[HN Gopher] The U.S. Treasury is buying private app data to targ...
___________________________________________________________________
The U.S. Treasury is buying private app data to target and
investigate people
Author : _-david-_
Score : 244 points
Date : 2021-11-09 18:41 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (theintercept.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (theintercept.com)
| shrubble wrote:
| Idea: get together some money, buy data of 100 of the CEOs of
| Fortune 500 companies.
|
| Publish everything found, see if the laws are then changed...
| darkwizard42 wrote:
| A good start, but their profiles are probably incredibly well
| scrubbed (or whatever is out there is already mitigated).
|
| Instead, collect it on every Congressperson and then see how
| fast things change. Most politicians don't have the means to
| scrub their backgrounds like multi-million dollar PR-vulnerable
| CEOs.
| saganus wrote:
| Seems more likely that those same Congresspersons
| (Congresspeople?) will try to stomp you out of existence,
| before making any changes to the law.
|
| I don't imagine people with such amount of power and
| connections to just roll over because "they caught us with
| the hand in the cookie jar!"
| wmf wrote:
| It's probably faster to buy data on members of Congress. I
| assume that's where things likt the Video Privacy Protection
| Act came from.
| jdhn wrote:
| I'm curious what the overall take will be on this. Normally, this
| action would be frowned upon if it was a private company, but I'm
| assuming that people may be more open to it being done by
| Treasury because it's "for the societal good".
| leereeves wrote:
| > but I'm assuming that people may be more open to it being
| done by Treasury because it's "for the societal good".
|
| Politics in America has become so hostile that people are now
| openly celebrating harm done to "the other side", so I don't
| doubt that there are people who will feel that way.
|
| But I suspect that most of them will feel quite differently
| when the White House is controlled by the other party.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| Funny, I assume the exact opposite. I'm guessing many people
| oppose government data collection but because they are buying
| data on the open market from people who "opt in", they're okay
| with it.
|
| I wish there was the ability to make a poll:
|
| * This is fine, privacy is dead.
|
| * This is okay because of private companies collecting and
| selling the data, even to the government
|
| * This is okay because the government is using this data to
| enforce laws I believe in, even though it rewards private data
| merchants.
|
| * Everyone involved is evil, the contracts should be voided and
| the companies dissolved.
| akamaka wrote:
| * It's much more urgent to address how private companies use
| the data, since we at least have some visibility into what
| the government is doing with it.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| this is bad because people who opt in think either that their
| data is not being sold to third parties or that the third
| party buying data is another company, nobody when opting in
| assumes that their data will be used in an investigation that
| can then lead to criminal charges.
| quantified wrote:
| We all committed privacy suicide when we bought smartphones.
| The data that we thought should be out of government hands,
| we put into the hands of many businesses. I agree it seems
| unsettling, but why can't the government purchase information
| on the open market?
| [deleted]
| Cycl0ps wrote:
| https://strawpoll.com/a584xf5re
| [deleted]
| derekjdanserl wrote:
| I am entertained by how the HN crowd goes Marxist when it
| comes to private data.
|
| (Please think twice before replying based on lazy
| presumptions of what Marxism is.)
| getcrunk wrote:
| I mean the available options kinda forces that.
| handrous wrote:
| I, for one, liked the options, and happily chose
| "Everyone involved is evil, the contracts should be
| voided and the companies dissolved."
|
| I think middle age is turning me into some flavor
| anarchist. Weird.
| wongarsu wrote:
| There's also
|
| * The data collection is fine, but the government shouldn't
| be allowed to circumvent checks and balances by buying this
| data
|
| * The government using such data without warrant is fine, but
| it shouldn't be sold on the open market
| fidesomnes wrote:
| oh okay, stop it when you get a chance.
| dr-detroit wrote:
| If you want to politicize any issue at all it must become a
| zero sum prisoners dilemma where I enjoy the benefits and the
| dreaded "other" is annihilated.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Whether I think it's fine or not, privacy is dead.
| ncallaway wrote:
| Can we...can we have at least one "not okay" option that
| doesn't brand everyone involved as evil?
| xerox13ster wrote:
| If it's not okay, then everyone involved made a choice to
| be complicit in something that is "not okay". Willingly
| participating in harmful activities isn't evil?
| dylan604 wrote:
| Only if you do it while twirling a mustache.
| cma wrote:
| Imagine the government wanted to know who "deepthroat" was
| during Watergate: just buy the location data of the journalists
| and anyone nearby.
| bragr wrote:
| I don't have a problem with the government accessing the data
| per se. Given that the data exists and is commercially
| available, it would seem silly to tie their hands from
| accessing it. Police routinely run credit checks or just google
| people of interest to learn what is publicly known about them
| and I don't really have a problem with that. What I do have a
| problem with is that our privacy laws and culture are so lax
| that detailed location information has essentially become part
| of the public record of a person. It seems like one way or the
| other, governments will find avenues to get at that data if it
| exists, and if you don't want the government tracking people,
| better to cut the data off at the source.
| literallyaduck wrote:
| Don't like it? Organizations like the EFF have been working to
| stop overreach:
|
| https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/01/eff-fincen-stop-pushin...
|
| You can help financially, and contact each of your
| representatives and senators and request they act to stop this
| end run around the constitution.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| " Critics of the software say it essentially allows the state to
| buy its way past the Fourth Amendment, which protects Americans
| from unreasonable searches."
|
| Interesting. Clearly data analysis can find all the tax dodgers,
| but is that an unreasonable search?
| 1cvmask wrote:
| Privacy invasion and surveillance is like invading countries a
| bipartisan issue. They always moan when one side uses government
| excesses against the "other" side but still vote for enhanced
| executive power and overreach all the time.
