8 ms·

The government couldn't do it this easily if it wasn't for sale. It being for sale means anyone can be doing it which might be a framing that would be more ala

The government couldn't do it this easily if it wasn't for sale. It being for sale means anyone can be doing it which might be a framing that would be more alarming to the law-and-order types. But really you need a two prong solution: 1) restrict this from being collected and compiled in the first place, eliminate the ability to default to this tracking unless someone opts out 2) restrict the government's ability to use or acquire through non-market-based means. The claim here is that there's already restrictions on this vs directly surveiling, but I haven't seen directly which specific restrictions those are for buying off-the-shelf info and the article doesn't specify. There are very really no companies that I trust to keep my data safe for 10, 20, 50 years. Leadership changes, ownership changes, etc. We have to cut it off at the source.

AnimalMuppet 3y ago
> It being for sale means anyone can be doing it which might be a framing that would be more alarming to the law-and-order types. How about "more alarming to the lawmakers?" Someone could show that movement info, for example, is available for sale on a legislator. Or a legislator's spouse or child. Now do you see the problem, oh you who write the laws?
- rootusrootus 3y ago
  > Someone could show that movement info, for example, is available for sale on a legislator. Or a legislator's spouse or child. Surely someone is already doing this? It wouldn't be especially expensive, but even if it were we could probably crowdfund it easily enough.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - thumbuddy 3y ago
    It's being done, and has been done for around a decade now. New York times did a good piece on how every civilians cellphone gps data has been for sale a long time ago. Bounty hunters buy this kind of data all the time is my understanding.
- bilbo0s 3y ago
  I suspect all those who write the laws already have a Damoclean Sword threatening to drop on them at any time convenient. So I wouldn't count on much help from them whether the laws apply to them or not. It's a virtual certainty that noone who seeks power is free of exploitable skeletons. They are the kind of people who seek power. So the law enforcement and security infrastructure can leak that whenever they choose. I guess what I'm saying is, your suggestion would be a good idea, but the security apparatus figured it out before you did a long time ago. See ABSCAM for instance.
  - autoexec 3y ago
    I'm reminded of how Obama was vocally opposed to domestic surveillance and campaigned on ending all the new spying on the American people, but once he was in office he changed his tune very quickly and ended up expanding the NSA's ability to spy on the people instead. I figure either he was shown some very strong and classified evidence that the data the NSA had been collecting was critical to protecting the people even while it violated their constitutional rights and freedoms or else he was shown how much dirt they have on him and his family and he was blackmailed into publicly declaring his love for NSA spying and handing them more tools to collect data while making only a few token changes.
    - bilbo0s 3y ago
      I figure either he was shown some very strong and classified evidence that the data the NSA had been collecting was critical... or else he was shown how much dirt they have on him Just, Devil's Advocate, but, yeah, why can't it be both?
- NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
  I think that something that should have made lawmakers, and others in public office, sit up and take notice, is a couple of years ago when a prominent and highly-placed Catholic priest was found to be hanging out on Grindr and with other users of the app, shall we say. https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/248431/usccb-general-secretary-resigns-amid-allegations-of-improper-behavior https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/248431/usccb-general... The entity that orchestrated that outing, with the accompanying simple purchase of location data, etc. was a Roman Catholic newspaper known for high-quality investigative pieces. https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/pillar-investigates-usccb-gen-sec https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/pillar-investigates-usccb-g... If such incriminating data is so easily procured against just one guy using a gay hookup app, imagine the treasure troves of data that could be wielded against Members of Congress and other people in power. Even in the absence of wrongdoing, I still don't think that public figures would enjoy having the public know their every move, every minute of every day, but the reality is that all the apps they run are phoning home and uploading that data constantly, unceasingly, and it's all for sale.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- mc32 3y ago
  That guy who was tracking celebrities's plane traffic and publishing on TWTTR could instead do this. Automatically and repeatedly publish legally obtained data on all politicians fed, state and local. Now that would constitute a public service.
  - nickpeterson 3y ago
    Except they would make that illegal for politicians and let us all twist in the wind.
    - vharuck 3y ago
      I wonder if the Equal Protections Clause of the 14th Amendment could be used to knock down these "for everyone but us" caveats.
- burkaman 3y ago
