"and notify the user when such attempts are made to their device."
We aren't going to remove the security state. We should make all attempts to, but it won't happen. What needs to happen is accountability. I should be able to turn off sharing personal information and if someone tries I should be notified and have recourse. This should also be retroactive. If I have turned off sharing and someone finds a technical loophole and uses it, there should be consequences. The only way to stop the rampant abuse is to treat data like fire. If you have it and it gets out of control you get burned, badly.
I turned off all cell carrier tracking 5 years ago. 100% of it.
By canceling my cell phone subscription.
I know I know, I must be amish, I have heard it all. But I run two tech companies, travel, have a family, and do most of the things most around here probably do other than doom scrolling.
I have a hybrid approach with GrapheneOS. 99% of the time I only use WiFi on my phone via a Tor router. I have an anonymous KeepGo ESIM with global data that does not expire and use it when I have to when Im away from home.
I started that way, though with AOSP I compiled myself. It was a nice nicotine patch but after a while my phone was so quiet and boring without proprietary social apps demanding my attention, I often found myself leaving it at home. Eventually I abandoned it entirely.
Before the era of cell phone and always on comms, leaving the house was a way to NOT be found on purpose. If you weren't home, people just had to wait!
I first had a conversation with my wife at a pizza place hanging out with mutual friends. We bonded through in person face to face conversation like cave people. She never used dating apps so there was no other way we were going to meet.
Turns out if you leave your home and hang out with people a lot, you build better social skills, and potential partners can get to know you as a friend first, and are more inclined to give you a chance at something more than they are when you are just another awkward photo in a dating app.
Before mobile phones, there were public phone booths. Along motorways there were often call boxes. There’s little to none of that anymore.
Also before mobile phones, if you had an accident in a remote area you were at the mercy of someone passing by and noticing you. Today, modern cars can call 911 on your behalf along with your location without you even being conscious. Or if you don’t have a car that does this, then your cell can be used. Let’s not also forget iPhones calling for help when they detect you had a fall at home.
Yes emergencies existed before mobile phones. I contend that the use of mobile phones has led to better outcomes when an emergency happens. I also admit mobile phones will have caused some of those emergencies (distracted driver etc).
I have many times used public telephones when I really need to when traveling. The main difference today is they are free. Every airport lobby, every hotel, and most business can call a taxi or call 911 in a pinch. There are also free public use phones (often hardcoded to emergency numbers or taxi companies) often in hotel and airport lobbies.
I never noticed them until I got rid of my phone but they are everywhere.
In NYC all the payphones were replaced with wifi stations that also allow you to make free phone calls for emergencies etc.
Also all cell phones can call 911 without a sim or subscription so someone really worried about having instant access to call 911 in an emergency could have one of those keychain sized dumb phones they leave charged and powered off until they need it.
You are highly conditioned by marketing and social pressure to think you need to have a cell phone tracking you and distracting you at all times to live a safe and productive life in the modern world, but this is just not true.
Lived without one for 5 years, and have experienced accidents and emergencies in that time like anyone else.
Right, typically in an emergency you’ll want to call the police or paramedics, and later family. Front desk of any business or bystander can do the first, hospital can do the latter.
How do you work on the go? I use personal hotspot quite often. Not only when on the go, but if there is unstable WiFi. It’s saved me on multiple occasions - both for live-site incidents and for random meetings.
It really depends on who you work as and what your working conditions are. For example, if I had some non-management position at a company that insists on working from the office, I would make sure that I'm NOT available outside my designated work place.
I basically never work away from my home desk unless I am staying multiple days away from home. In that case I bring a tiny QubesOS laptop that I attach to my leg with a leg bag (I hate carrying a backpack) and work anywhere with wifi, which is never hard to find.
Pardon my skepticism but I find it hard to believe you can actually participate in western society without choosing to have a government mandated tracking device?
Maybe you live somewhere this is possible but it's definitely not in the developed world
Runs 2 tech companies - the basic promise of the US is when you're rich you can do whatever the hell you want because you can pay people to handle stuff for you.
But also, one doesn't always need a phone - phones can die, signal is not gauranteed. What are your "must have" things that require one to have a smart phone to participate? Assume the poster has a home phone, laptop, and credit card.
Small companies that are 100% FOSS with no VC investment, where everyone has to pull their own weight. I do not have a personal assistant or anything like that and navigate the real world, travel, etc, very often alone.
The failure mode isn't as a tech company CEO. As you point out, if you're the CEO, you have the luxury of defining yourself unavailable as CEO whenever the hell you please. If the website is down out if business hours and you haven't made it someone else's problem that you're paying for it to stay up, it can just be down. No, the issue is as a father/mother/husband/wife/son/daughter to someone's you love dearly enough to consider them family, biological or otherwise.
It's rather dramatic, but the phone call/conversation I could never forgive myself for missing, is the last words of a loved one before they die, whether due to car crash or some other calamity (9/11). Or missing the opportunity to take the very next flight out to see them before they pass. You are free to treat your family, biological or chosen, as you see fit, I just know there are some phone calls I'd rather be woken up in the middle of the night for than miss. Reaching me via cellphone is more direct than trying to find whatever hotel I'm at since I'm on the road as CEO and talking to customers and vendors in person on the road as CEO, so calling my house phone doesn't help.
I gave up my phone as a lead security engineer at a vc funded company, and continued this when I quit to run my consulting firm full time as single proprietorship. Now we are a team of five running a consulting firm and a PaaS.
I spent most of my career as an infrastructure engineer so high redundancy, self healing you can trust, infrastructure-as-code, and follow-the-sun shifts, are healthier for everyone than expecting people to be available to work 24/7.
