5 ms·

It’s because we aren’t governed by a democracy, we’re governed by a massive administrative state. Some middle manager vying for a promotion decides adding camer

It’s because we aren’t governed by a democracy, we’re governed by a massive administrative state. Some middle manager vying for a promotion decides adding cameras will benefit him in some way, privacy be damned. For example, TSA recently started doing facial recognition in airports and most passengers were just happily going along with it last time I went through security. The public is expected to submit and comply, there’s no democracy anywhere in that process.

kstrauser 4y ago
I get the lack of resistance to the TSA thing. I’m not saying my opinion here is the correct one, but here’s how I see it: That ship has sailed. You no longer have a reasonable expectation of privacy in an airport. Courts have ruled that safety concerns override privacy considerations inside them. Alright, well, if this is the system we’re stuck with, then we might as well make it efficient. Now we have TSA PreCheck where you can give up all pretense of personal privacy in exchange for a relatively pleasant airport experience. And the facial recognition kiosks I’ve seen don’t seem inherently more invasive than having a human security guard doing their functional equivalent, and we’ve had that for many years. I’m not thrilled about the situation, but feel powerless to change it. It seems like the majority of my countrymen think this a good tradeoff, so I can’t say I’m fully on the right side of the argument anyway. So if stuck with a system I can’t change, and most people don’t want to change, if this makes the practical experience of dealing with that system faster and less unpleasant, then fine. So be it.
- LarryMullins 4y ago
  > TSA PreCheck That system was created to avoid what you mention earlier, privileged people in society being inconvenienced and feeling motivated to speak out against these systems. Instead of subjecting the movers and shakers to the full brunt of the TSA, such people are allowed to opt out of the tyranny for a small (to them) fee.
  - saratogacx 4y ago
    You're overselling this a bit. TSA Precheck is $78 for 5 years. If you are able to afford to travel by air and do so more than a few times a decade, it isn't that cost prohibitive.
    - LarryMullins 4y ago
      I've gotten plane tickets for less than $78. I think asking that much for what they're actually doing (checking your name against their terror watch list, then flipping a flag on your row in their database) is obscene. It should be free. It's not free, because if it were free then everybody would apply for the lineskip privilege and it would cease to be a lineskip privilege because now everybody is in that line. So, like amusement parks selling lineskip passes, they price it high enough to discourage most people from buying it.
- duped 4y ago
  Human security guards forget. Servers don't. I don't mind a security guard checking my ID. I do mind some random contractor building a facial recognition system that does it automatically and saves my picture and my identification information for all time without my consent or control.
  - kstrauser 4y ago
    Sure, I’m with you on that. As a one-time transactional system, like verifying that the person presenting an ID card is the person on its photo, fine. I don’t want it going into a permanent database.
    - mixmastamyk 4y ago
      Unfortunately not an option and will likely never happen. Nothing has been deleted since around 2005, when storage costs plummeted below the price of selling the data instead.
      - raxxorraxor 4y ago
        And they need that money. They don't get anything from terrorists they haven't stopped. If there were a single one, we probably would have heard of it.
- raxxorraxor 4y ago
  As you said the ease of precheck is relative. It would be the standard if it weren't for the security theatre. I also don't see how we can ever get rid of it. There is a large psychological component on the topic of safety and flying. That we cannot get rid of it again is a problem though. Doubt we can have low security planes for those that don't want to be screened.

kstrauser 4y ago

I get the lack of resistance to the TSA thing. I’m not saying my opinion here is the correct one, but here’s how I see it: That ship has sailed. You no longer have a reasonable expectation of privacy in an airport. Courts have ruled that safety concerns override privacy considerations inside them. Alright, well, if this is the system we’re stuck with, then we might as well make it efficient. Now we have TSA PreCheck where you can give up all pretense of personal privacy in exchange for a relatively pleasant airport experience. And the facial recognition kiosks I’ve seen don’t seem inherently more invasive than having a human security guard doing their functional equivalent, and we’ve had that for many years. I’m not thrilled about the situation, but feel powerless to change it. It seems like the majority of my countrymen think this a good tradeoff, so I can’t say I’m fully on the right side of the argument anyway. So if stuck with a system I can’t change, and most people don’t want to change, if this makes the practical experience of dealing with that system faster and less unpleasant, then fine. So be it.

LarryMullins 4y ago
> TSA PreCheck That system was created to avoid what you mention earlier, privileged people in society being inconvenienced and feeling motivated to speak out against these systems. Instead of subjecting the movers and shakers to the full brunt of the TSA, such people are allowed to opt out of the tyranny for a small (to them) fee.
- saratogacx 4y ago
  You're overselling this a bit. TSA Precheck is $78 for 5 years. If you are able to afford to travel by air and do so more than a few times a decade, it isn't that cost prohibitive.
  - LarryMullins 4y ago
    I've gotten plane tickets for less than $78. I think asking that much for what they're actually doing (checking your name against their terror watch list, then flipping a flag on your row in their database) is obscene. It should be free. It's not free, because if it were free then everybody would apply for the lineskip privilege and it would cease to be a lineskip privilege because now everybody is in that line. So, like amusement parks selling lineskip passes, they price it high enough to discourage most people from buying it.
duped 4y ago
Human security guards forget. Servers don't. I don't mind a security guard checking my ID. I do mind some random contractor building a facial recognition system that does it automatically and saves my picture and my identification information for all time without my consent or control.
- kstrauser 4y ago
  Sure, I’m with you on that. As a one-time transactional system, like verifying that the person presenting an ID card is the person on its photo, fine. I don’t want it going into a permanent database.
  - mixmastamyk 4y ago
    Unfortunately not an option and will likely never happen. Nothing has been deleted since around 2005, when storage costs plummeted below the price of selling the data instead.
    - raxxorraxor 4y ago
      And they need that money. They don't get anything from terrorists they haven't stopped. If there were a single one, we probably would have heard of it.
raxxorraxor 4y ago
As you said the ease of precheck is relative. It would be the standard if it weren't for the security theatre. I also don't see how we can ever get rid of it. There is a large psychological component on the topic of safety and flying. That we cannot get rid of it again is a problem though. Doubt we can have low security planes for those that don't want to be screened.