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by procombo 1824 days ago
A great justification my dear goverment uses is that because they don't perform the search directly, (they use third-party private businesses), they aren't violating the law. Of course reasonable people will disagree.

There are a lot of motivations for private businesses to collect as much information as they can, just in case they might be able to use it in the future.

Thursday of last week a solicitor came up to my door. Didn't knock. Leaned their electric scooter against my house, and was "working" on their tablet. I was just getting home and after parking I passed them and mentioned that I wasn't interested in what they were selling. They said "yeah, I saw the No Soliciting sign so I didn't knock, but they are also having us run a scan."

They were completely unaware of how creepy that is and how obtrusive it can be. I played it cool, even though I was irate. They actually showed me the interface and it scanned for wifi and bluetooth devices and recorded ids, etc. My address and photos of my house were on the screen as well. (Public information, I know, but still creepy.)

Apparently there's a market for knowing what brand of wireless computing equipment people have on site. Imagine that. They worked for a company selling home security, smart home devices, and bug extermination service. My my.

It wasn't every house. They had a queue to go through. Apparently I'm a "valuable" target, people. :)

1 comments

I wasn't quoting the US 4th amendment to say it's illegal. Rather to refute the argument "you have nothing to hide" -- the US government was founded with the ideal that it's simply not true. People are entitled to privacy. Simply hand-waving it away requires proof, not the other way.
Certainly. The Constitution is a guide to what the visionary founders had in their mind for the new nation. It shouldn't be law directly, but a light to help citizens realize what a balance of power looks like.

In the meantime we want to keep our shoes on at the aiport so we actually pay the government and agree to let them perform ongoing, perpetual background searches on us "to maintain eligibility". :)