3 ms·

Exceptions for law enforcement have proven to be a very slippery slope in the past. Police is constantly trying to erode restrictions around tools that are only

Exceptions for law enforcement have proven to be a very slippery slope in the past. Police is constantly trying to erode restrictions around tools that are only available for serious crimes and unfortunately also has a record of successfully circumventing any access checks for surveillance tools that have been put in place by lawmakers. There is constant and incessant lobbying from these circles to get more surveillance in place. But, when pressed, no one can point to cases where this actually helped. The only realistic way to counter this is to say no to surveillance technology from the start.

raxxorrax 5y ago
Additionally we als have a dark security IT that makes good cash with dubious security solutions. Getting rid of that again will be difficult.
mytailorisrich 5y ago
I think that if the people see the government and especially the police as the enemy then society has a bigger problem than surveillance technology. Of course, there should be checks, controls, limitations placed upon those institutions, and transparency in their workings. But the police is here to protect and serve the community, at least it should be, not to oppress it. I've noticed that this is a difference in the way the police is often seen in Europe vs. in the UK for instance.
- mschuster91 5y ago
  > But the police is here to protect and serve the community, at least it should be, not to oppress it. The key question when the phrase "protect and serve the community" comes up is "which community?" and the answer is: it primarily serves the interest of the rich and powerful. If you are poor, not in the majority ethnic or in any other way not "mainstream", you have shit times ahead of you. No matter the country, the only difference between a cop in the US and a cop in the UK is better training and less reliance on guns. Homeless, being a person of color, being LGBT, protesting the government (especially from the left wing) - all common risk factors for adverse interactions with police. If you never have had a negative interaction with police, ask yourself why and prepare for an answer you likely would not have liked to hear.
  - trasz 5y ago
    >the only difference between a cop in the US and a cop in the UK is better training and less reliance on guns Ah, so that’s why American cops routinely murder random people and go unpunished - it’s just the lack of training! (The reality is that there’s a fundamental difference in that in Europe police is just another government branch that’s helping people, like firefighters and doctors; normal people don’t need to fear them and avoid any unnecessary interactions, which seems to be the case in the US.)
    - mschuster91 5y ago
      > The reality is that there’s a fundamental difference in that in Europe police is just another government branch that’s helping people, like firefighters and doctors; normal people don’t need to fear them and avoid any unnecessary interactions, which seems to be the case in the US. I'm German. Our cops are infamous for racial profiling and can, at least according to several independent investigations, even get away with murdering people in their jail cells (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oury_Jalloh https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oury_Jalloh).
      - hef19898 5y ago
        Both things can, and are to an extent in Europe, true at the same time. The random acts of police violence are much lower here, I would attribute it to better training. Better training doesn't prevent racial profiling and this kind of problems.
throwawaysea 5y ago
You seem to be vaguely gesturing at some kind of abuse but have provided no evidence. Even if a tool is abused in isolated incidents, it can be useful to society overall. > But, when pressed, no one can point to cases where this actually helped. This seems like an early dismissal. It is obvious how facial recognition can help locate suspects for some crime more easily than a police officer hoping to randomly find the suspect while driving around. > The only realistic way to counter this Counter what exactly? This just feels like FUD.
- gmueckl 5y ago
  I am not dismissing anything early. Journalists press law enforcement regularly on what crimes the existing intrusive measures helped to solve and the answers are consistently platitudes about how useful e.g. hacking into suspect's devices is without so much as a referral to a study or even mention of a single example case where it helped. The only data that is available is showing an ever expanding use of these powers. It's nuts. Checks and balances on police have been tried and the result wasn't even remotely what politicians promised. Judicial oversight, for example, isn't actually working. Police and judges go through the motions, but judges routinely get so many requests for warrants that they sign almost anything in practice because they have too little time to check each one thoroughly. That's how we get police searching the homes of security researchers who dared to report gaping security holes just because they pissed off whoever had the security issues in the first place. It's a pattern that repeated quite a few times. I don't have the time now to dig up a list of cases that followed this pattern and where, in the end, the researchers walked away scot free, but often with considerable financial damages. Another example: police has pretty extensive databases with private details of individuals. Officers are only allowed to access records in them when their work assignment warrants it. The software keeps audit logs on database accesses so that misuse can be discovered and held in check. But it turned out that nobody ever checks these logs. This came to light initially when police officers started to leak contact details of lawyers to far-right extremists to have them threatened. Under political pressure, the logs were finally reviewed and they found wide spread abuse of the available databases. The result: two years later, the same lawyers and some politicians receive another set of death threats, even after moving to new addresses they kept painstakingly secret. Again, the trace leads back to police officers leaking personal information. Politicians are also gradually expanding existing police powers in somewhat bad faith. First, it's just for an extremely narrow set of sufficiently horrible crimes like terrorism or sexual abuse of children. And they swear by all that's holy that this will be all that it's ever going to be used for. Then, maybe two or three years later, when public interest is drawn to other issues, the same parties start to steadily and quietly amend this list time and again. [Curiously, many such law changes get discussed and voted on during big football tournaments (think European Championship or World Championship) when they don't draw much attention. But I can't tell whether that's merely the result of election cycles aligning with these tournaments by chance or a deliberate tactic.] To sum it up: if there is a way to put working checks on police powers, politicians haven't found them or don't establish them in a way that is effective. In light of these patterns, the only realistic stance that remains is to either give police full unchecked access to certain tools or none at all. I wish I could subscribe to your view on this matter, and to be fair, many years ago I would have agreed. But I have been disillusioned since.

