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> People in South Australia will be forced to download an app that combines facial recognition and geolocation. The state will text them at random times, and th
by nanis 5y ago
> People in South Australia will be forced to download an app that combines facial recognition and geolocation. The state will text them at random times, and thereafter they will have 15 minutes to take a picture of their face in the location where they are supposed to be. Should they fail, the local police department will be sent to follow up in person. “We don’t tell them how often or when, on a random basis they have to reply within 15 minutes,” Premier Steven Marshall explained.
Let's see:
* Forced to download an app by the state
* Forced to jump when the state says "jump!"
* Acceding to the concept that there is a state-sanctioned place where everyone is supposed to be (prison colony?)
* Acceding to whatever punishment the police may decide to mete out for failing to confirm that one is where one is supposed to be even if one is already there
That's the thing with slippery slopes. The farther you go down, the more impossible it becomes to climb back up.
- AnimalMuppet 5y agoHeh. Score one for not having a smart phone...
- nanis 5y agoPresumably, the government can declare not owning a smart phone to be intent to violate the law and force people to purchase & pay for the requisite tracking device. Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27831800 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27831800
- sudosysgen 5y agoDumb phones can also be geolocated.
- AnimalMuppet 5y agoOK. But still, people with no phones can't be.
- klyrs 5y agoLandlines are even easier to geolocate...
- js2 5y agoIt’s a trade-off: > In return for trading away their liberty, Australians gained a huge safety dividend. COVID-19 has killed 194 of every 100,000 Americans, 77 of every 100,000 Israelis, and only four of every 100,000 Australians. That low death toll is a tremendous upside. What remains to be seen is whether Australia can maintain that performance without permanently ending core attributes of life in a liberal democracy, including freedom of movement, peaceable assembly, and basic privacy. We’re still in the middle of this. If we could have nice things, these restrictions wouldn’t need to be enforced. We’ll have to see what happens once the country is adequately vaccinated.
- throwawayay02 5y agoI didn't know the goal of life was to live the longest, even if in prison. You might want to invest in cryogenic sleep.
- grecy 5y agoA big goal of my life is to be alive, not dead. There are 45,000 people in Australia who are alive right now who would not be if Australia had the same death rate as the USA. So they're doing pretty well.
- serf 5y ago>There are 45,000 people in Australia who are alive right now who would not be if Australia had the same death rate as the USA. So they're doing pretty well. the idea that the difference in death rate is due to some intrinsic policy or mandated behavior rather than something more simple like population density/metropolis commonality/average temperature/humidity, etc seems like a pretty big leap -- and that seems to be your point , no? is there already some big comprehensive list of social policies that provably worked to reduce death rate during the covid-19 pandemic across the board with environmental factors normalized out? I thought we were still in the middle of this experiment, but i'd love to see some data if it exists.
- 5y ago
- eplanit 5y agoThat's not a slope, but a cliff -- and they've gone over it. What has amazed me is how there are many Aussie's who agree with the rules and are happy to comply. It's amazing.
- azinman2 5y agoAnd consequently their Covid numbers are very low.
- techbio 5y agoWhen a measure becomes a target...
- edmundsauto 5y agoWisdom becomes a platitude when repeated without specific comments about relevance.
- techbio 5y agoIt is relevant in the context of the message thread it replies to. If you do think my reply was unwise, I'd be happy to have your explanation for why you think that, but I am fairly certain that platitude is the wrong word here. Maybe you mean something like "played out", but then that would seem to be just your opinion.
- edmundsauto 5y agoWhy do you think this measure is a target? It is possible for a measure to become a target and still remain useful - a few catchy words that describe some situations doesn't give any indication of an analysis of the process, or even define the difference between a measure and a target, or any indication that is what's happening here. Some measures become targets, sometimes. Sometimes those become less useful; other times they are both useful and not useful in different ways. Determining when something is useful is too nuanced and multi-dimensional to reduce it to a catchy phrase.
- spywaregorilla 5y agoWhat happens if you just don't do it but are where you're supposed to be?
