23 ms·

The Feds are building an America-wide face surveillance system and ACLU is suing

CapitainEvident 7y ago
Original title was too long: The Feds are building an America-wide face surveillance system – and we're going to court to prove it, says ACLU
- tunap 7y ago
  The freeway system in the US is logging traffic with cameras. This goes far beyond the DOT's cameras in the cities & border patrol checkpoints. Would not be surprised if every mile of concrete/asphalt in the national freeway system is covered by cameras these days.
chmaynard 7y ago
How is this different than the FBI's longstanding fingerprint database? Just asking.
- justinclift 7y ago
  Possibly because taking useful photos of people's fingerprints from a distance seems like a problem. Taking photos of faces seems more like solved tech.
- hyperdunc 7y ago
  A street camera probably can't identify you by your fingerprints.
- rapnie 7y ago
  This is obviously more pervasive / invasive. How often did you identify yourself by fingerprint vs. every camera potentially pings your identity as you pass by.
  - sailfast 7y ago
    The ACLU does not state that the FBI is doing this. They are suing to determine what policies the government has in place around facial recognition to determine whether they are allowed under current policy to do what you’re talking about.
    - BubRoss 7y ago
      He didn't say they were, the parent asked how it was different from fingerprints.
      - sailfast 7y ago
        Right, but the ACLU article nor the Register summary do not indicate the FBI is using public video sources for this. The possibility is certainly there for abuse, but we'll have to wait for the lawsuit results to see if it is different from fingerprints.
- tclancy 7y ago
  You ever had your fingerprints taken without you knowing and consenting/ being under arrest?
  - sixstringtheory 7y ago
    I remember going on a “field trip” to the local police station early in elementary school age where they demonstrated fingerprinting on all 10 digits. Also had an Ident-a-kid ID, which had a thumbprint on it. While I technically “knew” my fingerprints were being taken, I guess, I certainly was not of any age where I could informedly consent to the action. Who knows what’s happened to them? (Probably nothing, but that’s definitely not a certainty in my mind.)
- pacala 7y ago
  Your neighbor's Ring camera is not recording your fingerprint every time you get out of your house.
  - bobwaycott 7y ago
    Now you just made me wonder when Ring will include a fingerprint scanner that uploads a print & checks someone's background every time they ring your doorbell.
sodosopa 7y ago
Previous and current discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21412356 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21412356
skummetmaelk 7y ago
We have all the ingredients for Minority Report. Recording devices in people's homes (alexa, siri, google). AI inference that can be trained to predict violent crimes based on data from these always on devices. Nation wide person tracking system, just using faces instead of eyeballs. Yes yes, the always on devices are only on when you activate them with a keyword. So what. Once MicroGoogleZon proves that they can "prevent crimes" every non-tech person will want this in their home. We even see techies eschew privacy and champion fall detection systems that can report someone falling over in their home to the authorities. Is it worth it?
- mxuribe 7y ago
  Funny, I like the slightly different version of MicroGooFaZon - because it includes that other org. which has a "few bytes" of data on lots of people, plus it sounds even goofier. ;-) But, right on with your comments.
  - skummetmaelk 7y ago
    Aw shucks, that's even better!
- kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
  My girlfriend's cellphone displays ads pertaining to our conversations. No wake word needed when some app has managed to seize mic access.
  - mixmastamyk 7y ago
    Where/when does it display the?
    - kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
      A few seconds later in browser.
      - 7y ago
Overtonwindow 7y ago
They’ve been doing this for a very long time. I’m less worried about the government and more worried about private corporations doing this.
- save_ferris 7y ago
  Given the government’s history of regulatory capture, which we already arguably see in areas of financial regulation, the possibility that the government could be coopted by private corporations to carry out mass surveillance cannot be ignored.
sailfast 7y ago
I guess “they have your old drivers license photo” is technically an America-wide surveillance system? Would you not want a law enforcement body to be able to query against photos legally obtained? Now, if they’re running additional programs with broader means (the FBI do not answer the ACLU on this which is why they’re suing) that is a different matter, but the ACLU does not assert this, only that it may be possible (and for that reason it should be stopped).
- LeifCarrotson 7y ago
  There's a huge qualitative difference. Prior to this technology, a detective could certainly go with a suspect's name to the secretary of state and compare a driver's license photo with a security camera image. I have no issue with that, and I suspect the ACLU doesn't either. Subsequently, they're able to passively monitor all security camera images and compare them to millions of driver's license photos to track the locations of people not under investigation: that's a vastly different action. This does far more than make it more difficult for the guilty to get away with crimes. That's not a cause anyone would advocate for. What it does that people are rallying against is that it makes it far easier for the innocent to be wrongly charged. And the old maxim that it's better for 10 guilty to go free than one innocent be punished would suggest it's wrong to pursue the former at the expense of the latter. Institutions like law enforcement will always seek to increase their power, that power needs to be limited by society's concerns for the rights and freedoms of its members.
  - sailfast 7y ago
