4 ms·

We (in the UK) have an existing system to control this - the warrant system. For the police to search your house, they need to go to a magistrate and provide th

We (in the UK) have an existing system to control this - the warrant system. For the police to search your house, they need to go to a magistrate and provide the reasonable grounds. I would suggest this system works fairly well - I'm sure there are cases where it falls down, but generally the judiciary fairly polices where it is considered reasonable. I'm in favour of basically every form of government snooping on an individual - whether that's watching your internet activity, tracking your car through ANPR cameras or spotting you with facial recognition - as long as you need to get a warrant to track someone. The issue seems to be that the police can adopt (some of) these powers arbitrarily and with no due process (and in the past because intelligence agencies operate by a different set of rules). It would also provide an effective limit to the volume of people being tracked in this way, due to the overhead of acquiring a warrant. Of course, there also needs to be a system to provide oversight and check that only legally authorised individuals are being tracked.

ska 7y ago
It's not a crazy view but I would add a few things to that 1) The government should not be able compel corporations to add 'features' to help them in this 2) We are talking about an actual warrant, where someone physically went in front of a physical judge int the same location to ask for it, and 3) There is no allowance for speculative but "safe" collection of data they might want under a warrant later - you can only access data occurring after you have the warrant, or naturally occurring records (i.e. no slurping up everyone's cell phone connections/conversations "just in case") Broad based surveillance of the population by the government is just a bad idea. Cf much of human history on abuse of power. Number (2) is to make sure this is an expensive process.
- angry_octet 7y ago
  I would add that incidental collection is still a problem -- and should the police be able to know the identity of every person in the area of a suspect? What about journalists? John Doe warrants? If should really be specifically enumerated with no slack. As in, surveillance footage keep for maximum of 1 hour (on line detection only, not historical movement search); only warranted faces will be produced in report, others people blurred. Also, having unopposed, indefinite warrant applications is bound to be troublesome. Who is checking the validity of police statements? No one. If the police want the surveillance warrant to remain secret indefinitely there should be increasing levels of review. Likewise journalists, politicians, lawyers, medical data, etc.

ska 7y ago

It's not a crazy view but I would add a few things to that 1) The government should not be able compel corporations to add 'features' to help them in this 2) We are talking about an actual warrant, where someone physically went in front of a physical judge int the same location to ask for it, and 3) There is no allowance for speculative but "safe" collection of data they might want under a warrant later - you can only access data occurring after you have the warrant, or naturally occurring records (i.e. no slurping up everyone's cell phone connections/conversations "just in case") Broad based surveillance of the population by the government is just a bad idea. Cf much of human history on abuse of power. Number (2) is to make sure this is an expensive process.

angry_octet 7y ago
I would add that incidental collection is still a problem -- and should the police be able to know the identity of every person in the area of a suspect? What about journalists? John Doe warrants? If should really be specifically enumerated with no slack. As in, surveillance footage keep for maximum of 1 hour (on line detection only, not historical movement search); only warranted faces will be produced in report, others people blurred. Also, having unopposed, indefinite warrant applications is bound to be troublesome. Who is checking the validity of police statements? No one. If the police want the surveillance warrant to remain secret indefinitely there should be increasing levels of review. Likewise journalists, politicians, lawyers, medical data, etc.