[HN Gopher] The Privacy Lesson of 9/11: Mass Surveillance Is Not...
___________________________________________________________________
The Privacy Lesson of 9/11: Mass Surveillance Is Not the Way
Forward
Author : arkadiyt
Score : 140 points
Date : 2021-09-11 15:10 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.aclu.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.aclu.org)
| AntwaneB wrote:
| After reading the post, I fail to see any connection between 9/11
| and the fact that mass surveillance is not the way forward.
|
| The article is also empty of any reason WHY mass surveillance
| would not be the way forward, or even why it should not be.
|
| This is a particularly useless article.
| owl_troupe wrote:
| OK I'll bite. From this article:
|
| >The public learned about the NSA's "PRISM" and "Upstream"
| programs, which involve [...] warrantless surveillance of
| Americans' international communications on a massive scale.
|
| The US executive branch engineered an automated, massive breach
| of the constitutional rights of US citizens and the rights of
| people abroad.
|
| > The executive branch's Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight
| Board found that the NSA's bulk collection of Americans' call
| records had produced "little unique value"[.]
|
| These programs have yielded almost no positive results in
| actually increasing security, which was their stated purpose.
| How much does this cost? What do we get in return? What is the
| chilling effect on society?
|
| >The human toll of government surveillance is undeniable. It
| can have far-reaching consequences for people's lives --
| particularly for communities of color, who are wrongly and
| disproportionately subject to surveillance.
|
| Mass surveillance programs have been adapted to routine
| policing matters and have served to dramatically enhance
| existing biases in policing against marginalized communities.
| Over 75% of warrantless searches conducted by US police under
| the auspices of the Patriot Act were for drug related offenses
| [1].
|
| [1]
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/04/surveillance-s...
| slibhb wrote:
| The article provides no principle by which we can say that
| mass surveillance is wrong. It does observe (per your quote)
| that mass surveillance has not worked very well. This raises
| an obvious question: if mass survillance did work well, would
| it be acceptable?
|
| The broader point here is that there are arguments against
| mass surveillance on principle, the ACLU just doesn't find
| them convincing.
| actually_a_dog wrote:
| I'm confused. At the top of the second paragraph, it
| explicitly mentions the erosion of privacy rights. Isn't
| that a valid principle upon which to oppose mass
| surveillance without cause?
|
| Then there's this entire paragraph:
|
| > The human toll of government surveillance is undeniable.
| It can have far-reaching consequences for people's lives --
| particularly for communities of color, who are wrongly and
| disproportionately subject to surveillance. The people who
| feel the impact the most are Muslims, Black and Brown
| people, people of Asian descent, and others who have long
| been subject to wrongful profiling and discrimination in
| the name of national security. Routine surveillance is
| corrosive, making us feel like we are always being watched,
| and it chills the very kind of speech and association on
| which democracy depends. This spying is especially harmful
| because it is often feeds into a national security
| apparatus that puts people on watchlists, subjects them to
| unwarranted scrutiny by law enforcement, and allows the
| government to upend lives on the basis of vague, secret
| claims.
|
| They don't actually come out an explicitly state it, but
| the idea they're getting at is that we shouldn't oppress
| people, particularly people who are already disadvantaged,
| without cause for suspicion. That would seem to be a second
| principle we can apply here. You can also combine this with
| the general ineffectiveness of said mass surveillance and
| use utilitarian principles to reach the same conclusion.
| slibhb wrote:
| > I'm confused. At the top of the second paragraph, it
| explicitly mentions the erosion of privacy rights. Isn't
| that a valid principle upon which to oppose mass
| surveillance without cause?
|
| "We should oppose surveillance because we have privacy
| rights". Sounds like a tautology. It raises the question:
| why should we have privacy rights?
|
| The long passage you quoted enumerates negative
| consequences of surveillance. We should have privacy
| because democracy depends on it, we should have privacy
| because surveillance doesn't work, surveillance is racist
| (how trendy), etc. What's missing, in my opinion, is an
| assertion that people have a fundamental right to privacy
| solely based on their being human. That's a natural
| rights perspective, I think it's indispensible, and I
| think it's unfortunate that we (not just the ACLU) no
| longer find it convincing.
