5 ms·

>Is it a bad thing though? Imagine that everything on all streets is recorded, and when an incident happens a cop goes to the judge and asks for a warrant to vi

by clubm8 8y ago

>Is it a bad thing though? Imagine that everything on all streets is recorded, and when an incident happens a cop goes to the judge and asks for a warrant to view the footage for "Pike St, between 1st and 2nd ave, between 13:00 and 13:35, on Jan 3rd 2019". The laws were written assuming that they wouldn't be perfectly enforced. We'd never have consented to many of them if we knew they'd be 100% enforced. Increasing surveillance is a back-door in democracy that grants the government new powers w/o going through the legislature.

DenisM 8y ago
Hence my proposal to rewrite the law - we grant the police their dragnet video recording, in return they must obtain a warrant or show probable cause to get the footage. The law can raise the bar for obtaining a warrant to an arbitrarily high level to cover minor daily infractions. For example, today police aren't allowed to stop a person for driving without a seatbelt, unless a more serious crime is being committed at the same time.
- ctrl_freak 8y ago
  I'm surprised you place so much trust in our system of laws. With that proposal, we'd be one small step away (e.g. terrorist attack, etc.) from something truly Orwellian. Look what happened with 9/11 and see how fast our civil liberties can go down the drain.
  - behringer 8y ago
    The government would never use the system to help you either. They're utterly incompetent. They would only use this to imprison you.
  - DenisM 8y ago
    Machine guns and prison camps are a lot more damaging to personal liberties and have more significant potential for abuse by government, and yet we're managing just fine for the last 100 years, thanks to our system of laws.
- sathackr 8y ago
  Pre-arrest probable cause in the current judicial system is a joke. Search warrant requests rarely get denied, often the approving Judge isn't even capable of understanding the probable cause argument in the warrant (particularly in cases involving technology) They rely solely on the sworn statement of the police office 'your affiant' and a rubber-stamp from the local State Attorney's office. There is little incentive for the judge to deny the warrant, and, could face significant backlash if they do deny a warrant that may have enabled law enforcement to stop something from happening. LEO would simply draft a warrant 'Your affiant has been in law enforcement for 25 years and has taken this training class and that training class and has this certification. Your affiant knows from his training and experience that a crime happened or likely happened at this date and time. Your affiant requests all video for the time period of 7 days from cameras 1472 - 1499 which cover a 2000ft section of Rodeo Dr.' The warrant gets rubber-stamp approved, and, even if they don't find what they were looking for, they can single out anything of which the 'incriminating nature is readily apparent' that they observe, and go after that. And that 'incriminating nature is readily apparent' bar is pretty low and generally subjective based on the officer, or 'a reasonable person'. How well has this 'dragnet surveillance' worked out in the FISA court? A system like this would be ripe for abuse. And what about securing it? So far our government has a pretty crappy track record for securing even info that is classified and top secret. How secure would this dragnet video surveillance be?
godelski 8y ago
> Increasing surveillance is a back-door in democracy that grants the government new powers w/o going through the legislature. I think a lot of people forget what this means. It isn't just domestic influence. It is foreign influence too. I'm sure (close to) everyone on HN realizes there is nothing that isn't hackable. Domestic influence also includes malicious people, not just governments. You're telling me that this system isn't going to be exploited? That stalkers aren't going to use it? That syndicates aren't going to use it to track adversaries? You're going to have a hard time convincing me that these perform more good than bad. That's even without the overhead for abuse by people that have legitimate access to these streams. I don't like talking about our own government abusing its powers. Though it has, people seem to be complacent with this. But there is also just as serious of a threat from foreign powers and domestic criminals. Why isn't this also talked about?
- oldandtired 8y ago
  After having talked to the office of my local federal representative this morning about another matter, the conversation got around to talking about surveillance, encryption and privacy. The attitude portrayed was ignorance of foreign government, foreign company or criminal organisation being able to use such systems for their purposes against the normal citizens of the country. It almost seems like that since it is not discussed, it is not important and as such it is not relevant enough to be discussed. Sort of Catch 22, I suppose.
  - godelski 8y ago
    > It almost seems like that since it is not discussed, it is not important and as such it is not relevant enough to be discussed. Sort of Catch 22, I suppose. I just don't think they think about it. At least from my experience talking to people in different agencies. There job is to catch people. So encryption is a barrier to them in that respect, so that's how they frame it. But they don't connect all the benefits that they themselves get from it because it isn't obvious. Most people don't realize when things are encrypted because a lot of times it is the norm. Similarly I think people don't think about privacy in general because how it is framed. We are coming from a world where privacy was the norm. It is all about how the discussion is framed. We constantly talk about how encryption is a hindrance to police. About how more surveillance can help us catch criminals. And all this is true! But few people talk about the drawbacks (except specifically government overreach, but we're in a country where people trust the government). But you can't make informed decisions that way. You need to know both sides. Benefits AND detriments.
scarejunba 8y ago
Good. Imperfect enforcement amplifies law enforcement biases. All must be equal under the law.
freyir 8y ago
> We'd never have consented to many of them if we knew they'd be 100% enforced. Like what? Times change with technology, whether we like it or not. Thankfully, laws can adapt too.