OTOH I could see my loved ones an extra 20h a week that I now use my phone. I am not sure they gonna say something vastly more interesting in this hypothetical scenario
Phones are required, insering a SIM isn't. Your work and home probably have wifi, and services meant to be used on the go are commonly built with offline use in mind. Especially those you actually need in society
A burner phone left at home just for the ability to receive SMS would be helpful for account registrations though
> services meant to be used on the go are commonly built with offline use in mind.
I'm not sure about this. With everyone moving to the cloud and web applications, this seems to not have been the case for a while to me. There surely are what are now called "local-first" alternatives to the main services (in the past those would just be called desktop applications), but if someone is using Office 365, does it have an offline mode? (Sincerely asking since I never tried this, plus, you should still get to load the web application before losing connection, right?)
Depends on how you define a phone. Cell phones are not required but SMS capable phone numbers kind of are.
I ported my cell phone number to a voip provider and get SMS and can even take calls from my desktop, or laptop, or simple voip capable DECT phones around my home as needed.
I’m old enough to remember when nobody had a cell phone and we all worked and had social lives. I love it when people think you cant possibly live without something that didn’t exist a short time ago.
That said I’d be lost in five minutes if I tried to drive somewhere without gps
> That said I’d be lost in five minutes if I tried to drive somewhere without gps
I used to be that way, but MRI brain scan studies have proven that regular use of GPS actually atrophies the parts of your brain responsible for navigation. You likely need a GPS because you make too much use of a GPS.
I weaned myself off by regularly printing directions or writing them down before I leave. Eventually I finally learned to navigate the san francisco bay area on my own but I always keep a map in the car just in case, though I almost never use it.
Oh yeah I’m sure that’s the case. I was directionally challenged even before, but could then (and I’m sure could still) print and drive. The good old days of AAA and Mapquest!
Though I do have a phone, I do not use WhatsApp. I get the same responses you are getting - people absolutely can not believe that we function in society.
You pay a price (we miss many party invitations, only one friend consistently emails us and FB everyone else), but it's worth it.
Recently spoke to a colleague in Italy that told me he hates WhatsApp, but is forced to use it because the school of his kids in Rome use it as sole means to communicate, despite this being a legal violation (public organizations in Europe must use GDRR-compliant tools).
If a school tried to demand me or my kid have a cell phone or use any proprietary software, or accept the terms of service of a private corporation like meta or google, I would absolutely sue them and turn it into a media shit storm if needed.
Many have done this and won around the world. People just need to stop being cowards.
I bought into something like this, removed all social media for 2-3 years.
I lost so many connections to people and it seemed to set me back multiple years on my goals. I thought it would make me more productive, instead my userbase got cut in half.
If your entire social graph only exists on proprietary platforms then cutting that all at once is going to be brutal. I had to be a loud advocate for open solutions, and had to lead by example organizing IRL events myself with oldschool email .ical invites that still work just fine.
Many of the most talented people in the world only exist on free open source platforms. Social media is not the enemy. Proprietary centralized stock price driven social media is the enemy.
Come hang out on #!:matrix.org or other great tech communities on Matrix, and/or get invested in networks like Mastodon.
I've lost connections with "internet friends" but I see my real friends more often than does the average person my age. I wouldn't have it any other way.
Hear hear. The types of people that would stop being friends with you for not using proprietary software and platforms are the type of people that would stop being friends with someone for not eating meat, or some other ethical stance.
These are shitty shallow people, not real friends. Real friends will support, or at least tolerate, your honest ethics based lifestyle choices. Smart people often -prefer- being around people that think differently from them, and being different can even be an asset in making more smart friends.
I can understand that in some social contexts it is possible. For me personally it would be very hard. E.g. most school-related stuff of our daughter is coordinated through WhatsApp, same with birthday parties, playdates, etc.
Traveling internationally or domestically, booking flights, hotels, going to concerts, theme parks, the movies, organizing hangouts with friends, exploring new locations... all of these things I do just fine by using a web browser on a desktop computer before I leave home, and sometimes printing a couple things. I live a typical middle class lifestyle just without the doom scrolling.
All the ways of living an active life engaged in the modern world that worked before the 2009 smartphone explosion still work just fine today. Just without tiktok and instagram. I think I am okay without those.
So what - printed maps? No ‘where are you?’ texts or the like? No looking up nearby anything you’re curious about but didn’t know about before hand?
Certainly possible, I guess, if everyone in your circle does the same, and has a ton of patience, and you spend a ton of extra time doing all the prep in advance. And don’t need to deal with things like traffic jams right now, or the like.
For complex routes. Otherwise I just jot down a couple exits and an intersection and call it good.
> No ‘where are you?’ texts or the like?
No one expects this from me day to day because I am rarely away from home for more than a few hours at a time without a friend or family member, but when air traveling I have my tiny pocket laptop and check in at travel hubs from wifi. Everyone in your life will get used to it, especially if they see the results in it allowing you to be a more present person.
> No looking up nearby anything you’re curious about but didn’t know about before hand?
I tend to discover a lot of authentic hidden gems the travel guides don't mention, by just walking around a new area. Generally if I am traveling somewhere new, I go early to get a lay of the land.
When you agree to meet someone somewhere at some time, all further communication is redundant (I expect you to be reasonably punctual and I don't need your SMS updates "Hi, leaving the house now." followed by "hi, I'm running 5 min late", I will wait, and if you are not coming, you can call me to apologize if you care one bit).
For people who don't know their way, you can use in-car navigation systems rather than smartphone map apps.
99.9%? I am old enough to remember time before mobile phones, and being at a place at a prearranged time is possible. Also, if you are late, you can actually do a phone call to inform the other party - all you need is a feature phone, not smart phone.
I personally respect other peoples time and I expect the same for me. That is, I have cut out people from my life in the past that repeatedly would text "hey I'm 20mins late" 2mins before the agreed time. That is still disrespectful with my time, because now I know you are late, but still lost those 20mins. Some people don't consider that rude and for some reason do not see that this would not work if everybody does it. Needless to say, my friends know that I value reliability, and most of them do. People that don't respect that don't need to be in my social group, or at least I don't make plans with them.
