[HN Gopher] "We kill people based on metadata" and other metadat...
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"We kill people based on metadata" and other metadata things
Author : mantiq
Score : 233 points
Date : 2022-08-24 17:30 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (darknetlive.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (darknetlive.com)
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| "sussy General Michael Hayden"
|
| The author shows their bias.
|
| I think it's good that US intelligence uses every tool at their
| disposal against foreign threats. Tell me why they shouldn't?
| What is the alternative?
| glorygut123 wrote:
| The scariest sentence in the English language - "The ends
| justify the means."
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| > I think it's good that US intelligence uses every tool at
| their disposal against foreign threats.
|
| This either naively assumes the US's goals are aligned with
| some objective "good," or that things that benefit the US also
| directly benefit you, regardless of their goodness.
|
| The second one I don't think I need to refute? Assassinating
| people for personal gain would not be valid under very many
| moral frameworks I don't think.
|
| So we're down to basically "does the US generally use violence
| for widespread good?" Which is fraught, for sure, but also
| pretty clearly no? We use violence for all kinds of reasons
| some of which are roughly good for a lot of people but many are
| not at all. These institutions just aren't trustworthy in this
| way.
| the_optimist wrote:
| The very obvious 'alternative' is to restrict tools at their
| disposal. For example, genocide. Or nuclear weapons, poison
| gas, citizen hostages, mass casualty events, or tools with a
| high probability of killing innocent people. We are not and
| should not be a lawless people.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| what is going on in the comments on that site? what community is
| that
| the_optimist wrote:
| Decent chance it's Michael Hayden himself befouling the site.
| Maro wrote:
| I think the article's second part is missing the point [where a
| bunch of tools are recommended to remove metadata from eg. pdf
| files].
|
| I suspect by "metadata" the general meant: A is a verified
| terrorist, B communicates a lot with A or maybe is often co-
| located with A, fits the demographic of a terrorist and some
| other coincidental "metadata" is enough to put a high-ish
| probability on B being a terrorist and target B; or at least
| treat him/her as acceptable collateral damage.
| midislack wrote:
| 762236 wrote:
| A little child? Great way to participate in constructive
| conversation
| titaniumtown wrote:
| what did the person say? it seems the comment was removed.
| lupire wrote:
| Removed comment should not be reposted unless the original
| decision is overturned by admins.
| happytoexplain wrote:
| You can turn on "showdead" in your account settings to see
| dead comments.
| henriquecm8 wrote:
| I didn't know that, thank you.
| [deleted]
| veidelis wrote:
| Nothing outrageous was claimed.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Perhaps not. Personal insults and attacks are against the
| site rules, though.
| ugjka wrote:
| What's up with those comments in the comment section
| npc54321 wrote:
| Keywords matched whatever triggers sockpuppets?
| evancox100 wrote:
| Article seems to draw an overly narrow conclusion that metadata
| only means extra data attached to document files like pdf, etc.
| When CIA says "metadata" they mean things like who you talked to
| (vs. what you said), where you were (vs. what you did), etc. I
| mean sure watch out for metadata if you are leaking document
| files or whatever, but it's much broader than that.
| hindsightbias wrote:
| Numbers:
|
| https://www.airforcemag.com/us-airstrike-total-in-afghanista...
|
| Can't find the chart for Iraq.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Good time to point out that Reality Winner is (edit: was) sitting
| in prison for less than what Trump appears to be guilty of.
| lupire wrote:
| What has
|
| > Trump has already proven beyond a reasonable doubt to be
| guilty of.
|
| ?
|
| Has he ever been convicted in a court?
|
| Or did you mean a different phrasing about evidence?
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Sorry, yes, poorly phrased. We don't know if he's guilty
| beyond reasonable doubt, and probably won't, because
| presidents and former presidents are immune to prosecution in
| this country.
|
| It's always possible the he had legitimate reasons for
| storing SC information outside a SCIF. No one can think of
| any, including his own legal team, but hey, ex-President,
| right?
| Consultant32452 wrote:
| Are you aware that Trump could have tweeted a copy of every
| top secret document the government has and it would have
| been perfectly legal?
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Maybe. That's not what he did, though.
|
| If you think it's a good idea to allow a former POTUS to
| retroactively and implicitly declassify information he is
| caught with after leaving office, or to issue a sweeping
| declaration that any documents he takes out of the Oval
| Office are automatically declassified, I suspect you
| won't be as blase when someone of the opposing political
| party does it.
| the_optimist wrote:
| You invented 'retroactive.' I suppose you are blase about
| this because it applies to someone of an opposing
| political party.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Is there any actual _evidence_ that he declassified all
| of that material while in office? Did he even tell
| anybody?
|
| No?
|
| Well, then, any such claims are necessarily retroactive,
| or else they're invalid from the get-go. Which do you
| prefer?
| the_optimist wrote:
| This is pure sophistry, and in addition it is factually
| incorrect. You should look carefully at the word
| 'authority' and diversify your information sources.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| My information source is the former NSA counsel, among
| many others. What's yours?
| the_optimist wrote:
| Varied, mostly practitioners. High value on non-
| partisans, demonstrated by inclination to make and
| entertain counterargument, and an extensive history of
| demonstrated preference. By the way, I cannot help but
| notice that your "former NSA counsel" remains anonymous.
| Susan Hennessey, nor anyone affiliated with Lawfare or
| Brookings meet the minimum criteria.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| The NSA counsel being Glenn Gerstell:
|
| https://www.factcheck.org/2022/08/trumps-dubious-
| standing-or...
|
| https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/18/politics/trump-claim-
| standing...
|
| Ultimately it'll probably come down to Trump thanking his
| lucky stars that he owns a big chunk of SCOTUS.
| the_optimist wrote:
| Glenn seems fair, and he appears to answer a legitimate
| question reasonably. He's staying within his lane, which
| is narrow, and responding to a lead question. Both
| articles are tortured with journalistic
| misinterpretation. Frankly, you have to be able to
| contextualize with broader experience. Nothing to do with
| Trump or SCOTUS. I would bet if you asked Glenn 'Are
| claims necessarily retroactive or invalid from the get-
| go,' he would say, 'Absolutely no.' If you have a chance,
| ask him.
| Consultant32452 wrote:
| Any ideas you have about the President having to follow
| any sort of official process regarding classification are
| nothing but illusions. The most you're going to get here
| is he's irresponsible in a way people don't like but is
| not criminal.
|
| Even if I were to imagine he were technically breaking
| the law with some of these documents, look at it from a
| practical standpoint. At one point he could've done
| whatever he wanted to with any documents, including
| tweeting them publicly. He may or may not have taken some
| sensitive information and stored it in a building wholly
| owned (secured) by the secret service. There is not
| really any risk here, any crimes would be mere
| technicalities.
|
| Of all the crimes every President in my lifetime has
| committed, including Trump, mishandling some secret
| documents in this way is a total nothingburger. It's
| almost certainly not a crime and even if it is a crime
| it's a paperwork technicality crime.
| Jochim wrote:
| I could've written down the correct numbers for the
| lottery but I didn't, therefore I don't get to claim any
| winnings.
|
| I think it's kind of ironic that - speaking generally -
| the "patriots" don't seem to care at all that a former
| president took state secrets after leaving office.
