The FBI Is Tracking Our Faces in Secret, and We’re Suing | Hacker News Reader

The FBI Is Tracking Our Faces in Secret, and We’re Suing

aclu.org

511 pointsdredmorbius147 comments

I wish we would stop emphasizing the social justice/accuracy concerns so heavily when talking about this. Starting that way will cause a huge segment of the population to switch off as soon as you start talking.

Imagine it works perfectly, and a three-letter agency with practically zero oversight, transparency, or accountability is collecting an accurate history of every single thing you do--everywhere you go, who you talk to, what you say to them, what content you consume and create, what emotions you feel, detailed biometric profiles, and so on. Are you ok with that?

And on the off chance someone reading this is OK with the government doing that for law enforcement purposes, also consider that

>At least a dozen U.S. National Security Agency employees have been caught using secret government surveillance tools to spy on the emails or phone calls of their current or former spouses and lovers in the past decade, according to the intelligence agency’s internal watchdog.

before giving them carte blanche to collect whatever information they want about everyone and store it in a database forever.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-surveillance-watchdog...

I've spoken with people who have said they are ok with it. But, when I start asking questions or sharing details on how this has been abused I tend to find they have not thought it through and are often unaware. In some cases people think I'm crazy until I show them press coverage on it.

I've learned that many don't have the depth of knowledge I have on the topic and have formed opinions with a puddles worth of information. Sometimes helping people learn more can change minds.

Democracy was a mistake. These people shouldn't be allowed to vote.

That was a pretty common sentiment and even law for quite some time. A bunch of people died and/or devoted their lives to changing that.

In some places this has happened in the opposite direction.

Where?

Or rather as Sir Winston Churchill said: "the best argument against democracy is a 5 minutes conversation with the average voter". A quote that is often at risk of being misunderstood like "soo, if Churchill was against democracy, how come they let him become England PM?". Actually that quote should focus the attention on how the power of democracy needs some level of culture to be used properly. Voters who keep listening to clowns appealing to their bellies during speeches will inevitably put those clowns (actually very clever people acting as such) in power who in return will keep shaping their country as a wonder park for other clowns, ruining it for everyone else. Therefore, that Churchill's quote should be read between the lines as "you want democracy? Fine, we all do, but that is a powerful tool just like a gun or a car, therefore here are the books, go study them and take some tests, then we talk about democracy".

The election system itself ensures that voters' opinions on most specific governance issues are entirely ignored.

Since citizens vote for only one out of a very restricted pool of candidates, every five years, the rational decision is to only consider the candidates' stance on topics directly affecting one's material well-being (so mostly finance/employment-related decisions).

Unless voters are very prosperous, secondary quality-of-life decisions like surveillance are systematically pushed aside in general elections, and that regardless of their education level.

A bit less catchy than Mencken's "Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard."[1]

1: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/H._L._Mencken#1910s

>I've spoken with people who have said they are ok with it, when I start asking questions or sharing details on how this has been abused I tend to find they have not thought it through

In the future just ask them to unlock their phone and hand it to you so you can look at their email, text and browser history. Watch them hesitate and refuse.

I do this.

But more and more often, people are responding:

"You're not the government."

So it doesn't work as well as people think it does.

And my response would be, "My party voted in the government, so yeah, we voted for the right to look through your phone. Now hand it over or do you want to be a law breaking criminal too?"

And they'd still say, "You're not the government."

And they'd be right. If you were part of the government, you wouldn't need to ask to see the data on her Facebook or whatever. You'd probably already have some secret access.

I mean they're right. "You're not the government, and if you were you wouldn't need to ask."

Point is, they trust the government implicitly. (And, for most voters, completely, in matters of security.)

And I'd say, "My party cares enough about safety that we voted that any card carrying party member can do a citizen search if they sense anything suspicious about another citizen. So hand over the phone"

Hopefully we can install a sense of where things can lead to.

Most folks aren't familiar with such strong tactics, but hopefully they are starting to become more so with party sanctioned violence (e.g. punch that opposing guy in the face).

There's the trap they'd get you into though. With mass and ubiquitous surveillance, they don't even need citizen searches anymore. So the person you are talking to would likely report you for impersonating. An agent who was really acting on behalf of the government doesn't need to execute a citizen search of that data.

What I'm trying to point out is that your line of questioning would not impact her view of the government at all, it would only raise her suspicions about you. To the extent that, at some point, she would call the government to report you. Because the government also conditioned her with the whole mantra:

"If you see something, say something."

Trust in the government, particularly on matters of security, is not so easily undermined.

She would probably agree that the government is made up of officials that we elect though right?

So what if the people in the majority party want to usurp power from the minority citizens. Even if only for the reason that they want to keep a 'dangerous party' from taking power. Practicalities about search techniques don't matter in such circumstances. Just imagine a party that is ready to punch the minority party members in the face. Such a party wouldn't think twice about a party member taking the liberty to search suspicious non-party members...

In such cases, it'd be nice if no matter who's in power, there are some laws that must be followed. That's pretty much what the bill of rights is about and it includes protection against unreasonable search. The 4th's a good one because it limits a majorities ability to overpower a minority.

What you're not getting is that the people doing this don't care about the 4th Amendment. (Or, more accurately, they are more than willing to rationalize away their violation of the 4th Amendment. Like the beat cop doing a "Stop and Frisk" on some black kid. The 4th just doesn't mean anything to him.)

