BeKindRewind

I’m no fan of Republicans, but tbf a decade+ ago the vast majority of politicians opposing ALPRs were Republicans (still, their implementation was largely biparisan - it’s just that Dems had very little on opposition side compared to Repubs).

this nerdy declaration of facts serves what purpose?

They are using people, who don’t understand that words have meanings and the nuances in institutions and laws, to take advantage of the laws that have existed for decades for their own authoritarian gain.

Your entire comment is playing right into their handbook.

right-wingers don’t care about facts

Again, this is very simplistic. The real changes in government aren’t the white house reconstruction, the kennedy center naming, or pulling down signs at National Parks (all real and important issues yes) but the things that actually reshape our entire country are happening on paper. It’s in policy changes and directives. Court rulings.

The right wingers making this stuff happen do care about legal facts and they know the laws/procedure well enough to exploit them on a daily basis without most of the mainstream population even noticing.

never accomplishes anything

Solutions and plans cannot be developed if we do not have an understanding of what is going on. What makes competitive authoritarian regimes so successful is that they can keep 40-60% of the population convinced their is a democracy by allowing opposition speech and holding elections. You only need about 40% of the population to go along to keep the machine going.

If you find knowing the difference between authoritarian regimes and how they are implemented as pointless or “nerdy”, that’s fine if you just want to 50501 protest for the next few years (those have an important place in the movement), but others are in the field developing legal plans and reforming institutional structures from local to federal.

It’s important to understand the difference between things like legal, legal barriers, and chilling effects. Enjoy your circle jerk of ignorance, I’ll continue to work with legal orgs on getting things done.

There are already several large projects that have hundreds of thousands of users and those projects were almost completely vibe coded. It’s almost the entire retro “recomp” scene now.

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Really wish people realized this 20 years ago when we actually had a chance to stop it.

Everyone sounding the alarms over the past two decades ago were ridiculed. Arguments seen as over reacting or a “my brand vs your brand” thing (really about the infrastructure and consumer rights).

Protesting is legal.

You are describing a chilling effect. Those weapons are not used at all protests and that is the point. They want you think twice before going to protest. Still though, in general, it’s not criminal to attend or organize a protest.

It’s good that you and everyone here knows that these things are happening. If the twitter post was just speaking to the choir, then what’s the point? Circle jerk to make us feel better? Retweets and upvotes aren’t going to save us.

If the post is trying to reach people and wake them up, then they are speaking to people who are not aware of the story you cited. To them it just seems like OP is lying and the post does nothing to help anything.

We can still protest. We still have a legal right to free speech. It’s not worth the hyperbole. It also perpetuates a misconception that authoritarianism doesn’t allow for protests and free speech.

The model we are emulating is competitive authoritarianism. For the past four decades it has been an increasingly popular form of government.

There will be elections. There will be protests. There will be opposing parties and anti-government speech.

But the tables will be tilted heavily. They will allow small opposition wins, but the majority will stay with one party.

Speech won’t be illegal, but you will be harassed. Asked questions by law enforcement. Press will be sued.

They will leverage the private/public surveillance apparatus to monitor public sentiment on all topics and how far they can push (and release pressure when needed) and what opposition to monitor/harass. Decades of data from political science, sociology, and psychology will make this an art.

It’s dangerous if we perpetuate the idea that authoritarianism only exists when we can’t protest or say anti-government things. The underlying institutional foundations are being changed now. The referees are being captured now. Press and citizens can legally say what they want, but the chilling effect is happening now.

We need more mobilization. Hyperbolic takes and not being clear on what authoritarianism actually looks like in the 21st century will make it harder.

Your question is what is not decided yet. The merger of surveillance capitalism and the federal government is something warned about decades ago and now it’s here. It takes years for this stuff to make it’s way through courts and up to SCOTUS (assuming it will get there).

Your point makes sense because a ruling against flock could also impact the tech companies that have been doing invasive tracking, arguably even more invasive, for decades. What makes flock different though are the direct contracts with governments.

There is a recent case that may support all this being illegal. SCOTUS recently ruled governments using geofencing data does constituent a search and therefore 4th amendment protections.