|
| I wonder how big the "nothingburger" would be if it turns
| out he actually did leak them.
| Consultant32452 wrote:
| This is going to disappoint you as much as Russiagate.
|
| I'm not a Trump supporter.
| Jochim wrote:
| How exactly was retroactive 'invented' here?
|
| If they were already declassified then there wouldn't
| have been a raid.
| the_optimist wrote:
| If this is not sarcasm: I appreciate your genuity.
| However, this is not how the legal system works in the US
| either broadly or in this particular.
| wyldfire wrote:
| "Buttery Males!"
| [deleted]
| GauntletWizard wrote:
| Yes, Trump definitionally cannot have leaked secret
| documents while he was president, because he had the
| authority to declassify them and the act of distributing
| them would have been a form of that declassification.
|
| Reality Winner had no such authority to declassify
| documents.
| wyldfire wrote:
| Trump's duty as a civil servant, whose role included
| "support and defend the Constitution of the United States
| against all enemies, foreign and domestic" -- that ended
| on January 20, 2021. Along with the end of his duty,
| ended all of the power he wielded. In terms of real legal
| powers, he's just like you and me.
| decebalus1 wrote:
| Unfortunately that's not what he did. I also can't FOIA
| the documents he took, can I?
| r2_pilot wrote:
| This is not a true statement. The AEC has its own
| Restricted Data classification which is not under the
| purview of the president to declassify. There are other
| cases of classification but this is one that is not
| easily debatable.
| User23 wrote:
| > The AEC has its own Restricted Data classification
| which is not under the purview of the president to
| declassify.
|
| They can certainly say that, but since the executive
| power is constitutionally vested in the president in
| Article II, it can't be true barring a constitutional
| amendment. I believe there are court cases already
| establishing that Congress does not have the authority to
| limit the President's power to classify and
| declassify[1]. In this particular case a constitutional
| argument isn't even necessary since Trump's conduct
| appears to be protected by the Presidential Records Act.
|
| Of course this is Trump we're talking about, so half the
| country will happily shred the constitution to "get" him,
| including many federal employees.
|
| [1] https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/484/518/
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Perhaps - _when_ he was president. He wasn 't president
| when Mar A Lago was searched, though.
| Consultant32452 wrote:
| If he took them while he was still President it was
| perfectly legal to do so in any manner he chose. His mere
| act of doing it made it official policy because that was
| his unique Constitutional power. The next President can
| create new policy, re-classify information, etc. The only
| real risk is if Trump perjured himself or something about
| the docs when asked. All of his property is secured by
| the secret service. The idea that anything at Mar-a-Lago
| was stored in an insecure way is preposterous on its
| face.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| _All of his property is secured by the secret service._
|
| Yeah, that's not how this works.
| wyldfire wrote:
| > because presidents and former presidents are immune to
| prosecution in this country.
|
| I think saying things like this is deliberately provocative
| -- it's not the case.
|
| "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward
| justice." Trump commits crimes flagrantly and to such a
| degree that Nixon never would have dreamed. He will get
| some kind of legal consequence ... eventually.
| yupper32 wrote:
| > He will get some kind of legal consequence ...
| eventually.
|
| I don't see how you could possibly be confident of that.
| Even if he is absolutely guilty and gets to the point of
| a trial, which alone is a huge huge huge huge step, he
| may be able to delay things for the rest of his life.
| rocket_surgeron wrote:
| Reality Winner was released from prison 14 months ago.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Cool, I didn't know that.
|
| Now let's pardon her.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| It's always up to the President, but in this case there's
| very little grounds to pardon her. Her actions were pretty
| cut and dry example of leaking classified material.
|
| If anything, a Presidential pardon from the current
| administration would be seen as a highly partisan move in
| an already politically-agitated climate and make everything
| worse.
| TheSpiceIsLife wrote:
| June 2nd 2021 Winner was released from prison and moved to a
| transition facility. At the time the news was of her family
| asking for privacy, so it's not clear if she has been released
| from the transition facility.
|
| Her custodial sentence was for five years and three months on
| August 23rd 2018, so she should be released in a couple of
| months.
| lupire wrote:
| Metadata is data.
|
| There is no "just" metadata. Metadata is a relative
| classification of one piece of data compared to another piece of
| data, not an absolute classification.
| TuringNYC wrote:
| >> Metadata is data. There is no "just" metadata.
|
| That is a cop out. If you listen to a call or read an email,
| you have context for innocence/guilt and punishment (however
| extra-judicial that might be.)
|
| If you have "just" metadata, you just know two people spoke.
| Perhaps to order a pizza. Perhaps to arrange for a babysitter.
| No one knows. Killing based on that seems insane to me.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| So? why is that distinction important to you?
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| I believe because they are saying the distinction ISN'T
| important. It's just data, used to make a choice.
| lordnacho wrote:
| I think he's saying that people are defending the use of data
| by calling it something that makes it sound less intrusive
| jrogan993 wrote:
| Metadata seems less significant a word and trivializes it a
| bit IMO.
|
| Data on the other hand is a "serious" word that we can make
| decisions on.
| [deleted]
| thekiptxt wrote:
| I think OP is suggesting that "just metadata" is a
| sensationalist title, because to a lay person it suggests
| that decisions predicated on metadata are uninformed compared
| to decisions predicated on "data," even though this isn't
| necessarily true.
|
| If the title were "We kill people based on data," then the
| knee jerk response might be "... obviously."
| mcguire wrote:
| How about "We kill people based on poor quality, indirect
| data"?
| t_mann wrote:
| the way agencies like the CIA use the term metadata, it is
| very much inferior to full "data". metadata is just the
| record of the time, date, parties,... of a phone call,
| without the voice record of the call. the latter would
| arguably make for a much better source of information
| (because you'd know what was actually said, could match the
| voices,...).
| NaturalPhallacy wrote:
| Yeah the media was using this to downplay it a few years back.
| "It's just metadata." they were all parroting in unison. It
| aggravated me to no end.
| barrysteve wrote:
| Metadata is structural data that can only exist because apps
| require non-content data to function. It has an objective
| meaning.
|
| Relative classification of data and metadata is a separate
| category of data.
| capableweb wrote:
| It's all data, that's true.
|
| But I think the distinction the various three-letter agencies
| make is between "metadata" and "content" for most data they
| process. So in terms of a phone call, an actual voice recording
| would be "content" while when the call was made and between
| which two numbers would be "metadata".
|
| With "content" + "metadata" they could verify that the target
| is actually who they think it is, based on voice. With just
| "metadata", the chances are higher that it might not actually
| be who they think it is.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| You can think of it that way. But then you must admit that
| metadata is content also. Of metametadata.
| user3939382 wrote:
| One data's metadata is another metadata's data. Know what I
| mean.
| pydry wrote:
| In this context it usually means "we have the time, date,
| sender and recipient of the message but not the message
| itself".
| Teever wrote:
| Why do people make hot take comments like this?
|
| There's obviously a difference between metadata and other data,
| that's why we have a word for it.
|
| What are you trying to say exactly?
| lupire wrote:
| People who spy on metadata make dishonest claims like "it
| isn't an invasion of privacy since we are only collecting
| metadata".
