Ryan Miller
Active member
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Surveillance in a Democracy
- Thread starter Ryan Miller
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emperorpenguin
Shock and Awe? More like Slack and Discord!
yes. if you don't want that, move.
japan77
High Prince of Growth
I would hold the viewpoint of no, but given the fact that basically anyone can track your data if they care about it enough, there is no severe advantage/disadvantage to the government tracking your data, as most likely Google and other corporations are doing the same thing, and won't stop, even if we made it Illegal.
grimmjow2000
Member
Good poll. This is a tough one tbh, there is no clear-cut yes or no. In an ideal world if the government used its swooping powers only with regards to security + safety of its citizens, then the answer would be a definite yes. But this isn't an ideal world, and more often than not these surveillance tools are used in fields other than security/safety.
bw55555
Active member
Both agreed. But an "either/or" system, not an "and" system. Either prove in court or on someone commiting suspicious acts/suspected potential terrorists/criminals with at least a bit of evidence.
Tevron
Member
If you're in the United States, it's a question of whether your government is giving you the protections rested in its own laws and Constitution. If you suggest moving is the correct course of action when your government breaks the law, you're sincerely incorrect.
Rin
Oathkeeper
That's exactly the problem isn't it? If everyone does it, there's not a lot of places left to move to. The same principle applies to every other rights violation. If some governments decide it's fine to strip search people in airports, it will become the norm.
japan77
High Prince of Growth
That's true. I'm just kinda curious why people are so worried about governments doing it specifically. Because basically every major corporation that can does track your actions. For example, Google does it if you use chrome or google to conduct any searches, as well as any actions you do on youtube, etc.
Rin
Oathkeeper
Well more that you can actually avoid corporations doing it. I personally absolutely hate LinkedIn's privacy policies and boycott that. If you don't like Google doing what they do, you have the option of DuckDuckGo. Don't like Chrome, use Tor.
But if you don't like the US government reading your emails, you can't practically move to Norway or whatever. These things take months and force you away from family. It's not like changing your email provider.
But if it were something you can't avoid, like banks or utilities, it would be a very bad thing.
japan77
High Prince of Growth
You do realize most US banks and utilities also track what they can right? That's why I've never really understood the argument. There's no realistic way around getting tracked at this point, as various corporations that you interact with are tracking your data in an attempt to try and maximize profit. Utilities and banks care about certain things due to the fact there is no data out there showing some interesting correlations regarding certain things.
Rin
Oathkeeper
A lot of that is anonymized data. So they will probably sell info like a 3 person household uses this much energy and when. But rarely the names and people involved. Statistics/big data is nice in that way.
Big difference to wiretapping where they track what you say about your boss. It's much less damage if they're just running numbers on how many people talk shit about their bosses.
Or Google and Facebook's business model is finding out that you have a stamp collection habit and then selling your personal info to people who want to look for stamp collectors.
japan77
High Prince of Growth
Yeah, I guess I can see that. I just run an adblocker 24/7, and don't visit sites that require me to turn it off, so I've never really cared. As for the government tracking, I'm actually kinda curious to your response regarding tracking being done by research institutions for big data purposes. I know a number of people that oppose NSA's tracking because it's personal, but don't oppose the research institutions.
Rin
Oathkeeper
I don't mind. I mean for example, every time you make a police report, it's tracked and used for data - where, when, what, just not always who. It's usually the who that creeps people.