Observing and recording is a difference in kind. Recording and processing is a difference in kind. Processing and selling is a difference in kind. And quantity has a quality all its own.
> Observing and recording is a difference in kind.
Not if you believe in a right of general-purpose computing. Your brain records everything you observe. If you can use a computer for any purpose you choose, then you can use it to record what you can see and hear.
...I mean, sure, I'll argue that copyright laws are illegitimate on this basis. And it's beyond obvious at this point that the internet doesn't abide by this "law".
> Not wanting laws to reflect a difference does not mean a difference does not exist.
The point is: the difference is a legal fiction which necessarily prohibits general-purpose computing. If I can capture photons with my eyes, but then I try to do it with a machine, and you say, "hey, you can't use a machine for that!" then you are telling me that I can't engage in general purpose computing.
> What law? Copyright? Why the punctuation? And what did you intend this to imply?
Yes, I don't think copyright laws are a legitimate role for state power in the information age. And if the argument is, "well, look copyright laws require prohibitions on collecting or copying data or any other general purpose computing process", then that only makes the case stronger, not weaker.
If a law requires the state to intrude into your personal, intimate computing process - whether the biological process in your brain or an electronic one in your computer - then that's a very strong indication that the law is not a legitimate intervention on behalf of the rights of others.
> If I can capture photons with my eyes, but then I try to do it with a machine, and you say, "hey, you can't use a machine for that!" then you are telling me that I can't engage in general purpose computing.
Observing, recording, and processing are different words with different meanings. Repeating your assertion they are the same did not make it more persuasive.
> Yes, I don't think copyright laws are a legitimate role for state power in the information age. And if the argument is, "well, look copyright laws require prohibitions on collecting or copying data or any other general purpose computing process", then that only makes the case stronger, not weaker.
Copyright laws regulated copying always.
There are arguments for copyright abolition worth considering. It is impossible to separate activities almost everyone but you can separate and separates is not.
> If I can capture photons with my eyes, but then I try to do it with a machine, and you say, "hey, you can't use a machine for that!" then you are telling me that I can't engage in general purpose computing.
You can capture photons with your eyes, and you can use an image sensor to capture photons. Seems pretty equivalent.
But your brain cannot store images or recall them in the future (even for yourself, it is a very lossy recall), or transmit them to another person, etc. That is all completely separate functionality that is not equivalent to what your brain can do.
So if I have an implant that encodes and digitally records impulses on my optic nerve, allowing me to replay and share things I have previously seen, then can the law justly require me to avert my eyes as the emperor walks past? Obviously not.
And what of the martian who uses a very powerful telescope to record public activities of earthlings - do our laws extend to her? Do we own the photons that bounce off of our skin unto the ends of reality? Obviously, totally not. That's not how any of this works.
You're allowed to capture photons. You are built with devices that do just say. And you're allowed to build other devices to do that.
> can the law justly require me to avert my eyes as the emperor walks past?
Given that you chose to get the implant, I'd say the answer is yes. What you have done is no different than walking around with a camera and taking pictures of everything your eyes point at. So it can be regulated the same way.
> And what of the martian
If she sets foot in our jurisdiction, then she's toast.
> What you have done is no different than walking around with a camera and taking pictures of everything your eyes point at.
Exactly! So what is the distinction between capturing photons with your retinas vs. with a camera sensor that, in your mind, suddenly gives the state authority to intervene?
> If she sets foot in our jurisdiction, then she's toast.
I don't know what "our" jurisdiction means on the internet. If she sets up a streaming server and makes it available to all earthlings, then what?
> And what of the martian who uses a very powerful telescope to record public activities of earthlings - do our laws extend to her? Do we own the photons that bounce off of our skin unto the ends of reality? Obviously, totally not. That's not how any of this works.
Martians don't exist, so yeah, of course that's not how anything works!
> Not if you believe in a right of general-purpose computing
Uh, sure. If we make up a right, there is a problem.
Currently, this right doesn't exist. We make plenty of laws without presuming it exists. Plenty of people are trying and failing to pursue voters that it should exist, and I generaly commend them. But it's weird to the point of bordring on intentional distraction to try and pot this specific issue on the basis of a demand that doesn't apply to anything else.
If you can look at the world and conclude that a right to make something and use it as you see fit, in private and without harming others, does not exist, then I guess we just have a dramatically different perspective of the world in which we've arrived.
> But it's weird to the point of bordring (sic) on intentional distraction to try and pot this specific issue on the basis of a demand that doesn't apply to anything else.
You've assumed bad intentions and... I don't know what else to say. If I can see something with my eyes, save it in my brain, recall it later in a drawing, but can't do those same things with a computer, then the implications for the right of general-purpose computing (and for that matter, free thought) are just absolutely obvious.
We are commenting on an article where the process you describe leads to harming others, are we not? You can make it sound as robotic as you'd like, but at the end of the day we're still talking about corporations surveilling people on a massive scale and selling the data to be used against them.
It's sort of like saying "what, so I can't assemble a simple contraption of metal and explosive powder, and use it as I see fit?" to elide the fact that what you're actually talking about is shooting a gun. The details matter!
If the case is that the movements of people are plainly observable, but that observing them advances the ability of an organizing like CBP to victimize them, then it seems to me that the logical conclusion is to abolish CBP. Which I think is actually a far more logical position and also a far more popular one among Americans, though many are now afraid to say it out loud.
