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On April 08 2015 07:56 oneofthem wrote:Show nested quote +On April 08 2015 07:36 IgnE wrote:
The analogies
possibility of collection : data :: knowledge of existence and address/map location : house
collection : data :: effective jurisdiction over/physical existence of : house
are inapt and inevitably fail. A house is on physical property situated within a community that is governed by law and may or may not contain physical evidence of a crime. Data in the digital age is tantamount to taking a peek inside someone else's mind. Yes, you may find "evidence," mostly circumstantial, in your peek, but you violate a sacrosanct boundary that is not implicated in the house example: the freedom of the mind. Without anonymity, secrecy, and autonomy there is no freedom of the mind, and regardless of your kowtowing arguments about how the NSA or any other governmental agency still requires (judicial) permission to view the contents of your mind, there has been, is, and will forever be overreach by those agencies, especially when peering into the minds of perceived "dissidents." Without freedom of the mind there is, and can be, no democracy or self determination. Knowing you, though, perhaps you don't think that an important consideration, since the technocratic bureaucracy and power elite that keeps the consumer economy engine humming needs access to everyone's mind in order to stamp out "terrorism." When you consider that the FBI's number one terrorist threat within the last decade was "ecoterrorists," not Islamists, and when you consider its sordid history in sabotaging those citizens who would fight for civil rights, I don't think I need argue much more vociferously that being able to peer into correspondence, reading history, and search history of anyone they please, since it's all been recorded for them, is tantamount to policing thought. The resemblance to a "property search" is superficial at best. bolded is a distinct problem in itself. if technology progresses to the point where mind access is possible, then whether that technology should be allowed/be used by govt would be a discussion. there is also the further problem that mere thought is not some sort of crime, whereas activities conducted in digital form could either in themselves produce harm, or be part of real world crimes etc. now, both of these conditions do still apply to 'thoughts,' more so the latter. thoughts could be causes for bad, criminal actions, but why we do not prosecute them has more to do with how the law and government cares more about action and their results. so the distinction between action and thought is pretty much primitive to our ideas about government, and in the case of data, what is regulated is still actions and their consequences. if in some future brains can communicate directly to each other in entirely digitized data streams, then this could be an interesting question, whether 'thought crime' should be left alone. but in that case distinct activities would have arose, in the form of communicative acts between minds, and maybe stuff like sending mental bombs to mess with other people or arranging criminal actions through mental networks becomes a thing, so that people would start to develop mind regulation instruments. in that case, and as well as in the present case, the technology that brings us closer together also enables more bad things to be done, and thus give rise to potentially more expansive reach of govt. i'm not sure there is a good solution for this sort of expansion of govt reach, and maybe this is one of the downsides of potential brain reading technology. anyway, the basic point of the analogies is to show that while physical locations establish possibility of inspection by their existence (and relatively simple task of mapping), digital records need to be collected, or submitted to some sort of map-like metadata structure, to preserve this possibility of access. this possibility limits, as a matter of hard possibility, the reach of law enforcement. Show nested quote +On April 08 2015 07:44 IgnE wrote:
You know that they already have millions of phone calls recorded right? And there is no reason not to think that eventually they will be recording every phone call in the US too? i bolded the part of that post talking about this. in the case of present recordings, they all require at least some reason, but in bulk form. this potential catch-all recording would create something new and not merely be access to existing data, so yea it would require additional justification.
Looking at someone's google history is a rough approximation of "brain reading."
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I saw this real memo floating around today:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/r2qUmgY.jpg)
Source
Doug really blew it, at least half those countries are still problem areas.
I took the liberty of responding on Doug's behalf:
Dear Mr Secretary of Defense,
Please find detailed suggestions below on how to approach each of the countries you mentioned. Feel free to circulate:
Libya and Syria - Sanctions/airstrikes/tough talk
Iraq - Give weapons to Kurds.
Pakistan - Drones?
Korea - Reunification.