|
| > There's obviously a difference between metadata and other
| data,
|
| No. Your metadata is my data; that's the point. "Meta" is an
| additional contextual characteristic of some (I'd say _most_
| ) data.
| hammock wrote:
| This. Metadata for the intelligence commmunity is a double-
| edged sword: is it something less, meaning it's OK to mass
| collect? Or is it more, meaning it's enough to justify a
| killing?
| [deleted]
| mikece wrote:
| "Signature strikes" -- the target has a signature (movement,
| data, use of a satellite phone or specific cellular number,
| entourage, etc) that matches that of an HVT (high value taget)
| that is authorized for termination by drone strike. The CIA has
| killed lots of the wrong people because "signature strikes" don't
| require second source intelligence to verify who the target is
| (eg: is the person using the satellite phone really the HVT or is
| it a courier or even his kid?). As an American I'm ashamed that
| my government has done things like this and I fully support those
| responsible for these programs to be tried as war criminals.
| kshacker wrote:
| I am reading "a peoples history of United States" by Howard
| zinn. It highlights US in a very negative light so with that
| caveat out of the way, it appears we are continuously ashamed
| of things we did just a century back. Always.
|
| Maybe in a hundred years we will also talk about the current
| era as dark times (as long as we are the top dog or maybe
| number 2). But at that point we will have something else to be
| ashamed of (but that will not be talked of at that time).
|
| If we spiral out of control or break up, then the story (in
| hindsight) will be even more amazing.
|
| But then I look at other countries and apart from some good
| European socialism which is quite recent, there ain't much to
| be proud of, when you look at any country, of any era.
| doubled112 wrote:
| > are continuously ashamed of things we did
|
| Maybe "ashamed" is too strong a word, but thinking smaller
| scale, if you look back at the way you handled things when
| you were younger, don't you think you could have done
| anything better?
|
| Isn't this how we learn and progress as a person? Seems
| likely to be true for a society as well.
| kshacker wrote:
| I just riffed off the word "ashamed" from the parent
| comment. I probably could have described it differently if
| I wrote it without that context.
| Banana699 wrote:
| I have trouble seeing how this is relevant. We're talking
| about USA's criminal decisions in the middle east here, which
| was ongoing as recently as 5 or 3 years ago.
|
| And the "other countries are genocidal maniacs as well"
| caveat only works if the person who is pointing out that the
| USA is a genocidal maniac is fond of another country, but
| there is no mention of any country to praise in this thread,
| just condemnation of USA's actions against individuals. All
| countries are genocidal maniacs, but only one controls the US
| military.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _when you look at any country_
|
| This is true of any group of people, particularly a tolerant
| one, because actions deemed necessary by some will always be
| abhorrent to others.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| > The CIA has killed lots of the wrong people because
| "signature strikes"
|
| Please cite a source for this claim.
| mandmandam wrote:
| You can find this yourself so easily that your question
| qualifies as sealioning.
|
| But here you go anyway:
| https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/04/05/obamas-most-
| dangerous-d...
|
| > "Signature strikes have resulted in large numbers of
| bystander casualties in Pakistan and Yemen," Jameel Jaffer, a
| deputy legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union,
| told Foreign Policy.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| > The numbers are impossible to pin down, given the lack of
| clear reporting on the ground in places like Pakistan and
| Yemen.
| mandmandam wrote:
| Ha, it almost seems like you're saying that since the US
| doesn't keep good track of how many civilians they've
| murdered with "signature strikes", no one can claim that
| "lots of innocent people are dying". Even when many
| reports and groups say that lots of innocent people are
| dying, including the article you're quoting.
|
| That would by _psychotic_ though, so I 'm surely
| misinterpreting what your actual point is. Care to
| clarify?
| trasz wrote:
| In other words, we can safely assume US doesn't go
| murdering people, because they say their own lists of
| murdered people aren't kept tidy enough?
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Quantify how many "lots" are. The parent said the CIA
| killed "lots" of the wrong people. That is really the
| only word I take issue with.
| achow wrote:
| > _" signature strikes" don't require second source
| intelligence to verify who the target is.._
|
| Read that Osama bin Laden was verified by people on ground
| masquerading as health workers.
| lupire wrote:
| "Signatures" aren't necessarily better or worse than other
| sources. Other sources can be mistakes or intentional lies.
| What matters is the quality of the totality of the evidence,
| and how well convinced we are of what the accuracy based on
| past experience; and how much the deciders knew about last
| inaccuracies, when deciding to continue a practice.
|
| Statistical decision making is very slippery stuff.
| hammock wrote:
| This is assassination we are talking about, not ad serving
| devteambravo wrote:
| Incredibly chilling for you to have to type this! But yes
| indeed.
| bombcar wrote:
| Ad serving probably has less false-positives, because
| those cost the ad companies money.
| salawat wrote:
| You think that false positives requiring the
| staging/deployment of a multi-million dollar weapon
| system don't cost money?
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| Not really, the US military practically has a blank
| check.
|
| I can think of multiple decade-long government projects
| off of the top of my head (including from NASA) that had
| entire programs scrapped because they ran out of money.
|
| _Overages_ from a single military program, like the
| F-35, have eclipsed the _entire budget_ of those canceled
| projects.
| salawat wrote:
| That has more to do with the fact that Congress hasn't
| the backbone to call the Executive to heel on spending or
| transparency, or to empower OIG/GAO to pierce the
| national security veil.
|
| You can't make actionable tweaks to the system when the
| books are compartmentalized.
|
| None of that though doesn't cost money. Which is why I
| question the logic that Ad serving is somehow more
| responsive or accurate because a false-positive "costs
| money".
|
| Ad companies don't get to hide their books from the
| public.
| Banana699 wrote:
| It's not about how much absolute money is spent per each
| false positive, it's about how much you can get away with
| wasting. If a decision maker in the CIA is not punished
| for each brain fart, why would they avoid mistakes ? You
| get the behaviour that you reinforce and tolerate.
| bombcar wrote:
| Exactly. A false positive likely results in _more_ money
| because you need to buy more equipment to replace what
| you just used, and even more to do it "right this time".
| salawat wrote:
| Welcome to what happens when NatSec gets to set their own
| terms on visibility.
| nickff wrote:
| Uncertainty is (unfortunately) everywhere; for example,
| what probability is "beyond a reasonable doubt"? There are
| many who take issue with that question, but the answers
| I've seen range between 0.1% and 5%, with no general
| consensus.
| forgetfulness wrote:
| What's the appeal process for being assassinated by the
| CIA like?
| darawk wrote:
| Pretty similar to the appeals process for being killed by
| the terrorist that the CIA chose not to assassinate.
| ivalm wrote:
| How many Americans died from terrorism? How many
| foreigners died from anti-terrorism drone strikes?
| devNoise wrote:
| The other question is how many terrorist did we create
| from drone strikes?
| darawk wrote:
| These are actually easy things to look up. 910-2,200
| civilians killed by drone strikes[1]. More than that were
| killed on 9/11 alone [2].
