4 ms·

I am not harmed when I go through a toll plaza or an express lane. Nor when I pass a flock camera. You are boxing with phantoms, I think.

macintux 4mo ago
> Nor when I pass a flock camera. You are not, or at least, you think you are not. How far removed are we from the federal government revoking the passports of everyone who attended a No Kings rally, anywhere in the country?
- Lonestar1440 4mo ago
  ... And what do you think stops them from revoking the passports, today? Do you think it is Courts and the looming Midterms; or are they just flummoxed by the lack of good surveillance data? It's really a fantasy and a silly Taboo. Our Democracy will live or die by politics, not silly rules on data collection at the margins.
  - macintux 4mo ago
    We’ve never had a central data store that would make it practical to achieve such a feat. Now we have one that could answer questions like this, forever. Mass surveillance at scale is not a trivial problem to solve, but Flock is both making it happen and making it clear that they are fine with enabling bad actors to take advantage of it.
    - Lonestar1440 4mo ago
      The FBI has been an IBM customer for a very long time. Like maybe the "cheap cameras everywhere" part is novel + important, but "central data store" truly is not. Slippery reasoning like this is how silly taboos get perpetuated.
      - anigbrowl 4mo ago
        [dead]
      - dghlsakjg 4mo ago
        While I don't love the FBI's history of data collection, there is a world of difference between warehousing data from government records, and building a graph of warehoused data from all possible sources and selling access to any small town police chief that can convince the city council to pay for it. Plus, data in FBI custody is nominally subject to laws and oversight in a way that privately held data is not.
  - dghlsakjg 4mo ago
    Global entry privileges have been revoked for people present at legal protests based on facial recognition. Not a fantasy and the taboo has already been broken. While losing access to global entry without due process isn’t the same thing as revoking a passport, it’s awfully close. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-30/minnesota-woman-says-her-global-entry-nixed-after-agent-run-in?embedded-checkout=true https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-30/minnesota...
  - K0balt 4mo ago
    If you think democracy still has a chance in a nation as diverse and expansive as the united states, given that technology empowers despots and poisons democracies that are too big to be held by social bonds, then you are much more optimistic than I am. At this point, the only way to preserve democracy would be to mostly dissolve the federal system, leaving states as democracies without the heavy hand and massive financial leverage from above. States are closer to the right size for democracy to be resistant, but I think we’d need city-states of the metropolises, and big states like California would possibly need to subdivide.
- TimorousBestie 4mo ago
  > How far removed are we from the federal government revoking the passports of everyone who attended a No Kings rally, anywhere in the country? Many trans people have already had their passports revoked, for some there is no path to obtaining one again, and it is deeply unsettling to me.
croes 4mo ago
> I am not harmed when I go through a toll plaza or an express lane. Yet. The jewish people had no problem that the government had detailed lists including the religion. It helped the Nazis killing many jews. Total surveillance will always be abused like every other invasive law. First it’s against child abuse and terrorist, then organized crime, then crimes like theft, then littering and jaywalking, then swearing in public
- Lonestar1440 4mo ago
  Were the lists really the problem though? Or was it the Genocidal Intent? The first mass killings, on the Eastern Front, made no use of such sophistication and had no need of it. It's always Politics.... Terrible ones in the case of WW2 Germany.
  - croes 4mo ago
    Yes, the lists where the problem because it is a lot easier to find your victims if you have a list of their addresses. You‘ll never know when the next group with bad intent get access to surveillance data. Every crime organization would be glad to have the opportunity to find witnesses in witness protection. Was a lot harder back then.
  - amanaplanacanal 4mo ago
    By that logic, why bother requiring search warrants? As long as government doesn't have bad intent, it should all be fine.
  - dghlsakjg 4mo ago
    Yes, the lists were a huge problem. In places where the germans had access to identity information survival rates among jews was much lower. The Danish government refused to provide data about Jewish citizens to the occupying germans, and simply didn't comply in general with anti Jewish efforts. 99% of Danish jews survived the war. In the Netherlands, where there was initially a policy of compliance, the occupying germans got their hands on the lists of jews and only 25% of Dutch jews survived.
K0balt 4mo ago
Harms of this sort tend towards societal harms toxic to democracy like chilling effects and loss of social cohesion, but you definitely could end up being much more directly harmed by invasive antiprivacy technologies.

macintux 4mo ago

> Nor when I pass a flock camera. You are not, or at least, you think you are not. How far removed are we from the federal government revoking the passports of everyone who attended a No Kings rally, anywhere in the country?

