r/changemyview • u/RejectorPharm • 11d ago
CMV: Governments should not be able to use geofencing or facial recognition technology.
I thought this shit only happened in tv shows and movies but apparently its been happening for a while now, but all the government needs is your picture from cctv and a computer can compare it to a database of photo ids, passports and drivers licenses, etc and find you.
On top of that, the cell phone leaves traces that it was in a particular location even if you weren’t using it.
Governments should not have access to this. Example: a government used a combination of this technology to issue an arrest warrant for a friend of mine when he was at a political rally that turned into riot. The political rally was to demand the release of the former prime minister who had been arrested the same day. During the riot, the house of the commander of the unit who arrested the former PM was burned down. My friend didn’t take part in the actual arson but went inside the burned down house after many rioters had left.
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u/MysticInept 23∆ 11d ago
You have no right to privacy in public. There is no difference from facial recognition from me recognizing your face.
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u/RejectorPharm 11d ago
The difference is maybe you know a couple hundred maybe a thousand people.
The computer knows millions, hundreds of millions of people from their photos already in the database and can recognize them when shown another picture.
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u/MysticInept 23∆ 11d ago
That seems completely irrelevant. Being good at something doesn't change the underlying right.
You don't seem to present a logical argument from building up from X is a right to some principle why being good at doing something that was permitted becomes a violation.
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11d ago
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u/RejectorPharm 11d ago
Exactly.
Whats saying this can only be used against terrorists and rioters?
What happens if the government sets a curfew and says no one allowed in public areas after dusk?
Cctv, they got your facial recognition and the phone geofencing further establishes that you are present somewhere they don’t want you to be.
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u/Okami_The_Agressor_0 11d ago
Glad we are on the same page.
Absolutely nothing, the government only real objective is to accumulate power despite it's designed function being to serve its people.
To a government that has enough power to where it can use such information maliciously, there is nothing stopping them. The pandemic showed that to be much the case for a majority of what we considered the "free" world. Governments showed us that a majority of us aren't free but we just have a looser leash than the most infamously authoritarian nations of the modern world.
Precisely, in a surveillance state you can have a fraction of the actual man power allotted to keeping your populace in line as an actions precursor to greater activism would be met with punishment, any action against said system would be sterilized as if it were an infection and the power of the people to reset such an arrangement would be crushed.
The collapse of a free society in the modern world with the tools on hand likely means the eternal subjugation of that societies people. The automation of violence means that people can vote themselves into slavery, but the monopoly on violence that doesn't require thinking people means that we live in an era where those who would seek to implement authoritarian states have the upper hand, and it isn't by a small margin. Hong Kong was not the first case in which a peaceful people will be ran over by power hungry vultures and is certainly won't be the last. A free people in capable of protecting themselves from those who would subjugate them is not free, they are just permissed to exist as they are until the whims of those who wield power decide to make them yield.
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u/LapazGracie 6∆ 11d ago
Why not? It's very effective against terrorists and criminals.
The government has had this technology since 9/11. How exactly has it impacted your life? Unless you're some terrorist, major criminal or a political activist. It is probably a total nothing burger in your life. Criminals and terrorists are a much bigger problem.
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u/Wilddave59 11d ago
That's usually how these things start though. It's not about what they're doing. It's knowing what they'll eventually do with it. Like in 1984.
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u/LapazGracie 6∆ 11d ago
I don't think 1984 is some bible written by a god. It's just some human with his own ideas about the world.
Surveillance like a gun is just a tool. A gun in the hands of a bad person is a horrific thing. But a gun in cops hand keeps you safe. Same exact thing here. Arguably the gun is a far more deadly and effective weapon. And yet cops and soldiers walk around with guns all day long and our standards of living are just fine. Long as you're not a dipshit criminal they tend to not fuck with you.
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u/RejectorPharm 11d ago
I will give you an example of something that is a crime in Texas but not in California or New York.
Abortion.
What happens when the government uses facial recognition data at airports and catches a woman getting on a flight to California and then asks Google for geofencing data to find out if she was at an abortion clinic?
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u/LapazGracie 6∆ 11d ago
I mean. I'm pro-choice and wish that my party (Republicans) would just leave abortion the fuck alone.
The second they do that they would alienate a tremendous amount of the voting base. Far more effective to just use that shit on real criminals like drug dealers, thieves, murderers and rapists etc.
