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> The new balloons promise a cheap surveillance platform that could follow multiple cars and boats for extended periods. And because winds often travel in diffe

• im3w1l 7y ago
  > government, law enforcement The thing is when it gets cheap enough, other players start enter the game too. Companies. Criminal gangs. Or even private individuals. A situation of "if surveillance is outlawed, only outlaws will have surveillance" should be taken into account.
  • mgamache 7y ago
    Not really. The FAA might have something to say about what floats around the sky. At least in the USA.
    • anigbrowl 7y ago
      I think it's naive to expect a showdown between the FAA and the Pentagon, doubly so one where the FAA wins.
      • stordoff 7y ago
        But they will likely step in for companies and criminal gangs. This limits to the Government.
      • hueving 7y ago
        You missed the point. The FAA will allow government surveillance but not criminal orgs.
        • anigbrowl 7y ago
          The GP talked about people entering the surveillance game in general, not necessarily operating their own blimps. Smaller outfits will find ways to game the existing rules and add surveillance capability thereto.
          • mgamache 7y ago
            the cameras are all made by Huawei, so they probably get a live feed anyway :)
            • anigbrowl 7y ago
              Ha, shades of The Thing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(listening_device) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(listening_device)
      • ptero 7y ago
        FAA wields enormous (usually dictatorial) powers in things that refer to safe flight and will easily trump Pentagon there. It would not lift a finger on privacy, but will likely enforce that all such balloons carry transponders. This is not a consolation here, but just a note that in its fiefdom FAA will win.
  • WarOnPrivacy 7y ago
    >The thing is when it gets cheap enough, other players start enter the game too. Companies. Criminal gangs. >Or even private individuals. This last is the worthwhile part. The problem isn't surveillance, it's disproportional surveillance. That is, people in power can only control the public while they retain a monopoly on power. Since bulk surveillance is coming, the best outcome is equal surveillance and equal access. Postscript: Privacy laws tend to lock you and I away from data, not powerful people who ruin lives.
    • wool_gather 7y ago
      Anybody interested in this train of thought should check out David Brin's The Transparent Society, in which he makes the same argument. I haven't re-read it in a while; it may be outdated technically, but I think that the philosophical thrust will still be applicable.
• bob7834 7y ago
  I’ve maintained for a long time that the only reason we have a “war on terror” is that the ability of the “war on drugs” to strip us of our civil liberties had mostly run its course by 2001. These are the political issues I care most about. I really hoped Obama would curtail the surveillance state. For 8 years I thought “soon, he will try to rollback the patriot act.” That never happened. Instead, we got assisinated citizens. It was just more of the same power mongering bullshit. By the time his presidency ended, I had lumped all politicians, nay, public officials into the same cauldron of corrupt blight. In my eyes, Trump, Obama and Bush are the same. When will a statesman/women/person have the metaphorical balls to put an end to this madness? Law enforcement (and Hollywood [1]) can go fuck itself. I would rather fear a criminal/terrorist/crack pipe than my own putative government. I’m white. I can’t even imagine how minorities feel about these incessant overreaches. [1] For some “bizarre” reason, Hollywood leans strongly toward lionizing rogue cops/gestapo agents who trample civil rights.
  • lonelappde 7y ago
    > Hollywood leans strongly toward lionizing rogue cops/gestapo agents who trample civil rights. Hollywood, like Legislatures, are giving the majority of the public what they want.
    • bob7834 7y ago
      Given that Hollywood profits are at a two decade low[1], it’s not clear that’s true. [1]https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/01/why-hollywood-as-we-know-it-is-already-over https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/01/why-hollywood-as-we-...
      • sprafa 7y ago
        They’re low because of television. Hollywood is a cred game. The actual money since the 1950s has been on television. In fact Hollywood has never been as profitable, inflation adjusted, as it was before the commodification of television sets. Source: I study history of film. To think of Hollywood in the 20s, 30s and 40s - think of Silicon Valley. Entire cities were made in huge lots behind LA studios. Nobody does that anymore. Gone with the wind, inflation adjusted, is still one of the most expensive and profitable movies ever made. And yes, trust me - as far as they know (and a lot of things have been tried) Hollywood makes what it makes because it sells. It’s an industry like any other. Instead of cars they sell movies.