- 0xbadc0de5 5y agoCompletely unrelated - an inexpensive Software Define Radio (SDR) and GPS simulator code (https://github.com/osqzss/gps-sdr-sim https://github.com/osqzss/gps-sdr-sim) can quickly and reliably spoof cell phone GPS to any location you desire.
- lifty 5y agoI keep mentioning this like a broken record. In most western democracies we have a disconnect from the will of the people and what legislation gets implemented, caused by representative democracy. We need a more direct way for people to influence policy. If the majority of people vote to implement something, the rest of the people will have an easier time accepting it if they know the process is fair and genuine.
- throwawayboise 5y agoTerm limits. Politics should not be a viable career option.
- kwhitefoot 5y agoYou would need to apply the limits to everyone involved in politics not just elected representatives. Otherwise the power will simply shift to the backroom boys, well shift further to them.
- lifty 5y agoTerm limits are not sufficient and it becomes difficult to get enough politicians with experience. We need a combination of direct democracy and liquid democracy so that people can vote directly on some big issue and quickly shift to a different representative when needed, for legislation that gets implemented through representation.
- edmundsauto 5y agoThis would likely have an intended consequence: unelected representatives would have their power increase. If elected officials are rotating in and out of Washington faster, they will rely more on the power brokers.
- inter_netuser 5y agoyou could also rotate them inside the government, it's what ive heard japan does, but not sure about the details. Essentially let's say you are responsible for helping run ministry of finance, and then you are rotated out to manage some rural agriculture thing, and so on.
- kwhitefoot 5y agoDoesn't Taiwan use something similar? Except that, if memory serves, they don't require an app to be installed they just require the network operator to geo-fence the mobile phone and notify the user if they stray from home and the authorities if the user doesn't return home after being reminded. Seems unnecessary to use an app when the network can triangulate pretty well in densely populated areas.
- unearth3d 5y agoAustralia is consciously weaponing covid, everything now is performative inhumanity. Country becoming a Pentecostal theocracy (Dominionists aka christo-fascists), I genuinely fear for my neighboring country.
- sparrish 5y agoAll this made possible because they disarmed the populace first. The second amendment is holding this back from happening in the US.
- Theory5 5y agoNo, it's not.
- ClumsyPilot 5y agoHow is your second amendment helping you deal with NSA, illegal no-fly lists, police brutality, etc? It doesn't, its just a power fantasy. There are plenty of 'disatmed' countriss with just as much or more liberty
- amanaplanacanal 5y agoYeah. People talk about second amendment solutions, and I wonder exactly what line needs to be crossed for that to come into play. My guess is nothing will ever be egregious enough. It's all BS.
- zepto 5y agoNot knowing where the line is is itself a line.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- nickthemagicman 5y agoSecond Amendment gives the population a chance against the government. No guns the population has no chance and the government can do anything they want.
- lagadu 5y agoAh, the famous second amendment, meant to allow the people to prevent a hostile takeover of the government. Funny thing is, all the people who are most fervent about it are the people who think trump won the election and yet they lay down and took the loss, the exact thing that the amendment is supposed to prevent, like impotent little children. What a very effective amendment! /s
- Turing_Machine 5y agoA Bentham panopticon without the expense of having to actually build one. How lovely. Stalin would be pleased.
- davesmylie 5y agoYou are being deliberately (maliciously?) misleading and scare mongering here. This only applies to specific people in home quarantine and only for a short period of time - 14 days. i.e people that have returned to the country from overseas that would normally be in quarantine in a government facility for that same period. People now have the option of quarantining at home, and if they choose to do so, have to show that they are quarantining at home rather than saying they will, and then heading off into town and infecting others. (As many people have done). You are trying to portray this as something being forced on all citizens, indefinitely when that couldn't be further from reality.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- nanis 5y ago> You are being deliberately (maliciously?) misleading and scare mongering here. ... > people that have returned to the country I do not know who's being deliberately misleading here. Please note[1]: > It will start this week for people returning from New South Wales and Victoria. > People wanting to return to South Australia and home quarantine will have to apply to SA Health. So this is clearly applicable to Australian citizens within Australia. Citizens of Australia are not allowed to move freely within Australia. Before an Australian citizen can travel from one part of Australia to another part of Australia, they have to ask the government to allow them to do so. They must accede to the points I listed. After that the government will expand the program to international travelers. Once a populace accepts that they are not allowed travel and that the government can arbitrarily place people under house arrest and subject to torture (and knowledge of random intrusions into your life can happen at any time - even during a long, relaxing shower or something is psychological torture), there isn't much that will stop people with the power from expanding their control. [1]: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-23/how-will-south-australias-home-quarantine-trial-work/100398878 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-23/how-will-south-austra...
