4 ms·

> Cost, however, shouldn't be what limits surveillance, regulation should. If police can switch from a helicopter to a drone for some mission, and save 90%, tha

> Cost, however, shouldn't be what limits surveillance, regulation should. If police can switch from a helicopter to a drone for some mission, and save 90%, that should be a good thing. This on my top ten list of things I want to shout from the mountaintop. If you read the legal decisions about police surveillance, they're all about analogizing to how police can follow people around, but that's resource intensive and thus limited, and does this piece of tech break that balance? Which is a terrifically insane way of thinking about it. It both makes the rules of what law enforcement is allowed to do shifty and unprincipled, it also makes legitimate deployments of law enforcement pointlessly difficult. Instead, we need strong, principled (and thus not technology-specific) rules regarding privacy, and then we can decide whether particular uses of, say, drones fall within those boundaries. Starting with the technology doesn't make any sense. I've made this point a few times on HN, but the same goes for military drones. "The problem with them is they make killing people cheaper" is a sign of a totally broken morality. Instead, start by deciding whether killing that person (and the collateral damage it will cause) is OK, and then use the most efficient means to do it. Whether there's a pilot in the aircraft can not plausibly be a proxy for whether you should blow someone up or not. (FWIW, I'm very close to categorically against killing people.)

nitrogen 12y ago
Instead, start by deciding whether killing that person (and the collateral damage it will cause) is OK, and then use the most efficient means to do it. Unfortunately, most calculations of whether a particular mission is "OK" will include cost and risk as factors.
- mpyne 12y ago
  To the extent that we're relying on "cost" as a way of avoiding otherwise undesirable missions, that's only an "answer by accident"; it should be fixed properly, but that's not a reason to reduce the cost. That argument is the same reason we continue to have pointless programs like Selective Service registration, which actually somehow saves the government money by allowing them to avoiding paying some tuition benefits that our "draft dodgers" would otherwise qualify for.
opendais 12y ago
The problem with this is we've got a bunch of 50+ year olds who don't really understand that they are basically handing over the ability to observe every aspect of our lives, in a cost effective manner by state and federal standards, even if we are not suspects. And guess what? Even if you have strong regulations, they'll close ranks and cover up for each other. That factor will lead to cameras mounted the officers body, but does anyone here really believe those tapes wouldn't get 'erased' and/or end up being protected by 'national security' with no real fact checking by the courts at this juncture? I think the next 20-30 years are going to be a real problem until people who understand exactly how much power we are handing over get into power and make it stop. Until there is a major generational change to the Supreme Court, Congress, and the Presidency...I don't see 'more regulation' actually doing us any good because it'll get ignored when its convenient. I think everyone under 35 needs to band together and say we won't sell out. :/
- hyperbovine 12y ago
  I assume this is exactly what said 50+ year olds were thinking about their elders circa 1970. "Generational change" is not the panacea it appears to be while in your 20s.
  - opendais 12y ago
    There are many things that were worse in the 70s [bigotry; racism; martial rape wasn't illegal in all states until something like 1993; etc]. The surveillance aspect was only 'less bad' because it wasn't financially feasible due to the tech at the time. So yes, I'd say the 'big issues' of the 70s were partially fixed by generational change. The generational change from that generation did have effects, it didn't solve everything. It never does. However, if you have a better plan that will have actual results, feel free to publicize and encourage people to follow it. :)
    - lovemenot 12y ago
      This time around, the issues are more subtle. Effective solutions will be privacy enhancing technologies adopted by individuals in a free market, rather than politics and movements, which are too blunt of an instrument. I believe, the ANC welcomed white activists and we should be careful not to alienate like-thinking people of any sort. On the false-positive side, youth can sometimes be callow and too easily persuaded to jump on the wrong bandwagon.(lovemenot aged 49.5)
NoMoreNicksLeft 12y ago
> it also makes legitimate deployments of law enforcement pointlessly difficult. That's a good thing. When you start from a premise of "let's make things easy for the cops", then it is inevitable that this will be at the expense of making everything harder for people who just trying live their lives. > Instead, we need strong, principled This is the same as saying that we need magical regulations. There's no evidence that any regulations written anytime in the last few centuries have been in any way principled.

nitrogen 12y ago

Instead, start by deciding whether killing that person (and the collateral damage it will cause) is OK, and then use the most efficient means to do it. Unfortunately, most calculations of whether a particular mission is "OK" will include cost and risk as factors.

mpyne 12y ago
To the extent that we're relying on "cost" as a way of avoiding otherwise undesirable missions, that's only an "answer by accident"; it should be fixed properly, but that's not a reason to reduce the cost. That argument is the same reason we continue to have pointless programs like Selective Service registration, which actually somehow saves the government money by allowing them to avoiding paying some tuition benefits that our "draft dodgers" would otherwise qualify for.

opendais 12y ago

The problem with this is we've got a bunch of 50+ year olds who don't really understand that they are basically handing over the ability to observe every aspect of our lives, in a cost effective manner by state and federal standards, even if we are not suspects. And guess what? Even if you have strong regulations, they'll close ranks and cover up for each other. That factor will lead to cameras mounted the officers body, but does anyone here really believe those tapes wouldn't get 'erased' and/or end up being protected by 'national security' with no real fact checking by the courts at this juncture? I think the next 20-30 years are going to be a real problem until people who understand exactly how much power we are handing over get into power and make it stop. Until there is a major generational change to the Supreme Court, Congress, and the Presidency...I don't see 'more regulation' actually doing us any good because it'll get ignored when its convenient. I think everyone under 35 needs to band together and say we won't sell out. :/

hyperbovine 12y ago
I assume this is exactly what said 50+ year olds were thinking about their elders circa 1970. "Generational change" is not the panacea it appears to be while in your 20s.
- opendais 12y ago
  There are many things that were worse in the 70s [bigotry; racism; martial rape wasn't illegal in all states until something like 1993; etc]. The surveillance aspect was only 'less bad' because it wasn't financially feasible due to the tech at the time. So yes, I'd say the 'big issues' of the 70s were partially fixed by generational change. The generational change from that generation did have effects, it didn't solve everything. It never does. However, if you have a better plan that will have actual results, feel free to publicize and encourage people to follow it. :)
  - lovemenot 12y ago
    This time around, the issues are more subtle. Effective solutions will be privacy enhancing technologies adopted by individuals in a free market, rather than politics and movements, which are too blunt of an instrument. I believe, the ANC welcomed white activists and we should be careful not to alienate like-thinking people of any sort. On the false-positive side, youth can sometimes be callow and too easily persuaded to jump on the wrong bandwagon.(lovemenot aged 49.5)

NoMoreNicksLeft 12y ago

> it also makes legitimate deployments of law enforcement pointlessly difficult. That's a good thing. When you start from a premise of "let's make things easy for the cops", then it is inevitable that this will be at the expense of making everything harder for people who just trying live their lives. > Instead, we need strong, principled This is the same as saying that we need magical regulations. There's no evidence that any regulations written anytime in the last few centuries have been in any way principled.