• mc32 7y ago
  This is reminiscent of some technology and technique learned and developed for operations in Iraq to go after IED planters. Basically once an event is alerted (ex truck stolen; someone abducted, etc) they backtrack or fwdtrack movements and see where perps came from or went to.
  • throwawaycanada 7y ago
    Now imagine what happens when they can look at a city, or the whole country, or world, and select one individual and backtrack their entire lives. With audio, recorded from all the devices that surround us.
    • jlawson 7y ago
      If you're one of a handful of megacorps collecting phone location data, contact data, purchase data, etc, this seems like it would already be trivial. They don't need a camera physically looking at you (and they often have those too).
• t-a4550 7y ago
  > “Today it's the war on drugs and terror. Tomorrow it's something else.” > “This train has one destination, and it's not even clear if there will be any stops along the way. To understand where we're headed, try reading the Bill of Rights with the assumption that your government knows everything there is to know about you, and where those who attempt to reveal the extent of these capabilities are imprisoned or executed.” Devil’s advocate here. Who’s to say they won’t use it strictly to deter drug trafficking and terrorism? Couldn’t they take steps to be transparent about what data is collected, and where it goes? The point is, discussions on governmental surveillance usually jump to the conclusion that society is becoming like George Orwell’s 1984. Could someone explain why these surveillance balloons are bad news for ordinary citizens without using the slippery slope fallacy?
  • njharman 7y ago
    > Who’s to say they won’t use it strictly Them. Laws passed for one reason have already routinely been applied more broadly, data collected for national security has been passed to domestic law enforcement under parallel construction. We don’t have to worry if government will abuse its power, we know they are doing it now.
    • tmpa246 7y ago
      > Laws passed for one reason have already routinely been applied more broadly, data collected for national security has been passed to domestic law enforcement under parallel construction. For my own research, could you provide examples of this?
  • deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  • whatshisface 7y ago
    Can anyone really justify why dictators are bad without resorting to "and they do something bad?" I mean, you couldn't even explain to me why you wouldn't want me as a cosigner on your bank account without resorting to something like, "and then whatshisface does something bad." I think it's reasonable to believe in a slippery slope between "gun is pointed" and "gun is fired." I mean, just to play devil's advocate, you could make me a cosigner and I could help you manage your finances. You can't prove that dictatorial powers won't be used to perfectly simulate democracy, after all absolute power means the power to hold elections. Likewise, I can't prove that after the surveillance system is completed the government won't put black paper over all their computer screens and never look at anything. But, somehow, that doesn't really change my outlook.
• taurath 7y ago
  We need a new deal here. If everyone with power is allowed to just follow their incentives, we end up with an awful place for everyone. What is the contract between people, government and corporations that we can make that allows for the freedom in society that we value? It seems like both the corps and gov are teaming up against team people here.
  • jgtrosh 7y ago
    In France we have a contract: if people are unhappy they rise against. If there's no risk of revolting, the fox is fearless in the chicken hen.
    • Tharkun 7y ago
      I've heard something similar said about the US, as a sort of justification for their right to bear arms...the government should apparently fear its people, and its people should be armed and able to overthrow said government. I wish you the best of luck with that, in an age of mass surveillance, armed-to-the-teeth governments and unparallelled propaganda machines.
    • alex_duf 7y ago
      As a french person I don't see that going very well or being very effective. Now our police force (CRS) are just military and dress like robocop for any confrontation. People get hurt, the news outlets take the government side and the problems stays the same.
      • bamboozled 7y ago
        This is why many Americans won’t give their guns away. Imagine (not saying it would be a good outcome), but what Hong Kong would be like right now if all citizens hard arms? Well maybe the whole thing wouldn’t have even started. But wow, it would be a very different scene. Instead it’s more a case of if the military wants to walk in and shutdown the place, it’s going to be a lot easier. Not entirely a gun rights advocate at all, but I can see some people’s motives.
