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We (the citizens) need access to all the politicians communication, just in case if they do anything illegal... 24/7 microphones, digital communication tracker,

We (the citizens) need access to all the politicians communication, just in case if they do anything illegal... 24/7 microphones, digital communication tracker, etc. Let's start with that, and then move on to "normal people", if politicians still believe in no privacy.

dylkil 3y ago
In the uk politicians were allowed to opt out https://www.digit.fyi/data-protection-political-parties/ https://www.digit.fyi/data-protection-political-parties/
kelseyfrog 3y ago
More responsibility demands more scrutiny.
nordsieck 3y ago
As a first step, I'd settle for 1 party consent for recording everywhere. And no more unrecorded votes.
- josephcsible 3y ago
  Can someone steelman the argument against one-party consent? I literally can't think of any reason anyone would want it, other than wanting to be able to lie about what they said later. It doesn't even help people who are saying things that might be dangerous if they leak, since illegal != impossible.
  - reaperman 3y ago
    It probably felt right around the time when recording devices were first invented.
  - dabluecaboose 3y ago
    > Can someone steelman the argument against one-party consent? I literally can't think of any reason anyone would want it, other than wanting to be able to lie about what they said later. Are you actually asking hackernews, in a thread about banning encryption, why "if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear" is not a good justification for being monitored without your consent?
    - josephcsible 3y ago
      I don't consider it "being monitored" when the person you're talking to is the one doing the recording. Contrast "I'm legally allowed to keep emails sent to me after I first read them" with "other people are legally allowed to read emails sent to me". Wouldn't almost everyone agree that the former is a good thing but the latter would be a bad thing?
      - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
        > don't consider it "being monitored" when the person you're talking to is the one doing the recording Compromise is reached in quiet, safe places. Politicians make bombastic statements for their base and donors, and then go behind closed doors to negotiate. You can't negotiate in earnest if every offer for compromise you put forward immediately results in (a) the losers of that compromise creating a ruckus and (b) your opponent using (a) to weaken you. Public negotiations reward playing to the audience. (You see this in small groups–letting leaders or the people in a friend group who disagree pull aside almost always solves the problem better than litigating it as a group.) If every conversation might be recorded for replaying to a third party, then every conversation will be treated as an open one. That destroys room for compromise.
        autoexec 3y ago
        This seems like a weak argument since compromise may be more difficult, but it certainly isn't impossible when conversations are transparent. Eventually the "losers" of a compromise are going to learn about how their elected officials voted and what the impact of that vote will be for them, and they'll hold their elected officials accountable for it regardless. It just isn't worth forcing every person to give up the ability to protect themselves by recording their everyday conversations just so that politicians can lie to the public and their donors while screwing over the people behind closed doors.
        JumpCrisscross 3y ago
        Legislative deliberation, i.e. hashing out details, should be open [1]. At the bargaining phase, when you're working out high-level frameworks, the theory says closed doors win [2]. (Put another way, in a transparent bargaining environment, the winning move is to ignore your opponent and beat your drums to your base.) > Eventually the "losers" of a compromise are going to learn about how their elected officials voted The point is to let both sides table ideas without having to face the downside. To propose what if scenarios to the other side. [1] https://preprints.apsanet.org/engage/api-gateway/apsa/assets/orp/resource/item/5dab57a5a6490200117d29bc/original/does-transparency-inhibit-political-compromise.pdf https://preprints.apsanet.org/engage/api-gateway/apsa/assets... [2] https://eprints.lse.ac.uk/225/1/open-door8.pdf https://eprints.lse.ac.uk/225/1/open-door8.pdf
  - harshreality 3y ago
    Having to be constantly on guard about what you say in case someone's recording you and can play it back for others, or in court, often out of context... Basically, some expectation of privacy especially in a 1-on-1 conversation, even if it's via telecommunications tech rather than in-person. Some people adopt a more filtered, cautious way of speaking anyway as a defense mechanism. For them it doesn't matter so much. Other people talk informally with less of a filter, and for them it matters quite a bit. Given that recording is ubiquitous now anyway, and voice deepfakes are about to render even that irrelevant, there probably isn't a good argument against 1-party consent today. (However, government officials, outside of a foreign policy context, deserve no privacy for anything related to their official duties. The argument that they need to be able to talk informally with their peers, without fear of public judgment, works against the public interest far more than it works for it. That helps build rapport, but no politician these days would fully trust someone they're just building rapport with; that kind of thing may be valuable for diplomatic relations and spies, but not for regular government officials. Privacy and secrecy among ordinary politicians is little more than a recipe for corruption and side-dealing that they know the public would be rightly upset about.)
