Growth In Surveillance May Be Hard To Scale Back After Pandemic, Experts Say (theguardian.com) 96
Long-time Slashdot reader AmiMoJo quotes the Guardian: The coronavirus pandemic has led to an unprecedented global surge in digital surveillance, researchers and privacy advocates around the world have said, with billions of people facing enhanced monitoring that may prove difficult to roll back.
Governments in at least 25 countries are employing vast programmes for mobile data tracking, apps to record personal contact with others, CCTV networks equipped with facial recognition, permission schemes to go outside and drones to enforce social isolation regimes.
The methods have been adopted by authoritarian states and democracies alike and have opened lucrative new markets for companies that extract, sell, and analyse private data. One of the world's foremost experts on mobile phone surveillance said the pandemic had created a '9/11 on steroids' that could lead to grave abuses of power.
"Most of these measures don't have sunset clauses. They could establish what many people are describing as a new normal," Ron Deibert, who heads the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto, said in an interview with the Guardian.
The article provides examples from China, Russia, India, Europe, and the United States, and provides a link to an index of new coronavirus-related surveillance measures related to the coronavirus outbreak. The digital rights lead at the group behind the list says "This isn't just an issue with authoritarian governments. This is happening across the world."
Governments in at least 25 countries are employing vast programmes for mobile data tracking, apps to record personal contact with others, CCTV networks equipped with facial recognition, permission schemes to go outside and drones to enforce social isolation regimes.
The methods have been adopted by authoritarian states and democracies alike and have opened lucrative new markets for companies that extract, sell, and analyse private data. One of the world's foremost experts on mobile phone surveillance said the pandemic had created a '9/11 on steroids' that could lead to grave abuses of power.
"Most of these measures don't have sunset clauses. They could establish what many people are describing as a new normal," Ron Deibert, who heads the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto, said in an interview with the Guardian.
The article provides examples from China, Russia, India, Europe, and the United States, and provides a link to an index of new coronavirus-related surveillance measures related to the coronavirus outbreak. The digital rights lead at the group behind the list says "This isn't just an issue with authoritarian governments. This is happening across the world."
Whatever it takes (Score:2, Funny)
Whatever it takes to prove that Orange Man bad. Destroy the country or the economy, individual freedom, the entire planet, who cares? As long as we can get a Democrat in charge again! You guys need to realize how important this is.
Re: (Score:1)
Definitely. I mean, you know the biggest surveillance companies like Apple, Google and Amazon are all run by Republicans! How stupid are you?
Re: Whatever it takes (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Perhaps because those rights not explicitly assigned to the federal government rest with the states....
Re: Whatever it takes (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The federal government has no right to curtail free speech, so the states do? Thats not how it works. There are rights you have as an individual. The state and local governments can usurp a right just because the fed can't
That's exactly how it worked until 1868, when the 14th amendment was ratified. The federal government explicitly had no say in how the states were run internally. Many states had guarantees of various rights in their state constitutions (and still do), so there was that, but the federal government could not intervene.
After the Civil War and the ratification of the 14th amendment, the federal government acquired a duty to protect citizens from the states. The precise scope and degree of that duty is som
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Rather insightful comment, but contingent. In particular, the contingency that Covid-19 isn't nearly as bad as it could be. Don't you know about the zombie apocalypse?
That's actually a rhetorical question since I don't do zombie books, movies, or even games. However, no one remembers The Andromeda Strain (from long before Crichton went nuts).
Re: Whatever it takes [to track YOU] (Score:2)
I'm Israeli, and at least here, it is Trump's allies in the country that call for increasing surveillance. I suspect that this is true for other countries and will become true for Republicans themselves at some point.
But don't worry, you just keep blaming the SJWs.
Quoting you [lucasnate1] against the censor mods, presumably trolls whose skins you've gotten deeply under. Congratulations!