The people controlling access to these datasets are not from either party. They are not elected. In the vast majority of cases, they are not even known.

You're assuming politicians are in control of these datasets. I'm just asking you to consider the very real possibility that they are not. In most cases, I'm betting politicians can't even request access to these datasets without tripping flags. (And "leaks" if the people in charge think leaking that politician's request will serve them.) Politicians learned long ago, (ABSCAM), not to mess with these people.

I just don't think you appreciate the depth of the problem if you're thinking on the level of the politician.

I get that the people doing this don't seem to care, just as the woman you describe doesn't seem to hold the 4th in high regard.

I'm not assuming politicians are in control of these datasets. I'm assuming the politicians and the judges they elect are control of the laws and rules that govern the government agencies and employees. And the politicians are elected by Americans.

You point out that many Americans don't feel they have anything to hide, so the 4th doesn't seem to matter to them. I've noticed that too. And so what I see in government and the agencies is a reflection of the these priorities (e.g. Patriot Act, no pushback against NSA, etc). I don't think Americans can absolve themselves of responsibility of the surveillance state. That'd be too convenient.

And you just lost the argument. There are multiple failures here:

- To many folks, this sounds conspiracy-theory-ish, and they will just yeah-uhuh until you go away.

- Your actual point (that we may have certain comforting legal protections now does not mean that future governments will respect the same restrictions) will leave a lot of folks cold; whatever hysterics they may get up to when debating politics, most folks do not fear imminent totalitarianism in the US.

- To many folks, there is a huge difference between handing their private correspondence/pictures/finances/whatever to you or their cousin and having it available to "the authorities", whom they presume have legal restrictions, training, protocols, oversight, and the overall motive of protecting the country.

That last one is important: to most people, that's a very good thing in and of itself, and also a reason why they believe the Deep State(tm) won't harm them: they don't want to blow things up, so logically there's no reason to scrutinize at them. This is the root of the "nothing to hide" argument. It also happens to be somewhat true: the TLAs do get up to a lot they shouldn't, and sometimes are outright evil. But they do, in fact, work to protect the republic and don't mess with the vast bulk of regular people.

Remember that winning a debate and changing minds are not the same thing.

I seem to have had some success changing minds when I talk to folks about how maybe you're okay with today's government knowing everything about you, but tomorrow's government might be different, nevertheless your data is still around.

I haven't actually tried the approach of role-playing a totalitarian lackey in real life. I get the sense that it could come off as too combative or seem too unrealistic and drive folks away from whatever point I was trying to get across.

I get the complacency. I also largely trust the government employees and agencies given we still have a functioning democracy and mostly intact civil rights. Nevertheless, I see too much erosion of it, so I'm happy whenever we can get together and agree on repairing it.

But I am. Your neighbors work for The Government. Your community members make up The Government. It's government by us, made of us, and for us. It's us. There are humans working in government with access to the data. And any new government employee or elected or appointed person from your community will have access to the data...

We have to remind people that The Government isn't some distant "other" - it's made of people you know.

Right, and by requiring a warrant to dig though my shit, at least there's one person with legal training who's ostensibly concerned about my constitutionally protected rights involved in the process.

Just like the priesthood apparently attracts pedophiles because of the opportunities it offers, law enforcement is made of people, and some of those people will have gotten in to it opportunities it provides.

Having access to creep on people with surveillance systems is going to attract the type of person who wants to creep on people with surveillance systems unless those systems are rigidly designed to prevent misuse.

>Right, and by requiring a warrant to dig though my shit, at least there's one person with legal training who's ostensibly concerned about my constitutionally protected rights involved in the process.

That warrant isn't required to dig through your data...the warrant is only required to keep your data from being suppressed as evidence in court.

You could be, though, just as easily as anyone else. Government is made up of ordinary people.

This form of argument was covered in Daniel J. Solove's ''I've got nothing to hide'' and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy (available to read online), which goes into some detail about how such analogies are rather easily countered since they're not based on actual examples (privacy 'dead bodies' so to speak) that demonstrate abuse/negative impacts.

In this case the analogy being made is that by accepting certain forms of say, government agency snooping, they should therefore be fine with you seeing their data at a whim. However people often see themselves as an irrelevant target to the government and/or that given the vast number of data being collected they would be a blip and less likely to be personally spied upon, so they reason themselves out of being concerned (or having any concern for others that may be impacted).

Solove, "I've got nothing to hide": https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=998565

Even if they reason themselves out of this concern, if that data ever leaks then it will pretty much be like handing over your phone. It'll likely even come with years worth of data.

Imagine, one of their future kids becomes famous/president/etc.

That parent's history will be leveraged if at all possible, whether they like it or not.

This.

One topic I use to get people thinking more about implications is speeding.

Right now, in most places, there is balance. One can speed, and have reasons that are not to be judged at the moment, and there is some chance of it being detected and a ticket written.

Could just be simple error too. Glance down at speedo, see +15 over, think "oops", and correct with no real worries. Happens all the time.

Now, think about that android phone. Google actually knows when speeding happened, where, and all that. So far, the only action I have seen is Google alerting me to speed traps and a request for me to confirm they are still there.

But, where will that lead?

Does my insurer get that data? Can they get it? Should they get it?

Etc...

Then return to that balance bit.

Say one gets a ticket. With, what I call old world balance in play, the general response is to just be a bit more careful and avoid future tickets. Simple, easy, reasonable.

