The government of NYC has a long history of abusing the rights of its people and engaging in overreaching and unwarranted surveillance. They have not shown that they can be trusted with even traffic cameras. They scan license plates all through the city and use this technology to create a chilling effect which allows their authoritarian regime to remain unchallenged.
Yes, and it's actually pretty rampant in my own current city, it's been a huge sore point for years with activists. The chilling effect is that resistance becomes that much harder as the authoritarian ratchet tightens. When the movements of people can be tracked en masse via some panopticon, it is very easy to prevent them from organizing into any real threat against the incumbent.
> Knowing or suspecting that we're being watched can stop us from engaging in certain kinds of behavior, even when it's perfectly lawful. For example, it might affect our decision to go to a certain barber (what would my other barber say?), meet up with a friend (what would my mom say?), eat at a restaurant (what would my trainer say?), or take the scenic route (is it suspicious that I'm not using my normal route?)
Keep in mind that just a few decades ago we had the Red Scare. We harassed and ruined the lives of people over thoughtcrime, for simply supporting the notion of alternate economies or just accepting those who did. Imagine the scope of that if we'd had the surveillance network that we do today. And there is no indication that we won't have a similar event in the near future.
Lastly, I know your question is in good faith and thank you for asking for clarification. That said, it's important to consider that manufactured normality isn't a valid reason to not question authority. It's quite easy for Corpgov to do anything at scale long enough that new generations are born into it and wholly accept it without question.
All expressions of governmental authority must be constantly challenged and defended, and any possibility of chilling effects should be investigated thoroughly, time and again. This is our duty as The People, the fourth branch of the government. This is the critical check and balance which keeps things from becoming irrecoverably fucked.
People need to understand the danger of the current surveillance infrastructure.
Turnkey totalitarianism.
Totalitarian control is turnkey in America if the "wrong guy" gets in. It's funny because the voters aren't demanding limits, and yet each election cycle is life or death not just because of the he escalating propaganda...
I think voters know that we are close to total oppression, on a subconscious fear level.
Whether in the next four or forty years, someone will do it.
I'm sorry, which part of my post did you have trouble with? I can try to break it down for you further until you understand. What do you perceive to be the moved goalposts here?
I guess I was expecting some concrete examples of this chilling effect you spoke of? Your comment only refers to things in the hypothetical, before diverging off into other related topics.
Do you have any actual examples of "resistance" that have been stifled by this "chilling effect"? I understand your hypotheticals and the point you're making, but we can conjure hypotheticals for any situation or context, all without any specific relationship to truth.
Well, it's not a hypothetical to say that surveillance leads to reduced non-conventional civic participation and reduces the ability for citizens to safely engage in protest.
> Of students who indicate that their school uses monitoring software,
many report a chilling effect on their behavior and self-expression online
— six in ten students agree with the statement, “I do not share my true
thoughts or ideas because I know what I do online is being monitored,”
and 80 percent report being “more careful about what I search online
when I know what I do online is being monitored.”
We can review recent past high-profile, surveillance-oriented regimes like Nazi Germany, or the McCarthy-era Red Scare and Cold War. There is a multitude of personal accounts from that era, where anyone of note had to be extremely careful about what was said, to whom and where.
Over and over throughout history, good things, like giving shelter to persecuted refugees or slaves, has been considered illegal. Citizens were told to snitch on one another. If drones were available then, you'd have seen them in every single nook and cranny.
Politicians today wear nice, pressed suits and often conduct themselves pleasantly. But only a fool would buy into their brand of symbolic mind control. The reality is that many governments today are as evil as ever due to the scale and population today. And the ones that aren't, are in danger of becoming authoritarian. Authoritarian and populist movements have been sweeping through the West.
Any technology we implement today represents codified procedure, whether codified in law or not. And that codified procedure will absolutely be used to enforce an arbitrary morality as defined by the incumbent party. We've seen this for a century with cannabis and the global war on drugs. We see this now with abortion, where citizens in Texas are encouraged to snitch on women who seek abortions.
So looking forward, we can avoid hypotheticals while pointing to clear patterns in history, for those who need empirical evidence. We can also just establish self-consistent, ethical political frameworks which disqualify such unwarranted mass surveillance, simply on the grounds that regimes can change while codified procedure can be repurposed, and that mass surveillance erodes trust, without even needing to point to past atrocities and compromised governments.
Happy to discuss further if this doesn't satisfy you. I can also draw from my own life experiences living under surveillance and child abuse, and the extreme chilling effect it caused, if you want anecdotal data.
Your source doesn't seem to support your claim, though? Being more careful on school-monitored devices seems like an ideal outcome: you want students using school-provided devices to do school-related things, not browse YouTube videos or look at porn. This would also apply in the future on work-provided devices, so it seems like they're learning an important skill in the process?