If my suggestions are followed I have no doubt that this administration's foreign policy will enjoy universal acclaim.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
the technological form of wiretap doesn't matter , point was the distinction between personally targeted tapping, meta-data collection, and bulk recording matters. if the wiretap is the actual access to the content of phone convos of particular persons, it would require a warrant.
meta-data and indiscriminate recording are quite different from wiretaps, and the latter isn't authorized against people not involved in foreign contacts, but yea there's a lot of collateral stuff.
the NSA has always carried a security dimension and that gives it more expansive powers for access and to develop capabilities. it's more regulated now than ever. don't think they needed any external checks to intercept overseas cables, but when the cables are crossing all over the place and entangled deep in domestic affairs, more checks were developed.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
On April 08 2015 08:04 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On April 08 2015 07:56 oneofthem wrote:On April 08 2015 07:36 IgnE wrote:
The analogies
possibility of collection : data :: knowledge of existence and address/map location : house
collection : data :: effective jurisdiction over/physical existence of : house
are inapt and inevitably fail. A house is on physical property situated within a community that is governed by law and may or may not contain physical evidence of a crime. Data in the digital age is tantamount to taking a peek inside someone else's mind. Yes, you may find "evidence," mostly circumstantial, in your peek, but you violate a sacrosanct boundary that is not implicated in the house example: the freedom of the mind. Without anonymity, secrecy, and autonomy there is no freedom of the mind, and regardless of your kowtowing arguments about how the NSA or any other governmental agency still requires (judicial) permission to view the contents of your mind, there has been, is, and will forever be overreach by those agencies, especially when peering into the minds of perceived "dissidents." Without freedom of the mind there is, and can be, no democracy or self determination. Knowing you, though, perhaps you don't think that an important consideration, since the technocratic bureaucracy and power elite that keeps the consumer economy engine humming needs access to everyone's mind in order to stamp out "terrorism." When you consider that the FBI's number one terrorist threat within the last decade was "ecoterrorists," not Islamists, and when you consider its sordid history in sabotaging those citizens who would fight for civil rights, I don't think I need argue much more vociferously that being able to peer into correspondence, reading history, and search history of anyone they please, since it's all been recorded for them, is tantamount to policing thought. The resemblance to a "property search" is superficial at best. bolded is a distinct problem in itself. if technology progresses to the point where mind access is possible, then whether that technology should be allowed/be used by govt would be a discussion. there is also the further problem that mere thought is not some sort of crime, whereas activities conducted in digital form could either in themselves produce harm, or be part of real world crimes etc. now, both of these conditions do still apply to 'thoughts,' more so the latter. thoughts could be causes for bad, criminal actions, but why we do not prosecute them has more to do with how the law and government cares more about action and their results. so the distinction between action and thought is pretty much primitive to our ideas about government, and in the case of data, what is regulated is still actions and their consequences. if in some future brains can communicate directly to each other in entirely digitized data streams, then this could be an interesting question, whether 'thought crime' should be left alone. but in that case distinct activities would have arose, in the form of communicative acts between minds, and maybe stuff like sending mental bombs to mess with other people or arranging criminal actions through mental networks becomes a thing, so that people would start to develop mind regulation instruments. in that case, and as well as in the present case, the technology that brings us closer together also enables more bad things to be done, and thus give rise to potentially more expansive reach of govt. i'm not sure there is a good solution for this sort of expansion of govt reach, and maybe this is one of the downsides of potential brain reading technology. anyway, the basic point of the analogies is to show that while physical locations establish possibility of inspection by their existence (and relatively simple task of mapping), digital records need to be collected, or submitted to some sort of map-like metadata structure, to preserve this possibility of access. this possibility limits, as a matter of hard possibility, the reach of law enforcement. On April 08 2015 07:44 IgnE wrote:
You know that they already have millions of phone calls recorded right? And there is no reason not to think that eventually they will be recording every phone call in the US too? i bolded the part of that post talking about this. in the case of present recordings, they all require at least some reason, but in bulk form. this potential catch-all recording would create something new and not merely be access to existing data, so yea it would require additional justification. Looking at someone's google history is a rough approximation of "brain reading." by this logic, so is looking at any form of information about a person's history.
the distinct status of thought vs action would be rendered moot if we mean by thought anything that gives information about thoughts.