My own interest in this topic is limited. Anyone who believes in the technical safeguards on tracking to protect privacy is a fool. If someone wants to track YOU using this software, then it is fundamentally impossible to stop "them". They would just expose you to someone who has the disease in question and then your tracking data is decrypted and sent up the chain where it can be comp
is it like Huxley or Orwell? (Score:2, Offtopic)
https://i.imgur.com/2H8gZq5.jp... [imgur.com]
Re: is it like Huxley or Orwell? (Score:2)
Maybe he means a bug in Populous [gog.com]. :D
Btw: Does that mean your usage surveillance boner is hard ... to scale back? :D
(Kidding. I'm totally for telling people to not be lazy fucks and write properly. It dumps effort on us. Effort that they should have done once, now has to be done by all of us, to parse and guess what they meant with their crap.)
Re: (Score:2)
Stop carrying cell phones with them everywhere, and wear regular watches, mechanical ones with no GPS.
That right there would thwart a lot of the current efforts.
I mean, just a couple of decades ago. EVERYONE did this and their lives were just fine and fulfilling....
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe, but those people did not have the ability to watch cat videos everywhere they go.
Re: (Score:2)
And the world was a MUCH better place for is...
Re: Pandemic may be hard to avoid without surveill (Score:3, Insightful)
"outdated philosophical reasons"?
Are you not a human, or literally insane?
Please go back to Xi Jinping's sexual fantasies.
Re: (Score:2)
If you have the tools to avoid a pandemic
These tools only work if you can tie a Covid test result to a biometric identity. Or you maintain a database of individuals allowed outside of their houses (Hello China).
The best national test coverage to date is around 10% (Iceland). For statistical use, this is fine. But it does no good for population control at an individual level. You can make decisions about the efficacy of certain quarantine policies. But you can't pick people out of the crowd based on facial recognition or smart phone tracking and p
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
If you trust your population, you don't need a government. If you trust your government, you don't need a constitution. However, as humans must govern humans, best to constrain government's power as narrowly as possible.
Re: (Score:2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7Rq-PEW5qM
Re: (Score:2)
My post above is a paraphrase of the guiding philosophy of the founding and Constitution of the United States. How fucked up is Slashdot these days that it's getting modded down. It'd like to think that was the Chinese troll army, but I dubt Slashdot rates their attention. Western totalitarianism has simply grow to a disturbing degree.
If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In forming a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.
--James Madison, The Federalist No. 51
Re: (Score:1)
My post above is a paraphrase of the guiding philosophy of the founding and Constitution of the United States. How fucked up is Slashdot these days that it's getting modded down. It'd like to think that was the Chinese troll army, but I dubt Slashdot rates their attention. Western totalitarianism has simply grow to a disturbing degree.
If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In forming a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.
--James Madison, The Federalist No. 51
But the Devil was the best and brightest of all the Angels and he fell from grace. Or so I'm told.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You can't trust people. You also can't trust government with this power. All programs like this do is surrender liberty to the government for the illusion of safety (from a threat that's pretty damn small to begin with, unless you're in a nursing home, and they have their own safeguards).
Re: (Score:2)
Aside from the occasional psychopath/sociopath, I can trust pretty much everyone within reason. And if Corona virus overwhelms the local health service, the death rate is on the order of 5% which is not a small risk. It is possible to make a smartphone app that can assist individuals in figuring out if they are at risk of being infected, so there is no loss of liberty there.
There are a few important caveats relating to the US. Not everyone can afford to seek medical care, nor can everyone afford to self iso
No Shit Sherlock! (Score:3)
Ctpn. Obvious and Ric Romero teamed up to bring you this information. /s
Re: No Shit Sherlock! (Score:2)
Sometimes, the news are that nothing changed where it was expected.
In which case it serves as a reminder and wake-up call to action.
Like it is valid to write "Tomorrow, it will be -10 degrees Celsius and snowing again, like the last entire month" in the middle of summer.