• metta2uall 7y ago
  I'd like to raise that: - If a future administration ever has the political power to implement totalitarianism, we're stuffed. The lack of an existing mass surveillance system will not stop them as they will build one. - Most people's political leanings are already very easy to detect due to social media, social networks, financial donations, etc. So balloons don't seem to make it much worse. - We can expect severe security threats in the future as WMDs become cheaper, more accessible and more powerful.. The police are not magicians - they need effective tools..
• skummetmaelk 7y ago
  Just imagine the East German STASI with todays technology.
  • davesmith1983 7y ago
    Go to China? You don't have to imagine. Well the UK isn't much better now.
    • greglindahl 7y ago
      The UK has put millions of its citizens in prison because of their religion?
      • davesmith1983 7y ago
        The article is about surveillance, the STASI were known for their insane levels of surveillance. The last time I checked there was a huge number of security cameras in the UK, maybe more than any other country. Also the UK has put people in prison for the nebulous crime of "hate speech". There are seven hate speech convictions per day, though I suspect most of these are fines and a criminal record. So the UK is going down the same road as China.
        • DanBC 7y ago
          > Also the UK has put people in prison for the nebulous crime of "hate speech". Almost all these examples usually given involve campaigns of harassment. And there's nothing nebulous about it: the boundaries are clear and simple.
          • davesmith1983 7y ago
            No not at all. The Chelsea Russell case 17 year old girl on facebook posted rap lyrics, we also have the 'Count Dankula' case which the Scottish court decided it was "Nazi Recruitment" ignoring the context where he clearly said "I am using this to annoy my girlfriend" at the start of the video. I believe there is also a case where some Grime rappers were charged with hate speech for their songs ... this would be the equivalent of locking NWA up for the Straight Outta Compton album. So no it isn't clear at all.
• Joeri 7y ago
  The novelty here is a further reduction in cost by mounting it on balloons, but gorgon stare platforms for total surveillance have been rolled out in cities in the U.S. for several years now with plane-mounted camera arrays. Baltimore’s PD deployed it in secret in 2016 with money from a private donor without even informing the mayor. The cost is rapidly falling to the point of inevitability for government actors and possibility for private players. Amazon balloons could track your physical shopping behavior to better target you with ads. Criminals could observe people and car movements in entire neighborhoods to better target burglaries and carjackings. The genie is pretty much out of the bottle.
  • soulofmischief 7y ago
    > Criminals could observe people and car movements in entire neighborhoods to better target burglaries and carjackings. The genie is pretty much out of the bottle. It can't be understated how much impact this, and drones, will have on home invasion crimes. And they will have surveillance ops on standby to help them successfully navigate out of police chases when the need arises.
    • mtgx 7y ago
      And then when people will inevitably start wanting better home security (I'm thinking armored doors and such, not hackable "smart" locks) as a consequence of this, the government will start whining about not being able to break into people's homes as easily when they look for someone.
    • Youcandothis 7y ago
      But cops could also observe criminals, so that probably evens out.
      • bilbo0s 7y ago
        Well, for everyone but the homeowner. :(
        • 7y ago
• tandem_bike 7y ago
  >"Cost has protected citizens of the world's liberal democracies from sliding into totalitarianism for a long time. Now the brakes are off. Surveillance technology costs are plunging across at the board and capabilities are skyrocketing." That is false. The collective political will and desire to maintain Democratic institutions, not some prohibitive cost of surveillance capabilities, is what has saved us from totalitarianism. You are putting the cart before the horse. Totalitarian states establish or use surveillance capabilities to maintain their own power, but many liberal democracies today have more expansive and effective surveillance than the Nazis or the Soviets could have come up with in even their wildest fever dreams.
