Extreme digital vetting of visitors to the US moves forward under a new name

ICE invited tech firms to make algorithms that will track immigrants’ social media.


Read the whole story

 

[fishbait]

anyone else get a distinct vibe involving a rather "unique" quirk of government budget control?

that maybe their just looking for a program which they can funnel billions into to justify keeping their massively over-inflated budget,

you know that "use your entire budget or more if you don't want it to shrink next year" quirk of government budgeting.

 

[TechnicalTrubadour]

"We plan on violating the 4th Amendment rights of every visa holder and we need your help to do it!"

Fuck ICE and fuck Homeland Security. And fuck American xenophobia, fuck Trump and his bigoted anti-Muslim rhetoric, his voters who cheered that on, and fuck Louis Rodi (if you're reading this, I'd say FUCK YOU to your face) for being complicit in this institutionalized paranoia with no justification.

Jesus, take a Valium and fucking relax.

I just have one question for you: In what way does this violate the 4th Amendment?

"The government is watching me!"?

So? It's public information YOU put out there. Guess what? That's not a 4th amendment issue to hoover that up and run analysis on it. YOUR PRIVACY HAS NOT BEEN INVADED.

Is it upsetting to think the government is watching you? Sure. But it's the crap YOU put out there that they're interested in. They also want to know who you associate with. If you put it out there, they do not need a warrant, nor due process, because public shit isn't "private", so there's no privacy to invade.

This isn't a 4th amendment issue - at least on the face of it as long as it's conducted without regard to someone's race, religion, gender, identity, or other protected status. In other words, everyone who visits the U.S. from abroad.

Personally, I think they're wasting their time with this, but as long as the information is accessible by the public, and with the provision that the algorithm doesn't single out specific protected classes (which would be highly problematic), then in principle what they're doing isn't in any way a violation of anyone's constitutionally defined privacy.

We do need to keep an eye on how that algorithm works, but otherwise, this is (apparently) gleaned from information that's already public, and no one has any expectation of privacy once they make that information public.

If you don't like that, change the law, and a couple of hundred years of precedent that supports the interpretation. In the meantime, keep an eye on that algorithm to be sure it doesn't single out any protected class for increased scrutiny.

If that happens, then you have good reason to bitch. ASSUMING it will happen isn't always the most rational thing to do (though it's hard not to with this administration). From a legal perspective, they could easily do this within the framework of the constitution and precedent. It remains to be seen if they will.

Or you could just - radical fucking idea here - not build a mass surveillance system.

Woops, too late.

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/aws-s3 ... 35963.html

They've been doing this for a while now. They're just asking around to see if people know a better way THAN THEY ARE ALREADY DOING IT.

So you expect the government to turn a blind eye to :
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/20 ... r-vehicle/ ?

How do you propose those who have been tasked with protecting our nation find the next one before it happens? Or would you just want to sit around and wait to deal with the aftermath? At least everyone would have their rights intact (though perhaps not their body parts)...

 

[Kosmose]

Pssss... don’t tell anyone, but we are also giving the option to extend the contract to use the same system on Americans, depends on how well the system turn out.

It's Social media. What you post is public domain anyway, and they have already gobbled up hordes of social media posts and kinda left them on a public Amazon bucket. But it's not illegal and no rights are violated when you put your opinion out for public scrutiny is free for anybody to gather.

In other words, please stop fear mongering.

Suppose the government proposed recording everything you said in public places and data mining it. Would you be as sanguine about that program? Are you sure you’ve never said anything in a bar, at a party, etc. which could be taken out of context or would retroactively be considered an offense in Pence’s theocracy?

Being honest I wouldn't like that, but that's not what is happening or even close to it. People are barfing their opinions all over permanent online storage. These are not passing conversations or bar talk, it's literally enshrining your thoughts on a permanent medium that anybody including the government can see. From the moment you post it until the human civilization collapses. People should be more aware of what is happening and act / post accordingly.

 

[malor]

People should be more aware of what is happening and act / post accordingly.

In other words, "police yourselves, or we'll have to police you."

This is the essence of Panopticon, one of the most dystopic visions ever committed to print.

How about let's not build a society like that?

 

[Kosmose]

People should be more aware of what is happening and act / post accordingly.

In other words, "police yourselves, or we'll have to police you."

This is the essence of Panopticon, one of the most dystopic visions ever committed to print.

How about let's not build a society like that?

