited surveillance that requires a judge to sign off on it after seeing a good reason to suspect someone. Personally I have no issue with that - it's a model that has worked for decades and strikes a balance between public safety and personal liberty. Terrorism and mass shootings are going to continue until we address the root causes and even then we will still have occasional incidents. The public need to have realistic expectations and stop with knee jerk reactions that result in security theatre like the TSA.

eponeponepon 10y ago
> Spying on everyone is just increasing the size of the > haystack and making it harder for someone to follow up > on actual hard intelligence. No no, you see, because big data. Probably also clouds. /s Seriously, I think this ship has sailed; we can only find new ways to operate under our new circumstances, rather than preventing them from coming about as we could have done up until maybe 15 years ago. The most charitable interpretation I can find for the nascent global surveillance state is that world governments are (quite reasonably, in my view) collectively anticipating great upheaval in the near to mid-term future, and recognise that they must do something to keep a hand on the rudder. I do not believe that a unilateral panopticon (i.e. "we are watching you, but you may not watch us") is the right response, and I dislike that it is being presented as an anti-terror/anti-piracy/anti-{localized-name($bad-people)} measure, rather than described honestly. What worries me enormously is that the nationalist right is also on the rise at the same time. If we are lucky, it may all lead to greater worldwide unity in the long term, but I am not hopeful that this will transpire within my lifetime.
- visarga 10y ago
  > If we are lucky, it may all lead to greater worldwide unity In order to reach that point, we need to protect diversity in the middle of all this integration that is happening with the internet. "Integration in differentiation", and "differentiation in integration", are necessary principles for a healthy society. Practically protecting diversity would mean protecting privacy, the right to express political views the right to be different. If we can't protect diversity we get to the regime of 1984. There is a profound biological reason for this concept - neurons in the brain are differentiated by being differently connected, and are integrated by virtue of said connections. So they are both diverse and integrated, and the result is conscious mind - a system that can handle both highly complex dynamism and balance. The theory of integrated information is one of the most respected theories about consciousness. We should strive to be more like the brain. Another practical point is that concentration of power is detrimental. It leads to a decrease of diversity. If we want to become a happier society we need to protect both integration and diversity. These two principles have many other social and technological applications.
  - eponeponepon 10y ago
    You're describing a fear of civilisation becoming "unconscious"? That's not a possibility that ever struck me before, so thanks, you've just fuelled my nightmares for months to come now :-s
- bogomipz 10y ago
  >" we can only find new ways to operate under our new circumstances, rather than preventing them from coming about as we could have done up until maybe 15 years ago." Could you elaborate on what you mean here?
  - eponeponepon 10y ago
    Succinctly, I mean that the only route forward now is VPNs, crypto, and educating the gen-pop properly. We are too far down this road to stop it without breaking society wholesale.
petra 10y ago
>> Everytime there is a terrorist attack or mass shooting it seems that we get the same story of "they were known to the local police/FBI" or that their family had concerns This isn't enough to judge the effectiveness of mass surveillance, because of course there would be misses - the question is how many - and of course we don't know. But there's a natural "experiment" recently happening: lone wolf terrorism , which unlike terrorism before it , don't require communicating and planning together with others , all activities that can be detected by surveillance(see john rob's blog for more details), and even it's marketing is imprevious to surveillance. And i get the general impression that this has led to a marked increase in terrorism , noticed strongly in Israel's latest lone wolf wave, for example[1] , and probably in france/Germany/US too. [1]Israel lone wolf terrorism has mostly been done using cold weapons, so it's harm has been greatly decreased, but without mass surveillance, it's pretty reasonable guess that a lot of it would have been much more deadly.

by knz 10y ago

eponeponepon 10y ago

> Spying on everyone is just increasing the size of the > haystack and making it harder for someone to follow up > on actual hard intelligence. No no, you see, because big data. Probably also clouds. /s Seriously, I think this ship has sailed; we can only find new ways to operate under our new circumstances, rather than preventing them from coming about as we could have done up until maybe 15 years ago. The most charitable interpretation I can find for the nascent global surveillance state is that world governments are (quite reasonably, in my view) collectively anticipating great upheaval in the near to mid-term future, and recognise that they must do something to keep a hand on the rudder. I do not believe that a unilateral panopticon (i.e. "we are watching you, but you may not watch us") is the right response, and I dislike that it is being presented as an anti-terror/anti-piracy/anti-{localized-name($bad-people)} measure, rather than described honestly. What worries me enormously is that the nationalist right is also on the rise at the same time. If we are lucky, it may all lead to greater worldwide unity in the long term, but I am not hopeful that this will transpire within my lifetime.

visarga 10y ago
> If we are lucky, it may all lead to greater worldwide unity In order to reach that point, we need to protect diversity in the middle of all this integration that is happening with the internet. "Integration in differentiation", and "differentiation in integration", are necessary principles for a healthy society. Practically protecting diversity would mean protecting privacy, the right to express political views the right to be different. If we can't protect diversity we get to the regime of 1984. There is a profound biological reason for this concept - neurons in the brain are differentiated by being differently connected, and are integrated by virtue of said connections. So they are both diverse and integrated, and the result is conscious mind - a system that can handle both highly complex dynamism and balance. The theory of integrated information is one of the most respected theories about consciousness. We should strive to be more like the brain. Another practical point is that concentration of power is detrimental. It leads to a decrease of diversity. If we want to become a happier society we need to protect both integration and diversity. These two principles have many other social and technological applications.
- eponeponepon 10y ago
  You're describing a fear of civilisation becoming "unconscious"? That's not a possibility that ever struck me before, so thanks, you've just fuelled my nightmares for months to come now :-s
bogomipz 10y ago
>" we can only find new ways to operate under our new circumstances, rather than preventing them from coming about as we could have done up until maybe 15 years ago." Could you elaborate on what you mean here?
- eponeponepon 10y ago
  Succinctly, I mean that the only route forward now is VPNs, crypto, and educating the gen-pop properly. We are too far down this road to stop it without breaking society wholesale.

petra 10y ago

>> Everytime there is a terrorist attack or mass shooting it seems that we get the same story of "they were known to the local police/FBI" or that their family had concerns This isn't enough to judge the effectiveness of mass surveillance, because of course there would be misses - the question is how many - and of course we don't know. But there's a natural "experiment" recently happening: lone wolf terrorism , which unlike terrorism before it , don't require communicating and planning together with others , all activities that can be detected by surveillance(see john rob's blog for more details), and even it's marketing is imprevious to surveillance. And i get the general impression that this has led to a marked increase in terrorism , noticed strongly in Israel's latest lone wolf wave, for example[1] , and probably in france/Germany/US too. [1]Israel lone wolf terrorism has mostly been done using cold weapons, so it's harm has been greatly decreased, but without mass surveillance, it's pretty reasonable guess that a lot of it would have been much more deadly.