Comment by draugadrotten | Hacker News Reader

Comment by draugadrotten | Hacker News Reader

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> Security cameras and police cars that continuously scan the faces of pedestrians and other drivers. It will happen.

It's already pervasive:

1998:"Face-recognition CCTV launched" http://www.independent.co.uk/news/face-recognition-cctv-laun...

2015: "A scheme widely used by UK stores to identify criminals is testing facial recognition technology, the BBC has learned." http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35111363

2016: "Retailers are increasingly using facial recognition technology to track your face. With an estimated 59% of UK fashion retailers doing it, is the anonymity of cities an outdated idea?" https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/mar/03/revealed-faci...

2014: "UK, the world’s most surveilled state, begins using automated face recognition to catch criminals" https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/186435-uk-the-worlds-mos...

2014: "CCTV cameras on Britain's roads capture 26 million images every day" https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jan/23/cctv-cameras...

2017: "New York plans to install vast system of facial recognition cameras that matches drivers licenses to social media accounts at bridges and tunnels " http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4167854/New-York-ins...

You can google for more, watch out for those black helicopters tonight.

> 2017: "New York plans to install vast system of facial recognition cameras that matches drivers licenses to social media accounts at bridges and tunnels "

Wow. Just, wow. And I agree: even governments that "don't want to do it" will be compelled to at the first horrific incident that could have been prevented with the technology. The only way to stop that from happening is to outlaw it. I simply don't believe there are very many Edward Snowdens in the world.

Yeah the infamous "terrorist" threat ...

What do you want to say? There is no real terrorism threat? Or what?

That the threat of terrorism can be used to justify everything up to and including a totalitarian government.

First, threat of terrorism is real. Second, monitoring citizens' behavior does not automatically translate to totalitarianism.

Personally I prefer safety. And I avoid showing myself over online for privacy concerns. But I do not call safety measure a poly to implement totalitarian government.

If you have a systematic approach to achieve safety and counter terrorism, without monitoring citizens, then please state it briefly. I personally have no idea how to prevent without close monitoring.

China is different, it has always been totalitarian. It's natural for the government to monitor citizens without much resistance. This is a statement, without value judgement.

If you have a systematic approach to achieve safety and counter terrorism, without monitoring citizens, then please state it briefly. I personally have no idea how to prevent without close monitoring.

Why shouldn't the burden be on the other side? Can you - can anyone - demonstrate that "close monitoring" actually makes it possible to prevent terrorism? That states will actually use it that way, when the threat of terror is so politically useful?

Because without making a strong case along those lines first, you can't even take the "I'll trade privacy for safety" position in good faith at all.

The 9/11 attackers were already subjects of surveillance when they attacked. The Boston Marathon bombers were already being closely monitored but were not stopped.

Disciplinarians, cops for example, have dreamed of omniscience since the dawn of time. The panopticon dates to the 1790s! Despite the fact that we come closer to a state of all-seeing every day, I'm not aware of any compelling evidence that it's actually turning out to be very useful to prevent violent crime or acts of terror.

Not only that, but those enforcing the law are no less likely to break it. Giving the authorities this level of power is just inviting the most corrupt and immoral of them to run wild with official immunity.

Police live under a fundamental illusion that people can be divided into good or bad, ignoring the role of circumstances, ease of deniability and special pleading in how it actually goes down. Most of all with their own abuse of power.

Could we stop this racing to bottom debate?

Clearly, terrorism is a symptom. Its cause is not bad people are not monitored, but they have various reason to think harm innocent people is the only way to advance their objectives.

Can anyone address such issues? Unlikely. History has shown that terrorism is seldom solved, they are extinguished, through escalation to war or complete annihilation of the weaker part.

Do I support monitoring? Not always. But if I am not feeling safe, I am OK to sacrifice some privacy and take some risk of being harmed by the government.

I am not saying you should agree with this, but that's my thoughts.

> Can you - can anyone - demonstrate that "close monitoring" actually makes it possible to prevent terrorism?

This way of reasoning seems fine, but really is just a way of showing me being using unfounded argument to support my claim. In reality, as I said, solving terrorism is not monitoring's job, but it makes me feel safe, because someone is doing something that can reduce the risk (not substantially).

The evidence I know of that hint at monitoring being effective is from the Italians, where they say they thwart terrorism by closely monitoring and infiltrating potential groups. I remember reading that the Italian police says it takes 20 people to monitor one person effectively (will need to find a link). That kind of man-power is hard to scale.

edit: link on Italian anti-terrorist efforts: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/23/why-has-italy-...

Further debate on the SlateStarCodex subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/6j8703/cult...

> If you have a systematic approach to achieve safety and counter terrorism, without monitoring citizens, then please state it briefly.

Attack the root cause of the problem, namely alienation of youths [0] (Aarhus Model). These preventative systems of surveillance only foment opportunities for abuse.

[0] - http://psy.au.dk/fileadmin/Psykologi/Forskning/Preben_Bertel...

We're pretty much living the century of Minority Report. Pre-cogs are machines that read your thoughts from social media.

What an odd obsession with preventing crime with cameras from the culture that brought us 1984.

It's not odd at all when you consider what works of Orwell are cited in pop culture (1984, Animal Farm) and which ones are not (Homage to Catalonia)

Can you expand more? Is it the difference in opinion of the totalitarianism exhibited in 1984 vs. the anarchism from Homage?

His writings critical of the West go largely ignored in the West, which again isn't that surprising. For example his forward for Animal Farm was famously censored from publication.

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