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_from
| _U.S._...
|
| 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks
| idontpost wrote:
| dwater wrote:
| And if you exclude the black swan event of 9/11 which the
| US was unprepared for, the numbers get a lot smaller,
| e.g.:
|
| "According to the GTD, 80 Americans were killed in
| terrorist attacks from 2004 to 2013, including
| perpetrators and excluding deaths in Afghanistan and
| Iraq, the majority of which are combat-related. Of those
| 80 Americans killed, 36 were killed in attacks that
| occurred in the United States."
|
| https://www.start.umd.edu/pubs/START_AmericanTerrorismDea
| ths...
| darawk wrote:
| Why would we exclude the largest terrorist attack in
| American history, the thing that the interventions in
| question were explicitly designed to prevent a recurrence
| of?
|
| And anyway, if you want to get into that question, then
| we'd have to start including the civilian deaths caused
| by ISIS, and that's going to make the balance even more
| favorable to drone strikes. There's no reason to limit
| the analysis to Americans, either. Dismantling Al Qaeda,
| ISIS and other terrorist networks contributed to the
| reduction in terrorist violence against many groups, not
| just Americans. Probably not even primarily Americans.
|
| Not to mention the rather obvious fact that the
| interventions in question were designed to reduce
| terrorism, and so their efficacy can only be truly
| benchmarked against the counterfactual world in which
| they were not implemented. However, conveniently, the
| balance is still overwhelmingly favorable even in the
| actual world that we happen to inhabit.
| InitialLastName wrote:
| I know we're talking about drone strikes, but we should
| always and forever note that the civilian casualties from
| the US' war on terror far outweighs [0] those who died
| from terrorism. Not to mention the US troops who died to
| make Iraqi oil available to US businesses, or who
| continue to die by suicide and social deaths related to
| their experiences in the war [1].
|
| [0] https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/figures/2021/WarD
| eathTol...
|
| [1] https://www.npr.org/2021/06/24/1009846329/military-
| suicides-...
| littlestymaar wrote:
| So for you the CIA has the same moral requirements than
| terrorists groups? That line of reasoning ends up to the
| conclusion that CIA's assassination is just state
| sponsored terrorism, and I'm not sure that's the argument
| you are willing to make.
| Banana699 wrote:
| We should exterminate the entirety of humanity then, this
| is the only sure way to decrease terrorism to exactly 0.
|
| Although when you think about it, those single-celled
| bacteria look awefully suspicious and up to nothing good.
| wombatpm wrote:
| Similar to gmail and youtube suspension process. It
| happens to you, you or someone makes your case on social
| media, someone in google may listen and modify the policy
| rules.
| tremon wrote:
| And then you get your life back?
| v4dok wrote:
| I think that was the point of the sarcasm
| nickff wrote:
| About the same as that for being killed on a battlefield,
| and not much worse than that available to an indigent
| defendant.
| gffrd wrote:
| This is an excellent summary of how to make decisions, and to
| continually get better at making them.
|
| > and how well convinced we are of what the accuracy based on
| past experience; and how much the deciders knew about last
| inaccuracies, when deciding to continue a practice.
|
| This in particular. How did proceeding this way do in the
| past? What did we get when we decided to continue with a
| discrepancy? If the discrepancy did not result in an issue,
| why? was the information bad, our handling of it, or just
| chance? If it was an issue, can we avoid overriding it again,
| can we get better info, can we discard it altogether from
| consideration?
|
| (note: this comment doesn't relate to the content of the
| article at all, but about the decision-making process
| outlined above)
| phkahler wrote:
| >> "Signatures" aren't necessarily better or worse than other
| sources.
|
| Right, they are almost always worse than first-hand
| information, and they are almost always better than low-grade
| intelligence obtained under pressure/influence (like the WMDs
| in Iraq). That is no justification.
| engineer_22 wrote:
| >> Right, they are almost always worse than first-hand
| information,
|
| You're probably right about this, in a sense, but it
| beckons a pretty interesting question: provide an example
| when "signatures" are better than first-hand information.
|
| Counter example: If your job is to find enemy subs, then
| sonar feedback off the hull of a Akula Class nuclear attack
| sub may be better than direct visual observation of the sub
| ImHereToVote wrote:
| I would prefer to be tried in a court of law, you?
| the_lonely_road wrote:
| That's a false equivalence though and not what the
| alternative option is here. The government was killing its
| enemies 100 years before the word digital was invented and
| will continue to do so as long as government exist. They
| will use every technology invented in the pursuit of doing
| so. Blaming metadata signature based approaches is no
| different than blaming their use of satellites, metallurgy,
| hell the wheel is a big part of their war machine. It has
| always been this way and it will continue to always be this
| way.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| The US government was not murdering anonymous strangers
| using a shadowy intelligence agency with no oversight 100
| years ago. Army SigInt was only founded in 1917, and
| prior the US didn't formally employ any spies, and
| certainly didn't carry out assassinations.
| hammock wrote:
| > The government was killing its enemies 100 years before
| the word digital was invented
|
| Citation needed. The current pattern of extrajudicial
| remote targeted killings outside of a Congressionally-
| declared battlefield is completely novel and only began
| in the Predator drone age, as far as I can see
|
| Edit: some data https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ass
| assinations_by_the_...
| lupire wrote:
| The old version was to carpet/fire/nuclear bomb entire
| cities. Is that better?
| tremon wrote:
| And we did all this during (official) peace time?
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Where is the battlefield when dealing with asymmetrical
| enemies like terrorists? If only they'd wear uniforms,
| not hide behind civilians, and stay in the designated
| battlefield area we wouldn't have this problem.
| hammock wrote:
| The point is these killings have not been happening for
| 100 years as claimed. These are a new type of killing,
| with a newly invented legal justification
| folkrav wrote:
| Cool. In the meantime, they're not (just) killing
| terrorists.
| [deleted]
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| In 2010, an American citizen was killed in a drone strike
| by the US military, without a trial or any attempt to
| make an arrest. This was the first time in history that a
| US civilian was killed by the US military. Before 2010,
| we were doing just fine without executing citizens on
| suspect legal grounds.
|
| Edit: Edited to state that this was not fire of
| combatants in a combat zone.
| nonameiguess wrote:
| Apparently, you're not going to accept Kent State, but
| there are non-National Guard incidents from earlier than
| that. The Bonus Army protesters in 1932 were cleared from
| DC by the tanks of the 3rd Cavalry commanded by no less
| than George Patton. Unfortunately, there is no record of
| total deaths. 5 infantry regiments fresh out of
| Gettysburg were sent to quell the New York City draft
| riots in 1863. Again, not known how many they killed, but
| total deaths well into the hundreds.
|
| This is to say nothing of the many, many times the Army
| was used to clear natives from lands claimed by the US.
| Presumably, in most of those incidents, they were not
| considered American citizens. However, they definitely
| were in the most recent incident I can think of, the
| Wounded Knee massacre, which happened in 1980. That was
| the 7th Cavalry, and they killed 250 Lakota, including
| women and children.
| [deleted]
| jaywalk wrote:
| It's incredible that Obama was just given a complete pass
| on that. But knowing what we know now about the media,
| it's not really all that surprising.
| RHSeeger wrote:
| > Before 2010, we were doing just fine without executing
| citizens on suspect legal grounds.
|
| Well, no; we just weren't doing it using the military. Or
| at least weren't doing it using the military in a way
| that we got caught. The US government (and, I expect,
| nearly every government since the dawn of governments)
| has been killing people outside of "the battlefield"
| forever.