The rest of your examples have no relevance to the original claim, and are (again), largely hypothetical. They're "real examples", but the connection between them and the original claim is still hypothetical. This is why I called your earlier responses attempts to move the goalposts: you have yet to provide any evidence that directly supports your original claim, while instead providing "evidence" of similar things that aren't directly related except through careful framing.
Do you have any examples directly relevant to the original statement? Here it is again, in case you've lost track:
> They scan license plates all through the city and use this technology to create a chilling effect which allows their authoritarian regime to remain unchallenged.
Please argue in good faith and don't revert to sarcasm. I asked in my last comment for you to specify which part of the prior comment you had issue with, it would have been good to mention the specific part you were challenging at that time and not only just now, as my comment indeed touched on multiple related issues.
So if you want specific information regarding NYC and the license plate issues, I can give you some links from reputable sources. I also recommend following up these sources with more research to corroborate claims or answer any further questions you may have, or if these sources simply do not satisfy your curiosity and rightful demands for hard proof.
"Awareness that the Government may be watching chills
associational and expressive freedoms. And the Government’s unrestrained power to assemble data that reveal
private aspects of identity is susceptible to abuse"
I could point to this and multitudes of other incidents where the NYC government has grossly overstepped their bounds. I can also point to a high-profile case in my old city of Fort Worth where city officials and police were using government databases to stalk and harass individuals, even ex-girlfriends, and the police chief and head IT guy also got harassed and litigated for attempting to expose it:
> "At least three to four nights a week they would have us riding through the neighborhoods," Ardoin said. "If you saw a random black person walking around the street and hasn't done anything, they would tell us just to jump out the vehicle, grab them and pat them down without probable cause. I voiced my opinions several times, and I didn't agree with that."
It's why we called the police the "jump out boys" growing up. I personally was subject to years of targeted police and government harassment in my small town, which severely impacted my life. I shudder to think about what those creeps would do with a full ALPR kit across the parish. My state's police force has repeatedly shown that they cannot be trusted to follow the law, and they constantly get caught harassing, stalking, spying, selling drugs, guns and more.
You wouldn't understand unless you grew up in a real police state like Louisiana, with an incarceration rate of over 1%, higher than any independent country in the world. You may have had the privilege of not being a targeted demographic in such a state and thus having the law usually work on your side, and so the potentials for abuse, and the inevitability of such, may not seem immediately obvious to you. You seem interested in learning more and I can only provide so much, so I would definitely recommend following up with more research.
If it's the "authoritarian regime" part you want proof of, and my given examples of general corruption of US police forces is not sufficient for you, you can google some NYC-specific cases, but I assume you're more interested in the effects of mass surveillance and ALPRs.
Given your remark about good faith efforts, I'm forced to conclude that was actually projection, and you're not interested in having a good faith discussion.
I read your first three sources (skimmed the last of those, really), and in all three, the "chilling effect" you claim still remains a hypothetical. There's lots of "could" and "can" in those pieces, but no "did". I still see plenty of large-scale demonstrations in New York City, and in fact I hear of more of them, not fewer, at time goes on. Some of that is availability of said information/coverage/my information bubble, but it's certainly not evidence of a "chilling effect", despite the vast increase in city-wide surveillance that New York City has seen over the same time period.
The evidence you present here is worth less than my own lived experience in this case, simply because it tells what could happen without contextualizing that within what has actually happened.
Take the second example from your second source, about the DEA planning to use ALPRs at gun shows[1]. If you ignore the sensationalism, the story is actually boring: the DEA and ATF considered whether or not they could use readers at gun shows to help track illegal gun sales. They didn't end up doing it, likely because it would have been illegal to do so.
This is the system working. This is not evidence of a them using this technology to enact an authoritarian surveillance state. This is a state that has broad access to this kind of technology, and then often doesn't use it because it's legally obligated that they not, unless they can provide the proper justification.
It's also an example that is (again!!) unrelated to the claim you are making.
The rest is just more of the same Gish Gallop, and I'm tired of engaging with you on this. Even if your intent about having a good faith discussion is sincere, in practice you are still not engaging in a good-faith way. What I asked for was simple: evidence of a concrete statement you presented as fact. What you've given me is a laundry list of closely related things, but nothing that actually matches the context of the statement you made.
This is not a good-faith discussion in practice, because you refuse to keep the discussion narrowly focused and instead just gesture wildly at a bunch of things that are related (but many of whom are still arguing hypotheticals!), and that you feel should stand in for the evidence in asking for. But it doesn't, and given your repeated deflections, I'm forced to conclude that you don't have said concrete evidence.