What is your solution? It's permanent visible storage that anybody is allowed to data mine. They are already mining it and won't stop. They are simply trying to find a more effective way to do so. What is your perfect plan for society that allows everybody to say stupid crap on permanent public platforms and not be held accountable.

You're more likely to be refused a job from a company doing a Google search on you than to be scooped up by the feds for conspiracy / terrorism. So yes, be aware of how the world works and act / post accordingly.

 

[Idontno]

Thanks "The Ulterior" - comprehensive answer re non-citizens rights

 

[CptJeanLuc]

They should take a page from the republicans' playbook, create a nice sounding acronym which means exactly the opposite. Like the FRIEND program - Foreigners Require Invasive Evaluation of Network-accessible Data.

 

[Grashnak]

“But, you never know, the day may come when social media will actually find someone that wasn’t in the government systems we check.”

Well shit, if the standard for massive violations of people's privacy is that someday it might find something, then I suggest that every human being in America have a tracking chip implanted. You never know, the day may come when those tracking chips prevent some bad thing.

 

[Peter2k]

So is it internally called "Project Insight" and the ones working on the algorithm were nicknamed Dr Zola?

If not that's quite an opportunity missed

I mean the whole trope of finding threats before they become threats through an algorithm just reminds me of Hydra realizing you cant force people to give up they're freedom
You have to let them give up freedom for "security" by themselves

“But, you never know, the day may come when social media will actually find someone that wasn’t in the government systems we check.”

Well shit, if the standard for massive violations of people's privacy is that someday it might find something, then I suggest that every human being in America have a tracking chip implanted. You never know, the day may come when those tracking chips prevent some bad thing.

Well

 

[Eurynom0s]

Pssss... don’t tell anyone, but we are also giving the option to extend the contract to use the same system on Americans, depends on how well the system turn out.

It's Social media. What you post is public domain anyway, and they have already gobbled up hordes of social media posts and kinda left them on a public Amazon bucket. But it's not illegal and no rights are violated when you put your opinion out for public scrutiny is free for anybody to gather.

In other words, please stop fear mongering.

Suppose the government proposed recording everything you said in public places and data mining it. Would you be as sanguine about that program? Are you sure you’ve never said anything in a bar, at a party, etc. which could be taken out of context or would retroactively be considered an offense in Pence’s theocracy?

Being honest I wouldn't like that, but that's not what is happening or even close to it. People are barfing their opinions all over permanent online storage. These are not passing conversations or bar talk, it's literally enshrining your thoughts on a permanent medium that anybody including the government can see. From the moment you post it until the human civilization collapses. People should be more aware of what is happening and act / post accordingly.

You seem to be conflating two separate things here. "Permanent online storage" suggests something like Dropbox or Google Drive. These are places you put private documents that you expect only you to be able to be able to access unless you've explicitly granted access to other people. Just like, you know, a filing cabinet in your house, or a safe deposit box at the bank. Why should it be treated any different just because you put it on Dropbox instead of in your filing cabinet? Sure, I'm trusting Dropbox to not turn around and snitch on me to the feds, but the feds seem to want Third Party Doctrine to mean that the mere act of entrusting Dropbox (or any third party) with my file means that they don't need a warrant to compel Dropbox to hand over the file to them.

For stuff like public Twitter posts, you have a more solid argument, but a lot of our jurisprudence surrounding surveillance was based on an assumption that monitoring you took actual effort. It was of course still prone to abuse, but for the most part, it was a decent supposition that the police weren't going to tail you or tap your phone for shits and giggles, because it took a real commitment of resources to do it. These assumptions fall apart in the face of the government being able to vacuum up everything everyone has ever said just in case that later turns out to turn up a useful nugget against you.

Or to give a more direct example, yeah, you've always risked saying something that a police officer overhears and grabs you for; but it's pretty new that a police officer can invent a reason to stop you and then run your name through a database of everything that everyone has ever said to retroactively checked whether you've ever voiced troublesome opinions. Our jurisprudence is woefully behind both judicial expectations about how onerous a surveillance operation would be and public expectations about what constitutes "passing conversation" or "bar talk".

 

[quirx]

Guess I am not posting what I am thinking then. After all, I might want to visit the US someday and it would be stupid to not get in over a minor disagreement regarding privacy. It's not like those agencies don't already have all my data anyway, what's one more going to change.