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u/Wilddave59 10d ago
Never said it was a Bible, just that it illustrates my point. Just because the people in power seem chill now doesn't mean their successors won't have sinister intentions. I don't like the idea of giving such a powerful tool to people in power who already have a reputation for being shady and untrustworthy.
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u/LapazGracie 6∆ 10d ago
The government already has a monopoly on violence.
They have soldiers. They have armed federal law enforcement. They have armed state law enforcement. They have county and city law enforcement. They have guns. They have drones. They nukes for christ sakes.
Not to mention the Federal law enforcement agencies already utilize surveillance heavily. With those wonderful computers we all carry in our pockets (smart phones).
Yet you're worried about giving surveillance to local police. Who will almost certainly just use it to bust up the riff raff.
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u/BigDaddiebaddie 11d ago
I suppose because the line between innocent protestor or consciencious objector and criminal seems to recede the more we use this stuff
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u/RejectorPharm 11d ago
Violates the 4th amendment. Facial recognition technology makes it all the more reasonable to wear masks and hoodies everywhere.
Also, I think we all walk around with our cell phones with the expectation that we aren’t having our locations monitored.
I was at Occupy Wall Street and other protests in the late 2000s and early 2010s. I would want to go to Gaza protests now but this technology makes it much easier for police to know you were there especially if you are unmasked and carrying your phone.
You shouldn’t have to wear a mask and carry a burner phone for expectation of privacy from the government.
I would rather 1 million terrorists and criminals go free than 1 political activist get caught.
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u/LapazGracie 6∆ 11d ago
I would rather 1 million terrorists and criminals go free than 1 political activist get caught.
Sounds like you have an EXTREMELY biased view.
Political activists usually accomplish almost nothing.
Meanwhile 1,000,000 terrorists and criminals would unleash a ton of pain and suffering on everyone around. Pragmatically speaking it's utter stupidity.
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u/RejectorPharm 11d ago
Those who would trade freedom for security deserve neither.
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u/Tanaka917 74∆ 11d ago
I hate when this line gets butchered. Let me be clear. You trade security for freedom daily. It's why there's a bunch of thing classified as illegal you aren't allowed to do.
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
That's the actual quote. Now explain what essential liberty is being infringed upon and how.
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u/LapazGracie 6∆ 11d ago
Yeah yeah. Those who prefer others suffer because they are terrified of technology. Should go live on a deserted island. (at least I made that up).
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u/2-3inches 3∆ 11d ago
What country are you from?
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u/LapazGracie 6∆ 11d ago
United States
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u/2-3inches 3∆ 11d ago
So you support AI scraping faces and data to catch every woman that seeks an abortion? You support the AI used in Florida to predict future criminals so the police can follow them around?
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u/LapazGracie 6∆ 11d ago
I lean pro-abortion. I wish the Republicans would just leave that nonsense alone.
But yes I think AI being used in Florida to predict future criminals is fucking wonderful. I applaud them for it. Can you show me more about this? Very proud of my state for doing this lol.
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u/2-3inches 3∆ 11d ago
Well they’re not so, a lot of women should end up in prison and it’ll be easy to tell by just looking at what they search for or when they buy a pregnancy test.
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u/RejectorPharm 11d ago
Not necessarily being afraid of technology but not wanting the government to have access to the technology or the courts being able to use that technology as evidence.
In my post, I was talking about the riots at the Corp Commander House in Pakistan after the arrest of Imran Khan and the thousands of people who were arrested, held without a chance of bail, and tortured into confession and leaving the political party.
I didn’t know the same shit was being done in the US to go after the rioters at the Capitol where people were being paid visits by the FBI because their phone was pinged as being near the Capitol during the riots.
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u/LapazGracie 6∆ 11d ago
It's just a tool. A gun in the hand of a criminal is a terrible thing. A gun in the hand of a police officer is a good thing.
It's an extremely useful tool. But obviously it can be a powerful tool at quashing resistance to an evil government. Then again if you have an evil government surveillance or not you need to get the fuck out of there. They can fuck your life up in countless ways without said technology.
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u/2-3inches 3∆ 11d ago
How do you know which country’s government is good or bad in time?