Lonestar1440 4mo ago
... And what do you think stops them from revoking the passports, today? Do you think it is Courts and the looming Midterms; or are they just flummoxed by the lack of good surveillance data? It's really a fantasy and a silly Taboo. Our Democracy will live or die by politics, not silly rules on data collection at the margins.
- macintux 4mo ago
  We’ve never had a central data store that would make it practical to achieve such a feat. Now we have one that could answer questions like this, forever. Mass surveillance at scale is not a trivial problem to solve, but Flock is both making it happen and making it clear that they are fine with enabling bad actors to take advantage of it.
  - Lonestar1440 4mo ago
    The FBI has been an IBM customer for a very long time. Like maybe the "cheap cameras everywhere" part is novel + important, but "central data store" truly is not. Slippery reasoning like this is how silly taboos get perpetuated.
    - anigbrowl 4mo ago
      [dead]
    - dghlsakjg 4mo ago
      While I don't love the FBI's history of data collection, there is a world of difference between warehousing data from government records, and building a graph of warehoused data from all possible sources and selling access to any small town police chief that can convince the city council to pay for it. Plus, data in FBI custody is nominally subject to laws and oversight in a way that privately held data is not.
- dghlsakjg 4mo ago
  Global entry privileges have been revoked for people present at legal protests based on facial recognition. Not a fantasy and the taboo has already been broken. While losing access to global entry without due process isn’t the same thing as revoking a passport, it’s awfully close. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-30/minnesota-woman-says-her-global-entry-nixed-after-agent-run-in?embedded-checkout=true https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-30/minnesota...
- K0balt 4mo ago
  If you think democracy still has a chance in a nation as diverse and expansive as the united states, given that technology empowers despots and poisons democracies that are too big to be held by social bonds, then you are much more optimistic than I am. At this point, the only way to preserve democracy would be to mostly dissolve the federal system, leaving states as democracies without the heavy hand and massive financial leverage from above. States are closer to the right size for democracy to be resistant, but I think we’d need city-states of the metropolises, and big states like California would possibly need to subdivide.
TimorousBestie 4mo ago
> How far removed are we from the federal government revoking the passports of everyone who attended a No Kings rally, anywhere in the country? Many trans people have already had their passports revoked, for some there is no path to obtaining one again, and it is deeply unsettling to me.

croes 4mo ago

> I am not harmed when I go through a toll plaza or an express lane. Yet. The jewish people had no problem that the government had detailed lists including the religion. It helped the Nazis killing many jews. Total surveillance will always be abused like every other invasive law. First it’s against child abuse and terrorist, then organized crime, then crimes like theft, then littering and jaywalking, then swearing in public

Lonestar1440 4mo ago
Were the lists really the problem though? Or was it the Genocidal Intent? The first mass killings, on the Eastern Front, made no use of such sophistication and had no need of it. It's always Politics.... Terrible ones in the case of WW2 Germany.
- croes 4mo ago
  Yes, the lists where the problem because it is a lot easier to find your victims if you have a list of their addresses. You‘ll never know when the next group with bad intent get access to surveillance data. Every crime organization would be glad to have the opportunity to find witnesses in witness protection. Was a lot harder back then.
- amanaplanacanal 4mo ago
  By that logic, why bother requiring search warrants? As long as government doesn't have bad intent, it should all be fine.
- dghlsakjg 4mo ago
  Yes, the lists were a huge problem. In places where the germans had access to identity information survival rates among jews was much lower. The Danish government refused to provide data about Jewish citizens to the occupying germans, and simply didn't comply in general with anti Jewish efforts. 99% of Danish jews survived the war. In the Netherlands, where there was initially a policy of compliance, the occupying germans got their hands on the lists of jews and only 25% of Dutch jews survived.

K0balt 4mo ago

Harms of this sort tend towards societal harms toxic to democracy like chilling effects and loss of social cohesion, but you definitely could end up being much more directly harmed by invasive antiprivacy technologies.