4 ms·

does it work both ways? can i present this data as an alibi when i need one? if its not deemed accurate for that why would it be considered for evidence? and if

does it work both ways? can i present this data as an alibi when i need one? if its not deemed accurate for that why would it be considered for evidence? and if it is that seems like free alibis for everyone guilty or not ;)

daenz 5y ago
Which do you think is more important? Needing to present an alibi in the case of you being wrongly accused? Or needing to conceal your actions in a world where something new has been made illegal?
- mercora 5y ago
  i just tried to point out this data should be useless for prosecution. this could easily be faked to make up an alibi when you are correctly accused of something.
  - pixl97 5y ago
    In the US you are innocent until accused. Police organizations and the FBI love to come in and question the people around you with very pointed questionnaires that can make it seem like you are a very bad person. The number of guilty people that get off by it would be irrelevant compared to the number of innocents that become stigmatized by their peers.
- vkou 5y ago
  Which do you think is more important? An innocent person being able to prove their innocence, or a criminal being able to conceal their crimes? The entire millenium-old body of law surrounding what rights you have when dealing with the police exists in order to protect the innocent, not the guilty. Things like warrants don't exist to make it impossible for the police to do their work. They exist to make it so that they spend less[1] time harassing people who have done nothing wrong. It's difficult to frame the police scooping up data that a third party has on you as harassment. [1] But not no.
  - daenz 5y ago
    >or a criminal being able to conceal their crimes? What if I made something that you like to do illegal? Now you are a criminal concealing their crimes. Now your tech works against you and you must comply. I absolutely agree with erring on the side of letting criminals get away with more if it means preserving privacy. No alibi safety net is worth trading away your privacy.
    - vkou 5y ago
      > What if I made something that you like to do illegal? Pointless red herring. For any law, we can find someone that doesn't like it. Building an argument about police powers from that is building on quicksand. Unless you mean to do away with law, and the concept of crime in general.
      - daenz 5y ago
        You missed the point of me saying that which was a response to your flippant "protecting criminals is bad" suggestion. Many crimes are only crimes not because the oppose some fundamental morality, but because some legislators felt like making them crimes. I noticed you didn't address my point around erring on the side of not infringing on privacy however. Does this mean that you agree?
        vkou 5y ago
        No, I get your point. Your point is a red herring. You're arguing that "Because law is arbitrary, police powers should be restricted." That's not a valid argument. You don't get to pick and choose law. You either get the whole package, or nothing. Police powers are completely orthogonal to this question. The reason they are restricted by law is not so that law is more difficult to enforce. The barristers that have drafted all this precedent over the centuries did not do so with the goal of 'Man, wouldn't it be great if we made a copper's job difficult!" The reason police powers are restricted by law is, as said earlier, to reduce the impact on how much police work should harass the innocent. The law doesn't recognize that there are parts of it that are arbitrary and optional. It either applies in its entirely, or doesn't. As long as you focus on the harm to the criminal, you're framing your argument in an odd way. You're much better off building your argument in a way that focuses on harm to the innocent. > I noticed you didn't address my point around erring on the side of not infringing on privacy however. Does this mean that you agree? I didn't address it, because your argument lacks qualification, which makes it possible to take it to absurd conclusions. If you believe privacy is an absolute good that cannot be infringed in any situation, then you get absurdity, like the police being unable to search an apartment that the neighbors have reported hearing gunshots from. (Because, heaven forbid, the occupants thereof may not be actually guilty of any crimes.) If you don't believe that, then you're going to have to quantify your argument, with a basis for when you believe it is appropriate for the police to infringe on someone's privacy. You're then going to have to explain how its consistent with actual pre-digital legal precedent. You're then going to have to explain how your scaffolding leads to an outcome inconsistent with how policing is currently done in the digital world. You've got a lot more work to do to make a coherent argument then simply saying "I believe privacy trumps solving crime," before I can respond to it.
- jonas21 5y ago
  The former is more important. At least in the U.S., ex post facto laws are unconstitutional, so you don't have to worry about concealing past actions when something new is made illegal.
  - daenz 5y ago
    Strong disagree and I think you're looking at it at too small of a scale. Your phone monitoring your location is a placeholder for tech knowing what you do in your private life. The tech is just going to get better than your phone. Put it this way, if you had cameras watching you every moment of your life, you could have the perfect alibi for anything. But you would never be able to do anything considered illegal again, for whatever definition of "illegal."
  - mellavora 5y ago
    But ex post facto shifts in what is publicly acceptable are common, opening up possibilities for blackmail or negative life consequences (like being denied jobs, housing, ...).