|
| The national security and surveillance state is as bipartisan as
| putting economic sanctions on poor Latin American countries,
| arming proxies, funding NGO fronts and bombing countries.
| sroussey wrote:
| You should see the data they are buying on crypto related
| persons. 8-/
| motohagiography wrote:
| If one sees the U.S. constitution and its amendments merely as
| dated conventions, there is no reason for the IRS and other
| agencies not to leverage tech to drive enforcement numbers, and
| for the agencies themselves to just become the policy levers they
| want to have. However, there are others who believe the rules are
| in place to prevent this precise type of eventuality, where a
| technological change shifts the balance of power and shreds any
| perception of a social contract, so you need rules that limit the
| scope and powers of government so it doesn't consume and enslave
| everything.
|
| I think a generation of people who believe the former statement
| have taken control of institutions, and we're watching it play
| out now. If you want to predict what this generation of
| bureaucracy will do, find the emergency exceptions and
| notwithstanding discretion to every law that protects the
| individual and limits the power of government, and then contrive
| the excuse that enables it, and this will be the policy and
| tactics of the people behind it. This Treasury collecting data
| story isn't about legalisms and principles, the people doing it
| really are nihilists, where language itself is just words that
| can mean anything, so it might as well mean whatever they want.
| Arguing under the false belief that principles and logic matters
| means doing nothing while they ratchet up controls and make
| themselves impossible to dislodge.
|
| You aren't going to persuade the Treasury or other people
| involved in these plays with reason, as the prospect of total,
| permanent, tech-facilitated dominion means the stakes are too
| high for them not to make a play for it. Only the courts, or
| sadly, conflict can dislodge it I think. We need to seriously
| consider how much tech is causing our governments to metastasize,
| and what the options for mitigating it are.
|
| There is no reason to believe your phone that tracks everything
| about you will not be used by people in government without
| accountability as leverage against you personally. This was
| paranoid ranting 20 years ago, and today it's just unpopular
| buzzkill. All that's left is to say "it was ever thus" and the
| only people who complained were the ones merely maladapted to the
| change and the inevitable progress of history.
| jasonfarnon wrote:
| "I think a generation of people who believe the former
| statement have taken control of institutions" I think the cause
| and effect are backwards here. It is their having taken control
| of institutions that makes individuals less likely to take
| seriously the spirit of pesky constitutional protections. Which
| was of course foreseen by the founding fathers.
| pjmorris wrote:
| > There is no reason to believe your phone that tracks
| everything about you will not be used by people in government
| without accountability as leverage against you personally.
|
| I have one small revision: There is no reason to believe your
| phone that tracks everything about you will not be used by
| people without accountability as leverage against you
| personally.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| At this point why not privatize the government? It will save the
| US billions of dollars in deals.
| smallerfish wrote:
| a) Both contracts are tiny ($150k each) although obviously these
| may be pilot programs.
|
| b) Finding evaders of sanctions seems like it should fall under a
| national security agency's purvue. We all take it for granted
| that the NSA could pinpoint our locations pretty easily, right?
| One thing that's particularly insane about the US government is
| how many departments have intelligence agencies. Obviously the
| ideal would be to have a small handful of well regulated
| intelligence agencies (emphasis on "well regulated", and you only
| have to look at the overreach by e.g. the CIA over the past 50
| years to know that the US has had issues with that.)
|
| c) The tax evasion contract looks at social media posts to find
| tax evaders. I wouldn't be particularly upset if the IRS had
| their own internal tech department doing this - if you're going
| to have a tax agency, you want it to be able to prevent cheating,
| otherwise the tax system falls apart. Finding people who have
| declared themselves to have beaten the system in a public forum
| is a cheap and easy way to go after cheaters.
|
| There's a lot of pork in contracts that government agencies give
| out to private contractors, but this seems like a relatively low
| spend, and so it doesn't seem particularly bad that the IRS has
| decided that this is outside of their current expertise and given
| out a contract to chase it.
| Zak wrote:
| > _We all take it for granted that the NSA could pinpoint our
| locations pretty easily, right?_
|
| In the same way we take it for granted that a SWAT team could
| kill any of us pretty easily. They have (and probably should
| have) the _ability_ , but the authority to use it should be
| very limited and subject to stringent oversight.
| smallerfish wrote:
| No doubt. But, say that the NSA were given the purvue over
| enforcing sanctions (because they are the national security
| agency). Should they be able to monitor who is visiting the
| country with the sanctions?
|
| Sanctions are kind of like the tax agency situation - if
| you're going to wield them as a national security tool, then
| you want to be able to enforce them, otherwise they're
| relatively meaningless. And enforcing them necessarily
| involves watching to see if your country's citizens are
| evading them.
| Zak wrote:
| I don't want the NSA to perform domestic civilian law
| enforcement functions any more than I want the army to, for
| similar reasons.
|
| The type of oversight applied to military and foreign
| intelligence action is fundamentally political. Whether and
| how to impose sanctions against, spy on, or invade another
| country are questions for congress and the president in the
| US and rarely involve the courts.
|
| The type of oversight applied to law enforcement is
| fundamentally legal. Courts apply existing law to the set
| of facts in a given case. Congress and the president do not
| get involved directly and any attempt by political
| officials to influence the outcome is scandalous, if not
| criminal.
|
| So should the NSA hack Iran's immigration database to see
| who's been going there? Perhaps. Should anything discovered
| that way be admissible in a criminal trial? Almost
| certainly not. Should the NSA tip off the FBI about
| domestic crimes? Mostly no, I think, but perhaps in a very
| limited fashion when the crimes involve national security
| or foreign policy. Gathering evidence that can be used in a
| criminal trial would still be the responsibility of the
| FBI.
