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> This is setting up Cardinal Richlieu's ideal tyranny: "If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in th

> This is setting up Cardinal Richlieu's ideal tyranny: "If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged." It's a good thing, then, that most criminal convictions require a jury of our peers, and not just the word of a tyrant. And that appeals exist, etc etc. > With a panopticon of all public spaces, any petty tyrant can find enough evidence in six minutes to imprison anyone. This is a blatant strawman. Said "panopticon" already exists in major areas, and this kind of abuse of power still rarely happens. It's possible to have increased surveillance come with stricter rules and increased oversight, you know. For example, it's pretty telling that Mandani, largely seen as a promising progressive candidate, has opted to change so little about the NYPD, which conducts massive city-wide surveillance, on the level of your "panopticon". Perhaps it's because he understands the benefits it provides to public safety, and is implicitly voting in confidence of its current level of oversight?

toss1 8mo ago
>> this kind of abuse of power still rarely happens It is not even close to "rarely happens" It happens in EVERY authoritarian state that has the technology, to BILLIONS of people around the world. It is also already happening a LOT in the US (presumably where your comment is limited to). Flock is used specifically to create parallel construction, where they observe cars moving "in a pattern" that might indicate "smuggling immigrants" such as driving from a border county, or working with pro-immigrant groups (a 100% legal activity), and local/regional police are alerted to find a pretext to stop the car, and often results in charges for someone who would otherwise never have been noticed. Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. This has been known for thousands of years. This type of systems are only a step away from absolute power >> most criminal convictions require a jury of our peers Tell that to the people kidnapped by ICE, with ZERO due process, based on just a sighting and tracking with a camera that matches a racial profile, then they wind up in detention and deported, or dead, with zero judicial intervention. Stop acting like this doesn't happen or the current 'administration' actually follows the rules. This administration is on the well-traveled road to corrupting democracy and implementing fascism, and systems like Flock actively help it happen. You are arguing sophistry on the wrong side of the facts, the wrong side of civil society, and the wrong side of history. Reconsider your life
- try_the_bass 8mo ago
  > It is not even close to "rarely happens" You and I have very different definitions of "rarely", apparently. It is rare, by most definitions of "rare" (at least in the US, where I'm implicitly limiting this discussion, in general). What's yours? If your definition of "rarely" is "more than never", a) you're setting an unreasonable standard, and b) letting the lack of perfection be an easy way to discredit anyone who disagrees with you, which is intellectually lazy. I certainly agree that abuse happens! Unfortunately, that's just a fact of life. The best we can do is minimize abuse, and we should be making every effort to do so. But this does not mean reactionary banning of every new technology, regardless of the benefits it may bring. That's just reactionary conservatism, which I think (based on the rest your comment), you vehemently disagree with! > Flock is used specifically to create parallel construction, where they observe cars moving "in a pattern" that might indicate "smuggling immigrants" such as driving from a border county, or working with pro-immigrant groups (a 100% legal activity), and local/regional police are alerted to find a pretext to stop the car, and often results in charges for someone who would otherwise never have been noticed. [Citation needed]. This is certainly plausible, but is currently presented without evidence, and can likewise be dismissed without evidence. > Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Cool truism. Except we're not talking about "absolute power" by any stretch of the definition. > This type of systems are only a step away from absolute power Okay this is just bullshit and hyperbole. The rest of your comment is equally disingenuous and wildly emotional. I refuse to engage with this. Either calm down and have a real conversation, or go away. Your subsequent ad-hominems and strawmen are entirely unwarranted and uncalled-for.
  - toss1 8mo ago
    >>rarely...[Citation needed] You are awfully quick to dismiss what you do not know and are too lazy to even do a quick search. I literally read about these parallel construction scenarios here on HN and they are sufficiently common and severe to generate multiple legal actions and be repeatedly reported in mainstream press, e.g., [0],[1],[2],[3], and Flock even stopped cooperating due to these issues[4]. so, there's five citations, doing your homework for you. >>we're not talking about "absolute power"; bullshit and hyperbole. A corporate-government alliance that can track every movement of you and every other resident and arrest you on any pretext (e.g., "these two photos show you averaging 5mph over the speed limit, oh, you refuse a car search? GET OUT OF THE CAR...") is functionally indistinguishable from absolute power. There is a reason such a panopticon is a core feature of many dystopian novels or movies - if they always know what you do, you have zero freedom to do anything they do not want you to do. With that kind of power, there are endless examples of opportunities for abuse, and the burden of proof is on those trying to defend implementing such a system. Repeatedly yelling "strawman!" or "citation needed" as if they were a magical argument winning incantations dismissing statements based on "tone" are not arguments. You really read like a high-school poster who got a hold of one of his older sister's college philosophy books over the holidays and now fancies himself a master logician. Of course it feels powerful to take an absolutist stand, and you can argue it forever, but such sophistry doesn't convince anyone and is extremely boring and pointless. You had one good point upstream that one needs to draw a line somewhere between a single CATV camera and a panopticon. Yes, it is difficult to draw that line. Discussing THAT makes sense. CBP is already creating surveillance networks to identify "suspicious" routes, and in real-time identify people coincidentally driving that direction, and having local police cook up a reason to stop them. [0] https://apnews.com/article/border-patrol-surveillance-license-plate-readers-immigration-5daca3741b28c55374912d8eebeec8db https://apnews.com/article/border-patrol-surveillance-licens... [1] https://apnews.com/article/immigration-border-patrol-surveillance-drivers-ice-trump-9f5d05469ce8c629d6fecf32d32098cd https://apnews.com/article/immigration-border-patrol-surveil... [2] https://www.404media.co/ice-taps-into-nationwide-ai-enabled-camera-network-data-shows/ https://www.404media.co/ice-taps-into-nationwide-ai-enabled-... [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45030853 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45030853 [4] https://apnews.com/article/immigration-abortion-license-plates-cameras-cc5f29df94a29ee2c6c2feb2151c8f5e https://apnews.com/article/immigration-abortion-license-plat...