 

[dimathiel]

What if you only have a social media account because everyone has one, then spectacularly fail to post stuff on it cause it’s too troublesome.

 

[wlt.minus]

While it's definitely relevant to debate the legality of mass surveillance under the current regime of case law, it always bothers me how the outright and obvious intent of the fourth amendment is forgotten amongst arguments of things like protected classes and citizen vs non-citizen status.

Let's take a look at the amendment in question:

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.

One cannot dispute that this amendment was intended as a curtailment of government power to search and seize private property and the people themselves, and it takes particular care to point out that searches have to be specific and targeted. There is no rational argument that allows for mass surveillance, that doesn't ignore the intent of the 4th amendment.

 

[Feniks]

Extreme vetting? Then what about Trump?

Large gun collection, unhinged tweets, persecution complex, narcissistic personality.

 

[Feniks]

While it's definitely relevant to debate the legality of mass surveillance under the current regime of case law, it always bothers me how the outright and obvious intent of the fourth amendment is forgotten amongst arguments of things like protected classes and citizen vs non-citizen status.

Let's take a look at the amendment in question:

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.

One cannot dispute that this amendment was intended as a curtailment of government power to search and seize private property and the people themselves, and it takes particular care to point out that searches have to be specific and targeted. There is no rational argument that allows for mass surveillance, that doesn't ignore the intent of the 4th amendment.

The Constitution isn't worth anything really. It is interpreted by the Supreme Court. That's their job. I find it strange that judges are appointed by the president of the day, which makes the justice system a part of the political game. But it is not my place to judge.

 

[tdk2fe]

Seems to be a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. As others have pointed out, the idea that terrorists are infiltrating the US from abroad and would get flagged by such a system just doesn't pan out when you look at the data.

A bigger threat that hits much closer to home are the US citizens that decide to load up and massacre crowds of people with rifles. Maybe it's on my mind a bit more because i'm headed to Vegas later today for the AWS conference. While I wouldn't say i'm anxious, I have taken pause a few times and thought to myself "I really hope a crazy guy doesn't show up to one of the sessions and just start shooting up the place".

As usual, it's frustrating that our government absolutely refuses to look for ways to mitigate these types of events, but is willing to shovel money out to vendors when it comes to using machine intelligence to catch foreign brown people.

 

[eideticex]

Illegal immigrants don't have fourth amendment rights (edit: I think) but legal ones do.

"Trump supporters might be surprised at how far the Constitution extends toward non-citizens once they're inside the country, however. Cases extending back to the 1800s, including ones brought by Chinese immigrants challenging the arbitrary seizure of their property, have established the rights of non-citizens under the Fourth and Fifth Amendments including due process and the right to a jury."

https://www.forbes.com/sites/danielfish ... 7b8e6a4f1d

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new guards for their future security — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. — The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

Nowhere does it say anything about legal or illegal immigrants.

 

[Grashnak]

So you expect the government to turn a blind eye to :
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/20 ... r-vehicle/ ?

How do you propose those who have been tasked with protecting our nation find the next one before it happens? Or would you just want to sit around and wait to deal with the aftermath? At least everyone would have their rights intact (though perhaps not their body parts)...

Right, because the only possible way to prevent some asshole from murdering people with a vehicle is to conduct a systematic violation of the privacy of millions of innocent people, on the off chance that someday you may find actually find something incriminating.

I'm sure you'd be willing to pay the substantially increased tax bill to put in place the technical and human resources necessary to meticulously comb through hundreds of millions of social media posts, right?

 

[jonfr]

I don't have any interest in moving to U.S. Based on this I have even less reason to go there as a visitor.

 

[pika2000]

It's funny how people are "upset" now. Where were you guys when the Patriot Act was put in place? Where were you guys when it was being extended again and again?
It's hilarious how everybody sided with Bush and thought everything was a-okay when immigrants were put under heavy discrimination and scrutiny, but now suddenly everyone is all for the immigrants.

Besides, any of you are going to do anything about it? Probably not. Hypocrites much?

 

[c0rtex]

Lets get real here. This isnt new to the Trump administration. I can remember at least a couple years ago my professor bringing up some old DoD work with respect to some work i was doing. Its the samr issue: class imbalance coupled with curse of dimensionality. As mentioned in the article, you're just gonna end up with huge false positives, for example, flagging everyone with a Middle Eastern sounding name. I don't see an easy way to resolve this.

