I think the surveillance state is gonna stay; we have been slipping into it just so and every electronic system out there wants to spy on us, beginning with our Windows and Mac computers and even the Sonos speaker. Small mystery that police forces want their slice of pie so badly.

Freedom of expression has been of a limited nature already for some years (just cast Israel in a bad light in USA and see what happens). With the coming wave of AI-powered surveillance, which may be even powerful enough to read your sexual orientation from examining direction and duration of glances in survtech feeds, we just need a small misstep (say, another twin towers-type catastrophe) for even freedom of thought to become a privilege to be had in isolated and protected places.

Source: I write dystopias on the subject. https://w.ouzu.im

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ptero 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

Freedom of speech is doing not great, but still OK in the US. The government is not prosecuting for speech, which is what the free speech protections can and should guarantee.

What now happens more is that big private companies, having huge influence on individual life in everything from communication to banking, attack people for their views. The cure for it might be to ease and speed up the way for people to push back against that. From de-monopolization to government mediators and arbitrage binding for companies (but not for the individuals so they can still sue), etc.

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ookdatnog 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

> The government is not prosecuting for speech, which is what the free speech protections can and should guarantee.

This has absolutely started happening, albeit not yet on a large-scale, systematic basis. Mahmoud Khalil [0] resided in the US legally when he was detained with the intention to deport.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Khalil_(activist)

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vorpalhex 3 days ago | parent [-]

Khalil also gave material support to terrorists which is explicitly called out as a no-no on your residency paperwork.

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ookdatnog 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

That would be a crime. Khalil was not charged with any crime. The only conceivable reason to not charge him at this point, is because there is no evidence of him committing a crime.

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vorpalhex 2 days ago | parent [-]

The admin doesn't have to charge him, they can just revoke his visa and deport him.

He passed out written Hezbollah materials. Like with their name, flag and logo on it.

He shouldn't go to jail, but he is no longer welcome in this country.

	▲	ookdatnog 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		That's not providing material support. It's just speech.

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3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

[deleted]

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DocTomoe 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Between 'the government is no prosecuting for speech' and 'the government makes up unrelated charges when they do not like your speech', as seem to happen a lot these days is only a very, very thin line. Rümeysa Öztürk comes to mind [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detention_of_Rümeysa_Öztürk

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ptero 3 days ago | parent [-]

Using another pretext to target someone for their views is definitely a thing. This is not new (e.g., the Assange case) but its frequency is increasing.

I am going to offend both sides with what comes next (and curious how many downvotes it will attract), but I put only a small fraction of the blame for the increase in the above on the government which always wants to do this unless they feel a strong, popular pushback.

The real blame goes to the population that is happy to tolerate the government abuse of the laws as long as they think the blows are landing on their opponents. Silencing covid restriction protesters and BLM riots critics? Well, we are not defending antivaxxers and racists. Throwing out any idea of a due process in ICE raids? Well, we need to do something about the crime. And so on... Whereas 50 years ago, at least in the US, any jury would have thrown an attempt to break laws for a good cause out of court so the government would not even try to prosecute any of it.

In order to roll back government overreach we need to fight government overreach, even in cases where we strongly dislike the current target of that overreach. My 2c.

	▲	kelnos 3 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> Whereas 50 years ago, at least in the US, any jury would have thrown an attempt to break laws for a good cause out of court I think you have an overly rosy view of the legal landscape in the US in the 1970s.
	▲	stateofinquiry 3 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Tribalism eroding the rights of all. Makes sense to me! I think you are on to something here.

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derelicta 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Tell that to anti-genocide activists who get deported for saying things like "Killing children is wrong" or "Maybe we shouldnt export guns to a Pedo-State"

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p0w3n3d 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

It's been constantly weakened and people were always saying "don't worry, we will find a workaround, we should do nothing".