Norms describe averages, I do not necessarily have to follow them as an individual. Eating meat is a social norm, yet in my social group there is far-than average vegetarians and vegans. This is fine, and I don't see a need to change. I as an individual can decide with what other individuals I want to surround myself. And I chose not to surround myself with people that are always late and unreliable.
Let us use Constructivism. Countries do not drop nukes on each other. However, if one starts, everyone will follow. Or you may have an arms race situation, one country gets colonies and unless you want to be dominated by other countries, they also get colonies.
No phone number? Spend more time getting services. Unable to get services from some companies. Miscommunication/frustration. Less connections/acquaintances.
Maybe this ends up working for you, but it lowers your 'power', the ability to get what you want. I do have concerns that it works in the short term, not long term.
"Getting what you want" is not an attainable life goal for me. People who do that above all else, are willing to throw away with their values whenever it benefits them. So you end up not having or at least living by your values. Unless your value is you above everyone else - Exactly the people I avoid. And why would you want to surround yourself with people that only do what benefits THEM?
Still 30s, but also I make new friends all the time from 20s to 70s by just trying to say yes to go new places and hang out with new people. Board game nights, concerts, bars, video game nights, hackerspace events, movie nights, puzzle parties, and hosting events myself.
All sorts of places to make friends at any age once one is willing to put a phone down long enough to say hi to someone new!
>booking flights, hotels, going to concerts, theme parks, the movies, organizing hangouts with friends, exploring new locations... all of these things I do just fine by using a web browser on a desktop computer before
This won't be possible soon, last couple of venues I went to were digital tickets only. Will call is basically dead now, and that used to be my preferred way of getting into events.
If you put them in airplane mode they are no longer permitted to contact cell phone towers by law and it is easy to form confidence the baseband modem is actually off because your battery life is so much better. Or pull out an SDR and prove it if you are extra paranoid. This turns them into wifi tablets.
I started out doing this for a couple years before abandoning mine.
I've been doing this the last year (ish) and my battery lasts so much longer. I suspect my data usage has been slashed as well. I recommend everyone starts using airplane mode. I just wish I could put individual apps in airplane mode so that they wouldn't be able to communicate, even when I was on wifi, unless I specifically allowed it.
But IF its possible for law enforcement to ping your phone when its on standby, dont you think its possible that it can be pinged whilst on airplane mode too?
If you are using it on wifi its game over anyway, hard internet connections are easy to track by law enforcement via ip and ISP. Even if you use a VPN your device is still connected to the wifi and can be pinged.
Not sure why people here are thinking they are more clever than than the smartphone makers.
> But IF its possible for law enforcement to ping your phone when its on standby, dont you think its possible that it can be pinged whilst on airplane mode too?
We do not need to wonder, because this is a physics problem and we have science. Radio waves are easy to measure. There have been plenty of experiments with putting phones in faraday chambers with SDRs proving a phone in airplane mode does not emit any cellular frequencies.
You could prove this yourself with cheap home equipment if you wished.
But also, implementing airplane mode that did not actually disable the baseband modem would be an outright violation of FCC law that would be noticed by curious members of the public if this was widespread.
That said a specific targeted device with backdoored software can just make the airplane mode button do nothing, to your point, so physical switches for the baseband are always best, though few devices support them.
Like I said, you keep ignoring wifi. If you dont want your device to be completely useless, you need to connect it somehow. Both Radio and Wifi are easily trackable, so to circle round to the original point turning off radio tracking on your device and 'turning it into a wifi tablet' does not stop you being tracked.
>so physical switches for the baseband are always best, though few devices support them.
If someone has the motivation to backdoor devices they can do the same with physical switches (that will still talk to software regardless). If anything adding a switch that does nothing is easier.
Please explain what this means, I can turn my cell phone off. How are they able to ping my phone if it has no power? Or are you saying even when you turn it off there's still some part of it that's energized or something?
ok, that makes more sense. If the battery is dead then the phone can't track me (or if you had a phone with a removable battery - i have an old one I kept that is like that).
No part of the phone is controlled by me. Can we stop getting spooked by the word "baseband" yet? It means the modem chip. The modem chip isn't controlled by me and can wake up without my knowledge. But neither is the wifi chip. Or the bluetooth chip. Or the RAM chip. Or the main CPU (application processor). Or the screen. Any one of these could hold malware.
You are correct and as others have said, the phone can run functions while it looks like its off. This was one of the main reasons manufacturers killed removable batteries. You can put your phone onto standby, but you cannot power it off completely.
There are also conspiracy theories that claim the last 10% of battery is reserved for tracking, so that when your phone says its out of battery and wont turn on, it still has plenty of power left to ping tracking data say once per hour or something. I dont push those theories, but judging by what Snowden released all those years ago I wouldnt be surprised.
You can also just use google family link, make someone else your parent, and lock down the phone. I have a "dumb phone" that is just a refurbished Samsung s22 I bought. Only supports phone calls, messaging, and some credit cards basically.
How is being able to make phone calls prevent you from being tracked? You're still going to be constantly pinging those cell towers with a unique identifier.
I can tell you with almost 100% certainty: no banks in the UK use any 2FA other than SMS-based.
I spent December last year looking for a new bank to move to. One of my criteria (not the most important but it was on the list) was better-than-SMS 2FA.
No one offers it. There may be some niche, loosely-based finance org that does but none of the banks or Building Societies do.
Barclays, with standard current accounts, provides several methods none of which are SMS. There's a separate pin-code device (called Pinsentry) that does TOTP and challenge-response, or passcodes for both telephone and Internet banking.