Re: (Score:2)
It sometimes helps to know that you're not the only one who understands something. Especially if the politicians claim that you are.
Were there updates? (Score:2)
"CCTV networks equipped with facial recognition, "
Were they updated to masked faces recognition?
Re: Were there updates? (Score:3)
China says they were.
Of course they make 1984 look like a paradise in comparison.
Re: (Score:2)
China says they were.
Of course they make 1984 look like a paradise in comparison.
Actually, China is a lot nicer than 1984, hard as that is to admit. They are way less intense on indoctrination. They are not in a perpetual war. The people are not starving and lacking everything. I think many that do the 1984 comparison have not actually read the book.
That said, 1984 is a worst-case scenario.
Re: (Score:2)
Never waste (Score:5, Insightful)
>"Growth In Surveillance May Be Hard To Scale Back After Pandemic"
Never let a good crisis go to waste. Most people are oh-so-ready to give up on the notion of freedom in the face of any threat to their safety. I am hoping that when this is "over", people will reflect, seriously, on just how dangerous it is to surrender civil liberties.
Re: (Score:3)
They didn't after Cambridge Analytica, they didn't after Snowden, they didn't after the PATRIOT Act, and they didn't after the Cold War ended.
It'd be nice if that happened this time, but I'm simply not convinced.
Re: (Score:1)
They didn't after Cambridge Analytica, they didn't after Snowden, they didn't after the PATRIOT Act, and they didn't after the Cold War ended.
It'd be nice if that happened this time, but I'm simply not convinced.
But the Patriot is temporary. So I was assured when I objected. So I was reassured after the FIRST time it was extended.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
I want to subscribe to this dudes newsletter.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes imagine a totalitarian future of total surveillance where every attempt to rebel is caught so early that only 1 or 2 people have to be executed to stop it. Permanent dictatorship. Freedom to do what the overlord says, when he says and how he says. The end of free will.
Re: (Score:1)
As long as Netflix still exists, I'm OK with that.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The 2nd amendment nutters who aren't anti surveillance should remember their claim that the 2nd is to allow the government to be over thrown if it becomes corrupt is useless if the government knows as soon as anyone begins to organize to use their weapons and can drop "Security" on them like a ton of bricks. So if anyone who is pro 2nd for that reason needs to be anti surveillance.
Re: (Score:2)
The 2nd amendment only allows you to have guns if you are not a criminal.
And whether you're a criminal is something defined by the law.
Now guess who makes that law.
Re: (Score:1)
The 2nd amendment only allows you to have guns if you are not a criminal.
And whether you're a criminal is something defined by the law.
Now guess who makes that law.
With the total surveillance society they will KNOW who has guns and what they intend to do with them.
Your Netflix? Edited to show only what the currently in power want. Same with everything else. All propaganda all the time.
Re: (Score:2)
Imagine a future, where/when all cities & towns have street surveillance cameras @ all their streets.
Imagine, they also have Facial (& Voice) (& License Plate) Recognition Tech!
Imagine, their videos also processed in real time by AI systems!
Realize, then, all criminals could be quickly found/caught!
Realize, then, all kinds of crime committed on the streets could be quickly detected & recorded as evidence!
Places today with ubiquitous surveillance, even prisons, syill have serious crime problems. Criminals know where the blind spots are, as no system is perfect, and that's enough.
It's the central challenge of constitutional govt. (Score:5, Insightful)
The things that government need to do for legitimate purposes all have illegitimate uses. Imprisoning people. Waging war. Taking things in the possession of one person and transferring them to another.
A disaster is a situation in which the normal ways of doing things aren't working. Governments have to acquire new capabilities. Because these capabilities are new, there are either no restrictions on government abuse, or those restrictions would also preclude responding to the disaster.
In a perfect world we'd quickly work out a system of laws which simultaneously empower and restrict the government. But we don't live in a perfect world. The fact that profit for politically-connected companies plays any role in determining how restricted government will be shows just how imperfect our world is.
