
Against the backdrop of the crisis, the surveillance state is set to expand - nicedicerice
https://newrepublic.com/article/157693/congress-may-hand-bill-barr-keys-online-life
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gentleman11
Why stop with monitoring people’s online activities? Why not require always on
microphones, cameras, and location tracking on our phones/baby
monitors/alexas? Future history books won’t talk about the death of human
freedom in the late 21st century because such books will be censored by future
governments that have a million times more power to control their populations
than was historically the case.

~~~
bamboozled
The thing is, what happens then ?

What do these people in power do all day ? Sounds like it would be a rather
drab situation no ?

~~~
candiodari
You don't get it. It's not about just the people in power directly. It's about
power. Power in the West is very limited, even with high office. That's what
they want fixed "because they're powerless". Powerless to fix drugs. To fix
youth disturbances. To fix jobs "stolen". To entice their enforcers. To ...
It's about letting the people the government employs interfere to an ever
larger extent in your life. What you eat. Whether you smoke. Who you're with
(contact tracing, except not just for covid-19, but for crimes in general).

The thing is, the powers of the government, in reality, are pitiful. The vast
majority of crimes go unsolved. 80% in the best of places. For murders, a
little over half (BUT, keep in mind that most murders are passion murders.
Unplanned, heat of the moment, at least somewhat unplanned. E.g. someone
brings a weapon to extort someone, but ends up killing them not-quite-
accidentally-but-certainly-was-trying-to-avoid-it. "Real", planned, thought
out murders mostly go unsolved).

Once we start talking theft, solve rates drop below 15%, and drop fast. It's
also just not worth it to anyone to pursue those. Not that you get your stuff
back if the police does solve the crime so I'm a bit unclear why anyone would
_want_ the police to solve most crimes. It doesn't help victims except perhaps
in the revenge department.

And of course, this is actual, physical, what some people would call "real"
crimes. Many other types of crimes ... An example: when it comes to tax
evasion (sales tax evasion in California, for example, which is definitely
illegal) they essentially catch 10 culprits per year, no more.

They want their power to actually apply, and ask the police brass how to do
that. The answer is predictably: more surveillance, more automated access to
private info for the state, more ways to attack individuals, more ways for the
police/state to "do something" while avoiding the court system (or going
through a court system without any rights for defendants, like youth courts.
Did you know, kids can get legally locked up for decennia (yes, plural) for a
crime they can prove they didn't commit).

For example, now there's a solid 30-40% of people flouting covid-19
restrictions. But in general people totally disregard most laws most of the
time, especially youths (never mind that that's allowed for most laws: as long
as there's no damage to anyone you're actually allowed to violate the law, or
at least cannot be punished for it).

Everybody in the police force, justice system, FBI, NSA, ... wants these
statistics to change drastically. They never do. Everywhere the police steps
up enforcement, people immediately want them to stop. So the police brass
wants automated enforcement, automated gathering of evidence. They want
contact tracing so they can just charge the nearest suspicious individual and
have _something_ in court, like location. Or that "the suspect lied" about
location to the police, for instance. Never mind that this can be defeated by
someone planning a crime with a level of ease that's absurdly low.

They want a spy state so they "solve" crimes (that means they have an arrest,
and a conviction, they do NOT mean solve, and certainly do not mean making
victims whole, anyone with half a brain knows that criminals as a rule cannot
make victims whole, and certainly cannot do so with the american justice
system imposed on them).

Furthermore, under the table, they want to present these systems as a reward
for their people, the people they hire, people in their department, etc.
Ideally just for them to be "cool" (and not, like keeps happening, to enable
police officers to stalk and rape their ex-girlfriend for years). They want to
use it to get rid of "disturbances" (people that live close to "nice" people
who act weird, or are noisy, but within the law, or ...). They want to use it
to punish people who don't do things the right way, e.g. making a lot of money
without a "proper job".

And of course they want to use this for racist purposes.

Surveillance is just one component of this. They also want ways to convict and
lock up people without having to go through proper justice channels, where
actual proof is required, and there's 10 layers checking if what people "in
power" do is entirely legal. They want protection for themselves, and
government itself, against the justice system (just look up damages and
punishment for locking someone up with a wrongful conviction ... does that
seem reasonable to you? Now compare to a private person imprisoning someone
they don't like ...)