But this was going on before Trump and will certainly continue afterwards. The Ars community typically have a better pulse on issues like this but I hope the rest of America doesn't return to ambivalence once another administration is in power.

 

[Deleted member 1]

It's funny how people are "upset" now. Where were you guys when the Patriot Act was put in place? Where were you guys when it was being extended again and again?
It's hilarious how everybody sided with Bush and thought everything was a-okay when immigrants were put under heavy discrimination and scrutiny, but now suddenly everyone is all for the immigrants.

Besides, any of you are going to do anything about it? Probably not. Hypocrites much?

Who is "everybody". Go look at the history and you'll find that many here were against it.

While I agree that far to much is pinned on Trump vs the long-term problem of runaway security state, the fact is that many here have long opposed these tendencies.

 

[yd]

I have been across that border in the picture but always heading north and those damn Canucks have had me over to secondary 3 times out of 5!

 

[Shavano]

I'm sure the constitution extends to everyone in the country regardless of their legality.

Who do you want to be believe? The words of the Constitution or the courts? Because the courts have ruled the other way and that's how it works.

 

[Shavano]

I have been across that border in the picture but always heading north and those damn Canucks have had me over to secondary 3 times out of 5!

Peel the cannabis leaf sticker off your car.

 

[Seekay_]

How is searching someone's private (can only be accessed by people the owner has chosen to grant access to) social media profiles without a warrant any different from searching someone's house (can only be accessed by people the owner has given a key to) without a warrant? Feds don't go around entering people's houses without warrants. I don't think they should be allowed to do that to private social media profiles either.

 

[ivantod]

Honestly, simply not travelling to the US is a pretty easy decision these days.

Sorry for the people working in the tourism industry as most of this is not really their fault...

 

[Mr Sunshine]

Innovation at work!

Depending on social media and "intercepted" phone traffic to vet visitors with Microsoft potentially being one of the front runners for the contract.

What could go wrong?

It many not do much for security but it will allow MS to catch people running unlicensed software.

 

[5PY_HUN73R]

Now this is what a government surveillance program looks like that utilizes tech for the common good and has it's citizens better interests in mind...

 

[Shazster]

Honestly, simply not travelling to the US is a pretty easy decision these days.

Sorry for the people working in the tourism industry as most of this is not really their fault...

There are fewer and fewer compelling reasons to reward this out of control rogue state with our tourist dollars every day. I have cut back on my cross border travel to essential-only: family visits & nothing else.
The tourist industry is free to begin voting for sanity and using their lobbying dollars to push back on this nonsense security theatre anytime it likes.
In the meantime, Cuba and Mexico can welcome my tourist dollars should any become available once the US is also done fucking over its neighbors in the NA & global economies.

 

[isparavanje]

"We plan on violating the 4th Amendment rights of every visa holder and we need your help to do it!"

Off-topic, but meant as a genuine question - Do visa holders - non US citizens have rights/protections under the US constitution when they are on American soil?
If they do, presumably there are limitations - the 2nd amendment wouldn't apply ?

Edit: oops I just read rotorhead1871's post - my question would appear to be answered - US constitution rights apply only to US citizens.

All sections of the constitution, except those with regards to voting, applies to all U.S. Persons. That includes both citizens abroad and non-citizens on U.S. soil.

 

[Mr. Slaughter]

"We plan on violating the 4th Amendment rights of every visa holder and we need your help to do it!"

Fuck ICE and fuck Homeland Security. And fuck American xenophobia, fuck Trump and his bigoted anti-Muslim rhetoric, his voters who cheered that on, and fuck Louis Rodi (if you're reading this, I'd say FUCK YOU to your face) for being complicit in this institutionalized paranoia with no justification.

Perhaps no comment in internet history properly encapsulates the fall of a famed technology site online....boy this place has lost the 'technica' plot

 

[Mr. Slaughter]

Honestly, simply not travelling to the US is a pretty easy decision these days.

Sorry for the people working in the tourism industry as most of this is not really their fault...

Cool man, please stop moving here also!

-Murica

 

[Kosmose]

Pssss... don’t tell anyone, but we are also giving the option to extend the contract to use the same system on Americans, depends on how well the system turn out.

It's Social media. What you post is public domain anyway, and they have already gobbled up hordes of social media posts and kinda left them on a public Amazon bucket. But it's not illegal and no rights are violated when you put your opinion out for public scrutiny is free for anybody to gather.