(not op). I use a dumb feature phones that can receive SMS for far less than 40€ (even cheaper, but I like the music player and some other things like bluetooh for headphones). I have a "twin SIM", i.e. my mobile carier gives me a SIM with the same phone number and if somebody calls me, both phones (smartphone and feature phone) ring. SMS can only be received at one number, but you can switch the SIM for SMS reception using the carrier website. Since I only take the feature phone when I leave home (to enjoy outside time without distractions) I usually don't turn it on.
Most 2FA can be done without a phone, and you can also use offline 2FA keys, not necessarily a text message.
You can also set up a phone number to accept texts from a laptop.
I can do whatever on my bank by just calling. It would be a bit weird to never be able to pitch in on meals with a $ transfer app, but I suppose when you run 2 tech companies you're probably paying most of the time, or you just take a note and transfer it later.
What security state? They aren't doing this for anyone's safety. This is the surveillance and parallel construction state.
> What needs to happen is accountability.
No agency can have this power and remain accountable. Warrants are not an effective tool for managing this. Courts cannot effectively perform oversight after the fact.
> The only way to stop the rampant abuse is to treat data like fire.
You've missed the obvious. You should really go the other direction. Our devices should generate _noise_. Huge crazy amounts of noise. Extraneous data to a level that pollutes the system beyond any utility. They accept all this data without filtering. They should suffer for that choice.
Strictly speaking, this is not completely true. When you call an emergency number, it’s very good that they can see exactly where you are. That was how this was sold 15+ years ago. But of course, that’s basically the only use case when this should be available.
Yet when I call emergency I must provide my location verbally, and then am usually contacted for a follow-up, because the guys cannot find the place. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure that this location technology works perfectly well: just not for the "only use case when this should be available".
Except apparently they can't. I'm in L.A., a city where resources presumably represent what's available in modern cities, and the first thing I've been asked in any 911 call is "what's your location?"
This is particularly offensive considering that everyone was forced to replace his phone in the early 2000s to comply with "E-911." Verizon refused to let me activate a StarTAC I bought to replace my original, months before this mandate actually took effect.
Looking back on it, it was a perfect scam: Congress got paid off to throw a huge bone to everyone except the consumers. We were all forced to buy new phones, and for millions of people that meant renewing service contracts. Telcos win. Phone manufacturers win. Consumers lose.
Why? What is the rationale? Unless of course you subscribe to the idea that anything goes as long as a court decrees it, in which case there’s nothing to debate really.
Court approved warrants are pretty fundamental to how our legal system works and how some level of accountability is maintained. That system isn't perfect by any stretch, but removing it unlocks Pandoras box and I'm not sure we'd be better off without it.
As it stands, a cop has to get a warrant to enter and search your home, for example. If we remove that hurdle because we also don't trust the courts then we just have more searches.
I get the reaction to turn on the whole system, I have very little faith in it myself. But I don't think many people are really aware of or ready for what would come without it.
Have you been paying attention to the news lately where Trump is weaponizing the court system to a point where ethical AGs are resigning instead of complying?
Thats not an argument to get rid of the courts. Quite the opposite. Trump is trying to sideline them, but ultimately it will fail becausethe population wont accept it. The US isnt China or Russia, and Trump may have to learn that.
The population is accepting it right now. 40% of the people still approve of everything Trump is doing.
If you have 10 friends and you ask them what they want to eat for dinner and 6 say let’s go to a Mexican restaurant and 4 say let’s kill Bob and eat him, you still need to worry about your friend group.
Right this second ICE agents are killing people with impunity and police for the longest have had qualified immunity to kill people unjustly.
The country voted for this knowing exactly what they were going to get. Don’t believe the Michelle Obama “this is not who we are” this is who this country has always been
The country voted for it but it wasn't a rational choice. Half the country lives in insane false world, pushed by Fox news. But it's a near-majority every election.
There are so many rulings, just in the last 25 years even, where SCOTUS has reaffirmed that warrantless search is not okay. This one is very much in line with the topic, in fact.
Carpenter v. United States (2018)
This country has never been what you're saying. We have some over policing happening. That seems to come and go in every country and doesn't say anything by itself about what a county is about, especially where it's trending over a 25 year timeline in the opposite direction from what you're describing.
Let it go to court, at least, before you flip your lid and turn on your countrymen.
Democrats (the South) always said that this country was always about slavery. They used that rhetoric to argue FOR slavery for decades after it was abolished. This is all documented in supreme court cases from the 18th century on up through the civil war. Some of the founding fathers argued as attorneys in some of those cases in fact, stating firmly that slavery was always illegal in the United States. Republicans (Lincoln included) pointed to the Constitution as evidence that slavery was always illegal and that the southern states had a limited time to abolish it (that's factually written in the Constitution, a concession made in order to earn their support in the revolution). The disagreement on that is exactly what led to the civil war. The South refused to live up to the Constitution's terms and end slavery, counter to the law.
The Republicans won that war. We live in that country that won. Not the one you're describing. Jim Crow was a Southern state thing. The North never allowed it. We live in the North. The South is gone and it was never part of this country because it violated the laws that would have made it so. They rebelled against anti slavery laws from the beginning and they finally got what they deserved, to be conquered by the United States that we live in today. And then they still argued to keep slavery and the Supreme Court kept slapping it down. Over and over and over.
If you believe that the United States was ever about slavery, then you carry the rhetoric of the very party that created Jim Crow and that supported slavery, and you make them the good guy in the story. You support their version, where it was always legal and they got screwed by the lying North.
The irony... Don't ignore the writings of Washington, Franklin, Hancock, etc. All wrote to say that slavery has no place in this country. And it never did! Their letters are preserved for you to read. They are available online or in one of the museums in DC. Probably the National Archive? Someone can correct me if they know.
Anyway, that some people refuse to follow the law, isn't a reflection of the country as a whole. Similarly, when someone is killed in Norway, I don't jump to conclude that Norwegians are murderers. That wouldn't make any sense.
