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Is this really surprising to anyone? If you're out in public and using public websites to organize protests, it's a given that data will be mined about that.

Is this really surprising to anyone? If you're out in public and using public websites to organize protests, it's a given that data will be mined about that. The trick is to make it unattractive for those doing the enforcing to act upon their analysis of that data.

Teever 2y ago
It is unfortunately surprising to a lot of people. For what ever reason many people lack the ability to understand the casual connections between things that happen online and in the real world.
tdb7893 2y ago
I think that while not surprising it's still interesting and useful to know exactly how they are doing it and what tools they are using. In the US protests are a constitutionally protected right and visibility into how they are monitoring and reacting to them is important.
- shadowgovt 2y ago
  If we remove the tech from the story and consider the old "colonial village test": A man walks up and down the street either shouting about, or handing out flyers, that say "We should get together and blockade main street in protest of the illegitimate taxes Congress has passed on our whiskey." Is it legal for the cops to stop him? Probably not. Is it legal for the cops to move their plans around to show up on main street that day? I can't see why it wouldn't be.
  - tptacek 2y ago
    It's more than legal for the cops to do that; it's a longstanding norm. In fact, at many protests, it's something you actively want to see, because counterprotests can get rowdy and dangerous.
  - mmooss 2y ago
    > If we remove the tech from the story If we remove the tech from the dropping of the atomic bombs, what's the big deal? You can't remove the tech; it is intrinsic to the issue.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - shadowgovt 2y ago
      Sorry, I don't follow. If you remove the tech from dropping of atomic bombs, you still have firebombs, gas attacks, and myriad other weapons that may or may not be considered either war crimes or simply too destructive to allow. You can still extrapolate and / or build analogies from the older models to the new one. Why can't we remove the tech in this context? Is the issue that the tech allows surveillance of public conversation to happen cheaply at scale, and that creates a fundamentally different scenario from someone saying things in public being overheard? Because I'd argue it does not; if one says things in public one should expect authorities to overhear the thing too because they're also in public.
      - SamoyedFurFluff 2y ago
        You actually really can’t extrapolate too much from existing weapons when the nuke was dropped. The singular, overwhelming devastation of that one weapon radically altered international politics forever.
      - refulgentis 2y ago
        One simple difference that jumps out to me straightaway is the a gaping gulf between "decided to check it out" and "wrote down the names of everyone there and stuck it in a state-owned filing cabinet" People aren't taking umbrage with the cops knowing there is a protest, or attending one, you're right, that would be unreasonable.
        mmooss 2y ago
        Don't forget how someone can find any word in that filing cabinet, instantly, from anywhere in the jurisdiction (and is probably shared elsewhere).
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
CalChris 2y ago
This is surprising. Why are the police monitoring constitutionally protected activity?
- shadowgovt 2y ago
  For the same reason they use ancestry databases to narrow the field of potential serial killers to a few that can be investigated through legally-admissible means. There is a vast gap between what the cops can do in general and what holds up in court, but to a first approximation: the things they aren't allowed to do because it would taint the case are in general explicitly spelled out, and if it isn't spelled out it's legal to use as a stepping stone to conventional, more-understood-protections police tactics. Thus arresting someone for a general Twitter post is probably off-limits (the incitement-to-riot or sedition laws are narrowly tailored), but taking someone online who says "Hey let's all get together and do a riot" seriously, and allocating police resources to prepare for it as if they're telling the truth about their intentions, is almost certainly legal. (This is the battleground that the ACLU fights on in this day and age).
- Mountain_Skies 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - skrtskrt 2y ago
    True, when the Zionist gangs showed up at UCLA and started shooting Roman candles, and choking out and beating protestors it did get violent really quick. Luckily the police showed up to protect the Zionists so they could keep committing violence.
  - giraffe_lady 2y ago
    How many gaza protests have there been in the US alone in the past two years and how many of them had any violence at all? I wouldn't call it a "high probability."
    - mschuster91 2y ago
prophesi 2y ago
It's not surprising to me because The Intercept regularly reports on the use of Dataminr by various US agencies. https://kagi.com/search?q=dataminr+site%3Atheintercept.com&r=no_region&sh=_9AHQUoGaqDW_PAqZcgR5A https://kagi.com/search?q=dataminr+site%3Atheintercept.com&r...