    I don't think the ACLU would have a problem with the FBI going to the secretary of state with a picture of someone from a security tape committing a crime. If the FBI has entered into a data sharing agreement around drivers license photos and has governance to keep the data set to a certain use case and there are rules around it I don't think the ACLU would much mind that either. The issue here is that the ACLU (and citizens) do not know whether the FBI has any of this governance in place or is using additional photo sources for this matching (like public security feeds, or other aggregated security feeds / image capture) I completely agree that law enforcement agencies will always seek to [reduce barriers to getting what they believe they need] and that we should limit this as a society. While it's easy to abuse and leads to dark conclusions, all I'm trying to suggest is that the FBI may have actually considered appropriate usage of facial recognition and deliberately NOT gone down the rabbit hole you're discussing. Because we don't know, we have to assume the answer might be yes, but those facts have not been established, which is why the ACLU is suing.
kemiller2002 7y ago
One thing that not one has brought up yet is the amazing ability for the U.S. government to mishandle data in their possession. Office of Personnel Management can't even securely handle data for government workers and contractors. Are we to believe the F.B.I. is going to be any better with data about the American public? I'm sure they'll try harder this time to keep data safe from foreign governments.
drumttocs8 7y ago
Real question- could face surveillance be one of the reasons multiple governments have banned niqabs or face veils?
- buboard 7y ago
  It's certainly the excuse given. "You can't hide your face in public spaces with niqabs or balaclavas for security reasons". The worrying part is that people are OK with it
  - justinclift 7y ago
    Perhaps the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster should add niqabs to their official clothing list, as an initial counter to this face surveillance crap. Could be useful at least in the jurisdictions that don't ban them.
- rayiner 7y ago
  Probably not. The ban in Turkey dates to 1980, and in Europe to the early 2000s. This technology didn’t really exist back then. Several states that have enacted the ban (Kosovo, Tunisia) don’t have the technology to do this kind of surveillance.
- magduf 7y ago
  There have been laws banning masks for ages. There were laws like that in parts of the US well over 100 years ago. It should be pretty obvious why: you can commit a crime with a mask and not be identified.
trenning 7y ago
I can't be the only one who gets depressed reading the news on here. Everyday it's another article about your private information being sucked up and sold for advertising or hacked and sold to be used for stealing your identity or other nefarious shit. Then there's the public side of gov't agencies monitoring everything in your life. At any point they can send an email to any tech company and get a full dump of your information. They're tracking everything you do online, they have cameras on every intersection recording your face. Every cop car and repo truck is driving around collecting your license plate information tracking all your 'off-line' movements. You can't walk around your neighborhood without your face being recorded by every paranoid household with a doorbell camera and feeding the government databases of your whereabouts. You book a vacation and the next day every device you use connected to the internet is sending you ads about your vacation destination even though all you did was book a flight and get an email confirmation. This sounds like some conspiracy tinfoil hat old man rant (I swear I'm non of those), but I hear regular "non-tech" people airing the same complaints more and more. It's just disappointing that there isn't an option to not participate I guess. Sorry for the long (mostly off topic) rant
- QualityReboot 7y ago
  That does sound awful. Here's what I do: block all ads. I can't stop the data collection, but I can stop ads. If I ever see an ad, I stop what I'm doing and figure out how to remove that ad from my life forever. So yeah, I'm fully tracked, and I have no privacy, but at least I'm not being influenced by the ads that come from processing all my data. I also try to block as much data collection as possible, but I realize that's not fully in my control.
- tenpies 7y ago
  What's depressing as well is that it seems every major company or government has decided to reset passwords for every user for undisclosed or precautionary reasons. I'm not talking some worthless accounts either - I'm talking major airlines, national postal services, government business accounts, etc.
  - cco 7y ago
sramsay 7y ago
In 2012, in a concurring opinion on a case involving warrantless GPS tracking, justice Sonya Sotomayor wrote: "More fundamentally, it may be necessary to reconsider the premise that an individual has no reasonable expectation of privacy in information voluntarily disclosed to third parties. This approach is ill suited to the digital age, in which people reveal a great deal of information about themselves to third parties in the course of carrying out mundane tasks." Just wondering when we're actually going to reconsider that premise and its legal cognates.
- Rooster61 7y ago
  I hate getting political, but this is one of Andrew Yang's platform staples and is immediately relevant to your question. Look up his ideas about Data as a Right.
  - CWuestefeld 7y ago
    Statutory protection would be an improvement, but it would be far better to have this recognized at the Constitutional level, which Yang can't really do.
  - j8014 7y ago
    If it is to be political, I would rather target the legislative branch who can actually do something about this. It doesn't make sense to worry about the promises of a politician trying to get elected into the executive branch.
    - longerthoughts 7y ago
      I don't think Andrew Yang has any expectation of actually becoming the Democratic candidate, let alone getting elected. Seems like he's just trying to bring new ideas to the debate stage because candidates actually trying to get elected won't risk straying too far from familiar ideas.
    - pmoriarty 7y ago
