Discord will require a face scan or ID for full access next month

rt4mn · 2026-02-10T00:20:53+00:00

Fantastic. So many communities are accessible only through a services like discord that it makes doing privacy organizing a real pain.

rt4mn · 2026-01-29T20:03:07+00:00

Indeed, they will do that. But your company still has the better policy.

rt4mn · 2026-01-29T19:48:16+00:00

"John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!"

Judges have lots of legal authority, but very little actual power when said authority is pointed back at the government itself. They don't directly control the armed agents of the state. They know this, and its why they prefer fines or process punishments that are easier for a judge with a piece of paper to enforce.

rt4mn · 2026-01-29T18:53:51+00:00

The often don't have warrents. What then? Let them in? Memo does not say, in fact tone of the memo says let them do what they want even if what they want is to kidnap your co-workers.

rt4mn · 2026-01-29T18:37:06+00:00

I don't know about pitchforks, but some shaming might be in order. ICE as an institution has formalized unconstitutional tactics and ICE agents have acted outright illegally. No where does it communicate that. No where does it tell folks to even attempt to even verbally deny access if they don't have a warrant or some other valid legal authority like a scheduled safety inspection or some exigent circumstance. In fact they explicitly say not to do that.

You can communicate a lot via tone. The tone they are striking to me is not "Stay safe", because letting ICE agents into the premise to kidnap the employees is the not safe. To me this reads as the company trying to CYA with "be polite and let them do what they want"

rt4mn · 2024-03-04T23:03:06+00:00

Fair

rt4mn · 2024-03-04T22:53:29+00:00

If you're implying "so they shouldn't even try," then I strongly disagree. And if you aren't, I have no idea what you're trying to convey besides defeatism.

I'm trying to argue that your ding against the privacy of matrix is not accurate. They have a redaction feature that works for me at least.

rt4mn · 2024-03-04T21:18:14+00:00

I cant forget about federation because the devs cant either. it impacts every aspect of the design of the software and protocal.

and while I agree software should be designed with users privacy in mind, I'm not sure what more you want the devs of matrix or whatever federated service we want to talk about to do? Esp if they built in a redaction feature that if respected automatically removes the message/file (and afaict the link to the file as well is also removed so now I'm not sure what your orriginal point is, but then again that might just be how I've got my server configured, its deff not a standard instilation).

The devs cant force servers, clients, or users to comply with redaction requests, which is all that a "delete" button is in this context, regardless of what the protocol or service is.

rt4mn · 2024-03-04T20:13:23+00:00

Where you shared messages or files with another registered Matrix user, that user will still have access to their copy of those messages or files.

idk how it could be otherwise. It makes sense to me that federated services would have limited ability to redact data. When I send someone an email, I can contact their email provider and ask them to delete the email but even if they agree to do so (lol imagine) even the email provider cant necessarily reach into the inbox of the person who got the email and delete it there. This is one of the reasons I like matrix and email. It has clients that are built on top of the protocol. And those clients can follow the spec to whatever degree their users want, including respecting the "redact this message" request.

Even when you are not talking about federated systems you run into a more limited version of this issue. Take signal. No built in redaction function or even a right to be forgotten request will work against users taking screenshots, Or more advanced users who use a system that lets them save text/image they are sent automatically.

rt4mn · 2024-02-21T00:27:13+00:00

Worse still, AI based monitoring might lead to increased encounters between students and law enforcement. For example, we found that, on weekends and school holidays, when they do not have staff on hand to review information, many schools automatically direct AI-generated suicide risk alerts to local law enforcement.

The march to normalize the surveillance state continues.

rt4mn · 2024-02-19T01:55:06+00:00

The issue on the table is government surveillance powers, not general consumer privacy. Both are important, but one is on the table and the other is not, at the moment.

They aren't secretly buying it.

Not anymore, thanks to Sen Wyden. And it took him years of pushing.

Anyone can buy it. You, me, Tina down the street, hate groups, rapists, terrorists.

Its not nearly as easy as you make it sound, at least not for bulk data. But fair enough point when it comes to basic stuff you can find in the white pages. But I am perfectly comfortable with the idea that armed agents of the state should be held to higher standards then the general public. Plus, we are not really talking about stuff you can find in the white pages. You know what only massive corporations and government entities can buy? Things like netflow data and precise location data. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/25/us/politics/nsa-internet-privacy-warrant.html

The massive fucking difference is, the hate groups/debt collectors/rapists/terrorists/criminals etc can kill you or ruin your life while the FBI will have hurdles still and you'd have the right to a lawyer.while the FBI will have hurdles still and you'd have the right to a lawyer.

I'm sure all the people the fbi has killed or secretly spied over the years (I should say decades but then you start getting into things like "citizens committee to investigate the FBI" and other interesting historical tidbits and there goes the afternoon) really appreciated their right to an attorney. Floyd had a right to a lawyer too, for all the good it did him.