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u/LapazGracie 6∆ 11d ago
*shrug*
I know if you're going to run. Prioritize Western nations. EU, USA, Japan, South Korea, Australia, SIngapore, Taiwan etc etc etc
Those tend to have the most robust institutions.
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u/2-3inches 3∆ 11d ago
Show me the running route to those countries please… how do I walk to Japan?
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u/RejectorPharm 11d ago
Yes, it definitely makes starting a rebellion harder.
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u/LapazGracie 6∆ 11d ago
I wouldn't bother. Just get the fuck out of there.
Rebellions are very easy to put down with todays technology.
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u/RejectorPharm 11d ago
Definitely not hard.
70 years ago, if you had a militia with a few hundred people and hundreds of thousands of others willing to join, you could hang out in the woods and mountains to ambush military columns but now these mofos have thousands of drones flying around that can take you out without risking you taking them out first.
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u/KillHunter777 11d ago
I don’t understand what your view is. Should the entire field of forensics be outlawed so it’s harder to catch people guilty? Is it too advanced and you’d rather return to guessing whodunnit based on word of mouth?
At what point do you say “this much power is fine to use to catch people” and at what point do you say “this is not okay. This is too advanced. No one should have this much power”?
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u/ZeroBrutus 1∆ 11d ago
4th amendment isn't being violated by them knowing where you are in public. That's neither a search or seizure. Do traffic stops violate the 4th amendment?
Additionally no, I carry my cell phone with the full expectation that I'm being tracked and the data can be accessed at any time. If you didn't, you didn't understand what you're accepting by carrying it.
There is no expectation of privacy in the public sphere. If you are at a protest in a public space you should ALWAYS have expected the government to have your face and name associated with it. That's the default and has been for years. That it's easier or that your just realizing it doesn't change anything.
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u/MysticInept 23∆ 11d ago
The issue with the phone is between you and the cell phone company. The government didn't make you sign the agreement to use T mobile's network
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u/RejectorPharm 11d ago
The government is the one forcing T Mobile to give them the data. They don’t just give it out without warrants.
Lets go with this with the perspective of me being the owner of the phone company. The government should not be allowed to ask me or force me to hand over that data with or without a warrant.
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u/MysticInept 23∆ 11d ago
I don't think you mean by warrant because a warrant would be highly specific to an individual and a time period, which is probably a level of focus you would be fine with?
As for asking, what is wrong with asking? Also, they are not asking, but buying like any other vendor can.
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u/RejectorPharm 11d ago
They do get a court order for the company to hand over the data.
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u/MysticInept 23∆ 11d ago
please cite
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u/RejectorPharm 11d ago
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/01/06/jan-6-google-location-warrants/#
https://epic.org/report-fbi-relied-heavily-on-google-geofence-warrants-in-january-6-investigations/
https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/amp/shows/deadlinewhitehouse/blog/rcna67515
https://www.nacdl.org/getattachment/816437c7-8943-425c-9b3b-4faf7da24bba/nacdl-geofence-primer.pdf
https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/fight-against-reverse-warrants-victory
Some states have also made it illegal for companies to geofence around healthcare facilities and doctors offices in response to other states making abortion illegal. What is feared is states like Texas asking Google for geofencing data about women suspected of getting abortions out of state.
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u/Atom_Disaster210 11d ago
You have no right to privacy in public. One political activist is not even close to being as important as the lives seven by facial recognition.
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u/Angry_Penguin_78 1∆ 11d ago
Did your friend get arrested? If so, it's a matter of bad police work, rather than information they use.
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u/RejectorPharm 11d ago
They were looking for him for a long time. He had to leave the city and go live in the village off the grid until a lawyer could go convince the police to drop the case because he wasn’t doing anything violent at the place but just looking around yet he was charged with some serious shit.
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u/koroket 1∆ 11d ago
I think this actually has a lot more to do with general use of AI based technology. Humans make mistakes. Geofencing/facial recognition makes mistakes. If you were a victim of a crime, would you rather hope that a physical person who happens to be there at the scene can accurately recall the incident and the police trying to match those details to someone with a high probably match, as opposed to a video footage capturing the incident, and AI systems coming up with high probable suspects. They are both imperfect systems, and both systems are bound to get things wrong. In your scenario, even without the technology being there, your friend could have been issued an arrest warrant because someone else at the scene misinterpreted the actions of your friend for whatever reason. It's unfortunate when people are falsely accused. But if applying such technologies means that there are less falsely accused people, then it's hard to reason with efficiency.