In other words, please stop fear mongering.

Suppose the government proposed recording everything you said in public places and data mining it. Would you be as sanguine about that program? Are you sure you’ve never said anything in a bar, at a party, etc. which could be taken out of context or would retroactively be considered an offense in Pence’s theocracy?

Being honest I wouldn't like that, but that's not what is happening or even close to it. People are barfing their opinions all over permanent online storage. These are not passing conversations or bar talk, it's literally enshrining your thoughts on a permanent medium that anybody including the government can see. From the moment you post it until the human civilization collapses. People should be more aware of what is happening and act / post accordingly.

You seem to be conflating two separate things here. "Permanent online storage" suggests something like Dropbox or Google Drive. These are places you put private documents that you expect only you to be able to be able to access unless you've explicitly granted access to other people. Just like, you know, a filing cabinet in your house, or a safe deposit box at the bank. Why should it be treated any different just because you put it on Dropbox instead of in your filing cabinet? Sure, I'm trusting Dropbox to not turn around and snitch on me to the feds, but the feds seem to want Third Party Doctrine to mean that the mere act of entrusting Dropbox (or any third party) with my file means that they don't need a warrant to compel Dropbox to hand over the file to them.

For stuff like public Twitter posts, you have a more solid argument, but a lot of our jurisprudence surrounding surveillance was based on an assumption that monitoring you took actual effort. It was of course still prone to abuse, but for the most part, it was a decent supposition that the police weren't going to tail you or tap your phone for shits and giggles, because it took a real commitment of resources to do it. These assumptions fall apart in the face of the government being able to vacuum up everything everyone has ever said just in case that later turns out to turn up a useful nugget against you.

Or to give a more direct example, yeah, you've always risked saying something that a police officer overhears and grabs you for; but it's pretty new that a police officer can invent a reason to stop you and then run your name through a database of everything that everyone has ever said to retroactively checked whether you've ever voiced troublesome opinions. Our jurisprudence is woefully behind both judicial expectations about how onerous a surveillance operation would be and public expectations about what constitutes "passing conversation" or "bar talk".

I'm quite sure I'm not mistaken on what permanent online storage means. People are just putting their opinions on somebody else's permanent, redundant storage. While I agree with you that some high level court might need to look at the legality of spending tax payers dollars to hoard data like this, it doesn't change the reality of the here and now.

P. S. Google scans through your Google drive (and email) with algorithms to better understand you and target their ads better. Dropbox owns the encryption key for their storage and are known to comply with Government requests. Online storage from most providers is not very private.

 

[ImSpecial]

"“How many innocent false positives are you going to keep out of the country for each false negative?”

The better question is how many potential terrorists do we want to let into the country? If you have a bowl of skittles, and 10 of them are poison, how many are you going to eat?

How many Sayfullo Saipov's is an acceptable number?

 

[DepressedRobot]

"We plan on violating the 4th Amendment rights of every visa holder and we need your help to do it!"

Fuck ICE and fuck Homeland Security. And fuck American xenophobia, fuck Trump and his bigoted anti-Muslim rhetoric, his voters who cheered that on, and fuck Louis Rodi (if you're reading this, I'd say FUCK YOU to your face) for being complicit in this institutionalized paranoia with no justification.

Nice language! Present your argument without profanity and you will actually get people to read it.

If you are not a citizen, how are you violating 4th amendment rights? I am not a Trump fan and definitely think this policy is way over the top. On the other side of the coin there are definitely bad people trying to get into this country, but my guess is they will do it through the porous Mexican border and not try to enter legally. So this policy is rather pointless.

I know this might be shocking and disturbing, but research indicates that non-Americans may actually be people as well.

It might also be shocking and disturbing, but many non-American governments, particularly those under dictatorships, don't agree with you.

 

[DepressedRobot]

Create two sets of social media accounts, burners and real ones. Or better yet, make them all burner accounts.

That doesn't matter. There are many ways already in use by advertisers to link people together via IP addresses and such. So you'd have to both have separate accounts as well as post from different IP addresses, at a minimum. But then there would be plenty of other information, most likely, that could tie the two together.

Here's a simple example.

I was recently shopping online for lumber and hardware to build a gate. I looked at places like Home Depot to get some ideas and such. I'm not on any social media platforms at all. My wife wasn't looking at lumber or hardware, but is on social media. Our only connection in the online world is our IP address at home. Guess what ads show up in her social media feeds? Yep, lumber from Home Depot.