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And it's one thing to have a warrant for a specific individual and then to begin an investigation based on whatever physical evidence he or she leaves lying about. It's an entirely different thing to have the entire population's thoughts on tap with only a small hurdle to overcome to learn almost everything there is to know about someone. One is a limited search in time (i.e. they can't see what you've been reading and who you've been talking to for the last 10 years) and in scope (i.e. they can't see everything you've been reading, everyone you've been talking to, and what it is that you've said). This is an important check that preserves the privacy of individuals in a democratic state. It is supposed to be resource intensive for the government to find out more about you than you know yourself. Your argument hinges entirely on the fact that there are "checks" in place for these unlimited searches (which are only going to represent a greater and greater fraction of someone's physical and mental life in years to come). But where power is easy to come by, it will be abused. And make no mistake that having access to every single person's mental life and physical whereabouts (yes, humans are predictable creatures, and cell phone data that is currently recorded and held in a safe somewhere in an NSA digital warehouse can predict your movement quite accurately) signals the end of privacy. Talk about "metadata" and "access" only obscure the reality, that where privacy is exterminated, self-determination and free citizens cease to be.
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On April 08 2015 08:04 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On April 08 2015 07:56 oneofthem wrote:On April 08 2015 07:36 IgnE wrote:
The analogies
possibility of collection : data :: knowledge of existence and address/map location : house
collection : data :: effective jurisdiction over/physical existence of : house
are inapt and inevitably fail. A house is on physical property situated within a community that is governed by law and may or may not contain physical evidence of a crime. Data in the digital age is tantamount to taking a peek inside someone else's mind. Yes, you may find "evidence," mostly circumstantial, in your peek, but you violate a sacrosanct boundary that is not implicated in the house example: the freedom of the mind. Without anonymity, secrecy, and autonomy there is no freedom of the mind, and regardless of your kowtowing arguments about how the NSA or any other governmental agency still requires (judicial) permission to view the contents of your mind, there has been, is, and will forever be overreach by those agencies, especially when peering into the minds of perceived "dissidents." Without freedom of the mind there is, and can be, no democracy or self determination. Knowing you, though, perhaps you don't think that an important consideration, since the technocratic bureaucracy and power elite that keeps the consumer economy engine humming needs access to everyone's mind in order to stamp out "terrorism." When you consider that the FBI's number one terrorist threat within the last decade was "ecoterrorists," not Islamists, and when you consider its sordid history in sabotaging those citizens who would fight for civil rights, I don't think I need argue much more vociferously that being able to peer into correspondence, reading history, and search history of anyone they please, since it's all been recorded for them, is tantamount to policing thought. The resemblance to a "property search" is superficial at best. bolded is a distinct problem in itself. if technology progresses to the point where mind access is possible, then whether that technology should be allowed/be used by govt would be a discussion. there is also the further problem that mere thought is not some sort of crime, whereas activities conducted in digital form could either in themselves produce harm, or be part of real world crimes etc. now, both of these conditions do still apply to 'thoughts,' more so the latter. thoughts could be causes for bad, criminal actions, but why we do not prosecute them has more to do with how the law and government cares more about action and their results. so the distinction between action and thought is pretty much primitive to our ideas about government, and in the case of data, what is regulated is still actions and their consequences. if in some future brains can communicate directly to each other in entirely digitized data streams, then this could be an interesting question, whether 'thought crime' should be left alone. but in that case distinct activities would have arose, in the form of communicative acts between minds, and maybe stuff like sending mental bombs to mess with other people or arranging criminal actions through mental networks becomes a thing, so that people would start to develop mind regulation instruments. in that case, and as well as in the present case, the technology that brings us closer together also enables more bad things to be done, and thus give rise to potentially more expansive reach of govt. i'm not sure there is a good solution for this sort of expansion of govt reach, and maybe this is one of the downsides of potential brain reading technology. anyway, the basic point of the analogies is to show that while physical locations establish possibility of inspection by their existence (and relatively simple task of mapping), digital records need to be collected, or submitted to some sort of map-like metadata structure, to preserve this possibility of access. this possibility limits, as a matter of hard possibility, the reach of law enforcement. On April 08 2015 07:44 IgnE wrote:
You know that they already have millions of phone calls recorded right? And there is no reason not to think that eventually they will be recording every phone call in the US too? i bolded the part of that post talking about this. in the case of present recordings, they all require at least some reason, but in bulk form. this potential catch-all recording would create something new and not merely be access to existing data, so yea it would require additional justification. Looking at someone's google history is a rough approximation of "brain reading."