Now, with all that data collected, a ticket could be just the beginning. A review of your last year of driving reveals chronic behavior! To get past the ticket, monitoring is needed, your car may be required to limit speed to the legal limit at all times, and on it goes!

Same scenario, same person, but two very different outcomes and perceptions! Should there be. Why?

Or, say one is not popular politically, or got sucked into some sort of investigation just by poor timing and proximity, or maybe an unfortunate surname similarity.

What could happen?

One morning you get up to find your license to drive has been revoked and you owe a ton of fines. That happens despite never even being pulled over for years, or ever. Maybe it happens at random, like a drug test too.

One day, boom. Your life is forever different, because data.

All of us are extremely likely to be guilty enough to see the worst max penalty allowed for in the law too.

True right now, today for me, you, everyone we know who drives.

What should happen? Why? What public good does it serve?

These are questions of balance. All of that mass data hoovering going on in pretty much all aspects of our lives is not balanced at all. The human factors we are accustomed to do not exist. The watchers are perfect. Or near perfect enough to be a concern.

The first time Google prompted me about a speed trap, I thought, "spiffy" and saw it as a nice help / value add to Maps.

Then later down the road I thought about where it can all lead. Nowhere good without some new rules, and even with those, trust is difficult.

Frankly, I want to put my phone in a faraday cage after thinking about it all. People vary in their responses, but I can say this line of discussion can often get them thinking about these matters and it is all pretty easy to talk about.

People, even those with light knowledge of these things, can picture their own driving, the phone, and potential outcomes.

Unfortunate reality is that, abuse and all, the larger society, ie - outside the privacy activist bubble, completely supports this sort of thing.

The police will just tell the average soccer mom that we need to track everything so that we know who to watch in order to stop the next mass shooter. And that soccer mom will applaud the police and say, "Hurry up! Keep the crazies away from my kids' school!"

That some person somewhere has to deal with a snooping spouse is about as meaningful to your average voter as some black kid getting picked up because the system doesn't work on black people. Most don't care. Sorry, but that's just the cold reality.

To think they will care, is to ignore human nature.

To count on them caring in order to stop the government from implementing mass surveillance, is to be not terribly pragmatic.

It’s especially weird to me when taken together with the fact that one or the other of our last three presidents was literally the reincarnation of Hitler according to about 75% of all the people I know... but everyone simultaneously seems to think that the government is by nature the same as whichever party they do like.

And all of those people likely had 100% confidence that, were it necessary, the government would take power from whatever president those people considered to be Hitler. And what's worse, they would have applauded that president's removal.

Don't misunderstand, I see the dynamic you see. At one time, I even shared your confusion with its dichotomous nature. Then I figured out that people trust the government and military far more than they trust politicians.

Which was a concerning realization, and also, sadly, entirely understandable.

> and store it in a database forever.

This is an important point. Most people are deciding what they're ok with based on today's circumstances, government etc. What happens if some years from now, your past behavior is at odds with the current government. You will be flagged and there will undoubtedly be consequences, which, even if minor are still negative. E.g., flagged for searches at border crossings.

It can be much worse than what you mentioned. At some point this surveillance technology will trickle into the hands of every government and they will take advantage of it. What's the chance that none of the warlords in countries in conflict will use this for their advantage? And that could easily be used for mass murder.

It's interesting that people worry about "the basilisk" and all of this happening with AI, but not about the fact that future governments and revolutionaries are equally likely to look back on old data and judge you for it - and have a much greater capability to use that data to do you harm.

Most of this could be said about smartphones already and the masses don't care. Maybe their approach of focusing on the consequences for minorities could raise some concern (or not, who knows).

I don't think most people will care about privacy until it has a direct or near direct affect on them.

Sadly, I know a lot of people who are ok with that. They're very much of the opinion, "Well, I'm doing nothing wrong, so I don't care. Especially if it helps catch bad guys". Not really sure how to fight that.

Agreed, I have heard at least one person say that exact same thing.

Others just shrug, too ashamed to say it out loud.

"Give me your phone please, unlocked."

- do you know anyone who has been stalked, harassed, worse? or: do you have kids?

- yes (hopefully)

- would you tolerate use of software that allows users to more effectively stalk, harass, or worse? [especially your kids?]

- no (hopefully)

- are you aware that software with that power exists today, and that since at least 2007 some of its users have been convicted of using it for stalking/harassing/worse?

- no, tell me more (hopefully)

> - would you tolerate use of software that allows users to more effectively stalk, harass, or worse? [especially your kids?]

It's easy to dream up ideal scenarios, such as the above (even though they are almost never realistic). For example, one possible unexpected response to the above question might very well be:

> "Such as Tor?"

Or, the one I get the most, "But it's our government and I have nothing to hide from them." So while they wouldn't want private actors to have that information, they're fine with the government having it because they still believe the law is actually fair and impartial and such.

> Well, I'm doing nothing wrong...

Except many people don't realize how often they commit crimes and are unaware of it. Our individual definition of right and wrong doesn't always match up with the laws on the books.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704471504574438...

> Not really sure how to fight that.

Rather than trying to challenge them on whether they really do have anything to hide, I usually try to challenge their assumption that privacy is an individual right. Privacy isn't an individual right. It's a societal right. It's there to ensure those who want to make change can effectively organize, which is necessary in a democratic society. So you have the right to privacy whether you like it to or not, because society needs it. Keeping your individual porn habits secret is a side effect.

