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by shados
2542 days ago
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> Your credulous, at best, belief in law enforcement's use of the system largely ignores the prevailing example given in the article Law enforcement will always be a compromise. There will always be some who abuse it, and there will always be a need for it (if you want a reasonable level of civilization anyway). It's not binary. It's not "Give up all freedom and rights for infinite security" vs "Give up absolutely nothing for absolute freedom" with nothing in between. The line has to be drawn, but it is arbitrary, and a lot of people have different opinions on where it should be drawn (rightly so! there's not an obvious place to draw it). We certainly have to be careful not to draw it too far on one side, but that doesn't mean it has to be completely on the other side. Eg: I personally think it's too far to put surveillance cameras everywhere, but I'd be ok with cameras and facial recognitions on some major roads (they already have pictures associated with driver's licenses and various other documents for acceptable reasons). Yeah, it might get abused sometimes, but everything can be. Everyone for themselves and hope for the best hasn't historically worked out so hot either. Law enforcement being completely neutered with zero tools and powers isn't very effective. |
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The problem with the compromise argument is that it only ever goes one way. We had certain law enforcement capabilities in 1965 and civilization didn't collapse. Why would we expect it to collapse if they had exactly the same capabilities today?
Whenever this argument is used, it's always to add new invasions. Databases that were never needed before, facial recognition that was never needed before. Why are they suddenly needed now, just because we can? Moving in only one direction over time isn't balance, it's marching toward a cliff. Meanwhile anything that does improve privacy, like encryption, is used as an excuse for new police powers as well.
It isn't necessary for law enforcement to catch everybody. And they wont anyway. Which is fine, because 99% of their purpose is deterring people from committing serious crimes, which they can do well enough without any fancy new technology.
You don't actually have to catch fugitives as long as being a fugitive ruins your life sufficiently that hardly anybody is willing to do it.