Did you go to high school in the South somewhere? The revisionist's history of the US seems to stem from that part of the country. I'm just curious if it tracks.
The constitution literally said that slaves were counted as 3/5th of a person - the actual founding documents. How can you say this country wasn’t about slavery from the beginning?
I don't think you read my comment. I mentioned this exact thing.
The 3/5 vote was part of how the North protected from the South using greater numbers (voting in place of their slaves) to remove the expiration date that the North placed on slavery as a concession.
The North wanted to ensure that slaves would in fact be released as soon as possible, without losing the South as an ally against the impending invasion from England.
Had they not reduced the voting ability of the South, the South would have simply removed that expiration date and kept their slaves. (They kept them anyway, that's why the civil war happened.)
There are a lot of excuses being made to dispute the fact that this country literally has slavery built into its founding documents and let Jim Crow laws stand in a part of the country for almost a century later.
There was no “expiration date” in the constitution.
“Plessy vs Ferguson” was decided by the US Supreme Court after the Civil War which enshrined Jim Crow and “Separate but Equal”.
It wasn’t until 1967 that the Supreme Court outlawed bans on interracial marriage.
This country was built on racism and it was enshrined into law up to 6 years before I was born
In all fairness, my family had a house built here in 2016 and the only reason we sold in 2024 was to move to Florida. While my (stepson) was one of only 5 Black students in his high school, he never had any issues.
>There was no “expiration date” in the constitution.
Article I, Section 9, Clause 1 of the U.S. Constitution (often called the Slave Trade Clause) prevented Congress from prohibiting the importation of slaves prior to January 1, 1808. This effectively allowed the international slave trade to continue until that date, after which Congress could (and did) ban it.
Seems I need to reword my take, as this demands a bit more specificity, but the overall take remains unchanged. Had the 3/5 provision not been made, the South would have further prevented the North from enforcing a ban on slavery and inequality, which was already in place in the North, and in place federally with the "created equal" component in the Declaration, as was argued by founders in court cases.
We can't just ignore court documents and the Constitution itself, along with the Declaration. Not to mention the first draft of the Constitution which had a lot more provisions against slavery before the English forced then to take allies with the South or die. They had no choice but to agree to the South's terms and allow for the South's slaves, temporarily. A stark difference from the previous Constitution of the first Congress.
You can try to frame it however you like, but you can't hide the fact that the founders wrote that slavery is bad, and they don't want it in this country even before it was a country. And they subsequently fought to eliminate it as soon as the wars were over. Those documents remain, right in the face of your argument.
Sundown towns existing doesn't change that. There was no sundown country, just as this isn't a sex cult country, despite there being some law breaking Nexium participants setting up shop and torturing people. It happens, that doesn't mean we as a country yearn to have more racists walking around. In fact, I think if you read why Republicans voted Trump, it's because they perceive immigrants to be racist and they want to reduce the inflow of racist ideology and rape culture into the country. That's exactly the scare tactic that their advertising relies on. They believe they are the ones who aren't racist, just like Democrats.
(I hate both political parties equally by the way. I'm not sure if that's clear from my commentary. But I reject the South's view of history because I can read the damn court cases and see that it's a total fabrication. And I know that Democrats like to spread that version as justification for why black people need help, and I think they know full well that it's bullshit, but it convinces juries on rare occasion so they continue to use it.)
Again, this country has always been built on racism and inequality and was enshrined into the law in some shape or form until the 60s.
This is in no shape form or fashion a “I couldn’t get ahead because of my race” conversation.
I’ve had every door opened to me - private school, academic college scholarship, worked at startups, lifestyle companies, boring enterprise companies and BigTech less than 3 years ago and turned down another one because I refuse to ever go into an office or work for BigTech again.
I don't deny that the Supreme Court hasn't ruled to my liking in all cases.
I never opposed that fact, but I apologize if I gave that impression.
I think that overall, when you look at the trend over time and the majority of cases, overwhelmingly the legislature and the courts have sided with anti slavery, equality (not equity), and presented an image of freedom and justice.
Maybe you disagree, but to say that it was always the opposite, I just don't see that. There are just a handful of cases supporting that argument against a mountain of wins in the other direction.
All that is true so long as you don't zero in and focus only on the South which, as I said, isn't this country. It's a rightfully defeated one. I'm thankful for that, and I'd rather avoid acknowledging the false rhetoric of that evil empire that fell. I certainly don't identify with it, and I'm offended at the notion that this country is required to. Why should we be? We won.
And saying that the “Supreme Court didn’t always rule the way you like” is minimizing an entire race of people - including my still living parents having to grow up in schools that were underfunded but supposedly “separate but equal”, people getting hung if you looked at a White woman the wrong way and didn’t “know your place” or even marrying outside of your race was illegal until 1969. Not to mention colleges that ny parents weren’t allowed to go to, having to drink from “colored water fountains” - again the US Supreme Court said this was legal
So if you ignore half of the country that had segregation and the US Supreme Court that condoned it, everything is fine?
Not minimizing. Just acknowledging that this alone doesn't characterize the general take of the complete history of the country. It describes a nation divided on moral lines at best. Not all states participated in segregation and those states that didn't ultimately are those who won in the end. So to take that win away degrades the victory that your parents (probably) helped to win.
If this was condoned by the US Supreme Court explicitly, this was the law of the United States that anyone anywhere could be discriminated against based on the color of their skin.
The federal army - ie run by the US was officially segregated until 1948 but it really was through the late 50s.
If you want to go by just one SCOTUS ruling to make your argument then why shouldn't we go with just one to make mine? And for that matter the number of rulings that make my argument are many many more than those that make yours.
