Silicon Valley builds spy tools, is horrified when they’re used for spying

Re:Silicon Valley builds spy tools, is horrified when they’r... by tn13 on Friday June 14, 2013 @09:54PM (#5883549)

Say a company builds a drone. US government buys it and then uses it to kill the employees of that company. Can we shift the blame to the company ?

There is nothing wrong in building surveillance software. We would all love to see the boundaries of that technology pushed.

Government's use of this software is questionable.

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Re:Silicon Valley builds spy tools, is horrified when they’r... by auctiontheory on Friday June 14, 2013 @11:04PM (#5883767)

There is nothing wrong in building surveillance software. We would all love to see the boundaries of that technology pushed.

We would?

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Re:Silicon Valley builds spy tools, is horrified when they’r... by meowface on Saturday June 15, 2013 @12:54AM (#5884105)

(Not the person you're replying to.)

"We" is highly presumptive, but I'm sure a lot of people would. I think legal, constitutional surveillance does have its uses and is a vital component of law enforcement and security in many occasions. Improving that technology means that when it is used, it'll be more effective at what it's actually trying to do: find violent criminals and prevent violent crimes.

Of course, when you look at how China uses surveillance or how the NSA purportedly uses surveillance, things get much more murky.

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Re:Silicon Valley builds spy tools, is horrified when they’r... by auctiontheory on Saturday June 15, 2013 @01:05AM (#5884136)

My point, and I don't think I'm alone in this, is that powerful tools/weapons will always be used for "evil" as well as good.

It is naive to say "well, let's build the perfect surveillance tool and then trust that some government will never abuse it (against its own citizens, political opponents, other countries, or whoever)." Such a pure government has never existed, and will never exist, not while humans are running the show.

More succinctly: "absolute power corrupts absolutely."

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