    - mandelken 3y ago
      To add some practical context to this insightful comment: in Belgium, 1-on-1 conversations are considered private and as such protected, meaning you need a judge order to listen in. However, If the conversation is professional, both parties are allowed to record it. Now, any conversation with 3 or more parties is considered public. A closed group chat on whatsapp has the same legal protection as shouting it on a megaphone to a crowd, meaning none whatsoever and people have already been convicted for their speech in closed chats or forums.
  - Spivak 3y ago
    The sane version is one-party that is actually participating in the conversation needs to consent, 3rd parties to the conversation have to ask.
  - clnq 3y ago
    Some strong arguments against one-party consent: 1. Privacy. The cornerstone of personal conversation has always been an inherent right to privacy. Traditionally, conversations held in confidence were sacrosanct, and any disclosure of their content required mutual agreement. Otherwise, the second party can simply deny it and it will never be known with certainty what has been said. 2. Chilling effect on authenticity. In a climate where any conversation could be recorded without one's consent and later used against them, people would be compelled to adopt calculated diplomacy in all their interactions. This would sterilize authentic conversation, replacing genuine thoughts with measured communication, removing a lot of depth and meaning. 3. Weaponization of speech. Recordings under a one-party consent system could be misused in a myriad of damaging ways, from creating training data for voice (deepfake) AIs to insidious forms of blackmail. This extends beyond traditional notions of blackmail to include public shaming or character assassination. This is the "group chat has leaked" scenario, but potentially decades later. One could be a completely different (and potentially reformed) person, but their past will always haunt them and not let them get ahead in their public life, like hold an office or public trust. 4. Limited utility. In many places that allow first-party consent, these recordings are not recognized as valid evidence in court without consent from all parties involved. This significantly undermines their perceived utility as a defensive tool. Is it worth surrendering our privacy for this? 5. Accountability for human folly. People often vent and ramble, it's part of our emotional expression and a necessary component of our mental health. If every idle venting or thoughtless comment were recorded and held against us, it would make our lives much less peaceful. Sometimes it's good to let some thoughts die in a conversation. Reflect on your own past and the blunders of youth - good that they were not recorded, right? This also applies to intoxicated conversations, conversations while suffering from mental health illness, and similar. 6. Two-party consent already serves many purposes. For most business or evidence needs, two-party consent is enough. One can simply tell the other party that they will start recording the call if the other party does not hang up, and that will be implicit second-party consent in many countries. So one can record conversations, and one can choose to have only recorded conversations with some people. One-party consent has only marginal benefits over two-party, but it has significant downsides. 7. Little effect on harassment or threats. Threats and intimidation could be made in other ways, like face-to-face, or through coded language. "Your political campaign is going great, it sounds like a guaranteed win unless someone fabricates a scandal. You need to play it safe with the people that could." 8. Third-party recording. One-party consent doesn't mean a third party isn't recording. For example, smartphones could record audio of conversations for ad targeting and government purposes if there was one-party consent (one party turned on the call recorder). 9. Other contexts. If the laws for one-party consent are too permissive, this could lead to a lot of surveillance activities becoming permissible. For example, the definition of a conversation could be stretched to include all chatter on an office floor if just one person consents to the recording (perhaps a manager).
- pezezin 3y ago
  Spain is already a 1-party consent country, it is legal to record any conversation as long as you are part of it. However, it is not legal to publish them, but they can be used in a trial.
- clbrmbr 3y ago
