Oakland accepts federal funds for controversial vast surveillance setup

Promises to get data retention, privacy policies in place later.

Read the whole story

 

[roadsquish]

I think this might be useful if, say, a child was kidnapped and the culprit was fleeing. Immediate, connected tracking could prove to be the difference in acquiring the child alive. I'd have great misgivings about the current, federal implementation of this however. I think these are the kind of restrictions I'd want in place:

- System would be owned and operated by the judicial branch, not the executive. The executive branch would have to ask the judicial branch for the data/feed.

- Encryption and permission restrictions would need to be in place and security-expert vetted BEFORE it is implemented and goes live.

- Operators would have to clear a significant background check.

- Warrants would absolutely be required and the need must be for immediate danger.

- Retention would be for a short while only (say a week) and then the data would be hard purged. This would enforce it's usage for immediate need only and limit any kind of fishing expedition.

I'd probably be on-board if restrictions like these were in place.

UPDATE:

One other requirement: I'd want accountability and transparency in place too.

 

[roadsquish]

NicoleC[/url]":28j5jvgt]

roadsquish[/url]":28j5jvgt]I think this might be useful if, say, a child was kidnapped and the culprit was fleeing. Immediate, connected tracking could prove to be the difference in acquiring the child alive.

You can always come up with a scenario whereby if we just did this one bad thing, lives would be saved. After all, if we *just* locked up all the males post puberty, there'd be no male on female rape. If we *just* required all children be raised in a locked creche by robots, there'd be no child abduction. If we just required every citizen wear a behavior modification implant, there'd be no ______.

While I mostly agree with your post -- freedom and security are a balance, not absolutes -- as soon we indulge in playing the what-if scenario game there's no logical end. There's always another what-if.

But all good approaches to anything involve extrapolating out 'what-if's and I don't see why enforcement should be exempt from this. In anything, you have to work out scenarios that are applicable and then you deal with either mitigating the cons or you throw out the pros because you don't feel that the cons are worth the pros, even with mitigations in place.

Are you saying that monitoring in general is a 'bad thing' and not worth the potential pros? That seems like an untenable position in a society ruled by law since anarchy would result. You have to give your enforcement body some way to monitor the harmful predators in your society.

Or are you saying that the monitoring specified in the article is a 'bad thing' even with the mitigations that I've laid out? Are there more mitigations that you'd like to see? That would be a valid viewpoint. I just feel that the system, if properly limited and under the right authority, with the right accountability and transparency, would actually have worthy benefits. I definitely don't think the system as laid out in the article has enough mitigations though.

 

[roadsquish]

ReaderBot[/url]":227v03ur]

roadsquish[/url]":227v03ur]Are you saying that monitoring in general is a 'bad thing' and not worth the potential pros? That seems like an untenable position in a society ruled by law since anarchy would result. You have to give your enforcement body some way to monitor the harmful predators in your society.

Your gross misunderstanding of the basic tenets of our Constitutional Democracy is a little disturbing. Yes, monitoring in general is a Bad Thing. There's a reason the Fourth Amendment was thought up and written down.

I'm well aware of the Constitutional implications, but there are exceptions that have existed since the time of the founding of our Constitution. Police are allowed to monitor known criminals in public spaces. And with warrants, they're allowed to monitor criminals in private spaces. There are different kinds of monitoring and the law allows most of them for enforcement purposes, but the monitoring has to have restrictions that continually narrow with the invasiveness of the monitoring. That's why, as I've stated, I wouldn't agree with the Oakland system as it's currently laid out. However, I think that the tool has dramatic usefulness if properly restricted.

We can't throw out all monitoring. It's a key tool in actually enforcing the laws that are derived from our Constitution.

UPDATE:

Upon rereading, I realized that you may be thinking that I'm saying "general monitoring" when I actually said "monitoring in general." Broad pervasive monitoring is not what I'm advocating. I was talking about the concept of monitoring in that statement.