|
| As long as we justify our rights based on contingent
| circumstances they will always be up for debate.
| actually_a_dog wrote:
| Well, you've got a problem, then. You don't get rights
| just for being born. You only get rights within the
| context of a society that has agreed to respect those
| rights.
|
| Consider this: if you have rights simply because you are
| human, then there must be something different about
| humans that gives them those rights, which chimps and
| bonobos don't have. What is that?
| slibhb wrote:
| You're proving my point. You don't find the idea of
| natural rights convincing. That's exactly what I wrote.
| The problem is that, in your framework, there will always
| be a good reason to violate people's rights. "If we don't
| spy on people, the terrorists will blow us up" sounds
| silly today but it convinced people after 9/11. As did
| "we have to torture these people to prevent a terrorist
| attack".
|
| I agree with you that this is linked to a distinction
| between humans and animals. The fact that we no longer
| find that distinction convincing is linked to the fact
| that we no longer find natural rights convincing.
| actually_a_dog wrote:
| I'm open to being convinced, if you're open to trying.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| We don't actually need to worry about your obvious
| question, _because it doesn 't work_. Yours is
| hypothetical. (And hypothetical questions can be
| interesting. Also, it can be good to have answers while
| they're still hypothetical, because sometimes they quit
| being hypothetical, sometimes very abruptly. But for the
| current discussion, we can reject mass surveillance on
| pragmatic grounds without worrying about the theoretical.)
| slibhb wrote:
| It's not obvious that mass surveillance doesn't work. It
| seems to work pretty well for the Chinese.
|
| Anyway, we have a mass surveillance program because
| people thought it would work. Perhaps we could have
| avoided the program if we had more people in that room
| who had effectively argued that, even if it worked, it
| was not to be pursued for reasons that have nothing to do
| with its efficacy. Sometimes principles come in handy.
| pintxo wrote:
| Not sure the efficacy of mass surveillance can be
| determined within timespans of less than several decades.
| As there seem to be two major effects at play, one is the
| direct usage of information learned from mass
| surveillance which can be used by the surveyors. I can
| only assume this is the "works pretty well" you refer to.
| On the other hand, there are the (indirect) effects of
| mass surveillance on the surveyed population. Maybe the
| best example here is the GDR, which had a massive
| surveillance operations run by the Stasi (Ministerium fur
| Staatssicherheit). They might have well delayed the
| ultimate dissolution of the GDR, but ultimately they
| could not stop it.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Both your points are fair.
| throwawaysea wrote:
| Surveillance of public spaces with some controls (like
| needing just cause or warrants or a human in the loop) seems
| appropriate and obviously useful. This would allow police
| departments to more easily track and apprehend criminal
| suspects. I don't believe the frequency of biased policing to
| be significant enough to offset the clear boost to pubic
| safety this would bring.
| AndrewUnmuted wrote:
| The ACLU has been useless as a civil rights organization for
| quite some time.
|
| If you haven't already, I'd say it's definitely time to find a
| new defender of these sorts of issues.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| The ACLU has let the government increase surveillance, force
| mask usage, and now enforce vaccine usage across millions
| during the pandemic.
|
| They're staying silent because they agree with the policies -
| and you may too - but there is no denying that in terms of
| invasion of personal freedom it's very great and they're
| turning a blind eye to it.
| j0hns0n wrote:
| The ACLU is a non-profit organization. They aren't
| responsible for your "freedom". Go put mask on and take a
| civics course.
| lavabiopsy wrote:
| With the pandemic you have it exactly backwards, the goal
| of mask and vaccine mandates is actually to increase
| personal freedom and civil liberty, by preventing spread of
| the virus that has already claimed many lives.
| Retric wrote:
| The ACLU is a finite organization that needs to chose which
| battles to fight. Suggesting their not doing enough because
| they don't prioritize your issues generally means you
| should be funding some other organization.
