| ▲ | SR2Z 11 hours ago |
| Unless they compel people at gunpoint (which prevents the government from bringing a case), they will probably not have much luck with this. As soon as a user sets up a passcode or other lock on their phone, it is beyond the ability of even most parts of the US government to look inside. It's much more likely that the government convinces one member of the group chat to turn on the other members and give up their phone numbers. |
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| ▲ | midasz 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| > which prevents the government from bringing a case Genuinely, from outside, it seems like your government doesn't give a damn on what they are and aren't allowed to do. |
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| ▲ | ncallaway 8 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Yes, but I’m not going to unlock my phone with a passcode, and unlike biometric unlock they have no way to force me to unlock my phone. The district courts will eventually back me up on this. Our country has fallen a long way, but the district courts have remained good, and my case is unlikely to be one that goes up to appellate courts, where things get much worse. There’s an important distinction: the government doesn’t care about what it is allowed to do, but it is still limited by what it is not capable of doing. It’s important to understand that they still do have many constraints they operate under, and that we need to find and exploit those constraints as much as possible while we fight them | | |
| ▲ | direwolf20 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | They are capable of putting you in prison until you unlock your phone, or simply executing you. | | |
| ▲ | tclancy 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Feels like the latter would be counter-productive unless there's an app for that. | |
| ▲ | ncallaway 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | They are, but again, district courts have been pretty good, and I would be out of jail in <30 days, unless my case goes up on appeal. And if I die in jail because I won’t unlock my phone: fuck ‘em, they’ll have to actually do it. I don’t plan on being killed by the regime, but I don’t think I would’ve survived as a German in Nazi Germany, either. I’m not putting my survival above everything else in the world. |
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| ▲ | dylan604 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Looks that way from the inside as well. | | |
| ▲ | nyc_data_geek 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | Yes and all of the credulous rubes still whinging about how they "can't imagine" how it's gotten this bad or how much worse it can get, or how "this is not who we are" at some point should no longer be taken as suckers in good faith, and at some point must rightly be viewed as either willfully complicit bad faith interlocuters, or useful idiots. | | |
| ▲ | dylan604 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | Learning about WWII in high school, I often wondered how the people allowed the Axis leaders gain power. Now I know. However, I feel we're worse for allowing it to happen because we were supposed to "never again". | | |
| ▲ | causalscience 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Worse, I often wondered how some people collaborated. Now I know that many people would rather have a chunk of the population rounded up and killed than lose their job. | | |
| ▲ | nyc_data_geek 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | "Whoever can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities."
and
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it." etc, etc. So it goes |
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| ▲ | nyc_data_geek 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Agreed. To see "Never Again" morphed into "Never Again for me, Now Again for thee" has been one of the most heartwrenching, sleep depriving things I've witnessed since some deaths in my family. | |
| ▲ | Zak 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Watching it in real time, I still don't understand it. I could see how Trump won the first time around; Hillary Clinton was unpopular with most people outside of her party's leadership, but the second just seems insane. The kinds of things that would happen were obvious to me, and I am no expert. | | |
| ▲ | dylan604 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Two party system. As many people didn't like Hillary, clearly there were a lot of people unhappy with Biden->Harris. When you don't like the current admin's direction and/or their party, there's only one other party to select. I think there were plenty of voters that truly did not believe this would be the result of that protest vote. | | |
| ▲ | mikkupikku 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Protest votes are probably overstated, I think most of it comes down to people staying home. Everybody in America already knows what side they're on, and they either vote for that side or not at all. Virtually all political messaging is either trying to moralize your side or demoralize the other, to manipulate the relative ratios of who stays home on election day. | | |
| ▲ | dylan604 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | > I think most of it comes down to people staying home Obama was able to get people motivated. Neither Biden nor Harris had anywhere near that motivating ability. I don't know that the Dems have anyone as motivating as Obama line up. The Dems seem to be hoping that enough people will be repulsed by the current admin to show up. | | |
| ▲ | 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | mikkupikku 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Newsom is an extremely strong candidate. Vance has several critical vulnerabilities that can demoralize right wing voters if the election is handled properly, and the Republicans really don't have anybody else. Rubio maybe, but Rubio won't be able to get ahead of Vance. | | |
| ▲ | SV_BubbleTime 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > Newsom is an extremely strong candidate. For what office? President? Do you live in California? | |
| ▲ | dylan604 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Trump had more than several critical vulns as well which did not dissuade voters. The electorate isn't as predictable as many try to make it sound | | |
| ▲ | mikkupikku 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | Trump was able to moralize his voters, despite his weaknesses, by using a kind of charisma that Vance utterly lacks. | | |