I'm familiar with this theory and on some issues maybe it's relevant but what I'm referring to here is that Democrats today still seem to be in agreement with Democrats of old on the topic of whether the founders meant to abolish slavery.
Republicans say they absolutely did, just as they always have.
Democrats say they absolutely didn't, just as they always have.
I would argue that realignment occurred geographically, not on the basis of morality. Under slavery, the southern states were rich and mostly Democrats, now the northern states are more largely rich and leaning Democrat. That's to be expected, I think, where the wealthy wouldn't enjoy the new found poverty of the southern states as they rebuilt after the war, and would take their ideals with them. But that's just my guess, I don't have any research to substantiate that. Maybe it's an interesting topic for research.
Similarly, the stance on issues of whether people are naturally born inferior and deserving of special treatment, good or bad, remains a largely Democrat ideology, just as it always has.
Republicans on the other hand argue that all man is created equal not equitable, and they used that rhetoric to free slaves, stop Jim Crow era horrors, etc. And they continue to use it to argue against race based government aid.
So on these specific topics, I don't see any realignment as objectively observed.
All of this was and is documented in many SCOTUS cases, old and new.
Are you claiming that the party alignment hasn't switched over time?
I expect that everyone would agree Alabama is a very conservative state. It was voted solid Democrat until the late 80s, at which point the state went republican along with any elected politicians that stayed in office.
If I'm not mistaken, Richard Shelby was elected as a democrat in the early or mid 80s before being the last elected official to switch to the republican party. He stayed in office for decades and had state university buildings named after him.
The voting opinions largely didn't change over that time, only the party name they were voting for.
On these two items mentioned, yes. Read carefully.
1. Whether or not race objectively determines inferiority.
2. Whether or not this country always supported slavery.
On these two items, opinions remain true to the original parties' opinions regardless of whether or not they swapped.
I'm not going to debate whether or not they swapped overall because that's entirely subjective regarding what constitutes a swap officially. That would be a waste of time. I'm a scientist, not a cheerleader. I frankly don't care outside of the two items relevant to the discussion. And in these two items they didn't swap.
Then why in 1896 did the Supreme Court uphold “Separate But Equal”?
The Republican President just said that Hatians are eating pets and starting a civil war in MN to get rid of brown people.
Not to mention how he is inviting White people only from South Africa to come over.
Lyndon Johnson - a Republican - said after the Civil Rights Act that “the Republicans have lost the South for two generations”.
But Southern Democrats were literally “Democrats in name only” with Zell Miller the current governor of GA at the time a Democrat speaking at and supporting the Republican President’s nominating convention
I don't see how any of these relate to what I was saying.
On the topics of race based inferiority as a biological construct, and on whether slavery was ever legal, the party alignment has never changed.
Democrats still argue that black people are inferior. What's changed is that now they want to help them because they are inferior whereas before they wanted to exclude them because they are inferior.
Republicans continue to argue that black people don't deserve any reparations or special treatment because they are not inferior.
The above take is based solely on what these people argue in court.
You don’t think that Republicans outright celebrating and defending Nazis and what Kirk said - and praised by Republicans is considering a race inferior?
I vehemently oppose Nazi anything. Also I think you've subscribed to a very biased view of Republicans that doesn't describe anyone I know. That said I'm not politically aligned with either she so my take shouldn't serve as a defense for anyone's view. But from outside the fishbowl I can't say I subscribe to this description.
It’s hard to believe that when you are repeating very common MAGA/republican talking points and digging in your heels calling into question political party realignment, a very established concept, to claim democrats are a pro-slavery party. That is a very striking claim from someone “outside the fishbowl.”
I didn't claim Democrats are pro slavery today. In the past they were. I gave very little opinion on the matter. I'm just pointing out that these talking points for both parties haven't changed.
So this doesn’t describe “anyone you know”, yet the official “Young Republicans” association is bragging about their support for Nazis with the Republican Vice President dismissing it and Republicans across the country deifying a dead racist podcaster? And the elected Republican President accused a whole group of people of “eating pets” - and Republicans still overwhelming support this. Yet “no one you know” is like this?
I don't see your point. I think you're trying to say you don't like Republicans, and I'm okay with that. Again, I don't have a horse in the race. I'm just pointing out some facts that disagree with the revisionist's history. It seems I may have upset you. I will disengage here.
It is a theory in the same way gravity is. Both parties have experienced both gradual and sudden, major shifts and realignments throughout history. Most of the dispute is where and when these changes occurred and what constitutes them exactly. The changes clearly occur, usually over several decades but sometimes more quickly.
I’m still curious what your response is to my Strom Thurman question. It illustrates the entire point and marks one of the most recent major party realignments in the US.
The same as gravity? I wouldn't go that far. Gravity can be measured repeatedly and no objections have even been made to its effect. The theory is sound because it accurately makes predictions about the universe.
Theory is just an explanation for what we observe and I think this theory explains some things better than others. The two items I listed are are clear contrast to the theory.
Let's say it's not a unified theory of American politics, at the least.
I'll edit here for Thurman, I have to go read... Back soon to update.
Edit: I wasn't and still am not familiar with Storm Thurman. From a brief skim of the Wikipedia page, I gather he was a political "spy" of sorts, working from the inside to further the opposing party's goals.
You may need to elaborate a bit for me to see the tie in.
This is going to sound harsh. But you really don’t have much understanding of American history either race. My still living parents grew up in the segregationist south. This isn’t ancient history.
I believe you, and that doesn't change my stance. The segregationist South doesn't represent this country. It represented the remains of a racist Confederacy that was destroyed, save for the ideology that persists in the hearts of those that choose to continue to deny what this country has always been about.
Do we include you in support of that ideology? I worry that you might be missing the irony of your argument.
> I gather he was a political "spy" of sorts, working from the inside to further the opposing party's goals.
