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I guess I was expecting some concrete examples of this chilling effect you spoke of? Your comment only refers to things in the hypothetical, before diverging of

I guess I was expecting some concrete examples of this chilling effect you spoke of? Your comment only refers to things in the hypothetical, before diverging off into other related topics. Do you have any actual examples of "resistance" that have been stifled by this "chilling effect"? I understand your hypotheticals and the point you're making, but we can conjure hypotheticals for any situation or context, all without any specific relationship to truth.

soulofmischief 2y ago
Well, it's not a hypothetical to say that surveillance leads to reduced non-conventional civic participation and reduces the ability for citizens to safely engage in protest. We can look at contemporary research of highly surveilled institutions: https://cdt.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Student-Activity-Monitoring-Software-Research-Insights-and-Recommendations.pdf https://cdt.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Student-Activity-... > Of students who indicate that their school uses monitoring software, many report a chilling effect on their behavior and self-expression online — six in ten students agree with the statement, “I do not share my true thoughts or ideas because I know what I do online is being monitored,” and 80 percent report being “more careful about what I search online when I know what I do online is being monitored.” We can review recent past high-profile, surveillance-oriented regimes like Nazi Germany, or the McCarthy-era Red Scare and Cold War. There is a multitude of personal accounts from that era, where anyone of note had to be extremely careful about what was said, to whom and where. Over and over throughout history, good things, like giving shelter to persecuted refugees or slaves, has been considered illegal. Citizens were told to snitch on one another. If drones were available then, you'd have seen them in every single nook and cranny. Politicians today wear nice, pressed suits and often conduct themselves pleasantly. But only a fool would buy into their brand of symbolic mind control. The reality is that many governments today are as evil as ever due to the scale and population today. And the ones that aren't, are in danger of becoming authoritarian. Authoritarian and populist movements have been sweeping through the West. Any technology we implement today represents codified procedure, whether codified in law or not. And that codified procedure will absolutely be used to enforce an arbitrary morality as defined by the incumbent party. We've seen this for a century with cannabis and the global war on drugs. We see this now with abortion, where citizens in Texas are encouraged to snitch on women who seek abortions. So looking forward, we can avoid hypotheticals while pointing to clear patterns in history, for those who need empirical evidence. We can also just establish self-consistent, ethical political frameworks which disqualify such unwarranted mass surveillance, simply on the grounds that regimes can change while codified procedure can be repurposed, and that mass surveillance erodes trust, without even needing to point to past atrocities and compromised governments. Happy to discuss further if this doesn't satisfy you. I can also draw from my own life experiences living under surveillance and child abuse, and the extreme chilling effect it caused, if you want anecdotal data.
- try_the_bass 2y ago
  Your source doesn't seem to support your claim, though? Being more careful on school-monitored devices seems like an ideal outcome: you want students using school-provided devices to do school-related things, not browse YouTube videos or look at porn. This would also apply in the future on work-provided devices, so it seems like they're learning an important skill in the process? The rest of your examples have no relevance to the original claim, and are (again), largely hypothetical. They're "real examples", but the connection between them and the original claim is still hypothetical. This is why I called your earlier responses attempts to move the goalposts: you have yet to provide any evidence that directly supports your original claim, while instead providing "evidence" of similar things that aren't directly related except through careful framing. Do you have any examples directly relevant to the original statement? Here it is again, in case you've lost track: > They scan license plates all through the city and use this technology to create a chilling effect which allows their authoritarian regime to remain unchallenged.
  - soulofmischief 2y ago
    > in case you've lost track Please argue in good faith and don't revert to sarcasm. I asked in my last comment for you to specify which part of the prior comment you had issue with, it would have been good to mention the specific part you were challenging at that time and not only just now, as my comment indeed touched on multiple related issues. So if you want specific information regarding NYC and the license plate issues, I can give you some links from reputable sources. I also recommend following up these sources with more research to corroborate claims or answer any further questions you may have, or if these sources simply do not satisfy your curiosity and rightful demands for hard proof. https://www.nyclu.org/report/automatic-license-plate-readers https://www.nyclu.org/report/automatic-license-plate-readers https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/documents-uncover-nypds-vast-license-plate-reader-database https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/documents-uncov... https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/automatic-license-plate-readers-legal-status-and-policy-recommendations https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/auto... The above research report mentions a US Supreme Court ruling specifically mentioning a chilling effect with respect to surveillance, United States v. Jones, 565 U.S. 400: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/565/10-1259/case.pdf https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/565/10-1259/case... "Awareness that the Government may be watching chills associational and expressive freedoms. And the Government’s unrestrained power to assemble data that reveal private aspects of identity is susceptible to abuse" - Justice Sonia Sotomayor And in another comment in this thread I mentioned the stop-and-frisk program in NYC: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop-and-frisk_in_New_York_City https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop-and-frisk_in_New_York_Cit... I could point to this and multitudes of other incidents where the NYC government has grossly overstepped their bounds. I can also point to a high-profile case in my old city of Fort Worth where city officials and police were using government databases to stalk and harass individuals, even ex-girlfriends, and the police chief and head IT guy also got harassed and litigated for attempting to expose it: https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/former-fort-worth-police-chief-says-he-was-fired-for-investigating-city-hall-corruption/2129419/ https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/former-fort-worth-police-c... https://www.star-telegram.com/news/local/fort-worth/article291029015.html https://www.star-telegram.com/news/local/fort-worth/article2... Here's what the cops in my current city do: https://www.wbrz.com/news/brpd-narcotics-officer-exposes-wrongdoing-coverups-and-quotas-in-bombshell-interview-with-nakamoto/ https://www.wbrz.com/news/brpd-narcotics-officer-exposes-wro... > "At least three to four nights a week they would have us riding through the neighborhoods," Ardoin said. "If you saw a random black person walking around the street and hasn't done anything, they would tell us just to jump out the vehicle, grab them and pat them down without probable cause. I voiced my opinions several times, and I didn't agree with that." It's why we called the police the "jump out boys" growing up. I personally was subject to years of targeted police and government harassment in my small town, which severely impacted my life. I shudder to think about what those creeps would do with a full ALPR kit across the parish. My state's police force has repeatedly shown that they cannot be trusted to follow the law, and they constantly get caught harassing, stalking, spying, selling drugs, guns and more. You wouldn't understand unless you grew up in a real police state like Louisiana, with an incarceration rate of over 1%, higher than any independent country in the world. You may have had the privilege of not being a targeted demographic in such a state and thus having the law usually work on your side, and so the potentials for abuse, and the inevitability of such, may not seem immediately obvious to you. You seem interested in learning more and I can only provide so much, so I would definitely recommend following up with more research. If it's the "authoritarian regime" part you want proof of, and my given examples of general corruption of US police forces is not sufficient for you, you can google some NYC-specific cases, but I assume you're more interested in the effects of mass surveillance and ALPRs.