| cabbagehead wrote:
| The pseudonymised ad data is just going to tell you the numbers
| of people travelling to sanctioned states. No big deal. There
| would be a story here if the government was re-identifying
| people, which would be a clear breach of the law. But there's no
| evidence or suggestion of that happening, just "assume the worst
| of government" speculation. Poor journalism.
|
| As for looking at public social media posts for evidence of tax
| dodging, I'd hope that if someone was dumb enough to advertise
| this publicly, and everyone can see they are abusing other
| citizens out of funding for public services, the IRS should look
| into it.
| downWidOutaFite wrote:
| A lot of right vs left division is one side wanting to restrain
| corporations and the other side wanting to restrain government.
| Privacy concerns are one way to break through that divide when
| government and corporations unite.
| siruncledrew wrote:
| How much do you think this has to do with the government trying
| extra hard now to tax crypto?
| cjcole wrote:
| It seems apparent that the US government is pursuing a novel
| strategy to route around the Bill of Rights:
|
| Steps:
|
| * Allow (and encourage) private sector monopolies to form
|
| * Use its leverage and influence to "encourage" those monopolies
| to do things which the US government is not allowed to do
| (examples: censorship, data collection)
|
| The list of First Amendment precedents, for example, with respect
| to the government is long and detailed. On the other hand,
| private companies operate under fewer restrictions and can act
| much more freely.
|
| So if we have a situation where there are a small number of
| monopolies and they, through personal relationships (marriage),
| lobbying, and the revolving door have a cozy relationship with
| the US government, then the government can effectively censor
| (for example) by more or less declaring "will no one rid me of
| these turbulent tweets" and have the monopolies jump to comply
| (or face increased risk of antitrust action for example).
|
| This is a win-win for both: the monopolies avoid antitrust and
| other unwanted regulation by playing ball, and the government
| gets to ignore the Bill of Rights by "outsourcing" actions to
| what are in effect de facto quasi-governmental entities. It's
| only a loss for the people for whom the Bill of Rights was
| written to protect.
| getcrunk wrote:
| This is exactly what is happening. And afaict as far back as
| the 70's. Major isp's taking public funds, close relationship
| between nsa and Google
| [deleted]
| nostromo wrote:
| We need a Supreme Court ruling or law that says if the government
| doesn't have a warrant to collect your data, they also can't buy
| it from third parties.
|
| We also need privacy protections so these companies wouldn't
| exist in the first place.
| wintermutestwin wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_doctrine
| whimsicalism wrote:
| I absolutely think that the government should be able to
| purchase data in order to conduct investigations.
|
| Unlike private actors, governmental actors are publicly
| constrained in their actions and representatives of the will of
| our society.
| artificialLimbs wrote:
| >> Unlike private actors, governmental actors are publicly
| constrained in their actions and representatives of the will
| of our society.
|
| Are you aware of the term 'unelected bureaucrat', and do you
| know how many of them exist? They are accountable to no one.
| They continually prove to be significant problems.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Even the most unelected bureaucrat in America is more
| representative of the will of the people than a middle
| manager at Facebook.
| nostromo wrote:
| I'm more afraid of police and local prosecutors than
| anyone at Facebook, including Zuck himself.
| ruined wrote:
| the subpoena system, for all its failings, is that public
| constraint. if it can be circumvented, that constraint
| effectively no longer exists.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| The requirement of a subpoena doesn't prevent the
| government from taking actions that private actors could
| legally do, it compels private actors to act according to
| state whims.
|
| If someone volunteers information, it is not a
| "circumvention" of the subpoena.
|
| Breaking into Google and stealing information for a
| criminal investigation would be circumventing it.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| > The requirement of a subpoena doesn't prevent the
| government from taking actions that private actors could
| legally do
|
| Irrelevant. Gov wants data, Gov gets a narrowly targeted
| warrant first. Beyond this lies 4A violations.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| Can the government buy an autobiography I wrote detailing
| my crimes to help their investigation? Or is that a 4th
| amendment violation?
| david-cako wrote:
| Why should dark web data brokers get to look at all of my nudes
| but not the Supreme Court?
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| Web data brokers can't legally kick in your door and kill
| everyone inside.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| Neither can the government generally.
| alksjdalkj wrote:
| If a private company can buy the data why shouldn't the
| government be able to?
|
| The real solution is to not allow the data to be sold to
| anyone.
| pfortuny wrote:
| Because the Government has a strictly limited power: it is
| _subsidiary_.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| There are plenty of things government can do that private
| industry does not have the ability to do.
|
| Making transactions (and even paying informants for
| information) are and should be within the power of the
| government.
| VRay wrote:
| Private companies (theoretically/ideally) don't have the
| power of life and death over you
| azemetre wrote:
| But they do. Private companies have killed people with ill-
| made products [1], pollute our air and water [2], have
| purposely targeted people for harassment [3], and created
| drugs solely for addiction [4]. These examples only took 30
| seconds of thought.
|
| The idea that businesses (whether public or private) can't
| hurt me or my family is absurd.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisher-
| Price#Rock_'n_Play_reca...
|
| [2] https://www.consumerreports.org/water-
| contamination/how-frac...
|
| [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EBay_stalking_scandal
|
| [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sackler_family#Opioid_law
| suits
| gred wrote:
| More broadly, a monopoly on violence.
| callmeal wrote:
| >don't have the power of life and death over you
|
| Actually they do. See this for just one of the many ways
| they have that power:
|
| https://www.mercurynews.com/2007/12/21/teen-dies-hours-
| after...
