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Why wouldn't they? The publicly exposed data is publicly exposed. Is there any reasonable sense to privacy at that point? The more interesting question is ho

by mey 8y ago

Why wouldn't they? The publicly exposed data is publicly exposed. Is there any reasonable sense to privacy at that point? The more interesting question is how much data do they get that is "private" without a warrant. The following are a few examples of how the private data may be being gathered by the FBI, under existing legal structures. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/12/us/politics/nsa-gets-more-latitude-to-share-intercepted-communications.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/12/us/politics/nsa-gets-more... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security_letter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security_letter There is also the possibility of voluntary cooperation by corporations, or even corporations selling commercial access to their data (Facebook, Cellular Carriers).

glitcher 8y ago
So if they collect and store all this data indefinitely, and in aggregate it could easily be abused to profile innocent citizens for all manner of reasons, can you honestly say that you trust all future government officials to never abuse this data?
- mey 8y ago
  Wouldn't be the first time the FBI abused its authority. https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/federal-bureau-investigation-fbi https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/federal-bure... I expect the data will be abused. How could it not? I am not defending it. Instead stating it is their job.
  - yayana 8y ago
    It must be nice to have an employer who is OK with your neither confirming nor denying your job responsibilities.
princeofwands 8y ago
> Is there any reasonable sense to privacy at that point? Yes there is. This data is mined without reasonable suspicion, and shared with all parties, including contractors (commercial companies). Surveillance without suspicion, storing such data indefinately, is chilling to free speech, opposed to protections against unreasonable searches, makes it more difficult to associate and practice one's religion. People with no intention to commit crimes are in jail or have a record, because they decided to joke among friends, and had just a bit too big exposure, and just too little context. In the Netherlands you may get a house visit from the police if you tweet critical of the town mayor or tweet about protests (of course, they label it "threats" and "inciting civil unrest")
- closeparen 8y ago
  Does reading, saving, and sharing newspaper articles violate the privacy of the journalists who write them? Public content is public.
  - princeofwands 8y ago
    A telling association fallacy. Unlike Zuck, I pose that Privacy is not dead. It starts to smell funny though. Of course, I am a realist: Police Officers are using Google Earth to look in the walled gardens of suspicious civilians. It is public data. So if you are already resigning to big data surveillance without reasonable suspicion, then it will only take a few decades before we all move in public under the watchful gaze of a gazillion drones. The erosion has already started with these highly funded real-name real-face social networks. No fun being the target of surveillance without suspicion, because it increases the chance of bad things happening to you. Nearly everyone breaks the law at times: drive 3 km/h too fast to catch the green light, consume illegal drugs, feed the homeless, download from a torrent, create street art, take home a pen from work, hack a website. And the suspicion may come from following "Edward Snowden" on Twitter, or posting on HackerNews about malware, or being the Facebook nephew/schoolmate of a drug dealing suspect, or walking past a smart billboard in a Che Guevara t-shirt. The Chinese Social Credit system pales in comparison to a society that is too afraid to use its free speech, too afraid to associate with like-minded people, and too afraid to participate in a political movement that is ahead of its time (such as the Civil Rights Movement), because an AI with the power of over 9000 cops is watching your every move outside of the bedroom (if curtains closed. and public internet cut off. and not transmitting "public is public" heat waves). Right now, the police is tasking commercial companies to map Facebook friend connections into networks and passes this on to social workers, so they can confront particular youth if they start hanging out with non-motivated teenagers who hang on the street all day. All is meant well, but this gives me the creeps. We did not have to deal with this in the 90s, but we also hung out on the street or, god forbid, on a skateboard. Let's keep Privacy alive for a few more years, legal and regulations move slowly. Read up on FBI vs. civil rights movement 50 years ago, and ask yourself, has technology or the Justice system of the US moved faster? "Public content is public" combined with a tremendous rise in AI technology seems like a recipe for a disasterous dystopia. Or is that the plot of Demolition Man?

by mey 8y ago

glitcher 8y ago

So if they collect and store all this data indefinitely, and in aggregate it could easily be abused to profile innocent citizens for all manner of reasons, can you honestly say that you trust all future government officials to never abuse this data?

mey 8y ago
Wouldn't be the first time the FBI abused its authority. https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/federal-bureau-investigation-fbi https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/federal-bure... I expect the data will be abused. How could it not? I am not defending it. Instead stating it is their job.
- yayana 8y ago
  It must be nice to have an employer who is OK with your neither confirming nor denying your job responsibilities.

princeofwands 8y ago

> Is there any reasonable sense to privacy at that point? Yes there is. This data is mined without reasonable suspicion, and shared with all parties, including contractors (commercial companies). Surveillance without suspicion, storing such data indefinately, is chilling to free speech, opposed to protections against unreasonable searches, makes it more difficult to associate and practice one's religion. People with no intention to commit crimes are in jail or have a record, because they decided to joke among friends, and had just a bit too big exposure, and just too little context. In the Netherlands you may get a house visit from the police if you tweet critical of the town mayor or tweet about protests (of course, they label it "threats" and "inciting civil unrest")

closeparen 8y ago
Does reading, saving, and sharing newspaper articles violate the privacy of the journalists who write them? Public content is public.
- princeofwands 8y ago
  A telling association fallacy. Unlike Zuck, I pose that Privacy is not dead. It starts to smell funny though. Of course, I am a realist: Police Officers are using Google Earth to look in the walled gardens of suspicious civilians. It is public data. So if you are already resigning to big data surveillance without reasonable suspicion, then it will only take a few decades before we all move in public under the watchful gaze of a gazillion drones. The erosion has already started with these highly funded real-name real-face social networks. No fun being the target of surveillance without suspicion, because it increases the chance of bad things happening to you. Nearly everyone breaks the law at times: drive 3 km/h too fast to catch the green light, consume illegal drugs, feed the homeless, download from a torrent, create street art, take home a pen from work, hack a website. And the suspicion may come from following "Edward Snowden" on Twitter, or posting on HackerNews about malware, or being the Facebook nephew/schoolmate of a drug dealing suspect, or walking past a smart billboard in a Che Guevara t-shirt. The Chinese Social Credit system pales in comparison to a society that is too afraid to use its free speech, too afraid to associate with like-minded people, and too afraid to participate in a political movement that is ahead of its time (such as the Civil Rights Movement), because an AI with the power of over 9000 cops is watching your every move outside of the bedroom (if curtains closed. and public internet cut off. and not transmitting "public is public" heat waves). Right now, the police is tasking commercial companies to map Facebook friend connections into networks and passes this on to social workers, so they can confront particular youth if they start hanging out with non-motivated teenagers who hang on the street all day. All is meant well, but this gives me the creeps. We did not have to deal with this in the 90s, but we also hung out on the street or, god forbid, on a skateboard. Let's keep Privacy alive for a few more years, legal and regulations move slowly. Read up on FBI vs. civil rights movement 50 years ago, and ask yourself, has technology or the Justice system of the US moved faster? "Public content is public" combined with a tremendous rise in AI technology seems like a recipe for a disasterous dystopia. Or is that the plot of Demolition Man?