| westmeal wrote:
| Which citizen was it? I've never heard about this before
| but I wouldn't put it past those war mongering fucks.
| ALittleLight wrote:
| They also killed his 16 year old son and 8 year old
| daughter in separate attacks. Both of whom were American
| citizens. (Daughter was Trump)
|
| The basics are that Al-Awlaki was (allegedly) a kind of
| pro-terrorist or pro extreme Muslim kind of preacher
| moving about the Middle East spreading his message.
| Possibly also hooked up with real terrorists / jihadis. A
| drone strike killed Awlaki and a second drone strike, a
| couple weeks later, killed his sixteen year old son. The
| US claimed killing his son was an accident - but that's
| pretty implausible. Years later, under Trump, a special
| forces team killed his eight year old daughter.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki
| mikece wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32583164
| InitialLastName wrote:
| Did no civilians die that time in 1864 when the Union
| Army burned Georgia to the ground?
| lupire wrote:
| Did you forget about the Jim Crow era, when courts
| themselves were highly suspect?
|
| And union busting police? And modern police, before and
| after 2020?
| ta8645 wrote:
| > This was the first time in history that a US citizen
| was killed by the US military.
|
| That seems incredibly unlikely. Friendly fire incidents
| have been a fact of war, pretty much forever.
| lp0_on_fire wrote:
| Friendly fire, _by definition_, is a mistake.
|
| Friendly fire, _by definition_, is not something the Army
| _actively plans_ to do.
| ta8645 wrote:
| I don't understand your comment. The claim, to which I
| responded, said _nothing_ about _active plans_. The claim
| was simply that it was the first US civilian ever killed
| by the military.
| tfigment wrote:
| The definition of war has become extremely loose in
| modern times.
| bombcar wrote:
| I find it incredibly hard to believe that _no_ US non-
| military citizen was killed by either side in the Civil
| war.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Upon failing to retake Fort Sumter, Union troops turned
| their cannons on the city of Charleston itself, killing
| an estimated 80 people over the course of the 500+ days
| of bombardment. To this day, the area is host to
| unexploded ordnance (rusted black-powder shells,
| basically).
| akira2501 wrote:
| Friendly fire is by definition an accident. Killing this
| citizen was intentional. I feel it's odd to allow them to
| be conflated.
| BobbyJo wrote:
| This, though a reasonable thing to be concerned about,
| seems unrelated to the conversation about metadata's role
| in sanctioned assassination.
| buildbot wrote:
| Kent state does not count? It has happened probably a
| lot, it is just hard to find good records about now and
| they actually tell people. Pre-1900s, you just are not
| hearing about it probably. I don't buy the military
| getting less moral recently.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| State national guard units are not the US military. A
| dead giveaway is that if something happened on US soil,
| it is not a US military operation.
| RHSeeger wrote:
| Clearly not true.
|
| First item on this list:
| https://www.military.com/military-life/6-times-military-
| was-...
|
| > 1863: The New York City Draft Riots > the governor
| [...] had to call in U.S. Marines.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| It's complicated. The cynic's answer is "The United
| States prides itself on not turning its military on the
| civilian populace, and the National Guard is the
| practical method by which they hold a nation together
| while refraining on paper from such use of force."
|
| As with so many aspects of American governance, they
| "solved" an either-or problem by implementing both ideas.
| webnrrd2k wrote:
| > This was the first time in history that a US civilian
| was killed by the US military.
|
| I'm sure that there were plenty of other times it
| happened, but, for a relativly well-know and documented
| incident in 1932, check out the Bonus Army[1]
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonus_Army#:~:text=Th
| e%20Bon....
| DuskStar wrote:
| Or Kent State.
| tomjakubowski wrote:
| > This was the first time in history that a US citizen
| was killed by the US military
|
| Not close to the first time. Kent State is one famous
| example. Countless people shot for trespassing on bases
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| The Ohio National Guard is not a branch of the US
| military. It reports to the government of Ohio.
| guhidalg wrote:
| Now you're splitting hairs. A government ordered death is
| the same no matter if the shooter is a soldier or a
| national guardsman.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| This is a big difference. State national guards operate a
| lot more like the state police than like the army. Posse
| Comitatus does not apply to them.
|
| By the way, if you want to split hairs and bring up
| examples like Kent State, the elephant in the room is the
| self-defense justification in a lot of these examples.
| Find a killing that occurred when a soldier believed
| their life to be in danger.
| trasz wrote:
| I wonder if you realize you are rationalizing Kent State
| the exact same way some Chinese rationalize Tienanmen.
| lupire wrote:
| How about Sherman's March to the Sea?
| [deleted]
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| I vouch that even in America, for a native son like myself,
| this is an absurd luxury.
|
| What did that Stadmin [Stanford Administration] dean say,
| literally what?
|
| "We felt that, under the gravity of the circumstances, we
| couldn't afford the luxury of a fair trial."
|
| Under different circumstances what they're refusing to try
| will change but the phrasing is identical.
|
| Dude at least a drone it's slower than the speed of sound
| so I know I'm fucked in the split-second before, can duck
| for cover, spinal reaction, something. There's drone
| survivors. Hide under a special rug and topple a pile of
| sand over yourself, something. Though I did see my lynching
| coming and asked Ben Schley to spend lunch with me the
| following day, Friday February 6 2009, to iron out
| that...that weird sound, that drone, getting louder and
| louder.[1]
|
| A friend was in Pakistan simultaneous as my lynching at
| Stanford, he was like "yeah there's drone strikes bombings
| in nearby villages every coupla days, it's nuts. Three
| different nearby villages." You could see them sometimes if
| you were either a little lucky or very unlucky.
|
| I would totally have traded places with him, me on Stanford
| Campus (the place, within Campus Drive), Stanford (the city
| or town, it is not legally inside Palo Alto it is
| independent), California, United States of America (but not
| in the sense of obeying the Constitution, just like) him
| in...he didn't tell me where in Pakistan, but rural,
| flyover country so to speak. He blended in as a Brazilian,
| picked up the language crazy fast. He spoke Human by that
| point. All Human.
|
| He would have known the exact bullshit Stadmin would hate
| for him to say, the exact magic spell from the book he
| wasn't allowed to read. In a conversation he actually did
| give me the way out of that situation (accusing in return)
| that I couldn't bring myself to do. Saying, hey if she
| accused you you can accuse her, it's basic. And that the
| world was much larger than Stanford campus. [all this is a
| flashback after a memory erasure, note to self: Flash Aug
| 24 2022 14:18]
|
| And I could totally survive a drone strike without a
| scratch.
|
| [1] One of the definitions of drone is a vibrating
| repetitive sound that keeps going indefinitely.
| bluecalm wrote:
| It's not the choice you have though in areas where those
| killings take place. It's either drone strikes or nothing.
| Boots on the ground to catch bad guys and bring then to
| court isn't possible.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Oh, it's possible. It just risks American lives, so it's
| obviously unpalatable when robots are available (at the
| cost, of course, of arms-length evaluation of kill
| orders).
