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Comment by iugtmkbdfil834 | Hacker News Reader

Again, but if you kick a beehive do you expect not to get stung?

In any reasonable way non totalitarian state you expect law enforcement to be limited in their capabilities tho not be a beehive retaliating against accountability

I expect law enforcement agencies to act like professional public services, not venomous insects.

Of course, but it is a _crime_ for the bee to sting in this case and I’m (rightly) angry about it. What’s the probable cause in posting public data?

It is a fascinating question. I was going to give you a canned response, but.. I think..as a society we may be coming to an interesting moment, when we kinda have to decide, which part of the equation is more important.

I agree, we are going to have to make some choices because it’s clear that we now have technology where anyone can track anyone else in public with some cheap hardware (e.g. ESP cams) and a Claude subscription.

I’d actually be OK with a symmetric response to this, in fact, I WOULD LOVE a symmetric response: law enforcement can’t use AI to track citizens and we can’t use AI to track them.

… but there is a lot of 1st and 4th amendment shenanigans going on with all of this and I can’t even guess where it will land.

I agree something will have to give. Current situation is a clear indicator of a major change in power balance. I know it was discussed on HN before, but just being able to generate actual online profiles with a dose of confidence based on known various personal fingerprints is enough to make most of us hesitate ( just the other day I put the method to the test on persona HN analyzer thing -- it gets crazy fast; I stopped, but I suspect a lot of people have built an equivalent that just happens to run behind various closer doors ).

Interesting times man.

In a functioning, pro-democracy country: yes.

I get the angle you're coming from, but I feel like it's missing the point.

The problem is we have a beehive full of ICE/HSI agents that are going around in plain clothes, yelling "trust me bro" in place of warrants/badges/names, and demanding full obedience to anyone they approach.

The same people will injure, sometimes gravely, and refuse medical treatment while holding them in terrible conditions. The party line is that anyone who is arrested by these people are "criminals", which is just a direct contradiction to the bill of rights.

At the end of the day, your comments are saying "I don't care about the bill of rights, all that matters is authority regardless of the legitimacy."

I disagree and your characterization of my argument seems inaccurate. Still, at least you can muster appropriate counter. Thank you.

Appreciate the response. The characterization is purposefully blunt. IMO we don't have the time or luxury to play around with debates over how people act towards agents of the state, when agents of the state ultimately answer to the constitution.

Perhaps it's a problem that our supposed public servants can aptly be compared to a dangerous swarm of bees?

Like, in a non-dystopian world, they'd not be hiding their activities and not be attacking people who observe them, but would instead be behaving legally and ethically and therefor not be concerned.

Sure, but even if you expect to get stung, will you not yell and curse when it happens?

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