alt Hacker NewsI cannot reply to everyone but still want to defend the above post (apart from a patronising tone so apologises for that)
The most common response here is “but in the future some other government could do X”. And yes. This was also a major reason for opposition to the orignal “Peelers” in 1800s - a civilian police force. The police today are able to commit many egregious violations but they are mostly held back by laws, and social expectations. It’s not perfect but it beats police in non democratic countries by a mile.
“ Who met with your former wive within the last 2 weeks?” Yes that’s something we have seen police officer and politicians doing - it’s almost always illegal then and should continue to be so.
I think this is about trust in institutions- it’s a problem.
We need sensible laws, a social acceptability of privacy violations just below corrupt cops. The scale is great but so is ability to monitor who monitors us.
Why create an instrument that has a limited upside, but a downside that can lead into totalitarianism, in the first place? If it does not exist, I don't need to trust anyone, hence there won't be a problem.
Institutions can go evil, as seen in any friendly dictatorship all over the world in the last 100+ year.
Keeping the police on the legal side of things seems to be challenging (ICE killings? Asset forfeiture? Police brutality?), better to make it harder for them to do something illegal in the first place.
I am still waiting on a working answer to the question of "who watches the watchmen", so far, this has never really worked (NSA/Snowden?). What has worked quite well was limiting the institutions up-front.