|
| https://www.eff.org/ for example may better fit your
| personal beliefs.
| mythrwy wrote:
| They are actively supporting civil non-liberties now
| though, in print.
|
| They are not what they used to be.
| Retric wrote:
| The odd thing about civil liberties is they also curtail
| other freedoms. The right to own property means the right
| to exclude others from your property. Trial by a jury of
| your peers means jury duty etc.
|
| If you have fundamental disagreements around these issues
| you really can't blame the organization for not doing
| enough. Them doing more or less isn't the problem, them
| having other priorities is.
| mindslight wrote:
| There are ways to address that conflict. I'm not trying
| to join the trope of criticizing the contemporary ACLU,
| but rather pointing out that rights aren't purely
| relative constructions. Negative liberty (prohibitions on
| government infringing rights) and tradition (eg property
| rights) are two ways of non-relatively reasoning about
| rights. And of course when rights are in balanced tension
| on a topic, it's possible to simply not advocate.
|
| For example on the topic of employment discrimination,
| one could stay silent and thus not be advocating against
| the right to earn a living _nor_ the right of free
| association. Furthermore, one can advocate for freedom
| from the employment treadmill that makes most everyone
| need continuous centralized-flow employment in the first
| place (this would be necessary for the negative rights
| construction to have good results).
| Retric wrote:
| Many things don't have a neutral middle ground. What can
| governments or other employers require of their
| employees?
|
| Can cops lie to suspects is another tricky one. At one
| end is a flat no, at the other is misrepresent themselves
| as the defendants lawyer or pretend to offer immunity in
| exchange for turning on other suspects.
| hitekker wrote:
| You might want to read this article and the HN comments
| around it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27414920.
|
| The GP is not arguing against your political positions,
| but pointing out that an organization which use to focus
| & care about one position no longer seems to.
| Retric wrote:
| It's clear the ACLU is internally conflicted, but that's
| completely normal. "It split over decisions to represent
| the Nazis in the 1930s, the Ku Klux Klan in the 1960s,
| and the Nazis in the 1970s."
|
| The real change has been mostly how individuals say
| things that the organization may disagree with. Still, I
| am concerned US politics has become so divisive that the
| right wing is viewed how the Nazis where back in the
| 70's.
|
| As to my politics, I don't support the ACLU. Requiring
| locations to host rallies they disagree with isn't a free
| speech issue anymore than allowing protesters to block a
| freeway in rush hour would be. Protests at government
| buildings are different, but rallies don't need to be
| allowed to block public streets.
| newaccount2021 wrote:
| They found time to issue explicit statements of support
| for these measures
| Beldin wrote:
| I've encountered this statement before. Without reading the
| article, here's the argumentation I heard:
|
| Basically, the perpetrators were already known - there
| basically was already (close to) enough information to foresee
| serious problems (in hindsight * ), just no one connecting the
| dots. Adding mass surveillance to this doesn't make things
| easier: signals were already swamped under, that's not going to
| improve just by getting more data. Rather the opposite.
|
| I don't know how this argumentation squares with the facts. But
| if the intelligence problem was "failure to connect dots",
| getting more "dots" is not a solution.
|
| * also, hindsight is 20/20.
| specialist wrote:
| I've read many scathing critiques of intel services
| preferring SIGINT over HUMINT. Hard to disagree.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| SIGINT doesn't imply on mass surveillance, and HUMINT
| doesn't imply in targeted actions.
| specialist wrote:
| And yet that's what happened.
| throwawaysea wrote:
| > Congress must ensure that the next generation of Americans is
| able to speak and associate freely
|
| This is a bit ironic considering that the ACLU has abandoned many
| of its principled civil liberties stances of the past, including
| defense of free speech, and mostly turned into a progressive
| political organization. Some articles covering this change at the
| ACLU:
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/06/us/aclu-free-speech.html
|
| https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/the-disinte...
|
| On the topic of privacy, it is strange to see the ACLU speak
| against mass surveillance when they recently flip flopped on
| vaccine mandates, which are fundamentally about bodily autonomy
| and health privacy:
|
| https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2021/09/why-acl...