  No, they still don't care. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/20/opinion/location-data-national-security.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/20/opinion/locat...
- pjmorris 3y ago
  Could someone start the 'Decentralized Intelligence Agency(, LLC)', buying, collating, and analyzing open market data feeds, and allowing subscribers to see what's known about themselves and others?
  - bilbo0s 3y ago
    Sure. If you have the wherewithal to protect yourself from the unsavory underworld types who will inevitably come after you for revealing things they'd just as soon keep secret. There's a reason you only see the government doing this kind of thing.
  - jodrellblank 3y ago
    Bellingcat are an investigative agency which uses open data and decentralised members (I think), but not doing it for members to see themselves: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellingcat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellingcat https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54680228-we-are-bellingcat https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54680228-we-are-bellingc...
  - thumbuddy 3y ago
    Yea sure. I mean that's already a thing to some extent, but, if you want the honest answer. Everything you do digitally is known about you. Your physical location, places you regularly go to and when, Websites you visit, your account names, etc. Even ISPs can sell your data these days.
    - pjmorris 3y ago
      I'm aware of this; I think many ordinary people and lawmakers are perhaps less clear on it, and that making it easy to see would help people understand the situation.
- glandium 3y ago
  John Oliver did it (https://youtu.be/wqn3gR1WTcA?t=1305 https://youtu.be/wqn3gR1WTcA?t=1305). I don't think it led anywhere.
mc32 3y ago
What i don't understand is why if it's illegal and forbidden for the government to directly indiscriminately collect information and data on citizens, they can buy the same information from data brokers without an issue? Surely this violates the intent of the law.
- shadowgovt 3y ago
  The intent of the law was to limit government power specifically. Not unlike the law requiring most of the information on firearm sales at the federal level be kept in paper format so that it can't easily be mass-indexed and mass-crawled.
  - Sai_ 3y ago
    Maybe the world needs an NRA type agency for privacy - strident and extremist in scope so that the government invariably wilts before it.
    - shadowgovt 3y ago
      The NRA is backed by an ardent following of funders who sincerely believe curtailment of their ownership of firearms is an immediate and direct existential threat. That's what privacy is missing. But get the right ad agencies on it to put together some good scare campaigns and maybe.
- number6 3y ago
  Maybe they just want to check if it is dangerous for the security of the US? Someone could blackmail the president or a senator with this data
  - autoexec 3y ago
    I'm sure that's already happening. Nixon would have killed for the kind of data our government is collecting and when this data is turned against citizens the Neo-McCarthyist witch-hunts will be devastating.
ajross 3y ago
> The government couldn't do it this easily if it wasn't for sale. Stronger: this being for sale means that it's already being purchased by someone. Really the scoop to this piece is just "The CIA engages in open source intelligence", which sort of a "duh" kind of thing. If there's intelligence value in a product on the open market, of course they're going to consider buying it. If it shouldn't be for sale it shouldn't be for sale. Let's fix that, not try to pretend that we're OK if Putin or Xi buys it but not the CIA.
2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
Could some form of copyright or ownership help with this? The reason they can sell it is because it's theirs. Not yours. If you retained ownership of that data somehow would they need a warrant for it?
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > Could some form of copyright or ownership help with this Just pass privacy rights. Backing into a solution with copyright is unnecessarily messy. Nobody wants to deal with a lifetime of the courts deciding on the status of personal data seized in a bankruptcy proceeding or hypothecated to foreign investors.
  - ethbr0 3y ago
    Just pass mask rights. If we have no problem with privacy, it shouldn't be illegal to wear a mask in public.
- bilqis 3y ago
  That implies creating market for data, attaching speculative value to it and et cetera, and stinks of web3 bullshit.
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > creating market for data, attaching speculative value to it and et cetera, and stinks of web3 bullshit Creating tradeable property rights is older than web3. (Web3's innovation was turbocharging securitization by skipping the step of finding something worth securitizing.) The question is whether, and to what extent, we want personal data to be a market good. It currently is.
    - turnsout 3y ago
      > turbocharging securitization by skipping the step of finding something worth securitizing Best description of web3 I’ve ever read
nonethewiser 3y ago
I don’t fully disagree but there is still a big difference. People voluntarily give these companies their data. The companies aren’t skirting the law. We shouldn’t gatekeep disallowing government spying behind better consumer protections. The kicker in all this is that the taxpayers are literally paying for this. We are paying to give the government our own data.
