[sudo-discuss] Robbed at gunpoint.

[GtwoG PublicOhOne]

Since someone asked in private email, paraphrasing, "dude, what gives,
you're against surveillance and now you want the video tapes?", here's
my reply to them, which should hopefully address anyone else who has the
same question (whether sincere or sarcastic).

I added a little bit of stuff to clarify some of the more ambiguous
bits, compared to what I sent to the person who originally emailed me
about this topic.

(name)-

I'm trying to get my mind off this and finally get to sleep, but since
you asked, here's the answer, and this answer pre-dates my near-miss
with a bullet through my soft squishy guts.

I'm dead-set opposed to persistent pervasive tracking, and promiscuous
data-sharing for the purpose of "predicting and controlling" (the data
mining industry's phrase, not mine) individual behavior, or otherwise
acting against individuals without their knowledge, effective consent,
or means of redress or recourse.

For example when a prospective employer says "give me your social
security number and all your online usernames," and then contracts with
a data-miner who pulls up a dossier that includes your smiling face at a
protest, hanging out with the Circle-A crowd, as well as a couple more
of your old userIDs you forgot you ever had, and decides they don't want
to hire you.   That sort of thing infringes two 1st Amendment rights
(speech and association, and even if 1st A rights strictly speaking only
apply against acts of government, the bottom line is that depriving
someone of a job due to their political speech & association is
effectively a form of coercion) and also gives you no due process and no
recourse whatsoever.  It represents a gross over-reach by the employer
and by the data-miners, into your life outside the workplace, in which
they have no legitimate interest unless they wish to assert that they
OWN you in totality.

I'm not opposed to, and never have been opposed to, video cameras in
public places that record to local storage media and are not otherwise
used for tracking or interfaced to online systems capable of tracking
innocent persons' activities. 

The difference is between a) local storage that is not data-mined and
correlated, and rarely utilized in any way, vs. b) promiscuous data
sharing and correlation that enables tracking individuals in detail on a
mass scale and is used for exactly that purpose on a mass scale.

I'm not interested in getting a dossier on Robbie the Robber's life
history.  I could care less about his politics, his religion if any, his
taste in music, his eating habits, or whether he's in the market for a
new mobile device (apparently he is, judging from the way he groped my
pants looking for a nonexistent cellphone: the particular combination of
a gun in your face and a hand touching you two inches from your naughty
bits is especially creepy, but I digress). 

I _am_ interested in getting the video of the attack, from which he
might be identified, and then having him charged with a crime, where he
will have full due process of law including the right to cross-examine
me and my friend James and anyone else he pleases.

And yes, I would object vociferously if the cameras on the buildings
were fed into some kind of Facebook/Google Borg that face-matched and
spat out the name of every person passing within view, even if that made
it easier to catch Robbie the Robber.

By analogy the difference is between a targeted wiretap performed with a
warrant signed by a judge, vs. broad-spectrum signals intelligence that
hoovers up every phone call on a national network, with nothing more
than presidential say-so. 

So no, there's no contradiction between my opposition to broad-spectrum
surveillance, and my desire to get the specific videos that will show
nothing more than the actual attack that could have killed James and I.

And so, to bed for me, yes, at this hour.  I'm not going to let Robbie
the Robber rootkit my brain, so I'm going to try to get at least 6
hours' sleep, and then drop in some time tonight rather than hiding
under a rock.  See you 'round, as they say.

Since other people may have the same question, whether sincere or
sarcastic, I'm going to post my reply to the list, but not your email,
which was private (having learned that lesson a week ago to watch out
for private emails that look like listmail). 

-G.  Going to sleep now, be back in hopefully more than 6 hours.


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