3 ms·

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

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).
    - mmooss 2y ago
      > you still have firebombs, gas attacks, and myriad other weapons All are post colonial-era technology. By analogy to your argument, if we can only address surveillance as if colonial-era technology was used, then we can only address military actions that way. What if someone set off a colonial-era explosive? Not a big deal, right?
      - shadowgovt 2y ago
        Are we talking law or morality? I think I see what you mean if we're talking morality. If we're talking law, this is exactly the rabbit-hole people end up going down trying to justify or un-justify the Second Amendment in an era where the weapon is a 60-to-1 force multiplier for body count, not a 1.5-to-1 (in that if two men approach you with a knife, and you have a colonial rifle, you can probably reliably shoot one of them and then you're on equal footing with the other). The law has all kinds of pockets where they wrote it when people were on horseback... But it still applies.
  - bawolff 2y ago
    Tech might change scale, but we still had surveilence, secret police, masacares, etc in olden times. If anything, in olden times many of these types of things were considered normal. As hard as it might feel like it is to see it, we have come a very long way when it comes to morals of wars & state violence. If nothing else at least we mostly feel like its "wrong" now.
    - mmooss 2y ago
      I didn't claim otherwise and it's irrelevant to my point, regardless. The point is that you can't exclude technology from the issue - surveillance with modern tech and with pre-industrial tech are very different things. Now you can do almost complete surveillance of the population (just track phones and you know everywhere everyone goes). (Also, where and when specifically are you talking about? The 1950s US? State intelligence agencies didn't really exist, afaik, before maybe the (20th century?).)
      - bawolff 2y ago
        I'm just saying these issues aren't new. One of the reasons the us had limited domestic intel services back in the day is that they were scared of this sort of thing. As an example the surveilence practised by soviets or east germany was much more invasive despite not having phones.
        mmooss 2y ago
        > I'm just saying these issues aren't new. I'm saying they are new, because the technology is different - like saying 'transportation isn't new' when comparing horses and airplanes. The technology is inseparable from the issue. > One of the reasons the us had limited domestic intel services back in the day is that they were scared of this sort of thing. Do you have evidence of that? Many people are scared of it now, and that does limit it to some degree, but not a lot. > As an example the surveilence practised by soviets or east germany was much more invasive despite not having phones. They were enabled by technology far more advanced than the colonial era. They did have phones and they tapped them, tapped rooms, etc., and used communication tech to centralize and disseminate the information, as well as using mass communication to implement propaganda.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

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).
  - mmooss 2y ago
    > you still have firebombs, gas attacks, and myriad other weapons All are post colonial-era technology. By analogy to your argument, if we can only address surveillance as if colonial-era technology was used, then we can only address military actions that way. What if someone set off a colonial-era explosive? Not a big deal, right?
    - shadowgovt 2y ago
      Are we talking law or morality? I think I see what you mean if we're talking morality. If we're talking law, this is exactly the rabbit-hole people end up going down trying to justify or un-justify the Second Amendment in an era where the weapon is a 60-to-1 force multiplier for body count, not a 1.5-to-1 (in that if two men approach you with a knife, and you have a colonial rifle, you can probably reliably shoot one of them and then you're on equal footing with the other). The law has all kinds of pockets where they wrote it when people were on horseback... But it still applies.
- bawolff 2y ago
  Tech might change scale, but we still had surveilence, secret police, masacares, etc in olden times. If anything, in olden times many of these types of things were considered normal. As hard as it might feel like it is to see it, we have come a very long way when it comes to morals of wars & state violence. If nothing else at least we mostly feel like its "wrong" now.
  - mmooss 2y ago
    I didn't claim otherwise and it's irrelevant to my point, regardless. The point is that you can't exclude technology from the issue - surveillance with modern tech and with pre-industrial tech are very different things. Now you can do almost complete surveillance of the population (just track phones and you know everywhere everyone goes). (Also, where and when specifically are you talking about? The 1950s US? State intelligence agencies didn't really exist, afaik, before maybe the (20th century?).)
    - bawolff 2y ago
      I'm just saying these issues aren't new. One of the reasons the us had limited domestic intel services back in the day is that they were scared of this sort of thing. As an example the surveilence practised by soviets or east germany was much more invasive despite not having phones.
      - mmooss 2y ago
        > I'm just saying these issues aren't new. I'm saying they are new, because the technology is different - like saying 'transportation isn't new' when comparing horses and airplanes. The technology is inseparable from the issue. > One of the reasons the us had limited domestic intel services back in the day is that they were scared of this sort of thing. Do you have evidence of that? Many people are scared of it now, and that does limit it to some degree, but not a lot. > As an example the surveilence practised by soviets or east germany was much more invasive despite not having phones. They were enabled by technology far more advanced than the colonial era. They did have phones and they tapped them, tapped rooms, etc., and used communication tech to centralize and disseminate the information, as well as using mass communication to implement propaganda.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]