[Spooky23]

Totally legal.

The operating theory of all of these cameras is that anything happening in public sight is by its nature not private. The federal government is dumping millions and millions of dollars into grant programs for municipalities to buy it… It’s a giant federal surveillance program disguised as decisions made by individual police departments.

It’s hilarious and depressing to contrast the HN community reaction to Snowden versus the mostly meh response to flock.

[pixl97]

The last 20 years has burned privacy into the ground for a large part of the population.

[ButlerianJihad]

You never had privacy. Nobody has ever had privacy like what HN people strive for! You're all deluded about how much historical privacy anyone enjoyed.

Today in a hyper-urban environment, a lot of "privacy" comes from blending into the background and simply, nobody cares about the very mundane everyday activities of ordinary people.

Looking at the past--sure, you could conceal things by writing them into a book and safeguarding the book, such as your accounts or your diary/journal. You could conceal objects and keep them physically safe from others, insofar as was possible. But you could never conceal these things from governments, organized crime, or similar threat actors. And once your interactions involve more than one person, all bets are off. What is the quote--"Three men can keep a secret, if two are dead"?

Small towns and small communities have always had active rumor mills, grapevines, and gossiping neighbors. Have you ever read newspapers from 100+ years ago? They would report on ordinary visitors showing up in town to see their friends or family! There were "City Directories" that listed everyone, including their occupation and family members.

And how did the concept of an omniscient and all-seeing God come about? It wasn't to drive people to paranoia but it was simply to remind us that nothing is concealed and there really is no right to privacy at all. The bottom line is that humans are social animals, and our society becomes sick if people can keep secrets (the wrong kinds of secrets).

Sure, basic levels of privacy and confidentiality are important. The act of wearing clothes is an exercise of privacy and concealment, after all. Doing things behind closed doors, this used to have an expectation of "privacy" insofar as you would know how many humans and/or animals were present to witness things.

God has always seen everything. You don't have any secrets he doesn't know. If that frightens you, or makes you anxious or angry, that is a "you" problem and not a problem with this world. Some of us simply live with the assumption that everything has already been seen and known, and everything will be revealed in justice, and life is too short to worry about cameras and microphones revealing our faults to one another.

[cucumber3732842]

There's this insidious tendency among HNers to make this argument and ones like it.

Yeah, if you live in a tiny medieval village or a small town in the middle of nowhere in 1980 there was little "privacy" but Jeffrey Dahmer was fucking dudes (back when that wasn't ok) and eating people in his apartment for years before anyone caught on. In more suburban settings there truly was privacy to a large practical extent.

Furthermore, these argument lie through their teeth to portray privacy from those who you mostly voluntarily associate, vs privacy from government systems that can seek you out, have power over you and can fairly unilaterally screw you with little recourse and you cannot choose not to associate with.

Having people not associate with you in 1980, or 1280, because you did something sly or immoral is fundamentally different from being combed over by the government because you hit some unknowable proprietary criteria that triggered them to go over you with a fine tooth comb.

[bertt]

You're mistaken if you think the community is still the same percentage of humans.

[Spooky23]

That’s a fair point that I didn’t consider, thank you.

[infecto]

What meh response? There has been a continued and very vocal response against flock here.

[Spooky23]

If you pointed out any of the many problematic aspects of Snowden in those days, you’d be shouted down and voted into oblivion immediately.

[mixmastamyk]

Good, because nothing “problematic” about an individual matters one bit when presented with nefarious government activities. It’s obvious distraction technique 101.