| kiba wrote:
| _On the topic of privacy, it is strange to see the ACLU speak
| against mass surveillance when they recently flip flopped on
| vaccine mandates, which are fundamentally about bodily autonomy
| and health privacy:_
|
| I don't know why people argued for bodily autonomy when viruses
| don't care about bodily autonomy or who they infect.
|
| It would be one thing if a disease isn't infectious, but that's
| not how covid-19 works.
| SuoDuanDao wrote:
| I'm reminded of that classic exchange:
|
| -"Your right to swing your fist ends at the other person's
| nose." -"But what if the other person's nose is continually
| growing?"
|
| I could argue against the right to say anything I want on the
| grounds hearing it might exacerbate a self-diagnosed mental
| health issue. I might even find a way to do so honestly, if I
| worked at it. We can't have no impact on our fellow citizens,
| and I'm not saying I know the solution, but I'm sure giving
| them full control over our actions is not it.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| COVID-19 is not as bad as Smallpox or Ebola. The lack of
| acceptance of vaccines (partially) shows people aren't afraid
| of this disease and view this as an overreaction. If people
| were terrified because people were visibly dying in the
| streets and vomiting blood or walking around the grocery
| store disfigured for life - they'd get the vaccine like past
| mandates.
| Ekaros wrote:
| You have every right to protect yourself. I don't think
| police will stop you from wearing gas mask and bio hazard
| suite. As such you have every right and capability to protect
| yourself. Or just don't leave your own home. Simple. No need
| to force others to do something against their rights.
| spqr0a1 wrote:
| ~40% of Americans live in states that have laws against
| wearing a mask in public spaces. Preventing people from
| protecting themselves is absolutely a live issue.
| http://www.anapsid.org/cnd/mcs/maskcodes.html
| Ekaros wrote:
| So maybe this is something that ACLU should take on.
| Actual civil liberty issue with states not protecting
| freedoms of people.
| throwawaysea wrote:
| I can see the mask bans being useful to prevent crime.
| It's hard to bring criminals to justice if their
| identities are hidden.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| > ACLU officials similarly reject the implication that their
| support of COVID-vaccine mandates is inconsistent with the
| organization's opposition to past immunization requirements.
| They argue that COVID-19 is a more infectious and deadlier
| virus than H1N1, and that the vaccines are better. "What is the
| risk to public health? How effective is the vaccine? What are
| the alternatives?" asked Allie Bohm, a policy counsel for the
| New York Civil Liberties Union, summarizing the questions she
| considered. "The facts of H1N1 are different, and they lead to
| different conclusions. I don't think that is inconsistent,
| because it is the same test being applied."
|
| That seems perfectly reasonable to me. A virus that has killed
| more people than WWII is very clearly over the line, even if I
| couldn't tell you exactly where the line is. (The same
| mushiness exists for free speech, unless you think it should be
| legal to shout "fire" in a crowded theater.)
| slibhb wrote:
| I agree that a vaccine mandate is reasonable at some point.
| As is martial law. But the death rate of covid is around 1%
| (and substantially less for young, healthy people). Given
| that death rate, I don't think a mandate is reasonable. Given
| a substantially higher death rate, I doubt one would be
| necessary.
|
| The comparison to WWII is a little silly. We consider dying
| of viral infection to be an act of god, i.e. we do not hold
| people responsible for exhaling virons into "public air". If
| you want to question the wisdom of that judgement, consider
| that you quite possibly have been a link in a chain of
| infections that killed people. Does that make you a fraction
| of a murderer?
| Ekaros wrote:
| So I suppose we should bring back prohibition as alcohol has
| killed more and is clear drag on public health. Maybe we
| should also extend this to everything, like drownings,
| stopping pedestrian traffic and so on...
