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Manuel_Don Spain Orders Blacklist of Palantir from Public and Private Companies

You realize that lobbying is working within the framework of an electoral democracy? When environmentalists lobby for more stringent emissions rules, they're not overthrowing democracy they're participating in it.

So the answer your question: Meta spends millions on lobbying to influence elected officials, because it knows has to work within the democratic system.

Manuel_Don Spain Orders Blacklist of Palantir from Public and Private Companies

Can you point to where Karp falls for abolishing democracy? I can't seem to find that part.

Manuel_Don Spain Orders Blacklist of Palantir from Public and Private Companies

You realize that "changing the world without politics" doesn't mean overthrow of democracy. It means founding businesses to produce goods and services that change the world. Google and Facebook absolutely changed the world, not through politics, but by creating technology.

Manuel_Don Spain Orders Blacklist of Palantir from Public and Private Companies

And Boeing? And General Motors? And the hundreds of other companies that produced armarments?

Manuel_Don Spain Orders Blacklist of Palantir from Public and Private Companies

Microsoft, a company mostly centered in the Pacific Northwest, is not exactly full of right wingers: https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/microsoft-corp/summary?id=d...

Manuel_Don Spain Orders Blacklist of Palantir from Public and Private Companies

By this logic, Ford and Boeing were contributing to technofascism when they were building tanks and planes for the Allies in WWII.

I don't think that most would agree with your understanding of technofascism.

Manuel_Don Spain Orders Blacklist of Palantir from Public and Private Companies

What is this in reference to? Karp has said that US tech companies should be more willing to work with military and intelligence agencies. By that standard, though, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Booz Allen Hamilton, heck even Microsoft are all supporters of "technofascism".

Manuel_Don 30-year sentence for transporting zines is a five-alarm fire for free speech

The question isn't whether there exists some other scenario would justify violently resisting law enforcement. Sure, the Warsaw Ghetto uprising was justified even if the Nazi occupiers were acting within the bounds of German laws at the time. But that's irrelevant. The question is whether this scenario warrants it.

And like it or not, countries have the freedom to define their own immigration policy. If I overstay my tourist visa in Canada I'll get deported. This isn't some grave violation of human rights.

If someone decided to open fire on Canadian immigration enforcement officers to try and block my deportation, they should get prosecuted and imprisoned.

Your persistence in trying to justify shooting law enforcement is disturbing. It mirrors the thinking that motivated January 6th rioters beating up the police. Like you, they believed their mission was righteous and justified violence against law enforcement.

Manuel_Don 30-year sentence for transporting zines is a five-alarm fire for free speech

What are you astonished by? Do you think lethal force in self defense against law enforcement is justified, even when the police are conducting a lawful arrest?

Let's say someone robs a liquor store at gunpoint. The police chase him down, with their guns drawn - which is totally reasonable given that they're trying to arrest a criminal who is armed with a gun. The robber turns and sees a pair of police officers with their guns trained on him. The robber shots the two cops dead.

Is this a justified shooting? By your logic, yes it is. The robber saw two police officers with their guns drawn, that meets your criteria for the law enforcement officers presenting a deadly threat.

On my end, I absolutely am astonished by your attempts to justify shooting law enforcement officers.

Manuel_Don American Homeowners Are One Disaster Away from Losing Everything

The most convincing argument I could make is that the government could step in and keep the insurance agencies solvent. Sort of a too-big-to-fail situation.

Manuel_Don 30-year sentence for transporting zines is a five-alarm fire for free speech

This group showed up at the ICE facility with a dozen sets of body armor, multiple firearms, and radios. They shot fireworks at the facility, and when the law enforcement officers went to go arrest them a member of the group shot the officer. Those facts are not disputed.

Using deadly force in self defense against law enforcement officer is only justified when that law enforcement officer is acting outside the bounds of the law. The fact that said law enforcement officer had a drawn firearm does not make it legal to shoot that officer. The officers having their firearms drawn was also reasonable given that the rioters were armed with guns. These officers were making a legal arrest, and thus any claim of self defense by the rioters is moot.

Like it or not, ICE is still law enforcement. You don't get to just say "I don't like this agency, so I am justified in gunning down any member of that agency that tries to arrest me."

Manuel_Don 30-year sentence for transporting zines is a five-alarm fire for free speech

The point is they're both cases where a group of people get together to carry out a criminal act of violence. The fact that only one individual actually fired the gun or tied the noose doesn't alter the fact that the group as a whole carried out the criminal plan.

Manuel_Don 30-year sentence for transporting zines is a five-alarm fire for free speech

This is just a nonsensical question. The US Revolutionary War was a war. Whether or not there were non violent protests happening contemporaneously doesn't change the fact that it was a war.

Manuel_Don 30-year sentence for transporting zines is a five-alarm fire for free speech

Resisting arrest isn't a justification for shooting a law enforcement officer. The law enforcement officer had a pretty solid reason to draw his firearm, given that the rioters also had firearms.

I'm really baffled by the line of reasoning here. People, armed with guns, tried to break into a government facility. The law enforcement officers proceeded to try and arrest the rioters, and the rioters shot one of the officers.

In what world is this justifiable self defense?

Manuel_Don 30-year sentence for transporting zines is a five-alarm fire for free speech

No, the colonies didn't protest the rebelled. The colonies procured arms, raised an army, and fought attempts by the British to reassert control.

It wasn't a protest, it was a war.