| baldeagle wrote:
| Like literally, the amount of instances where the
| government is weighing life/death is very small, even
| smaller at the federal level (most death penalty cases are
| against state laws). If you're meaning in the 'government
| programs can greatly affect my quality of life', then
| private companies can totally do that too - through
| targeted advertising.
| saintsmeeze wrote:
| I'm not sure if this is satire/sarcasm. Are you comparing
| the power to imprison people with targeted advertising?
| sennight wrote:
| Like literally, that is the basis for state power -
| several iterations of "...or else" finally end with "we
| kill you". Private companies don't enjoy that privilege -
| because they don't have the power to distinguish murder
| from justifiable homicide.
| nescioquid wrote:
| That the government has power over you at all is what
| matters, not how often it exercises that power against
| you. Already parallel case construction is a troubling
| problem (given the warrantless domestic surveillance).
| Grant the government access to surveillance capitalism /
| ad tech, and now you've got another vector to launder
| evidence.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| not to mention the power to imprison you.
| nobody9999 wrote:
| I'd go farther than that and say that such data shouldn't be
| collected in the first place.
| mywittyname wrote:
| We can't rely on SCOTUS to make this ruling for another 50+
| years, so our best hope is to start with state legislators. The
| majority of law enforcement happens at a state level, and most
| state legislators aren't as hamstrung as the federal one is, so
| this is the easiest way to achieve the most impactful results.
|
| Also, POTUS is in charge of most federal law enforcement
| agencies. So it might be possible to handle this at a federal
| level through an executive order. Obviously, this doesn't have
| the staying power of a proper law, but it's something.
| nostromo wrote:
| I'm not so pessimistic. United States v. Jones showed that
| both wings of the court can unite to push back on this kind
| of overreach.
| mmcdermott wrote:
| Feels like it would be more airtight to amend the
| Constitution. Why hope that precedence falls a certain way
| instead of removing any ambiguity from the law?
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| There's a good chance the Constitution covers this now.
| What we need are uncompromised courts to hear and rule on
| 4A violations.
| mywittyname wrote:
| I don't necessarily believe a Constitutional amendment is
| necessary, since this would be a law limiting government
| reach, not extending it.
|
| In all likelihood, the amendments text would look something
| like:
|
| > Section 1: The fourth article of amendment to the
| Constitution of the United States is hereby extended to
| include information or detail held, owned, or otherwise
| under the custody of those other than the accused.
|
| > Section 2: The Congress shall have power to enforce this
| article by appropriate legislation.
|
| Which then necessitates some accompanying legislation to
| further clarify. But I'm pretty confident we can get there
| through legislation alone.
| Cederfjard wrote:
| The last amendment to the US constitution that was proposed
| and then ratified came in 1971. With bipartisanship being
| what it is today, do you think there's any chance of
| pushing another one through at this point in time? The bar
| is high, and American politicians are loathe to give any
| opponents perceived wins, even if it's regarding
| overwhelmingly popular policies.
|
| Sure, you're probably right that it'd be more airtight.
| It'd also mean an almost herculean effort. It's probably
| best to explore other options as well.
| kingkawn wrote:
| Between 1971-72 there were 2,500 politically motivated
| domestic bombings in the US. Partisanship now, as bad as
| it is, doesn't come close to that level of violence.
| icelancer wrote:
| >> We can't rely on SCOTUS to make this ruling for another
| 50+ years
|
| If that's a comment about the bureaucracy working slowly as
| hell, that is reasonable. If it's about the makeup of the
| court, I disagree.
|
| Kavanaugh and especially Gorsuch are two you want on the
| court in this case.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| We just need members of Congress to have embarrassing info or
| evidence of criminality exposed by data broker collection.
| Then they'll seal everything up like with video rental
| records.
| closeparen wrote:
| Almost all investigative work is asking people to share
| information that they don't legally have to.
| swayvil wrote:
| We need to make a law that says the wolves can't eat the sheep
| [deleted]
| jonathankoren wrote:
| Third party doctrine has been decided on a case by case basis
| with respect to the type of data provided. Recently the SCOTUS
| has been pushing back on this, in particularly around automatic
| data sharing intrinsic to the operation of a device, such as
| cell phone location records.
|
| However, no one has gone as far as Utah in requiring warrants.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_doctrine
|
| https://www.wired.com/story/utah-digital-privacy-legislation...
| austincheney wrote:
| Why? I understand the subject is unpleasant but I don't see
| anything that remotely qualifies as legal over reach.
|
| Users must sign a consent statement to a _terms of services_
| agreement. That is a voluntary action where users erode their
| own privacy protections and surrender their contributions.
| Anything that happens later is completely incidental and solely
| between the data owner (which is not the user) and the third
| party.
| JasonFruit wrote:
| Not a Supreme Court ruling: if there's no law outlawing it,
| there's no basis for them to rule against it. Do you really
| want five unelected, unaccountable lawyers deciding this
| matter?
| nostromo wrote:
| Here you go:
|
| "Amendment IV: The right of the people to be secure in their
| persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable
| searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants
| shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or
| affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be
| searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
| downandout wrote:
| If SCOTUS outlawed buying the data, they'd just find ways
| around that too. Maybe they'd just start creating apps and
| directly monitoring people. With an unlimited marketing and
| development budget, they could wind up on the majority of
| Americans' phones pretty fast. Depending on the kinds of apps
| they created, they might get warrantless access to millions of
| bank accounts, text messages, emails, video conferences, full
| real-time location tracking, and more.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| If this wasn't mentioned in "Dragnet Nation" (2014) it was at
| least (strongly) suggested.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragnet_Nation
|
| That is, once data is on the open market (including at dark web)
| then a gov acquiring it is a click or two away.