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| IMO, it depends on the downside of the measure. I can
| pretty clearly state the problems with banning alcohol; I'm
| having a lot of trouble seeing how our society would be
| worse-off if in-person jobs required employees to be
| vaccinated. Particularly as e.g. schools have required
| vaccines for a very long time.
| softwaredoug wrote:
| Also interventionist wars that only end up multiplying the death
| toll many orders of magnitude with no positive outcome for
| anyone.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| Lockheed Martin, Raytheon? The oil/gas contractors operating in
| the region? Lobbyists, politicians?
|
| Tragically there was an extremely positive outcome for a few
| very persuasive people.
| bitxbitxbitcoin wrote:
| That is the opposite lesson that the government is walking away
| with.
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| If Australia and Apple's CSAM programme are any indication, we
| are moving to a new era of mass surveillance enabled by ML.
| Ekaros wrote:
| That sounds absolutely scary... ML with thing we haven't used
| properly with humans in loop. So we don't even have proper
| good data for it...
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| That's a significantly naive view of things that stays on
| first step and utterly ignores implications and possible
| subsequent steps.
|
| Given enough compute, CSAM detection can become part of the
| display pipeline, whereby the display is checked, in
| realtime, against some set of known "hashes", effectively
| providing a limited form of real time tracking of observed
| behaviour.
|
| The fact that it exists, indicates that governments may use
| it to circumvent E2EE, or as I mention above, achieve so
| much more. Apple has been known to cave in to China and
| other countries.
|
| If Apple does it, then odds are everyone will follow suite
| due to external pressures. This has _always_ been the case.
| hzzg000 wrote:
| This is from the ACLU nagware banner:
|
| "Efforts to erase voting rights, trans rights, and abortion
| rights for millions of people are escalating across the country.
| We're responding on all fronts -- from courts to legislatures in
| all 50 states, D.C., and Puerto Rico -- but we need your help to
| win."
|
| Has the mission statement changed? Why are trans people, who are
| on every front page daily as needing more rights, being dragged
| into this? Why is Snowden not mentioned?
|
| Seems that organization has been successfully infiltrated as
| well.
| alexatalktome wrote:
| Because trans people deserve basic civil liberties? And who
| better to fight for them than the American Civil Liberties
| Union
| fallingknife wrote:
| What rights do trans people not have?
| lavabiopsy wrote:
| At least in the US, there has been a flurry of anti-trans
| legislation passed in the last year:
| https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/15/politics/anti-transgender-
| leg...
|
| And violence against trans people has also increased this
| year: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/14/us-
| trans-trans...
|
| Two years ago, many trans people were banned from serving
| in the US military. The ban was reversed earlier this year,
| but that's kind of the point: there are ongoing attacks
| against trans rights that are still happening right now and
| need attention. So that is why it gets the focus.
| fallingknife wrote:
| As much as I want the government to stay out of bathroom
| policies, there's no recognized right to use whatever
| bathroom you want. Nor is there any right to join the
| military.
| lavabiopsy wrote:
| I'm not sure what you mean. Recognized by who? If you
| meant government officials, that's specifically the
| point: some may not recognize that it is a right, so the
| goal is to get them to recognize that it is.
| maxfurman wrote:
| Being trans is not a protected class, so discrimination
| against trans people is legal in many states. On top of
| that, states keep passing unconstitutional anti-trans bills
| like NC's famous "bathroom bill," which someone has to
| fight in court
| [deleted]
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| Trans people have basic civil liberties already. You
| can't kill them, they can own property, they can work a
| job, they can rent a house without discrimination
| (legally at least), and so forth.
|
| Bathroom bills, on the other hand, require acceptance by
| _everyone_ that they are who they say they are. And to
| put it simply, half of America (roughly speaking) doesn
| 't find that convincing. To them, who are these people
| who would invade their right to bathroom privacy? Do
| their rights not matter? That's very different than a
| right to work a job or own property.
| gambiting wrote:
| >>To them, who are these people who would invade their
| right to bathroom privacy? Do their rights not matter?
|
| Can you please tell us which rights are being violated
| here exactly, I'm super curious. Most people just go into
| a stall, close the door, do their business and leave -
| who cares if they are trans or not. Do you peek into
| people's pants when you go into a public bathroom??