It's not gish gallop, I was trying to be thorough. If you don't wish to participate in this discussion, that's fine. But your accusations of projection and my arguing in bad faith are uncalled for. I am allowed to bring up whatever I wish in support of my argument. You come across as insatiable, unwilling to do due diligence, and extremely selective.
You misunderstand the entire chilling effect argument, and are looking for some kind of mysterious hard evidence which you are just going to have to locate on your own. To a rational person, the simple argument of government overreach and regime changes, and examples of such as I provided, and the concept of the authoritarian ratchet is enough to support limitations on mass surveillance. Discounting it all as "gish gallop" is incredibly uncharitable and negative.
No, I understand the chilling effect argument perfectly. Chilling effects are sometimes very real, but more often are invoked as pure hypotheticals that are intentionally structured to be unfalsifiable. They're also often used in places where there's no actual evidence to support such an effect.
Your claim and subsequent lack of concrete examples are a prime demonstration of this. Many of the sources you cited in your last comment contained more rhetoric than logic, so it's somewhat ironic that you're trying to claim to be a rational person whilst being swayed by such arguments.
I made a convincing, well-cited argument as to the prevalence of police and government abuse of existing surveillance tools across multiple US cities, and established that NYC has an authoritarian government. I linked to pieces from prominent organizations specifically dealing with chilling effects and ALPRs, which can be used as the basis for further research. I linked to a Supreme Court ruling in which a judge specifically mentioned how surveillance causes a chilling effect and a reduction in freedom of expression.
You are unwilling to accept any of this and also unwilling to do your own research. You mistake a well-rounded argument for gish gallop. You're looking for "logic" and not "rhetoric", but those are such vague, moving targets. These are all references which I provided you on short notice due to your own refusal to research the subject. These are not the pieces which "swayed" me. I have been reading deeply about this subject for decades and I cannot possibly be bothered to compile an extensive list of books and articles which you will probably discount and not read, I cannot simply transmit my knowledge to you. At some point you have to do the work yourself and connect the dots, if you have a specific form of evidence you are looking for, spend some time looking for it.
It's honestly a given that mass surveillance creates a chilling effect and erosion of trust, and the onus should really be on you to disprove it.
> It's honestly a given that mass surveillance creates a chilling effect and erosion of trust, and the onus should really be on you to disprove it.
But it isn't, and this is the entire problem with your argument: you've assumed your conclusion to be true. This leads you to ignore basic initial questions, like "do you have evidence for this specific claim?"
When pressed, it turns out you don't, and instead you substitute hypotheticals (that you again assume to be true!), but then blame me for not already believing them to be true.
Again, I can point to specific things that call your original statement into question, such as the continued presence of protests and mass demonstrations in the very city you claim to be subject to this "chilling effect". Instead of providing an explanation as to why that's consistent with your original claim (it isn't!), you then point to more sources with the same hypothetical, and expect me to take them as truth.
The problem is, there's a distinct lack of evidence for your repeated claims, and additional hypotheticals do not fill that void.
So no, I do understand, and I understand why your argument is flawed. It's simple, really: the "chilling effect" makes sense on the surface, is plausible as a hypothetical, is sometimes true, and is used frequently by sources you already trust. The problem is that it's just a hypothetical, and there a myriad of counterexamples exist which call it into question as a blanket rule, all of which you discount out of hand with no explanation, or simply refuse to acknowledge in the first place.
It's a hypothetical I've seen repeatedly claimed as truth throughout my entire life, only to see its predictions fail to manifest in the vast majority of cases in which it's invoked. What other choice do I have than to question its validity? Your refusal to acknowledge this lack of predictive power does nothing to convince me, in contrast to my lived experience, that it does indeed have predictive power in the first place, and in fact only does the opposite.
I've also repeatedly told you that I understand the hypothetical, and what I'm interested in is concrete evidence of the hypothetical's predicted effects in a specific place where you've claimed it is present. But instead of providing this evidence, you just repeatedly cite more examples of the hypothetical effect being claimed, along with its implied predictions... Surely you can see that this was not what I asked for, is redundant to your original claim, and does nothing to demonstrate the hypothetical's predicted effects in a specific example where you've claimed it as fact? Why are you expecting me to be convinced by just repeatedly making the same assertion over and over, finally just saying "it's a given"?
You made a claim stated as fact, and I asked you for evidence of that specific claim. You have not delivered it, and instead have made it clear you just assume it's true without any evidence at all! How am I supposed to be convinced by that?
I've been curious about this. Are there leaked LPR databases that can be integrated with NVR's like Zoneminder, Shinobi, Blue Iris, Frigate and such? I know that some of them can read license plates but that's not entirely useful without an actual database of plates behind it. i.e. DMV, associated NCIC data, etc... As many times DMV's in many states have leaked data I would assume this must be a thing.
