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This seems to me like a common scheme in the US. People have a general aversion to government services, but they still need to be done so in the end the governm

This seems to me like a common scheme in the US. People have a general aversion to government services, but they still need to be done so in the end the government ends up actually paying some completely opaque private actor for the benefit. I remember reading about laws preventing the police from collecting license plate data but not private individuals, so companies exist where the police literally buys license plate location data and nobody knows anything about what data they collect. Same with Palantir, same with Clearview and so on. Kinda disturbing trend to outsource fundamental services regarding identity and privacy to unaccountable private industry.

dragonwriter 5y ago
> This seems to me like a common scheme in the US. People have a general aversion to government services The people with the strongest aversion, and who pay for the propaganda to create and maintain that aversion in others, are also people who benefit financially from government functions being outsourced to private industry.
- d110af5ccf 5y ago
  I have no aversion to government handouts. I do, however, have a huge aversion to dragnet surveillance and the resultant systematic elimination of privacy. Police collection of license plate data and California's use of ID.me both seem like clear examples of enabling the latter.
  - perl4ever 5y ago
    I find it annoying that with license plate recognition everywhere, that on the toll roads in NY, which have eliminated human attended toll booths, they do read your license plate in order to bill you if necessary, but they charge extra if you don't have the traditional transponder. It's nuts. The transponders cost money, they set up the infrastructure for billing by plates, so they should discourage the former, not the latter. Sunk cost, etc. However, it is outsourced to a private company and I just bet they have screwy incentives.
    - d110af5ccf 5y ago
      Same issue in WA. Some recent improvements (HOV lanes, bridge rebuild) resulted in some of the only toll roads in the entire state. Same billing structure with a surcharge to do it by plates. Some (all?) of the cameras have very distracting bright lights coming off of them at night. They incorrectly bill motorcycles all the time, forcing riders to call in and wait on hold to talk to a person and have the charges reversed. Carpools can't even use the HOV lane for free anymore (!!!) without purchasing a transponder and setting it to indicate such. Unbeknownst to us, a transponder broke and was deducting from the account balance when set to indicate carpool for months. It was discovered upon finally managing to empty the entire account, at which point they refused to reverse the charges because it went back too far. 0/10, would not recommend whoever designed and implemented this pile of shit. I suspect screwy incentives exist in this case as well.
- kortilla 5y ago
  That is a popular narrative of the left, yes. Most people on the right are indeed incapable of independent thought and the ones that are smart that appear to distrust centralized government services are faking it to line their pockets. That’s on the same level as “Democrats want immigration just for the votes”.
  - watwut 5y ago
    There are groups who try to influence public opinion so that they get laws that are financially benefiting them. It is how democracy and business works, actually. It should not be taboo that some people try to convince others the government service (schools or postal or electricity for example) is much worst then it is, so that they get laws they want. This has nothing to do with independence of thought or theory. It has to do with lying about facts when it suits your business. Historically, Enron is such example. They pushed for deregulation, intentionally created crises and then used those as argument for more deregulation.
    - kortilla 5y ago
      But your point still supposes that deregulation is something that needs to be advocated by a special interest group. My point is that there are many people who are philosophically opposed to regulation enforced by a violence monopoly (the government) so the default position is that all regulations need to constantly revisited and removed if they can’t be adequately defended. It is just as likely for established mega corps to spread propaganda about the importance of the existing regulations over an industry to protect from new entrants as it is for companies to push for their removal.
- dehrmann 5y ago
  > People have a general aversion to government services It's because of long lines at the DMV. I know it's a meme, but without an appointment (and those can be months in the future), you should expect to wait at least half an hour.
cratermoon 5y ago
They have an aversion to the "undeserving" getting government services, and are happy to set up a complicated public/private partnership to "prevent fraud", even if that privatized program ends up costing more and being less effective than just directly providing the services by a government program, even with fraud. It's not surprising there's now a big push to 'prove' that the pandemic unemployment benefits were wastefully expensive. It doesn't fit the neoliberal economic worldview that says government aid should be "need based" and have means testing. Of course the total dollar amount said to be lost to the waste is less than what the DoD spends in a day. The most obviously agenda-driven aspect of this new pandemic fraud panic is that it directly plays on the American aversion to the helping the "losers" who didn't clear the "pulled up by one's own bootstraps" bar. It's the same rhetoric employed against student loan forgiveness and by the Tea Party, to name just a couple of examples.
Spooky23 5y ago
Identity is fraught because we leave it to revenue collection agencies (DMV). Usually interstate sharing of DMV records is only allowed for law enforcement purposes. So a traffic camera can look up your records, but a permitting agency cannot. Other uses are usually not allowed unless specified by statute. DMVs sell everything, and other agencies buy that data back from companies like ID.me and others.
d110af5ccf 5y ago
> companies exist where the police literally buys license plate location data and nobody knows anything about what data they collect The problem here isn't that the police aren't collecting such data themselves but rather that private companies are still allowed to. You're pointing to a massive loophole in the current regulations in order to argue against having any regulation at all. Instead, the loophole should be closed - I have no interest in living in a glass house dystopia.