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| This is likely the most upsetting part. As flawed as US
| judicial system is, it is a system that still has to move
| within certain known parameters. The fact that judicial
| system stops applying the moment 'the government' decides
| it doesn't apply is in itself a big problem that
| effectively undermines basic trust in the system. I don't
| want to say that it started with Bush, because each
| president had their sins, but war on terror put a lot of
| clandestine stuff right in the open. Obama only made it
| worse ( since he actually killed a US citizen ). Biden was
| not better..
|
| I am not some sort of naive activist. I accept there is a
| price to be paid for the relative comfort I live in. That
| said, some basic rules have to be followed if only to
| ensure citizenry that they are followed.
|
| For better or worse, most citizens seem to be getting
| regular reminders[1] that the rules, at best, are not
| applied evenly. The trust in institutions is already low.
| Some basic accountability has to apply even to the highest
| echelon. Scratch that, it especially needs to apply to it.
|
| [1]https://www.npr.org/2022/08/24/1119185396/paul-pelosi-
| nancy-...
| engineer_22 wrote:
| -> some basic rules have to be followed if only to ensure
| citizenry that they are followed.
|
| I guess one of those rules could be: Don't travel
| overseas to participate in a war against the US
| government. Yes, I understand, this is a hard rule to
| follow, especially if you're of the rebellious bent, but
| comfort requires compromise.
| trasz wrote:
| >I guess one of those rules could be: Don't travel
| overseas to participate in a war against the US
| government.
|
| So how is this different from rules forced by ISIS?
| monocasa wrote:
| I heard engineer_22 participates in a war against the US
| government. Oh wait, you'd like due process?
| ALittleLight wrote:
| Also it's a hard rule to follow if you are a child.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Nawar_al-
| Awlaki
| lupire wrote:
| Everyone in USA knows that every child is responsible for
| choosing good parents.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| Well, I am hardly a rebel. The rule you list is not a
| rule at all.
|
| I am surprised that I even have to point it out, but you
| do not stop being an American by traveling outside the
| country. Hell, you do not stop being an American even if
| you send money to sanctioned entities.
|
| There is a reason there is a process for those, who
| deviate from societal norms. It ensures people en masse
| do not take matters into their own hands. That process
| does not, or at least should not, include current regime
| deciding you get deaded behind closed doors. Deviation
| from it historically yielded very poor results.
|
| If you are not sure why that is a bad idea, and a bad
| omen, for a republic supposedly governed by law, I am
| genuinely not sure I can help. I am just sad that some
| people explicitly believe this.
| kibwen wrote:
| _> As an American I 'm ashamed that my government has done
| things like this and I fully support those responsible for
| these programs to be tried as war criminals._
|
| Same and seconded. That includes presidents too; take _every_
| living president and have them stand for these crimes. There 's
| no reason that being president should be carte blanche for
| murder.
| the_only_law wrote:
| The has CIA tortured US citizens, destroyed the evidence and
| got away with it, I doubt anything will happen.
| sha256sum wrote:
| >I doubt anything will happen
|
| The last president who seemingly took issue with these
| powers was conveniently assassinated. His successor (and
| the successor's allies) wasted no time in appeasing those
| powers by beginning lots of wars that killed and destroyed
| the lives of many people. I too doubt anything will happen.
|
| At the risk of starting a Chomsky flame war and for anyone
| curious about what happened in those wars, and why nothing
| will happen: read "Manufacturing Consent".
| phkahler wrote:
| >> I doubt anything will happen.
|
| Well not with that attitude. ;-)
| skyyler wrote:
| How do you propose to change this attitude in a time when
| people who organise groups to change this attitude always
| end up mysteriously killing themselves?
| chasd00 wrote:
| Don't forget American citizens are on the table too, no due
| process required!
|
| EDIT: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki Thank you
| Jaywalk for the correct link
| DawnQFunk3 wrote:
| bragr wrote:
| > _Another U.S. administration official speaking on condition
| of anonymity described Abdulrahman al-Awlaki as a bystander
| who was "in the wrong place at the wrong time," stating that
| "the U.S. government did not know that Mr. Awlaki's son was
| there" before the airstrike was ordered._
|
| I'm not for drone strikes, but it seems to me if your dad is
| an armed militant working against the US and killed in a US
| military operation, and then you go around associating with
| even more armed militants working against the US, you're
| asking a lot of your US citizenship to protect you from
| getting droned.
| trasz wrote:
| So defending against an invading empire is a capital
| offense now?
| googlryas wrote:
| From the article, it seems like he was collateral damage and
| not the intended target - the drone strike was targeting
| Ibrahim al-Banna. That sucks, very much a wrong place wrong
| time, but I would say that a fairly effective strategy for
| not being collateral damage is to not hang out with
| internationally wanted terrorists.
| jaywalk wrote:
| I don't know why the parent poster linked to his son, but
| this is probably who he was thinking of:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki
|
| A US citizen who was executed by a drone strike ordered by
| Obama himself.
| googlryas wrote:
| I don't really see the problem with this either. It seems
| like they would have liked to capture him, but it was
| infeasible. The guy essentially declared war on the US
| with his actions. What special steps should they take
| because he is an American citizen?
|
| A little different, but imagine if an American decided to
| go fight for Germany during WWII. Should he receive any
| special consideration above what native-born German
| soldiers got, before Americans start shooting towards
| him?
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| Yeah that analysis of if he could be captured alive
| feasibly was his crappy version of due process.
|
| Not enough for my taste, but it at least caused a hiccup
| in the meat grinder. And it diminishes Obama's legacy in
| an objective way that can be repeated ad nauseam,
| legitimately. He lives on past the bullets as a bullet-
| point in presentations, discussions, debates and
| speeches.
|
| Salutations, fellow United States citizen Mr. Al-Awlaki.
| jaywalk wrote:
| Americans are afforded due process rights under the
| Constitution. I'm not saying he wasn't a bad guy, he
| clearly was. But it's not the same as a soldier (or
| police officer, or anyone really) shooting someone who's
| actively shooting at them. This was a straight up
| execution of a citizen without due process.
|
| Nobody, including the President, has the right to do
| that. It was blatantly unconstitutional.
| googlryas wrote:
| What other due process is there, relative to the
| Authorization for Use of Military Force act of 2001?
| Congress gave POTUS the power to go after people like al-
| Awlaki with it. It's been on the books for 20+ years, the
| Supreme Court has essentially ruled it is a
| constitutional giving of power by Congress to POTUS e.g.
| in Hamadi vs Rumsfeld. If the US military could have
| captured al-Awlaki without incident, then drone striking
| him would probably not be considered "necessary and
| appropriate force". But, it wasn't reasonable to capture
| him, so what alternative is there?
| trasz wrote:
| How about simply not murdering people on the other side
| of the world?
|
| Here's a mental experiment for you: what would you do if
| Russia, lawfully (according to Russian laws) executed
| people in US? Because that's exactly what US is doing to
| the rest of the world.
| googlryas wrote:
| Well, that sounds like a great idea. But, it needs to be
| a two way street. Convince terrorists planning terror
| attacks to not murder people on the other side of the
| world, then I'm sure America would drastically cut down
| on the number of people it killed on the other side of
| the world.
|
| > what would you do if Russia, lawfully (according to
| Russian laws) executed people in US? Because that's
| exactly what US is doing to the rest of the world.