- janalsncm 3y ago
  My alarm bells for the Appeal to the Law fallacy went off. I see it quite often. When we’re discussing what the law should be, what the law currently is is irrelevant (unless your position is that laws should not change). The fact that it is currently legal to harvest this data and the fact that it is currently legal for the government to purchase it should have no bearing on whether they should be able to in the future. Further, there is a serious question with regards to the extent to which these businesses had the actual informed consent of their users. Do people fully understand that their information will be sold to data brokers? Do they understand that the government will be able to purchase said info with our money (and possibly use this information to incarcerate them)? The latter is almost certainly no, which is why the government fought so hard to keep it a secret.
malermeister 3y ago
Isn't 1) what the GDPR is trying to do?
USB5 3y ago
[dead]
smadge 3y ago
> The government couldn't do it this easily if it wasn't for sale. I don't disagree with your overall point, but the government being allowed to buy this data can create the market for the data in the first place, even if no one else wanted the data.
tastyfreeze 3y ago
Make it illegal to sell personal information and the incentive to collect it goes away.
zeedude 3y ago
Nice redirection of focus there.
AndrewKemendo 3y ago
It’s possible with a cooperative model that has no equity associated with it (no incentive to change hands), and the data is legally owned by the data producer (the individual) So for example if all data between a user and a service is e2e and also legally considered property of the user then the org can explicitly borrow or buy that data for money from the individual- should they choose. The user also has the default status of transparency around data collection, No data is stored unless paid for and fails secure. This is a plausible ethical data centric design.
kornhole 3y ago
Hundreds of billions of dollars are being made and the government is gaining and keeping control over us with this. If you think meaningful privacy laws will be passed in the US, you are delusional. We are on our own. If a candidate such as RFK says he will attack this practice, I am still skeptical of how successful he will be.
heavyset_go 3y ago
> 2) restrict the government's ability to use or acquire through non-market-based means. The claim here is that there's already restrictions on this vs directly surveiling, but I haven't seen directly which specific restrictions those are for buying off-the-shelf info and the article doesn't specify. This won't happen, our security state is built on private surveillance and partnerships between law enforcement and private surveillance companies. Whether we like it or not, the intelligence and security apparatus feel like we need China-style surveillance, because terrorists/spies/civil unrest/FOMO/etc, and we're getting it one way or another. It's either outright illegal, or legally questionable, for the government to do exactly what the CCP has, but there's the loophole illustrated in the OP. Private companies are allowed to surveil Americans, and they're free to choose whether or not they share the data they collect with law enforcement. Now we have companies like Amazon partnering with thousands of law enforcement agencies[1] to advertise[2], deploy and monitor Americans via their products like Ring. Amazon is free to share whatever data they collect from you whenever they want[3]. They can share your data with law enforcement without warrants and they don't even have to let you know that they did so[4]. The article in the OP goes into how phone records are being used to track people's locations, as well. As much as I'd like to, I can't see this genie being put back in the bottle. [1] https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/31/22258856/amazon-ring-partners-police-fire-security-privacy-cameras https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/31/22258856/amazon-ring-part... [2] https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-ring-require-police-advertise-for-free-ring-cameras-2019-7 https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-ring-require-police-a... [3] https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/14/tech/amazon-ring-police-footage/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/14/tech/amazon-ring-police-foota... [4] https://www.wired.com/story/amazon-ring-police-videos-security-roundup/ https://www.wired.com/story/amazon-ring-police-videos-securi...
- cyanydeez 3y ago
  everything we're seeing is capitalism in action. the security state part of it is basically just the overall shittification of technology.
  - the_optimist 3y ago
    A government buying data for surveillance has little to do with capitalism. Perhaps part of the reason you see “everything” become “shitty” is you have a limited ability to identify, isolate, respond to, and avoid or change root causes.
cyanydeez 3y ago
Right, and they probably are vastly under represented in the world of "who is buying american information". There's probably foreign adversaries in there also. This is mostly the wrong side of the coin. You have it right.
lost_tourist 3y ago
Please don't make excuses for the government. This is simply their way of getting around the spirit of the 1st and 4th amendments. It's governmental abuse and anyone with any common sense knows that. Companies can't arrest me and throw me in jail indefinitely.