  Thanks. Looking up “1-party” sent me down an interesting rabbit hole learning about the limited “0-party” rights of interception. For radio interception in NJ, it is legal (and only legal?) to intercept: f. Any person to intercept any radio communication which is transmitted: (1) by any station for the use of the general public, or that relates to ships, aircraft, vehicles, or persons in distress; (2) by any governmental, law enforcement, civil defense, private land mobile, or public safety communication system, including police and fire, readily accessible to the general public; (3) by a station operating on an authorized frequency within the bands allocated to the amateur, citizens band, or general mobile radio services; or (4) by any marine or aeronautical communications system; ——— Which would imply that broadband RF recording using SDRs, even if it excludes the cell phone bands, is not OK! For example, the MURS band seems to be illegal to intercept.
  - 1827163 3y ago
    Absolutely ridiculous, this signal is coming into your private property, it should never be illegal to receive it. So they are criminalizing monitoring the voltage on a piece of wire (an antenna) in your own property, that is what an SDR does. These signals are being sent into your property, whether you want it or not. I think you have a natural right to receive it. It doesn't matter if the government says it's illegal, or attempts to enforce it. Just as we can hear anything nearby with our ears, nobody tells us we can't overhear conversations in a restaurant, trying to do so would clearly be absurd. My opinion here is from natural law.
- spullara 3y ago
  42 states (in the US) have one party recording so I think that it is by far the normal situation. https://www.justia.com/50-state-surveys/recording-phone-calls-and-conversations/ https://www.justia.com/50-state-surveys/recording-phone-call...
  - fomine3 3y ago
    Why is it big is that California have too much power for encouraging/removing technologies.
joebiden2 3y ago
Politicians are mostly corrupt, though degrees vary. Most relevant child abuse was covered by famous politicians¹²³⁴⁵. Nevertheless, the same politicians cut budgets for police to do actual investigation work, because that could harm themselves, then want to cut the last line of defense the public has to do actual investigation and journalism (which requires free speech and privacy) by declaring that this is required to fight pedophilia. We need to do something against this. We really do. ¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Epstein https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Epstein ² https://www.researchgate.net/publication/336831983_Understanding_Paedophilia_Through_Different_Perspectives https://www.researchgate.net/publication/336831983_Understan... ³ https://time.com/2974381/england-land-of-royals-tea-and-horrific-pedophilia-coverups/ https://time.com/2974381/england-land-of-royals-tea-and-horr... ⁴ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Dutroux https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Dutroux ⁵ https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/past-pedophile-links-haunt-german-green-party-a-899544.html https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/past-pedophile-...
- noduerme 3y ago
  My reason to downvote will be: Around half the girls I've met in my life were molested by adults as children, and it wasn't by famous people or politicians. It was by neighbors and family members in the suburbs where they grew up. It's fine to call out hypocrisy in the ruling class that covers up for their own while claiming to be trying to address the problem, but at the end of the day the vast majority of the millions of daily cases of child abuse are taking place right nextdoor or even in the same houses as the people who make a lot of noise about corrupt politicians. I'd even go as far as to say that an obsession with famous child abuse cases is a good indicator of someone who's either committed or thought about committing that sort of crime.
- ComodoHacker 3y ago
  Politicians are just ambitious people, sharing full spectrum of other traits. Most people would become equally corrupt if presented the opportunity. Being ambitious just amplifies the temptation.
  - AnonCoward42 3y ago
wnevets 3y ago
If they got nothing to hide why wouldn't they do it?
- ajsnigrutin 3y ago
  Yep, and they're working and being paid for and by us. If they're working for the benefit of the people (or at least their voters), why would they keep secrets from us/them?
- flagrant_taco 3y ago
  Not to defend politicians, but I don't want to be does on just because I think I'm doing nothing wrong
  - jraph 3y ago
    I believe your parent commenter is being sarcastic by quoting the "nothing to hide" meme. Politicians notoriously have many things to hide.
    - flagrant_taco 3y ago
      Yep, I realized that right as my post submitted! That's what I get for replying too fast before coffee
pessimizer 3y ago
Politicians are the most surveilled people, and sometimes vote for things like this for fear of or as the result of being targeted by their own or other countries' intelligence agencies. If the CIA wants Spain to ban encryption, they're not going to be bothered by the resistance of some Spanish MPs, they're going to fix the problem. We (the citizens) need to ban secret police and secret courts.
- HeavyStorm 3y ago
  > Politicians are the most surveilled people, and sometimes vote for things like this for fear of or as the result of being targeted by their own or other countries' intelligence agencies. Not here. Probably not anywhere outside US and some very few countries.
belter 3y ago
"Dutch PM Mark Rutte questioned after deleting text messages for years" - https://www.euronews.com/2022/05/19/dutch-pm-mark-rutte-questioned-after-deleting-text-messages-for-years https://www.euronews.com/2022/05/19/dutch-pm-mark-rutte-ques...
