I came across this article today. I’m not posting this as to the pros and cons of the proposal itself. I’m just using it as an example of how all these devices that so many people seem so enamored with can be used to spy on you. Not to mention what it says about our so called “right to privacy”.
This is already happening (and has happened for years) in cities like London. There is no expectation of privacy in public places.
Boudin was ousted as DA last month for being too soft on crime. I recognize that privacy is a concern but frankly property theft and car burglaries especially have spiralled out of control in recent years, and everyone is getting sick and tired of it. If the new DA wants to crack down on property crime and crime in general, I am all for it.
This ain’t England Peter. We have a Constitution, they don’t.
Not that that matters to most people, but how can you bitch about Roe V Wade with respect to a right to privacy when government basically now has the ability to monitor everything you do and say? And not just in public places, Geo Fencing doesn’t stop at just public places.
But I guess even with everything that’s happened in the last couple of years, you still think government and politicians are these kind, benevolent, overlords who are only interested in protecting you.
England does have a constitution, though it’s largely unwritten.
No, I do think the right to privacy is important, but when it comes to issues of security there is necessarily a tradeoff between privacy and security. Most businesses inside and outside the US have security cameras that record customers etc. These often provide important evidence after a crime was committed. I’m not advocating that the government snoops on every aspect of our lives like a Big Brother but you cannot expect the police to keep us safe if at the same time they cannot do any surveillance.
Facebook declares it is going to destroy privacy. Google is mostly run by ex-spooks from NSA and CIA. Advertisers profile you. Cops follow you. The recent Supreme Court decision on Roe was a direct attack on privacy as a right.
I find it strange to look around at what kinds of people are upset about all this, and what kinds of people don’t care. It all seems to run COUNTER to their stated political views, strangely.
There is privacy in the guitar.
Indeed.
Not to mention peace, solace, and an escape from the 7/24 shitstorm that seems to be the way of things these days.
Provided, of course, your guitar is not connected to the internet. 
On the question of privacy rights and law, it must be noted that there are LOTS of laws protecting people at all levels of govt and in various industries. These laws have been important and keep people safe from invasive practices by govt and biz. For example, every medical enterprise follows HIPAA rules and HIPAA rights are legislated, established and upheld law of the land. Similar laws protect privacy rights for consumers, investors, bank customers, parents of children, various threatened minorities and - yes - users of software.
The fact that these established laws and rights are under attack is a big deal.
The questionable argument that these rights and laws are not legitimate because there is no particular clause in the US Constitution mentioning privacy is irrelevant. Laws abound covering rights and protections that are not specifically mentioned in the constitution, which is a tiny foundation for a sprawling body of valid, functioning law.
Beyond the constitution, there are multiple layers of law, including policy, legal precedent, common law and a couple of centuries of legal opinion written by judges at all levels. If I want to go to court over some dispute, my attorney will NOT only rely on the US Constitution, but will consider everything in all the law books in every state.
When tech devices obliterate our privacy rights, they are being criminal. When the Supreme Court violates law, precedent and the constitutional principle of separation of church and state so that they can force their religion on everyone else, they too are being criminal.
In spite of the brash commercial arrogance of techies, the internet is really dumb. Software (on or off the net) is too stupid to talk or understand what we say. And in spite of what techie minions in art say, software will never understand a song, much less what my guitar says.
Lately I have seen live bands use their phones as backup, relying on pre-scored or pre-recorded sounds to fill out what the band cannot play. Seems that these musicians are using a device as a karoake machine. Using something programmed to do music destroys musicality, doesn’t it?
I spent my career in tech and I couldn’t agree with you more. It’s a shame what’s happened to an industry I was once so proud to be a part of.
That’s really more of where my “ditch your devices” position comes from. As a rebuke to what the techies have done. It’s also contrary to human nature. We are social animals and as such, we need the one on one in person interactions that seem to be so lacking these days.
The one truth that remains despite all the techie bullshit is you still can’t get the true measure of someone until you look them in the eye.
That depends on the style of music of course, in some genres non-programmed parts ruin the musicality!
In place of humans, of course. Especially live.
I watched a real interesting documentary on recording the other day. It was called “Recording in Progress”. It was all about recording studios and how they coped with the changes in technology.
I saw it on one of the basic cable channels where I live, not sure if it’s on Net Flix or Amazon, but if you can find it, it’s worth watching.
Likely that our definitions and values for MAKING music are gonna be different from our ideas about RECORDING music. Musicmaking seems to me to be essentially organic, while recording is essentially one kind of technology or another.
A follow up to the earlier post about what San Fran is wanting to do with private cameras:
Again, it’s not on the specifics of the article itself, it’s more of a big picture kind of thing, best expressed in the final line of the article:
“Once infrastructure exists, there will always be temptation for police to use it for less urgent situations.”
I’m not questioning the merit of private security, just questioning the need to connect it to the internet.
Digital privacy should’ve been discussed and protected 20 years ago. The debate is moot now since web citizens gave in willingly to Google, the NSA and Facebook.
No argument there.
But the question remains, how much of this stuff do we really need??
They are great tools, no doubt, but as with any tool, it’s all in how you use it.
One thing that governments all over the world have done since the beginning was control information. In ancient times it was statues and monuments, now it’s broadcasting the minutia of your poor, boring, pitiful lives across the globe, for everyone to see. Hell yes government is going to jump all over that shit!!
We can’t escape it. But that doesn’t mean we have to make it easy for them.
I think we can escape it.
Came across this today:
Not posting because of the crime stats, posting because of this line in the article:
By tracking more than 18 million smartphone users traveling through America’s busiest downtowns,
Puts me in mind of what Sting said:
Came upon this today:
Some interesting lines from the article:
The company was developed by two former high-ranking Department of Homeland Security officials under ex-President George W. Bush. It relies on advertising identification numbers, which Fog officials say are culled from popular cellphone apps such as Waze, Starbucks and hundreds of others that target ads based on a person’s movements and interests, according to police emails.
And this:
Despite such privacy assurances, the records show that law enforcement can use Fog’s data as a clue to find identifying information. “There is no (personal information) linked to the (ad ID),” wrote a Missouri official about Fog in 2019. “But if we are good at what we do, we should be able to figure out the owner.”
Keep in mind, you gave these people permission to do this.
For SF, it is the combination of a couple of things: 1. failed policies (notably lax enforcement against drug abuse and theft), 2. the lingering opioid crisis and 3. Covid which has pretty much emptied the financial district with a lot of people choosing to stay out to work from home. Not to mention that the commute is pretty bad, and that the real prices are still sky high.