
Sidewalk Labs project means Toronto to have 'constitution-free zone,' CCLA warns - emptybits
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/sidewalk-labs-quayside-waterfront-toronto-constitution-free-zone-ccla-letter-1.5044813
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darkpuma
> _" Sidewalk Labs recently offered a glimpse at a handful of high-tech
> prototypes it hopes to launch. These include hexagonal sidewalks that light
> up to indicate a change in a street's usage and heat up to reduce ice and
> snow."_

This shit again? And now they have google on the hook too? Am I correct that
they've dropped the solar panels from it as well, so they've dropped any
pretense of this shit being anything other than an energy sink?

> _" Sidewalk Labs formally unveiled plans for Quayside, a new “smart”
> waterfront neighborhood in Toronto, last April, with the stated goals of
> conserving energy,"_

Yeah, when I think "conserving energy" I think using electricity to melt ice,
outside in the winter. What a farce. Godspeed to the CCLA.

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renholder
> _" People can't be watched all the time. They have a level of privacy and
> dignity and an ability to engage in free assembly or not. And the
> constitution protects that and creates that kind of country for us," he
> said._

I don't mean this as an affront but this is anthetical to one of their
principal allies' views, in that the inability to be watched at all times is
seen as a "direct threat" to security.

We need to conquer this on two fronts:

1\. Whether governments need to have access to everything 24x7.

2\. Whether businesses can subvert the desires of people whom don't expressly
give consent for such monitoring for sales.

For point 2, take into consideration someone who wants to visit a person
living in Quayside (pronounced: _key-side_ , for our American friends). If
they're not aware, they're caught in the dragnet surveillance of the area.
Sure the people living there _might_ consent to 24x7 monitoring but it
shouldn't be an automatic assumption that everyone will. Consider those in the
delivery services sector (e.g.: FedEx, UPS, the mail system, etc.) as a
principal example of where compulsion might lead to undesired consequences.

For point 1, I haven't any clue as to what to do about it. I get the rationale
behind _why_ security services might deem it a "necessity" to see all the
things, everywhere (especially, after being burned from 11 Sep) but, as has
been demonstrable from the past, there is nothing preventing it from being
abused. It's solely based on the "trust us" premise and that has never worked-
out well for anyone, given enough time.

~~~
darkpuma
Governments wanting something they cannot or should not have is nothing new,
nor is their fear mongering about security threats to get what they want.

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Wyndtroy2012
I have a better name for it, "Delta City".

Check out the pop culture classic, RoboCop, which besides being a popcorn
chewing action film, contains a rather cynical, but prescient, view on the
future of corporations and privatization of public interests.

For those unfamiliar or don't recall, in the film, the mayor signs a deal with
the mega-corporation Omni Consumer Products (OCP) will be allowed to turn the
run-down sections of Detroit into a high-end utopia called Delta City. Much
fun, crime and corruption ensues.

Sidewalk Labs wants to make a better world for us. Ha. "I'll buy that for a
dollar."

~~~
jacobush
Paul Verhoeven is very prescient.

~~~
jakamau
Not just Paul Verhoeven but the writers Neumeier and Miner, as well.

"You'll see that we've gambled...

...in markets usually regarded as nonprofit.

Hospitals. Prisons. Space exploration.

I say, good business is where you find it."

-OCP's Senior Vice President Richard "Dick" Jones

~~~
zaphod12
I disagree with the sentiment around space exploration. Having government
involved to support the science is very valuable, but private enterprise has
driven exploration for a long time and hopefully could open frontiers more
quickly.

I vastly agree with the sentiment on prisons and hospitals, however. Prisons
in particular make me so angry I could explode. Feels like a fundamental
violation of the moral imperative upon which our society exists.

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zeropnc
I sometimes wonder if the future of humanity sees the decline of the state,
and people just live on corporate land (Sidewalk Labs as an early prototype of
this idea) protected by corporate militaries (Blackwater)

~~~
Freak_NL
You're not far off.

An interesting tally was made recently¹ on the amount of privately owned land
in London that fulfils the role of public squares, parks, and connecting
passages between public roads. There is a lot of it, and you don't really
notice it until you break their rules.

That is, if you are homeless, or just look destitute, or simply undesirable,
you can be legally ordered to move on. You can be brutally awakened from
napping on a (seemingly public) bench by private security appearing out of
nowhere, simply because the local government made a deal where the project
developer could do their project, as long as they provided a public square, or
replaced a public road with a private pedestrian passage; but they own it
rather than the public, and they can make their own rules there.

1: [https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/jul/24/revealed-
pseu...](https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/jul/24/revealed-pseudo-
public-space-pops-london-investigation-map)

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neilv
"'Not good enough': Toronto privacy expert resigns from Sidewalk Labs over
data concerns", 2018-10-21

[https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ann-cavoukian-
sidewal...](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ann-cavoukian-sidewalk-
data-privacy-1.4872223)

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FerosMorgen
The privatization of public spaces is a serious ongoing concern in all
Canadian urban centers. In its more insidious manifestations it gives
corporations power over homeless individuals' rights, by the removal of places
of rest, drinking fountains and the coercive removal of the homeless.

------
nv-vn
I get that there's privacy concerns over a neighborhood owned by Google (and a
government agency) but like... where did the notion that it's "constitution
free" come from? If it's partially run by the government then how can that
even be the case in the sense of "this is private property, so laws
restricting government don't apply?" And further, privacy concerns are totally
absent from the Canadian constitution as far as I can tell. This just seems
like one of those issues where people lose track of telling the truth in order
to push their narrative, like when Net Neutrality groups basically stated that
"Google will cost $1/search if we lose Net Neutrality!"