It's like an open secret, everyone knows most guys look at porn, but not everyone is gunna want people snooping around their search history regarding it.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
all of that is predicated upon extensive usage of this data in actual investigations, and expansion of these investigations into the content of communication and wider scope of life activities.
so conducting these actual investigations is still very resource intensive and serves as a check against the concern you have about lowering the cost of investigation.
developing an indexical structure to existing record of digital communication and data would lower these costs, but it would be inaccurate to say that there is no effort expended to collect evidence, build a case etc. actual investigation still requires people going over content of data in the same way we read physical notes, the act of driving to someone's house and clearing out the papers isn't the time or resource consuming part of investigation.
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Sorry but "reading comprehension" does not fit the bill for "resource intensive." What a joke.
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A white police officer who shot and killed a black man after a traffic stop was charged with murder in North Charleston, S.C., on Tuesday.
The Post and Courier, a newspaper in Charleston, reports that officials played a video for reporters that showed Officer Michael Slager, 33, firing at 50-year-old Walter Scott as he fled, his back toward the officer.
The paper reports:
"Mayor Keith Summey added during a news conference that Slager's 'bad decision' prompted his arrest.
"'When you're wrong, you're wrong,' Summey said. 'When you make a bad decision, don't care if you're behind the shield or a citizen on the street, you have to live with that decision.'
"The footage, filmed by an anonymous bystander, shows the end of the confrontation between the two on Saturday after Scott, who had a warrant out for his arrest, ran from a traffic stop. It was the first piece of evidence that could contradict a statement that Slager released to the public through his attorney."
According to WCIV-TV in Charleston, Slager had said through his attorney that he believed he followed protocol during the incident.
Source
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
On April 08 2015 08:52 IgnE wrote:
Sorry but "reading comprehension" does not fit the bill for "resource intensive." What a joke.
when you are talking about some potential eye of sauron level of invasive investigation, that would require a lot of resources.
it's also inaccurate to say that "have the entire population's thoughts on tap with only a small hurdle to overcome to learn almost everything there is to know about someone." is the reality. bulk collection is just very noisy and it takes a lot of resources to select out the relevant stuff. the 'keyword' hurdle is also only applicable to those who are involved in foreign contact. domestic investigations still need to surmount the same hurdles as a physical warrant would need.
however, i would completely change my tune if this structure is used for censorship etc purposes, and civil rights protection should be very rigorous in the programs that make use of this data.
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The distinction between "foreign" and "domestic" is all but obliterated at this point. You can always turn to a friendly foreign intelligence agency if you want them to access data for you. Not to mention that with computing power only going to continue to increase, and algorithmic searching and sorting to likewise increase, the "noise" will certainly diminish.
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All the technicalities aside, why do you actually need such a huge security apparatus? More security doesn't equal more safety. Other countries don't spend a small country's GDP worth of money on security and they're just as safe. Just use the money for food-stamps or healthcare or something.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
increased algorithmic sorting efficiency would also mean less data fed into the minimization process. without expansion of the scope of investigations we would have less overall snooping.
the NSA investigations are pretty straightforwardly about terrorism/intelligence targets. i don't really see how this would cross over into mass civilian control a la 1984 without political change.
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Less overall snooping is irrelevant and you know it. The only thing that matters with more efficient snooping is that you have access to all the information you want, whenever you want, about whomever you want. The parameters are everything. This isn't even about some ignorant schmoe out in Ohio getting caught up in a dragnet and a couple agents finding out that he likes bukkake porn. This is about targeted snooping against individuals and groups that come up on the NSA's internal watchlist, including targets that have committed no crime except challenging the status quo.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
the NSA isn't engaged in domestic censorship of that sort.
