Monday, January 11, 2016

Brave New World of Pre-Crime


Justin Jouvenal, "The new way police are surveilling you: Calculating your threat ‘score’," The Washington Post, January 10, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/the-new-way-police-are-surveilling-you-calculating-your-threat-score/2016/01/10/e42bccac-8e15-11e5-baf4-bdf37355da0c_story.html?wpmm=1&wpisrc=nl_headlines

 As a national debate has played out over mass surveillance by the National Security Agency, a new generation of technology such as the Beware software being used in Fresno has given local law enforcement officers unprecedented power to peer into the lives of citizens....

But the powerful systems also have become flash points for civil libertarians and activists, who say they represent a troubling intrusion on privacy, have been deployed with little public oversight and have potential for abuse or error. Some say laws are needed to protect the public....


Read entire article at link above.

Another relevant story on mass surveillance and pre-crime:

http://majiasblog.blogspot.com/2015/07/what-is-jade-helm.html


 

5 comments:

  1. "Person Of Interest" is an excellent series on Netflix that displays surveillance several steps beyond where it is now. As demonstrated by the article it is very easy to sell the idea to people that surveillance is the path to safety! The arguments against it seem abstract and pale. As with so many things the money aspect gives a good shove. Surveillance equals money for software companies. Vaccines mean money for pharmaceuticals; war, money for munitions industry. Bad laws mean more prisoners for private prisons. What needs to be fought is the money and not the unneeded or harmful products. But that would mean fighting the corporations which of course means more money for the attorneys. This is quite a maze. Where is Ariadne? So maybe community movements are best. That would only mean money for some coffee, sodas, chips (non-GMO) and hopefully not so far that one needs to drive a car though gas is getting cheap now.
    The USA arose when communities were common and tight. Our kind of government probably does become tyrannous when communities die out and are replaced by TV and anonymous urban areas. Anyway Person Of Interest is really a great series and very subtle in many ways.

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  2. "Possible Nuclear Meltdown Methane Gas Leak - LA's best kept NUCLEAR SECRET !"
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1wmcd2rJq4
    More than methane gas.

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    Replies
    1. Also: "L.A.'s Secret Meltdown; Nuclear Cowboys"
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVhtygifsuE
      So, this is greatly complicating matters now.

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  3. The Internet has created a new kind of literacy. Formerly only the insiders found this stuff out which is now all over the world. If we had grown up with the Internet it would seem quite natural to be constantly finding out about past lies and deceptions--but now it comes gushing out all over the place. We are confronted with the fact that Bill Clinton raped a girl while he was at Oxford; then later another back at Yale. It's documented in a book. Formerly one would have had to have a big budget for political books and lots of free time. Now one can watch a documentary or interview with the author who apparently is a well known political insider since the days of Nixon. That there was a nuclear disaster back in 1959 near LA that appears to be holding hands now with the methane release near Porter Ranch. Even if one is very discriminating there is still much more than one can not take in. I must admit though that I suspected there were hidden nuclear waste caches all over the place. And nuclear accidents that were smoothed over by smooth voiced commentators: no health concerns, very minor, under control due to highly efficient safety measures and quick actions by highly trained technicians! I suspect it is simply human nature functioning in vast social structures that seem remote from the man on the street. As the CEO flies in the private jet to visit another CEO at a beautiful resort for a meeting involving billions, how can he be expected to care about some small fraction of the vast population of India? Or the considerable population of the USA when there are fortunes to be made and perhaps political power to gained?

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