Tag: surveillance state

Categories
Accountability crime and punishment general freedom moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies

Inch, Meet Mile

NSA, surveillance, 1984, Big Brother

Give ’em an inch, they will take . . . a continent.

When Edward Snowden broke the secrecy of the NSA’s illegal surveillance on innocent Americans, many folks (especially those in government) said the snooping was OK, because

  1. it is necessary for our security, and, besides,
  2. the collected data would only be used against terrorists, as supervised by the FISA courts.

Well, it is now known that, whatever “a.” may be, “b.” is a dead letter, swept away by broken promises and a new information practice.

Yes, the National Security Agency now shares its (unconstitutionally obtained) information with various and sundry government agencies, for a wide variety of purposes.

Last week, Radley Balko noted in the Washington Post that “the ‘sneak-and-peek’ provision of the Patriot Act that was alleged to be used only in national security and terrorism investigations has overwhelmingly been used in narcotics cases. Now the New York Times reports that National Security Agency data will be shared with other intelligence agencies like the FBI without first applying any screens for privacy.”

That didn’t take long, eh?

Many of us have opposed the NSA’s data collection on American citizens because we believed the data would not continue to be used just for the alleged purpose they were collected.

It is not a “slippery slope” argument so much as an “inch-mile” one. Government tends to grow, in size and especially in scope.

And usually at the expense of our freedoms.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Printable PDF

NSA, surveillance, 1984, Big Brother

 

Categories
folly general freedom ideological culture too much government

Discreditable Credit

China Credit System, Sesame, China, Credit Rating, Common Sense

Capitalism can be rigged a hundred different ways, apparently. China’s is run by its Communist Party, and even current innovations bear the stamp of the Party.

Take “social credit.”

Not the quaint decentralist economic reform movement that was a minor deal in politics on the West Coast of the U.S. and Canada 60 or more years ago.

What I’m referring to is the innovative credit scoring system devised by a gaming company in cooperation with China’s commie-run government.

But it’s not quite like the credit scoring systems set up by competing companies in the U.S., which cook up “credit scores” based on going into debt and paying off debt. If you pay your bills, you get a higher score. If you don’t, it plummets.

The new “Sesame” credit scoring system is less interested in the debts you pay off and more in what you buy and what you put up on social media. The company has concocted a secret algorithm, and gives higher scores to good citizens — obedient people — and lower scores to lazy people (inferred from, say, if you play a lot of video games) or to folks who are rebellious free thinkers (posting pictures of Tank Man in Tiananmen Square, for example).

That is what it seems like, so far.

It rewards those Chinese who are industrious (yay?) and who kowtow to Communist Party expectations (yikes!) — and makes me extra glad I live in the U.S., where government is too chaotic and stupid to cook up anything quite this insidious.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Printable PDF

China Credit System, Sesame, China, Credit Rating, Common Sense

 

Categories
crime and punishment privacy too much government

Are They Reading This?

Stingray, surveillance, privacy, invasion, collage, photomontage, illustration, editorial, listening, spying

You’re a nice person, Gentle Reader; I’m glad to communicate with you in a public forum and listen to your responses.

But we both expect limits to this mutual access. If we’re not legitimately suspected of being criminals, we expect to go about our business without strangers intruding upon us at will. We have a right to boundaries.

More and more, though, the borders of the privacy we rely upon are routinely violated by government employees who trawl our lives at random. We often have no idea of the existence or extent of the intrusions until long after the fact.

The latest disturbing practice we’re getting a smidgen of info about is the secretive use by police agencies of so-called “sting ray” devices, which simulate cell towers to track cell phone data and location.

For years, obeying FBI demands for secrecy, prosecutors have been dropping cases rather than report how the devices are deployed. In a Baltimore murder trial, though, Detective Michael Dresser testified that his department has used the device 4,300 times. He assures us that officers await judicial permission . . . unless the circumstances are too urgent.

That’s nice. But without a lot more transparency about how and when the sting ray is deployed, I don’t have much confidence that such scrupulousness is par even in Baltimore, let alone all other locales. It’s hard to give government agencies the benefit of the doubt when the track record is so lousy.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Printable PDF

stingRaY

 

Categories
video

Video: Snowden Explains

“If I am a traitor, who did I betray? I gave all of my information to the American public, to American journalists, who are reporting on American issues. If they see that as treason, I think people really need to consider who do they think they’re working for.”

This interview has not appeared in America’s media, other than online — which, come to think of it, is now the world’s media.

Categories
crime and punishment initiative, referendum, and recall nannyism too much government

Greenlighting Red Light Cameras?

Politicians seem to love what are called “red light cameras” — cameras that take pictures of cars that run red lights. And then ticket the registered owners.

Citizens? Not so much. I’ve reported how Tim Eyman — an activist who usually sets his sights on tax increases — orchestrated a citizen initiative petition campaign to get rid of the red light cameras in his town. There are many other such movements.

But those who habitually side with government don’t get it. They see the issue as the Washington Post editors see it, as “common sense. Police can’t be everywhere, and officers should not be diverted from high-crime areas to police every high-risk intersection.”

A new study from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety backs up this “common sense” with, uh, science. Sort of. The study’s method has been attacked pretty thoroughly.

More importantly, as Radley Balko notes, there are better alternate policies — more effective in saving lives at intersections, and far less creepy.

Like what? you ask. Well, bear with me. It’s hard to understand: Longer yellow lights.

Yes. Longer yellow lights save lives. What a shock. And yet it turns out that when politicians have red light cameras installed, they tend to decrease the time of the yellows — the very opposite policy.

For our safety?

No.

For their revenue.

People who “go into politics” show their true colors when they prefer to pump up surveillance state powers instead of enacting simple, decent reforms.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.