[HN Gopher] Police surveilled protests with help from Twitter-af...
___________________________________________________________________
Police surveilled protests with help from Twitter-affiliated
startup Dataminr
Author : jbegley
Score : 83 points
Date : 2020-07-09 18:38 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (theintercept.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (theintercept.com)
| DoofusOfDeath wrote:
| I get the sense that most HN commenters are against having police
| surveil this kind of event in the U.S.
|
| Could someone share the reasons for this strong opposition?
|
| Personally, I can imagine valid reasons _for and against_
| conducting such surveillance. But given how many people feel
| otherwise, I wonder if I 'm missing something.
| nimbius wrote:
| i could argue dataminr is just a fun way for the government to
| sidestep the fourth amendment but there are toilet paper brands
| with more resilience than the fourth amendment these days.
|
| The reason you do not surveil protestors is because it
| encourages the government to intervene and acts as an engine
| for parallel construction. some US cities actually profit from
| incarceration, and the opportunity to fill a jail cell is all
| too enticing. It also makes it almost impossible to defend
| against the argument that the state is acting to punish
| political dissent, or that police arent reacting as a defensive
| organism instead of a public safety agency. Police and
| governments are meant to build trust with their citizens, so
| when surveillance tactics make themselves public (and they
| always do, its just great PR for dataminr) citizens rightly
| feel targeted, vulnerable, and bullied. surveillance erodes
| trust, which leads to more fervent protests.
|
| Surveillance does little to keep people safe during a protest.
| Its mainly a tool to write negative narratives about
| protestors, or used as a tool to help infiltrate protests and
| break them up from inside.
| roughly wrote:
| I think there are interesting theoretical arguments to be had
| for and against this, and then there's the world we actually
| live in. In this world, stuff like this happens:
| https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/13/18253848/eric-garner-foot...
| colordrops wrote:
| Because the political class has demonstrated repeatedly that
| they are mostly corrupt and will take advantage of the data
| illegally, just like with echelon and prism, and what they are
| now trying to do with the EARN IT act.
| linuxftw wrote:
| The people here only understand that there's a political
| class aiming to control them when it doesn't align with their
| political views. The media, social media, your favorite
| political party, all part of the political class.
|
| Which presidential candidate voted for the Iraq war again?
| The Wall Street Bailouts? Who do that person represent?
| golemiprague wrote:
| What you missing is that most people in the silicon valley are
| leftist and therefore everything is derived from this political
| point of view. If it was a right wing demonstration they would
| be all for it.
| [deleted]
| davmar wrote:
| How about you give us your best "for" argument?
| DoofusOfDeath wrote:
| Disclaimer: I don't have a settled opinion either for or
| against this surveillance. I really don't think I've heard
| all of the relevant facts or perspectives yet.
|
| The main "pro-surveillance" argument that comes to mind is
| that sometimes these protests devolve into illegal looting
| and destruction of private/public property. I think my ideal
| would be for police to have only the surveillance needed to
| prosecute those crimes, and nothing else.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| The "for" argument is outlined by Dataminr in the article. If
| someone with one of those old-timey "press" hats went down to
| the protest and started publishing information about where it
| is, how it's going, how many people there are, most people
| would consider that to be simple and non-problematic
| journalism. Dataminr doesn't think their behavior is any
| different.
| NoInputSignal wrote:
| I don't know what your reasons against are, but a big one for
| me is an infringement on one's right to assemble. I know it
| doesn't sound like much, but for a lot of communities
| (especially ones that may already be "targets" for law
| enforcement at all levels [local, state, and federal]),
| surveillance may keep them from feeling safe protesting.
|
| For example, imagine being undocumented and wanting to protest.
| You may second guess going to a protest (even if it benefits
| you to do so), because you learned law enforcement is tracking
| the communications and movements of protesters.
| stefan_ wrote:
| The first obvious point is that protesting is a
| constitutionally protected activity, as is any political speech
| on Twitter, and this is interpreted extremely widely - so why
| are public institutions in the business of surveilling this
| legal, ney protected activity?
