News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Thai activist jailed under lese majeste laws for sharing an article on Facebook. Parent comment

Re:Thai activist jailed under lese majeste laws for sharing ... by onion2k on Thursday August 17, 2017 @10:02AM (#15036833)
If a crime takes place then the government should investigate and find who did it; the government should never be taking a large number of citizens and check they've done nothing illegal. When there are 1.3 million people to look at that essentially means the investigators don't have any suspects. If someone is murdered in Dallas it wouldn't be reasonable for the police to investigate everyone who lives there in the hope of finding the murderer.

No one should be investigated unless there's a reasonable suspicion that they, as an individual, have actually done something wrong; looking at a legal website is not enough for there to be a suspicion.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Thai activist jailed under lese majeste laws for sharing ... by viach on Thursday August 17, 2017 @10:13AM (#15036935)
I understand what you are saying. But lets imagine gov faced situations when just sitting and waiting for a thing to happen is just too dangerous? Think 911 or mass killing acts in schools? Don't mass investigation would be justified if helped to prevent that number of deaths?
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Thai activist jailed under lese majeste laws for sharing ... by onion2k on Thursday August 17, 2017 @10:39AM (#15037152)
Don't mass investigation would be justified if helped to prevent that number of deaths?

That's a very big 'if'. By all accounts mass surveillance and dragnet investigations don't work to find terrorists. Practically everything I've read on the subject (which admittedly isn't much) terrorists are stopped using information from more traditional investigatory methods like informants.

Giving the government the power to investigate 1.3 million citizens who oppose it is an extremely high price to pay in order save lives that might be taken by terrorists. Whether it's worth it isn't a question I can answer easily.

[ Parent | on HN ]