So the ad companies are already tying people together in many ways to look for relationships to be exploited for profit. But the same graphs can be used to identify other relationships, like those related to national security.

It seems many people didn't read the article. It was specifically stated that many bad actors are already in databases, largely because foreign governments have assisted in collecting data on these folks. But there are other governments that aren't friendly and don't help collect data on bad people, so our security folks, and I'm sure those of other countries as well, are looking for additional ways to collect data that could potentially be helpful. Could all this be used in bad ways? Yep, just like private companies that we specifically allow to use our data are using it in bad ways.

My apologies, but I'm not going to jump on the irrational rabble rabble wagon. You're being surveilled every time you go online. To think it's OK for private industry to do it, for profit no less, but not governments for national security ... the rabble rabble is strong.

 

[DepressedRobot]

"We plan on violating the 4th Amendment rights of every visa holder and we need your help to do it!"

Fuck ICE and fuck Homeland Security. And fuck American xenophobia, fuck Trump and his bigoted anti-Muslim rhetoric, his voters who cheered that on, and fuck Louis Rodi (if you're reading this, I'd say FUCK YOU to your face) for being complicit in this institutionalized paranoia with no justification.

Jesus, take a Valium and fucking relax.

I just have one question for you: In what way does this violate the 4th Amendment?

"The government is watching me!"?

So? It's public information YOU put out there. Guess what? That's not a 4th amendment issue to hoover that up and run analysis on it. YOUR PRIVACY HAS NOT BEEN INVADED.

Is it upsetting to think the government is watching you? Sure. But it's the crap YOU put out there that they're interested in. They also want to know who you associate with. If you put it out there, they do not need a warrant, nor due process, because public shit isn't "private", so there's no privacy to invade.

This isn't a 4th amendment issue - at least on the face of it as long as it's conducted without regard to someone's race, religion, gender, identity, or other protected status. In other words, everyone who visits the U.S. from abroad.

Personally, I think they're wasting their time with this, but as long as the information is accessible by the public, and with the provision that the algorithm doesn't single out specific protected classes (which would be highly problematic), then in principle what they're doing isn't in any way a violation of anyone's constitutionally defined privacy.

We do need to keep an eye on how that algorithm works, but otherwise, this is (apparently) gleaned from information that's already public, and no one has any expectation of privacy once they make that information public.

If you don't like that, change the law, and a couple of hundred years of precedent that supports the interpretation. In the meantime, keep an eye on that algorithm to be sure it doesn't single out any protected class for increased scrutiny.

If that happens, then you have good reason to bitch. ASSUMING it will happen isn't always the most rational thing to do (though it's hard not to with this administration). From a legal perspective, they could easily do this within the framework of the constitution and precedent. It remains to be seen if they will.

Or you could just - radical fucking idea here - not build a mass surveillance system.

It's already been built. It's called online advertising, social media, and search.

 

[DepressedRobot]

Honestly, simply not travelling to the US is a pretty easy decision these days.

Sorry for the people working in the tourism industry as most of this is not really their fault...

There are fewer and fewer compelling reasons to reward this out of control rogue state with our tourist dollars every day. I have cut back on my cross border travel to essential-only: family visits & nothing else.
The tourist industry is free to begin voting for sanity and using their lobbying dollars to push back on this nonsense security theatre anytime it likes.
In the meantime, Cuba and Mexico can welcome my tourist dollars should any become available once the US is also done fucking over its neighbors in the NA & global economies.

Interesting that you find the US unacceptable, but the shit holes that are Cuba and Mexico acceptable.

 

[DepressedRobot]

So you expect the government to turn a blind eye to :
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/20 ... r-vehicle/ ?

How do you propose those who have been tasked with protecting our nation find the next one before it happens? Or would you just want to sit around and wait to deal with the aftermath? At least everyone would have their rights intact (though perhaps not their body parts)...

Right, because the only possible way to prevent some asshole from murdering people with a vehicle is to conduct a systematic violation of the privacy of millions of innocent people, on the off chance that someday you may find actually find something incriminating.

I'm sure you'd be willing to pay the substantially increased tax bill to put in place the technical and human resources necessary to meticulously comb through hundreds of millions of social media posts, right?

That's already done. All social media platforms already scan for all that stuff. They may not currently take action in every case, but the monitoring is already going on and goes far deeper than you think.