These people want power. So their "superiority" cannot be challenged in any
way whatsoever, to enforce it using brutal violence. And the big problem
always turns out to be the same: they're not actually superior. And then some
kid born to a divorced ex-drug addict mother has a commercial success and
seriously threatens the "decent" business interests of the local politicians
... Or has a relationship with their daughter "that will destroy her". Or ...
That's what power is for.

~~~
justwalt
There does seem to be a type of person who just wants power due to some deep
psychological drive, and won’t or can’t look at the bigger picture to consider
the cost to society for them to get it.

------
clairity
we, the people of the united states, need to forcefully push back on this
encroachment. we lost the advantage when politicians fell all over themselves
rushing to grab emergency powers, and the timid majority not only did not take
pause at this, but begged for more.

instead of allowing millions of entities the freedom to tackle the crisis from
millions of vantage points, we let politicians collapse that down to
essentially a few dozen governmental entities in charge, amassing power in
people who have adverse incentives to the populace. we willingly gave up most
of our optionality and diversity in tackling the challenge.

the better configuration, imho, is a set of governments primarily organized
around gathering and disseminating crucial information openly and
transparently for all (which they currently do as well). as the nexus of
critical information, those governments would then also focus on connecting
people and businesses who can advance the democratic goals of the polity.
politicians are leaders of their departments and representatives of the
electorate, _not the other way around_ (as currently acceded).

~~~
phone8675309
I wonder if the same people that are out, armed, in front of state capitols
just so they can get their hair done or go out to a restaurant will show up,
equally armed, equally angry, and equally willing to vote against politicians
invading their privacy by requiring electronic surveillance on every part of
their lives as a condition of opening up again.

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at-fates-hands
The debate about this bill has been going on for a while now.

Riana Pfefferkorn of CIS did a lot better job objectively addressing the
issues (sans the overt political cheap shots) in her article. It lays out why
it may be unconstitutional on several grounds. I'd recommend reading it if you
want more detail on the bill:

THE EARN IT ACT: HOW TO BAN END-TO-END ENCRYPTION WITHOUT ACTUALLY BANNING IT:

[http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2020/01/earn-it-act-how-
ba...](http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2020/01/earn-it-act-how-ban-end-end-
encryption-without-actually-banning-it)

~~~
samizdis
Thank you for posting that link. That post was far more informative and, as
you mentioned, avoided "cheap shots". This subject is best discussed without
politically partisan language; all of us are affected, regardless of how or
even whether we vote. Thanks again.

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annoyingnoob
We need more decentralized software, like skype was originally, where there is
no tech company with access that would have to 'earn it'. Taking away our
right to privacy while telling me your are saving children makes my skin crawl
- I can't think of a more anti-american act.

~~~
upofadown
We have tons of decentralized software already. We certainly don't need more.
We need to get people to use it.

~~~
annoyingnoob
Examples?

~~~
upofadown
Off the top of my head. OMEMO running on good old XMPP. OpenPGP running on
older but gooder SMTP, the only decentralized system that ever got really
popular. Heck, OpenPGP running on XMPP for the mashup.

All with lots of implementations both server and client. All more or less
ignored. Before suggesting we need new systems you pretty much have to figure
out what isn't working with the ones we have ... and real stuff, not unlikely
technical reasons that no one cares about ... and no, it isn't just bad user
interfaces. People will overcome any user interface if they actually care
enough.

~~~
annoyingnoob
Its really about usability for most people. OMEMO is a protocol not end-user
software. Can most people securely exchange PGP keys?

Skype took off originally because it was easy to use, even if it didn't always
work well. I still think we need better/new software.

~~~
upofadown
OK, but this always happens. There are always problems with the old stuff
(different problems for each) and all we have to do is overcome those problems
and everything will work. But identifying what is wrong with something does
not let us know what we should do going forward.

So what about the new thing: Matrix? What do we need to do there to make it so
it does not fall into obscurity like everything else?

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DethNinja
I wonder how this will affect American tech companies, will they relocate
their HQ out of USA? I guess every company operating in the USA will have to
implement this, I’m thinking about regionally dividing my customer base just
to leave Europeans higher amount of security with encryption but this is
costly for me as well.

~~~
Ididntdothis
Massive surveillance will be a boon for the big tech companies. They already
do everything they can to get as much data as possible. Even better, if it’s
government sanctioned.

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oceanghost
This is the proverbial line in the sand for me.

I am willing to riot and destroy things over this loss of freedom.

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uncletammy
Ron Wyden for president 2024

~~~
Ididntdothis
That’s one thing I don’t get. There are a lot of very impressive people like
Wyden out there but when it comes to running for president it seems the best
the country can come up with is Biden or Trump. Is running for president so
unpleasant that anybody halfways sane will not do this to themselves ? Or what
else is going on? How could the Democrats come up with a washed up 78 year old
and skip a lot of very capable younger people?

~~~
stOneskull
Tulsi seemed cool. It's weird.

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EE84M3i
I thought this said "Bill Burr", and that probably wouldn't be so bad.

Edit: original title was "Congress May Hand Bill Barr the Keys to Your Online
Life"