  • vinceguidry 7y ago
    One thing I recall reading about actual totalitarian police states is that, sure, there's a cost imposed by the existence of the state itself, but that the lion's share of the problems caused by the system were due to bad actors, of which there were legion, but all of them had top-down supervision, meaning they couldn't just run around causing problems, the integrity of the system had to be preserved. The people had no power, but the actual people with power had an interest in maintaining order. Things mostly sucked, but at least the 'trains ran on time', i.e. people could learn to understand and operate within the system. Rule of law and liberal democracy ultimately means that the bad actors in society have bottom-up supervision to go along with the top-down. Bad actors aren't just watched by the police anymore, and it's not just the police that has the capacity to watch or decide who a bad actor is. And the federalism of power means that power bases spring up that are ultimately more powerful than the government when they pool their weight. It was never about rights or privacy. It was always about who gets to decide what rules a society lives by. If the police are acquiring more power, then the people can acquire surveillance tools themselves so they can watch the watchers. Bad cops think that body cameras are harshing their mellow? Just think what happens when some froggy judge decides to rule that it's nigh time police departments need to make their every official act available and searchable. I bet they'll be jumping at the bit to start wanting to properly define universal privacy rights then.
• otakucode 7y ago
  Another good bit of reading material is the book 'It Can't Happen Here' by Sinclair Lewis. Bit of a warning, though, it might hit way too close to home for comfort for American readers. It was written in 1935 but still quite relevant if not prescient. I think it is good for people to be interested in and discussing the nature of oppression and its consequences. As I see it, oppression is incremental, with people as a group generally responding fairly predictably as it increases. I think this is biologically rooted, stemming from fundamental drives toward autonomy. Any time autonomy is violated, regardless of intent, it is a small bit of harm. Sometimes, that harm is justified. If you pull someone out of the way of a speeding car, you have saved their life by violating their autonomy, but the tiny harm still exists and has consequences. These harms accumulate (though I am sure it is a complicated process where the harms are alleviated by other acts of autonomy, so not purely inevitably accumulative). Just looking at history and at various situations in which oppression occurs (workplaces, prisons, schools, etc, not just nations) it seems to me there are broad patterns. When peoples autonomy is heavily infringed, they concentrate more on the forms of autonomy which are more difficult or impossible for whatever authority is in play to prevent. They express themselves through their dress, through body modification (piercings, tattoos, branding, scarification, etc), through their language with development of new slang or codes, and can even engage in self-harm (cutting, anorexic starvation, bulimia, binge drinking or eating, harmful drug abuse, etc) to exemplify that they still control something. If the untouchable authority continues to increase the control it exerts, the people begin seeking to establish an alternative sense of a power hierarchy they can influence. They engage in interpersonal conflict, seeking to establish that they are stronger, better, more well-liked, more pious, more loyal, etc, than those around them. As the oppression increases, those power hierarchies become more formalized and gangs (or cliques, brotherhoods, clubs, etc) form, with members adopting the gangs norms and moral codes as the authority they respect and are loyal to. They cling to their tribal identity, and see the actions of the group as expressions of their own desires, increasing their sense of autonomy. As it gets more oppressive, the gangs begin to vie for turf or control or influence. Gang wars emerge. These aren't always literal guns-in-the-street or shivs-in-the-exercise-yard wars and can be done through proxy competitions of all sorts. Anything which the participants mutually agree to can be an analog, but in situations with such a high degree of oppression, violence is often the only thing left. A couple warring prison gangs can't really organize peaceful means of establishing dominance as no one has enough autonomy to do so and the overarching authority has a vested interest in not acknowledging the gangs as legitimate organizations. In the final stage, the gangs dissolve/join and emerge as an army. They rise and destroy the oppressive authority through the only means the authority has made possible - brute violence. Democracy was revolutionary in its provision of a peaceful means of destroying the controlling authority through electing those who can change things. Every oppressive state that I am aware of has gone through these different phases. There has never been a happy, prosperous police state and I don't think that is a matter of just not getting it right. I think the basic human drive to autonomy would make such a state unlivable even if run by infinitely beneficent people and with every restriction being made in the honest best interests of those being controlled. The 'inefficiencies' in law enforcement where not everyone is surveilled at all times, which enables some laws to be broken, is not a flaw. It's a feature of the system. And a valuable one. Every ratchet click towards catching every single infraction squeezes people tighter. We've seen in schools what happens when you load the place with cameras, have cops roaming the halls arresting kids for insubordination, requiring ID badges be carried at all times, restricting dress, speech, affectionate contact, etc. Some people will snap and be made to feel so desperate that they are willing to die just to do some damage. What happens when that sort of infrastructure comes to every workplace and every public place including the sidewalk?