      "I would rather target the legislative branch who can actually do something about this. It doesn't make sense to worry about the promises of a politician trying to get elected into the executive branch." Presidents have a major influence on what lawmakers do. First, they're the ostensible leader of their party, and to the extent they actually can and do lead, they can influence the rest of the party, including the legislature. Second, they can also greatly influence the relationship with the opposition party, as has been made eminently clear from the polarizing effect that Obama, Bush Jr, and Trump had on their opposition. Third, they have one of the world's biggest megaphones that they can use to push for their agenda. Witness the galvanizing effect of Kennedy's call for a space race or the Peace Corps. Fourth, they have veto power over legislation. While legislation can still pass over a Presidential veto, it has to have a lot more support in Congress, which means that controversial reforms will have a much harder time passing. Fifth, they can sign executive orders, which (in lieu of legislation) can also have a great effect.
linuxftw 7y ago
Weird. Nobody wants to limit the authority of the government until the government is infringing upon something they care about. If only there was some concept where we could specifically enumerate powers to the government, and that's all the government was allowed to do.
- salawat 7y ago
  ...Which wasn't undermined by constant torture of language and politically motivated misinterpretation, or subject to the whims of a highly constrained review mechanism in terms of being conclusively enforced/struck down? Or flaunted with the understanding that the population of people that can actually call out your legislation is astoundingly small given that most have to survive as law abiding citizens while also being potentially harmed by malicious regulation that gets crammed through without review by any interpretive representative in order to ensure the authors fully understand second, third and fourth order consequences? Sure would be...
- kd3 7y ago
  The best government is no government.
  - daerogami 7y ago
    Only on paper in a utopia. That does not work on a landmass with 327 million people that are trying to engage in commerce, build homes and maintain infrastructure in their communities. You need some managing body to orchestrate the funding, management and execution of a civilization whether its a handful of families or a nation covering half a continent. Having no government for those is a logistical impossibility. Better to say "the best corruption is no corruption". That is at least marginally less refutable.
    - kd3 7y ago
      Not necessarily a utopia. It could work; if you want an explanation of how check out the following book: https://www.dropbox.com/s/yd18waixbva1jae/WhatAnarchyIsnt-FREEBIE.pdf?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/yd18waixbva1jae/WhatAnarchyIsnt-FR...
mikece 7y ago
I recall a story about street performers in London demanding -- and getting -- copies of the videos of them doing their thing which were captured by CCTV. Just because something is performed in public doesn't make it legal to record it, and unless you sign a contract to the contrary, in the US you retain copyright to all original performances. So... if you posit that your life is an act of performance art can you sue the intelligence agencies for violation of copyright by making and storing recordings of your original artwork (especially if you have the habit of working on your Silly Walk and speaking in impressionistic voices throughout your day)?
- voxic11 7y ago
  There is precedent in the US that this could be fair use. > After considering the four factors in the aggregate, the court finds that the fair use doctrine does apply to the City of Radford Police Department's use of Shell's photographs and other works. As long as the use remains solely for the dual purposes of permitting City of Radford law enforcement officers to properly investigate allegedly criminal acts and to use that evidence in any subsequent criminal proceedings, it will be a fair use and not a violation of the Copyright Act. https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2407651/shell-v-city-of-radford-virginia/ https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2407651/shell-v-city-o...
  - mikece 7y ago
    The key point is that it's part of an active and specific law enforcement investigation. This would NOT apply to full-spectrum, dragnet surveillance/copying of the performance art I call my life, especially when there's not even the suspicion of me being involved with anything more devious than questioning the existence of the GPL.
- coldtea 7y ago
  >I recall a story about street performers in London demanding -- and getting -- copies of the videos of them doing their thing which were captured by CCTV. If I recall correctly, a pop bad, played in different streets, and then asked for, and made a video with those recordings of them... Found it -- though it appears it was not entirely accurate: https://observers.france24.com/en/20080516-hoax-cctv-video-get-out-clause-clip https://observers.france24.com/en/20080516-hoax-cctv-video-g... Good idea though!
davidw 7y ago
The ACLU is well worth donating to. Indeed, I just did, again.
cmurf 7y ago
I'm traveling in Europe and get a cookies/privacy notice on every single site. There's no new information provided. It's just obnoxious.
williesleg 7y ago
Google and apple already have it. Just take it over.
oblib 7y ago
I just posted a link to this on my FB page and a friend responded with this: "I was protesting at Bohemian Grove several years ago when an FBI agent came up to me, took a pic of my face and said have you heard of facial recognition technology? I was shocked but not surprised. As an intimidation tactic, it was pretty effective."
no_opinions 7y ago
Generally speaking, police and security agencies have more rights to collect data and tap lines. This is true regardless of the country and how many protections they have. Judging by comments, GDPR is something people in US may like. It may satiate a lot of concerns consumers balk at. Did you know GDPR doesn't apply to law enforcement/security agencies collecting data? Even if US changed (whatever that would mean, I don't know) regulations/laws in this respect, there's still going to be mechanisms where data has to be bulk collected for a security purpose. The reason why is nobody has devised a way to know for sure what's interesting, at the time, while it goes through the wire, reliably, because it'd require being able to predict the future.
dredmorbius 7y ago
See also from yesterday extensive discussion on ACLU's announcement: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21412356 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21412356
kd3 7y ago
We're going to need the scramble suits from A Scanner Darkly.
CindrFricknElla 7y ago
http://optout.networkadvertising.org/?c=1#!%2F http://optout.networkadvertising.org/?c=1#!%2F