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On April 08 2015 09:00 oneofthem wrote:Show nested quote +On April 08 2015 08:52 IgnE wrote:
Sorry but "reading comprehension" does not fit the bill for "resource intensive." What a joke. when you are talking about some potential eye of sauron level of invasive investigation, that would require a lot of resources. it's also inaccurate to say that "have the entire population's thoughts on tap with only a small hurdle to overcome to learn almost everything there is to know about someone." is the reality. bulk collection is just very noisy and it takes a lot of resources to select out the relevant stuff. the 'keyword' hurdle is also only applicable to those who are involved in foreign contact. domestic investigations still need to surmount the same hurdles as a physical warrant would need. however, i would completely change my tune if this structure is used for censorship etc purposes, and civil rights protection should be very rigorous in the programs that make use of this data.
Uh, Eye of Sauron level invasive investigation is child's play for the NSA right now. They can easily just request from google all cookies they have stored on any person, and bam, you have a pretty accurate history of what they've been up to. And these are server-side cookies, clearing your history and cache will achieve nothing. Even a proxy can't hide you, because it doesn't provide anonymity, only pseudonymity. The proxy knows who you are. Then all the need to do is watch the traffic into the proxy, wait for the IP that has been used to make all the searches they're interested in, and bam, they got you.
On April 08 2015 09:31 oneofthem wrote:
the NSA isn't engaged in domestic censorship of that sort.
For now. I bet in the 40's, you'd be saying the OSS would never be evil either. And yet we have shit like MKULTRA, plots to assassinate just about everyone, and the Iran Contra affair.
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On April 08 2015 09:15 Nyxisto wrote:
All the technicalities aside, why do you actually need such a huge security apparatus? More security doesn't equal more safety. Other countries don't spend a small country's GDP worth of money on security and they're just as safe. Just use the money for food-stamps or healthcare or something.
While I'm certainly against the surveillance state, the point is just a rearrangement of your words:
why do you actually need such a huge security apparatus?...Other countries don't spend money on security
That's why.
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On April 08 2015 09:49 Yoav wrote:Show nested quote +On April 08 2015 09:15 Nyxisto wrote:
All the technicalities aside, why do you actually need such a huge security apparatus? More security doesn't equal more safety. Other countries don't spend a small country's GDP worth of money on security and they're just as safe. Just use the money for food-stamps or healthcare or something. While I'm certainly against the surveillance state, the point is just a rearrangement of your words: why do you actually need such a huge security apparatus?...Other countries don't spend money on security That's why.
Maybe we should start spending less and make Europe pay its fair share.
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On April 08 2015 08:55 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:Show nested quote +A white police officer who shot and killed a black man after a traffic stop was charged with murder in North Charleston, S.C., on Tuesday.
The Post and Courier, a newspaper in Charleston, reports that officials played a video for reporters that showed Officer Michael Slager, 33, firing at 50-year-old Walter Scott as he fled, his back toward the officer.
The paper reports:
"Mayor Keith Summey added during a news conference that Slager's 'bad decision' prompted his arrest.
"'When you're wrong, you're wrong,' Summey said. 'When you make a bad decision, don't care if you're behind the shield or a citizen on the street, you have to live with that decision.'
"The footage, filmed by an anonymous bystander, shows the end of the confrontation between the two on Saturday after Scott, who had a warrant out for his arrest, ran from a traffic stop. It was the first piece of evidence that could contradict a statement that Slager released to the public through his attorney."
According to WCIV-TV in Charleston, Slager had said through his attorney that he believed he followed protocol during the incident. Source
Good thing someone got it on video. Otherwise the officer/department was clearly going to try to simply lie their way through it. I have to wonder whether the guys tail light was even broken as a reason to pull him over in the first place.
We'll see if he ends up getting convicted though.
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On April 08 2015 09:52 Millitron wrote:Show nested quote +On April 08 2015 09:49 Yoav wrote:On April 08 2015 09:15 Nyxisto wrote:
All the technicalities aside, why do you actually need such a huge security apparatus? More security doesn't equal more safety. Other countries don't spend a small country's GDP worth of money on security and they're just as safe. Just use the money for food-stamps or healthcare or something. While I'm certainly against the surveillance state, the point is just a rearrangement of your words: why do you actually need such a huge security apparatus?...Other countries don't spend money on security That's why. Maybe we should start spending less and make Europe pay its fair share.
Yeah, but it's like a group project: Sure, you want to just say, fuck it, you deadbeats do it, but you're really worried they legit won't and you'll fail the assignment... or suffer a terrorist attack/get invaded by Russia.
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EPT