Teever 2y ago

It is unfortunately surprising to a lot of people. For what ever reason many people lack the ability to understand the casual connections between things that happen online and in the real world.

tdb7893 2y ago

I think that while not surprising it's still interesting and useful to know exactly how they are doing it and what tools they are using. In the US protests are a constitutionally protected right and visibility into how they are monitoring and reacting to them is important.

shadowgovt 2y ago
If we remove the tech from the story and consider the old "colonial village test": A man walks up and down the street either shouting about, or handing out flyers, that say "We should get together and blockade main street in protest of the illegitimate taxes Congress has passed on our whiskey." Is it legal for the cops to stop him? Probably not. Is it legal for the cops to move their plans around to show up on main street that day? I can't see why it wouldn't be.
- tptacek 2y ago
  It's more than legal for the cops to do that; it's a longstanding norm. In fact, at many protests, it's something you actively want to see, because counterprotests can get rowdy and dangerous.
- mmooss 2y ago
  > If we remove the tech from the story If we remove the tech from the dropping of the atomic bombs, what's the big deal? You can't remove the tech; it is intrinsic to the issue.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - shadowgovt 2y ago
    Sorry, I don't follow. If you remove the tech from dropping of atomic bombs, you still have firebombs, gas attacks, and myriad other weapons that may or may not be considered either war crimes or simply too destructive to allow. You can still extrapolate and / or build analogies from the older models to the new one. Why can't we remove the tech in this context? Is the issue that the tech allows surveillance of public conversation to happen cheaply at scale, and that creates a fundamentally different scenario from someone saying things in public being overheard? Because I'd argue it does not; if one says things in public one should expect authorities to overhear the thing too because they're also in public.
    - SamoyedFurFluff 2y ago
      You actually really can’t extrapolate too much from existing weapons when the nuke was dropped. The singular, overwhelming devastation of that one weapon radically altered international politics forever.
    - refulgentis 2y ago
      One simple difference that jumps out to me straightaway is the a gaping gulf between "decided to check it out" and "wrote down the names of everyone there and stuck it in a state-owned filing cabinet" People aren't taking umbrage with the cops knowing there is a protest, or attending one, you're right, that would be unreasonable.
      - mmooss 2y ago
        Don't forget how someone can find any word in that filing cabinet, instantly, from anywhere in the jurisdiction (and is probably shared elsewhere).
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

CalChris 2y ago

This is surprising. Why are the police monitoring constitutionally protected activity?

shadowgovt 2y ago
For the same reason they use ancestry databases to narrow the field of potential serial killers to a few that can be investigated through legally-admissible means. There is a vast gap between what the cops can do in general and what holds up in court, but to a first approximation: the things they aren't allowed to do because it would taint the case are in general explicitly spelled out, and if it isn't spelled out it's legal to use as a stepping stone to conventional, more-understood-protections police tactics. Thus arresting someone for a general Twitter post is probably off-limits (the incitement-to-riot or sedition laws are narrowly tailored), but taking someone online who says "Hey let's all get together and do a riot" seriously, and allocating police resources to prepare for it as if they're telling the truth about their intentions, is almost certainly legal. (This is the battleground that the ACLU fights on in this day and age).
Mountain_Skies 2y ago
[flagged]
- skrtskrt 2y ago
  True, when the Zionist gangs showed up at UCLA and started shooting Roman candles, and choking out and beating protestors it did get violent really quick. Luckily the police showed up to protect the Zionists so they could keep committing violence.
- giraffe_lady 2y ago
  How many gaza protests have there been in the US alone in the past two years and how many of them had any violence at all? I wouldn't call it a "high probability."
  - mschuster91 2y ago

prophesi 2y ago

It's not surprising to me because The Intercept regularly reports on the use of Dataminr by various US agencies. https://kagi.com/search?q=dataminr+site%3Atheintercept.com&r=no_region&sh=_9AHQUoGaqDW_PAqZcgR5A https://kagi.com/search?q=dataminr+site%3Atheintercept.com&r...