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I am thinking about it. Think about what you are proposing. Do you really want to take the position that the government cannot monitor any group until it commit

by darawk 6y ago

I am thinking about it. Think about what you are proposing. Do you really want to take the position that the government cannot monitor any group until it commits a crime?

taneq 6y ago
I think that was the general idea, yes. Or at least, before they have strong indication that it’s likely to commit a crime.
- darawk 6y ago
  How should they determine when a group is about to commit a crime though? Usually that's done via pre-emptive surveillance. If they are not allowed to surveil groups that they merely suspect might one day commit crimes, it will be very hard for them to know anything about their activities before the crimes actually get committed. It's certainly possible that this is just the price of freedom. But I think its a rather heavy price.
  - minerjoe 6y ago
    "Usually". Evidence? I doubt that the police pre-emptively stop many crimes at all. They catch criminals _after_ they have committed crimes. Even if they were able to catch every crime before it started, ala minority report, they, based on past behavior, would most likely seriously abuse that power hence the strong opposition here to having them even come close to posessing that power.
    - darawk 6y ago
      > "Usually". Evidence? I doubt that the police pre-emptively stop many crimes at all. They catch criminals _after_ they have committed crimes. Here's a long list of terrorist incidents, some of which were pre-emptively disrupted by the FBI: https://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/terrorism-2002-2005 https://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/terrorism-20... > Even if they were able to catch every crime before it started, ala minority report, they, based on past behavior, would most likely seriously abuse that power hence the strong opposition here to having them even come close to posessing that power. I don't really understand your point. I'm not arguing that they won't abuse their power. They will. They always do. The question is whether or not the abuses that might occur as the result of analyzing publicly available information are worse than the harms that might come from not doing so. I come down pretty squarely on the harms from not doing so being greater, but reasonable people can disagree, I suppose.
      - toofy 6y ago
        And almost every single one of those they had evidence, indications of which particular individuals to monitor/infiltrate. Often this was through reliable sources.
        darawk 6y ago
        And where did they get that evidence?
      - rapnie 6y ago
        > I come down pretty squarely on the harms from not doing so being greater And this feeling you have may stem from another political narrative being created and amplified: the fear of 'the other'. The fear that justifies all of this to so many people. Sowing the FUD that e.g. most people from Mexico are "criminials, rapists, carrying disease", or that Moslims are terrorists. That terrorist sleeper cells may be everywhere. A gliding scale of xenophobia created for political purposes.
        darawk 6y ago
        What a strange non-sequitur. You know that I am the one in this thread suggesting that the FBI should monitor right-wing white supremacist groups, right?
        rapnie 6y ago
        You are right. If I could still edit I'd replace 'you have' with 'in general' because that was what I was referring to. Didn't refer to you in particular.
      - bionoid 6y ago
        > The question is whether or not the abuses that might occur as the result of analyzing publicly available information are worse than the harms that might come from not doing so. How many criminals announce their plans on Twitter in a way that law enforcement can use to prevent a crime? From my perspective, it seems like the potential for crime prevention is small compared to the potential for abuse.
seph-reed 6y ago
Easily. Without hesitation, obviously, hard yes. If the KKK wants to be a tiny minority of people who lack the nuance to direct their anger at anything other than a color of skin, maybe we need to work on our education system. If they haven't committed a crime, then either they haven't hurt anybody, or we need to work on our judicial system. Inevitably, the microscopic amount of good that could be done would be vastly outweighed by the chilling effect on every group that was trying to create positive change at the expense of the oligarchy. Aka: true patriots.
- darawk 6y ago
  Well if you're willing to accept that the government should not keep tabs on racist organizations or militias, then I guess we've cashed out our disagreement to terminal values. We'll just have to agree to disagree.
  - seph-reed 6y ago
    You can think whatever you want. You can even think it with a bunch of people and hopefully not have to feel scared to think whatever is you will think, nor fear talking about whatever is you want to talk about. Even if that thing has something to do with creating real, actual change within our lifetimes.
  - squeaky-clean 6y ago
    I see you post on forums involving hackers and encryption. We're just going to keep tabs on you and other potential members of your militia, ok?
    - pnako 6y ago
      I suspect you're just disagreeing on what "keeping tabs" actually means. The government shouldn't put someone under (specific|personal) surveillance without strong evidence of course. But I don't see what prevents them from reading twitter, going into public chat rooms, etc.
monadic2 6y ago
The FBI doesn’t appear to do a great job at preventing white supremacist domestic terrorism, so I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make.
- darawk 6y ago
  Relative to what? We have no idea how much terrorism there would be without the FBI.
  - minerjoe 6y ago
    We also have no idea how much terrorism we have due to the FBI, ala CONINTELPRO.
    - darawk 6y ago
      Sure. But a lack of concrete, precise information doesn't mean we can throw up our hands and just call them equivalent, either. The FBI disrupts quite a bit of terror activity, and quite a bit more never materializes because the FBI exists. They've certainly engaged in their fair share of abuses over the years, but I don't think you can seriously argue we'd be better off without them.
      - minerjoe 6y ago
        Um. Yes I can. It's in the same vein as letting a few guilty people go free to ensure that less innocent people get sent to prison. I'd rather still have Matin Luther King around than to have whatever the FBI claims to have disrupted.
        darawk 6y ago
        The FBI didn't kill MLK, though. If you eliminated the FBI, you woulnd't get MLK back. But you would have a few hundred more serious terror attacks in the US history, probably a decent number of them against minorities.
dexterdog 6y ago
Absolutely, yes.
jadell 6y ago
Yes.
squeaky-clean 6y ago
Yes
toofy 6y ago
> Do you really want to take the position that the government cannot monitor any group until it commits a crime? There is an ocean of options in between “do nothing” and “surveil and database every citizen who potentially maybe, might, could exercise their constitutional protections and protest.” A vast amount of options.
- darawk 6y ago
  Let's keep in mind what we're actually discussing here. We're talking about police monitoring public Twitter feeds. They're not tapping phones. They're not secretly infiltrating groups with undercover agents. Just reading stuff that's published in public, for all the world to see. Reading public messages seems like a super reasonable thing for the police to be doing, to keep tabs on groups that have recently engaged in disruption and violence. Whether those groups are right wing or left wing.
  - pnako 6y ago
    It's hard to disagree with this point, really. I don't see how you can prevent the police from reading stuff that's being broadcast for everyone else to see. And threats of violence, or evidence of organizing to cause violence, should be investigated.
    - Proziam 6y ago
      I think it's rather easy actually. The police aggregate vast sums of data and uses it in ways that the public does not understand, intend, or expect. It's not unlike the way people 'sign' away their privacy on the internet without being aware that their data will then be sold and resold and used against them. It is a common belief that information is a weapon, and it certainly can be used as one. So does it makes sense, at least from one perspective, that our information should not be legal to catalogue? After all, it is illegal in the U.S. for the government to create a registry of firearms owners because such a registry could be used against the people and its very existence would be an infringement on the rights of those people.
throwaway0a5e 6y ago
>Do you really want to take the position that the government cannot monitor any group until it commits a crime? Yes. That's better than the alternative. So many things can be construed as criminal that I don't think it's an impediment to the investigation of actual criminal in practice. If anything stops police from wasting our money surviving groups that are not actually threats to anything but the government wants under surveillance for political/ideological reasons.
- tharne 6y ago
  That's a nice ideal, but ultimately very naive. Your idea would work great until a neo nazi group or a terrorist organization executed an attack killing a large number of people. Then everyone would be screaming at the government demanding to know why they weren't monitoring more so they could prevent just such an occurrence.

