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If someone wants to home in and destroy you, they've always been able to do that without total surveillance. If the records exist, and you're not guilty of the

If someone wants to home in and destroy you, they've always been able to do that without total surveillance. If the records exist, and you're not guilty of the crime, hope exists that you could be cleared. Doesn't it make more sense for one's worst fear to be accused of something for which you are innocent but have no alibi?

pooya13 6y ago
Data leads to control (in the extreme case, the government knowing all your thoughts can pretty much control your life). Sometimes this control is warranted, like using anonymized data to prevent crimes, with a panel of independent citizens auditing the access to make sure it is benefiting the society at large as opposed to a minority. But sometimes it can be used nefariously. For example the state can push propaganda based on the private data of the citizens, making the government less democratic over time to promote the agenda of a minority. My position is we don’t trust that use is legitimate, and don’t assume that states access to private data is in the benefit of the citizens. The government is always assumed guilty until proven innocent.
Aerroon 6y ago
You're right, but then you have the problem of credibility. If Google's records are credible for this, then what's the chance that somebody will notice if some of those records are manufactured? It's like forging signatures - it's a problem because we trust signatures to some extent.
- perl4ever 6y ago
  I don't exactly disagree in one sense, but this argument seems like it kind of generalizes to the idea that "better is worse", which I can't agree to. The more technical details of recordkeeping or surveillance that there are, the more likely a frame-up will have flaws that people notice.
  - sjy 6y ago
    I don’t think the argument generalises quite that far, but it does go as far as “more information is worse.” The presumption of innocence is a valuable principle to which this applies. We ignore evidence that suggests that someone is guilty of a crime until the court process has finished, and if they’re “probably guilty” we say they’re actually “not guilty” for fairness reasons.
- Aunche 6y ago
  Police can and have forged evidence without having to resort to forcing a company to do so. The latter is more risky as there is a greater likelihood of a leak.
dmm 6y ago
* Scene opens with two federal agents discussing a new case * Agent 1: There was a shooting on 5th st. Agent 2: Just use the phone records to look up everyone in the area and then arrest them at their work in front of their boss. Agent 1: It's ok to do this because the innocent will surely have a way to prove their innocence. Agent 2: But what if it looks bad that we are arresting so many innocent people? Agent 1: In every legal system there are always more crimes than can be prosecuted. The discretion of prosecutors is an important legal function. If we arrest someone embarrassing, we'll just find something to charge them with. Agent 2: Yeah and contact with federal agents also _generates_ more crime, like lying to one of us is a felony, right? Agent 1: Hope they have the $250k it takes to defend against a federal felony. * The agents laugh * * Scene end
- EarthIsHome 6y ago
  > If we arrest someone embarrassing, we'll just find something to charge them with. Or as they currently do: lie about their detainees doing crimes and/or plant contraband
  - creato 6y ago
    In this situation, the privacy violation of becoming a suspect via location history is an utterly negligible problem. What you describe could just as easily happen in a traffic stop (and in fact probably far more likely).
    - godelski 6y ago
      > could just as easily happen in a traffic stop Well it clearly does.... But I think the point being made is that part of the issue is lazy policing/detective work. The concern about privacy is really about the concern of __abuse__ of data. Why many of us want to protect our data is that we do not trust those in power, nor current nor potential future rulers (a big concern). Such instances as the above example are abuse of that data, as well as abuse of power. The thought is that if they are going to abuse us, we're going to make it more difficult. Dragnet operations make the above easier, not the same level of difficulty.
t-writescode 6y ago
Let me introduce you to this story: https://nypost.com/2017/09/23/how-curb-your-enthusiasm-saved-this-man-from-prison/ https://nypost.com/2017/09/23/how-curb-your-enthusiasm-saved... Nevermind that it had a good end. Recognize that even though there was reasonable doubt as a near impossibility of this man being guilty, the prosecutor still desperately tried to throw him in prison, despite him obviously being the wrong person and the prosecutor almost succeeded!
- fortran77 6y ago
  An amazing reason to never, ever, believe or trust policemen or prosecutors if you're ever on a jury > But that wasn’t enough for the LAPD and the prosecutor — who had never lost a case and was going to push for the death penalty for Puebla’s murderer. He did get some compensation: > In 2007, Juan received $320,000 in a settlement of his civil lawsuit against the LAPD and the city of Los Angeles for false imprisonment, misconduct and defamation. (In 2008, gang member Raul Robledo received a life term for the murder. But it's outrageous we, the taxpayers, have to pay for police misconduct. Let it come out of their pension fund (and reduce their pensions accordingly).
nuker 6y ago
> If the records exist, and you're not guilty of the crime, hope exists that you could be cleared. But if no records exist, you will not be a suspect in the first place.
- cromwellian 6y ago
  Not really. Stone was already a suspect, this was a fishing expedition to confirm their suspicions.
AnthonyMouse 6y ago
> If someone wants to home in and destroy you, they've always been able to do that without total surveillance. This isn't even about that. Yes, if someone powerful wants to make your life hard, your life is going to be hard. Now consider what happens if they just don't care whether you live or die. Some system is set up to "solve crimes" as "efficiently" as possible. The same sort of system that gets used to issue YouTube copyright strikes against the original creators or public domain works because Hollywood put a copy in a motion picture, or mark every email sent by a perfectly legitimate small private email server as spam. The police increase their "solve rate" dramatically -- by putting a ton of innocent people in prison. Because now instead of unsolved crimes they have "evidence" which, even if it's all circumstantial garbage, is enough to coerce guilty pleas out of defendants who can't afford a good lawyer or don't want to risk having the penalty quintupled if they demand their day in court and lose, or would rather spend six months in prison than pay six years worth of wages to a lawyer. > If the records exist, and you're not guilty of the crime, hope exists that you could be cleared. Only you can't get access to the records, because they're sensitive for all sorts of reasons, e.g. because having them in the aggregate would allow you to locate people in witness protection or unmask undercover law enforcement or case targets for espionage or theft. So you can't give access to everything to everybody, which means it only gets used as evidence for the prosecution because they can get it and you can't. > Doesn't it make more sense for one's worst fear to be accused of something for which you are innocent but have no alibi? In principle they still have to prove your guilt even if you don't have an alibi. Think about it, a large proportion of crimes are committed at night when most people are at home asleep. Meanwhile, data under your control is generally only useful as evidence of guilt, because otherwise they just argue that it was under your control. If your phone was at the location of the crime, they argue you were there. If your phone was at home 200 miles from the location of the crime, they argue you knew you were about to commit a crime and left your phone at home. It's used to hurt you but not to help you.