| austincheney wrote:
| It stands to reason that the government won't need a warrant to
| gather criminally admissible data from a service broker if it is
| voluntarily transferred to the government and the service broker
| forced its users to agree to a _terms of service_ agreement.
|
| I also see lots of talk in the comments about a social credit and
| hiring potential. There are no restrictions on hiring software
| developers. As horrible as a social credit sounds at least its
| some kind of guardrails, where now there are none. In any system
| without constraints there is maximum potential for implicit bias.
| cromka wrote:
| Yeah, but GDPR is pain in the ass and all such, right?
| AlexandrB wrote:
| This is not a new take, but I think "the west" is effectively
| building their own version of China's social credit. It's just
| distributed among a range of private companies and accessed via
| subpoena or contract. The fact that the government doesn't
| operate most of it directly is largely irrelevant to those
| negatively affected by it and in some ways makes the situation
| worse (who do you even contact to correct inaccurate
| information?).
| [deleted]
| m0zg wrote:
| Utah released plans for the new electronic ID a couple of weeks
| back which, among other things, would contain your "vaccination
| status" and "social credit scoring".
|
| Conservative press is abuzz with this (including photos of the
| promo leaflet), liberal press is dead silent. Since nobody on
| this site will believe a conservative news source, I'm not even
| going to bother providing a link. If you're in Utah, ask your
| local government to put an end to this horseshit before it's
| too late.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| Sevastopol wrote:
| > "the west" is effectively building their own version of
| China's social credit.
|
| China's social credit system allegedly assigns (or will
| assign?) all citizens scores and punishes them for social
| wrongdoings. The IRS has always been tasked with auditing and
| catching tax cheats, the Treasury always went after people who
| violate economic sanctions. What's the similarity other than
| data collection?
| [deleted]
| FpUser wrote:
| The similarity is global system of collecting every piece of
| data about citizens.
|
| You start with the little. Due to complexity and sheer
| amounts of laws, bylaws etc. each one of us breaks few of
| those every day. The systems like the one being mentioned
| will eventually be able to track those as well making every
| citizen an offender. Then when the time comes who do you
| thing they will choose to prosecute? Most likely those pesky
| human rights advocates and other similar people who are
| already monitored.
|
| I think unless some "Reset" button is pushed we will end up
| exactly like this. End up on various lists (already
| happening) and private companies denying vital services.
| B1FF_PSUVM wrote:
| > What's the similarity
|
| Wasn't there some kerfuffle a few years ago about "special
| attention" being given to political targets?
|
| (Cue Richelieu's "six lines")
| LogonType10 wrote:
| The fact that we were allowed to discuss and protest this
| "special attention" shows that we are a far, far ways away
| from China's Social Credit system.
| travoc wrote:
| Why do you need more similarities? The mass data collection
| completes the system.
| avs733 wrote:
| Private corporations are collecting the data, the state is
| just buying it, and I doubt they are the only customer.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| Yep. As has often been said, everything you do online is
| (or you should assume to be) public. There are no
| secrets.
| fsflover wrote:
| Also, everything you do on your Windows PC (and soon on a
| Mac).
| halfmatthalfcat wrote:
| You're assigning intent without any basis in fact.
| kelnos wrote:
| Because we need to understand the purpose of the data
| collection and what bad things might happen because of it.
|
| If Treasury is using this data to catch people who violate
| economic sanctions, ok. If the IRS is using this data to
| catch people who cheat on their taxes, ok. I don't love
| either of those things, but they are using the data only to
| do things that have been defined as their job to do for a
| long time now.
|
| There doesn't seem to be any evidence that any of this data
| is going to be used to penalize people
| financially/economically for "social infractions", or to
| penalize people in unrelated ways (like, you missed
| payments on your credit card so you aren't allowed to ride
| on a train). If there was, then sure, that's cause for
| worry.
| gmadsen wrote:
| I think history has shown enough times, that there needs
| to be a bigger barrier than, "no evidence currently that
| this data will be used in ways that differ from the
| stated reason"
| Jarwain wrote:
| I think the barrier is that if people getting canceled
| impacts their credit score, or if their credit directly
| impacts their ability to travel or get a job, there'd be
| a lot of social unrest. Especially in a country where
| people's perception and politics plays a huge role in the
| functioning of the government
| artificialLimbs wrote:
| >> There doesn't seem to be any evidence that any of this
| data is going to be used to penalize people
| financially/economically for "social infractions"
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRS_targeting_controversy
| drunkpotato wrote:
| The IRS did nothing wrong here, and it certainly is not
| an example of the IRS penalizing people for social
| infractions. As with any movement with lots of money and
| momentum and rapidly gaining popularity, there were a lot
| of fraudsters capitalizing on the Tea Party movement's
| name and engaging in shady tax dodging practices. The IRS
| was correct to subject them to increased scrutiny.
|
| In terms of the facts involved, this has nothing to do
| with China's social credit score. Note that I am strictly
| talking about the facts involved, not the political
| fallout and usual bloviating.
| kelnos wrote:
| That's bad, but is not what we're talking about here. Not
| to mention it was a big scandal and that practice (which
| was not supported by any law or legal policy) has
| stopped. The China-style social credit system people
| worry about is something done on purpose, as designed,
| out in the open.
|
| Can we stop taking isolated incidents and framing them as
| official policy?