by darawk 6y ago

I am thinking about it. Think about what you are proposing. Do you really want to take the position that the government cannot monitor any group until it commits a crime?

taneq 6y ago

I think that was the general idea, yes. Or at least, before they have strong indication that it’s likely to commit a crime.

darawk 6y ago
How should they determine when a group is about to commit a crime though? Usually that's done via pre-emptive surveillance. If they are not allowed to surveil groups that they merely suspect might one day commit crimes, it will be very hard for them to know anything about their activities before the crimes actually get committed. It's certainly possible that this is just the price of freedom. But I think its a rather heavy price.
- minerjoe 6y ago
  "Usually". Evidence? I doubt that the police pre-emptively stop many crimes at all. They catch criminals _after_ they have committed crimes. Even if they were able to catch every crime before it started, ala minority report, they, based on past behavior, would most likely seriously abuse that power hence the strong opposition here to having them even come close to posessing that power.
  - darawk 6y ago
    > "Usually". Evidence? I doubt that the police pre-emptively stop many crimes at all. They catch criminals _after_ they have committed crimes. Here's a long list of terrorist incidents, some of which were pre-emptively disrupted by the FBI: https://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/terrorism-2002-2005 https://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/terrorism-20... > Even if they were able to catch every crime before it started, ala minority report, they, based on past behavior, would most likely seriously abuse that power hence the strong opposition here to having them even come close to posessing that power. I don't really understand your point. I'm not arguing that they won't abuse their power. They will. They always do. The question is whether or not the abuses that might occur as the result of analyzing publicly available information are worse than the harms that might come from not doing so. I come down pretty squarely on the harms from not doing so being greater, but reasonable people can disagree, I suppose.
    - toofy 6y ago
      And almost every single one of those they had evidence, indications of which particular individuals to monitor/infiltrate. Often this was through reliable sources.
      - darawk 6y ago
        And where did they get that evidence?
    - rapnie 6y ago
      > I come down pretty squarely on the harms from not doing so being greater And this feeling you have may stem from another political narrative being created and amplified: the fear of 'the other'. The fear that justifies all of this to so many people. Sowing the FUD that e.g. most people from Mexico are "criminials, rapists, carrying disease", or that Moslims are terrorists. That terrorist sleeper cells may be everywhere. A gliding scale of xenophobia created for political purposes.
      - darawk 6y ago
        What a strange non-sequitur. You know that I am the one in this thread suggesting that the FBI should monitor right-wing white supremacist groups, right?
        rapnie 6y ago
        You are right. If I could still edit I'd replace 'you have' with 'in general' because that was what I was referring to. Didn't refer to you in particular.
    - bionoid 6y ago
      > The question is whether or not the abuses that might occur as the result of analyzing publicly available information are worse than the harms that might come from not doing so. How many criminals announce their plans on Twitter in a way that law enforcement can use to prevent a crime? From my perspective, it seems like the potential for crime prevention is small compared to the potential for abuse.

