4 ms·

ACLU just needs to file a briefing asking "could this data be used to track the movement of judges, or city officials around the city?"

by xt00 6y ago

malandrew 6y ago
Sadly, the ACLU today would support surveillance if someone made the argument that it could be used to track “racists and Nazis”. It’s a shame what has happened to the institution. I stopped donating a few years ago because it’s been captured by ideologues whose ideologies incompatible with civil liberties.
google234123 6y ago
Why does that matter? You could block literally anything if all you need to show is that it can be used again a judge or city official.
- AnimalMuppet 6y ago
  Because the powers that be get sensitive about things that could allow people to physically attack members of the powers that be. Or, in simpler terms: Because the person hearing the lawsuit is a judge.
  - google234123 6y ago
    I think they are smarter than you think they are. I bet they would laugh this argument out of the room. Try getting all guns banned in the US by arguing that they endanger judges.
- xt00 6y ago
  There have been countless examples of police organizations using surveillance in ways beyond their initial use -- so certain people like the mayor or judges might think "the police would be too dumb to try to use this against somebody like me", but if the system is essentially a dragnet where they store all the data, then they do actually track the judges and public officials in reality since the data would be stored -- just because they aren't accessing it today doesn't mean they can't in the future -- a FOIA request might be used to request all of the mayor's movements over the past year. Just the request itself may cause the mayor or other officials to want the program to be disbanded because they realize it can be used to mine information about where public officials are moving. What if the mayor threatened to cut funding to the police, so they decide to mine the dataset to see if they can find something in the database that would make the mayor look bad that they can leak to the press, etc. So it should force the issue of saying what data gets stored and the legality of collecting it in the first place on literally everybody vs. particular people of interest. Its only a matter of time before you have something happen like, "hmm, the mayor seems to be spending a lot of time at a random apartment in one part of town... oh look who is this random woman that lives there that is most definitely not his wife... hmmmmm what should we do with this information"..
dredmorbius 6y ago
Or their children. Or their lovers. Or ...

ACLU just needs to file a briefing asking "could this data be used to track the movement of judges, or city officials around the city?"

by xt00 6y ago

ACLU just needs to file a briefing asking "could this data be used to track the movement of judges, or city officials around the city?"

malandrew 6y ago

Sadly, the ACLU today would support surveillance if someone made the argument that it could be used to track “racists and Nazis”. It’s a shame what has happened to the institution. I stopped donating a few years ago because it’s been captured by ideologues whose ideologies incompatible with civil liberties.

google234123 6y ago

Why does that matter? You could block literally anything if all you need to show is that it can be used again a judge or city official.

AnimalMuppet 6y ago
Because the powers that be get sensitive about things that could allow people to physically attack members of the powers that be. Or, in simpler terms: Because the person hearing the lawsuit is a judge.
- google234123 6y ago
  I think they are smarter than you think they are. I bet they would laugh this argument out of the room. Try getting all guns banned in the US by arguing that they endanger judges.
xt00 6y ago
There have been countless examples of police organizations using surveillance in ways beyond their initial use -- so certain people like the mayor or judges might think "the police would be too dumb to try to use this against somebody like me", but if the system is essentially a dragnet where they store all the data, then they do actually track the judges and public officials in reality since the data would be stored -- just because they aren't accessing it today doesn't mean they can't in the future -- a FOIA request might be used to request all of the mayor's movements over the past year. Just the request itself may cause the mayor or other officials to want the program to be disbanded because they realize it can be used to mine information about where public officials are moving. What if the mayor threatened to cut funding to the police, so they decide to mine the dataset to see if they can find something in the database that would make the mayor look bad that they can leak to the press, etc. So it should force the issue of saying what data gets stored and the legality of collecting it in the first place on literally everybody vs. particular people of interest. Its only a matter of time before you have something happen like, "hmm, the mayor seems to be spending a lot of time at a random apartment in one part of town... oh look who is this random woman that lives there that is most definitely not his wife... hmmmmm what should we do with this information"..

dredmorbius 6y ago

Or their children. Or their lovers. Or ...