varenc 3y ago
While of course no government comes close to that level of radical transparency, Finland comes closer than most. I believe Finland requires all official government documents be made public by default, unless they are specifically exempted. Many other governments, like the US through FOIA, let citizens request documents with varying degrees of success, but proactive disclosure is much more rare. And of course, this is just about official documents and doesn't cover the contents of private meetings. (I'm just an interested observer, so I'd love to hear from actual Finns on how they feel about their government's level of openness!)
- nevon 3y ago
  It's the same here in Sweden. It just feels natural that _obviously_ we should have access to what goes on in the public sector, unless there's a very specific reason not to. There was a huge backlash when the current government decided to hide who received electricity subsidies this last winter, as it was seen as a way to hide corruption.
luxuryballs 3y ago
that’s what I’m saying, quadruple or 10x their pay to increase the cost of them selling out for corruption but also make them wear 24/7 body cameras, maybe we can get the true patriots who are willing to sacrifice some privacy to do the good work and as a bonus shorter terms will just work themselves out naturally
- IG_Semmelweiss 3y ago
  Patriots ought to work for free. This is about duty. Not about profit. I think you have it flipped. Have everyone in govt making in excess of 2x poverty line be subject to a tax of 99% for all income exceeding the avg of 5 years of income before joining govt You can be rich and join govt. You can live ok post-govt. But you sure as hell should not get rich off govt It's called public service for a reason. Its a service. Not a career. Either you have a sense of duty and are willing to sacrifice, or else go work on the private sector. We need statesmen. Not rent-seeking politicians
  - luxuryballs 3y ago
    if you have to wear a 24/7 live stream body cam though
  - WickyNilliams 3y ago
    Doesn't this make it impossible for anybody not already rich to get into politics? You'd need a second job to support yourself. And second jobs are a problem not only for focus, but also as conduits for corruption
    - IG_Semmelweiss 3y ago
      if you are not rich, what makes you so special to think you can be rich , after leaving the govt? What has changed since the moment you joined, (nonrich), and now suddenly, you leave and you are hot stuff ? You can still earn a living in govt, even nice money ( >$100k+ for senior jobs) the point is, that is your cap. Job security and duty come at a price. That price is not trading in insider govt connections. You can live comfortably. You can have job security. But you cannot get rich off it. That is your "sacrifice" if you want to call it that. And to be clear, because i realize my comment was not: You can have a really nice bump in earnings while in govt. - For example, if you have an avg salary of 50k, then join govt, at make 100k, that bump is yours to keep just like everyone playing by the same rules. However, once you leave govt, your cap goes back to 50k . So either retire in govt or just go back to what your situation was. As you may imagine, the complaint is never that public service pays "well" therefore the hypotetical is very unlikely to happen in the first place.
bigthymer 3y ago
Way back when, Ukraine implemented video recording of all politicians' offices in order to combat corruption. I read an article where a citizen was trying to get something done at a local government office, tried to offer a customary bribe, but was rejected as the officer pointed to the recording camera in the corner of the room.
EGreg 3y ago
I have been advocating this for some time. If we want full transparency, let's start with the public servants. Oh, they won't be able to make backroom deals, fail at peace agreements because they walked out after 2 hours, and we'll know exactly how they failed? Yes, that's how it should be, because millions of plebs will have to fight and pay the price for their abject failure, negligence and incompetence later. Let it be on full display! Look, maybe nuclear secrets, black ops and some kind of weird Blackwater (er excuse me Academi) stuff can be off the books, although that has historically resulted in a lot of misery, especially the CIA: https://www.npr.org/2017/01/23/511185078/america-in-laos-traces-the-militarization-of-the-cia https://www.npr.org/2017/01/23/511185078/america-in-laos-tra... and is probably a major reason behind war in Ukraine since 2014 ... but also in dozens of other countries, too. You'll find out when it's fully declassified 10 years later, but by then they'll just say "mistakes were made". If we knew about how the covert operations that led to wars that killed MILLIONS of people, we'd hold them to account: https://www.outlookindia.com/website/story/how-jimmy-carter-and-i-started-the-mujahideen/213722 https://www.outlookindia.com/website/story/how-jimmy-carter-... Come to think of it, we'd all be richer, too. Want to get rid of wasteful spending? Start with the Pentagon. Somehow debt-ceiling Republicans aren't eager to do that but it can't account for $35,000,000,000,000 https://www.yahoo.com/video/pentagon-35-trillion-accounting-black-231154593.html https://www.yahoo.com/video/pentagon-35-trillion-accounting-... Thankfully we have C-SPAN at least.

