[baddash]

My thoughts as someone who doesn't know much about these types of things:

1. Terry Albury calling this list the "Panopticon" could have merit since he's a former FBI agent. However, I'd have to research more into him to figure out how credible he is, and why he is framing it like this.

2. Amazon and Facebook being in the title is most likely clickbait. They're literally only mentioned once in the article and the rest of it has nothing to do with them.

3. It's concerning that the National Security Presidential Memorandum (NSPM) can potentially cause this network to be used to label protestors as "far-left domestic terrorists", however, that is more of an issue with the NSPM than this network. Understanding the NSPM and the effects of it is probably worthwhile.

4. The article mentions that there's no oversight program for Seattle Shield. Is that a problem? Is it typical to have oversight for a program like this, or necessary? What would the program be like?

Overall, the article feels sort of sensationalized. It frames Seattle Shield as suspicious and questionable due to its secrecy and the fact that it performs surveillance. However, there aren't any strong facts or evidence of this program being abused in some Big Brother-type way. Terry Albury framing it in this manner might be the most credible point against it, but I would have to look into that to determine how credible it is.

[pyrale]

> The article mentions that there's no oversight program for Seattle Shield. Is that a problem?

Any government body with no oversight program indicates that rule of law is optional.

[remarkEon]

The rule of law is and always has been based on a monopoly of violence. That monopoly is increasingly tenuous, frankly. Even the word "oversight" implies that, if said entity being overseen ventures out of the bounds of the overseer, violence is the mechanism by which compliance is attained.

[pyrale]

> The rule of law is and always has been based on a monopoly of violence.

There is no such thing as a monopoly of violence. Weber's work, which you reference, talks about states claiming a monopoly of legitimate violence.

However, legitimacy and law are two different things: while every state claims they are the only ones allowed to use violence legitimately, not every state codifies their functioning in laws ; and fewer structure themselves in such a way that these laws are sovereign.

My point is that merely codifying the state's actions in laws isn't enough to get functioning rule of law. You also need functioning government oversight (and a few other things, but that's not the current topic). When government's action is not overseen, respect of the law happens at the whim of government agents.

[ChiMan]

The rule of law isn’t based on the state’s monopoly on violence. Its entire purpose is to protect citizens from state violence by subordinating it to law adjudicated in courts.

[watwut]

What is supposed to be the point of this comment? Poor cops have terrible violence unleashed them by having civilian oversight? Or that we should ditch rule of law and structures and instead go with what the most violent local warlord wants?

[pocksuppet]

I think they're trying to say infinite force is needed to defend the city from the subhuman immigrants overrunning it. That's how I understood the comment.

[stuaxo]

I can't work out whether the grandfather post is more American Libertarian or a modern feudalal stan or something else.

[pyrale]

I sometimes struggle to establish a difference between your two propositions.

[josh2600]

The thing is... under the laws as they're written today, if US Gov wants to take a peek at your stuff on FB and friends servers, FB can be barred from informing you that such a request has come in under the National Security Letter (NSL) guidelines.

It's a very complicated thing :/.

[jqmccleary]

Unfortunate but true, I feel we could rise up and stop things like this but most people these days are either unaware or are too busy struggling to do so

[baddash]

I don't mean to be some annoying contrarian or something, but couldn't it be the case that if the govt was investing someone who was planning a terrorist attack, then notifying the person being investigated could work against stopping them?

Not saying it wouldn't get abused though, which seems like the primary concern of most people in these discussions..

[therealpygon]

You mean like those Minnesota soccer mom “terrorists”? It’s hard to assume good faith after repeated bad faith behaviors, hence the reason our justice system is supposed to operate on evidence and a presumption of innocence, rather than “treat everyone like they aren’t a terrorist…yet..but will be if i decide they are”.

[balls187]

No. Our justice system has never actually been based on evidence.

It’s based on the doctrine of judicial discretion in the name of preserving order.

[trinsic2]

> It’s based on the doctrine of judicial discretion in the name of preserving order.

Yep for public order reasons alone. Not saying thats a good think. IMHO its the main reason actual justice is lacking.