These cameras in particular would not be any good for that. They're usually mounted super high up and very low resolution, at 0.5FPS, and they are in such high traffic locations that bumper to bumper traffic would just obscure the plates of the cars in front and behind.
What? A majority of New Yorkers don't own cars, and besides that the city government isn't exactly in a position to do much of anything to you if you challenge its "authoritarian regime".
NYC focuses on entry and exit points to track incoming and outgoing traffic, and internal criminal activity such as drug trafficking. Depending on your politics, you might argue that trafficking of certain drugs represents a form of protest against a violation of our Constitutional rights, and therefore the regime of NYC is authoritarian for continuing to oppose sensible governmental reform.
Hochul's support of the IDF and the ongoing Palestinian genocide and attempts to silence and ostracize opponents of the genocide clearly marks her as an authoritarian in my book.
> The authoritarian regime of the locally elected government?
These are not in any way contradictory concepts. New york city is one of the most highly surveilled cities on the planet and has the highest police budget of any metro area in the world. The current mayor is a former cop who gets way too excited about working with the IDF and is super excited about using drones to spy on people even more invasively. Another recent former mayor campaigned on police harassing people on the street for literally no reason. They recently shot someone for fare skipping rather than simply removing fares, even though it's a massive loss to the city to staff the subway just to recoup a small percentage of lost revenue.
Look you can disagree with it being authoritarian, but maybe it'd be worth pointing out how people voted against clearly authoritarian policies. It seems to my eye that people just want a police-based society over a liberal one.
Your post is composed of outright lies and, charitably, ignorant analysis. It reads more like propaganda than an actual argument.
> They recently shot someone for fare skipping rather than simply removing fares, even though it's a massive loss to the city to staff the subway just to recoup a small percentage of lost revenue.
This is an outright lie as you likely know. They shot a man who charged at them with a knife. Don't believe me? Watch the body camera footage.
What's more, no major metro area in the entire world has fareless transit. Fares a key part of funding the operations of the public good and so is not something you "simply" do. NYC MTA prices are already extremely low (compare them against any other comparable Euro system) and have the option for low-income residents to pay half fares.
> has the highest police budget of any metro area in the world.
Simply taking a total budget and comparing it to other another total budget is at best a poor choice and at worst looks like more of a propaganda choice. Budgets would need to be scaled by population as well as local costs to make them remotely comparable. But what's more, to the extent that it's even true, it's quite marginal. The NYPD budget '25 is proposed at $5.75B[1] whereas, for example, the London MOPAC/MPS budget is 4.36B GBP[2] which converts to $5.5B. This was just the first major metro I checked!
What's more a _perhaps_ more reasonable way to look at this would be police officers per capita. Here we can see that NY is comparable to many other major metro areas [3] and significantly below some (eg Paris and Madrid).
But most importantly, the presence of police officers is not remotely authoritarianism. The enforcement of laws is not authoritarianism. The manner of restrictions, the immunity of the police and authorities above laws, the form of trial system, etc are what make up authoritarian systems and it is quite obvious that none of these characteristics remotely define NYC and it's a comedy to suggest so.
> The enforcement of laws is not authoritarianism. The manner of restrictions, the immunity of the police and authorities above laws, the form of trial system, etc are what make up authoritarian systems
I just don't agree at all—formal democracies and democratic institutions can be authoritarian, too. I certainly don't have the faith in our justice system you have.
Sorry that you don't agree that the enforcement of laws is not authoritarianism and you are currently living in a liberal society. The vast majority of people who have lived in liberal societies for ages unfortunately believe that enforcing the laws that are made by either direct democracy or through their democratically elected institutions is good and just and I expect that will continue for a long while. You will unfortunately have to live in such a world where people are not allowed to do crime.
> Sorry that you don't agree that the enforcement of laws is not authoritarianism
I never said this. Still, you can trivially pass authoritarian laws in an otherwise liberal society.
> The vast majority of people who have lived in liberal societies for ages
Only about 230 years, but sure.
> unfortunately believe that enforcing the laws that are made by either direct democracy or through their democratically elected institutions is good and just and I expect that will continue for a long while.
Sure, that doesn't make this not authoritarian. Sometimes people are just sick, scared, lonely people that are incapable of considering the impact of their actions. That's (collective) america to a T. If you knowingly sell someone snake oil you can't be shocked when they buy it.
> You will unfortunately have to live in such a world where people are not allowed to do crime.
I wouldn't really mind this if the crimes actually seems to correlate with encouraging a more livable society for the most of us.