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| ▲ | Zak 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Prior to 2020, I usually voted for third parties so I do understand that kind of thinking. The danger Trump represented was not obvious until well after he took office; it seemed early on like congress and institutional norms would restrain him. To swing the popular vote in the 2024 election, almost all of the third party votes would have needed to go to Harris, so I don't think that's sufficient to explain it. By the end of his first term, the danger was hard to miss, and the attempt to remain in power after losing the election should have cemented it for everyone. I was unhappy with Biden and Harris. I voted for them in 2020 and 2024 anyway because I understood the alternative. | | |
| ▲ | dpkirchner 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > The danger Trump represented was not obvious until well after he took office I don't get it, was there anything surprising about him after his inauguration? He sure sounded dangerous on the campaign trail. | | |
| ▲ | Zak 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | The norm in 2016 was that candidates didn't make a serious attempt to do the more outlandish things they talked about in their campaign. When they did, advisers would usually talk them into a saner version of it, or congress wouldn't allow it. |
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| ▲ | dylan604 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > The danger Trump represented was not obvious until well after he took office; I just do not understand this sentence at all. The writing was clearly on the wall. All of the Project 2025 conversations told us exactly what was going to happen. People claiming it was not obvious at best were not paying attention at all. For anyone paying attention, it was horrifying see the election results coming in. | | |
| ▲ | Zak 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | Project 2025 did not exist in 2016. We are in agreement about 2024. |
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| ▲ | mikkupikku 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Not the second time, the third time. Remember that Biden whooped Trump's ass once and could have whooped his ass a second time, but the donor class (career retards) got cold feet when they were forced to confront his senility, and instead of letting the election be one senile old man against another senile old man, they replaced Biden with the archetype of an HR bitch. I hope nobody thinks it a coincidence that the two times Trump won were the two times he was up against a woman. Americans don't want to vote for their mother-in-law, nor for the head of HR. And yes, that certainly is sexist, but it is what it is. I just pray they run Newsom this time. Despite his "being from California" handicap, I think he should be able to easily beat Vance by simply being a handsome white man with a white family. Vance is critically flawed and will demoralize much of the far right IFF his opponent doesn't share those same weaknesses. |
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| ▲ | ModernMech 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | You have to remember that "the government" is not a monolith. Evidence goes before a judge who is (supposed to be) independent, and cases are tried in front of a jury of citizens. In the future that system may fall but for now it's working properly. Except for the Supreme Court... which is a giant wrench in the idea the system still works, but that doesn't mean a lower court judge won't jettison evidence obtained by gunpoint. | | |
| ▲ | cperciva 9 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Evidence goes before a judge What evidence went before a judge prior to the two latest executions in Minneapolis? | | |
| ▲ | gruez 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | There's a pretty big difference between getting killed in an altercation with ICE, and executing someone just because they refuse to give up their password. | | |
| ▲ | direwolf20 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | Not really. ICE breaks into your home — remember they don't need a warrant for this. Demands to see your phone. It's locked. Holds a gun to your head and demands you unlock it. You refuse. Pulls the trigger. Does it really seem that far–fetched when compared to the other ICE murders? | | |
| ▲ | gruez 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | >Does it really seem that far–fetched when compared to the other ICE murders? No, not really, because in the two killings you can vaguely argue they felt threatened. Pointing a gun to someone's head and demanding the password isn't anywhere close to that. Don't get me wrong, the killings are an affront to civil liberties and should be condemned/prosecuted accordingly, but to think that ICE agents are going around and reenacting the opening scene from Inglorious Bastards shows that your worldview can't handle more nuance than "fascism? true/false". | | |
| ▲ | youarentrightjr 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | > but to think that ICE agents are going around and reenacting the opening scene from Inglorious Bastards shows that your worldview can't handle more nuance than "fascism? true/false". Precisely. There's no question that ICE is daily trampling civil liberties (esp 4th amendment). But in both killings there is a reasonable interpretation that they feared for their lives. Now should they have is another question. With better training, a 6v1 < 5ft engagement can easily disarm anyone with anything less than a suicide vest. But still, we aren't at the "run around and headshot dissenters" phase. | | |
| ▲ | worthless-trash 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | The old 'shoot em in the leg' defense. | |
| ▲ | direwolf20 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > there is a reasonable interpretation that they feared for their lives ... Did you watch the videos from multiple people filming? | | |
| ▲ | youarentrightjr 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > ... Did you watch the videos from multiple people filming? Yeah, did you? Any more substantive discourse you'd like to add to the conversation? To be clear about the word "reasonable" in my comment, it's similar to the usage of the very same word in the phrase "beyond a reasonable doubt". The agents involved in the shootings aren't claiming that: - the driver telepathically communicated their ill intent - they saw Pretti transform into a Satan spawn and knew they had to put him down They claim (unsurprisingly, to protect themselves) that they feared for their life because either a car was driving at them or they thought Pretti had another firearm. These are reasonable fears, that a reasonable person has. That doesn't mean the agents involved are without blame. In fact, especially in Pretti's case, they constructed a pretext to began engagement with him (given that he was simply exercising his 1st amendment right just prior). But once in the situation, a reasonable person could have feared for their lives. | | |