dylkil 3y ago

In the uk politicians were allowed to opt out https://www.digit.fyi/data-protection-political-parties/ https://www.digit.fyi/data-protection-political-parties/

kelseyfrog 3y ago

More responsibility demands more scrutiny.

nordsieck 3y ago

As a first step, I'd settle for 1 party consent for recording everywhere. And no more unrecorded votes.

josephcsible 3y ago
Can someone steelman the argument against one-party consent? I literally can't think of any reason anyone would want it, other than wanting to be able to lie about what they said later. It doesn't even help people who are saying things that might be dangerous if they leak, since illegal != impossible.
- reaperman 3y ago
  It probably felt right around the time when recording devices were first invented.
- dabluecaboose 3y ago
  > Can someone steelman the argument against one-party consent? I literally can't think of any reason anyone would want it, other than wanting to be able to lie about what they said later. Are you actually asking hackernews, in a thread about banning encryption, why "if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear" is not a good justification for being monitored without your consent?
  - josephcsible 3y ago
    I don't consider it "being monitored" when the person you're talking to is the one doing the recording. Contrast "I'm legally allowed to keep emails sent to me after I first read them" with "other people are legally allowed to read emails sent to me". Wouldn't almost everyone agree that the former is a good thing but the latter would be a bad thing?
    - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
      > don't consider it "being monitored" when the person you're talking to is the one doing the recording Compromise is reached in quiet, safe places. Politicians make bombastic statements for their base and donors, and then go behind closed doors to negotiate. You can't negotiate in earnest if every offer for compromise you put forward immediately results in (a) the losers of that compromise creating a ruckus and (b) your opponent using (a) to weaken you. Public negotiations reward playing to the audience. (You see this in small groups–letting leaders or the people in a friend group who disagree pull aside almost always solves the problem better than litigating it as a group.) If every conversation might be recorded for replaying to a third party, then every conversation will be treated as an open one. That destroys room for compromise.
      - autoexec 3y ago
        This seems like a weak argument since compromise may be more difficult, but it certainly isn't impossible when conversations are transparent. Eventually the "losers" of a compromise are going to learn about how their elected officials voted and what the impact of that vote will be for them, and they'll hold their elected officials accountable for it regardless. It just isn't worth forcing every person to give up the ability to protect themselves by recording their everyday conversations just so that politicians can lie to the public and their donors while screwing over the people behind closed doors.
        JumpCrisscross 3y ago
        Legislative deliberation, i.e. hashing out details, should be open [1]. At the bargaining phase, when you're working out high-level frameworks, the theory says closed doors win [2]. (Put another way, in a transparent bargaining environment, the winning move is to ignore your opponent and beat your drums to your base.) > Eventually the "losers" of a compromise are going to learn about how their elected officials voted The point is to let both sides table ideas without having to face the downside. To propose what if scenarios to the other side. [1] https://preprints.apsanet.org/engage/api-gateway/apsa/assets/orp/resource/item/5dab57a5a6490200117d29bc/original/does-transparency-inhibit-political-compromise.pdf https://preprints.apsanet.org/engage/api-gateway/apsa/assets... [2] https://eprints.lse.ac.uk/225/1/open-door8.pdf https://eprints.lse.ac.uk/225/1/open-door8.pdf
- harshreality 3y ago
  Having to be constantly on guard about what you say in case someone's recording you and can play it back for others, or in court, often out of context... Basically, some expectation of privacy especially in a 1-on-1 conversation, even if it's via telecommunications tech rather than in-person. Some people adopt a more filtered, cautious way of speaking anyway as a defense mechanism. For them it doesn't matter so much. Other people talk informally with less of a filter, and for them it matters quite a bit. Given that recording is ubiquitous now anyway, and voice deepfakes are about to render even that irrelevant, there probably isn't a good argument against 1-party consent today. (However, government officials, outside of a foreign policy context, deserve no privacy for anything related to their official duties. The argument that they need to be able to talk informally with their peers, without fear of public judgment, works against the public interest far more than it works for it. That helps build rapport, but no politician these days would fully trust someone they're just building rapport with; that kind of thing may be valuable for diplomatic relations and spies, but not for regular government officials. Privacy and secrecy among ordinary politicians is little more than a recipe for corruption and side-dealing that they know the public would be rightly upset about.)
  - mandelken 3y ago
    To add some practical context to this insightful comment: in Belgium, 1-on-1 conversations are considered private and as such protected, meaning you need a judge order to listen in. However, If the conversation is professional, both parties are allowed to record it. Now, any conversation with 3 or more parties is considered public. A closed group chat on whatsapp has the same legal protection as shouting it on a megaphone to a crowd, meaning none whatsoever and people have already been convicted for their speech in closed chats or forums.