Original title was too long: The Feds are building an America-wide face surveillance system – and we're going to court to prove it, says ACLU

tunap 7y ago
The freeway system in the US is logging traffic with cameras. This goes far beyond the DOT's cameras in the cities & border patrol checkpoints. Would not be surprised if every mile of concrete/asphalt in the national freeway system is covered by cameras these days.

chmaynard 7y ago

How is this different than the FBI's longstanding fingerprint database? Just asking.

justinclift 7y ago
Possibly because taking useful photos of people's fingerprints from a distance seems like a problem. Taking photos of faces seems more like solved tech.
hyperdunc 7y ago
A street camera probably can't identify you by your fingerprints.
rapnie 7y ago
This is obviously more pervasive / invasive. How often did you identify yourself by fingerprint vs. every camera potentially pings your identity as you pass by.
- sailfast 7y ago
  The ACLU does not state that the FBI is doing this. They are suing to determine what policies the government has in place around facial recognition to determine whether they are allowed under current policy to do what you’re talking about.
  - BubRoss 7y ago
    He didn't say they were, the parent asked how it was different from fingerprints.
    - sailfast 7y ago
      Right, but the ACLU article nor the Register summary do not indicate the FBI is using public video sources for this. The possibility is certainly there for abuse, but we'll have to wait for the lawsuit results to see if it is different from fingerprints.
tclancy 7y ago
You ever had your fingerprints taken without you knowing and consenting/ being under arrest?
- sixstringtheory 7y ago
  I remember going on a “field trip” to the local police station early in elementary school age where they demonstrated fingerprinting on all 10 digits. Also had an Ident-a-kid ID, which had a thumbprint on it. While I technically “knew” my fingerprints were being taken, I guess, I certainly was not of any age where I could informedly consent to the action. Who knows what’s happened to them? (Probably nothing, but that’s definitely not a certainty in my mind.)
pacala 7y ago
Your neighbor's Ring camera is not recording your fingerprint every time you get out of your house.
- bobwaycott 7y ago
  Now you just made me wonder when Ring will include a fingerprint scanner that uploads a print & checks someone's background every time they ring your doorbell.