pooya13 6y ago

Data leads to control (in the extreme case, the government knowing all your thoughts can pretty much control your life). Sometimes this control is warranted, like using anonymized data to prevent crimes, with a panel of independent citizens auditing the access to make sure it is benefiting the society at large as opposed to a minority. But sometimes it can be used nefariously. For example the state can push propaganda based on the private data of the citizens, making the government less democratic over time to promote the agenda of a minority. My position is we don’t trust that use is legitimate, and don’t assume that states access to private data is in the benefit of the citizens. The government is always assumed guilty until proven innocent.

Aerroon 6y ago

You're right, but then you have the problem of credibility. If Google's records are credible for this, then what's the chance that somebody will notice if some of those records are manufactured? It's like forging signatures - it's a problem because we trust signatures to some extent.

perl4ever 6y ago
I don't exactly disagree in one sense, but this argument seems like it kind of generalizes to the idea that "better is worse", which I can't agree to. The more technical details of recordkeeping or surveillance that there are, the more likely a frame-up will have flaws that people notice.
- sjy 6y ago
  I don’t think the argument generalises quite that far, but it does go as far as “more information is worse.” The presumption of innocence is a valuable principle to which this applies. We ignore evidence that suggests that someone is guilty of a crime until the court process has finished, and if they’re “probably guilty” we say they’re actually “not guilty” for fairness reasons.
Aunche 6y ago
Police can and have forged evidence without having to resort to forcing a company to do so. The latter is more risky as there is a greater likelihood of a leak.

dmm 6y ago

* Scene opens with two federal agents discussing a new case * Agent 1: There was a shooting on 5th st. Agent 2: Just use the phone records to look up everyone in the area and then arrest them at their work in front of their boss. Agent 1: It's ok to do this because the innocent will surely have a way to prove their innocence. Agent 2: But what if it looks bad that we are arresting so many innocent people? Agent 1: In every legal system there are always more crimes than can be prosecuted. The discretion of prosecutors is an important legal function. If we arrest someone embarrassing, we'll just find something to charge them with. Agent 2: Yeah and contact with federal agents also _generates_ more crime, like lying to one of us is a felony, right? Agent 1: Hope they have the $250k it takes to defend against a federal felony. * The agents laugh * * Scene end