- Spivak 3y ago
  The sane version is one-party that is actually participating in the conversation needs to consent, 3rd parties to the conversation have to ask.
- clnq 3y ago
  Some strong arguments against one-party consent: 1. Privacy. The cornerstone of personal conversation has always been an inherent right to privacy. Traditionally, conversations held in confidence were sacrosanct, and any disclosure of their content required mutual agreement. Otherwise, the second party can simply deny it and it will never be known with certainty what has been said. 2. Chilling effect on authenticity. In a climate where any conversation could be recorded without one's consent and later used against them, people would be compelled to adopt calculated diplomacy in all their interactions. This would sterilize authentic conversation, replacing genuine thoughts with measured communication, removing a lot of depth and meaning. 3. Weaponization of speech. Recordings under a one-party consent system could be misused in a myriad of damaging ways, from creating training data for voice (deepfake) AIs to insidious forms of blackmail. This extends beyond traditional notions of blackmail to include public shaming or character assassination. This is the "group chat has leaked" scenario, but potentially decades later. One could be a completely different (and potentially reformed) person, but their past will always haunt them and not let them get ahead in their public life, like hold an office or public trust. 4. Limited utility. In many places that allow first-party consent, these recordings are not recognized as valid evidence in court without consent from all parties involved. This significantly undermines their perceived utility as a defensive tool. Is it worth surrendering our privacy for this? 5. Accountability for human folly. People often vent and ramble, it's part of our emotional expression and a necessary component of our mental health. If every idle venting or thoughtless comment were recorded and held against us, it would make our lives much less peaceful. Sometimes it's good to let some thoughts die in a conversation. Reflect on your own past and the blunders of youth - good that they were not recorded, right? This also applies to intoxicated conversations, conversations while suffering from mental health illness, and similar. 6. Two-party consent already serves many purposes. For most business or evidence needs, two-party consent is enough. One can simply tell the other party that they will start recording the call if the other party does not hang up, and that will be implicit second-party consent in many countries. So one can record conversations, and one can choose to have only recorded conversations with some people. One-party consent has only marginal benefits over two-party, but it has significant downsides. 7. Little effect on harassment or threats. Threats and intimidation could be made in other ways, like face-to-face, or through coded language. "Your political campaign is going great, it sounds like a guaranteed win unless someone fabricates a scandal. You need to play it safe with the people that could." 8. Third-party recording. One-party consent doesn't mean a third party isn't recording. For example, smartphones could record audio of conversations for ad targeting and government purposes if there was one-party consent (one party turned on the call recorder). 9. Other contexts. If the laws for one-party consent are too permissive, this could lead to a lot of surveillance activities becoming permissible. For example, the definition of a conversation could be stretched to include all chatter on an office floor if just one person consents to the recording (perhaps a manager).
pezezin 3y ago
Spain is already a 1-party consent country, it is legal to record any conversation as long as you are part of it. However, it is not legal to publish them, but they can be used in a trial.
clbrmbr 3y ago
Thanks. Looking up “1-party” sent me down an interesting rabbit hole learning about the limited “0-party” rights of interception. For radio interception in NJ, it is legal (and only legal?) to intercept: f. Any person to intercept any radio communication which is transmitted: (1) by any station for the use of the general public, or that relates to ships, aircraft, vehicles, or persons in distress; (2) by any governmental, law enforcement, civil defense, private land mobile, or public safety communication system, including police and fire, readily accessible to the general public; (3) by a station operating on an authorized frequency within the bands allocated to the amateur, citizens band, or general mobile radio services; or (4) by any marine or aeronautical communications system; ——— Which would imply that broadband RF recording using SDRs, even if it excludes the cell phone bands, is not OK! For example, the MURS band seems to be illegal to intercept.
- 1827163 3y ago
  Absolutely ridiculous, this signal is coming into your private property, it should never be illegal to receive it. So they are criminalizing monitoring the voltage on a piece of wire (an antenna) in your own property, that is what an SDR does. These signals are being sent into your property, whether you want it or not. I think you have a natural right to receive it. It doesn't matter if the government says it's illegal, or attempts to enforce it. Just as we can hear anything nearby with our ears, nobody tells us we can't overhear conversations in a restaurant, trying to do so would clearly be absurd. My opinion here is from natural law.
spullara 3y ago
42 states (in the US) have one party recording so I think that it is by far the normal situation. https://www.justia.com/50-state-surveys/recording-phone-calls-and-conversations/ https://www.justia.com/50-state-surveys/recording-phone-call...
- fomine3 3y ago
  Why is it big is that California have too much power for encouraging/removing technologies.

