[hypeatei]

> The app represents an unprecedented linking of government databases into a single tool, including from the State Department, Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the FBI, and state records

I think we're well past the point of stopping these dystopian practices given the government has already collected this data. They're merely using it how they want. If you go through customs as a US citizen, you don't even need to hand over your passport: they just scan your face now.

Calling out these practices is good, but the time to stop this would've been after 9/11 and the ensuing terrorism hysteria (Patriot Act, FISA, etc..) which gave three letter agencies the go-ahead to do whatever they want.

[cardamomo]

To adapt a common adage, maybe immediately post 9/11 would have been the best time. Now is the second best.

[hypeatei]

Definitely. I think that would be very hard to carry out for various reasons, though. Intelligence agencies generally want minimal oversight and more power so you'd be fighting that at every corner which includes:

1) Vague threats to leak/expose Congress members' personal matters who craft legislation against them. Chuck Schumer (a sitting US senator) admitted on live TV that the intel community has "six ways from Sunday" to get back at you.

2) Blatant disregard for the law by "just following orders", see anecdotes about Michael Hayden, a former CIA director.

3) Data storage, backup, and classified systems. Decades of collection probably means this data is scattered in many places which could give these agencies a chance to retain data "accidentally" or put up roadblocks due to high level clearances being required to work with these systems.

[linkjuice4all]

I agree - but technology is just a tool here. The Stasi famously had a network of human informants to notice and collect information.

Going forward it would be nice if we stopped letting these mobs grab power but it's too late, so maybe the effort should be focused on using tools like this to our advantage. Surely there must be some value to the populous to track their oppressors and those that control them - have you considered building a citizen-powered system so you can watch the watchers?

[KennyBlanken]

The Stasi network was infamous because of how enormous it was, not its mere existence. And it likely had a crippling effect on their economy. They were also drowning in information, and the information was very poor because anyone with a bone to pick just made up some bullshit about the other person.

Today, tools created by US intelligence make the data collection trivial, but more importantly, the data analysis is trivial as well.

[JumpCrisscross]

> the data analysis is trivial as well

We have no evidence of this.

[Yeul]

The amusing thing was that political prisoners became a money making scheme. The DDR sold dissidents to West Germany.

Ofcourse it was mostly the educated elite who wanted out so it still ended up sinking the communist regime long term.

[hypeatei]

> so you can watch the watchers

Watch in what way? And would it matter seeing as they have the full force of the government behind them anyway?

[marcianx]

To add to it, I crossed the border into the US via train recently, and for the first time (I've done this trip many, many times) they took my photo on their cell phone after scanning my paperwork, as they did with everyone else. So they are further expanding with more/recent data.

[cyral]

> If you go through customs as a US citizen, you don't even need to hand over your passport: they just scan your face now.

It's always amazed me how well this works when they are scanning you with the same 2015-era cheap logitech camera I have.

[potato3732842]

The "magic" is that they have it all joined with the database that tells them who crossed the other way recently, the flight database or the cruise ship database so it's not searching through millions of passport photos every time. They have a pretty good idea of the search space.

[0xEF]

It's weaponized pivot tables all the way down.

[refurb]

US requires all passenger manifests for flights are forwarded to USCBP 48 hours or more before the flight. This list is run against several databases to identify persons of interest.

Then after the flight takes off, an updated list is sent again to USCBP.

So when you walk up to USCBP, they already have a list of people they expect to see within an hour of the flight landing. The match is much easier at that point.

It all falls apart at land or sea border crossings. Requirements are quite different and travel outside continental US but with zone like the Caribbean are treated differently than travel outside that zone.

As such your immigration record can get messed up if you say exit via land border to Canada as there is no exit record to match up with entry. Many people have gotten email about overstays because of this.

[SoftTalker]

They already know you’re coming in and on which flight so that really narrows it down. I didn’t think faces were that unique and that they were matching on the subset of people they were expecting at that time. Perhaps the technology is better than I thought.

[matthewdgreen]

The time to stop it is right now before it gets a massive boost in funding and becomes unstoppable. “Oh no too late” is literally the worst advice I’ve ever heard. Get all hands on deck right now.

[amy214]

It's like this

>go take a flight >demand your photo be taken >"as far as I know it's mandatory" >"I assure you the image is deleted" >"fingerprints derived from the image, what are those" Thanks TSA for logging the facial parameters of 200 million citizens, I'm sure that invasion of privacy helped your basic mission, to screen passengers for planes

[axus]

In theory, a law could be proposed at any time, voted on soon after, and the Executive branch should have to follow it.

[AtlasBarfed]

Yes, that is the trend of the United States: the Executive branch listening to the Legislative.

Consider now that precedents for the Judicial being ignored are well underway.

We have an incompetent authoritarian in office right now. A mere slice of competence and we'd already be worse-than-1984.

[ajross]

Hm. No, I think the practice of using a capability for a bad goal is inherently worse than merely having a capability that can be used for a bad goal. (The whole principle behind the second amendment, after all!)

And we should condemn the overreach on its own terms and by its own moral failings and not just wave it away with a both-sides-ist "They're merely using it how they want".

Bad things are bad and we should say they are bad. Because at the end of the day every government is possessed of terrible power and the only reason any of them don't get worse is that we vote for the people who aren't bad.

[hypeatei]

The point of my comment was to say: you don't choose how the government uses this data against you. Yes, it's bad and should be condemned. But, to completely eliminate this "avenue" of attack then we should've stopped all this data collection in the first place.

[ajross]

And my point was that this is a nitpicky digression relative to the specific crime in progress.

The Godwin equivalent would be discussing the holocaust and replying "Well, if Germany didn't want that they shouldn't have elected the Nazis in 1933." It's true! But unhelpful in context.

[trhway]

it is made with public money, and as it can't be stopped, it should just be made available to the general public and businesses. I think that should be applied to all the government collected info (except for narrow cases specifically excluded like health and IRS records - though i think IRS records also should be public)

[JohnFen]

That sounds like a perfect way to make a disastrous situation an order of magnitude more disastrous.

[trhway]

That thinking is how we're getting more and more power asymmetry between government and society. The government knows everything about everybody (even if today it is 90% true it will be 100% tomorrow anyway), and thus has unlimited power over everybody. The only way to defang such power is to make the info public from the beginning.

[JohnFen]

I don't see how anything is made safer by having everyone and their dog able to access the same information about me that the government has. It's terrible that the government has it and unsiloed it. The rest of the world having it as well doesn't improve that situation. It only exposes me to more threats.

But let me ask you: how would everyone having access to my data improve the situation? I genuinely don't see the upside to that.

[kaikai]

As someone who has been stalked, I absolutely disagree. It’s already a risk for me to own property or do other basic things, because it exposes my address in a public database.