People who tend to argue, "I have nothing to hide," usually think well of themselves. So if you can get them thinking of privacy as a social good, more "we" than "me", then you can show them that supporting privacy protections is more of an altruistic gesture than a vice.

If they want a specific example, the I usually talk about women's suffrage. It's only been 100 years since women didn't have the right to vote in the U.S., and suffragettes were extremely effective in 1919 by organizing privately then showing up in mass to overwhelm legislatures and mount demonstrations that couldn't be silenced or hidden. If lawmakers knew about all those damn women organizing such big events, women likely would not have been successful at getting the right to vote.

Privacy is the lubricant that lets society move, whether it's pro-life movements, pro-pot movements, or any other political movement. They all need privacy to actually be successful.

"I'm doing nothing wrong..." Tell them that they're thinking in terms of today's standards. Imagine someone coming to power in the future, when standards have undoubtedly changed, being able to go back in time and prosecute for crimes committed in the current day. This has already started with Tweets and stuff people made 10+ years ago when they were young and dumb. Viewpoints they probably no longer hold, as they've matured. They're getting fired now for things they said then, because there's now a permanent record of it. Soon, if not already, we will no longer allow people to grow and make mistakes along the way. You will be judged for everything you say and do, places you go, things you spend your money on (cc records), people you associate with, etc. But, you'll be judged by a standard that doesn't exist today, and you don't know what it will be 30 years from now, or who will be doing it.

To take it to the extreme. Ask your friends what they think Hitler (or pick some other mass murderer) would have done if he had such capabilities. How many more would have died, and would it have taken as long? They had to go door to door back then and physically search. Now they could just keyword search and not only find you, but everybody you've associated with, and who they associated with. If you wanted to find Jews, or homosexuals, or whatever you wanted...it's all right there. Just type the query in that little box, on that magical little device in your pocket.

That's too much power, for anyone, at any place or any time to have. To say it will never be abused, now or in the future, is believing humans are perfect as-is and things will remain consistently the same from here on out. There has never been a time in human history where things just stayed the same. Very, very short sighted.

Ask your friends if they've ever done or said anything at any point in time in their lives that would absolutely destroy their reputation, if the world could watch it happen right now.

There was a pretty damn good reason why the founders created the 4th amendment. Sadly, those are just words on paper now. We gave it all up for the excuse of 9/11. That was a long time ago now. Technology/storage have been progressing quite rapidly since then. And many consider the person who lifted the veil to be a traitor.

Smile, you're being recorded.

When I heard that from some girls in high school I responded by asking them "if they have nothing to hide, why are they wearing clothes?" I at least hope I made them think.

> Not really sure how to fight that.

"This will make it easier for a Democratic president to know about and take away your guns."

> the social justice/accuracy concerns

Unfortunately there has been a major cultural shift in the national ACLU. They are now largely uninterested in defending strong sense personal freedom and instead much more interested in social justice. :( (The frown isn't that I think such causes are bad, but only that I don't think that the loss of a strong defense of constitutional free speech is good). If you think I'm exaggerating, you might find this eye opening: https://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/20180621AC...

I'm not aware of any large organization that is willing to defend deplorable persons and groups like the westborough church trolls for the sake of preserving the same freedoms for everyone, not like the ACLU of old did.

I do understand that the social justice oriented activities have been utterly phenomenal for ACLU fundraising, however. Particularly because they achieve significant traction on social media... After all, who really gets all that excited about the ACLU defending some piece-of-crap pedophile? Unglamorous civil rights work just doesn't pay like riding the latest waves.

Here are just a couple of recent examples that invalidate your claim. They were pretty easy to find:

https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/aclu-defends-article-l...

https://www.cnn.com/2017/08/16/politics/aclu-free-speech-whi...

> Here are just a couple of recent examples that invalidate your claim. They were pretty easy to find:

These are several years old. Can you find something from the past year? Turnover happens, missions change. From the outside, looks like they've changed.

Some in a snowmobile race in Alaska refused to talk to police. They found some excuse to arrest him. ACLU is suing for violation of first amendment:

https://www.aclu.org/cases/nieves-v-bartlett-17-1174

A guy setup a clothing brand called FUCT. Trademark denied because Brunetti’s application was refused on the ground that FUCT is “scandalous.” In reaching that conclusion the Board also noted that Brunetti’s website and blog contained “anti-social imagery,” was “lacking in taste,” and contained themes of “misogyny” and “extreme nihilism.”

https://www.aclu.org/cases/iancu-v-brunetti

Thank you!

> I wish we would stop emphasizing the social justice/accuracy concerns so heavily when talking about this

Do you mean like the historical racism and anti-black bias of the FBI, as mentioned in the article? I want it emphasized.

Like someone else said, a lot of people are fine with some authority they perceive as benevolent (or as fighting evildoers) to control every detail of their lives. They would answer your question with "yes, I don't have anything to hide." So it's important to remind them of examples of authorities grossly misbehaving while supposedly acting for the common good.

But they aren't black. You really don't get this.

Which I think is the point.

As a white person the racism part doesn't resonate with me as well (even though I think it is shameful and I agree with what the ACLU is saying and the suggestion of making the FBI more accountable). But what the OP is saying is that most people aren't black. And that to really reel in the FBI -- and other agencies -- we need unilateral support. The messaging in the article won't resonate with right wingers at all. Even though personal liberty and privacy are fundamental rights to the conservative party (even if they don't always vote in that manner. But that's likely lack of knowledge, see several sibling posts pointing this out).

