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Comment by JohnFen | Hacker News Reader

> There is no 'surveillance state' here.

I disagree. This is totally an example of how we're living in a surveillance state. A relatively minor example, sure, but it's part and parcel of the fact that it's impossible to exist in public (and difficult to exist in private) without actively being under surveillance.

If that's not a surveillance state, I don't know what is.

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Explain how this is any different than Myrtle down the road saying: “Did you hear Bob and Julie are having an affair, I saw them out at Bobby’s last week!”

Being out in public has never been a privacy violation, only an anonymity one and who ever guaranteed your anonymity?

Okay!

I live twenty two hundred miles from Bob and Julie but I know exactly who they are, where they work, and why everyone in America thinks they are bad people.

I am concerned but not surprised that this distinction could escape a person.

That has absolutely nothing to do w/a surveillance state. Let's pretend it was the 1880s and these two were executives at Standard Oil. They were seen cavorting at the opera together by someone who then tipped off the press and/or their company who then tipped off the press. It might have been big news the next day or the day after that.

Frankly; this is exactly what happened here. Do you feel there was a 'surveillance state' in the 1880s? I don't.

In the 1880s they were missing: the long distance video camera; the real-time display on the Jumbotron; the ability of any concertgoer to snap a quick series of hires photos; the capability to select and edit the best photo; a globally interconnected system of social media platforms to which to post the resulting photos; and a 24 hour doomscrolling apparatus to put the photos in front of of every person in America six times a day for half a week.

So no, I don’t feel like there was a surveillance state in the nineteenth century for what must now must feel like a collection of the most obvious reasons ever collected in one post.

I’m going to reply here.

These are effects of a connected society, I’m unsure on whether they are a net good socially but technologically and economically they have been a game changer.

This has nothing to do with a surveillance state, it might enable it but it enables it in the same way any technology enables the ability to abuse said technology.

The “state” didn’t publish or share the photos.

The things you should be complaining about is the state passing laws to get arbitrary access to the cellphone location data of every single person at this event, and being able to link that data to an individual. That is a loss of anonymity that can be a vector to prosecution and you should fight about, and has nothing to do with the information.

And yes and 5/13 eyes country can and will get that information if they so desire and will likely even share it amongst each other and the public would not need to be any wiser.

If you are on the “state”’s radar they can absolutely track you to within a few meters across international borders. Technology enabled this, “the people” allowed it. A coldplay concert exposing an affair is unrelated.

> This has nothing to do with a surveillance state

My claim: there was not a surveillance state in the 1880s, because it was impossible, because they were missing the entirety of the surveillance apparatus. Now that apparatus is omnipresent.

Did you think I thought coldplay was the government? It's clear you understand what the surveillance state is and that we are in one -- you even suggest that I should fight it (I do).

The coldplay event does have something to do with state surveillance: it relied on all the same infrastructure.

You only know about it because it made news, for a high profile person like this a good reporter would likely have picked up the story locally regardless.

For you neighbour sleeping with a coworker you likely have no idea unless you know who he/she is (good on you if you do, you are a dying breed) and the news would not give a damn.

Your anonymity isn’t in question here, as the CEO of a company you gave up any right to anonymity and getting caught in public with your mistress was a failure in exposure not a failure of the state to protect your privacy.

If this was footage from a concert that happen to catch something happening in the CEOs back yard or living room 100% there would be a lawsuit because that would be the invasion of privacy you think it is, the news would likely still run with the story.

Wait, where did you get the idea that I think the Coldplay photos are an invasion of privacy? Obviously they are not.

Myrtle down the road would be my neighbors, and they aren't recording. It's a world of difference.

But understand, I'm not talking about whether or not there's a "privacy violation". I'm talking about being forced to live in a society where you're always under surveillance and so can never really be free.

> If that's not a surveillance state, I don't know what is.

If it is a surveillance then street photography is too. Camera pointing at spectators isn't good either...

No, a photographer engaging in his art, or cameras catching spectators aren't examples of surveillance. Surveillance is the intentional monitoring of people, not the incidental recording of people.

If they didn't want to get caught, don't do that in public, cameras or no cameras.

Could've been 20 years ago in a concert and they bump into someone who knows them while hugging.

So what's different here? That people on the internet where “quickly” able to figure out who they are because it went viral?

I'm sure randomly getting caught on national TV 20 years ago could have had the same effect. All it takes is one person to know them.

How do you define a surveillance state?

A society where you can reasonably expect that you're under constant surveillance.

And you believe that being filmed at the kind of event that normally employs a camera crew to document it is proof that we are under constant surveillance?

No, I didn't say that. I said it was a small example, not proof. And yes, it is a small example. If events like that were the only place that you may be singled out for attention, it wouldn't mean much. But since this is an easily recognizable instance of what is much much larger and extremely common thing, it's a useful example.

I'm sorry, I don't see the connection. How can you determine this is an example of a surveillance state, and not an example of something else, like two people engaging in socially-disapproved behaviour in a very public space? Is every instance of someone ending up on the internet an example of mass surveillance?

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