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| Maybe you are a mom who is changing an infant, and having
| a trans person (because they can sometimes be off-
| putting) enter the room is disturbing enough to be on a
| similar emotional level to a trans person being denied
| bathroom access. You might say, well whatever, she's
| transphobic - but you are prioritizing the trans' persons
| emotions over the mom's however you slice it.
| gambiting wrote:
| >>Maybe you are a mom who is changing an infant
|
| I'm a father who has been changing infants in public
| bathrooms for quite a while and I'm sorry, but that's a
| crazy argument. Absolutely completely 10000% bonkers.
|
| >>(because they can sometimes be off-putting)
|
| Your chances of running into a non-trans off-putting
| person in a public bathroom are several orders of
| magnitude higher. If I'm changing my baby and a drunk
| dude stumbles into the bathroom I'm feeling all tense,
| but only because they might be an actual threat, even
| accidentally(stumble and trip or something). But hey,
| it's a public bathroom - should we ban people that make
| me uncomfortable in public places?
|
| Like, you're literally making the same argument as people
| saying that gay people shouldn't be allowed to display
| affection in public because it can make them
| uncomfortable - and why should you prioritise their
| emotions over your own?? Think of the children!!! /s
|
| >> and having a trans person enter the room is disturbing
| enough
|
| How. Please explain how is that disturbing. In fact how
| can you even tell someone is trans unless you
|
| 1) asked - and why would you in a public bathroom
|
| 2) looked them in the pants, and probably even that is
| not a good indicator.
|
| Do you imagine that all trans people look like men in
| drag or something? Have you ever met a trans person
| outside of a South Park episode?
|
| >>You might say, well whatever, she's transphobic
|
| She is transfobic in your specific example, because she's
| immediately judging someone without any reason. Same as
| if she was uncomfortable with a black lady walking in -
| we would call that racist, and I would say her emotional
| state about black people is unfortunately worth exactly
| jack shit and we shouldn't care about it.
| hypothesis wrote:
| > You can't kill them
|
| I welcome you to the real world: "trans panic defense".
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_panic_defense
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| And we're getting rid of it. But that's over the right
| not to get killed - not the same as having people accept
| you in the bathroom.
| Beldin wrote:
| I would think the government making laws banning folks
| from using certain bathrooms is very much a civil
| liberties issue.
|
| But maybe it's common for US States to have laws telling
| men they are barred from women's toilets and vice versa,
| and everyone accepts those?
|
| To me that sounds preposterous, but in such a society I
| could see the discussion arise.
|
| TL;DR: if you substitute "trans" for "blacks" (or any
| other offensive term for a protected minority), does it
| become discrimination? If yes: it already was
| discrimination.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| Your TLDR doesn't work always. If you substitute a
| million terms, "murderer community," "pedophile
| community," "MAGA community," "unvaccinated community,"
| does it still work? You might still support trans rights,
| but can accept this isn't a very good defense.
| throwawaysea wrote:
| The ACLU has definitely been taken over by partisans who are
| more interested in defending political positions rather than
| sticking to basic civil liberties principles. This article,
| titled "The Disintegration of the ACLU", covers the changes in
| leadership and culture:
|
| https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/the-disinte...
| lavabiopsy wrote:
| I found that article to be thoroughly unconvincing, and the
| article itself also seems to fall for the same trap of
| defending political positions rather than sticking to basic
| civil liberties principles.
| [deleted]
| haberman wrote:
| The statement about voting rights is particularly rich, given
| that the ACLU just won a lawsuit in Seattle to _remove_ Charter
| Amendment 29 from the ballot for this fall 's election.
| https://www.aclu-wa.org/news/transit-riders-union-seattlekin...
|
| Charter Amendment 29 is (was?) a popular measure concerning
| homelessness that polls at around 60% in Seattle, with only 20%
| opposed. The ACLU sued to remove it from the ballot on legal
| technicalities: they say that it conflicts with state law. The
| core thrust of their legal arguments had no civil liberties
| basis to them. But in their filing they stated their core
| opposition to the bill in this way:
|
| > While Plaintiffs agree with some of CA 29's purported goals,
| these goals cannot be advanced by the local initiative process.