Re: (Score:3)
>"In a perfect world we'd quickly work out a system of laws which simultaneously empower and restrict the government."
In the USA, we have as close to that as possible. It is called the Constitution. Both Federal Gov and States have them.
>"But we don't live in a perfect world."
Obviously. Because when push comes to shove, the Constitutions are ignored. That should be a major concern.
Re:It's the central challenge of constitutional go (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course that's the ideal of constitutional government. But the framers, talented as they were, weren't omniscient.
One of the things they didn't foresee is the intrusive power of technology. Constitutional limitations and early case law on police powers assume that suspicion and investigation are not a practical threat to liberty. They were expensive; you had to pay someone to follow a person around. Today an algorithm can put your name on the no-fly list without human intervention, and the marginal cost of following you around everywhere you go is zero. We face *algorithmic* suspicion and *automated* surveillance.
We're way out of our Constitutional depth here. Our Constitution doesn't even have an explicit right of privacy. Constitutional protections, such as they are, were cobbled together by the courts using the 9th Amendment. We've never *politically* nailed down our privacy rights.
So in this case, we're going to have to rely on the courts to infer what the Constitution *should* have said, or *would* have said if it were written now.
Re: (Score:2)
>"One of the things they didn't foresee is the intrusive power of technology. "
I couldn't agree more with what you said in that posting. As long as we cherish the word and intent of the original Constitution and Bill of Rights, I am very much in favor of increasing the protection of liberty and constraint of the government. The problem, it seems, is that so many think the principles are outdated, and thus, need "rewriting" or the weakening of liberty.
As far as privacy- there can be no freedom without p
Re: (Score:2)
People need to be reminded of the world the Constitution was written in, if they are eager to cite it. They didn't have cameras - not video cameras, nor cell phone cameras, nor 35mm, nor black & white plate-glass single exposure cameras - None. No cars. No trains. Getting a message from one continent to another might take the better part of a year - no phones, no telegraph. No grocery stores, most people had to ride for an entire day to a trading post where they could buy... seeds... to put in the groun
Re: (Score:3)
The blind deference and refusal to revise what was written hundreds of years ago looks a lot like dogmatic religion.
Probably because they realize who'd be rewriting the rules. In the 18th century there was no 911 to call, sure you could maybe ride into town to find the sheriff's office hours after the fact - if you're even alive at that point - but realistically the only defense was self-defense. Who genuinely thinks the right to privacy would be strengthened under the current conditions? It would be more like the government would really like to know who you've been in physical contact with in the last two weeks and put
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe what is needed is something like term limits; every five years a government organization has to face a vote as to continuation of existence.
Not a new idea, but it extends further: All laws have a short sunset provision and must be regularly passed by legislatures.
The problem is that the government just omnibuses everything now... so they will obviously do that then also.
Re: (Score:2)
once something is in place it is eternal.
That time when you pretended you had counted up the answer, not realizing you can't count to infinity.
Re: (Score:3)
Most increases of government power, any level, has been in response to emergencies. All of those strange, long-forgotten old local laws that every so often get cited in humor columns were responses to some temporary local crisis that were just nver sunsetted.
In Phoenix, AZ, there is an ordinance against driving around a circular street more than three times in a two-hour period. It was passed only about twenty years ago, to control teenage 'cruising' at two specific shopping malls. Today's teenagers ask, "G
It is not that it is hard to scale back... (Score:3)
Re: (Score:1)
Not only them. Look around you. Most mothers will vote for the possibility of finding out, where her kid is over the camera network. Only some of them will realize, their own movements will be just as trackable, and only some of those will object to it — most will say "I have nothing to hide!"
In a free country the government needs the consent of the governed — and it is, for better or worse, on the surveillance side...
Re: (Score:2)
If you have nothing to hide, let me spend a day in your life. No later than when you try to go to bed, I have a hunch you'd have a problem with me standing there and watching you sleep.
