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I'm all for targeting rapists and murders, but the negative reaction is when it targets everyone, just in case they're a rapist or a murderer or a dissident. Ev

I'm all for targeting rapists and murders, but the negative reaction is when it targets everyone, just in case they're a rapist or a murderer or a dissident. Everyone's a criminal if the police can look at you hard enough.

asdfasgasdgasdg 8y ago
The thing is that this system hasn't been used to "target everyone," at least not based on any reporting that I've seen. Yes, a lot of people are allowing Google to capture their location. And yes, law enforcement is able to correlate that with other evidence, like DNA evidence, to narrow down the list of possible suspects. But it hasn't been used to, for example, catch everyone who has been speeding in an area. Being able to find the small number of people in an area who were present when a crime was committed, and correlating that with other information to gain a high probability estimate of the true criminal, is the opposite of dystopian.
- caprese 8y ago
  I was pleased to see the discretion being used so far in the cases presented in this article. But thats only because the warrants werent sealed by the judge, the state law allowed for public knowledge, the detectives were willing to talk with media, and those available warrants happened to use discretion that is more agreeable so far. So lets not get this confused with something good. All these people know it is a questionable tool and that as soon as they or anyone else in the public sector uses this more broadly then it is going to mess up their ability to use the tool at all.
  - asdfasgasdgasdg 8y ago
    > So lets not get this confused with something good. If I understand your argument, you're saying that, yes, this tool has been used justly so far, but it's still not good, because those using it would have behaved unjustly if there were no consequences for just behavior? I don't really think this argument flies. There are so many other things that have this property and are widely considered to be good things.
    - caprese 8y ago
      In this context Bad = additional tool state uses to potentially circumvent established rights in an unexpected way, which may result in prior assumptions about established rights becoming obsolete in subsequent court rulings Good = things that dont do that Yes, the consequences are a check on the use of this tool.

asdfasgasdgasdg 8y ago

The thing is that this system hasn't been used to "target everyone," at least not based on any reporting that I've seen. Yes, a lot of people are allowing Google to capture their location. And yes, law enforcement is able to correlate that with other evidence, like DNA evidence, to narrow down the list of possible suspects. But it hasn't been used to, for example, catch everyone who has been speeding in an area. Being able to find the small number of people in an area who were present when a crime was committed, and correlating that with other information to gain a high probability estimate of the true criminal, is the opposite of dystopian.

caprese 8y ago
I was pleased to see the discretion being used so far in the cases presented in this article. But thats only because the warrants werent sealed by the judge, the state law allowed for public knowledge, the detectives were willing to talk with media, and those available warrants happened to use discretion that is more agreeable so far. So lets not get this confused with something good. All these people know it is a questionable tool and that as soon as they or anyone else in the public sector uses this more broadly then it is going to mess up their ability to use the tool at all.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 8y ago
  > So lets not get this confused with something good. If I understand your argument, you're saying that, yes, this tool has been used justly so far, but it's still not good, because those using it would have behaved unjustly if there were no consequences for just behavior? I don't really think this argument flies. There are so many other things that have this property and are widely considered to be good things.
  - caprese 8y ago
    In this context Bad = additional tool state uses to potentially circumvent established rights in an unexpected way, which may result in prior assumptions about established rights becoming obsolete in subsequent court rulings Good = things that dont do that Yes, the consequences are a check on the use of this tool.