4 ms·

I’ve followed this story as well, and while I wouldn’t really put anything past Bezos (or any other member of a certain social class, really), I always interpre

I’ve followed this story as well, and while I wouldn’t really put anything past Bezos (or any other member of a certain social class, really), I always interpreted this to be a simple Intelligence Community operation through-and-through. Select Amazon employees and Bezos having the (same?) access is the layer on top of the cake that is merely the continuation of PRISM (and all other “tailored” access programs i.e. mass data collection). AWS being awarded the recent DoD contract(s) for cloud service read to me that they were simply formalizing arrangements that had long been in place in the shadows.

TaylorAlexander 4y ago
It's a fair point (which makes everything worse). It was illegal for the government to do a lot of the surveillance (which didn't exactly stop them) but having a private company do it insulates the intelligence community from backlash. Plus Amazon is needed to handle the actual production, sales, and marketing of the devices.
- autoexec 4y ago
  > Plus Amazon is needed to handle the actual production, sales, and marketing of the devices. They had police doing a lot marketing for them. https://www.vice.com/en/article/mb88za/amazon-requires-police-to-shill-surveillance-cameras-in-secret-agreement https://www.vice.com/en/article/mb88za/amazon-requires-polic... https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2021-06-17/ring-influencer-marketing-los-angeles-police-department https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2021-06-17...
- mpyne 4y ago
  The government can't direct a company to do surveillance that the government itself couldn't do. If the government were just going to flaunt the law anyways there'd be easier ways to get after the data in these buckets. And none of this would insulate the government from backlash anyways. Likewise, if you're Bezos and you have unfettered access to PRISM-tier data that AWS employees are just going to say "OK!" for, you don't need to buy Ring. Just grab the data! It's sitting on your S3 buckets! At most the government might be able to use data that Amazon would willingly turnover for whatever reason, assuming they're not contractually prevented from that, but you can't hardly build a surveillance program around the idea that Amazon might allow you to luck into data you need.
  - astrange 4y ago
    What do you think "PRISM-tier data" is? PRISM is just a database where they put the results of subpoenas. It's not a super cool spy program.
  - uoaei 4y ago
    > The government can't direct a company to do surveillance that the government itself couldn't do. What does this sentence mean re: legal text?
jason-phillips 4y ago
> AWS being awarded the recent DoD contract(s) for cloud service read to me that they were simply formalizing arrangements that had long been in place in the shadows. Sounds spooky! However, having worked in said environments, it's really not.
- hobs 4y ago
  Ah yes, then we will take your word for it. After Snowden there's no reason to trust anyone in the government saying they are not funding a massive spying operation.

TaylorAlexander 4y ago

It's a fair point (which makes everything worse). It was illegal for the government to do a lot of the surveillance (which didn't exactly stop them) but having a private company do it insulates the intelligence community from backlash. Plus Amazon is needed to handle the actual production, sales, and marketing of the devices.

autoexec 4y ago
> Plus Amazon is needed to handle the actual production, sales, and marketing of the devices. They had police doing a lot marketing for them. https://www.vice.com/en/article/mb88za/amazon-requires-police-to-shill-surveillance-cameras-in-secret-agreement https://www.vice.com/en/article/mb88za/amazon-requires-polic... https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2021-06-17/ring-influencer-marketing-los-angeles-police-department https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2021-06-17...
mpyne 4y ago
The government can't direct a company to do surveillance that the government itself couldn't do. If the government were just going to flaunt the law anyways there'd be easier ways to get after the data in these buckets. And none of this would insulate the government from backlash anyways. Likewise, if you're Bezos and you have unfettered access to PRISM-tier data that AWS employees are just going to say "OK!" for, you don't need to buy Ring. Just grab the data! It's sitting on your S3 buckets! At most the government might be able to use data that Amazon would willingly turnover for whatever reason, assuming they're not contractually prevented from that, but you can't hardly build a surveillance program around the idea that Amazon might allow you to luck into data you need.
- astrange 4y ago
  What do you think "PRISM-tier data" is? PRISM is just a database where they put the results of subpoenas. It's not a super cool spy program.
- uoaei 4y ago
  > The government can't direct a company to do surveillance that the government itself couldn't do. What does this sentence mean re: legal text?

jason-phillips 4y ago

> AWS being awarded the recent DoD contract(s) for cloud service read to me that they were simply formalizing arrangements that had long been in place in the shadows. Sounds spooky! However, having worked in said environments, it's really not.

hobs 4y ago
Ah yes, then we will take your word for it. After Snowden there's no reason to trust anyone in the government saying they are not funding a massive spying operation.