Strom Thurmond was a Democrat who changed parties - swapped to a Republican - when democrats supported and pushed integration. It is surprising to see you repeating a fringe conspiracy explaining his racism having never heard of him only minutes prior. This is the man who yelled, “segregation now, segregation forever” on the senate floor during a 24hr+ filibuster attempting to thwart reintegration. There’s no secret here, he wasn’t a spy. He swapped to the party that cultivated “the southern strategy” on the heels of ending Jim Crow: the Republican Party. Any claim to “the party of Lincoln” was forfeited by that time.
You’ll never hear me call the Democrats “saints” but they were on the right side of history with that one and I hope we both can agree on that.
It's an interesting take. But as I keep pointing out in other comments, one example doesn't make for an argument against the trend.
If it did then this example would be all I need to make my point. Is it?
House of Representatives vote on civil rights act: Approximately 63% of Democrats (153 yes out of 244 total Democrat votes cast) and 80% of Republicans (136 yes out of 171 total Republican votes cast).
Senate: Approximately 69% of Democrats (46 yes out of 67 total Democrat votes cast) and 82% of Republicans (27 yes out of 33 total Republican votes cast).
Here again it appears that Republicans as a larger majority remained true to the traditional Republican push for equality (not equity).
What poll have you seen that asks people to approve of everything any president does?
I live in a very red part of the country, and in a very red, rural area that voted ~90% for Trump. I don't know anyone that is okay with everything he has done. Some take issue with Venezuela, some with the handling of the Epstein files or the federal budget. Some don't like sabre rattling over Greenland.
Most people I know that do vote Republican are one issue voters. At least here people voted because they always vote republican, support the second amendment, think the republicans actually want a balanced budget, or just hated Clinton/Biden. It isn't about supporting whatever Trump does, though I'm sure some small percentage does.
People regardless of party or region don't think critically often enough and can't set aside their own personal beliefs. We've made our country bipolar and we're seeing the repercussions. It isn't a problem with any one party or person, and the answer isn't to tear down the fundamentals of our system. We need to actually get back to the fundamentals because of late both parties have been going the way of socialism and authoritarianism.
Isn’t that agreeing with him? HN loves to make excuses for the voters. If killing someone isn’t too aggressive what is? Killing and eating his kids? They think that is fine
Let me be very clear: I think ICE is wildly out of bounds and killing/terrorizing people. I do not support them. I do not support the republican party or Trump. Quite the opposite.
All of that being said: that is how polling works. You are inferring too far beyond the actual question posed. For instance, somebody could think they are acting too aggressively, but completely agree with the final outcome/objective. Or somebody could disagree with the objective, but think that they’re not acting too aggressively because perhaps they’re sympathetic to LEO’s having to make snap judgments in the field (an excuse I do not agree with but many do).
I think the general sentiment that the question tells you something about how people support or don’t support ICE is valid, but the exact number and statement you’re throwing out cannot be assumed and is likely wrong, even if it’s maybe close. And that’s not even getting into how different people will have different ideas of what “too aggressive” even means.
59% think they’re being too aggressive, assuming the polling is decent quality, means you can credibly say 41% do not think ICE is being too aggressive.
I am talking about other people. I am talking about the statements you can make based off the polls. I don’t understand what the objection is here. I personally think ICE is terrible both in their mission and how they conduct it. I am against this.
A court order is just a hurdle that legislation (or a constitutional provision) dicatates, in the investigation of crime (or prevention of future crime...). The distinction is the rights of the individual vs the rights of other individuals in the dilute sense we call society.
The problem is that individuals no longer have confidence in their institutions, for both good reasons (official corruption, motivated prosecutors, the dissolution of norms of executive behaviour) and bad ones (propaganda on Fox News, and the long tail of disinformation online).
The question becomes: how can citizens have confidence their rights will be protected? What structure would protect the right to privacy?
The only reliable way to protect rights is to limit power, and the only reliable way to protect fundamental rights is to limit power with absolute prohibitions.
This was well understood in the decades following WW2, and many countries implemented protections of this kind, only to roll them back again later when people had forgotten why they existed, and believed once more that everything will be fine as long as the “right” actors were in power.
In the US there is now the insane situation that the executive operates with the assumption of a pardon if they break the law, and if you attempt to prevent federal employees breaking the law, or even observe them or protest them, they might kill you extra legally, shielded from prosecution or punishment.
Structurally, that means the law must require consequences for cooperating participants (telcos, state agencies, subcontractors, IT providers and Apple/Google), and ultimately it will be the end of the Presidential individually exercised pardon power.
They aren't that hard to get, yet Trump's warriors ice never seem to have warrants signed by a judge. Going back to being able to ignore fake warrants not signed by a judge without them killing you would be a big step forward.
With fundamental rules, applicable to all situations, limiting what information courts can demand. There are things so private that they should be out of reach of the state regardless of what justification someone can come up with.
> Our devices should generate _noise_. Huge crazy amounts of noise. Extraneous data to a level that pollutes the system beyond any utility. They accept all this data without filtering. They should suffer for that choice.
I like the idea on principle, but I'll like it far less when I'm getting charged with computer fraud or some other over-reaching bullshit law.
This line of argument is common. We use the term 'wiretap' because that is what it was, a physical tap on a physical wire and it took a real person there to do it. Even then it took a warrant to approve it. Wiretap laws were written when the technology made abuse extremely hard and were likely appropriate for the time. Now we live in an age where abuse of millions can be done in a single key-stroke and often doesn't require a warrant or oversight of any kind because the technology has changed and evolved to provide loopholes around the laws. The intent was emergency services but the mass use has been anything but. That is the key point and those that have abused this, weather on behalf of the government or for corporate profit, should be held responsible. We should have laws that criminalize breaking the intent of use in ways that harm individuals. You found a technical system rife for abuse and you use it that way? Go to jail. Pay a fine. It is that simple.