| ▲ | defrost 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | > once in the situation, a reasonable person could have feared for their lives. Sure, all things being equal, a person on the Clapham omnibus, yada, yada. However, specifically in this situation it is very frequently not "median people" in the mix, it is LEO-phillic wannabe (or ex) soldier types that are often exchanging encrypted chat messages about "owning the libs", "goddamn <insert ethic slur>'s" and exchange grooming notes on provoking "officer-induced jeopardy" .. how to escalate a situation into what passes for "justified homicide" or least a chance to put the boot in. Those countries that investigate and prosecute shootings by LEO's often find such things at the root of wrongful deaths. | | |
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| ▲ | avcloudy 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [flagged] |
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| ▲ | short_sells_poo 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | The courts may (still) be independent, but it feels like they are pointless because the government just wholesale ignores them anyway. If the executive branch doesn't enforce, or selectively enforces court judgements, you may as well shutter the courts. |
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| ▲ | mothballed 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | They haven't for a long time, just that most of the time they were doing things we thought was for good (EPA, civil rights act, controlled substance act, etc) and we thereby entered a post-constitutional world to let that stuff slide by despite the 10th amendment limiting the federal powers to enumerated powers. Eventually we got used to letting the feds slide on all the good things to the point everything was just operating on slick ice, and people like Trump just pushed it to the next logical step which is to also use the post-constitutional world to his own personal advantage and for gross tyranny against the populace. | | |
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| ▲ | heavyset_go 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| They'll just threaten to throw the book at you if you don't unlock your phone, and if you aren't rich, your lawyer will tell you to take the plea deal they offer because it beats sitting in prison until you die. |
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| ▲ | mrWiz 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| All they have to do is pretend to be a concerned neighbor who wants to help give mutual aid and hope that someone in the group chat takes the bait and adds them in. No further convincing is needed. |
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| ▲ | OneDeuxTriSeiGo 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| If you aren't saving people's phone numbers in your own contacts, signal isn't storing them in group chats (and even if you are, it doesn't say which number, just that you have a contact with them). Signal doesn't share numbers by default and hasn't for a few years now. And you can toggle a setting to remove your number from contact discovery/lookup entirely if you are so inclined. |
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| ▲ | thewebguyd 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > it is beyond the ability of even most parts of the US government to look inside. I'm sure the Israeli spyware companies can help with that. Although then they'd have to start burning their zero days to just go after protestors, which I doubt they're willing to do. I imagine they like to save those for bigger targets. |
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| ▲ | xmcp123 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| There are multiple companies that can get different amounts of information off of locked phones including iPhones, and they work with LE. I’m also curious what they could get off of cloud backups. Thinking in terms of auth, keys, etc. For SMS it’s almost as good as phone access, but I am not sure for apps. |
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| ▲ | hedayet 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| or convince one member of a group chat to show their group chat... |
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| ▲ | ddtaylor 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I'm confident the people executing non-complaint people in the street would be capable of compelling a citizen. |
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| ▲ | neves 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Or just let the guy to enter the country after unlocking her phone. |
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| ▲ | pixl97 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| https://xkcd.com/538/ |
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| ▲ | janalsncm 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | This is accurate, but the important point is that threatening people with wrenches isn’t scalable in the way mass surveillance is. The problem with mass surveillance is the “mass” part: warrantless fishing expeditions. | | |
| ▲ | OhMeadhbh 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | hunh. we haven't even started talking about stingray, tracking radios and so forth. |
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| ▲ | fruitworks 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | it is difficult to wrench someone when you do not know who they are | | |
| ▲ | heavyset_go 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Someone knows who they are and they can bash different skulls until one of them gives them what they're looking for. | | | |
| ▲ | pixl97 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I mean they have a lot of tools to figure out who you are if they catch you at a rally or something like that. Cameras and facial identification, cell phone location tracking and more. What they also want is the list of people you're coordinating with that aren't there. |
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| ▲ | XorNot 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Which is just a redux of what I find myself saying constantly: privacy usually isn't even the problem. The problem is the people kicking in your door. If you're willing to kick in doors to suppress legal rights, then having accurate information isn't necessary at all. If your resistance plan is to chat about stuff privately, then by definition you're also not doing much resisting to you know, the door kicking. |