> It's sort of like saying "what, so I can't assemble a simple contraption of metal and explosive powder, and use it as I see fit?" to elide the fact that what you're actually talking about is shooting a gun.
Shooting? Or building? Of course you have a right to fabricate a gun in your own home. Is this in dispute (at least, in the USA)? Equally obvious, you do not have a right to discharge it in a way that endangers others.
I mean, I am not your enemy with regard to abolishing CBP. But the harms go beyond that. There are many studies that show how being surveilled can affect our behavior and negatively impact our mental health.
With regard to guns, restrictions abound on how you can use them (even in the privacy of your own home) — you need a license to carry them in public, you must lock them up around children, etc. Even though you might believe in some sort of "right to generalized mechanics", in practice most people believe your rights should actually be strictly limited.
First of all, in much of the US, you don't need a license to carry a gun in public. I'm not saying that's good or bad - I don't love it, but it's the current state of things.
But... is there a right to generalized mechanics in the same sense as general computing? General computing is the right to think - is your right to think limited to what your brain is capable of right now? Is it OK to exercise to increase your capacity? Is it OK to take supplements and drugs for this purpose? Is it OK to offload some thinking to a device you own?
Of course. These are fundamental, bedrock needs of a free information age society. You can think _anything_ you want. Thoughts, perhaps by definition, don't harm or imperil others.
But can you arbitrarily craft any machine you want? I mean, no. Like the right to your thoughts, you can craft what you like as long as it doesn't harm or imperil others. Unlike thoughts, some machines do certainly do this.
We have long had a legal and philosophical distinction between arms and ordnance for this reason. We recognize that the right to bear arms create a decentralization of the capacity for violence. But the right to bear ordnance does not. Also, in practical terms, manufacturing ordnance in secret is often difficult (and in fact, it is relieving to know how difficult it is to make nuclear weapons in secret - so much so that it seems to be _less_ possible with each passing year - in part due to the proliferation of eyes/cameras!).
So yeah, I think you can have totally philosophically and legally consistent limits on manufacturing without also having to limit thought / computation / perception.
In much of the US, you can't do the "general computing" you're describing either. Many states don't allow you to record audio without the consent of all parties, for example. You can't record or even possess child sexual abuse material. So it turns out the right you're talking about doesn't actually exist.
You're spending a lot of effort and well made points arguing against a person who isn't trying to see where you're coming from. Their take is pure libertarianism where a concept of freedom outclasses any real consequences. Like most of these pure-freedom arguments the whole thing pivots on a carefully contorted definition of "harm" - your clear examples of harm being discussed apparently don't count and there isn't a good faith conversation about why, they are just being hand waved away.
I think your attention is better spent on other commenters.
I'm not sure what I can do to recognize and steelman this position. There is no way to justify telling someone far away that they aren't allowed to capture photons which have bounced off of your skin that doesn't amount to a position of maximum egotism.
A person's existence does not entitle them to control and authority over every particle that interacts with them.
I'm allowed to see you. If you are in a place where I can see (ie, in public), then I can see you without even telling you I can see you. If I can see you - regardless of whether the technology I use is the result of biological evolution or electronic innovation - and you never even realize you've been seen, then by definition I have not harmed you with that act.
So, let's identify the _actual_ acts of harm. Trying to limit what CBP is allowed to see - when we can't even verify what they've seen - is not a path to relief from their tyranny.
I don't think that's hand-wavy. I think it's consistent. And unafraid to speak truth to power.
If you think you can summarize what I'm missing, I'd love to hear it.
Messaging can be co-opted. I think you're genuinely arguing for general-purpose computing. But that functionally serves to preserve Flock and the CBP's ability to illegally, in my opinion, monitor and harm Americans.
Well, there are two clear things to be teased out here:
* What Flock does is _not_ consistent with the use of a camera in a fashion that is identical to an eyeball - they are not standing and watching cars go by, or even recording them and logging it. I think it's essential to support the right of individuals to to this. But putting a camera on a fixture? That's a little different. But even if we support that - and I think I can be convinced...
* The custody of this data in secret, and the sharing of it with criminal elements in society, let alone those committing crimes under color of law like CBP, is the harmful part.
Imagine if there were a network of cameras covering all the commons across the land (ie, every street), and there were a way to view their perspective in real time. This gives every person the ability to record and follow any other.
Is this, in itself, an affront?
What if an alien on mars has such a powerful telescope that they too can follow someone in this way. Is this criminal? Do the rights of a person to police how certain photons - those which bounce off their skin - can be captured... extend to the ends of the universe?
I hope the answer is 'obviously not'.
The problem here is that CBP exists in the first place. We need to complete the incomplete struggle for abolition that fizzed in the middle of the 19th century. We need to rid the land of the power structures wherein some people can exact violence under color of law and others cannot even defend themselves, even as all the cameras in the land capture this injustice.
_That's_ the problem, not that somebody saw it happen.
Of course. But seeing is not illegal. It's the violent kidnapping part that it's illegal. But for some reason we're afraid to hold CBP accountable for that, so instead we want to make it illegal for everyone to see.
Seeing with your eyes is not, but recording might be. Using technology to see might be. And that doesn't necessarily infringe on your general computing rights, at least as understood by law, should there be any that grants you such.