joebiden2 3y ago

Politicians are mostly corrupt, though degrees vary. Most relevant child abuse was covered by famous politicians¹²³⁴⁵. Nevertheless, the same politicians cut budgets for police to do actual investigation work, because that could harm themselves, then want to cut the last line of defense the public has to do actual investigation and journalism (which requires free speech and privacy) by declaring that this is required to fight pedophilia. We need to do something against this. We really do. ¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Epstein https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Epstein ² https://www.researchgate.net/publication/336831983_Understanding_Paedophilia_Through_Different_Perspectives https://www.researchgate.net/publication/336831983_Understan... ³ https://time.com/2974381/england-land-of-royals-tea-and-horrific-pedophilia-coverups/ https://time.com/2974381/england-land-of-royals-tea-and-horr... ⁴ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Dutroux https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Dutroux ⁵ https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/past-pedophile-links-haunt-german-green-party-a-899544.html https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/past-pedophile-...

noduerme 3y ago
My reason to downvote will be: Around half the girls I've met in my life were molested by adults as children, and it wasn't by famous people or politicians. It was by neighbors and family members in the suburbs where they grew up. It's fine to call out hypocrisy in the ruling class that covers up for their own while claiming to be trying to address the problem, but at the end of the day the vast majority of the millions of daily cases of child abuse are taking place right nextdoor or even in the same houses as the people who make a lot of noise about corrupt politicians. I'd even go as far as to say that an obsession with famous child abuse cases is a good indicator of someone who's either committed or thought about committing that sort of crime.
ComodoHacker 3y ago
Politicians are just ambitious people, sharing full spectrum of other traits. Most people would become equally corrupt if presented the opportunity. Being ambitious just amplifies the temptation.
- AnonCoward42 3y ago

wnevets 3y ago

If they got nothing to hide why wouldn't they do it?

ajsnigrutin 3y ago
Yep, and they're working and being paid for and by us. If they're working for the benefit of the people (or at least their voters), why would they keep secrets from us/them?
flagrant_taco 3y ago
Not to defend politicians, but I don't want to be does on just because I think I'm doing nothing wrong
- jraph 3y ago
  I believe your parent commenter is being sarcastic by quoting the "nothing to hide" meme. Politicians notoriously have many things to hide.
  - flagrant_taco 3y ago
    Yep, I realized that right as my post submitted! That's what I get for replying too fast before coffee

pessimizer 3y ago

Politicians are the most surveilled people, and sometimes vote for things like this for fear of or as the result of being targeted by their own or other countries' intelligence agencies. If the CIA wants Spain to ban encryption, they're not going to be bothered by the resistance of some Spanish MPs, they're going to fix the problem. We (the citizens) need to ban secret police and secret courts.

HeavyStorm 3y ago
> Politicians are the most surveilled people, and sometimes vote for things like this for fear of or as the result of being targeted by their own or other countries' intelligence agencies. Not here. Probably not anywhere outside US and some very few countries.

belter 3y ago

"Dutch PM Mark Rutte questioned after deleting text messages for years" - https://www.euronews.com/2022/05/19/dutch-pm-mark-rutte-questioned-after-deleting-text-messages-for-years https://www.euronews.com/2022/05/19/dutch-pm-mark-rutte-ques...

