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Feels like laws are needed around this. Explicit, unambiguous laws. If you go above and beyond the law in terms of invasion of privacy, while acting as a law enforcement officer or on their behalf, you serve time in prison.

Provide a handbook to all law enforcement members explaining these rules. Give them access to whistleblower hotlines. Make an agency whose job it is to look into such complaints and file charges. The problems would vanish in a very short time.

But naturally, such a change would have to come from the top- and the government does not want to give up this power it has over its citizens.

Maybe we can have this for cops murdering people too
I think it's not only the power over citizens but also the support of the police, otherwise they will start to protest and say the govt is blocking them from doing their job.

The police wants these tools to satisfy their ego and complexes as much as the govt wants power over citizens.

Or we could set up specific members of the legal system who are responsible for deciding which invasions of privacy are permitted and which ones are prohibited.

Maybe we could give them a special title, such as 'judge' or 'your honor'.

And yet, the majority of the people do not care at all. I am actually over preaching the need for privacy, I just try to practice opsec daily and identify my failures and weak spots.

I tried to be a privacy purist: a smartphone without internet on a prepaid card running opensource software (likely with a backdoored baseband chip, but). Internet through rotating VPNs only on incognito browsers with anti-fingerprinting plugins, no sms'es, personal email on a self-hosted server with at-rest encryption...

All while gaining absolutely nothing out of it, but inconveniences like filling out captchas and needing to go extra steps to open up wikipedia. That behaviour itself was a failure in opsec - I am sure that it put me on a watchlist somewhere.

I'm a "normie" now, trying to emulate the "noise" that is around me. I believe that's much more a viable approach than being a hardcore privacy-ist(?)

The majority of people do not care because the police can legally blow your door of its hinges, kick the shit out of you, drag you into a van, and stuff you in a cell all before you get to the due process part of the justice system. They have accepted that this is fine. Telling them that they can be spied on by the government and that the only way to stay safe is to accept a quality of life drop and also learn up on half a dozen relatively complicated technological concepts is not going to work.
>And yet, the majority of the people do not care at all.

I really, really dislike this meme. Try to put yourself into the shoes of a non-tech person, remembering that "non-tech" is in no way a synonym for "stupid" or "lazy". They may be a doctor, lawyer or professor, a construction worker, service industry person or driver. Maybe they make a reasonable amount of money, or maybe they're on minimum wage working multiple jobs to make ends meet.

Now please QUANTIFY what "care" means. I'll give it a shot: 1 hour a week. I think that a non-tech person is going to need to average putting in at least that much time, consistently over a year or two, to make major advances on defending their privacy in a Digital Wild West environment. We on HN tend to have not merely significant digital system knowledge, but also significant meta knowledge. We don't just know answers, we know questions and where to look for answers and how to try to find them, the kinds of keywords to use, the kinds of other people to ask and where to find them. This is of course true in any area, but it's easy to take for granted how much of a difference that makes. Someone starting from scratch is going to spend a lot of time even learning that things like firewalls or personal VPNs or the like exist at all, let alone what ones to use and how. They probably won't already have their own technical infrastructure either, like owning a a personal domain with email, and understand the various factors involved with that. Which in turn makes it harder to use unique addresses per site (hence services like Apple Sign In stepping in, which itself has concerns). It's deep, deep waters.

But at $15/hr, even just an hour a week is $780 a year. That's real money. Maybe they'd be better off just spending more of that directly. But on what? I think the answer for some is "Apple devices" which they've heard are somewhat more updated and private, which could be some fraction of the premium for those that care. Or maybe it'd be better to put some into political donations and activism. But how exactly to do that effectively is itself an area of expertise that will take time. Etc etc.

A sense of helplessness in the face of seemingly overwhelming force isn't the same as "not caring at all", nor ignorance that improvement is even possible. Contrary to your assertion, we've repeatedly seen the public being quite uncomfortable with mass surveillance. Large percentages polled don't like the idea of personalized advertising. Laws trying to enhance it have passed repeatedly, despite overwhelming concentrated interest opposition. The laws sometimes get watered down or are misaimed, but that's not surprising for technical things pushed by the public. But the desire is certainly there for a majority, even if many have given up, or are merely quietly getting more angry about it.