toss1 8mo ago

>> this kind of abuse of power still rarely happens It is not even close to "rarely happens" It happens in EVERY authoritarian state that has the technology, to BILLIONS of people around the world. It is also already happening a LOT in the US (presumably where your comment is limited to). Flock is used specifically to create parallel construction, where they observe cars moving "in a pattern" that might indicate "smuggling immigrants" such as driving from a border county, or working with pro-immigrant groups (a 100% legal activity), and local/regional police are alerted to find a pretext to stop the car, and often results in charges for someone who would otherwise never have been noticed. Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. This has been known for thousands of years. This type of systems are only a step away from absolute power >> most criminal convictions require a jury of our peers Tell that to the people kidnapped by ICE, with ZERO due process, based on just a sighting and tracking with a camera that matches a racial profile, then they wind up in detention and deported, or dead, with zero judicial intervention. Stop acting like this doesn't happen or the current 'administration' actually follows the rules. This administration is on the well-traveled road to corrupting democracy and implementing fascism, and systems like Flock actively help it happen. You are arguing sophistry on the wrong side of the facts, the wrong side of civil society, and the wrong side of history. Reconsider your life

try_the_bass 8mo ago
> It is not even close to "rarely happens" You and I have very different definitions of "rarely", apparently. It is rare, by most definitions of "rare" (at least in the US, where I'm implicitly limiting this discussion, in general). What's yours? If your definition of "rarely" is "more than never", a) you're setting an unreasonable standard, and b) letting the lack of perfection be an easy way to discredit anyone who disagrees with you, which is intellectually lazy. I certainly agree that abuse happens! Unfortunately, that's just a fact of life. The best we can do is minimize abuse, and we should be making every effort to do so. But this does not mean reactionary banning of every new technology, regardless of the benefits it may bring. That's just reactionary conservatism, which I think (based on the rest your comment), you vehemently disagree with! > Flock is used specifically to create parallel construction, where they observe cars moving "in a pattern" that might indicate "smuggling immigrants" such as driving from a border county, or working with pro-immigrant groups (a 100% legal activity), and local/regional police are alerted to find a pretext to stop the car, and often results in charges for someone who would otherwise never have been noticed. [Citation needed]. This is certainly plausible, but is currently presented without evidence, and can likewise be dismissed without evidence. > Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Cool truism. Except we're not talking about "absolute power" by any stretch of the definition. > This type of systems are only a step away from absolute power Okay this is just bullshit and hyperbole. The rest of your comment is equally disingenuous and wildly emotional. I refuse to engage with this. Either calm down and have a real conversation, or go away. Your subsequent ad-hominems and strawmen are entirely unwarranted and uncalled-for.
- toss1 8mo ago
  >>rarely...[Citation needed] You are awfully quick to dismiss what you do not know and are too lazy to even do a quick search. I literally read about these parallel construction scenarios here on HN and they are sufficiently common and severe to generate multiple legal actions and be repeatedly reported in mainstream press, e.g., [0],[1],[2],[3], and Flock even stopped cooperating due to these issues[4]. so, there's five citations, doing your homework for you. >>we're not talking about "absolute power"; bullshit and hyperbole. A corporate-government alliance that can track every movement of you and every other resident and arrest you on any pretext (e.g., "these two photos show you averaging 5mph over the speed limit, oh, you refuse a car search? GET OUT OF THE CAR...") is functionally indistinguishable from absolute power. There is a reason such a panopticon is a core feature of many dystopian novels or movies - if they always know what you do, you have zero freedom to do anything they do not want you to do. With that kind of power, there are endless examples of opportunities for abuse, and the burden of proof is on those trying to defend implementing such a system. Repeatedly yelling "strawman!" or "citation needed" as if they were a magical argument winning incantations dismissing statements based on "tone" are not arguments. You really read like a high-school poster who got a hold of one of his older sister's college philosophy books over the holidays and now fancies himself a master logician. Of course it feels powerful to take an absolutist stand, and you can argue it forever, but such sophistry doesn't convince anyone and is extremely boring and pointless. You had one good point upstream that one needs to draw a line somewhere between a single CATV camera and a panopticon. Yes, it is difficult to draw that line. Discussing THAT makes sense. CBP is already creating surveillance networks to identify "suspicious" routes, and in real-time identify people coincidentally driving that direction, and having local police cook up a reason to stop them. [0] https://apnews.com/article/border-patrol-surveillance-license-plate-readers-immigration-5daca3741b28c55374912d8eebeec8db https://apnews.com/article/border-patrol-surveillance-licens... [1] https://apnews.com/article/immigration-border-patrol-surveillance-drivers-ice-trump-9f5d05469ce8c629d6fecf32d32098cd https://apnews.com/article/immigration-border-patrol-surveil... [2] https://www.404media.co/ice-taps-into-nationwide-ai-enabled-camera-network-data-shows/ https://www.404media.co/ice-taps-into-nationwide-ai-enabled-... [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45030853 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45030853 [4] https://apnews.com/article/immigration-abortion-license-plates-cameras-cc5f29df94a29ee2c6c2feb2151c8f5e https://apnews.com/article/immigration-abortion-license-plat...