4 ms·

A private group is not the same as DMs on a privacy level, though. Two can keep a secret, not more. I distinctly remember reading about cops socially engineerin

A private group is not the same as DMs on a privacy level, though. Two can keep a secret, not more. I distinctly remember reading about cops socially engineering their way into protest chats in Hong Kong, because when it's a big group of people, it's easier to say "oh yeah, I'm a friend of John's" and get away with it.

olliej 3y ago
What you're saying is akin to "a conversation in a private clubhouse doesn't have the same privacy as a conversation in a bedroom" which is true, but that does not matter. Yes, having more people involved means a greater chance of someone simply talking to the police, but the same applies to a single person you had a conversation with in your bedroom. You do not have any legal protection against a person you talked to telling the police/government what you said (with the exception of _very_ specific set of explicitly enumerated cases), regardless of how many people were present. But we are not talking about people voluntarily talking to the police, we're talking about secret police surveillance of a private group. What the police were asking is "can we put bugs in a private clubroom/union hall/church without a warrant?". Also, including what china did in HK in a conversation about rule of law, human rights, etc is simply not relevant by _any_ definition.
- ClumsyPilot 3y ago
  > Also, including what china did in HK in a conversation about rule of law, human rights, etc is simply not relevant by _any_ definition. It is , but in another way - we are finding there is little daylight between us and China in terms of surveillance.
  - olliej 3y ago
    We're literally discussing an article in which a court said you need a warrant to surveil people in a group chat, and you're saying their is not a significant gap between that and china (where there is consistent pervasive surveillance of all communication at all times)?

olliej 3y ago

What you're saying is akin to "a conversation in a private clubhouse doesn't have the same privacy as a conversation in a bedroom" which is true, but that does not matter. Yes, having more people involved means a greater chance of someone simply talking to the police, but the same applies to a single person you had a conversation with in your bedroom. You do not have any legal protection against a person you talked to telling the police/government what you said (with the exception of _very_ specific set of explicitly enumerated cases), regardless of how many people were present. But we are not talking about people voluntarily talking to the police, we're talking about secret police surveillance of a private group. What the police were asking is "can we put bugs in a private clubroom/union hall/church without a warrant?". Also, including what china did in HK in a conversation about rule of law, human rights, etc is simply not relevant by _any_ definition.

ClumsyPilot 3y ago
> Also, including what china did in HK in a conversation about rule of law, human rights, etc is simply not relevant by _any_ definition. It is , but in another way - we are finding there is little daylight between us and China in terms of surveillance.
- olliej 3y ago
  We're literally discussing an article in which a court said you need a warrant to surveil people in a group chat, and you're saying their is not a significant gap between that and china (where there is consistent pervasive surveillance of all communication at all times)?