zlacker

>>amarch+(OP)
The UK is quickly deploying surveillance state technology that people once decried China for. Whether or not this is ethical or useful, I wish the hypocrisy would be acknowledged. The OSA, the Apple encryption demands, LFR, …, it’s clearly a trend. Has society really become this dangerous that we must deploy these things?

>>Shank+Bj
They've been doing this for years at protests, using "Forward Intelligence Teams". Even back in 2010 [1] there was an action group trying to protest this growing police-state (Fitwatch). The UK has had an insane number of CCTV cameras for as long as I can remember.

Must be a truly dangerous place...

https://web.archive.org/web/20100824175032/http://fitwatch.o...

>>elric+Zo
The CCTV cameras I've never really had a problem with - despite what TV shows and films would like to tell you they're not actually a single coherent CCTV network, a vast proportion of them are operated by random shopkeepers, private home owners, and other such places. If they want footage from them the police are typically going to have to send someone out to ask for it, and then hope they haven't reused the storage already.

This sort of thing, deploying facial recognition systems in the street in the hope of finding someone, is much more insidious. Technically you can choose to bypass it, or pull something over your face, but that's more or less guaranteeing that you'll be stopped and questioned as to why you're concerned about it.

Sadly the UK never met an authoritarian they didn't like (apart from Hitler, so long as you're not as bad as Hitler himself you're good though). When surveyed the British public will call for banning basically anything they don't like, even if it doesn't impact them at all.

>>jon-wo+sr
There's no small irony that facial recognition isn't going to recognise the faces of those currently racing around on e-bikes stealing phones wearing their 'safety balaclavas'. Or, indeed, some of the more militant protesters that are turning up all over the place. It's a cliche, but if you have nothing to hide, and intend to protest peacefully, why are you covering your face?

>>DrBazz+hU
> It's a cliche, but if you have nothing to hide, and intend to protest peacefully, why are you covering your face?

because who says the state (and the people acting for it, e.g. police) are always the good guys

there is a VERY long history of people being systematically harassed and persecuted for things which really shouldn't be an issue, and might not have been illegal either (but then the moment a state becomes the bad guy "illegal" loses meaning as doing the ethical right thing might now be illegal)

like just looking at the UK, they e.g. "thanked" Alan Turing for his war contributions by driving him into Suicide because he was gay

or how people through history have been frequently harassed for "just" not agreeing with the currently political fraction in power, and I really mean just not agreeing not trying to do anything to change it

and even if we ignore systematic stuff like that there has been also more then just a few cases of police officers abusing their power. Including cases like them stalking people, or them giving the address of people to radical groups, or blackmailing them for doing stuff which is legal but not publicly well perceived. (E.g. someone had sex with their wife on a balcony not visible from the street but visible from a surveillance camera).

And even if nothing of this applies to you, if there is no privacy and mass surveillance this can also help people in power to frame you for something you didn't do. Like e.g. to make you lose your job so their brother in law can get it instead.

and even ignoring all that you should have a right for privacy and since when is it okay to harass people which just want to defend their rights?

anyway if you think is through "I have nothing to hide" is such a ridiculous dump argument.

>>dathin+O11
I'm thinking it through, and I've arrived at the puzzling conclusion we shouldn't make it too hard for people to break the law.

>>card_z+1l1
Not so puzzling; see also this classic post from Moxie Marlinspike, founder of Signal: https://moxie.org/2013/06/12/we-should-all-have-something-to...

> Over the past year, there have been a number of headline-grabbing legal changes in the US, such as the legalization of marijuana in CO and WA, as well as the legalization of same-sex marriage in a growing number of US states.

> As a majority of people in these states apparently favor these changes, advocates for the US democratic process cite these legal victories as examples of how the system can provide real freedoms to those who engage with it through lawful means. And it’s true, the bills did pass.

> What’s often overlooked, however, is that these legal victories would probably not have been possible without the ability to break the law.