So please be careful about blithely ascribing motivations to swaths of hundreds of millions to billions of people from our perch of expertise. Life is more complicated than that, and furthermore it's self-defeating. We, people who care a lot about this and have some idea of what to do about it, need large numbers of regular people who care but don't know what to do. Writing them off instead is stupid. Of course, that means we also need to care about satisfying their needs on the reverse too.

I feel like LEO's going out and saying this over and over is just them trying to move the window, with a little help from Silicon Valley executives[0]. The more they say, it the more the Jedi mind trick will work.

[0] https://www.hcinnovationgroup.com/home/blog/13018078/privacy...

For a while now I was struggling to put into words why my l changed from being a "privacy activist" to being a "normie". But you just hit the nail on the head. Security, both technical and operational are still very much important to me.

But before recently, I would've preferred Firefox over Chrome for example, since it's more private.

These days it's the other way around.

Sadly I think you are right; but it's scary that we've come to the point where seeking privacy in itself is suspicious behavior.
Being a zebra in the middle of the pack is probably the most practical solution. However as things move forward with the great reset its going to become increasingly more difficult for that to maintain its effectiveness.

Its obvious now that "vaccine passports" and "contact tracing" are going to become defacto required. Therefore, the level of data they will be collecting will be so granular that 'blending in' won't really matter. A simple SQL query 5 years in the future will establish your every movement and health history for any given point.

>50% of average people are going to go along with this (or outright support it) and anyone who speaks against it will be called "anti-science" and selfish.

It's literally mind-boggling we are at this stage, but we must open our eyes and accept it.

There is also the other side, most people do not realize what is happening, and full out consequences of various things.

Once you actually tell them the reality of things, they really don't like it. Like why can the FBI force my therapist to give them their notes under the Patriot act? Most don't know it, most will not like it either.

Another part of this is the power is unexercised and/or covert. Because if it was overt, it would create huge public backlash. They know this and it's why they use things like parallel construction.

I actually came here specifically to comment that based on my personal experiences with the RCMP, their ineptitude and moribund bureaucratic nature makes me surprised they're able to actually do anything useful with the tools alleged in this report. And then I saw that a number of other people have already commented essentially the same thing.
As a Canadian I find this article pretty funny since there’s no news in it whatsoever. It’s not a particularly reputable news source up here.

“There’s little privacy anymore” is a reality not a joke. Citizens chose to engage in social media and to buy technologies which expose their private lives.

The RCMP bought some script kiddie toys to explore Facebook and the dark web... because they have things like child exploitation units meant to look in places like that. Not news.

If anything it’s funny that the RCMP is so much worse at hiding this stuff from the public than the FBI.

I feel no threat to my privacy based on what’s written here... at all.

What I really don't like about these kinds of tools is that they are generally pretty bad at intercepting new threats, but are really, really good at pursuing known actors, like journalists, activists or political rivals.
The purpose of a system is what it does.
So goddamn creepy.

Why can't an innocent individual have private communications with other innocent individuals if so desired?

Most private stuff is banal and not worth a government budget to look at.

The level of assumed self-sacrifice for the collective is getting high enough to breed rebellion.

What rebellion? Anybody I've talked to about privacy has told me "so what, I don't have anything to hide."
"for the collective" ... what collective? This is textbook top-down control, a small elite group spying on the masses. And when the masses find out it is considered a scandal.
>Why can't an innocent individual have private communications with other innocent individuals if so desired?

>Most private stuff is banal and not worth a government budget to look at.

Private conversations are potentially a threat to government as an organization. People might convince one another to vote for less taxes and more accountability <clutches pearls>.

As the cost of keeping tabs on this kind of stuff gets lower the government does it more. It's no different than BigCos tracking your mouse on their eCommerse site "because its, cheap, we can and it might be useful".

Someone needs to always immediately follow up with questions asking people who want others to give up their privacy to give theirs up first in turn.

“Could I please get all of your phone records, browsing history, Internet account credentials, details of your friends and family, and anything else that you wouldn’t want me to have but legal for me to have so long as you provide it to me willingly? If the answer is no, then why ask me to give up my privacy when you refuse to give up yours?”

I'm not sure that's always a good start to a line of questioning? Don't get me wrong, I like the reasoning, but perhaps, "what expectations of privacy do you have for yourself or your family?".

Their answer to that might be a better starting point?