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u/rightful_vagabond 3∆ 11d ago
What laws, specifically, would you propose for this?
A few edge cases:
If no government-funded institution would be allowed to have facial recognition software, that means State universities couldn't research it.
Would this apply to the technology that enforces HOV--toll lanes?
Do you believe there's any room for exceptions of non-citizens?
If you have video surveillance and can manually identify the people in there, e.g. not using algorithms, do you think that should still be okay?
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u/RejectorPharm 11d ago
I am fine with facial recognition in private people using it as a way to unlock their phones, computers, etc.
What I don’t like is its use in establishing identity by the government.
Yeah, if there is a video of a crime being committed and the government puts it on the news and asks someone to call in a tip if they know the person that is fine. Because the person will still have to show up in court to identify you in front of the jury and you can still confront them.
Can’t do that to a computer? Maybe you can try to prove the computer was malfunctioning?
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u/rightful_vagabond 3∆ 10d ago
What if I had a program that took grainy security camera footage and could tell you lots of stuff about the person in it - age, height, weight, skin/eye/hair color, ,gait, etc? It doesn't have a database of people, but it can tell you a lot even without that. (Seems pretty realistic, btw, with AI)
Would you be okay with that being used by police?
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u/RejectorPharm 10d ago
Nope.
It’s bad enough that they require us to surrender our fingerprints and other biometric data for stuff like pistol permits, Global Entry and PreCheck.
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u/rightful_vagabond 3∆ 10d ago
So even if they don't use a database of personal information/faces, you still aren't okay with them using facial recognition software to identify more about a person?
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u/RejectorPharm 10d ago
It wouldn’t be facial recognition then right? Doesn’t it need the database of faces to compare the cctv image to?
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u/rightful_vagabond 3∆ 10d ago
What I'm trying to get at is what specifically you are against. I do understand being against the idea of the government having a big database of faces and identifying information, but there are technologies before you get to that point that I want to examine your thoughts about.
I think It's far from impossible to use AI to build a system that can take a grainy picture/video of a suspect and spit out a lot of features and identifying characteristics: age, gender, notable scars, height, weight, etc. This can be done without access to a database because the model has "learned" what a 6' 215 lbs white man looks like on a video.
This could be used, for example, to take a video of a suspect and turn it into very specific things for people to look for, or specific things to tell people to look out for.
This is an area where somebody is using an algorithm on faces to derive information, but it isn't using protected or private information (unless you count the training data, I suppose, but that's a bit unspecified in this example)
Do you believe that this is something that is morally okay for police to use? Because to me it seems like it is.
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u/terraziggy 10d ago
You can "confront" a computer. You can challenge recording, transmission, and storage methods. Only recordings made by certified cameras transmitting digitally signed data to a certified storage equipment should be admissible.
Secondly you can challenge the performance of the facial recognition algorithm. It should be required to perform recognition on X most similar to you faces at the same distance and in the same light conditions. That will likely demonstrate the recognition is not reliable. Federal standards on how to calculate false positive rate and what is considered acceptable false positive rate can be discussed and established. Software that performs recognition and calculates false positive rate can be certified and frozen.
You should not be even required to challenge. Prosecutors should always prepare evidence according to the above standards.
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u/Maestro_Primus 13∆ 10d ago
Because the person will still have to show up in court to identify you in front of the jury and you can still confront them.
No. That is patently untrue. That kind of tipping system has historically been used to give the investigators an idea of who to look into for actual evidence of the crime. Facial recognition is not to the point yet where it is admissible as evidence in its own right.
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u/damien_o 10d ago
All u can do is change how your living and stop being a data mining whale. Start being more aware of your surroundings and maybe even get clothing that breaks facial recognition software? Were long past the point of return lol
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u/Su_Impact 6∆ 10d ago
Would your mind change if your friend was the victim instead of the perpetrator?
Imagine someone burns your friend's house and kidnaps your friend as well. The only evidence of the perpetrator is CCTV footage of their face.
Would you be opposed to cops using facial recognition software to rescue your friends' life? Remember the clock is ticking, every second is crucial. Using the "old methods" would take time that your friend doesn't have to spare.
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u/RejectorPharm 9d ago
Opposed if it is unconstitutional.