The article resonates with me because I care about my personal liberty and privacy. Because I believe that we are judged by how we treat the lowest of classes. Because they first came for the communists and I'm afraid no one will be left to speak for me. But that isn't directly said in the article. We've been fighting this uphill battle for awhile now and many are getting labeled as conspiracy theorists for suggesting the Orwellian nature of surveillance capitalism -- and how the government uses this to push a more authoritarian agenda (something right wingers are VERY afraid of).

I believe the OP is trying to suggest the latter should be highlighted because it reaches a larger audience and we need bilateral support.

I believe the point being made is that those points are effective at reaching people who need little to no convincing and who are already politically supportive. The same points about historical wrongs done to other people unlike them are more likely to alienate the readers who are not currently politically supportive.

To put it another way, preaching to the choir doesn't win you more votes.

But if preaching to the non-choir loses you votes, doesn't that just mean we should stop preaching 'it' altogether?

You're right! That's a very real and very reasonable concern.

That said, it's fairly uncommon that the choir actually walks away electorally. It tends to require something very dramatic, like Roy Moore. It's far more common that they grumble a bit and vote for whatever anyway, because you committed the sin of advocating for the policies they want while not centering the FBI's racist history.

Again, your concerns are quite reasonable. It's just perhaps possible that what it takes to lose those votes is more than might be guessed.

I understand the preaching to the choir thing. But a lot of people aren't even aware of the history of the FBI. This isn't even a detailed history, just mentioning some scary and relevant facts about the organization that not everyone is necessarily aware of.

I think that speaking in technical, generic and hypothetical terms isn't effective. You have to ground the conversation in actual misdeeds. Otherwise you're likely to get the "but I don't have anything to hide" response.

The trick tends to be grounding the conversation in the misdeeds of people to whom the person you're talking feels no affinity. If you're talking to an American, use the current Chinese government or the UK as an example of how face tracking can be abused.

Putting an organization that a person has faith in on trial in order to make a political point runs the risks both of getting distracted and of failing to convince in a way that backfires.

I think it's baked into a certain conservative mindset that they are the ones who don't have anything to hide, which makes sense because if you don't have many progressive opinions then you probably aren't chafing against authority too often.

And, I think authoritarians (many of them seem to march under the "conservative" banner these days) are fine with surveillance because they see it as a hallmark of an effective authoritarian government, and again they see themselves as members of the "in" group. They want those subversives who are hiding things to be found and punished.

Unfortunately, I don't think any of these people will be terribly moved by the fact that leaders of progressive social movements in the past or present have been targeted by surveillance. Their world-views are shaped by a perception that they will not be targeted by an overreaching government, and such movements are comprised of their explicit political enemies.

However, I think we stand to win over a lot of people with a libertarian bent who might be turned off by an anti-surveillance movement strongly associated with modern leftism. To what degree we risk alienating those leftists, I have no idea.

Thanks for the reply!

What about people who are not politically conservative but are naive and/or not particularly aware of the history of the FBI and similar organizations?

I think those people should absolutely be educated, but there's more to the issue and IMO high-level coverage should reflect that more as more than a footnote. I do agree that the history you're talking about ought to be a powerful factor for convincing certain groups that this matters.

In the end I'm just one person, in my bubble just like everybody else. I could be totally wrong. What I'm saying is just based on my own observations of how people respond to partisan issues, and unfortunately social justice is a partisan issue.

There are very few actual conservatives these days. You have religious fanatics and reactionaries focused on maximizing resource extraction.

The funny thing is that these folks who think they have nothing to hide are under a high degree of surveillance if they are a player of any kind. Lockstep compliance with the party platform is required.

....people already let that happen with Google, and don't care. And they do it in the open.

What is the fun kicker is because they do that, 4th amendment rights don't apply to that information on Google. So why would a three letter agency even bother with that when they can just subpoena Google?

> Starting that way will cause a huge segment of the population to switch off as soon as you start talking.

Why is that? Is a huge segment of the population in favor of social injustice?

It's interesting to read back over past discussion of this question.

Among the more interesting academics is Herbert Simon, and his 1977 essay "What Computers Mean for Man and Society" makes a strong case for the positive impacts of increased utilisation of computer technology. It also specifically discusses the privacy concerns, in one paragraph.

That, unfortunately for Simon's case, contains an egregious factual error, though one which may not have been known to Simon at the time:

The Nazis operated with horrifying effectiveness and thoroughness without the benefits of any kind of mechanized data processing.

Screenshot:

https://mastodon.cloud/@dredmorbius/103059230160200494

Source:

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/a9e7/33e25ee8f67d5e670b3b7d...

Unfortunately, we're now very well aware that this was not the case. Not only did Nazi German prosecute the Holocaust with the extensive aid of mechanised data processing technologies, but they did so using American technology, provided and supported, with full knowledge, by IBM:

Edwin Black has documented this in his horrific book, IBM and the Holocaust (2012)

https://ibmandtheholocaust.com

https://www.worldcat.org/title/ibm-and-the-holocaust-the-str...

To paraphrase Lord Acton, it appears that data corrupts, and absolute data corrupts absolutely.

Yes. I don't believe our government is inherently evil and unjust. They have and will continue to have access to all this information legally anyway (if it exists, they can legally get it).