soulofmischief 2y ago

Well, it's not a hypothetical to say that surveillance leads to reduced non-conventional civic participation and reduces the ability for citizens to safely engage in protest. We can look at contemporary research of highly surveilled institutions: https://cdt.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Student-Activity-Monitoring-Software-Research-Insights-and-Recommendations.pdf https://cdt.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Student-Activity-... > Of students who indicate that their school uses monitoring software, many report a chilling effect on their behavior and self-expression online — six in ten students agree with the statement, “I do not share my true thoughts or ideas because I know what I do online is being monitored,” and 80 percent report being “more careful about what I search online when I know what I do online is being monitored.” We can review recent past high-profile, surveillance-oriented regimes like Nazi Germany, or the McCarthy-era Red Scare and Cold War. There is a multitude of personal accounts from that era, where anyone of note had to be extremely careful about what was said, to whom and where. Over and over throughout history, good things, like giving shelter to persecuted refugees or slaves, has been considered illegal. Citizens were told to snitch on one another. If drones were available then, you'd have seen them in every single nook and cranny. Politicians today wear nice, pressed suits and often conduct themselves pleasantly. But only a fool would buy into their brand of symbolic mind control. The reality is that many governments today are as evil as ever due to the scale and population today. And the ones that aren't, are in danger of becoming authoritarian. Authoritarian and populist movements have been sweeping through the West. Any technology we implement today represents codified procedure, whether codified in law or not. And that codified procedure will absolutely be used to enforce an arbitrary morality as defined by the incumbent party. We've seen this for a century with cannabis and the global war on drugs. We see this now with abortion, where citizens in Texas are encouraged to snitch on women who seek abortions. So looking forward, we can avoid hypotheticals while pointing to clear patterns in history, for those who need empirical evidence. We can also just establish self-consistent, ethical political frameworks which disqualify such unwarranted mass surveillance, simply on the grounds that regimes can change while codified procedure can be repurposed, and that mass surveillance erodes trust, without even needing to point to past atrocities and compromised governments. Happy to discuss further if this doesn't satisfy you. I can also draw from my own life experiences living under surveillance and child abuse, and the extreme chilling effect it caused, if you want anecdotal data.