| eindiran wrote:
| > what bad things might happen because of it
|
| > can we stop taking isolated incidents and framing them
| as official policy
|
| Which do you actually want? What bad things that might
| happen because of it, or that list of bad things
| massively trimmed down to just what the US government
| publicly sanctions as official policy?
| beambot wrote:
| Don't forget to add parallel construction to the list of
| options too: bad things that then help make a separate
| case using sanctioned methods.
| halfmatthalfcat wrote:
| >>> In January 2014, James Comey, who at the time was the
| FBI director, told Fox News that its investigation had
| found no evidence so far warranting the filing of federal
| criminal charges in connection with the controversy, as
| it had not found any evidence of "enemy hunting", and
| that the investigation continued. On October 23, 2015,
| the Justice Department declared that no criminal charges
| would be filed.
| FpUser wrote:
| >"Because we need to understand the purpose of the data
| collection and what bad things might happen because of
| it."
|
| And government would of course never abuse the data it
| has. We've heard that before. The have, they do and they
| will keep doing it.
| coralreef wrote:
| The FBI needs file hashes of every photo on everyone's
| phone. It will help detect abusers of cp/illegal content.
|
| It is the mandate of the FBI and their job for a long
| time now to stop those things.
|
| There doesn't seem to be any evidence that these hashes
| would be used to penalize people in other ways, but if
| there was then sure, that's cause for worry.
|
| /parody
| mulmen wrote:
| Selective enforcement is more American than apple pie and
| baseball.
| whiddershins wrote:
| Look at the prosecution of Aaron Schwartz, where the
| prosecutor plainly indicated Aaron's political views were
| motivation for being so zealous.
| drunkpotato wrote:
| I agree that's bad, but what does it have to do with the
| current conversation? It seems like a non sequitur.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| > There doesn't seem to be any evidence that any of this
| data is going to be used to
|
| Irrelevant. Get a targeted warrant, then get limited
| data.
| ljm wrote:
| Maybe you didn't consent to the data being sold, yet it
| was sold anyway?
|
| In the US, except in California perhaps, you have no
| recourse. In the EU, that's a violation of GDPR and
| various local data protection laws. Elsewhere, unclear.
| boringg wrote:
| Agree with Sevastopol how is it even similar?
|
| I ask, honestly, if anyone else one here is seeing a large
| influx of intentionally skewing of what the US does and makes
| it comparable to some terrible policy that China does. It
| really feels like there are a lot of people with strong
| Chinese interests mudding the waters of debate by equating
| the US with China. Feels very much like the Russian
| disinformation campaigns as Trump as elected except smarter
| and Chinese oriented.
| triactual wrote:
| Yes, this is common in user comments on several otherwise
| intellectually useful sites. It almost always takes the
| form of a reasonable take followed by a comparison to China
| and an insinuation that the US version may be worse. The
| commenters have the same playbook to work from because the
| Russians wrote it in the mid 20th century.
| edgyquant wrote:
| Yes this is happening everywhere from Reddit to HN.
| FpUser wrote:
| >"It really feels like there are a lot of people with
| strong Chinese interests mudding the waters of debate by
| equating the US with China."
|
| What you say feels to me as Joseph McCarthy has just sprung
| back to life.
| passer_byer wrote:
| > What you say feels to me as Joseph McCarthy has just
| sprung back to life.
|
| No need to go that far back in the history of the U.S.
| Government spying on it's own citizens. In the late
| 1960's, the Nixon Administration used IRS data to spy on
| Vietnam war protesters, Dr. Martin Luther King, members
| of the Student's Non-Violent Coordination Committee, and
| other American citizens critical of the administration's
| foreign policy[1].
|
| Human behavior being what it is means that eventually
| someone in the U.S. government will be tempted to use
| this data for nefarious purposes. Why should US citizens
| live in a survaillence state contrary to the Bill of
| Rights?
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee
| edgyquant wrote:
| I feel like equating someone asking why pro-Chinese
| sentiment seems to be taking place with McCarthyism is
| dishonest and a quick way to shut down a legitimate
| question.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| Is there a United States senator in this thread
| compelling people to testify, and then ruining their
| careers and livelihoods over baseless claims?
| arcticfox wrote:
| I feel like McCarthyism requires pointing fingers in
| particular directions with no evidence. Neither was done
| there
| FpUser wrote:
| It is exactly what was done here: blaming people with
| having "strong Chinese interests" with no evidence.
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| This is a common strategy in American politics. If you can
| get the public to associate something with
| China/Russia/communism/bad person then you have the
| American public on your side. So I wouldn't necessarily see
| it as just people with strong Chinese interests.
| arcticfox wrote:
| It would be silly for the Chinese _not_ to be doing this.
| Extremely low cost [1], low risk, measurable effects, etc.
|
| And the PRC is not a silly government - therefore my prior
| is very strong that it's taking place on a grand scale.
|
| [1] a cruise missile is ~$2M...you could hire dozens of
| skilled astroturfers for a year for that, and you can't
| even use missiles against the US due to MAD...
| munk-a wrote:
| Pretty much everyone in the west gets a credit score the math
| of which is nebulous and proprietary. It is increased by
| acting in a desireable manner even if that manner is
| unhealthy or unproductive for the individual - and a lot of
| random BS can go into the math that we can't even see.
|
| In the west these things aren't public so it isn't the
| government grading you - but you still are very much being
| graded by private corporations. Since we have no idea what
| they're actually using to grade us we can't confidently say
| they aren't using any "social misbehavior" we'd find
| offensive.
|
| If these programs were run by the government we could file
| FOIA requests - but with private organizations we're S.O.L.
