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I view the real issue is the "why" behind the surveillance, rather than the tool itself. Examples: - Consumer-based: Facebook and Google's type of data collect

I view the real issue is the "why" behind the surveillance, rather than the tool itself. Examples: - Consumer-based: Facebook and Google's type of data collection is best handled through the use of GDPR-like legislation, in USA. It's just a matter of these tech companies lobbying and watering down the statute so it's ineffective. When this conversation gets brought up in congress, I implore everyone to go to https://congress.gov https://congress.gov and read the actual bill to make sure it covers everything they claim. Look at it side-by-side with GDPR. Is it really giving consumers the protections they feel they deserve from businesses (I guess we can use the term "user")? Politicians are masters at making bills seem like they handle an issue when they're stripping regulation and giving a deal to business interests at the expense of natural persons. Business get bail outs all the time and are very hawkish making sure their legislation meets their interests. They have lawyers and team up to secure objectives, no care is given to making sure it's not to the detriment of "us". Natural persons are quelled by nice little platitudes, that's why reading bills themselves instead of news articles/tweets is so important. - National security in terms of subversion: This is the one that worries me most because it depends on how national security is defined based on a countries policies. In China, this entails this Xinjiang and Hong Kong situation. From their view, they are quelling uprisings, but one could also intellectually argue HK / Xinjiang / so on should have self-rule and nation status. If you want to talk about human rights and surveillance, what liberties do the people in Xinjiang have? Imagine being born in your ancestral homeland and find your own culture is being methodically destroyed from foreign oligarch bureaucrats thousands of miles away. If you were Uighur and born there, how would you make sense of life? When people in Xinjiang are being watched closely, the backstory has such direct implication to people's lives, and what options do they have to leave? To redress grievances? When does it finally end? US and UK have a history of giving countries democratic self-rule and a rolodex of success stories. There will always be surveillance in various ways, hopefully in the future the backdrop with Xinjiang will be them 1. protecting their own independent nation and 2. consumer data protection laws? (not to say East Asia region are privacy sensitive as US/EU, heh) - What do people really feel? Would an independent Xinjiang vote for a GDPR-like consumer regulation? If you look at Kazakhstan, it doesn't feel like they care about surveillance at all. It's not fashionable to pretend to care about, a la twitter, people have other pressures in live to worry about. On a final note, the few people in US that scoff at surveillance are the same people who line up to get $1600 smart phones. They don't wait for GDPR laws to pass before getting a phone, they hit "I agree" to the privacy policies on tons of apps/websites. I wonder how much it really matters to them. :P It's not easy to tell what a society feels.

whinythepooh 7y ago
> What do people really feel? They probably feel being stalked. They must be anxious and paranoid. > On a final note, the few people in US that scoff at surveillance are the same people who line up to get $1600 smart phones Like they have a choice not to have a "smart" phone. Like with dumb-phone they can avoid cell-tower tracking, voice recording. The people that scoff at surveillance are an indicator that something is broken. State and corporate stalking must stop.
- no_opinions 7y ago
  > Like with dumb-phone they can avoid cell-tower tracking I don't think there's any kind of cell phone that can avoid being triangulated. I believe it has to do with call routing. If that mechanism was completely removed, wouldn't there be no way for us to get phone calls, and calls would drop between towers. Wouldn't a better way of exploring this be to begin at who is accessing the data and why? Businesses have a legitimate case to access their own information to provide a better experience, at the very least. Also if it's a criminal / national security purpose, what's wrong with the idea of a big data / hay stack warrant, in certain circumstances? Isn't there some situations where it'd clearly make sense? > The people that scoff at surveillance are an indicator that something is broken. While there's probably always a case to improve things, when I read conversations on data privacy, I feel many don't want to draw nuance into the technical and legal specifics. Regardless of society, isn't there always a certain kind of person, due to their upbringing, feels persecuted, though? Isn't there also a type of person who just raises a stink out of pure catharsis? Aren't they almost always ignorant of basics behind the law or technology of what they rant about, often both? If it was really a sincere thing, why not go into details: e.g. For instance, GPS'ing a vehicle. State or federal law? What predicate / proof is needed? Is there a notification or redress? How long does it last? Any scoping/minimization? Is it supervised judicially or administratively? While I think of it, maybe there's a reason these things are kept ambiguous, I guess in every country: I don't think people want organized criminal enterprises like mobsters, spies, drug lords, and terrorists gaming the system. > State and corporate stalking must stop. I don't think all government surveillance is the same. In most cases they seek authorization to access a private businesses data some how. If someone is a "normal" consumer, a hospital patient, etc. I don't think the conversation is the same anymore. Wouldn't this be what most normal people care about?

whinythepooh 7y ago

> What do people really feel? They probably feel being stalked. They must be anxious and paranoid. > On a final note, the few people in US that scoff at surveillance are the same people who line up to get $1600 smart phones Like they have a choice not to have a "smart" phone. Like with dumb-phone they can avoid cell-tower tracking, voice recording. The people that scoff at surveillance are an indicator that something is broken. State and corporate stalking must stop.

no_opinions 7y ago
> Like with dumb-phone they can avoid cell-tower tracking I don't think there's any kind of cell phone that can avoid being triangulated. I believe it has to do with call routing. If that mechanism was completely removed, wouldn't there be no way for us to get phone calls, and calls would drop between towers. Wouldn't a better way of exploring this be to begin at who is accessing the data and why? Businesses have a legitimate case to access their own information to provide a better experience, at the very least. Also if it's a criminal / national security purpose, what's wrong with the idea of a big data / hay stack warrant, in certain circumstances? Isn't there some situations where it'd clearly make sense? > The people that scoff at surveillance are an indicator that something is broken. While there's probably always a case to improve things, when I read conversations on data privacy, I feel many don't want to draw nuance into the technical and legal specifics. Regardless of society, isn't there always a certain kind of person, due to their upbringing, feels persecuted, though? Isn't there also a type of person who just raises a stink out of pure catharsis? Aren't they almost always ignorant of basics behind the law or technology of what they rant about, often both? If it was really a sincere thing, why not go into details: e.g. For instance, GPS'ing a vehicle. State or federal law? What predicate / proof is needed? Is there a notification or redress? How long does it last? Any scoping/minimization? Is it supervised judicially or administratively? While I think of it, maybe there's a reason these things are kept ambiguous, I guess in every country: I don't think people want organized criminal enterprises like mobsters, spies, drug lords, and terrorists gaming the system. > State and corporate stalking must stop. I don't think all government surveillance is the same. In most cases they seek authorization to access a private businesses data some how. If someone is a "normal" consumer, a hospital patient, etc. I don't think the conversation is the same anymore. Wouldn't this be what most normal people care about?