EarthIsHome 6y ago
> If we arrest someone embarrassing, we'll just find something to charge them with. Or as they currently do: lie about their detainees doing crimes and/or plant contraband
- creato 6y ago
  In this situation, the privacy violation of becoming a suspect via location history is an utterly negligible problem. What you describe could just as easily happen in a traffic stop (and in fact probably far more likely).
  - godelski 6y ago
    > could just as easily happen in a traffic stop Well it clearly does.... But I think the point being made is that part of the issue is lazy policing/detective work. The concern about privacy is really about the concern of __abuse__ of data. Why many of us want to protect our data is that we do not trust those in power, nor current nor potential future rulers (a big concern). Such instances as the above example are abuse of that data, as well as abuse of power. The thought is that if they are going to abuse us, we're going to make it more difficult. Dragnet operations make the above easier, not the same level of difficulty.

t-writescode 6y ago

Let me introduce you to this story: https://nypost.com/2017/09/23/how-curb-your-enthusiasm-saved-this-man-from-prison/ https://nypost.com/2017/09/23/how-curb-your-enthusiasm-saved... Nevermind that it had a good end. Recognize that even though there was reasonable doubt as a near impossibility of this man being guilty, the prosecutor still desperately tried to throw him in prison, despite him obviously being the wrong person and the prosecutor almost succeeded!

fortran77 6y ago
An amazing reason to never, ever, believe or trust policemen or prosecutors if you're ever on a jury > But that wasn’t enough for the LAPD and the prosecutor — who had never lost a case and was going to push for the death penalty for Puebla’s murderer. He did get some compensation: > In 2007, Juan received $320,000 in a settlement of his civil lawsuit against the LAPD and the city of Los Angeles for false imprisonment, misconduct and defamation. (In 2008, gang member Raul Robledo received a life term for the murder. But it's outrageous we, the taxpayers, have to pay for police misconduct. Let it come out of their pension fund (and reduce their pensions accordingly).

nuker 6y ago

> If the records exist, and you're not guilty of the crime, hope exists that you could be cleared. But if no records exist, you will not be a suspect in the first place.

cromwellian 6y ago
Not really. Stone was already a suspect, this was a fishing expedition to confirm their suspicions.

AnthonyMouse 6y ago

> If someone wants to home in and destroy you, they've always been able to do that without total surveillance. This isn't even about that. Yes, if someone powerful wants to make your life hard, your life is going to be hard. Now consider what happens if they just don't care whether you live or die. Some system is set up to "solve crimes" as "efficiently" as possible. The same sort of system that gets used to issue YouTube copyright strikes against the original creators or public domain works because Hollywood put a copy in a motion picture, or mark every email sent by a perfectly legitimate small private email server as spam. The police increase their "solve rate" dramatically -- by putting a ton of innocent people in prison. Because now instead of unsolved crimes they have "evidence" which, even if it's all circumstantial garbage, is enough to coerce guilty pleas out of defendants who can't afford a good lawyer or don't want to risk having the penalty quintupled if they demand their day in court and lose, or would rather spend six months in prison than pay six years worth of wages to a lawyer. > If the records exist, and you're not guilty of the crime, hope exists that you could be cleared. Only you can't get access to the records, because they're sensitive for all sorts of reasons, e.g. because having them in the aggregate would allow you to locate people in witness protection or unmask undercover law enforcement or case targets for espionage or theft. So you can't give access to everything to everybody, which means it only gets used as evidence for the prosecution because they can get it and you can't. > Doesn't it make more sense for one's worst fear to be accused of something for which you are innocent but have no alibi? In principle they still have to prove your guilt even if you don't have an alibi. Think about it, a large proportion of crimes are committed at night when most people are at home asleep. Meanwhile, data under your control is generally only useful as evidence of guilt, because otherwise they just argue that it was under your control. If your phone was at the location of the crime, they argue you were there. If your phone was at home 200 miles from the location of the crime, they argue you knew you were about to commit a crime and left your phone at home. It's used to hurt you but not to help you.