AnimalMuppet 3y ago

> It being for sale means anyone can be doing it which might be a framing that would be more alarming to the law-and-order types. How about "more alarming to the lawmakers?" Someone could show that movement info, for example, is available for sale on a legislator. Or a legislator's spouse or child. Now do you see the problem, oh you who write the laws?

rootusrootus 3y ago
> Someone could show that movement info, for example, is available for sale on a legislator. Or a legislator's spouse or child. Surely someone is already doing this? It wouldn't be especially expensive, but even if it were we could probably crowdfund it easily enough.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- thumbuddy 3y ago
  It's being done, and has been done for around a decade now. New York times did a good piece on how every civilians cellphone gps data has been for sale a long time ago. Bounty hunters buy this kind of data all the time is my understanding.
bilbo0s 3y ago
I suspect all those who write the laws already have a Damoclean Sword threatening to drop on them at any time convenient. So I wouldn't count on much help from them whether the laws apply to them or not. It's a virtual certainty that noone who seeks power is free of exploitable skeletons. They are the kind of people who seek power. So the law enforcement and security infrastructure can leak that whenever they choose. I guess what I'm saying is, your suggestion would be a good idea, but the security apparatus figured it out before you did a long time ago. See ABSCAM for instance.
- autoexec 3y ago
  I'm reminded of how Obama was vocally opposed to domestic surveillance and campaigned on ending all the new spying on the American people, but once he was in office he changed his tune very quickly and ended up expanding the NSA's ability to spy on the people instead. I figure either he was shown some very strong and classified evidence that the data the NSA had been collecting was critical to protecting the people even while it violated their constitutional rights and freedoms or else he was shown how much dirt they have on him and his family and he was blackmailed into publicly declaring his love for NSA spying and handing them more tools to collect data while making only a few token changes.
  - bilbo0s 3y ago
    I figure either he was shown some very strong and classified evidence that the data the NSA had been collecting was critical... or else he was shown how much dirt they have on him Just, Devil's Advocate, but, yeah, why can't it be both?
NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
I think that something that should have made lawmakers, and others in public office, sit up and take notice, is a couple of years ago when a prominent and highly-placed Catholic priest was found to be hanging out on Grindr and with other users of the app, shall we say. https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/248431/usccb-general-secretary-resigns-amid-allegations-of-improper-behavior https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/248431/usccb-general... The entity that orchestrated that outing, with the accompanying simple purchase of location data, etc. was a Roman Catholic newspaper known for high-quality investigative pieces. https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/pillar-investigates-usccb-gen-sec https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/pillar-investigates-usccb-g... If such incriminating data is so easily procured against just one guy using a gay hookup app, imagine the treasure troves of data that could be wielded against Members of Congress and other people in power. Even in the absence of wrongdoing, I still don't think that public figures would enjoy having the public know their every move, every minute of every day, but the reality is that all the apps they run are phoning home and uploading that data constantly, unceasingly, and it's all for sale.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
mc32 3y ago
That guy who was tracking celebrities's plane traffic and publishing on TWTTR could instead do this. Automatically and repeatedly publish legally obtained data on all politicians fed, state and local. Now that would constitute a public service.
- nickpeterson 3y ago
  Except they would make that illegal for politicians and let us all twist in the wind.
  - vharuck 3y ago
    I wonder if the Equal Protections Clause of the 14th Amendment could be used to knock down these "for everyone but us" caveats.
burkaman 3y ago
No, they still don't care. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/20/opinion/location-data-national-security.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/20/opinion/locat...
pjmorris 3y ago
Could someone start the 'Decentralized Intelligence Agency(, LLC)', buying, collating, and analyzing open market data feeds, and allowing subscribers to see what's known about themselves and others?
- bilbo0s 3y ago
  Sure. If you have the wherewithal to protect yourself from the unsavory underworld types who will inevitably come after you for revealing things they'd just as soon keep secret. There's a reason you only see the government doing this kind of thing.
- jodrellblank 3y ago
  Bellingcat are an investigative agency which uses open data and decentralised members (I think), but not doing it for members to see themselves: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellingcat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellingcat https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54680228-we-are-bellingcat https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54680228-we-are-bellingc...
- thumbuddy 3y ago
  Yea sure. I mean that's already a thing to some extent, but, if you want the honest answer. Everything you do digitally is known about you. Your physical location, places you regularly go to and when, Websites you visit, your account names, etc. Even ISPs can sell your data these days.
  - pjmorris 3y ago
    I'm aware of this; I think many ordinary people and lawmakers are perhaps less clear on it, and that making it easy to see would help people understand the situation.
glandium 3y ago
John Oliver did it (https://youtu.be/wqn3gR1WTcA?t=1305 https://youtu.be/wqn3gR1WTcA?t=1305). I don't think it led anywhere.

