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  • And the other day there was a thread with multiple people moaning that The Baddies signed a data privacy agreement, while of course the only country in the world that respects privacy is Murrica.
  • This is insane level of data to store for every person's likeness.

    Fake masks are so advanced now, I'm sure the IC has 3d printers that could just arbitrarily map any face to any user. And this insane spoofing capability would give not just the government, but contractors, corrupt police departments, or hackers or rich people that aquire the data.

    And that's just the physical realm because to me that's the scariest one, but giving these power manipulators access to likeness for deep fake video is probably sufficient to cause all kind of havock.

    by elif
  • when a government implements 1930s style nationalism with 2020s tech - what could possibly go wrong?
  • I searched for records of IBM donations to Trump, but it seems they might actually be one of a few tech companies staying out of it. This company might remember their history.

    Meta and Palantir are probably the IBM:s of the current age.

  • The 2020s tech has had remarkably little impact.

    If anything, it seems to be helping the people more than the government. Turns out that if the government decides it doesn't need due-process, it doesn't need to spy on people either.

  • This is America and we shouldn't have to put up with this. We shouldn't allow mask men running around terrorizing people because of race. But we can't stop it. American freedom is about being free from this form of harassment. American freedom is about being left alone to make something for yourself and your family. America is built on a bad marriage and is not perfect but to let this administration continue to do these types of illegal acts and cause one constitutional crisis after another is the down fall of this country in my opinion. As far as I'm concerned there will be no more elections in the future. What do we do then?
  • > This is America

    It's probably not, but your post almost reads like satire in reference to the tv show by Sacha Baron Cohen with the same name. Living with so many contradictions for so long just leaves one confused and disoriented when it all shatters around you. American exceptionalism means the freedom to poison the well and the freedom to die from drinking poisoned water.

  • Unfortunately a highly motivated third of the population is authoritarian, and they've been motivated by a cult of personality around Trump whom they see as their savior or instrument for setting all the things wrong with America right. And anyone, any institution or any law in the way needs to be removed. They seemed to have learned nothing from history, or all the fictional stories and tropes warning about this.
  • Why exactly have ICE been given limitless power? Facial recognition is at best right more than half the time, but many studies have shown it to be consistently faulty leading to many wrong ID's. What is the point of a database with incorrect biometric data connected to a person?
  • > Why exactly have ICE been given limitless power?

    > What is the point of a database with incorrect biometric data connected to a person?

    The answer to both questions is ‘to cause fear among the [immigrant] population.’

  • Every authoritarian needs secret police. ICE happens to be the perfect agency for Trump to use for this, because immigration is such a hot issue for his base, and immigration law provides some nice loopholes in constitutional guarantees.

    For example, deportation is a civil action, not criminal. That means that to exile you from your home the government does not need to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt, does not need to provide you with legal representation if you can’t afford a lawyer, and the procedure takes place in an administrative court. There have been numerous cases of small children representing themselves in deportation proceedings. And this was all before the current administration.

    The point of a bogus database is to give them cover for arresting, imprisoning, and deporting anyone they wish to.

  • Removal of administrative restraint is different than limitless power.

    I think it remains to be seen how broader US society responds to the approach being taken. Hard to say how close the Senate will be next year.

  • ICE is, essentially the perfect cover agency. Your average Fox News-addled American will see criticisms of ICE and immediately jump to its defense, because obviously that means you want immigrants to take over our country or you hate our borders or you hate the law etc. You can even look back through various HN threads on some of the various crimes ICE has committed in the past year and see this common byline.

    The fact that Americans are getting caught in the dragnet, having their possessions and lives destroyed, getting sent to secret jails or being assaulted for merely being in the same zipcode as an ICE agent doesn't matter to them. It's all about inflicting harm on people they dislike, and if ICE is harming someone then obviously it's because it's they did something bad.

    It's pretty dire circumstances. ICE was always close to a paramilitary organization, it just took Trump to actually fund it and push it over the edge.

  • Because who's going to stop them?

    What happens right now is this: ICE can run loose and do whatever they want. If some judge finds their activities illegal, they can block ICE from doing the illegal things.