varenc 3y ago

While of course no government comes close to that level of radical transparency, Finland comes closer than most. I believe Finland requires all official government documents be made public by default, unless they are specifically exempted. Many other governments, like the US through FOIA, let citizens request documents with varying degrees of success, but proactive disclosure is much more rare. And of course, this is just about official documents and doesn't cover the contents of private meetings. (I'm just an interested observer, so I'd love to hear from actual Finns on how they feel about their government's level of openness!)

nevon 3y ago
It's the same here in Sweden. It just feels natural that _obviously_ we should have access to what goes on in the public sector, unless there's a very specific reason not to. There was a huge backlash when the current government decided to hide who received electricity subsidies this last winter, as it was seen as a way to hide corruption.

luxuryballs 3y ago

that’s what I’m saying, quadruple or 10x their pay to increase the cost of them selling out for corruption but also make them wear 24/7 body cameras, maybe we can get the true patriots who are willing to sacrifice some privacy to do the good work and as a bonus shorter terms will just work themselves out naturally

IG_Semmelweiss 3y ago
Patriots ought to work for free. This is about duty. Not about profit. I think you have it flipped. Have everyone in govt making in excess of 2x poverty line be subject to a tax of 99% for all income exceeding the avg of 5 years of income before joining govt You can be rich and join govt. You can live ok post-govt. But you sure as hell should not get rich off govt It's called public service for a reason. Its a service. Not a career. Either you have a sense of duty and are willing to sacrifice, or else go work on the private sector. We need statesmen. Not rent-seeking politicians
- luxuryballs 3y ago
  if you have to wear a 24/7 live stream body cam though
- WickyNilliams 3y ago
  Doesn't this make it impossible for anybody not already rich to get into politics? You'd need a second job to support yourself. And second jobs are a problem not only for focus, but also as conduits for corruption
  - IG_Semmelweiss 3y ago
    if you are not rich, what makes you so special to think you can be rich , after leaving the govt? What has changed since the moment you joined, (nonrich), and now suddenly, you leave and you are hot stuff ? You can still earn a living in govt, even nice money ( >$100k+ for senior jobs) the point is, that is your cap. Job security and duty come at a price. That price is not trading in insider govt connections. You can live comfortably. You can have job security. But you cannot get rich off it. That is your "sacrifice" if you want to call it that. And to be clear, because i realize my comment was not: You can have a really nice bump in earnings while in govt. - For example, if you have an avg salary of 50k, then join govt, at make 100k, that bump is yours to keep just like everyone playing by the same rules. However, once you leave govt, your cap goes back to 50k . So either retire in govt or just go back to what your situation was. As you may imagine, the complaint is never that public service pays "well" therefore the hypotetical is very unlikely to happen in the first place.

bigthymer 3y ago

Way back when, Ukraine implemented video recording of all politicians' offices in order to combat corruption. I read an article where a citizen was trying to get something done at a local government office, tried to offer a customary bribe, but was rejected as the officer pointed to the recording camera in the corner of the room.

EGreg 3y ago

I have been advocating this for some time. If we want full transparency, let's start with the public servants. Oh, they won't be able to make backroom deals, fail at peace agreements because they walked out after 2 hours, and we'll know exactly how they failed? Yes, that's how it should be, because millions of plebs will have to fight and pay the price for their abject failure, negligence and incompetence later. Let it be on full display! Look, maybe nuclear secrets, black ops and some kind of weird Blackwater (er excuse me Academi) stuff can be off the books, although that has historically resulted in a lot of misery, especially the CIA: https://www.npr.org/2017/01/23/511185078/america-in-laos-traces-the-militarization-of-the-cia https://www.npr.org/2017/01/23/511185078/america-in-laos-tra... and is probably a major reason behind war in Ukraine since 2014 ... but also in dozens of other countries, too. You'll find out when it's fully declassified 10 years later, but by then they'll just say "mistakes were made". If we knew about how the covert operations that led to wars that killed MILLIONS of people, we'd hold them to account: https://www.outlookindia.com/website/story/how-jimmy-carter-and-i-started-the-mujahideen/213722 https://www.outlookindia.com/website/story/how-jimmy-carter-... Come to think of it, we'd all be richer, too. Want to get rid of wasteful spending? Start with the Pentagon. Somehow debt-ceiling Republicans aren't eager to do that but it can't account for $35,000,000,000,000 https://www.yahoo.com/video/pentagon-35-trillion-accounting-black-231154593.html https://www.yahoo.com/video/pentagon-35-trillion-accounting-... Thankfully we have C-SPAN at least.