| kelnos wrote:
| I don't think I really see evidence of this. I mean, the IRS
| wants to catch people who cheat on their taxes. That's
| something they've been empowered to do for a long time. And
| when they catch people for that, they audit them, perhaps take
| them to court, and fine them. Which seems reasonable.
|
| If the IRS is going to start telling people they aren't allowed
| to ride trains or get on airplanes because they applied a
| deduction to their taxes in a way that's not allowed, then we
| should worry; that sounds like the China-style social credit
| system people talk about. But I don't see that as being
| realistic; the IRS doesn't have that kind of power.
| burnafter185 wrote:
| Well, I think to be fair to this, we had ought to look at the
| expansion of government agencies. The ATF, NSA, CIA, FBI,
| FDA, and so on and so forth are all additions to power. It's
| not a far reach to assume that granted some new ability to
| "remedy" some social ill, that establishment of some new
| agency is probable with implied powers and the necessary and
| proper clause. And it's really not necessarily _just_ the
| IRS, but setting a precedent, there are various agencies that
| have been leveraging data-broker deals to track individuals.
| The more agencies jump on this the closer we get to
| crystallizing the behavior. If that 's the case, it seems
| like a considerable hazard, which in the end could lead to
| some real consequences in the future. We've seen democracies
| turn into empires, and emperors of all kinds inherit those
| powers. This is the sort of gravitas no man, nor government
| had ought to be permitted to wield.
| wongarsu wrote:
| Being able to correct inaccurate information is an often
| underappreciated but important part of the GDPR. It's also
| probably the biggest motivation why you have a right to ask any
| company what data they have stored about you: so you can spot
| mistakes in the data of rating agencies. The other use cases
| are more of a nice bonus.
| gred wrote:
| Has anybody studied or quantified the evolution of "effective
| liberty" over time in the US? Say you buy groceries once per
| week. That activity might have triggered 1 governmental control
| touchpoint in 1800 (sales tax?), but in 2020 it might have
| triggered _many_ more due to increased automation, logging and
| third-party delegation. All of this, of course, without
| fundamental changes to the Law of the Land -- simply because
| some of the assumptions built into our core restrictions on
| governmental power no longer hold.
| ectopod wrote:
| Sales taxes weren't a thing then. Before the 20th century
| government played pretty much no part in the average person's
| life.
| wmf wrote:
| From what I've read China's social credit system does not yet
| incorporate any non-financial information; that part is more
| aspirational.
| azekai wrote:
| That is the narrative the CCP pushes. 'It is just like a
| government run checking score.' But it isn't. Crimes,
| including political ones, will penalize your social credit
| score. If your score falls too low, you and your children
| will become ineligible for government programs and
| assistance.
| trasz wrote:
| [citation needed]
|
| What you describe is something that is often said, but I'm
| yet to see any reliable sources; everything turns out to be
| editorials based on some plans that never got implemented.
| tehjoker wrote:
| Wait until the US public finds out about the concept of a
| credit score (new in the 1980s).
| mc32 wrote:
| Credit score for ghee most part tries to assure lenders you
| can repay your debts.
|
| Social credit score is about how close you hew to proscribed
| behavior at large.
| mywittyname wrote:
| Credit scores are used as a proxy for Ideal Citizenship. It
| just so happens to have baked into it enough plausible
| deniability as to not run afoul of anti-discrimination
| laws.
|
| Turns out, a lot of "bad" actions result in missed bill
| payments.
| mc32 wrote:
| In a semi anonymous society how else do you suppose one
| should determine the creditworthiness of someone?
|
| It used to be the merchant had to know you and you had to
| build up your credit with each merchant over time. Credit
| scoring made it easier for merchants and customers to
| issue and leverage we credit.
| mywittyname wrote:
| My comment might come off as an indictment of credit
| scores. But it really isn't.
|
| They absolutely solve the problem that you are pointing
| out. But they also serve to kind of solve a whole class
| of other problems around identifying behaviors that
| correlate with bad credit scores.
|
| For example, if you're a land lord who vehemently opposes
| divorce, it's possible to use a poor credit score as
| cover to deny renting to this middle-aged guy who is
| clearly just gone through one.
| mc32 wrote:
| Sure but previous to credit scores what was the option?
| References from friends and business acquaintances?
|
| Sure credit scores aren't perfect but they are better
| than the legacy alternative.
| salawat wrote:
| ...Excuse me? Is there a way that could be better
| rephrased?
|
| What was the option for what? You're replying to a post
| about discriminating against a divorcee, but having the
| landlord hide it behind the justification of "bad
| credit".
|
| Not to be the missing antecedent police, but are you
| referring to by 'ther option' the pre-existing excuse to
| paper over arbitrary discrimination, or to practice of
| lending/renting in general?
|
| The answer is sadly important to the final assessment of
| meaning. I don't think you mean the former, but I figured
| I'd be daft and ask.
| duped wrote:
| Maybe we shouldn't have mountains of consumer debt
| whimsicalism wrote:
| My understanding was it basically was providing a way to
| incentivize indigent people to behave the law by imposing
| penalties for failing to pay fines.
|
| In the US, fines are mostly meaningless if you are poor as
| debtor prisons are (rightfully) illegal.
| getcrunk wrote:
| In the civil context, which you obviously intended, this
| true. Unfortunately many people are (back) in jail
| because they can't afford to pay criminal court
| fines/probation fees
| adventured wrote:
| > In the US, fines are mostly meaningless if you are poor
| as debtor prisons are (rightfully) illegal.
|
| You're overwhelmingly correct, however someone is going
| to shortly reply to your comment with a link to a story
| about how someone somewhere got jailed over a debt and
| how debtor prisons are making a comeback. It's
| extraordinarily rare in the US.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Yes, and also wage garnishment is another thing that is
| definitely a common thing.