Made for, and used for, are two different things. The article gives an example of Israel slurping down that data constantly to track everyone, and you can bet they aren't the only ones doing that.
For consequences, we need to do away with the notion of qualified immunity. Why should police officers, politicians, agents of the government have any immunity for their actions? They should carry personal liability for breaking the law and violating others’ rights. Otherwise, there is no reason they’ll change. Right now, at best you’ll sue the government and get some money, but all you’re doing is punishing other tax payers.
In the United States, qualified immunity is a legal principle of federal law that grants government officials performing discretionary (optional) functions immunity from lawsuits for damages unless the plaintiff shows that the official violated "clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known".
Under 42 USC § 1983, a plaintiff can sue for damages when state officials violate their constitutional rights or other federal rights.
This is interesting. In my country (Poland) parliament members have legal, immunity from criminal prosecution and arrest to the point of police not being able to stop them if they drunk drive. There have been some abuses like that.
The law is such that a prosecutor that wants to prosecute them has to ask the parliament. Then there is a vote and the parliament decides if the immunity is taken off.
In a healthy democracy, where there are more than same two parties switching the rule to one or the other it is very likely the current opposition will be the majority next time and they will vote to strip immunity from those that try to use it as a shield for criminals.
I think the price we pay for this (delay in getting justice) is well worth paying so the justice system can't be used as a weapon against political opponents easily.
The rules and laws allowing the federal government to take over a state case against a federal agent seem much more damaging.
The cops involved in the most recent Minneapolis shooting will almost certainly face no repercussions because of this. The state can bring a case but the feds are clearly uninterested, they would simply take the case into federal court and spike it.
That's not how it works. When a state prosecution of a federal officer is removed to federal court, it's still the state prosecutor who's in charge. The problem is that as long as they were performing their duties they get a lot of leeway. A recent case was a cyclist killed by a DEA agent that ran a stop sign. Case dismissed: federal agents tailing someone don't have to respect state traffic laws.
The state can't bring charges against a federal agent enforcing federal law, otherwise southern states could have sued the federal agents enforcing integration.
Individuals can have standing, but they have to be directly harmed first. You don't have standing just because the law "SilverElfin loses all his constitutional rights and can be arrested for nothing" gets passed. You do have standing once you've been arrested.
It's more like when the federal government passed a law giving people a recourse for when state officials violate their rights they did not write the law to (or purposefully wrote it to not) include the federal government.
It's the norm in most western countries. Prosecution of administration official is still rare, but nothing like the obvious free permit to misbehave we see in the US.
Get rid of qualified immunity and enjoy no more fruit of the poisonous tree. I assume you are not familiar with the laws of evidence by your emotional position. One of the biggest problems the country faces is citizen literacy in all domains. If you improve citizen literacy across all domains you will solve all problems, until they take away our ability to vote. The "system" exploits those who cannot defend themselves.
We definitely won't get rid of it if we accept failure. I get that it seems extremely unlikely, but there's no use in trying to just mitigate the risk short term. One way or another that power will be abused eventually (if it isn't already).
Idealist views like this get us nowhere either tho.
The reality is somewhat more murky. On a long enough time horizon your point makes sense, we might be able to get rid of the security state by slowly chipping away at ig over hundreds or thousands of years.
Most of us are going to be dead in about 40 years tho. Security state isn't going anywhere in that timeframe.
Why not? Change like that happens slowly, then all at once. I can't say I'm optimistic that it will be gotten rid of, but if its worth fighting for then it doesn't matter if it seems likely.
Out of all places on the Web, this one should be where solutions to (get rid of/limit the surveillance state) are devised. If the HN community doesn't have the will or skill, who else has?
Well that's very interesting. Why do you expect HN is the most likely place on the internet for people with the will or skill to take down the security state?
I would have guessed it was more likely this is where you'd find the people who built the security state, not want to destroy it.
Your bio says you are an AI professor. As far as I can tell the AI industry seems to be the mass surveillance machine's magnum opus. How do you square that circle?
Maybe the dead in forty years comment. Though considering accelerating climate collapse and the possibility of nuclear conflict it’s not completely unreasonable in my view.
People love idealism. It never works, but it sounds amazing.
Reddit, HN, and every democracy has the same problem... at least for a few years.
I think after this bout of Trumpism, the republicans will not be able to elect another populist demagogue for a generation. I think democrats need to do a round as well.
Does it apply to the government like it applies to people? Is it enforced against governments like it is enforced against people and corporations? A core issue here is that laws, and the application and enforcement of laws, generally do not. Having said that I applaud the attempt and encourage pushing forward on the anti-surveillance aspects of GDPR while recognizing all laws are flawed.
The telco would be the one collecting it first, I assume. It would be interesting for someone in the EU to request their data from their telco, and if it contains these precise locations, question the usage.
Tescos in the EU are required to track location for emergency call purposes and provide it to the government in such occasions. That means they need the ability to collect it all the time.
Yeah it applies to government like local municipalities have to adhere to GDPR, they cannot just have your name on the register, they have to have a legal reason.
Way you could argue it doesn’t apply to government is that the government makes the law so they can make the law that makes data processing and having your name on some kind of registry required.
But still they have to show you the reason and you can escalate to EU bodies to fine your own country if they don’t follow the rules.
If I send it to the company A, company B doesn't execute it unless they're a subsidiary of A (or A is their data controller) and my request was carefully crafted.
In the scenario you painted, that would mean that my _former_ friend has issued their request to me.
We aren't going to remove the security state. We should make all attempts to, but it won't happen. What needs to happen is accountability. I should be able to turn off sharing personal information and if someone tries I should be notified and have recourse. This should also be retroactive. If I have turned off sharing and someone finds a technical loophole and uses it, there should be consequences. The only way to stop the rampant abuse is to treat data like fire. If you have it and it gets out of control you get burned, badly.