|
| But there is more to it. Courts have long recognized that state
| activity that can be reasonably construed to _chill_ exercise
| of ones constitutional freedoms is similarly an infringement on
| those rights, and certainly take a very dim look on any sort of
| surveillance of political activity.
| bzb3 wrote:
| Practically all activities that are legal and protected are
| surveiled in one way or the other precisely to make sure they
| stay within the confines of legality.
| behringer wrote:
| And also to arrest the leaders of said protected
| activities.
| pstuart wrote:
| That's a charitable interpretation. For example,
| infiltrating groups with undercover officers goes beyond
| making sure that said group is "legal".
| morsch wrote:
| Eh. This is obviously wrong, I must be misunderstanding
| you. I was cooking dinner earlier, which is a legal and
| protected activity. In what way was I being surveilled?
| Avicebron wrote:
| Your Blue Apron order data was scraped and compiled to
| determine that you are in fact Vegetarian /s
| jerrybee wrote:
| Aren't the tweets ingested by Dataminr public? I agree this
| would be problematic if they were using private data, but
| using data available to anyone on the platform feels like
| fair game.
| Ar-Curunir wrote:
| Because handing _more_ power to an over-militarized, violent,
| racist institution will inevitably result in retribution and
| harm to protestors and activists. For example, incidents like
| this:
|
| https://www.thedailybeast.com/norman-oklahoma-councilwoman-a...
| shpongled wrote:
| Because history has shown time and time again that governments
| cannot be trusted to do what is in the best interest of the
| people.
| dgarrett wrote:
| Dataminr Access and Deletion Requests:
| https://www.dataminr.com/access-and-deletion-requests
| jb775 wrote:
| > _We will use the information you provide to process and to
| maintain a record of your request._
|
| What a paradox...In order to delete your records, they create
| records on you
| aspenmayer wrote:
| I don't know how these folks sleep at night, lying to the public,
| their users, and their customers in the same breath.
|
| > The monitoring seems at odds with claims from both Twitter and
| Dataminr that neither company would engage in or facilitate
| domestic surveillance following a string of 2016 controversies.
| Twitter, up until recently a longtime investor in Dataminr
| alongside the CIA, provides the company with full access to a
| content stream known as the "firehose" -- a rare privilege among
| tech firms and one that lets Dataminr, recently valued at over
| $1.8 billion, scan every public tweet as soon as its author hits
| send. Both companies denied that the protest monitoring meets the
| definition of surveillance.
| colordrops wrote:
| Why is this comment downvoted?
| dx87 wrote:
| Probably because they're just posting something that is
| already in the article, and adding nothing to the discussion.
| ciarannolan wrote:
| Maybe because HN is full of people that work for similar
| privacy-destroying tech companies. I find that people on this
| board get a bit touchy when you talk about FAANG companies
| doing immoral things. (I know this isn't a FAANG company but
| its affect is in the same vein).
| kohtatsu wrote:
| Who needs a panopticon when the prisoners post evidence
| themselves?
| prophesi wrote:
| Social media flips the classic panopticon on its head;
| instead of instilling fear of perpetual surveillance to keep
| others disciplined, it instills a fear that others can't see
| you until you self-discipline according to the algorithm's
| desire.
| poooooooop wrote:
| The irony of this being downvoted...
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| A lot of people, frankly, don't have any principled
| understanding of what it means to oppose surveillance. Dataminr
| says it's not doing "surveillance" but "newsgathering", based
| on some ad-hoc distinction they have no idea how to flesh out.
| And the article author doesn't seem to know either; he says
| Dataminr's defense was a "linguistic distinction" and a
| "euphemism", but none of his sources really explain what the
| correct distinction is between surveillance and newsgathering.
|
| Personally, I think any principled opposition to surveillance
| is going to end up including some practices which have
| traditionally been considered news. The reason that Dataminr's
| activity is surveillance is that "look at these random tweets!"
| news articles are also surveillance.
| radicalidiot wrote:
| so the leftists sold out the leftists? classic.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2020-07-09 23:00 UTC)