mc32 3y ago

What i don't understand is why if it's illegal and forbidden for the government to directly indiscriminately collect information and data on citizens, they can buy the same information from data brokers without an issue? Surely this violates the intent of the law.

shadowgovt 3y ago
The intent of the law was to limit government power specifically. Not unlike the law requiring most of the information on firearm sales at the federal level be kept in paper format so that it can't easily be mass-indexed and mass-crawled.
- Sai_ 3y ago
  Maybe the world needs an NRA type agency for privacy - strident and extremist in scope so that the government invariably wilts before it.
  - shadowgovt 3y ago
    The NRA is backed by an ardent following of funders who sincerely believe curtailment of their ownership of firearms is an immediate and direct existential threat. That's what privacy is missing. But get the right ad agencies on it to put together some good scare campaigns and maybe.
number6 3y ago
Maybe they just want to check if it is dangerous for the security of the US? Someone could blackmail the president or a senator with this data
- autoexec 3y ago
  I'm sure that's already happening. Nixon would have killed for the kind of data our government is collecting and when this data is turned against citizens the Neo-McCarthyist witch-hunts will be devastating.

ajross 3y ago

> The government couldn't do it this easily if it wasn't for sale. Stronger: this being for sale means that it's already being purchased by someone. Really the scoop to this piece is just "The CIA engages in open source intelligence", which sort of a "duh" kind of thing. If there's intelligence value in a product on the open market, of course they're going to consider buying it. If it shouldn't be for sale it shouldn't be for sale. Let's fix that, not try to pretend that we're OK if Putin or Xi buys it but not the CIA.

2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago

Could some form of copyright or ownership help with this? The reason they can sell it is because it's theirs. Not yours. If you retained ownership of that data somehow would they need a warrant for it?

JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> Could some form of copyright or ownership help with this Just pass privacy rights. Backing into a solution with copyright is unnecessarily messy. Nobody wants to deal with a lifetime of the courts deciding on the status of personal data seized in a bankruptcy proceeding or hypothecated to foreign investors.
- ethbr0 3y ago
  Just pass mask rights. If we have no problem with privacy, it shouldn't be illegal to wear a mask in public.
bilqis 3y ago
That implies creating market for data, attaching speculative value to it and et cetera, and stinks of web3 bullshit.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > creating market for data, attaching speculative value to it and et cetera, and stinks of web3 bullshit Creating tradeable property rights is older than web3. (Web3's innovation was turbocharging securitization by skipping the step of finding something worth securitizing.) The question is whether, and to what extent, we want personal data to be a market good. It currently is.
  - turnsout 3y ago
    > turbocharging securitization by skipping the step of finding something worth securitizing Best description of web3 I’ve ever read

nonethewiser 3y ago

I don’t fully disagree but there is still a big difference. People voluntarily give these companies their data. The companies aren’t skirting the law. We shouldn’t gatekeep disallowing government spying behind better consumer protections. The kicker in all this is that the taxpayers are literally paying for this. We are paying to give the government our own data.