[therealpygon]

“Is” and “supposed to be” are not the same thing, but your perspective appreciated.

[remarkEon]

This is hysterical nonsense.

When these things come up people tend to venture into hyperbole. Probably because it's an incentives issue (it gets clicks and upvotes). If "preserving order" was the number everyone in the judiciary optimized for all of violent riots and protests against any cause you can imagine wouldn't have happened. But they did, so therefore this concept of "no evidence" is not true.

It's fine to be skeptical about private companies sharing "intelligence" (I would challenge the use of that word) with what are state-sanctioned entities (the police), and there's a long list of reasons to be skeptical. So obviously there is no reason to invent things that are not true.

[pocksuppet]

They could arrest everyone and have perfect order. Short of that, they can only arrest people at the first small sign that person might ever not preserve order. Which is what they are currently doing. Things like loitering, expressing political opinions online, or being LGBT, are signs that a person might in the future not be completely orderly, and they arrest for that.

[balls187]

> So obviously there is no reason to invent things that are not true.

Because everyone who has ever been convicted of a crime actually committed the crime.

[michaelmrose]

The actuality is that there is reason to believe it has been virtually nothing but outrageous abuse from inception to now.

In general the need for secrecy is liable to be inversely related to the time required for it to be secret from what we do know and this is under comparatively sane regimes. Our current regime wants to build concentration camps and imprison journalists for reporting on their foibles.

What you SHOULD do is have sane limits with truly independent oversight by parties accountable to congress and the people. After a comparatively short duration virtually everything should become public and any misuse of said systems should result in prison. It's not like we couldn't build a system that with appropriate checks and balances but we certainly don't have one now.

[wat10000]

Literally anything that protects people from the law will protect criminals and terrorists too.

Fourth amendment? A terrorist might have a bomb in their trunk that the police aren't allowed to search.

Jury trial? A psychopathic murder might charm the jury into thinking they're not guilty and get released.

Prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt? What if the person is actually a horrible criminal but there's reasonable doubt?

We have these protections not because they save ordinary people while still letting the government do everything possible to catch criminals, but because we think it's worth reducing the government's ability to catch criminals in exchange for fewer abuses of non-criminals.

[ClarityJones]

If the target were being investigated for terrorism, then the govt could inform the company of that and - if the company tipped the terrorist off - prosecute the company for being an accessory / aid to the terrorist.

However, if the govt claimed that the person was a terrorist and the company knew for 100% fact that the person was innocent and the investigation was in bad faith... they could tip off the victim.

The NSLs only really help in the latter scenario. As long as the govt has a plausible story, there will be a 50% chance that the target is a criminal and the company will not risk notifying the target. With NSLs they can prosecute the company even though there was no legitimate basis for the investigation and everyone knew it.

[idle_zealot]

> govt claimed that the person was a terrorist and the company knew for 100% fact that the person was innocent and the investigation was in bad faith...

This is the thing tearing at the seams of our justice system in general. Our rules are based around an ostensible checks-and-balances arrangement, but this relies on the assumption of good faith from the parties involved. Implicit in this is the idea that if any body isn't acting in good faith, it will be so repugnant to voters that the state of affairs will quickly come to an end. This assumption is false.

Now we're talking about granting Facebook the right to assume bad faith on the part of the FBI!? Like granting the power to ignore the government to private companies will solve this, or help at all? That bandaid solution is almost certainly worse than the disease.

That's not to say that I agree with secret spying provisions. They clearly violate the Constitution and undermine trust in democracy. I just don't think "if you're a big enough company you get to ignore orders and drag things out in court" is a solution to government overreach. It's individual rights that need protecting, not corporate ones.

[ethbr1]

> Implicit in this is the idea that if any body isn't acting in good faith, it will be so repugnant to voters that the state of affairs will quickly come to an end. This assumption is false.

The appropriate democratic fix here is to enable citizen visibility into NSLs et al.

The fact that they are indefinitely secret from voters is the root issue.

Can't pass judgement on invisible things.

[choo-t]

Oh yes, the Four Horsemen of the Infocalypse.

