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Electronic tracking is a very cheap way to gain a lot of possibly useful information about potential suspects. It thus allows government to keep us safe without

by dpatru 15y ago

Electronic tracking is a very cheap way to gain a lot of possibly useful information about potential suspects. It thus allows government to keep us safe without spending a lot of money. There are only two downsides. First, innocent people may be singled out to be tracked without having done anything wrong. However, tracking, by itself, does not negatively impact the life of the person being tracked. Most are completely unaware of it, and those that are aware that they are being tracked have nothing to complain about: there is no expectation of privacy while traveling on public roads. And, as the technology gets cheaper, more people will get tracked, making the "singling out" less significant. When everyone is tracked, no one will be singled out. The second downside to electronic tracking is that it vastly increases the power of government. But most people view this as a good thing. A more powerful government can keep us safer. If it can do it cheaply, so much the better.

raganwald 15y ago
The second downside to electronic tracking is that it vastly increases the power of government. But most people view this as a good thing. A more powerful government can keep us safer. If it can do it cheaply, so much the better. First, "most people view this as a good thing" is clearly an appeal to popularity, which is a fallacious reasoning. At one time, most people believed slavery was a good thing. Discuss. "A more powerful government can keep us safer." The word "can" is a weasel-word. We are not debating whether the government "can" do something, we are debating whether they actually do something. I challenge you to strengthen your statement by claiming that the increase in power given to the government is actually keeping us safer. "if it can do it cheaply, so much the better." Hanging around startups, I have become enamoured of the idea that when certain things become extremely cheap, the entire dynamic changes. Radio car phones existed when I was a teen-ager. Then analog cell-phones, then digital cell-phones. Each new wave of technology was cheaper than the previous one. At some point, untethered phones became so cheap that the entire dynamic around telephony changed, and it changed very quickly. Getting back to cheap spying on people, if you like what they are doing, then doing it cheaper seems to be a good thing. But at some point, it becomes so cheap that the entire dynamic changes. For example, if these devices were so cheap that they could be disposable, why not spy on everyone, all of the time? This completely changes the dynamic of law enforcement. You don't start with a person suspected of breaking the law and spy on them, you simply spy on everyone and save everything. When and if you become interested in someone, you open up their file and voila! All of their movements since they bought their first car, all of their rental car movements, all of the movements of everyone who knew them and might have given them a ride, going back decades. I need a bit more meat to the assertion that this scenario is "so much the better" before I will accept it.
- GHFigs 15y ago
  At one time, most people believed slavery was a good thing. Discuss. This may be true for some places and times, but societies that practiced slavery commonly suffered from the demographic problem that the slaves outnumbered their masters (and other freemen). That is to say, most people were slaves. When and if you become interested in someone, you open up their file and voila! The file is just data. That data can be used to establish the guilt of the guilty or the innocence of the innocent. It can also be used to make cool looking graphs and heatmaps to post on your blog, improve the flow of traffic, better design cars and cities, tax emissions, target advertisements, set insurance rates, get you laid, etc. It's not that I disagree with you, but I think with time we need more specificity as to what the onerous scenarios are. Is the collection of that data the problem, or is it the collection of that data directly by law enforcement that bothers us? Is it the collection or is it the ease with which they do it? Is it the access to that data by law enforcement or the potential for abuse, misuse, and falsely convicting the innocent? And so on. To take it in the more general direction: When exactly does more and better data become a bad thing? When exactly is the ambiguity in our lives sacred enough to shield against the tide of data and the changing dynamics that enable it?
  - raganwald 15y ago
    America in 1860 may have been one of those places and times where most people believed slavery was a good thing: http://www.civilwarhome.com/population1860.htm http://www.civilwarhome.com/population1860.htm Total Free Population 27,489,561 Total Slave Population 3,953,760 Grand Total 31,443,321 The freemen outnumbered the slaves in all but two states. And in any event, nobody asked the slaves. As for the file being "just" data, so is a picture of a man with his mistress, or an email conversation, or a list of the books you purchased online, or a list of URLs you visited this year. You tell me: Is this all just "data?" Are you good with the FBI/CSIS having all this stuff about you or any other citizen who is not being investigated with cause? I'm not, and furthermore I won't be tricked into some kind of reverse onus where I have to explain why it's a bad thing for the government to have this data just for the sake of having all this data. It's the other way around: The government should have to tell us, the people, why it needs this data. If it can't justify the collection of this data, it shouldn't collect it. The reason why the onus is upon the government to prove why it needs the data and not on us to prove why we're entitled to some privacy is because humans have an unbroken track record for abusing information about each other, and governments even more so. To argue that somehow 2011 it is all going to be different is to argue that this month will be full of Sundays or that pigs have finally taken flight with their new wings.

