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cucumber3732842 • today at 12:56 PM • 1 reply • view on HN

I've said it before and I'll say it again, the abuse is tangential to the fact that "the system working as intended" is designed to comprehensively and cheaply subjugate us all to the whims of whoever or whatever has the ear of government at any particular minute.

If you wave a magic wand and fix the abuse you will not fix the very nature and purpose of these systems. 1984 would not magically become acceptable if cops couldn't stalk their girlfriend or creds could not be shared among agencies off the books.

A large enough to be a problem subset of the people decrying abuse fancy themselves an armchair central planner (the more self aware ones fancy themselves armchair despots). In the back of their mind they're thinking "if only we got rid of the abuse then the public would buy into this Orwellian system then I could get the government enforce my pet policies with an iron fist and get minimal pushback". Beware of these people. They are the true evil. They all seek to take a bite out of your day to day freedom and it doesn't take all that many of them getting their way before there is nothing left. The politicians feeling emboldened to sign contracts with Flock or any other surveillance vendor only feel emboldened to do so due to the existence and frequency of these people.

Abuse or not these systems are rotten and incompatible on a fundamental level with a free society.


Replies

Tangurena2 • today at 1:54 PM

> the abuse is tangential to the fact that "the system working as intended" is designed to comprehensively and cheaply subjugate us all to the whims of whoever or whatever has the ear of government at any particular minute.

I'm reminded of a "hah hah, only serious" joke/slang popularized by EverQuest players: Broken as intended.

https://wiki.c2.com/?HaHaOnlySerious

> if cops couldn't stalk their girlfriend

This used to be called "running a date" by law enforcement when checking up on some pretty face. That abuse is part of what led to the Driver's Privacy Protection Act. When I worked for my state's motor vehicle agency, there were training videos about what was and wasn't allowed. It won't happen under this administration, but ALPR systems should be legislated as covered by DPPA.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driver%27s_Privacy_Protection_...