daenz 5y ago

Which do you think is more important? Needing to present an alibi in the case of you being wrongly accused? Or needing to conceal your actions in a world where something new has been made illegal?

mercora 5y ago
i just tried to point out this data should be useless for prosecution. this could easily be faked to make up an alibi when you are correctly accused of something.
- pixl97 5y ago
  In the US you are innocent until accused. Police organizations and the FBI love to come in and question the people around you with very pointed questionnaires that can make it seem like you are a very bad person. The number of guilty people that get off by it would be irrelevant compared to the number of innocents that become stigmatized by their peers.
vkou 5y ago
Which do you think is more important? An innocent person being able to prove their innocence, or a criminal being able to conceal their crimes? The entire millenium-old body of law surrounding what rights you have when dealing with the police exists in order to protect the innocent, not the guilty. Things like warrants don't exist to make it impossible for the police to do their work. They exist to make it so that they spend less[1] time harassing people who have done nothing wrong. It's difficult to frame the police scooping up data that a third party has on you as harassment. [1] But not no.
- daenz 5y ago
  >or a criminal being able to conceal their crimes? What if I made something that you like to do illegal? Now you are a criminal concealing their crimes. Now your tech works against you and you must comply. I absolutely agree with erring on the side of letting criminals get away with more if it means preserving privacy. No alibi safety net is worth trading away your privacy.
  - vkou 5y ago
    > What if I made something that you like to do illegal? Pointless red herring. For any law, we can find someone that doesn't like it. Building an argument about police powers from that is building on quicksand. Unless you mean to do away with law, and the concept of crime in general.
    - daenz 5y ago
      You missed the point of me saying that which was a response to your flippant "protecting criminals is bad" suggestion. Many crimes are only crimes not because the oppose some fundamental morality, but because some legislators felt like making them crimes. I noticed you didn't address my point around erring on the side of not infringing on privacy however. Does this mean that you agree?
      - vkou 5y ago
        No, I get your point. Your point is a red herring. You're arguing that "Because law is arbitrary, police powers should be restricted." That's not a valid argument. You don't get to pick and choose law. You either get the whole package, or nothing. Police powers are completely orthogonal to this question. The reason they are restricted by law is not so that law is more difficult to enforce. The barristers that have drafted all this precedent over the centuries did not do so with the goal of 'Man, wouldn't it be great if we made a copper's job difficult!" The reason police powers are restricted by law is, as said earlier, to reduce the impact on how much police work should harass the innocent. The law doesn't recognize that there are parts of it that are arbitrary and optional. It either applies in its entirely, or doesn't. As long as you focus on the harm to the criminal, you're framing your argument in an odd way. You're much better off building your argument in a way that focuses on harm to the innocent. > I noticed you didn't address my point around erring on the side of not infringing on privacy however. Does this mean that you agree? I didn't address it, because your argument lacks qualification, which makes it possible to take it to absurd conclusions. If you believe privacy is an absolute good that cannot be infringed in any situation, then you get absurdity, like the police being unable to search an apartment that the neighbors have reported hearing gunshots from. (Because, heaven forbid, the occupants thereof may not be actually guilty of any crimes.) If you don't believe that, then you're going to have to quantify your argument, with a basis for when you believe it is appropriate for the police to infringe on someone's privacy. You're then going to have to explain how its consistent with actual pre-digital legal precedent. You're then going to have to explain how your scaffolding leads to an outcome inconsistent with how policing is currently done in the digital world. You've got a lot more work to do to make a coherent argument then simply saying "I believe privacy trumps solving crime," before I can respond to it.
jonas21 5y ago
The former is more important. At least in the U.S., ex post facto laws are unconstitutional, so you don't have to worry about concealing past actions when something new is made illegal.
- daenz 5y ago
  Strong disagree and I think you're looking at it at too small of a scale. Your phone monitoring your location is a placeholder for tech knowing what you do in your private life. The tech is just going to get better than your phone. Put it this way, if you had cameras watching you every moment of your life, you could have the perfect alibi for anything. But you would never be able to do anything considered illegal again, for whatever definition of "illegal."
- mellavora 5y ago
  But ex post facto shifts in what is publicly acceptable are common, opening up possibilities for blackmail or negative life consequences (like being denied jobs, housing, ...).