| Electioneering and soundbites are neither an appropriate nor a
| legal method for addressing a complex and evolving regional
| crisis. Moreover, allowing homelessness policy to be
| established by local initiative would open a floodgate to local
| initiative and referenda on homelessness, which could be used
| to further criminalize homelessness or derail action to address
| affordable housing and homelessness. (https://www.documentcloud
| .org/documents/21040873-20210811-1-...)
|
| The ACLU sued to prevent the people from voting on a popular
| initiative to address the homeless crisis, because in their
| opinion the people might fall prey to "electioneering and
| soundbites" and vote for the wrong thing.
|
| The lead council for the ACLU on this lawsuit, Knoll Lowney,
| uses local initiatives extensively in his own progressive
| advocacy. "Knoll has extensive experience in initiative law,
| and has authored dozens of statewide and local initiatives for
| the progressive community." https://www.smithandlowney.com/our-
| team
|
| In a previous lawsuit where Lowney was in the opposite position
| -- defending a local initiative to keep it on the ballot -- he
| argued that "All doubts should be resolved in favor of letting
| the people vote", and "any challenges the [opponent] wants to
| raise will be fully preserved for post-election review". (Those
| quotes are found in this filing):
| https://sccinsight.com/2021/08/31/compassion-seattle-changes...
|
| But that principle flipped this time, when he argued that the
| citizens of Seattle cannot be allowed to vote on a measure to
| address one of the region's most urgent crises.
|
| So I don't find it particularly convincing when the ACLU claims
| they will stand up for voting rights. They will fight against
| your right to vote on measures they do not agree with.
| pseudalopex wrote:
| You're scandalized a civil liberties organization opposed
| putting a minority's liberties to a vote?
|
| > But in their filing they stated their core opposition to
| the bill in this way:
|
| "Moreover, allowing homelessness policy to be established by
| local initiative would open a floodgate to local initiative
| and referenda on homelessness, which could be used to further
| criminalize homelessness or derail action to address
| affordable housing and homelessness."
|
| > In a previous lawsuit where Lowney was in the opposite
| position -- defending a local initiative to keep it on the
| ballot -- he argued that "All doubts should be resolved in
| favor of letting the people vote", and "any challenges the
| [opponent] wants to raise will be fully preserved for post-
| election review".
|
| A lawyer's job is making the strongest case they can for
| their client. And tactics aren't principles.
| haberman wrote:
| > You're scandalized a civil liberties organization opposed
| putting a minority's liberties to a vote?
|
| That is a very creative way of framing a charter amendment
| that proposed to build 2,000 units of emergency housing for
| the homeless who are currently sleeping on the streets and
| in parks.
|
| If there was a strong civil liberties argument here, why
| didn't the ACLU make it? Why did the entire legal argument
| rest on a claim that the measure conflicts with other state
| and local laws? The lawsuit did not cite any instances
| where this charter amendment actually violates any civil
| liberty of the homeless.
|
| The ACLU is part of a progressive establishment that
| believes that the homeless must be allowed to continue
| sleeping on the streets and in parks, even if shelter
| options are available. They believe that we must spend
| until the homeless are enticed to choose shelter, and if
| they do not choose it, the only option is to spend more. I
| am against sweeping homeless camps when no other option is
| available, but I do not think it is reasonable if parks are
| occupied by encampments of homeless who have decided not to
| take offers of shelter.
| throwawaysea wrote:
| The ACLU has basically grifted vast sums of donations from
| people who believe in classically liberal values and
| foundational (to America) civil liberties while pivoting to a
| partisan progressive political organization in the Trump era.
| Their work now often resembles election campaigning more so
| than nonprofit work.
| specialist wrote:
| Scanned this article.
|
| I remain ambivalent about ACLU's efforts to defend privacy
| rights.