sodosopa 7y ago

Previous and current discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21412356 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21412356

skummetmaelk 7y ago

We have all the ingredients for Minority Report. Recording devices in people's homes (alexa, siri, google). AI inference that can be trained to predict violent crimes based on data from these always on devices. Nation wide person tracking system, just using faces instead of eyeballs. Yes yes, the always on devices are only on when you activate them with a keyword. So what. Once MicroGoogleZon proves that they can "prevent crimes" every non-tech person will want this in their home. We even see techies eschew privacy and champion fall detection systems that can report someone falling over in their home to the authorities. Is it worth it?

mxuribe 7y ago
Funny, I like the slightly different version of MicroGooFaZon - because it includes that other org. which has a "few bytes" of data on lots of people, plus it sounds even goofier. ;-) But, right on with your comments.
- skummetmaelk 7y ago
  Aw shucks, that's even better!
kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
My girlfriend's cellphone displays ads pertaining to our conversations. No wake word needed when some app has managed to seize mic access.
- mixmastamyk 7y ago
  Where/when does it display the?
  - kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
    A few seconds later in browser.
    - 7y ago

Overtonwindow 7y ago

They’ve been doing this for a very long time. I’m less worried about the government and more worried about private corporations doing this.

save_ferris 7y ago
Given the government’s history of regulatory capture, which we already arguably see in areas of financial regulation, the possibility that the government could be coopted by private corporations to carry out mass surveillance cannot be ignored.

sailfast 7y ago

I guess “they have your old drivers license photo” is technically an America-wide surveillance system? Would you not want a law enforcement body to be able to query against photos legally obtained? Now, if they’re running additional programs with broader means (the FBI do not answer the ACLU on this which is why they’re suing) that is a different matter, but the ACLU does not assert this, only that it may be possible (and for that reason it should be stopped).

LeifCarrotson 7y ago
There's a huge qualitative difference. Prior to this technology, a detective could certainly go with a suspect's name to the secretary of state and compare a driver's license photo with a security camera image. I have no issue with that, and I suspect the ACLU doesn't either. Subsequently, they're able to passively monitor all security camera images and compare them to millions of driver's license photos to track the locations of people not under investigation: that's a vastly different action. This does far more than make it more difficult for the guilty to get away with crimes. That's not a cause anyone would advocate for. What it does that people are rallying against is that it makes it far easier for the innocent to be wrongly charged. And the old maxim that it's better for 10 guilty to go free than one innocent be punished would suggest it's wrong to pursue the former at the expense of the latter. Institutions like law enforcement will always seek to increase their power, that power needs to be limited by society's concerns for the rights and freedoms of its members.
- sailfast 7y ago
  I don't think the ACLU would have a problem with the FBI going to the secretary of state with a picture of someone from a security tape committing a crime. If the FBI has entered into a data sharing agreement around drivers license photos and has governance to keep the data set to a certain use case and there are rules around it I don't think the ACLU would much mind that either. The issue here is that the ACLU (and citizens) do not know whether the FBI has any of this governance in place or is using additional photo sources for this matching (like public security feeds, or other aggregated security feeds / image capture) I completely agree that law enforcement agencies will always seek to [reduce barriers to getting what they believe they need] and that we should limit this as a society. While it's easy to abuse and leads to dark conclusions, all I'm trying to suggest is that the FBI may have actually considered appropriate usage of facial recognition and deliberately NOT gone down the rabbit hole you're discussing. Because we don't know, we have to assume the answer might be yes, but those facts have not been established, which is why the ACLU is suing.

kemiller2002 7y ago

One thing that not one has brought up yet is the amazing ability for the U.S. government to mishandle data in their possession. Office of Personnel Management can't even securely handle data for government workers and contractors. Are we to believe the F.B.I. is going to be any better with data about the American public? I'm sure they'll try harder this time to keep data safe from foreign governments.

drumttocs8 7y ago

Real question- could face surveillance be one of the reasons multiple governments have banned niqabs or face veils?