by dpatru 15y ago

raganwald 15y ago

The second downside to electronic tracking is that it vastly increases the power of government. But most people view this as a good thing. A more powerful government can keep us safer. If it can do it cheaply, so much the better. First, "most people view this as a good thing" is clearly an appeal to popularity, which is a fallacious reasoning. At one time, most people believed slavery was a good thing. Discuss. "A more powerful government can keep us safer." The word "can" is a weasel-word. We are not debating whether the government "can" do something, we are debating whether they actually do something. I challenge you to strengthen your statement by claiming that the increase in power given to the government is actually keeping us safer. "if it can do it cheaply, so much the better." Hanging around startups, I have become enamoured of the idea that when certain things become extremely cheap, the entire dynamic changes. Radio car phones existed when I was a teen-ager. Then analog cell-phones, then digital cell-phones. Each new wave of technology was cheaper than the previous one. At some point, untethered phones became so cheap that the entire dynamic around telephony changed, and it changed very quickly. Getting back to cheap spying on people, if you like what they are doing, then doing it cheaper seems to be a good thing. But at some point, it becomes so cheap that the entire dynamic changes. For example, if these devices were so cheap that they could be disposable, why not spy on everyone, all of the time? This completely changes the dynamic of law enforcement. You don't start with a person suspected of breaking the law and spy on them, you simply spy on everyone and save everything. When and if you become interested in someone, you open up their file and voila! All of their movements since they bought their first car, all of their rental car movements, all of the movements of everyone who knew them and might have given them a ride, going back decades. I need a bit more meat to the assertion that this scenario is "so much the better" before I will accept it.

GHFigs 15y ago
At one time, most people believed slavery was a good thing. Discuss. This may be true for some places and times, but societies that practiced slavery commonly suffered from the demographic problem that the slaves outnumbered their masters (and other freemen). That is to say, most people were slaves. When and if you become interested in someone, you open up their file and voila! The file is just data. That data can be used to establish the guilt of the guilty or the innocence of the innocent. It can also be used to make cool looking graphs and heatmaps to post on your blog, improve the flow of traffic, better design cars and cities, tax emissions, target advertisements, set insurance rates, get you laid, etc. It's not that I disagree with you, but I think with time we need more specificity as to what the onerous scenarios are. Is the collection of that data the problem, or is it the collection of that data directly by law enforcement that bothers us? Is it the collection or is it the ease with which they do it? Is it the access to that data by law enforcement or the potential for abuse, misuse, and falsely convicting the innocent? And so on. To take it in the more general direction: When exactly does more and better data become a bad thing? When exactly is the ambiguity in our lives sacred enough to shield against the tide of data and the changing dynamics that enable it?
- raganwald 15y ago
  America in 1860 may have been one of those places and times where most people believed slavery was a good thing: http://www.civilwarhome.com/population1860.htm http://www.civilwarhome.com/population1860.htm Total Free Population 27,489,561 Total Slave Population 3,953,760 Grand Total 31,443,321 The freemen outnumbered the slaves in all but two states. And in any event, nobody asked the slaves. As for the file being "just" data, so is a picture of a man with his mistress, or an email conversation, or a list of the books you purchased online, or a list of URLs you visited this year. You tell me: Is this all just "data?" Are you good with the FBI/CSIS having all this stuff about you or any other citizen who is not being investigated with cause? I'm not, and furthermore I won't be tricked into some kind of reverse onus where I have to explain why it's a bad thing for the government to have this data just for the sake of having all this data. It's the other way around: The government should have to tell us, the people, why it needs this data. If it can't justify the collection of this data, it shouldn't collect it. The reason why the onus is upon the government to prove why it needs the data and not on us to prove why we're entitled to some privacy is because humans have an unbroken track record for abusing information about each other, and governments even more so. To argue that somehow 2011 it is all going to be different is to argue that this month will be full of Sundays or that pigs have finally taken flight with their new wings.