seph-reed 6y ago

Easily. Without hesitation, obviously, hard yes. If the KKK wants to be a tiny minority of people who lack the nuance to direct their anger at anything other than a color of skin, maybe we need to work on our education system. If they haven't committed a crime, then either they haven't hurt anybody, or we need to work on our judicial system. Inevitably, the microscopic amount of good that could be done would be vastly outweighed by the chilling effect on every group that was trying to create positive change at the expense of the oligarchy. Aka: true patriots.

darawk 6y ago
Well if you're willing to accept that the government should not keep tabs on racist organizations or militias, then I guess we've cashed out our disagreement to terminal values. We'll just have to agree to disagree.
- seph-reed 6y ago
  You can think whatever you want. You can even think it with a bunch of people and hopefully not have to feel scared to think whatever is you will think, nor fear talking about whatever is you want to talk about. Even if that thing has something to do with creating real, actual change within our lifetimes.
- squeaky-clean 6y ago
  I see you post on forums involving hackers and encryption. We're just going to keep tabs on you and other potential members of your militia, ok?
  - pnako 6y ago
    I suspect you're just disagreeing on what "keeping tabs" actually means. The government shouldn't put someone under (specific|personal) surveillance without strong evidence of course. But I don't see what prevents them from reading twitter, going into public chat rooms, etc.

monadic2 6y ago

The FBI doesn’t appear to do a great job at preventing white supremacist domestic terrorism, so I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make.

darawk 6y ago
Relative to what? We have no idea how much terrorism there would be without the FBI.
- minerjoe 6y ago
  We also have no idea how much terrorism we have due to the FBI, ala CONINTELPRO.
  - darawk 6y ago
    Sure. But a lack of concrete, precise information doesn't mean we can throw up our hands and just call them equivalent, either. The FBI disrupts quite a bit of terror activity, and quite a bit more never materializes because the FBI exists. They've certainly engaged in their fair share of abuses over the years, but I don't think you can seriously argue we'd be better off without them.
    - minerjoe 6y ago
      Um. Yes I can. It's in the same vein as letting a few guilty people go free to ensure that less innocent people get sent to prison. I'd rather still have Matin Luther King around than to have whatever the FBI claims to have disrupted.
      - darawk 6y ago
        The FBI didn't kill MLK, though. If you eliminated the FBI, you woulnd't get MLK back. But you would have a few hundred more serious terror attacks in the US history, probably a decent number of them against minorities.

dexterdog 6y ago

Absolutely, yes.

jadell 6y ago

Yes.

squeaky-clean 6y ago

Yes

toofy 6y ago

> Do you really want to take the position that the government cannot monitor any group until it commits a crime? There is an ocean of options in between “do nothing” and “surveil and database every citizen who potentially maybe, might, could exercise their constitutional protections and protest.” A vast amount of options.

darawk 6y ago
Let's keep in mind what we're actually discussing here. We're talking about police monitoring public Twitter feeds. They're not tapping phones. They're not secretly infiltrating groups with undercover agents. Just reading stuff that's published in public, for all the world to see. Reading public messages seems like a super reasonable thing for the police to be doing, to keep tabs on groups that have recently engaged in disruption and violence. Whether those groups are right wing or left wing.
- pnako 6y ago
  It's hard to disagree with this point, really. I don't see how you can prevent the police from reading stuff that's being broadcast for everyone else to see. And threats of violence, or evidence of organizing to cause violence, should be investigated.
  - Proziam 6y ago
    I think it's rather easy actually. The police aggregate vast sums of data and uses it in ways that the public does not understand, intend, or expect. It's not unlike the way people 'sign' away their privacy on the internet without being aware that their data will then be sold and resold and used against them. It is a common belief that information is a weapon, and it certainly can be used as one. So does it makes sense, at least from one perspective, that our information should not be legal to catalogue? After all, it is illegal in the U.S. for the government to create a registry of firearms owners because such a registry could be used against the people and its very existence would be an infringement on the rights of those people.

throwaway0a5e 6y ago

>Do you really want to take the position that the government cannot monitor any group until it commits a crime? Yes. That's better than the alternative. So many things can be construed as criminal that I don't think it's an impediment to the investigation of actual criminal in practice. If anything stops police from wasting our money surviving groups that are not actually threats to anything but the government wants under surveillance for political/ideological reasons.

tharne 6y ago
That's a nice ideal, but ultimately very naive. Your idea would work great until a neo nazi group or a terrorist organization executed an attack killing a large number of people. Then everyone would be screaming at the government demanding to know why they weren't monitoring more so they could prevent just such an occurrence.