|
| What is privacy? What would ACLU's future perfect privacy
| protecting world look like? How, specifically, does our world
| differ from that world? Is the ACLU just rearranging the deck
| chairs, as The Titanic sinks?
|
| This is a complicated topic.
|
| Firstly, I don't trust that the ACLU understands our current
| surveillance economy. One important facet is Zuboff's
| Surveillance Capitalism critique. How private and public, foreign
| and domestic interact. By analogy, it's like trying to talk about
| criminal cartels, focusing just on drugs, and ignoring human
| trafficking, arms trade, finance, and state actors.
|
| Secondly, I'm not convinced that mass surveillance is entirely
| ineffective. Wholly I agree that it's illegal, unconstitutional,
| immoral, overwrought, wicked expensive, and overreaching. But in
| our reform efforts, I want an account of how our intelligence
| services performed. I simply cannot believe that there haven't
| been many more attempted terrorist attacks. Foreign _and_
| domestic. And I get that for national security, these same
| services cannot publicly take credit for their successes. So
| maybe we can infer how much benefit surveillance yielded thru
| some kind of meta analysis.
|
| I care about privacy a great deal. As an election integrity
| activist, I defended voter privacy (with some minor policy wins).
| As a geek, I designed and implemented electronic medical record
| exchanges.
|
| And yet I feel I still don't know what privacy is. Or what the
| trade offs are.
|
| I recently heard Jill Lepore's recap of the very first privacy
| debates, at the dawn of the IT revolution. Sadly, as someone
| who's been working in privacy, most of what she discussed was
| news to me.
|
| Right now I feel we simply need a do over. Start the whole debate
| from scratch. Get down to first principles.
|
| --
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveillance_capitalism
|
| The Computer-men
| https://www.thelastarchive.com/season-1/episode-7-the-comput...
|
| _" In 1966, just as the foundations of the Internet were being
| imagined, the federal government considered building a National
| Data Center."_
| darepublic wrote:
| > Start the whole debate from scratch. Get down to first
| principles.
|
| Been hankering for this from media and politics for a long
| time, an outline of the general principles or overall vision
| that informs individual takes on various issues, but not
| expecting to ever see it in my lifetime. Disillusioned with the
| collective ability of humanity to reason together
| owl_troupe wrote:
| > Secondly, I'm not convinced that mass surveillance is
| entirely ineffective. Wholly I agree that it's illegal,
| unconstitutional, immoral, overwrought, wicked expensive, and
| overreaching. But in our reform efforts, I want an account of
| how our intelligence services performed. I simply cannot
| believe that there haven't been many more attempted terrorist
| attacks.
|
| When the US government takes away its citizens' rights (of
| which privacy is one), the onus is on the government to justify
| this action. We cannot just assume surveillance works, the
| government has to prove it--show us the examples. Luckily we
| know just how effective these programs are and, as the authors
| here correctly point out, the answer is "not much." [1]
|
| From the link in the article, the Privacy and Civil Liberties
| Oversight Board concluded in 2014,
|
| > Moreover, we are aware of no instance in which the program
| directly contributed to the discovery of a previously unknown
| terrorist plot or the disruption of a terrorist attack. [1]
|
| [1]
| https://documents.pclob.gov/prod/Documents/OversightReport/e...
|
| EDIT: As to the question of 'what's at stake with privacy
| rights?', there are great films [2], talks [3], and reading [4]
| on what's at stake with privacy.
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lives_of_Others
|
| [3]
| https://www.ted.com/talks/glenn_greenwald_why_privacy_matter...
|
| [4] https://bookshop.org/books/the-age-of-surveillance-
| capitalis...
| specialist wrote:
| All rights act in tension. Preferring one disadvantages
| others.
|
| I merely ask we have better data to make better choices.
| newbamboo wrote:
| But without it, how will we catch domestic terrorists. Did people
| forget about trump!
| 911inside wrote:
| 9/11 was an inside job. So is covid.
| throwaway466445 wrote:
| How is China avoiding attacks from Uyghurs? Is it because of mass
| surveillance?
| [deleted]
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