If they don't have any, then at least they would be consistent =)... You can also then discuss what kind of a society comes from that position and whether that's a good one to live in?

Alternatively another question is, "do you and your colleagues want to be stewards of this data you collect?"

What's an appropriate / reasonable punishment for failing to be good stewards? Jail time? Fines? Personal or organisational? Paying money into charities designed to act as public oversight?

Starting off combative feels nice, but just gets people's hackles up in my experience =)...

Quote of my coworker about why he doesn’t want to vote yes on a referendum to overturn a law that expands our intelligence agencies rights for surveillance with oversight from a single judge and no transparency and accountability: „As long as they catch at least one of these assholes, I don‘t care about me being surveilled. You will understand this when you become a father.“

This opened my eyes most people have an irrational fear and think that these capabilities won‘t be abused. At the same time our state abused their surveillance capabilities during the cold war and gathered data on almost a million people. But people seem to have forgotten already.

I‘m talking about Switzerland if you are wondering what which of authoritarian regime I‘m talking about.

Well I have done this in the past to people I know who say they have "nothing to hide" and the answer they give is super simple - "I'm happy to provide all of the above and more to law enforcement agencies at any point. I don't have any problem with authority and I don't understand why you do.".

You can then explain that the data does get misused, but they always just say that it won't happen to them or if they do get in a hairy situation they will always explain themselves since after all they have nothing to hide.

You don't have a symmetrical relationship with the government. Do you ask the IRS every year "can you please send me 25% of all the money you collected this year? If not, why ask me to give up mine?"

I'm in favour of strong privacy protections, but this argument isn't one I find convincing.

My standard response to telemarketers is, "I'm at work now. Could you give me your phone number and I'll call you back tonight?"

They always get offended at the idea of me calling them at their personal number.

A bit off topic, but recently, when I downloaded software under export restriction from Siemens (for industry automation) I saw in the license text, it is not just allowed for military applications but also not allowed to use it for police applications. I think more and more companys think they just don't want to be involved in bad press, because not all, but a lot of police things have a such bad image now.
This article has a lot of words without saying very much.

The tl;dr:

Mounties purchased some sort of intelligence gathering software, and kept it secret for "national security" (i thought that was CSE or CSIS's job?)

Mounties have some sort of darknet search engine. Article implies the term "darknet" is being used liberally, possibly to include spying on protestors, but is very unclear on the details.

Mounties have some sort of vuln in facebook that allows them to see your fb friends even if set to private (this is probably the most significant revelation in the article imo)

Mounties use proxy software when working undercover (no kidding, never would have guessed that one)

Mounties have software to do sentiment analysis on intercepted or publicly available messages

It is implied that the mounties have a caviler attitude towards privacy violations.

--------

The article is a little light on details and high on unstated implications. I'm not exactly happy about all this but this is hardly a bombshell of privacy violation. Maybe there is bad things there, but the article just doesn't have the technical detail to judge.

>Took the names for Project Wide Awake and other internet surveillance programs from the X-Men comic book series, in which illegal government programs hunt human “mutants.”

This sort of "geeky but psychopathic" type of humor seems to be not uncommon in surveillance agencies. I suppose it makes sense that amoral intelligent people would be drawn towards intelligence agencies, as I suppose sadists were probably drawn towards organizations like the Gestapo, KGB, and Stasi. There's something I find galling about it - not only is one's privacy violated, but what's more is that the violators go about their business with corporate bureaucratic banality and "joking around the office" sort of humor.

Liberal democracy is incompatible with a police state but it will get worse before it gets better.

There needs to be a digital version of "privilege against self-incrimination" [1] [2] but it seams like the governments won't legislate this without a push from the public.

The laws of our society are so complex that at each moment we are breaking at least a few. This also means we could be arrested at any point, by a corrupt official trying to earn extra money for letting us go.

Imagine living your whole life under the regime of airport border control section where anything you say / do can be misinterpreted by a border guard who had a bad day and needs to arrest someone.

Yet another reason why I do not want to live in the great white north.

Although, in time depending on how politics slants in the US there actually may be positive tax advantages for upper middle class earners ($150k-290k).

Not really any new information. This came out during the New Zealand shootings where the RCMP were showing up at Canadian's houses talking to them about 'supporting trump' or 'having viewed the shooting video'. Admittedly our police were less problematic compared to the police in the NZ.

