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Up until about 100 years ago, most civilian communication was either totally ephemeral (in-person speech) or transmitted on physical artifacts. Surveillance req

by Arubis 1y ago

Up until about 100 years ago, most civilian communication was either totally ephemeral (in-person speech) or transmitted on physical artifacts. Surveillance required either physical mail piece interception, physical presence, or individual communications with knowing parties. That the Powers That Be are even capable of reliable remote surveillance—-let alone that they’re _entitled to do so_—-is very much a recent occurrence.

simoncion 1y ago
> That the Powers That Be are even capable of reliable remote surveillance... is very much a recent occurrence. Yep. Many of our laws and regulations sorely need updating to match the world in which nearly anyone can set up 24/7 surveillance very, very, very cheaply and cops can go to a handful of businesses to find out who we talk to, what we're saying, and what we're reading about. Things that made sense when you had to put a guy in a place to keep watch, to follow a guy to see who he talks to, or go door to door to ask folks in a neighborhood what happened on a particular date are much less likely to make sense in the world we live today.
exasperaited 1y ago
> Surveillance required either physical mail piece interception It was explicitly understood that if you used the UK or US post offices, your correspondence could be read. Because it became government/state property the moment you handed it to the post office (this is still the case, I think). Pretty sure this is how all postal services worked. Telegrams, likewise, were implicitly intercepted. Sure you can argue that surveillance is new. But so, actually, is privacy. The right to have a private conversation is also new; the idea that your private words were your own and your patriarch/clan leader/priest/boss/judge/monarch/patriarch would not simply be able to demand, with threats, that one or all of the parties recount them would have been shocking. There are surely many things you simply wouldn’t have voiced because one of those people might find out. Projecting our modern ideas of free speech and privacy onto a pre-communication-age society doesn’t make any real sense.
- simoncion 1y ago
  > Pretty sure this is how all postal services worked. Nope. For ages (and possibly still today), the only thing that can be casually read by the US post office are the parts of the mailpiece that can be seen without opening the mailpiece. So, the entire contents of postcards can be read at any time. The entire contents of envelopes, packages, and the like cannot. Engage your brain for a second and ask yourself if the "Founding Fathers" would really have set up a system where the government gets to root through its citizens' private communications without a warrant. And yes, you can point to how the third-party doctrine enables all sorts of warrantless investigation of the private communications of modern day USians, but the state of the world was way different back when that doctrine was solidified. In a just world, we'd see massive reform to the doctrine to bring it in line with how folks interact with third-parties these days, but authoritarians don't like to be stripped of their tools of oppression and clandestine, unchecked surveillance and will fight very hard to keep them.

by Arubis 1y ago

simoncion 1y ago

> That the Powers That Be are even capable of reliable remote surveillance... is very much a recent occurrence. Yep. Many of our laws and regulations sorely need updating to match the world in which nearly anyone can set up 24/7 surveillance very, very, very cheaply and cops can go to a handful of businesses to find out who we talk to, what we're saying, and what we're reading about. Things that made sense when you had to put a guy in a place to keep watch, to follow a guy to see who he talks to, or go door to door to ask folks in a neighborhood what happened on a particular date are much less likely to make sense in the world we live today.

exasperaited 1y ago

> Surveillance required either physical mail piece interception It was explicitly understood that if you used the UK or US post offices, your correspondence could be read. Because it became government/state property the moment you handed it to the post office (this is still the case, I think). Pretty sure this is how all postal services worked. Telegrams, likewise, were implicitly intercepted. Sure you can argue that surveillance is new. But so, actually, is privacy. The right to have a private conversation is also new; the idea that your private words were your own and your patriarch/clan leader/priest/boss/judge/monarch/patriarch would not simply be able to demand, with threats, that one or all of the parties recount them would have been shocking. There are surely many things you simply wouldn’t have voiced because one of those people might find out. Projecting our modern ideas of free speech and privacy onto a pre-communication-age society doesn’t make any real sense.

simoncion 1y ago
> Pretty sure this is how all postal services worked. Nope. For ages (and possibly still today), the only thing that can be casually read by the US post office are the parts of the mailpiece that can be seen without opening the mailpiece. So, the entire contents of postcards can be read at any time. The entire contents of envelopes, packages, and the like cannot. Engage your brain for a second and ask yourself if the "Founding Fathers" would really have set up a system where the government gets to root through its citizens' private communications without a warrant. And yes, you can point to how the third-party doctrine enables all sorts of warrantless investigation of the private communications of modern day USians, but the state of the world was way different back when that doctrine was solidified. In a just world, we'd see massive reform to the doctrine to bring it in line with how folks interact with third-parties these days, but authoritarians don't like to be stripped of their tools of oppression and clandestine, unchecked surveillance and will fight very hard to keep them.