try_the_bass 2y ago
Your source doesn't seem to support your claim, though? Being more careful on school-monitored devices seems like an ideal outcome: you want students using school-provided devices to do school-related things, not browse YouTube videos or look at porn. This would also apply in the future on work-provided devices, so it seems like they're learning an important skill in the process? The rest of your examples have no relevance to the original claim, and are (again), largely hypothetical. They're "real examples", but the connection between them and the original claim is still hypothetical. This is why I called your earlier responses attempts to move the goalposts: you have yet to provide any evidence that directly supports your original claim, while instead providing "evidence" of similar things that aren't directly related except through careful framing. Do you have any examples directly relevant to the original statement? Here it is again, in case you've lost track: > They scan license plates all through the city and use this technology to create a chilling effect which allows their authoritarian regime to remain unchallenged.
- soulofmischief 2y ago
  > in case you've lost track Please argue in good faith and don't revert to sarcasm. I asked in my last comment for you to specify which part of the prior comment you had issue with, it would have been good to mention the specific part you were challenging at that time and not only just now, as my comment indeed touched on multiple related issues. So if you want specific information regarding NYC and the license plate issues, I can give you some links from reputable sources. I also recommend following up these sources with more research to corroborate claims or answer any further questions you may have, or if these sources simply do not satisfy your curiosity and rightful demands for hard proof. https://www.nyclu.org/report/automatic-license-plate-readers https://www.nyclu.org/report/automatic-license-plate-readers https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/documents-uncover-nypds-vast-license-plate-reader-database https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/documents-uncov... https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/automatic-license-plate-readers-legal-status-and-policy-recommendations https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/auto... The above research report mentions a US Supreme Court ruling specifically mentioning a chilling effect with respect to surveillance, United States v. Jones, 565 U.S. 400: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/565/10-1259/case.pdf https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/565/10-1259/case... "Awareness that the Government may be watching chills associational and expressive freedoms. And the Government’s unrestrained power to assemble data that reveal private aspects of identity is susceptible to abuse" - Justice Sonia Sotomayor And in another comment in this thread I mentioned the stop-and-frisk program in NYC: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop-and-frisk_in_New_York_City https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop-and-frisk_in_New_York_Cit... I could point to this and multitudes of other incidents where the NYC government has grossly overstepped their bounds. I can also point to a high-profile case in my old city of Fort Worth where city officials and police were using government databases to stalk and harass individuals, even ex-girlfriends, and the police chief and head IT guy also got harassed and litigated for attempting to expose it: https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/former-fort-worth-police-chief-says-he-was-fired-for-investigating-city-hall-corruption/2129419/ https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/former-fort-worth-police-c... https://www.star-telegram.com/news/local/fort-worth/article291029015.html https://www.star-telegram.com/news/local/fort-worth/article2... Here's what the cops in my current city do: https://www.wbrz.com/news/brpd-narcotics-officer-exposes-wrongdoing-coverups-and-quotas-in-bombshell-interview-with-nakamoto/ https://www.wbrz.com/news/brpd-narcotics-officer-exposes-wro... > "At least three to four nights a week they would have us riding through the neighborhoods," Ardoin said. "If you saw a random black person walking around the street and hasn't done anything, they would tell us just to jump out the vehicle, grab them and pat them down without probable cause. I voiced my opinions several times, and I didn't agree with that." It's why we called the police the "jump out boys" growing up. I personally was subject to years of targeted police and government harassment in my small town, which severely impacted my life. I shudder to think about what those creeps would do with a full ALPR kit across the parish. My state's police force has repeatedly shown that they cannot be trusted to follow the law, and they constantly get caught harassing, stalking, spying, selling drugs, guns and more. You wouldn't understand unless you grew up in a real police state like Louisiana, with an incarceration rate of over 1%, higher than any independent country in the world. You may have had the privilege of not being a targeted demographic in such a state and thus having the law usually work on your side, and so the potentials for abuse, and the inevitability of such, may not seem immediately obvious to you. You seem interested in learning more and I can only provide so much, so I would definitely recommend following up with more research. If it's the "authoritarian regime" part you want proof of, and my given examples of general corruption of US police forces is not sufficient for you, you can google some NYC-specific cases, but I assume you're more interested in the effects of mass surveillance and ALPRs.