|
| Well, that depends - is the US government a failed state
| incapable of enforcing its own laws? Or did the US
| government give permission for this to happen? Then sure,
| go right ahead Russia. The Yemeni government gave the
| greenlight for the US to drone strike al-Awlaki.
| monocasa wrote:
| > What special steps should they take because he is an
| American citizen?
|
| The due process afforded in the constitution. With, you
| know, trials and juries and such.
|
| > A little different, but imagine if an American decided
| to go fight for Germany during WWII. Should he receive
| any special consideration above what native-born German
| soldiers got, before Americans start shooting towards
| him?
|
| I would say that an operation specifically to assassinate
| that person without a trial should be viewed as
| unconstitutional.
| BobbyJo wrote:
| Due process is subject to feasibility on American soil as
| well. Mass shooters seem to get very few days in court.
| monocasa wrote:
| It's illegal to assassinate even mass shooters in the US.
| It's only legal to kill them in defense during an active
| situation.
|
| And just going to through out there that Anwar al-Awlaki
| isn't accused of taking up arms, just publishing
| political speech that the US government didn't approve
| of.
| BobbyJo wrote:
| > It's illegal to assassinate even mass shooters in the
| US. It's only legal to kill them in defense during an
| active situation.
|
| A drone strike feels like a pretty active situation no?
|
| I'm not being pedantic, just pointing out that there is a
| ton of grey area that your statement doesn't account for,
| and we'd need to dive into the details of this situation
| to determine whether the assassination was justified or
| not. Even then, it would mostly be a qualitative
| judgement.
|
| For example, let's say you had credible information
| indicating someone was going to bomb and elementary
| school, and you saw them running down your street towards
| one such school. Would you shoot?
|
| What if, same situation, but you saw them riding a bike
| or driving a car toward the school? What if you had no
| idea where they were, but someone told you they'd be in a
| certain location before the attack and you could only get
| a drone to the location in time?
|
| I'm not saying the gov was wrong or right with Anwar,
| just that the arguments presented here fail to account
| for real world complexity.
| monocasa wrote:
| > A drone strike feels like a pretty active situation no?
|
| Following that logic, drone striking you in your house is
| an active situation. No constitution needed.
|
| No, I obviously meant that you're allowed to kill as LEO
| _in response_ to an active situation.
|
| > For example, let's say you had credible information
| indicating someone was going to bomb and elementary
| school, and you saw them running down your street towards
| one such school. Would you shoot?
|
| > What if, same situation, but you saw them riding a bike
| or driving a car toward the school? What if you had no
| idea where they were, but someone told you they'd be in a
| certain location before the attack and you could only get
| a drone to the location in time?
|
| The real world is not the TV show 24. The purpose of the
| constitution is to constrain such actions even if
| extrajudicially drone striking every person with a
| modicum of 'credible evidence' against them would be
| easier or might lead to less tragedies.
|
| Additionally, you're ignoring that there was no active
| situation Al-Waki was accused of participating in. Just
| political speech the government didn't approve of.
| tremon wrote:
| You don't see a problem when a head of state orders the
| summary execution of people they find inconvenient?
| pdonis wrote:
| _> As an American I 'm ashamed that my government has done
| things like this_
|
| Have you voted against all of your elected representatives that
| authorized it?
|
| The only way things like this will change is if the people
| force them to change by making it clear to politicians that
| they will not be elected or re-elected if they support them.
| GoldenRacer wrote:
| How do you suggest voting against the representatives that do
| this when both the Democrats and Republicans do it?
| pdonis wrote:
| Politicians currently in office of both parties do it, yes.
| That doesn't mean politicians of both parties who will be
| running for office in the future will necessarily do it.
| There are many ways for voters to communicate preferences
| prior to elections in order to influence the policy
| positions of candidates. Of course it won't change
| drastically in just one election; we didn't get to where we
| are now with just one election. It took many decades. But
| change has to start somewhere.
| de6u99er wrote:
| Imagine having a number similar to the one of a terrorist's
| burner phone and getting called by mistake by his handler.
| [deleted]
| zaroth wrote:
| Pretty sure it was metadata that allowed the US to locate and
| strike Zawahiri in Kabul with a predator drone.
|
| So safe to say the US isn't going to stop doing this any time
| soon.
| lupire wrote:
| The article is new, but the overly narrow HN title is 2014
| lotharcable wrote:
| Governments killing people without due process in this manner is
| criminal homicide.
|
| Each person needs to held individually accountable for their
| crimes. State secrets should be declassified and released. Each
| person's individual actions should be documented. And they should
| be tried in court and serve sentences commensurate with their
| level of participation.
|
| This does not secure the country. This creates enemies and makes
| the situation worse.
|
| If we lived in a just world ever single one of these people would
| be serving a lifetime in jail. This includes the politicians that
| approved funding for it as well as any lawyers and judges that
| rubber stamped it.
|
| There is war and then there is what the Federal government is
| doing. They are not the same thing.
|
| It is unacceptable. It is global tyranny.
| rhacker wrote:
| I'm not sure why this isn't upvoted beyond anything here. For
| them to even admit they've killed people based on metadata
| means they could kill you for your uncle's friend's mom being a
| terrorist.
| throwaway0asd wrote:
| To me discussions about privacy often seem like bullshit. Here is
| a comment I wrote yesterday about a former AdWords employee as
| privacy violation apologist:
|
| _Hypocritically people bitch about intrusive data collection
| from governments and yet simultaneously give away the same data,
| and encourage others to do the same, and more to private
| companies knowing that data will be weaponized against them. As
| such it's almost impossible to take any opinion promoting
| commercial violations of privacy seriously._
| barrysteve wrote:
| This is only viable when viewed as an economic game. As soon as
| a real war breaks out or national security is threatened,
| privacy invasions from foreign powers and literally anyone not
| whitelisted, will be ended quickly and be treated as acts of
| war.
|
| Assuming all private companies are bent is pointless. People
| should be allowed the choice to keep their data private and
| give it whomever they please. This is a 'free market' after
| all.
| throwaway0asd wrote:
| That's an empty argument. People don't have a choice on what
| third parties share and disclose. People don't have a choice
| on things like HIPAA and banking regulations and they
| shouldn't because those regulations protect people but don't
| regulate people.
| barrysteve wrote:
| Choice doesn't mean controlling the other guy. At some
| point in the chain trust appears and canaries can be used
| to see if it has been violated, if you really care that
| much.
|
| Some people have a non-commercial precommitment to privacy
| and finding the companies that honor it and relate to it is
| the choice we want.
|
| If you want to force the discussion about privacy into
| regulation and non-market forces, then okay? Why would
| people legally and politically consent to a fully
| transparent world? The regulation will only end up going
| one way in the end and for all the split hairs along the
| way, it won't be in favour of ending privacy...
| throwaway0asd wrote:
| What other guy? Advertisers? That's not another guy.
| Privacy protections benefit everyone equally.
| donatj wrote:
| Companies don't kill me. It's the government I'm worried about,
| and the governments of the world have literally no intentions
| on respecting your privacy.
| ALittleLight wrote:
| But companies collect your data and sell it to the
| government.
| donatj wrote:
| Governments don't need to bother - they collect it
| directly.