raxxorrax 5y ago

Additionally we als have a dark security IT that makes good cash with dubious security solutions. Getting rid of that again will be difficult.

mytailorisrich 5y ago

I think that if the people see the government and especially the police as the enemy then society has a bigger problem than surveillance technology. Of course, there should be checks, controls, limitations placed upon those institutions, and transparency in their workings. But the police is here to protect and serve the community, at least it should be, not to oppress it. I've noticed that this is a difference in the way the police is often seen in Europe vs. in the UK for instance.

mschuster91 5y ago
> But the police is here to protect and serve the community, at least it should be, not to oppress it. The key question when the phrase "protect and serve the community" comes up is "which community?" and the answer is: it primarily serves the interest of the rich and powerful. If you are poor, not in the majority ethnic or in any other way not "mainstream", you have shit times ahead of you. No matter the country, the only difference between a cop in the US and a cop in the UK is better training and less reliance on guns. Homeless, being a person of color, being LGBT, protesting the government (especially from the left wing) - all common risk factors for adverse interactions with police. If you never have had a negative interaction with police, ask yourself why and prepare for an answer you likely would not have liked to hear.
- trasz 5y ago
  >the only difference between a cop in the US and a cop in the UK is better training and less reliance on guns Ah, so that’s why American cops routinely murder random people and go unpunished - it’s just the lack of training! (The reality is that there’s a fundamental difference in that in Europe police is just another government branch that’s helping people, like firefighters and doctors; normal people don’t need to fear them and avoid any unnecessary interactions, which seems to be the case in the US.)
  - mschuster91 5y ago
    > The reality is that there’s a fundamental difference in that in Europe police is just another government branch that’s helping people, like firefighters and doctors; normal people don’t need to fear them and avoid any unnecessary interactions, which seems to be the case in the US. I'm German. Our cops are infamous for racial profiling and can, at least according to several independent investigations, even get away with murdering people in their jail cells (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oury_Jalloh https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oury_Jalloh).
    - hef19898 5y ago
      Both things can, and are to an extent in Europe, true at the same time. The random acts of police violence are much lower here, I would attribute it to better training. Better training doesn't prevent racial profiling and this kind of problems.

throwawaysea 5y ago

You seem to be vaguely gesturing at some kind of abuse but have provided no evidence. Even if a tool is abused in isolated incidents, it can be useful to society overall. > But, when pressed, no one can point to cases where this actually helped. This seems like an early dismissal. It is obvious how facial recognition can help locate suspects for some crime more easily than a police officer hoping to randomly find the suspect while driving around. > The only realistic way to counter this Counter what exactly? This just feels like FUD.

gmueckl 5y ago
I am not dismissing anything early. Journalists press law enforcement regularly on what crimes the existing intrusive measures helped to solve and the answers are consistently platitudes about how useful e.g. hacking into suspect's devices is without so much as a referral to a study or even mention of a single example case where it helped. The only data that is available is showing an ever expanding use of these powers. It's nuts. Checks and balances on police have been tried and the result wasn't even remotely what politicians promised. Judicial oversight, for example, isn't actually working. Police and judges go through the motions, but judges routinely get so many requests for warrants that they sign almost anything in practice because they have too little time to check each one thoroughly. That's how we get police searching the homes of security researchers who dared to report gaping security holes just because they pissed off whoever had the security issues in the first place. It's a pattern that repeated quite a few times. I don't have the time now to dig up a list of cases that followed this pattern and where, in the end, the researchers walked away scot free, but often with considerable financial damages. Another example: police has pretty extensive databases with private details of individuals. Officers are only allowed to access records in them when their work assignment warrants it. The software keeps audit logs on database accesses so that misuse can be discovered and held in check. But it turned out that nobody ever checks these logs. This came to light initially when police officers started to leak contact details of lawyers to far-right extremists to have them threatened. Under political pressure, the logs were finally reviewed and they found wide spread abuse of the available databases. The result: two years later, the same lawyers and some politicians receive another set of death threats, even after moving to new addresses they kept painstakingly secret. Again, the trace leads back to police officers leaking personal information. Politicians are also gradually expanding existing police powers in somewhat bad faith. First, it's just for an extremely narrow set of sufficiently horrible crimes like terrorism or sexual abuse of children. And they swear by all that's holy that this will be all that it's ever going to be used for. Then, maybe two or three years later, when public interest is drawn to other issues, the same parties start to steadily and quietly amend this list time and again. [Curiously, many such law changes get discussed and voted on during big football tournaments (think European Championship or World Championship) when they don't draw much attention. But I can't tell whether that's merely the result of election cycles aligning with these tournaments by chance or a deliberate tactic.] To sum it up: if there is a way to put working checks on police powers, politicians haven't found them or don't establish them in a way that is effective. In light of these patterns, the only realistic stance that remains is to either give police full unchecked access to certain tools or none at all. I wish I could subscribe to your view on this matter, and to be fair, many years ago I would have agreed. But I have been disillusioned since.