4 ms·
>He worries the government will gain an incomplete view of suspects, persecuting innocent people who would be exonerated by details they can't see. In the real
by Paul-ish 12y ago
>He worries the government will gain an incomplete view of suspects, persecuting innocent people who would be exonerated by details they can't see. In the real world, law enforcement doesn't get to decide who is guilty. If their incompetence leads to investigations of innocent people, the result is an embarrassing defeat in court once more evidence comes to light, which they are obviously motivated to avoid. Arguably, one way to prevent prosecution of innocents is to ensure the government has more surveillance, so law enforcement can correctly distinguish aspiring meth manufacturers from writers of Breaking Bad fanfics.
Except that the government can change your life without any trial. The government can put you on a list that requires you to undergo extra screening at the airport. Or you might even get put on the No Fly List. There is no way you can contest being placed on either list. These sorts of lists may just be confined to air travel for now, but after the next crisis, who knows how they add "security" for our own safety?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_fly_list https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_fly_list
- goodside 12y agoThe courts have already ruled in favor of the ACLU on requiring a process to get false positives off the no-fly list: http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-no-fly-list-violates-rights-federal-ruling-20140624-story.html http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-no-fly-list-violates-rig... Also, it's not clear that this list would be any smaller if there were less government surveillance. Presumably, the less the government knows about you the more paranoid they would be about letting you on an airplane, given you share a name with a known terrorist. And, frankly, if the single most egregious collateral damage to result from a spy apparatus as large as the NSA/CIA/FBI is that some people have trouble getting on airplanes, that's really not that bad.