buboard 7y ago
It's certainly the excuse given. "You can't hide your face in public spaces with niqabs or balaclavas for security reasons". The worrying part is that people are OK with it
- justinclift 7y ago
  Perhaps the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster should add niqabs to their official clothing list, as an initial counter to this face surveillance crap. Could be useful at least in the jurisdictions that don't ban them.
rayiner 7y ago
Probably not. The ban in Turkey dates to 1980, and in Europe to the early 2000s. This technology didn’t really exist back then. Several states that have enacted the ban (Kosovo, Tunisia) don’t have the technology to do this kind of surveillance.
magduf 7y ago
There have been laws banning masks for ages. There were laws like that in parts of the US well over 100 years ago. It should be pretty obvious why: you can commit a crime with a mask and not be identified.

trenning 7y ago

I can't be the only one who gets depressed reading the news on here. Everyday it's another article about your private information being sucked up and sold for advertising or hacked and sold to be used for stealing your identity or other nefarious shit. Then there's the public side of gov't agencies monitoring everything in your life. At any point they can send an email to any tech company and get a full dump of your information. They're tracking everything you do online, they have cameras on every intersection recording your face. Every cop car and repo truck is driving around collecting your license plate information tracking all your 'off-line' movements. You can't walk around your neighborhood without your face being recorded by every paranoid household with a doorbell camera and feeding the government databases of your whereabouts. You book a vacation and the next day every device you use connected to the internet is sending you ads about your vacation destination even though all you did was book a flight and get an email confirmation. This sounds like some conspiracy tinfoil hat old man rant (I swear I'm non of those), but I hear regular "non-tech" people airing the same complaints more and more. It's just disappointing that there isn't an option to not participate I guess. Sorry for the long (mostly off topic) rant

QualityReboot 7y ago
That does sound awful. Here's what I do: block all ads. I can't stop the data collection, but I can stop ads. If I ever see an ad, I stop what I'm doing and figure out how to remove that ad from my life forever. So yeah, I'm fully tracked, and I have no privacy, but at least I'm not being influenced by the ads that come from processing all my data. I also try to block as much data collection as possible, but I realize that's not fully in my control.
tenpies 7y ago
What's depressing as well is that it seems every major company or government has decided to reset passwords for every user for undisclosed or precautionary reasons. I'm not talking some worthless accounts either - I'm talking major airlines, national postal services, government business accounts, etc.
- cco 7y ago

sramsay 7y ago

In 2012, in a concurring opinion on a case involving warrantless GPS tracking, justice Sonya Sotomayor wrote: "More fundamentally, it may be necessary to reconsider the premise that an individual has no reasonable expectation of privacy in information voluntarily disclosed to third parties. This approach is ill suited to the digital age, in which people reveal a great deal of information about themselves to third parties in the course of carrying out mundane tasks." Just wondering when we're actually going to reconsider that premise and its legal cognates.

Rooster61 7y ago
I hate getting political, but this is one of Andrew Yang's platform staples and is immediately relevant to your question. Look up his ideas about Data as a Right.
- CWuestefeld 7y ago
  Statutory protection would be an improvement, but it would be far better to have this recognized at the Constitutional level, which Yang can't really do.
- j8014 7y ago
  If it is to be political, I would rather target the legislative branch who can actually do something about this. It doesn't make sense to worry about the promises of a politician trying to get elected into the executive branch.
  - longerthoughts 7y ago
    I don't think Andrew Yang has any expectation of actually becoming the Democratic candidate, let alone getting elected. Seems like he's just trying to bring new ideas to the debate stage because candidates actually trying to get elected won't risk straying too far from familiar ideas.
  - pmoriarty 7y ago
    "I would rather target the legislative branch who can actually do something about this. It doesn't make sense to worry about the promises of a politician trying to get elected into the executive branch." Presidents have a major influence on what lawmakers do. First, they're the ostensible leader of their party, and to the extent they actually can and do lead, they can influence the rest of the party, including the legislature. Second, they can also greatly influence the relationship with the opposition party, as has been made eminently clear from the polarizing effect that Obama, Bush Jr, and Trump had on their opposition. Third, they have one of the world's biggest megaphones that they can use to push for their agenda. Witness the galvanizing effect of Kennedy's call for a space race or the Peace Corps. Fourth, they have veto power over legislation. While legislation can still pass over a Presidential veto, it has to have a lot more support in Congress, which means that controversial reforms will have a much harder time passing. Fifth, they can sign executive orders, which (in lieu of legislation) can also have a great effect.

linuxftw 7y ago

Weird. Nobody wants to limit the authority of the government until the government is infringing upon something they care about. If only there was some concept where we could specifically enumerate powers to the government, and that's all the government was allowed to do.

