[lusus_naturae]

Your logic is the same as the kind one expects from Twitter posts about having one poison M&M in a bowl of M&Ms, so let’s throw out the entire bowl. Here’s why it’s stupid to think like that:

1) People are not borgs or hive mind enjoined entities. Yes, they may share beliefs or have friendship circles etc. but it’s irresponsible and reaching to believe that everyone thinks or will act the same simply by virtue of being in the same mosque or temple or church etc.

2) So because people are not borgs, there is a lot of factionalization, even in the same religious group, political party, Internet forum.

3) Even still, unless someone is actively going out to do something for some organization, you cannot penalize them for thought crimes by their association. Why? Because doing so usually leads to spread of authoritarian control.

This is a rough response to your comment because people already know these things on some level. I think some people willfully choose to be stupid because of their biases.

[ricardobeat]

I never said anything like that. I’m opposing the idea that you should not look into that bowl because “not all M&Ms are poisoned”.

I am strongly opposed to surveillance in general and happy that they unearthed this as a violation, but at some point people will inevitably fall into buckets when an investigation is happening. There is nothing new about this.

A tip comes in about someone who frequents church X organizing a terrorist attack. Do you do a background check on church goers, look for suspicious activity, or sit back and twiddle your thumbs because this is “unfair targeting”?

Several attacks have actually happened in NL over the past decades, and recently scary connections with extremist groups found. It’s not hypothetical.

[lusus_naturae]

> A tip comes in about someone who frequents church X organizing a terrorist attack. Do you do a background check on church goers, look for suspicious activity, or sit back and twiddle your thumbs because this is “unfair targeting”?

Obviously no one will agree that the situation you described merits inaction. Preemptive surveillance “in case there is a terrorist” is a human rights violation because no one should be deprived of their privacy. Privacy is fundamental to psychological well being, creativity and self-determination.

Moreover, what’s to stop ideological enemies of one faction from sending false tips? Or to prevent progressive political action. For example, the FBI certainly considered civil rights activists as terrorists at one point (some still do, in different contexts). What if someone creates false flag terrorists to target a whole race? What if someone radicalizes someone by targeted harassment and stalking, and then blames their religion or culture if the target does something violent?

Yes, violence is scary and psychopaths doubly so. The response to violence and psychopaths is not to sacrifice human rights. We need to understand people and create more social cohesion. I think this also means understanding and identifying psychopathic and anti-social behaviors.

I don’t think killing people or locking them away from society is ever the answer because we will never run short of people to kill or lock away. We need less barbaric ways to deal with people, while also understanding the need for justice and revenge that being subject to such violence can create. The solution is not brute force surveillance. All this does is create resentment and political strife, and might lead to genocide.

[tomrod]

Re: (1), disagree. Much of behavior is statistically predictable!

[lusus_naturae]

Maybe, but there are nuances to this. Emergent properties of various factors (biological or otherwise) make this somewhat useless.