dragonwriter 5y ago

> This seems to me like a common scheme in the US. People have a general aversion to government services The people with the strongest aversion, and who pay for the propaganda to create and maintain that aversion in others, are also people who benefit financially from government functions being outsourced to private industry.

d110af5ccf 5y ago
I have no aversion to government handouts. I do, however, have a huge aversion to dragnet surveillance and the resultant systematic elimination of privacy. Police collection of license plate data and California's use of ID.me both seem like clear examples of enabling the latter.
- perl4ever 5y ago
  I find it annoying that with license plate recognition everywhere, that on the toll roads in NY, which have eliminated human attended toll booths, they do read your license plate in order to bill you if necessary, but they charge extra if you don't have the traditional transponder. It's nuts. The transponders cost money, they set up the infrastructure for billing by plates, so they should discourage the former, not the latter. Sunk cost, etc. However, it is outsourced to a private company and I just bet they have screwy incentives.
  - d110af5ccf 5y ago
    Same issue in WA. Some recent improvements (HOV lanes, bridge rebuild) resulted in some of the only toll roads in the entire state. Same billing structure with a surcharge to do it by plates. Some (all?) of the cameras have very distracting bright lights coming off of them at night. They incorrectly bill motorcycles all the time, forcing riders to call in and wait on hold to talk to a person and have the charges reversed. Carpools can't even use the HOV lane for free anymore (!!!) without purchasing a transponder and setting it to indicate such. Unbeknownst to us, a transponder broke and was deducting from the account balance when set to indicate carpool for months. It was discovered upon finally managing to empty the entire account, at which point they refused to reverse the charges because it went back too far. 0/10, would not recommend whoever designed and implemented this pile of shit. I suspect screwy incentives exist in this case as well.
kortilla 5y ago
That is a popular narrative of the left, yes. Most people on the right are indeed incapable of independent thought and the ones that are smart that appear to distrust centralized government services are faking it to line their pockets. That’s on the same level as “Democrats want immigration just for the votes”.
- watwut 5y ago
  There are groups who try to influence public opinion so that they get laws that are financially benefiting them. It is how democracy and business works, actually. It should not be taboo that some people try to convince others the government service (schools or postal or electricity for example) is much worst then it is, so that they get laws they want. This has nothing to do with independence of thought or theory. It has to do with lying about facts when it suits your business. Historically, Enron is such example. They pushed for deregulation, intentionally created crises and then used those as argument for more deregulation.
  - kortilla 5y ago
    But your point still supposes that deregulation is something that needs to be advocated by a special interest group. My point is that there are many people who are philosophically opposed to regulation enforced by a violence monopoly (the government) so the default position is that all regulations need to constantly revisited and removed if they can’t be adequately defended. It is just as likely for established mega corps to spread propaganda about the importance of the existing regulations over an industry to protect from new entrants as it is for companies to push for their removal.
dehrmann 5y ago
> People have a general aversion to government services It's because of long lines at the DMV. I know it's a meme, but without an appointment (and those can be months in the future), you should expect to wait at least half an hour.

cratermoon 5y ago

They have an aversion to the "undeserving" getting government services, and are happy to set up a complicated public/private partnership to "prevent fraud", even if that privatized program ends up costing more and being less effective than just directly providing the services by a government program, even with fraud. It's not surprising there's now a big push to 'prove' that the pandemic unemployment benefits were wastefully expensive. It doesn't fit the neoliberal economic worldview that says government aid should be "need based" and have means testing. Of course the total dollar amount said to be lost to the waste is less than what the DoD spends in a day. The most obviously agenda-driven aspect of this new pandemic fraud panic is that it directly plays on the American aversion to the helping the "losers" who didn't clear the "pulled up by one's own bootstraps" bar. It's the same rhetoric employed against student loan forgiveness and by the Tea Party, to name just a couple of examples.

Spooky23 5y ago

Identity is fraught because we leave it to revenue collection agencies (DMV). Usually interstate sharing of DMV records is only allowed for law enforcement purposes. So a traffic camera can look up your records, but a permitting agency cannot. Other uses are usually not allowed unless specified by statute. DMVs sell everything, and other agencies buy that data back from companies like ID.me and others.

d110af5ccf 5y ago

> companies exist where the police literally buys license plate location data and nobody knows anything about what data they collect The problem here isn't that the police aren't collecting such data themselves but rather that private companies are still allowed to. You're pointing to a massive loophole in the current regulations in order to argue against having any regulation at all. Instead, the loophole should be closed - I have no interest in living in a glass house dystopia.