Reminder *why* it is so evil: (Score:5, Interesting)
For the same reason you don't put the cops' attention on you. You want to offer zero attack surface.
They might be only attracted by a little acceleration or a badly sounding motor, but if they are dicks, they will go through ALL your stuff *until they have found something*.
If somebody got the biggest stick (judge & force sized), and is a dick, all laws are irrelevant. He will just "interpret" and weave something out of the countless laws and made-up rules, to "catch" you. With any of a dozen completely normal things you did just this morning.
Are you gonna stand up to a whole army with the biggest sticks and tell them they are wrong and the law doesn't say that? The law that they can change too, by the way. Have fun being guilty until they are bored or distracted.
Always remember Cardinal Richelieu: :)
"If one gave me six lines of the most honest man, I'd find something to have him hanged."
If you wanna give it a try, reply with six realistic lines (~480 characters), and I will make an example out of you.
Re: (Score:1)
The solution is to give him way, way more than six lines, like Martin Luther. ;)
Re: (Score:2)
OK, I'll bite. I won't even cherry-pick something carefully crafted to disprove you; I'm grabbing my most recent post from social media that had more than two lines in it:
For a variety of reasons I have very little memories of my life before age 10, and not a whole lot better from 10 to 20. But I do have occasional brief flashes of early childhood memories.
One of them is the first time Papa took me to a barbershop. I probably remember that because the smell of aftershave was so strong, and I had no idea
Re: Reminder *why* it is so evil: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
So you're homophobic, I get it.
Re: (Score:1)
A financial windfall! (Score:2)
May I suggest (Score:2)
Lobbying against these laws has been an ongoing effort for me for over 25 years.
If you intend to address your concerns to your political representative I've learned the following things will make your efforts more effective:
1. Write a letter, print it on paper, sign it and post it to your elected representative. It sounds lame, but IIRC, they have a legal obligation to read the letters, not emails. The more letters that say the same thing the greater the impact.
2. Address the same letter to their co
Re: (Score:1)
7. Expect nothing in return and hostility for doing so. Expect disappointment
I have experienced this one a lot. The reply goes something like "I'm ignoring anything you just said and will be doing my own thing that doesn't match the desire of most of my constituents." The feeling I get is often, they didn't even read it and there's nothing I could have done to change their mind. We need to start voting smarter and not for a specific party.
Re: (Score:2)
7. Expect nothing in return and hostility for doing so. Expect disappointment
I have experienced this one a lot. The reply goes something like "I'm ignoring anything you just said and will be doing my own thing that doesn't match the desire of most of my constituents." The feeling I get is often, they didn't even read it and there's nothing I could have done to change their mind.
I've had some indicate they couldn't change their mind when they wanted to. Even so I should point out that you can occasionally have successes, where they do listen, so it's worth it for giving them the wiggle room to do something they can do.
We need to start voting smarter and not for a specific party.
That's possible now by voting for individual candidates based on what they stand for. It's harder than just voting for a party, but a little bit of thought it's not too difficult to establish a purpose to *why* you're voting for a certain representative.
History (Score:1)
Remember copyright was supposed to be for 14 years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] ? You don't because they made us thing it is essentially perpetual.
And social security tax was 2% https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org], and income tax was for the very rich only, and at 7% https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] . Those were supposed to keep us happy in retirement, and government running. Now they ask more than half of our income (at least here in California), and still not enough to cover what they promised.
Once t
Re: (Score:3)
The thing with taxes is I can see roughly how much I pay in taxes, and I have some idea what the government is doing with that money. To the extent that taxes have gone up over time it's because myself, and other voters, have generally chosen a level of government services that requires that level of taxation.
The trouble with the surveillance isn't that the pandemic requires some scaling up of surveillance, or that once that scaling up has happened we won't trim it back.
The trouble is we can't really tell h
Re: (Score:2)
o the extent that taxes have gone up over time it's because myself, and other voters, have generally chosen a level of government services that requires that level of taxation.