On the plus side, I see a lot of positives with this. I'm tired of graffiti everywhere. The other day I was walking home and some kid picked up a metal trash can on the corner of 37th and 8th, dumped it in the middle of the road and launched it at a storefront window and walked off. Outdoor restrooms, drugs use / dealing, random acts of violence, theft, vandalism... good bye. In Shenzhen, I'm told that if you jaywalk they will auto-deduct the ticket from your bank account by the time you cross the street. Think about the countless billions of dollars in lost productivity, environmental damage, waste whatever it is that you care about that blatant disrespect for other people's time and property costs us.

All of these bad actors can be weeded out. The possibilities actually excite me.

> They have and will continue to have access to all this information legally anyway (if it exists, they can legally get it).

There are checks in place for this so they don’t abuse their access; checks that we find so important that we put it directly into our Bill of Rights.

I prefer to live with the occasional graffiti.

You like mainland, go live there. One more sea turtle, everybody is happy.

> All of these bad actors can be weeded out. The possibilities actually excite me.

Sure, right up until someone in power decides that you are the "bad actor" and weeds you out.

The exercise was to imagine it working perfectly. : )

But nothing in the real world ever works perfectly. And past experience with giving governments power indicates that, before giving the government any power, you should imagine it being exercised by your worst enemy.

I hear you. You won’t see me campaigning against gun ownership.

In the kind of world you are excited about, as far as I can see, it wouldn't matter whether you or I campaigned against (or for) gun ownership, because we wouldn't be the ones deciding about it. The government would be, based on its assessment of whether guns need to be banned in order to weed out bad actors.

A fair point, thought the accuracy issue is a real one, and one that may get traction as more people deal with incorrect, misleading, false, and/or outdated information in various records such as credit reports or health records. At scale innacuracies enter into data stores, and are difficult to root out. They can persist for years.

My rephrase of Acton's dictum cuts two ways: Data corrupts, and absolute data corrupts absolutely. That is, it both tends to corrupt the institutions, organisations, and individuals holding, accessing, or influencing it, and the information itself recorded tends to acquire errors and inaccuracies over time. Those inaccuracies will often be far more significant to the subjects of that information than the holders or collectors.

(In fact the original formulation of that phrase referred to a case of data corruption, not institutional corruption, though both were manifestly apparent at the time.)

> Imagine it works perfectly, and a three-letter agency with practically zero oversight, transparency, or accountability is collecting an accurate history of every single thing you do--everywhere you go, who you talk to, what you say to them, what content you consume and create, what emotions you feel, detailed biometric profiles, and so on. Are you ok with that?

A few years ago I met someone, they asked what I did, I said computer software.

Their first response: "Oh, I hope there's no more of those Snowdens out there!"

So I wouldn't assume everyone is opposed to law enforcement mass surveillence.

We have to give them reasons to be opposed to it.

So, wait, targeting political expression with a tech that doesn't even work is less of a concern than some fantasy technology that doesn't even exist?

Because talking about Social Justice is bad? And mentioning that black people are disproportionately affected is bad?

Are you sure you aren't suggesting we should simply talk less about activists, minorities, and poor people, and more about affluent white people?

It is ultimately a social justice issue no matter how you contextualize it.

Think about it this way: If the government has complete access to your life, that simplifies targeting you for any reason they might select, and history has shown that social justice is a big factor because law enforcement has a history of targeting vulnerable minorities, even if they don't do it as much now.

Are your politics uncommon? Is your skin color uncommon? Is your sexuality uncommon? Does someone in the local police department just plain dislike you? We used to perform witch-hunts on communists. Conservatives already observe (regardless of whether you believe this to be true) persecution by the government, and left-wing and far-right groups actively are subject to the same in some cases right now.

Even if the technology is only partial surveillance and detection, it trivializes applying the "Give me six lines written by the most honest man in the world, and I will find enough in them to hang him" trope to literally anyone, because now they have access to most of the words we've said in our entire lives, including quotes. And they could do selective editing to recontextualize them.

Snowden showed us that this is in fact happening. They know me better than my wife does. God like power.

Probably not accurate. Many more people will switch on due to the social justice angle than will respond to the libertarian aspect.

But the accuracy point is a big deal. The fact that it doesn't work well should frighten the people who claim they are OK with it because they have nothing to hide. (However much we disagree with them.)

Imagine being thrown in jail because somebody who looks like you committed a crime. (You didn't like the social justice angle, but actually, racial minorities get that all the time in the US.) "The computer said so" is going to be convincing evidence to a lot of people, even if it shouldn't be.

Humans have a limited amount of attention. Imagine you're in a debate with somebody and you put out 2 hard hitting points of criticism and 18 easy to solve points of criticism. The other party can now counter/fix your 18 points of criticism and ignore the 2 hard hitting ones. To most people looking at the debate from the outside it will seem as though the other party has defended their argument, because they countered so many of your points.

This same situation applies here. If the government somehow fixes or sidesteps the issue of discrimination, then it's only going to marginally make the mass surveillance issue better for society. What if they deployed this system in a racially homogenous country? Now the argument about discrimination is much less effective, yet the negative impact of mass surveillance is nearly the same.

Why is that causing a huge part of the population to switch off? That's insane.

Starting with a practical, serious, and concrete discriminatory problem sounds like a great place to start vs some general ethical issue with surveillance.