salawat 7y ago
...Which wasn't undermined by constant torture of language and politically motivated misinterpretation, or subject to the whims of a highly constrained review mechanism in terms of being conclusively enforced/struck down? Or flaunted with the understanding that the population of people that can actually call out your legislation is astoundingly small given that most have to survive as law abiding citizens while also being potentially harmed by malicious regulation that gets crammed through without review by any interpretive representative in order to ensure the authors fully understand second, third and fourth order consequences? Sure would be...
kd3 7y ago
The best government is no government.
- daerogami 7y ago
  Only on paper in a utopia. That does not work on a landmass with 327 million people that are trying to engage in commerce, build homes and maintain infrastructure in their communities. You need some managing body to orchestrate the funding, management and execution of a civilization whether its a handful of families or a nation covering half a continent. Having no government for those is a logistical impossibility. Better to say "the best corruption is no corruption". That is at least marginally less refutable.
  - kd3 7y ago
    Not necessarily a utopia. It could work; if you want an explanation of how check out the following book: https://www.dropbox.com/s/yd18waixbva1jae/WhatAnarchyIsnt-FREEBIE.pdf?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/yd18waixbva1jae/WhatAnarchyIsnt-FR...

mikece 7y ago

I recall a story about street performers in London demanding -- and getting -- copies of the videos of them doing their thing which were captured by CCTV. Just because something is performed in public doesn't make it legal to record it, and unless you sign a contract to the contrary, in the US you retain copyright to all original performances. So... if you posit that your life is an act of performance art can you sue the intelligence agencies for violation of copyright by making and storing recordings of your original artwork (especially if you have the habit of working on your Silly Walk and speaking in impressionistic voices throughout your day)?

voxic11 7y ago
There is precedent in the US that this could be fair use. > After considering the four factors in the aggregate, the court finds that the fair use doctrine does apply to the City of Radford Police Department's use of Shell's photographs and other works. As long as the use remains solely for the dual purposes of permitting City of Radford law enforcement officers to properly investigate allegedly criminal acts and to use that evidence in any subsequent criminal proceedings, it will be a fair use and not a violation of the Copyright Act. https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2407651/shell-v-city-of-radford-virginia/ https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2407651/shell-v-city-o...
- mikece 7y ago
  The key point is that it's part of an active and specific law enforcement investigation. This would NOT apply to full-spectrum, dragnet surveillance/copying of the performance art I call my life, especially when there's not even the suspicion of me being involved with anything more devious than questioning the existence of the GPL.
coldtea 7y ago
>I recall a story about street performers in London demanding -- and getting -- copies of the videos of them doing their thing which were captured by CCTV. If I recall correctly, a pop bad, played in different streets, and then asked for, and made a video with those recordings of them... Found it -- though it appears it was not entirely accurate: https://observers.france24.com/en/20080516-hoax-cctv-video-get-out-clause-clip https://observers.france24.com/en/20080516-hoax-cctv-video-g... Good idea though!

davidw 7y ago

The ACLU is well worth donating to. Indeed, I just did, again.

cmurf 7y ago

I'm traveling in Europe and get a cookies/privacy notice on every single site. There's no new information provided. It's just obnoxious.

williesleg 7y ago

Google and apple already have it. Just take it over.

oblib 7y ago

I just posted a link to this on my FB page and a friend responded with this: "I was protesting at Bohemian Grove several years ago when an FBI agent came up to me, took a pic of my face and said have you heard of facial recognition technology? I was shocked but not surprised. As an intimidation tactic, it was pretty effective."

no_opinions 7y ago

Generally speaking, police and security agencies have more rights to collect data and tap lines. This is true regardless of the country and how many protections they have. Judging by comments, GDPR is something people in US may like. It may satiate a lot of concerns consumers balk at. Did you know GDPR doesn't apply to law enforcement/security agencies collecting data? Even if US changed (whatever that would mean, I don't know) regulations/laws in this respect, there's still going to be mechanisms where data has to be bulk collected for a security purpose. The reason why is nobody has devised a way to know for sure what's interesting, at the time, while it goes through the wire, reliably, because it'd require being able to predict the future.

dredmorbius 7y ago

See also from yesterday extensive discussion on ACLU's announcement: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21412356 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21412356

kd3 7y ago

We're going to need the scramble suits from A Scanner Darkly.

CindrFricknElla 7y ago

http://optout.networkadvertising.org/?c=1#!%2F http://optout.networkadvertising.org/?c=1#!%2F