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bradknowles • today at 4:17 AM • 2 replies • view on HN

This assumes that you don’t get a new administration that decides to throw out all the laws that came before and uses this juicy panopticon camera system in whatever way they want, to do whatever they want.

The cameras are an attractive nuisance for people in power, including any and all law enforcement types. It only takes a few bad apples to spoil that entire ocean.

The real threat is the cameras’ very existence, and that is what has to be eliminated. If a thing doesn’t exist, then it can’t be abused.

That’s an important thing to keep in mind, when you are required to keep in mind the lessons of 1930s Germany. Or the Stasi from East Germany.

When you figure out how to guarantee that you can never, ever again have a 1930s Germany situation pop up, and a government that just casually throws out all the old laws, then we can talk about whether those kinds of cameras might make sense again.


Replies

petcat • today at 4:33 AM

> assumes that you don’t get a new administration that decides to throw out all the laws that came before and uses this juicy panopticon camera system in whatever way they want, to do whatever they want.

What you're suggesting would mean that they wouldn't even have to throw out the laws. They could just install the new cameras themselves. So there's no difference.

It requires a reasonably balanced and trustworthy government no matter what.

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ssl-3 • today at 5:41 AM

If we take a concept like "a new administration can just change it" and put that on the slippery slope, then: We find that we're best off by doing nothing, ever, because it's just waste of time. Head in sand, dick in hand.