| mc32 wrote:
| Wage garnishment is predominantly for child support and
| alimony, no? Is that a bad thing?
| throwawayboise wrote:
| And unpaid taxes.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| I don't think so.
| michaelbrave wrote:
| Credit score can affect employment, I.E. you can't get
| hired because you are too poor.
| artificialLimbs wrote:
| Is this actually true, or is it the case that you can't
| get financial related jobs because your credit score has
| been lowered by your past cases of poor handling of
| money?
| mc32 wrote:
| The education system utterly fails when it comes to
| educating students in financial literacy.
|
| They'd much rather teach them activism than actually give
| them useful tools for evaluating their finances and
| making good decisions.
| artificialLimbs wrote:
| Absolutely.
|
| This is a great primer for those completely unfamiliar:
| https://www.amazon.com/Basic-Economics-Thomas-
| Sowell/dp/0465...
| aspenmayer wrote:
| Failure to navigate a capitalist system of hoop-jumping
| due to lack of funds causes a self-fulfilling prophesy of
| poor performance at said hoop-jumping and associated poor
| credit scores. Blaming the victim comes to mind.
| artificialLimbs wrote:
| If I only pay my bills on time does my credit score go up
| in the US? Asking because I don't know, but if that is
| the case, not sure why you can call it 'hoop jumping'.
|
| I don't care for the credit companies, they're total
| scum. But I'm not sure how to do anything better.
| aspenmayer wrote:
| Try to build credit with a secured credit card and on a
| minimum wage. Decide which bills you have to pay late
| this pay period. After years of this, you'll be lucky if
| you can convert to an unsecured credit card, let alone
| maintain your (low) credit score, let alone improve it.
|
| Most folks in US can't even afford a $400 emergency
| expense. Good luck doing even that when your credit is
| maxed out and your car breaks down so you can't work.
| mattnewton wrote:
| Afaict, your credit score will likely be lower if you
| haven't had a credit card open for a long time, run your
| balances too close to the limit (available credit) on
| those cards, or don't use them at all. My understanding
| is that your bills, depending on their type, may not even
| bother reporting to the credit agencies, or only report
| when they believe you have failed to pay; reliable ones
| seem to be big loans like mortgages, student or auto
| loans, and then credit cards. Rent, utilities, etc
| haven't seemed to affect my credit positively (or if they
| do they haven't been noticeable compared to the first
| category)
|
| When I graduated, rented, and paid all my student loans
| off early and did not have a credit card my credit score
| actually went down significantly until I opened credit
| cards and used them regularly.
| nitrogen wrote:
| Average age of accounts is a pretty big factor in credit
| scores. Every bank will probably have its own proprietary
| rules for deciding when to offer credit, but the credit
| reporting agencies who generate a number use fairly well
| known criteria. Amount of credit, number of accounts,
| payment history, percentage of credit used, age of
| accounts, diversity of types of accounts.
| hn8788 wrote:
| Yep, that's all that's required for it, no hoops to jump
| through. The only catch is if you don't have any debt,
| you can't build credit, but it's pretty simple to get a
| credit card and pay it off every month.
| slongfield wrote:
| If they're credit bills, yes. If they're just phone,
| power, rent, etc, not unless you've specifically set them
| up to go to the credit reporting companies.
| nitrogen wrote:
| Some corporate landlords report all rental accounts, some
| only report if you default.
| evancox100 wrote:
| Or rent an apartment/house in many cases
| yurishimo wrote:
| While this is true on a very shallow level, most
| landlords are happy to rent to "high risk" tenants with
| increased deposits if you talk to them directly instead
| of taking your initial rejection at face value.
| throaway46546 wrote:
| More and more rentals are being gobbled up my big
| corporations. Finding someone to talk to who has the
| authority to make an exception can be nigh impossible.
| Iefthandrule wrote:
| Your credit score is run before you can buy a house or rent
| an apartment.
|
| We are already there.
| hunterb123 wrote:
| The difference between a credit score and a social credit
| score system is one is based on debt payment history and
| the other based on political dissent & debt payment.
|
| Currently saying "Lets Go Brandon" doesn't drop your
| credit score, in China you may lose quite a few points
| for posting that pesky bear that likes honey.
| Iefthandrule wrote:
| Having an arrest on your record is enough to bar your
| from job and housing, even if charges were dropped or you
| were found not guilty. That alone is enough of a chilling
| effect to affect behavior: for example, staying away from
| protests or not questioning a police officer.
|
| Again, we are already there.
| hunterb123 wrote:
| A criminal background check is not connected to your
| credit score and a convicted criminal charge is not the
| same as political dissent. Stop moving goal posts.
|
| I was arrested once and I got the charge expunged with
| community service. Hasn't affected my job applications so
| far.
| stonepresto wrote:
| We're doing it to ourselves. We're the ones who keep clicking
| "I agree", who keep feeding these companies. Of course they're
| going to look to make a profit off of your data, there's
| nothing stopping them because we willingly gave it up.
| tremon wrote:
| So your suggestion is for everyone to become digital hermits?
| Start sending snail mail invoices and writing checks again?
| the-dude wrote:
| First thing I was told when I arrived in the US in 2001 and was
| picked up by a friend from the airport : "If the police says
| _pull over to the shoulder_ , stop at the side of the road".
|
| Second thing : "Credit score is really important".
| edgyquant wrote:
| Credit score isn't that important really. I have terrible
| credit (low 600s) and I was able to finance a car and live in
| a nice apartment. It might make buying a house more
| expensive, but I've also been able to raise it from the low
| 500s in the last year.
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