Better to wiretap everyone just in case. Why stop there ? After all there a chance any privacy could be used to conceal some terrorist plot, better to record every meat-space conversations too, let's not take any risk.

[kQq9oHeAz6wLLS]

We could even recruit people to turn their neighbors in for all sorts if terrible acts, like offensive FB posts, or not wearing masks, or having too many people over, or hanging out on the beach by themselves during a pandemic, or...

The party in power always wants control. Whether this is bad or not usually depends on if you align with the party in control or not.

[trinsic2]

See this is the thing. Im not aligned with any party. If anyone does this stuff, they should be held accountable.

[gessha]

Isn’t it better for all parties if the user is informed that they’re being investigated?

This way they might stop from doing the act for which they’re investigated instead of actually carrying it out.

[yamillove]

No. We want to catch and send you to the slammer. Criminals and terrorists usually NEVER STOP trying.

[pocksuppet]

Thank you for exemplifying this point. The justice system isn't about stopping crimes. It's about inflicting punishment. In some cases, the justice system even encourages or creates crimes, so it can punish someone.

[yamillove]

Sometimes crimes are created by governments to control behavior or punish those that opposed their preferred views. Think about those ideas about criminalizing not calling someone by their pronouns, for example.

But yours is a ridiculous conclusion that prison does not stop crimes. Of course sending you to the slammer STOPS the crimes you were going to commit.

Also, we don’t have to send criminals to the slammer. We can send them to live with you and your family, but something tells me your performative statements stop short of allowing that. And that is the issue, some people like you want “society at large” to bear the cost of crime, but don’t want to bear the cost themselves. This has to tell you everything you need to know. It’s basically suicidal empathy. I could ask you to ask Pava Lapere how that worked out, but she is dead.

[dylan604]

Or they stop using the means of communication that has become compromised and find a new way starting the cat&mouse over again.

This is like saying that an undercover agent must answer "yes" when asked by anyone if they are part of a law enforcement agency. What would be the point of being undercover?

The problem is the abuse of the invasive searching. If the evidence is compelling enough, then present that evidence to a judge and have a legit signed warrant. Unfortunately, there will be judges with a rubber stamp.

[skinfaxi]

This is a bit different from flashing your headlights to warn oncoming traffic to a cop.

[mulmen]

I think what gets lost in these conversations is that the government is using very lazy methods to catch low hanging fruit. Instead of extrajudicial spying they should be creating undercover identities and infiltrating criminal organizations. If law enforcement was competent Facebook wouldn’t even know it was happening.

[cucumber3732842]

I'm not sure if that's better. The feds have a long history of goading "probably harmless" people into parking SUVs full of half-ass explosives in NYC or kidnapping governors or whatever.

[mulmen]

It’s possible for law enforcement to misbehave in more than one way. In fact while they were manufacturing these cases they were also conducting dragnet surveillance. It’s not a competition, or a choice.

Manufacturing cases doesn’t mean undercover investigations are illegal or even unreasonable. It’s just another example of unethical LEO behavior that should be destroyed.

On the other hand dragnet surveillance of US citizens is NEVER ok.

[idiotsecant]

Won't someone please think of the children?!?!

Oh, sorry I thought we were pretending we cared about nonproblems in order to destroy individual privacy.

[gopher_space]

The panopticon reflects the trust I have in society.

It seems like an incredibly bad idea right now, but I can imagine machines of loving grace that would do only good with such a powerful tool.

[dakolli]

I don't want any secretive surveillance, I don't care if you can prove whether its malicious or not.

[lstodd]

It's like you never heard of Snowden.

You don't need to try to force yourself to believe it not being that bad because it has been worse for like 20 years already.

[BeetleB]

Your comment doesn't address any of the issues in the comment, and isn't adding to the conversation.

[fsflover]

The Snowden revelations explain very well why we need the oversight and much more. They are relevant here.

[pocksuppet]

A significant chunk of today's HN readership were less than 10 years old when Snowden leaked.

[lstodd]

That's not an excuse. I also heard of Socrates despite being born a few thousand years late.

[zombot]

> Secret + surveillance + no oversight : Is that a problem?

You've gotta be shitting me.