    But...who's going to stop them? Not the DOJ. Stephen Miller has said that ICE have "federal immunity". The keen observer will of course know that there's no such thing as "federal immunity", so a charitable way to interpret that statement is that no-one federal will go after them.

    So what about states, and local police? Sure, they could start arresting them, but then again, Miller et. al have warned the states about not interfering, threatening with going after LEO's etc. with federal charges if they do so.

    The long story made short is that they can (and will) keep doing illegal shit until someone stops them, and that's not going to happen as long as Trump is POTUS. DOJ and ICE leaderships has explicitly said that their workers should just ignore the law and courts.

  • Guarantee Palantir is 'mitigating' those concerns before anyone has them by having a 'process' and 'guardrails' in place, so everyone can convince themselves this is a great thing to do. The decision makers won't even be around by the time a substantial enough number of people are harmed to incur blowback, and by then, people will have gotten rich/promoted.
  • Legal Eagle just did a video about this. When you get Constitutionally screwed over by federal agents, you basically have zero legal recourse (unlike with state and local police).
  •     What is the point of a database with incorrect biometric data connected to a person?
    
    
    Accuracy is irrelevant. Even if facial recognition as a technology was adequate, it certainly wouldn't be in whatever random lighting conditions are present in the real world after going through the image processing pipelines of inconsistent phone hardware.

    The point is domination, and the app is simply one means to that end. They'd find another if they had to.

  • This same story was killed on HN over the last couple work days. Huh...
  • Weekend crowd.
  • Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution: > The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

    Ice can say what they want. The Constitution is the ultimate law of the land here.

    Oh yeah, and facial recognition does not work to anything like this degree of accuracy, and probably never can. Nice try.

  • Monarchy doesn’t need a constitution.
  • The supreme court interprets the laws, including the constitution, and they've decided that being brown is sufficient reasonability.
  • > Ice can say what they want. The Constitution is the ultimate law of the land here.

    You roll a persuasion check: it's a 1 - it failed. Your argument of "you can't do this, the Constitution says nu-uh" failed.

    "Fuck the constitution", the masked ICE officer yells at you. "civil rights are for real American citizens, not for your kind." He spits in your face.

    The two masked goons holding you start to drag you towards their unmarked van. You struggle a bit. The officer stashes away his Scanning Smartphone and puts his hand on his sidearm.

    What is your next move?

  • Trump Claims He Can Overrule Constitution With Executive Order Because Of Little-Known ‘No One Will Stop Me’ Loophole

    https://theonion.com/trump-claims-he-can-overrule-constituti...

  • > The Constitution is the ultimate law of the land here.

    The light turns green.

    You go blindly.

    Get maimed in an accident.

    "But the light was green!"

  • Gaming this out theoretically and actually being seized and put into a detention facility where you're not allowed to call anyone including a lawyer are two different things.
  • A constitution is a worthless piece of paper if it is not enforced. I'm about 50/50 right now if the midterms can safe the U.S., so far it doesn't look good.
    by V__
  • As I have gotten older I have liked 'vigilante justice' movies less and less. Superheros that always prove might makes right, cops that 'buck the system and do what is needed to get the job done', etc etc. It is because those actions always lead to exactly what we seen now, unchecked attacks on people. Corruption using 'we gotta do something and it means a few people will get hurt but it is worth it' as a tool to achieve their agenda. American media has been pushing this message out for so many decades now that we think these are the good guys fighting the hard fight when in reality the opposite is true. Law enforcement and the military should be held at a far higher level of accountability, not a lower one, because of the powers they wield. The country needs to grow up and stop believing, and allowing, this behavior to continue. Be an adult, show up to local city counsel meetings, get actually informed and not headline informed and vote.
  • Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

    Rorschach was the bad guy.

    by baq
  • 24 is a great example of it. Watching the flanderization of that show is incredible bc what they flanderize is exactly what you're talking about. In the first seasons it was clear that what Jack did was wrong in the sense that it broke well intentioned rules; we were just in such an extreme scenario that the rules themselves broke down.

    But later it flanderized into, we want to break the rules. The rules are an impediment to goodness, not the guarantor.