Thread

Cities Are Forced to Funnel License Plate Data to a Federal Surveillance Program

92 points · 38 comments · ripe

sohrob · 1790825074 · focus · HN ↗
It seemed like the loudest voices opposed to "Big Government" were those in the pro-Trump MAGA camp and yet I've heard nary a peep from most of them regarding things like this which are directly spearheaded by Trump's administration.
1. idle_zealot · 1790825842 · focus · HN ↗
  Most people who claim to be against big government are really just opposed to the idea of the government restricting them, personally. If it's their friends wielding government to hunt and punish the right people then they're in support. You could see this well before the current turn, recall the overlap between small government support and pro-police, pro-military, pro-death penalty, pro-stop and frisk "law and order" types.
  1. expedition32 · 1790829025 · focus · HN ↗
    Big government burned down Atlanta so that black people could be free. It also bailed out Texas.
    There's nothing wrong with big government as long as it isn't run by fascists and religious nut cases- which is the real problem in today's America.
    Cider9986 · 1790829511 · focus · HN ↗
    No, the government is bad for privacy no matter the left-right affiliation. See: Europe, all recent Republican and Democratic presidents. Both Republicans and Democrats abuse FISA when they're in power. Trump was allegedly tracked using FISA when he was out of office, so he called for it to be shut down. Now that he's back in office, he's allegedly using it to spy on Democrats. The answer is not get your people in charge temporarily, it's outlaw mass surveillance.
    You make the government powerful while the people you like are in charge, then when the people you don't like are in charge you're gonna get fucked.
    Actually you're getting fucked all the time, unless you take a bipartisan approach to safeguarding privacy.
    johnnyanmac · 1790830163 · focus · HN ↗
    I don't think you two are disagreeing. It's just that the reaction to government surveillance should not be "Big government is all bad, vote in someone to shrink it". It's "outlaw mass surveillance and keep big government focused on serving the people". It's amazing how Reagan's propaganda remains so effective 45 years later.
2. gottorf · 1790826977 · focus · HN ↗
  To steelman your argument and respond: 1) there is ample reason to believe that a Harris presidency would not have done any better on this front (that is, the choice was between big government and bigger government), and 2) the federal government being as big as it is already makes it hard for states and local governments to say no to requests like these. (You might recall how highway funding was used as a cudgel to "force" the drinking age to 21.)
  There isn't a true (and viable) "weaker federal government, stronger state and local governments" party in this country at the moment. And the two party system being what it is, voters have to pick one out of two choices, neither of which will represent the voter's beliefs fully, or even mostly. Even the "pro-Trump MAGA camp" disagrees with itself on a ton of issues, perhaps more so than the camp on the opposite side[0]. I personally know many people who voted for Trump in 2024 and would describe themselves, ironically or not, as MAGA, who all did so for different reasons and are from very diverse backgrounds.
  Though, if there indeed was a peep from any of them against this particular project, would you even hear it in today's fragmented informational spheres?
  [0]: <a href="https://bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bjso.12665" rel="nofollow">https://bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bjso....
  1. fragmede · 1790827718 · focus · HN ↗
    Would she have been duped into starting a fight with Iran though?
  2. andrewflnr · 1790827748 · focus · HN ↗
    The difference there is that the Harris government wouldn't have been quite so blatantly hypocritical in that regard. That would have been the least important improvement, but it's the one the top level comment was talking about.
3. gherkinnn · 1790834117 · focus · HN ↗
  Coincidentally, the loudest pro-gun, anti-govt-overreach, don't-tread-on-me voices had precisely nothing to say as the government did exactly what they feared it would do as ICE started running amok.
4. WokeUp420 · 1790854909 · focus · HN ↗
  These are uneducated folks that don't even understand technology surveillance

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