|
| - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/33_Thomas_Street
| Qem wrote:
| Depending on the country, companies may kill you. Even Coca-
| Cola would not refrain from dispatching hitmen to kill
| employees if given opportunity. See
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinaltrainal_v._Coca-Cola_Co.
| monopoliessuck wrote:
| People don't have a choice about giving information to
| governments. There's a fourth amendment for a reason so I'm
| obviously anti dragnet. Private parties though may opt into
| providing anything legal to other private parties at their sole
| discretion and that's the nature of things. Despite the fact
| that the majority of Americans are making market choices that
| many of us would consider "not privacy respecting", that does
| not make these interactions "public" de facto.
|
| I don't have a Google account. I don't have a Facebook account.
| I don't take commercial genealogy tests, I'm not an Amazon
| Prime member. I would prefer to not have the government use the
| ubiquity of this kinds of behavior as a lever to usurp more
| information.
|
| I agree that people that bitch about corporate overreach should
| just not interact with bad actors instead of bitching to the
| government to somehow safeguard themselves from contracts they
| sign. At this point, it's not even an information asymmetry
| situation. Lots of people know Facebook and Google are
| untrustworthy stewards of this kind of information, but to them
| the ends justify the means... and that's their market decision
| I guess.
| monocasa wrote:
| > I don't have a Google account. I don't have a Facebook
| account.
|
| They have shadow profiles of you.
| monopoliessuck wrote:
| I realize this.
|
| I'm not saying I avoid the bot net completely -- no one
| does and it's only getting harder to do so. This is a
| result of people I know installing LinkedIn on their phones
| with my number in their contacts. It's still a consumer-
| first problem and awareness is lacking. Every dollar, click
| and eyeball you give to some product is one you're
| divesting from another and we should consider our market
| engagements endorsements of corporate behavior because
| that's what they are.
|
| How much awareness will get people to reconsider though?
| People are paying out of pocket to install microphones in
| their own homes and cameras on their front doors. Even if
| dumb TVs were on offer for 2X the price, statistically no
| one would buy them. Privacy is only a concern if it's novel
| and studies show generations born into surveillance are
| numb to it. I feel like people need to be more aware AND
| more discerning in their consumption; awareness alone isn't
| enough. We should discriminate with our wallet more on
| these issues today while we still have some alternatives
| available.
| throwaway0asd wrote:
| If there were proper protections in place to protect privacy
| it doesn't matter whether the violator is a government or
| commercial enterprise. Secondly, the courts have repeated
| ruled that the fourth amendment has nothing to do with
| privacy.
| monopoliessuck wrote:
| > If there were proper protections in place to protect
| privacy it doesn't matter whether the violator is a
| government or commercial enterprise.
|
| Legislative privacy protections make it impossible for you
| to sign certain things away contractually and/or make it
| impossible for someone else to ask you to do so
| contractually. The right to sell certain data to certain
| people at certain times, even if you have consent from the
| user, for example, can render a contract void. Of course
| legally limiting the things you can agree to in this way
| would limit the effect of these contracts. Don't sign
| shitty contracts though and you can get all of this today.
|
| The government isn't bound by optional contracts though and
| as long as congress grants the government jurisdiction over
| everything not constitutionally interpreted to be covered
| by the fourth, government snooping is completely legal.
|
| I agree with you. Congress should limit the government's
| data mining jurisdiction, but it seems hellbent on doing
| the opposite with things like PATRIOT, PRISM and
| wiretapping legislation. I think users should also stop
| being flagrant idiots with their data if they supposedly
| care about it so much. Users can effect change in the
| market by deciding not to do business with bad business
| practices. Meta says it's going to mix WhatsApp data with
| Facebook data and people boycotted, Meta backtracked (for
| awhile)... more of that, we can do both.
|
| > Secondly, the courts have repeated ruled that the fourth
| amendment has nothing to do with privacy.
|
| Privacy from whom? The fourth sets a bar for "unreasonable"
| searches of an individual by requiring a warrant for public
| access to "persons, houses, papers, and effects". The
| government can still ask you for information without a
| warrant and definitely will ask Google for information
| about you, which does not itself need to demand a warrant
| on your behalf. As stated above, everything that isn't
| explicitly enumerated as protected is fair game as well.
|
| The constitution curtails the relationship between the
| government and the governed. The fourth says nothing about
| privacy from other private entities, corporate or
| otherwise.
| arminiusreturns wrote:
| Please, with the anniversary coming up shortly, remember the
| event that they used as an excuse to start "programs" like these:
| 9/11.
|
| I was too young and dumb and propagandized to know what I was
| getting myself into, signing up to go fight "those evil
| terrorists", but it didnt take long for me to realize something
| wasnt right. I spent the vast majority of my life since I got out
| of the Corps trying to understand the why of it all, starting
| with the small picture view from an infantrymans perspective,
| working my way up piece by piece until I was at the 30k ft view
| at the global scale.
|
| You can't solve the war on terror or the turning on of the
| totalitarian surveillance state without solving 9/11, the
| justification that enabled those things. The story as told by
| government and their operation mockingbird 2.0 lackeys in media
| just isn't true.
|
| What I realized, that still terrifies me, is that all these tools
| and techniques we used "over there", are going to end up being
| used against us (and other countries) domestically.
| chasd00 wrote:
| > totalitarian surveillance state
|
| never let a good crisis goto waste! As soon as the first plane
| hit i bet the lights started getting turned on and the servers
| booted up.
| lizardactivist wrote:
| The CIA is a US state-sponsored terrorist organisation. Every one
| of those people should be on trial for war crimes.
|
| The only consolation is that many of those people, the so-called
| "jackals", will eventually be taken out by their own. The
| diplomatic disasters they could cause should their conscience
| ever make them talk is too great of a risk -- all loose ends are
| eventually dealt with.
| nimbius wrote:
| the General was quoted as having said this in in 2014.
|
| As many predicted correctly: "metadata" has become profoundly
| more difficult to collect in 2022 for those willing to invest the
| time and effort.
| thenerdhead wrote:
| Maybe this should be taught at big corporations of when being too
| "data driven" can be deadly.
| wudangmonk wrote:
| The CIA, an organization well known for assasinations and coups
| all around the world kills people? WHAAT?
| anthk wrote:
| Use pdf2dejvu to convert all your PDF's to DjVU. Convert all your
| images to farbleld, too.
|
| Problem solved.
| forgetfulness wrote:
| For a while I saw Palantir showing what sounded like remorse in
| their website, in stating explicitly that they had purposefully
| taken distance from their days security contractors providing
| products in service of the War on Terrorism; they provided one
| that was used precisely for this.
|
| It was a change from the previous branding I saw from them, one
| where they would whitewash themselves by showcasing their most
| charismatic employees, showing that they were a friendly tech
| company for cool people (look, we have a handsome black dude who
| plays the guitar!), regardless of, you know, the blood money.
|
| Now their website only talks about power and disruption, while
| showing pictures of heavy industry, infrastructure, and war.
| throwaway_4ever wrote:
| Palantir CEO on that: https://youtu.be/MeL4BWVk5-k?t=185
| kornhole wrote:
| Isn't the company called 'Meta' actually short for metadata?
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