Manuel_Don 30-year sentence for transporting zines is a five-alarm fire for free speech

No, it's entirely viable to say a group of people did something. E.g. "a lynch mob killed ______." Sure only one member of the mob actually tied the noose, but the mob as a collective took that action.

Manuel_Don 30-year sentence for transporting zines is a five-alarm fire for free speech

It's shameful how the Jan 6th rioters went unpunished (well, had their punishment cut short), but it's also not good to repeat false claims. Brian Sicknick died of a stroke the next day, but the medical examiner determined that this was not caused by Sicknick being pepper sprayed the previous day: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/19/us/politics/brian-sicknic...

The other four police officers said to have been killed in this root committed suicide over the next several months, which really cannot be attributed to the riot in an intellectually honest way. Imagine if someone said "BLM murdered dozens of cops" and then listed the suicide of every cop that had some interaction with BLM and committed suicide 6+ months afterwards.

This isn't to minimize the crimes of Jan 6th rioters and their attempt to overturn an election, but it's still best not to repeat false claims.

Manuel_Don 30-year sentence for transporting zines is a five-alarm fire for free speech

This was a coordinated group of people who procured body armor, radios, and firearms, and planned to break into a Federal facility. Responsibility for this incident doesn't rest exclusively on the hands of the shooter.

An analogy is Enrique Tarrio's arrest in the wake of January 6th. Right wingers complained that he wasn't even in the capital during the riot. But of course that's not evidence his innocence. Even though he didn't personally participate in the putsch, he was still held responsible for organizing it (not for long on account of his pardon, unfortunately, but he was still rightfully convicted).

Manuel_Don 30-year sentence for transporting zines is a five-alarm fire for free speech

The "protestors" shot someone, if that's not the wrong way to protest then what is?

Manuel_Don Flock cameras track more than your license plate, and they're spreading fast

It is, and always was as straightforward as typing in the license plate number. Do you think indexing a bunch of 7vcharacter strings was beyond the capability of databases in the 2000s?

Manuel_Don Flock cameras track more than your license plate, and they're spreading fast

Motorola built the first national ALPR database in the mid 2000s. Again, what Flock is doing is decades old. It doesn't even look like you dispute this fact.

Manuel_Don Flock cameras track more than your license plate, and they're spreading fast

But nobody is being searched, and nobody is being recorded in private. The police and other organizations are observing what is plainly in public view.

Manuel_Don Flock cameras track more than your license plate, and they're spreading fast

> The publicized flock examples make clear that the nature and scope of the queries that can be run against modern systems are far beyond what was possible in the 90s

Then how is "the nature and scope" of Flock different? You didn't actually bother to explain what you meant here. In your earlier comment you emphasized that flock's aggregation is nationwide, which is why I was under the impression that is what you were referring to.

Manuel_Don Flock cameras track more than your license plate, and they're spreading fast

> A few decades ago, if a police officer wanted to find the whereabouts of some individual, they would have to do some serious leg work, even with ALPRs, potentially watch many hours of videos, etc.

The whole point about ALPRs is that the license plate reading is automatic. Even during the 90s, all a police officer had to do was query a database.

Manuel_Don Flock cameras track more than your license plate, and they're spreading fast

Where's the basis for the claim that Flock was the first nation-wide ALPR aggregator? The source mentions that Flock aggregated data on a national level, but doesn't say that it was the first to do so. In fact it doesn't really offer any tangible thing that differentiates this from the decades old systems that predate flock.

It's more like trucks are have been mining gravel from this pit for decades, and the courts have repeatedly affirmed that it's legal to one gravel.

Manuel_Don Flock cameras track more than your license plate, and they're spreading fast

How do you think ALPR cameras worked during the 90s? Do you think a technician had to go through each camera individually looking for license plates? The data was aggregated and indexed even during the 90s. Some of those databases were national. The same criticisms being levied at flock would also apply to the status quo 20+ years ago.

Manuel_Don Flock cameras track more than your license plate, and they're spreading fast

Fundamentally the right to privacy is focused around what people do in private, not things that are publicly visible. If we really think that it's an invasion of privacy to track people's vehicles, the focus should be on abolishing license plates. After all, isn't the bigger problem the fact that cars are all required to display an identifier?

Manuel_Don Flock cameras track more than your license plate, and they're spreading fast

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_number-plate_recogni...

> However, ANPR did not become widely used until new developments in cheaper and easier to use software were pioneered during the 1990s. The collection of ANPR data for future use (i.e., in solving then-unidentified crimes) was documented in the early 2000s.

Manuel_Don Flock cameras track more than your license plate, and they're spreading fast

To the contrary, cameras have been able to automatically read license plates since the 70s, and the technology became cheaper and more widely deployed in the 90s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_number-plate_recogni...

At the end of the day, a camera in public can only record images of people in public. That does not and never did require a warrant.

Manuel_Don Flock cameras track more than your license plate, and they're spreading fast

What right is being taken away? Nobody ever had the right to not be recorded in public.

Furthermore surveillance isn't just an all or nothing thing. For example, the government can record your activities in public without a warrant, but they can't subpoena your phone calls without a warrant. That degree of surveillance has more checks and balances.

How you somehow try to go from recording people in public to "ancestry tests" is a pretty nonsensical argument.

> And since we "supposedly" live in a democracy, we should be allowed to have a vote to decide on this, the group that wins is the majority, right?

No, you'd have to win much more than the majority to change the constitution, which defines a lot of privacy rights. But if you have enough votes, then sure you could change the constitution.