Most people in the US have no idea what their taxes are spent on, and imagine it's something useful like roads and courts, when all that sort of thing is less than 10% of government spending. We in the US really need an itemized tax receipt each year, as some countries have, which lists in detail how many of your dollars are spent on what, at least the top 20 or so items. Then we'd be making an informed decision.
Re: (Score:2)
The thing with taxes is I can see roughly how much I pay in taxes
No, you can't. How much were the companies who make the products you buy taxed? You paid those taxes, too, but it's pretty difficult to have any idea how much you paid.
Re: (Score:2)
(Taxes was one of the ways listed, that being said...)
Unfortunately we don't know where our taxes go, or in fact how much we pay in total.
For example, the fuel tax is supposed to go road construction and maintenance. In practice, it indirectly supports the chronically underfunded pensions: https://californiapolicycenter... [california...center.org]
Or they claim lottery monies go to education, but use this opportunity to cut previously allocated funds from general treasury: https://www.publicschoolreview... [publicschoolreview.com]
In terms of unknown tax, go
Re: History (Score:2)
Huh. Right about now... (Score:2)
the "mark of the beast" is sounding somewhat more credible where each person will be "marked".
Think symbolically, and not literally. (John wouldn't have understood electronic targeting at the time he wrote Revelations, and would have shared the info in terms people understood at the time.)
Unless this progresses to a physically burned/etched/tattoo'ed mark put on everyone as a parity check against people with phones (including those who have multiple phones), those without phones, or just people who refuse
Re: (Score:2)
Because people interpret things into things you actually did. I, for example, didn't do much today. I got up in the afternoon ("so you are lazy, getting up late all the time, sleeping in, do you even work?"), made me some fish an chips ("deep fried food? That's not healthy, do you even eat vegetables?"), then sat down and played a computer game ("more laziness? Seriously, do you even work?"), read a few comments online and commented on them ("and I bet you're a socialist, too, do you even support America?")
Choose One: High Population Density or Privacy (Score:1)
I'm afraid you can't have both.
Surveillance is here to stay.
It comes down to how you vote (Score:4, Insightful)
We're going to have more surveillance. That's unavoidable. We need automatic contact tracing if we're going to contain the virus while we work on treatments and vaccines; and that means surveillance. But there are technical & social solutions to prevent it from being abused. But we have to put people in charge who a) believe these systems can be a positive good and b) are willing to make changes as problems arise. That means electing people committed to governing and not the "Let's tear down everything, burn it!" types.
xkcd 1022 (Score:2)
Do you want to get the New World Order? /Archer
Because that's how you get the New World Order.
Keep on wearing the masks people (Score:2)
pluis some dark glasses and give all that TLA snooping the big finger.
behind the curtain...*ocracy (Score:2)
Silicon run economies defacto; atop privacy networks monitored by .govs, ruled by .orgs as Nomad society evolves...globally Oligarchs are King
Nothing hard about it at all. (Score:3)
There is nothing difficult about scaling back slowly as the threat diminishes to a manageable seasonal virus.
It is all dependent on the government/sate in any particular country you cast your eye on - some already have a level of surveillance that once was the stuff of science fiction. Others have far less.
It is ultimately up to focus groups to ring the alarm bells when governance is heading into that territory - there's no guarantee either way how that can pan out, but western democracy is pretty robust in it's disdain and dislike for too much prying from the state. Sure, that hasn't stopped it running with unaware open arms into the data goldmines of tech companies, but I predict a riot if the state tries to reach too far in countries which have a healthy amount of free speech.
No, it's not beyond the realms of imagination that change for the worse can happen, but given the fact that countries like China have had to allow a form of economic democracy to flourish, I very much doubt we're looking at anything Orwellian coming out of the lockdowns around the globe.
If anything, it will be far stranger...
The deep state, never rests (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)