Because the discrimination problem is separate issue here. It leaves room for the idea that "if they just fix the discrimination problem, then this is fine". It's not, because privacy violations affect everyone. Even if they were somehow able to make these systems not discriminate, we would still not have moved even a little on the issue of mass surveillance.

I don't think it's a separate problem, and as I said this is a real, concrete problem. The end result isn't that it's fine after they fix this, but that doesn't matter at all, the goal isn't to end surveillance.

The obvious, no two sides about it problem right now is discrimination.

Thank you! The error rate of facial recognition and similar technologies is a completely moot point and a very easy one for anyone to talk their way out of. The scariest thing isn’t the case where this technology gets it wrong, it’s when it’s used effectively for the wrong reasons.

After listening to Joe Rogan's interview with Edward Snowden I bought and listened to his book "Permanent Record." At this point I have to assume that at least a dozen agencies in a handful of countries are watching me through my webcam as I type this message right now. Snowden suggested (or at least I inferred) that he didn't reveal all there is to know about the scope of government surveillance and it's only logical to conclude that techniques and technologies have gotten more advanced and more subtle since he fled the country.

Instead of assuming you could lock down your internet pipe. Use a RPi as a security appliance with strong whitelisted firewall policy. At least have some insight into what traffic is going to and from your LAN.

Could also put in an entirely passive NIDS on a physical layer in-line with your network’s service entrance. Very difficult for anyone to defeat, when done right.

Apologies for term misuse.

Or perhaps "the only winning move is not to play".

I hear it is difficult to surveil through books.

Not unless they require your id to buy the book or check it out.

The book store El Ateneo Grand Splendid requested my passport to buy the book "Argentinian Cooking". WTF

Were you paying with a credit card? In Argentina the norm is to ask for id when paying with credit card, and if you're a foreigner the default would be to ask for your passport.

Not only that, but some years back there was an expose about some government profiling software marking people as more likely to be terrorists if they didn't have a social media profile.

Even if you don't enough people do. My wife still uses FB. Amazon just came up with echo in frames. The privacy quickly becomes a luxury available only to select few.

you still have to buy those books, presumably using a cc or at least by showing your face

> I hear it is difficult to surveil through books.

Unless if you swipe your library card.

> Instead of assuming you could lock down your internet pipe. Use a RPi as a security appliance with strong whitelisted firewall policy. At least have some insight into what traffic is going to and from your LAN.

Not only would a Raspberry Pi be severely under-powered for routing even a small home network, in no way does monitoring that "goes to and from your LAN" defend against an adversary Snowden warns about.

> Could also put in an entirely passive NIDS on a physical layer in-line with your network’s service entrance. Very difficult for anyone to defeat, when done right.

Again, I'm not sure what threat model you think this defends against, but certainly not a three letter agency intent on either tailored exploitation nor passive monitoring of your inbound and outbound network traffic by the same actor.

You used “either”, then “nor”, sorry I lost the point you were making. Wasn’t sure on your point about the adversary already owning the pipe.

Tailored exploitation is a good point though.

Admittedly RPi isn’t any current advice except for outdated hobbyist advice. If I cared to defend against nation state I’d avoid gen purpose CPU’s altogether and focus on in house manufactured minimal circuits, possibly fpga’s and printers or some other trusted peripherals. I’d build my own keyboards too.

The poster was concerned about video being hacked. This would be hard to hide, at least for being owned in real-time, if one were keeping track of the packets coming and going. If you’re whitelisting all your outbound and disallowing inbound, and if your decoupled passive nids is set up right you at least have the physical network layer covered.

If you’re targeted for tailored exploitation then you’d be considering a scif anyway if you really have something that important to hide. In a pinch, a faraday cage would probably be a good idea if you can set it up right. Don’t trust any devices that come in or out.

> The poster was concerned about video being hacked. This would be hard to hide, at least for being owned in real-time, if one were keeping track of the packets coming and going.

How would keeping track of packets detect a compromised web cam absolutely? An SSL-encrypted connection to Amazon servers, for example, could easily be used to exfiltrate pictures, audio and even low-bandwidth recordings while still blending in with typical, expected Web traffic.

You’re right. One can’t assure that won’t happen unless you can ensure that every outgoing packet hasn’t been tampered with inside your computer. But that problem can also be tackled as part of a solution to reduce risk but not eliminate it.

How about simply using a new style of webcam that uses a physical shutter when active? Any reason I can’t go on amazon and buy one? Are these illegal?

Sadly you’d want analog push button switch on mics only. Latch as well ok if done securely.

You could jump through tons of hoops to minimize risk for the above but given the complexity of a typical computer, most won’t have a chance as you noted.

If you whitelisted all your activity and took the other precautions noted (and if you have clean hygiene) then it would be much more difficult for your strong adversary as your nation state would need to own your box remotely. And it is possible to defend against that sort of thing. Yes if you just have indiscriminate traffic coming and going, defense becomes astronomically more difficult.

They aren't watching you. They're recording you. They're running algorithms to classify and index you. They're building massive data centers to house all of this semi organized and raw data.

And when they leak it all they won't be held accountable because terrorists, children, and stuff.

It's not a conspiracy theory. It's real and it's a black hat's wet dream.

Oh yeah, they can use it for political purposes too I suppose. To silence dissent and all that.

Also -- and I swear I read thid in the NYTimes, but I can't find it -- CEOs are now not uncommonly ditching cellphones and laptops before going into important meetings.