- closeparen 5y agoSanitation is one of the most basic premises of civilization. Better question is how a government could claim any legitimacy while allowing infectious diseases to freely circulate.
- bitwize 5y agoThat's some shit that Keith Raniere of NXIVM fame did to his "slaves" (and had them do to their subordinates). I love Australians but right now? Fuck Australia.
- abrazame 5y agoIt's worth noting how little debate there was (or is) on any of this here in Australia, by the by. The government decides this is happening, and the media cheer them on. Any critical voice is instantly branded anti-science, told they don't care about lives, etc. The opposition parties, if anything, want more of it (irrespective of whether they're left or right in a given state). We're a reasonably small country, so often the media and the politicians know one another rather well (revolving doors, small social circles, etc), but it honestly doesn't feel like we have a free and critical media or opposition at all right now. PS: Watch this short clip for an idea of what news looks like in Australia at the moment: https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1429786126815010820 https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1429786126815010820
- president 5y ago> Any critical voice is instantly branded anti-science This has been the fishiest thing for me during the entire pandemic. It seems the slightest questioning of the mainstream narrative results in censorship. Even pointing this out can result in censorship or people lashing out.
- SamTwardowski 5y agoWe are in the midst of a holiness spiral and you dare question the cargo cult science at the center of all of this? It's never safe to be a heretic in the midst of a holiness spiral.
- gremloni 5y agoI honestly blame the right wing for making belief in outrageous conspiracies so commonplace that lower tier manipulations just slip through.
- morpheos137 5y agoPeople prefer safety to abstract concepts like democracy or free speech.
- josephcsible 5y ago> the media cheer them on These four points seem to be in contradiction with each other: 1. Most of Australia's media supports the lockdowns 2. Most of Australia's media is owned by Rupert Murdoch 3. Rupert Murdoch's media is right-wing 4. The right wing opposes the lockdowns Yet I hear combinations of those points all the time. What's happening here?
- matheusmoreira 5y agoWhat's the deal with Australia and these authoritharian laws? Last time they passed a law forcing companies to ship malware to their customers on behalf of law enforcement. Now this.
- monkeycantype 5y ago1. There is a conservative government in power, and the Murdoch press for the time being wants them to stay in power so they shape the message and direct attention elsewhere. A labor government would be less successful introducing similar laws 2. Australians overall are less frightened of their government. Any Indigenous Australians on hn can attest that does not mean everybody is safe from state violence. Police still kill people, power is still abused, but comparing my life in the US and in Australia, most people experience the government as being more benign, and helpful than people in general experience in the US. It's not black and white, its just a few nudges along on a spectrum of grey. So most people are viewing the these laws as clumsy collective effort that they do not imagine will be abused. There are many things that can be said about the problems with this view, but the acceptance of these laws does come from a reactionary hard line position, but rather that people find it hard to imagine that they will be abused
- nickthemagicman 5y agoNot any more right?
- monkeycantype 5y agoOh you can find a long history of everything being abused. But by and large, the Australian born, non Indigenous population, only imagine it will ever be abused against other people
- iamthemonster 5y agoI think I'll happily take our freedom from the virus, where we can live and work unmasked. Our pubs and restaurants are packed with people having fun, not having to worry about whether they'll be one of the hundreds of thousands dead.
- MonkeyClub 5y ago> * Acceding to the concept that there is a state-sanctioned place where everyone is supposed to be (prison colony?) We're talking about Australia, after all.