by clubm8 8y ago

DenisM 8y ago

Hence my proposal to rewrite the law - we grant the police their dragnet video recording, in return they must obtain a warrant or show probable cause to get the footage. The law can raise the bar for obtaining a warrant to an arbitrarily high level to cover minor daily infractions. For example, today police aren't allowed to stop a person for driving without a seatbelt, unless a more serious crime is being committed at the same time.

ctrl_freak 8y ago
I'm surprised you place so much trust in our system of laws. With that proposal, we'd be one small step away (e.g. terrorist attack, etc.) from something truly Orwellian. Look what happened with 9/11 and see how fast our civil liberties can go down the drain.
- behringer 8y ago
  The government would never use the system to help you either. They're utterly incompetent. They would only use this to imprison you.
- DenisM 8y ago
  Machine guns and prison camps are a lot more damaging to personal liberties and have more significant potential for abuse by government, and yet we're managing just fine for the last 100 years, thanks to our system of laws.
sathackr 8y ago
Pre-arrest probable cause in the current judicial system is a joke. Search warrant requests rarely get denied, often the approving Judge isn't even capable of understanding the probable cause argument in the warrant (particularly in cases involving technology) They rely solely on the sworn statement of the police office 'your affiant' and a rubber-stamp from the local State Attorney's office. There is little incentive for the judge to deny the warrant, and, could face significant backlash if they do deny a warrant that may have enabled law enforcement to stop something from happening. LEO would simply draft a warrant 'Your affiant has been in law enforcement for 25 years and has taken this training class and that training class and has this certification. Your affiant knows from his training and experience that a crime happened or likely happened at this date and time. Your affiant requests all video for the time period of 7 days from cameras 1472 - 1499 which cover a 2000ft section of Rodeo Dr.' The warrant gets rubber-stamp approved, and, even if they don't find what they were looking for, they can single out anything of which the 'incriminating nature is readily apparent' that they observe, and go after that. And that 'incriminating nature is readily apparent' bar is pretty low and generally subjective based on the officer, or 'a reasonable person'. How well has this 'dragnet surveillance' worked out in the FISA court? A system like this would be ripe for abuse. And what about securing it? So far our government has a pretty crappy track record for securing even info that is classified and top secret. How secure would this dragnet video surveillance be?

godelski 8y ago

> Increasing surveillance is a back-door in democracy that grants the government new powers w/o going through the legislature. I think a lot of people forget what this means. It isn't just domestic influence. It is foreign influence too. I'm sure (close to) everyone on HN realizes there is nothing that isn't hackable. Domestic influence also includes malicious people, not just governments. You're telling me that this system isn't going to be exploited? That stalkers aren't going to use it? That syndicates aren't going to use it to track adversaries? You're going to have a hard time convincing me that these perform more good than bad. That's even without the overhead for abuse by people that have legitimate access to these streams. I don't like talking about our own government abusing its powers. Though it has, people seem to be complacent with this. But there is also just as serious of a threat from foreign powers and domestic criminals. Why isn't this also talked about?

oldandtired 8y ago
After having talked to the office of my local federal representative this morning about another matter, the conversation got around to talking about surveillance, encryption and privacy. The attitude portrayed was ignorance of foreign government, foreign company or criminal organisation being able to use such systems for their purposes against the normal citizens of the country. It almost seems like that since it is not discussed, it is not important and as such it is not relevant enough to be discussed. Sort of Catch 22, I suppose.
- godelski 8y ago
  > It almost seems like that since it is not discussed, it is not important and as such it is not relevant enough to be discussed. Sort of Catch 22, I suppose. I just don't think they think about it. At least from my experience talking to people in different agencies. There job is to catch people. So encryption is a barrier to them in that respect, so that's how they frame it. But they don't connect all the benefits that they themselves get from it because it isn't obvious. Most people don't realize when things are encrypted because a lot of times it is the norm. Similarly I think people don't think about privacy in general because how it is framed. We are coming from a world where privacy was the norm. It is all about how the discussion is framed. We constantly talk about how encryption is a hindrance to police. About how more surveillance can help us catch criminals. And all this is true! But few people talk about the drawbacks (except specifically government overreach, but we're in a country where people trust the government). But you can't make informed decisions that way. You need to know both sides. Benefits AND detriments.

scarejunba 8y ago

Good. Imperfect enforcement amplifies law enforcement biases. All must be equal under the law.

freyir 8y ago

> We'd never have consented to many of them if we knew they'd be 100% enforced. Like what? Times change with technology, whether we like it or not. Thankfully, laws can adapt too.