janalsncm 3y ago
My alarm bells for the Appeal to the Law fallacy went off. I see it quite often. When we’re discussing what the law should be, what the law currently is is irrelevant (unless your position is that laws should not change). The fact that it is currently legal to harvest this data and the fact that it is currently legal for the government to purchase it should have no bearing on whether they should be able to in the future. Further, there is a serious question with regards to the extent to which these businesses had the actual informed consent of their users. Do people fully understand that their information will be sold to data brokers? Do they understand that the government will be able to purchase said info with our money (and possibly use this information to incarcerate them)? The latter is almost certainly no, which is why the government fought so hard to keep it a secret.

malermeister 3y ago

Isn't 1) what the GDPR is trying to do?

USB5 3y ago

[dead]

smadge 3y ago

> The government couldn't do it this easily if it wasn't for sale. I don't disagree with your overall point, but the government being allowed to buy this data can create the market for the data in the first place, even if no one else wanted the data.

tastyfreeze 3y ago

Make it illegal to sell personal information and the incentive to collect it goes away.

zeedude 3y ago

Nice redirection of focus there.

AndrewKemendo 3y ago

It’s possible with a cooperative model that has no equity associated with it (no incentive to change hands), and the data is legally owned by the data producer (the individual) So for example if all data between a user and a service is e2e and also legally considered property of the user then the org can explicitly borrow or buy that data for money from the individual- should they choose. The user also has the default status of transparency around data collection, No data is stored unless paid for and fails secure. This is a plausible ethical data centric design.

kornhole 3y ago

Hundreds of billions of dollars are being made and the government is gaining and keeping control over us with this. If you think meaningful privacy laws will be passed in the US, you are delusional. We are on our own. If a candidate such as RFK says he will attack this practice, I am still skeptical of how successful he will be.

heavyset_go 3y ago

> 2) restrict the government's ability to use or acquire through non-market-based means. The claim here is that there's already restrictions on this vs directly surveiling, but I haven't seen directly which specific restrictions those are for buying off-the-shelf info and the article doesn't specify. This won't happen, our security state is built on private surveillance and partnerships between law enforcement and private surveillance companies. Whether we like it or not, the intelligence and security apparatus feel like we need China-style surveillance, because terrorists/spies/civil unrest/FOMO/etc, and we're getting it one way or another. It's either outright illegal, or legally questionable, for the government to do exactly what the CCP has, but there's the loophole illustrated in the OP. Private companies are allowed to surveil Americans, and they're free to choose whether or not they share the data they collect with law enforcement. Now we have companies like Amazon partnering with thousands of law enforcement agencies[1] to advertise[2], deploy and monitor Americans via their products like Ring. Amazon is free to share whatever data they collect from you whenever they want[3]. They can share your data with law enforcement without warrants and they don't even have to let you know that they did so[4]. The article in the OP goes into how phone records are being used to track people's locations, as well. As much as I'd like to, I can't see this genie being put back in the bottle. [1] https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/31/22258856/amazon-ring-partners-police-fire-security-privacy-cameras https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/31/22258856/amazon-ring-part... [2] https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-ring-require-police-advertise-for-free-ring-cameras-2019-7 https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-ring-require-police-a... [3] https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/14/tech/amazon-ring-police-footage/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/14/tech/amazon-ring-police-foota... [4] https://www.wired.com/story/amazon-ring-police-videos-security-roundup/ https://www.wired.com/story/amazon-ring-police-videos-securi...

cyanydeez 3y ago
everything we're seeing is capitalism in action. the security state part of it is basically just the overall shittification of technology.
- the_optimist 3y ago
  A government buying data for surveillance has little to do with capitalism. Perhaps part of the reason you see “everything” become “shitty” is you have a limited ability to identify, isolate, respond to, and avoid or change root causes.

cyanydeez 3y ago

Right, and they probably are vastly under represented in the world of "who is buying american information". There's probably foreign adversaries in there also. This is mostly the wrong side of the coin. You have it right.

lost_tourist 3y ago

Please don't make excuses for the government. This is simply their way of getting around the spirit of the 1st and 4th amendments. It's governmental abuse and anyone with any common sense knows that. Companies can't arrest me and throw me in jail indefinitely.