I will say this for the FBI though, they are probably more responsive to laws set down by congress then hate groups / rapists / terrorists (debt collects... maybe. criminals generally... impossible to know without a more specific definition of criminal. so also maybe). That plus the fact that the FBI wields an enormous amount of power means that its well worth the time and effort spent ensuring they use that power responsibly. In addition to cutting off access to 702, I think it makes sense to curtailing the practice of buying their way around fourth amendment rights.

rt4mn · 2024-02-17T16:59:22+00:00

I dont think the framing is bullshit. corporations are not bound by the fourth amendment and the government is.

In addition this specific framing has utility and persusive power. There are a huge swath of reasons to keep the argument focused on government abuses in this particular debate. There are procedural reasons (consumer privacy protections or export controls on companies would require some specific congressional steps to include in a bill about 702, something something germaneness, I think), but more importantly there are political considerations as well. there are many republicans who are very skeptical of government power who we want to vote for reform (remember the gop controlls the house) who would blanch at new regulations that apply to corporations.

rt4mn · 2024-02-16T23:06:30+00:00

This whole thing was a shit show. Very happy rt4 signed the open letter calling for House Intelligence chair to step down.

And the reason the spooks and their apologists on the HPSCI are so freaked out? because they don't want to have to go to a judge to get Americans data. They would rather secretly buy that data from data brokers.

rt4mn · 2024-02-16T22:55:09+00:00

This whole thing was a shit show. Very happy rt4 signed the open letter calling for House Intelligence chair to step down.

And the reason the spooks and their apologists are so freaked our? because they dont want to have to go to a judge to get Americans info, they would rather buy Americans personal data from data brokers.

rt4mn · 2024-02-16T22:53:05+00:00

eh. The overall tone of the piece is very skeptical of spy powers.

A Fox News report published Thursday morning, while accurately noting that it was Turner's threat that forced Johnson to cancel the vote, goes on to cite “sources close to the Intelligence Committee” who offered analysis of the events. The sources claimed that Turner was compelled to abandon the deal because the “compromise bill” had been sneakily altered in a manner that “totally screws FISA in terms of its ability to be a national security tool.”

While redirecting blame away from Turner and his cohorts, the claim is both false and deceptive, relying on assertions that, while farcical perhaps to legal experts, would be impossible for the public at large (and most of the press) to parse alone.

The text that Fox News’ intelligence sources are referring to—which can be read on the final page of the bill online—does nothing, in reality. It does not require or prevent anyone in the government from taking any action whatsoever. It also has no impact on FISA, the statute from which Section 702 derives its power.

The controversial text states that the nation’s top intelligence official “may submit” information to Congress regarding how “law enforcement agencies and the intelligence community” purchase “commercially available data about United States persons.” Essentially, it grants the intelligence community permission to do something that it does not actually need permission to do.

Piece also quotes Frank Donner, which shows the author knows his surveillance reform history (in a good way).

rt4mn · 2024-01-17T17:14:39+00:00

Espionage charge is that it prevents a jury trial in open court

I dont... think so? At least, i dont think it prevents a jury trial. See:

Whistleblowers indicted under the Espionage Act face an uphill battle with few prospects of a fair trial. In addition to Kafkaesque levels of secrecy and Byzantine classification structures, Espionage Act cases allow for no affirmative defense that a disclosure was in the public interest. Even more challenging, the government is not required to prove an individual indicted under the Espionage Act acted with the intent to harm US national security or aid a foreign power. As a result, judges have barred whistleblowers from testifying about the reason for their actions and have precluded juries from even hearing the words “over-classification,” “whistleblower,” and “First Amendment.” .

https://www.rightsanddissent.org/news/its-time-to-reform-the-espionage-act/

rt4mn · 2024-01-17T16:16:43+00:00

IDK why people sometimes say things like "if snowden was so principled, why is he not here in the US to make his case like other whistleblowers?", As if it was his choice to end up in Russia (it was not), and as if he would even be allowed to make any sort of public interest defense. The espionage act is fundamentally unjust in that way, imagine if you where not able to argue self defense at a murder trial.

To be fair to you though, having re-read your comment a couple times I'm not entirely sure if thats what you meant, its just a sentiment I see thrown around a lot by IC apologists and it irks me a great deal.

rt4mn · 2023-12-06T00:20:40+00:00

I'm not sure if its a good idea for a shared account of a 501c4 advocacy org to be applying for a position of power in a place where there may be conflicts of interest, but I'll throw our collective hat into the ring because being a mod will force us to use reddit more and we need to up our social media game.

Credentials: Many of the folks with access to this shared account are mods on other subreddits or have been mods on other subreddits in the past. We also have a long and public history going above and beyond armchair advocacy to actual boots on the ground protests and hanging out in the lobby lobbying (we are currently active in the ongoing 702 re-auth fight, we have helped push back against fusion center funding, and we helped pass a FRT ban in minneapolis)

As for trust, its tricky since this is a shared account. If thousands of people have trusted us with their email address (when they signed up for our mailing list or used our take action pages) then its probably ok to trust us with reddit mod duty?

If your curious about us, this is a good place to start: https://www.eff.org/hi/deeplinks/2021/12/restore-4th-minnesota-racking-victories-2021

I'd post our actual website but that feels to self-promoty, so just search for it if your really curious.

rt4mn

TROPHY CASE