8 ms·

Clearview AI hits watchdog groups with subpoenas

114 points by dsr12 5y ago

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
dmitrygr 5y ago
ClearviewAI? Fuck those guys five ways! Where do i donate to help defend against this SLAPP-like behaviour? You do not get to just shut up your critics like that!
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- dang 5y ago
  "Please don't fulminate." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html I'm not saying you owe facial surveillance companies better, but you owe this community better if you're participating here.
  - dmitrygr 5y ago
    fair
    - dang 5y ago
      appreciated!
rhizome 5y ago
"A hit dog will holler."
- nefitty 5y ago
  I discovered this turn of phrase today when I typo'd "hot dog" as "hit dog" in Google.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
willcipriano 5y ago
> Clearview's attorney Andrew J. Lichtman said in a statement that “Clearview AI is vigorously defending itself against claims in multi-district litigation and therefore has served subpoenas to appropriate parties relating to its defense.” > That litigation is a privacy case in Illinois district court that does not appear to involve Open The Government, Martinez or Lucy Parsons Labs. Clearview did not respond to a question on how the communications with journalists were relevant to the Illinois case. If I understand this correctly, it's like a DNS amplification attack. They are involved in a case and they are claiming that these proportedly unrelated parties have information vital to their defence. They are using the court to send subpoenas on their behalf and consume their enemies resources until either they fold or tell them everything they want to know.
- black_puppydog 5y ago
  IANAL, but it seems to me like abusing the letter of the law for this kind of bad-faith move, while maybe hard to prove, should carry its own penalty, which an office shouldn't protect against. If someone decides to move forward with litigation in this way, and it turns out (provably, of course) that they knew full well that this was entirely just to get rid of inconvenient parties or keep them busy, they should expect personal consequences. Organizations don't have a conscience, but people will not stand for taking personal risks for the imagined benefit of their employer.
  - rapht 5y ago
    > Organizations don't have a conscience, but people will not stand for taking personal risks for the imagined benefit of their employer. I find this to be very true independently of this case: in general, I think people are a lot too much protected from consequences of their actions because they are supposedly acting on behalf of an employer, all the way to the top, until you reach the infamous 'legal personality' of corporations, at which point you've deflected all liability to a very powerful body that can just throw away a few million dollars to get out of jail free. Of course there are details to be worked out, but in general I believe individuals who make decisions should be made personally liable of the consequences, regardless of the organization they work for (and this of course is not exclusive of prosecuting that organization in its own right).
tdeck 5y ago
Doesn't a judge have to sign off on subpoenas? I wish the article explained more about how that happened in this case.
- lostdog 5y ago
  Every time we get a bad President, we get a slew of bad judges. It's very difficult to get a set of rules and practices that are better than the political system they came from.
  - redis_mlc 5y ago
    Biden's one of the worst ever in the White House, but he hasn't had time to appoint many judges.
donmcronald 5y ago
Read the Wikipedia page for them. Follow the links for the founders. Never buy anything from the companies on their customer list. I didn’t realize BestBuy uses them. I’m never buying anything there again until I see a news article saying BestBuy stopped using Clearview AI.
- Hard_Space 5y ago
  > Never buy anything from the companies on their customer list. I looked up that list, and, sadly, you'd pretty much have to go off-world to boycott those companies.
  - donmcronald 5y ago
    I’m in Canada, so BestBuy and Walmart are the only ones I’ve ever patronized. It’s pretty easy for me to stop spending my money at those two places.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
dylan604 5y ago
We're doing some shady shit, some people called us out on it, now we're going to do even more shady lawyer shit to try to beat them into submission. --asshats Seems like SOP to me.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- marginalia_nu 5y ago
  What is the Streisand effect?
  - dredmorbius 5y ago
    Not Streisand. SLAPP. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slapp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slapp

114 points by dsr12 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

ClearviewAI? Fuck those guys five ways! Where do i donate to help defend against this SLAPP-like behaviour? You do not get to just shut up your critics like that!

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
dang 5y ago
"Please don't fulminate." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html I'm not saying you owe facial surveillance companies better, but you owe this community better if you're participating here.
- dmitrygr 5y ago
  fair
  - dang 5y ago
    appreciated!

rhizome 5y ago

"A hit dog will holler."

nefitty 5y ago
I discovered this turn of phrase today when I typo'd "hot dog" as "hit dog" in Google.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

willcipriano 5y ago

> Clearview's attorney Andrew J. Lichtman said in a statement that “Clearview AI is vigorously defending itself against claims in multi-district litigation and therefore has served subpoenas to appropriate parties relating to its defense.” > That litigation is a privacy case in Illinois district court that does not appear to involve Open The Government, Martinez or Lucy Parsons Labs. Clearview did not respond to a question on how the communications with journalists were relevant to the Illinois case. If I understand this correctly, it's like a DNS amplification attack. They are involved in a case and they are claiming that these proportedly unrelated parties have information vital to their defence. They are using the court to send subpoenas on their behalf and consume their enemies resources until either they fold or tell them everything they want to know.

black_puppydog 5y ago
IANAL, but it seems to me like abusing the letter of the law for this kind of bad-faith move, while maybe hard to prove, should carry its own penalty, which an office shouldn't protect against. If someone decides to move forward with litigation in this way, and it turns out (provably, of course) that they knew full well that this was entirely just to get rid of inconvenient parties or keep them busy, they should expect personal consequences. Organizations don't have a conscience, but people will not stand for taking personal risks for the imagined benefit of their employer.
- rapht 5y ago
  > Organizations don't have a conscience, but people will not stand for taking personal risks for the imagined benefit of their employer. I find this to be very true independently of this case: in general, I think people are a lot too much protected from consequences of their actions because they are supposedly acting on behalf of an employer, all the way to the top, until you reach the infamous 'legal personality' of corporations, at which point you've deflected all liability to a very powerful body that can just throw away a few million dollars to get out of jail free. Of course there are details to be worked out, but in general I believe individuals who make decisions should be made personally liable of the consequences, regardless of the organization they work for (and this of course is not exclusive of prosecuting that organization in its own right).

tdeck 5y ago

Doesn't a judge have to sign off on subpoenas? I wish the article explained more about how that happened in this case.

lostdog 5y ago
Every time we get a bad President, we get a slew of bad judges. It's very difficult to get a set of rules and practices that are better than the political system they came from.
- redis_mlc 5y ago
  Biden's one of the worst ever in the White House, but he hasn't had time to appoint many judges.

donmcronald 5y ago

Read the Wikipedia page for them. Follow the links for the founders. Never buy anything from the companies on their customer list. I didn’t realize BestBuy uses them. I’m never buying anything there again until I see a news article saying BestBuy stopped using Clearview AI.

Hard_Space 5y ago
> Never buy anything from the companies on their customer list. I looked up that list, and, sadly, you'd pretty much have to go off-world to boycott those companies.
- donmcronald 5y ago
  I’m in Canada, so BestBuy and Walmart are the only ones I’ve ever patronized. It’s pretty easy for me to stop spending my money at those two places.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

dylan604 5y ago

We're doing some shady shit, some people called us out on it, now we're going to do even more shady lawyer shit to try to beat them into submission. --asshats Seems like SOP to me.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
marginalia_nu 5y ago
What is the Streisand effect?
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  Not Streisand. SLAPP. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slapp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slapp