The more interesting thing if you google 'Brenda Lucki' in the news. TONS of groups are calling for her dismissal. They call her racist, but don't worry our blackface prime minister supports her.

So why was the presentation secret?
With Canada being a part of FVEY, I'm curious if any Canadians are surprised or shocked at this?

I would assume that their surveillance goes much. much further than this, considering they're basically watching and learning from the U.S.A.

Stingray's mounted on horses...i love that picture ;)
A few weeks back, an HN reader asked "Can you name some of the authors who were publishing panopticon concerns [in the 1980s or earlier], or the media they were publishing in?"

As there didn't seem to be a useful compilation, I created one. This seems useful in answering persistent questions, tropes, and dismissals concerning privacy and surveillance.

A formatted version lives at: https://joindiaspora.com/posts/bf4f5f10f6120138799c002590d8e...

(Additions welcomed.)

On authors who were publishing information technology panopticon concerns in the 1980s, or earlier

Paul Baran / RAND

- “On the Engineer’s Responsibility in Protecting Privacy”

- “On the Future Computer Era: Modification of the American Character and the Role of the Engineer, or, A Little Caution in the Haste to Number”

- “The Coming Computer Utility – Laissez-Faire, Licensing, or Regulation?”

- “Remarks on the Question of Privacy Raised by the Automation of Mental Health Records”

- “Some Caveats on the Contribution of Technology to Law Enforcement”

Largely written/published 1967–1969.

https://www.rand.org/pubs/authors/b/baran_paul.html

Willis Ware / RAND

Too numerous to list fully, 1960s --1990s. Highlights:

- “Security and Privacy in Computer Systems” (1967)

- “Computers in Society’s Future” (1971)

- “Records, Computers and the Rights of Citizens” (1973

- “Privacy and Security Issues in Information Systems” (1976)

- “Information Systems, Security, and Privacy” (1983)

- “The new faces of privacy” (1993)

https://www.rand.org/pubs/authors/w/ware_willis_h.html

Misc

- Shoshana Zuboff, In the Age of the Smart Machine: The Future of Work and Power (1988) Notably reviewed in the Whole Earth Catalog’s Signal: Communication Tools for the Information Age (1988).

https://www.worldcat.org/title/in-the-age-of-the-smart-machi... https://archive.org/details/inageofsmartmach00zubo/page/n7/m...

- “Danger to Civil Rights?”, 80 Microcomputing (1982)

https://archive.org/stream/80_Microcomputing_Issue_26_1982-0... (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14329877)

- “Computer-Based National Information Systems: Technology and Public Policy”, NTIS (September 1981)

http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/ota/Ota_5/DATA/1981/8109.PDF

- “23 to Study Computer ‘Threat’” (1970)

https://www.nytimes.com/1970/03/12/archives/23-to-study-comp...

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

“Privacy and Information Technology” bibliography is largely 1990–present, but contains some earlier references.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/it-privacy/#Bib

Similarly “Privacy”

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/privacy/

Credit Reporting / Legislation

US Privacy Act of 1974

https://www.justice.gov/opcl/privacy-act-1974

Invasion of Privacy Act 1971 - Queensland Government, Australia

https://www.legislation.qld.gov.au/view/pdf/inforce/current/...

Arthur R. Miller, The assault on privacy: computers, data banks, and dossiers

https://archive.org/details/assaultonprivacy00mill/page/n7/m...

“The Computer, the Consumer and Privacy” (1984)

https://www.nytimes.com/1984/03/04/weekinreview/the-computer...

Richard Boeth / Newsweek

The specific item I’d had in mind:

Richard Boeth, “Is Privacy Dead”, Newsweek, July 27, 1970

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/06/11/is-privacy-...

Direct PDF: https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/712228/1970-newsw...

Based on an HN comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24851736

I've given up all privacy and never felt more liberated.
The RCMP is a complete joke.
tell me something I don't know... I know you know what I know.
horses are terrible snitches
Just say the magic word and all those pesky civil rights disappear.

‘Corona’

If the question was: give up your privacy to help stop covid killing people, it would be more accepted on Hacker News.

I'm half surprised that our governments have not pulled this trick and half relieved that the world isn't going down the toilet as much as others would like to tell us it is!