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Well, police cars are driving around all the time. Tireless electronic eyes look out of the vehicle for plates, and records of every single one are made: timest

by b6 9y ago

Well, police cars are driving around all the time. Tireless electronic eyes look out of the vehicle for plates, and records of every single one are made: timestamp, location, etc. The vast majority of the data collected is on people who are not suspected of any crime. But the data can be misused in innumerable ways. It would be easy to pick out patterns and then flag deviations, like the patterns show that this guy works from 8-5, but for some reason, his car was at a hotel from 1-3. On and on. There are lots of reasons to not want this kind of omniscient eye on us. My favorite is that a lot of laws are wrong, and people are violating the laws righteously, and they will be vindicated by public opinion someday, but it's going to take time for everyone to catch up. We don't want perfect police. There needs to be some slop so that we can see where the laws are wrong.

Fnoord 9y ago
The problem you describe is its part of mass surveillance, not targeted surveillance. I feel, even though we're not discussing text, the spirit of this quote is appropriate to mass surveillance post processing: "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him." --Cardinal Richelieu. Discussion about authenticity e.g. here [1] [1] https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/23785/what-did-richelieu-mean-by-his-six-lines-quote https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/23785/what-did-r...
jaclaz 9y ago
>Well, police cars are driving around all the time. Tireless electronic eyes look out of the vehicle for plates, and records of every single one are made: timestamp, location, etc. The vast majority of the data collected is on people who are not suspected of any crime. But the data can be misused in innumerable ways. And - as a side note - whenever there is information stored (and poorly protected, i.e. "always") there is a good chance it will go in the hands of someone that is not the police or government. There is the known case of the Oakland Police ALPR, which data was initially available through public record request: http://records.oaklandnet.com/request/8562 http://records.oaklandnet.com/request/8562 Now the data is not "public record" anymore, but I wouldn't be surprised if - one way or the other - data harvesting companies would be able to get a copy.

by b6 9y ago

Fnoord 9y ago

The problem you describe is its part of mass surveillance, not targeted surveillance. I feel, even though we're not discussing text, the spirit of this quote is appropriate to mass surveillance post processing: "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him." --Cardinal Richelieu. Discussion about authenticity e.g. here [1] [1] https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/23785/what-did-richelieu-mean-by-his-six-lines-quote https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/23785/what-did-r...

jaclaz 9y ago

>Well, police cars are driving around all the time. Tireless electronic eyes look out of the vehicle for plates, and records of every single one are made: timestamp, location, etc. The vast majority of the data collected is on people who are not suspected of any crime. But the data can be misused in innumerable ways. And - as a side note - whenever there is information stored (and poorly protected, i.e. "always") there is a good chance it will go in the hands of someone that is not the police or government. There is the known case of the Oakland Police ALPR, which data was initially available through public record request: http://records.oaklandnet.com/request/8562 http://records.oaklandnet.com/request/8562 Now the data is not "public record" anymore, but I wouldn't be surprised if - one way or the other - data harvesting companies would be able to get a copy.