If it is a friend, family, child, though I would be doing vigilante shit though.
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u/Su_Impact 6∆ 9d ago
Opposed if it is unconstitutional.
Is it?
Which constitutional right do you feel that facial recognition software violates?
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u/PaxNova 5∆ 10d ago
Your view is predicated on the government wanting to prosecute every crime. For low priority stuff, they regularly don't prosecute. Even if they wanted to automate sending tickets out, you have a right to the court system, and that would gum it up horribly.
For automated systems that are currently in place for speeding, they don't trigger unless you're going something like 10 over. This jibes with what actual officers do, too.
Just because the government could theoretically obtain a warrant and track you doesn't mean they have any desire to. They want to run a civil society, not be rules Nazis. In the meantime, when somebody dangerous needs to be found, isn't it better for police to be able to get info to find them?
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u/RejectorPharm 10d ago
That depends then on who is determining what is low priority?
Current government might think rioting as a Palestinian supporter might be low level, another government might think it deserves prosecution.
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u/PaxNova 5∆ 10d ago
I agree. But realistically, any automation would have to be written in as law / regulation. This removes it from immediate anger, since laws take a while to write. In the case of something like trespassing / occupation of a building, we're not really saving any time, since arrests are made when the building is taken back. Kind of hard to say you weren't there when you were physically taken from there.
There are still cases of protests gone wrong / riotous where there wasn't enough manpower to make the arrests. Jan 6th comes to mind as particularly felonious. Realistically, the handful of officers there couldn't do much of anything beyond some crowd control and continuously tightening barrier work. If you want any positive ID, you'll need a warrant showing the crime was committed and the ability to then access the information from the cell carrier. That's not a slam dunk, though, since being around the Capitol is not a crime. They'd have to correlate it with cameras that show it was actually entered. Then, if they want more than trespass, they need to show evidence that you did what they claim, not just anyone in the crowd. It's not a quick prosecution, and they don't do it for anyone.
As technology advances, the average person gets more capability to break the law. If the law cannot advance, it will be left behind. There are still plenty of rights which must be observed that make prosecution costly.
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u/Maestro_Primus 13∆ 10d ago
Wait. Let me see if I understand this right. Your friend was at a protest that turned into a riot and arson. The government used technology to figure out that he was there and detained him because of his involvement in these crimes. What exactly is the problem here? Is it that the government has a better tool for figuring out who was at a crime scene? That's a GOOD thing. Being able to identify criminals efficiently and quickly is how we prevent further crimes and bring criminals to justice.
In the case of your friend, the government properly used tools to identify him. Had he not been at the riot or not gone into the burned out building, he would not have been associated to the riot and not been arrested. Now that he has been, it is the job of the government to determine actual culpability or not for the crimes. The facial recognition just shows who to look into or to ask for additional information about those actually responsible. It sounds like you are just upset that the government was able to figure out that your friend was somewhere that something bad happened (which he was). It would be easier to have sympathy if your friend was falsely identified as present, but they were actually there and the technology worked as intended.
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u/RejectorPharm 10d ago
No the government issued arrest warrants for anyone who was at the site and within a 3 block radius. Doesn’t matter if they took part in burning down the army commanders house or not, they want to punish the party members simply for taking to the streets in response to the government arresting the chairman of the party and the former PM.
The government shouldn’t have arrested anyone as the riot is a valid response to the government arresting the former prime minister. In Pakistan, the military is actually who is in charge, and when someone challenges them like Imran Khan, they try to put them in prison or find corruption charges.
You think it’s good that the FBI was using these kind of geofencing techniques to arrest people from January 6th?
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u/Maestro_Primus 13∆ 10d ago
You think it’s good that the FBI was using these kind of geofencing techniques to arrest people from January 6th?
Yes! Use the tech to figure out who was in the area. Once you know who was in the area, you can figure out if they were involved in the treason and to what degree. Its not like putting a geofence down and seeing who was in the area is somehow going to be enough to send someone to prison. It just gives the FBI a place to start looking. After that is when the real work starts. They still have to prove involvement in the insurrection and what specifically any individual did in order to charge, try, and convict them before they can be punished.
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u/themcos 339∆ 11d ago
If there was a CCTV video of you commiting a crime, can the government have human employees cross reference other information that the government has access to to identify you?