In a general sense, this sort of thing seems to have the potential to have incredible conseauences for liberty, justice, the economy and Western society.

Ducktape man. That'll solve the problem.

I think after Khashoggi's death the extent of surveillance could be evaluated based on the fact that US president had the option to review it. Guy was killed in a consulate in Turkey and, at the very least, US had audio ready to analyze.

What a poorly designed site. Nothing but a spinning circle with Javascript disabled - Firefox reader mode doesn't work, either. Completely unacceptable from a privacy and usability perspective.

It's great if websites work without Javascript but, I don't think its fair to call them poorly designed if they dont.

The web is made from HTML, CSS and Javascript. Turn off one of them and of course things aren't going to work or look right.

You don't need javascript to show some paragraphs of text with hyperlinks. You don't even need css. If that does not work, this is not a case of poor design, this is simply absolute crap.

> The web is made from HTML, CSS and Javascript.

Considering the World Wide Web predates Javascript by many years, and the fact it's possible to create a functional, readable, and accessible Web page without Javascript altogether, this characterization is absolutely inaccurate.

Do you ride a horse to get to work, too?

You’re an asshole. If I could downvote your post, I would.

JavaScript and CSS can add a lot of bloat, unnecessary load times, and add massive security vulnerabilities. Sometimes you just want information, you know, without waiting forever and getting hacked.

I have decent bandwidth and I still find myself turning it off a lot.

Javascript required for text rendering is incredibly poor design. For those of us with limited connections, I turn off Javascript because I don't want to download 10MB of Javascript ad tech and frameworks. This is expensive and takes forever to load on satellite and rural connections.

Good design takes these basic common issues into account.

rural != common

A quarter of the US population isn't common? Not to mention entire countries with limited connections.

Common is 50% or more by everyone's definition.

You confuse "Most" with "Common" e.g., A Toyota is a common car to see on the road. See.

Yeah, it's just a blog post with no reactive elements, there's really no need for preventing the page from loading without javascript.

Unless using javascript to track people interested in this type of material is a goal of theirs or others with access to the site's source.

I don't get why they are running Nuxt.JS but don't server render the text for Javascript-disabled users.

Ironically, it's impossible to read this ACLU page without enabling Javascript, which opens one up to more browser fingerprinting attacks, potential Javascript vulenrabilities, and tracking.

I am hard-pressed to think of a popular page which doesn't use JavaScript.

"doesn't use JavaScript" and "can't work without JavaScript" are two separate issues.

Google, the most popular page on the internet, doesn't force you to use Javascript.

> Google ... doesn't force you to use Javascript.

About 3 months ago Google became unusable when browsed through w3m: search results are not rendered as links, just as a regular text that can't be followed-through. They clearly assume you always browse with js enabled, I can't think of any other explanation.

That sounds like a w3m problem. Still works on elinks and links.

Actually, I just tried it on w3m. Still works just fine. It must be that whoever compiled your w3m messed up in some way.

My w3m installation didn't change in the last year or so. I also had opportunity to test this on various machines when needed to google random things in a hurry—it's consistently broken for me.

As for reproducability, in just this week I've seen two versions of image search page back and forth, with little visual changes here and there as well as CORS headers that break some bookmarklets that I occasionally use. I guess they're doing some A/B testing, or just roll out changes slowly.

I did some experiments the other day and found to my surprise that Google has by far the best no-Javascript experience of the major search engines. Duck Duck Go could learn a thing or two from them.

DuckDuckGo works perfectly without JavaScript; just use https://duckduckgo.com/html or https://duckduckgo.com/lite.

I strongly second the lite recommendation. Include "?kd=-1" to disable interstitial redirects on links.

Discussed here, with a link to full parameters:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21384425

They probably meant "&kd=-1"

Take a look at the parameter list in the linked page. There's no "fd" in there.

Damnit, yes.

I've edited my comment in this thread, posted a reply to the earlier one.

It's also one texbox and button.

This site doesn't require javascript to be usable.

This site is #3,793 in Alexa rankings. Maybe it doesn't count as a popular site.

https://m.facebook.com/

Absolutely no functionality with javascript turned off.

It's all working fine for me - messages, feed, photos. I can't see that it contains, loads, or calls any JS on the page at all.

I've tried disabling javascript several ways, and they all lead to a complete crippling of the site. 30+ JS scripts are load. As it should be obvious from using the mobile version of the site that it makes heavy use of javascript. Even the source is riddled with script tags. I have no idea how you're coming to your conclusion, but it matches none of what I'm seeing.

This is what I got. https://www.dropbox.com/s/vm7pm3msx315h2z/Facebook.html?dl=0 All the links are broken in this file from a quick attempt to anonymize my friends, but everything else is intact. No script tags. I intentionally used the mobile site because it's an example of an extremely popular site that doesn't use JS.

[update - link deleted]

Wikipedia.

Came to post the exact same thing. Nor does reader mode work.

The United States government treats it's citizens like the enemy.

Why on earth should we accept this situation?

Completely agree and we shouldn't accept it.

I remember a time when it was good manners to ask before taking someone's picture.

Ironically, I suspect people are more concerned now about random people taking their photo, or photos of their children. Remember the outcry over Google Glass?

To give a government absolute control like this is insane.

Pervasive surveillance is inevitable. ACLU would be better served fighting to protect rights that exist in the constitution (the second amendment) than rights that do not (“privacy” right not to be tracked in public).

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