DHS is using obscure law to snoop on journalists, non-profits, unions (theguardian.com)

>Wouldn't the affected individual be able to sue the provider at least in some cases?

And lose time and money, which they also likely don't have?

Sweet summer child.

The system in which those companies exist is explicitly designed though to strip away any humanity or moral qualms as much as possible. Dividing it on the shoulders of many people, making nobody in particular feel responsible for the damages themselves. Gaslighting employees into thinking they are doing the "lesser evil" or something. Just following commans of their boss.

> human responsibility

Not sure what this means. I think you meant to write "fiduciary duty": the company's board have an affirmative legal obligation to act in the interest of stockholders, regardless of moral impact.

No that’s the whole point of this article. In this case, the private companies being summonsed are acting as both judges and data holders being summonsed. This doesn’t go to a judge to approve. So in this case, the point they’re making is most private companies just roll over at the sight of a summons, so the law absolutely executes deterministically (ok, not truly deterministic, but you’re relying on the judgement of private companies and their legal teams who don’t want that heat from the government, so, close enough).

“About a month after the judge’s ruling in late February, the government said it was withdrawing the request.

But officials hadn’t given up on getting the data.

Less than a month later, the DHS served Google with a different request for the YouTube information. This time, DHS utilized a different method that didn’t require approval from a judge, only a sign-off from a DHS official. It served Google an administrative summons citing an arcane provision of federal law – 19 USC 1509 – dealing with customs imports. The provision gives the DHS broad power to inspect records in order to determine whether duties and taxes are being correctly levied on imported items. It also instructed the recipients of the summons to keep it secret.”

With a gag order as a bonus! No judge required!

This state of affairs benefits the ruling class of both parties. Causing harm is much simpler for the state to follow through on than improving conditions, and it's less likely to require meaningful sacrifices from wealthy elites. Republicans can run on "we'll hurt people you don't like". Democrats can run on "we won't hurt people as much as they will". Both can avoid dealing with spiraling wealth inequality, the sacred cash cow of US militarism, the healthcare system we've all been complaining about for decades and decades, etc...

> In February of this year, federal prosecutors twice sought search warrants for account information for the YouTube channel of Fort and the journalist Don Lemon, both of whom have pleaded not guilty to criminal charges in connection to a protest at a Minneapolis church in January that they were covering.

The incident in question involved Lemon and Fort participating in a anti-ICE protest that involved disrupting a church service, and then after getting arrested for disrupting the church service claiming that they were just journalists reporting on the protest and therefore their arrest was immoral and illegal.

I do actually think that pro-immigration-enforcement people want anti-immigration-enforcement people who participate in disruptive protests over the issue to get punished by the criminal justice system for this, in order to dissuade them from disrupting other people's private events; and further that they do not want "being a journalist" to be a mitigating factor for this kind of disruption. If you want the criminal justice system to treat disrupting other people's private events as a crime, even if they claim it's for a protest and that their status as journalists makes this ok, then you do in fact want the criminal justice system to investigate people who commit those acts of disruption.

> My viewpoint is that we should eventually have AI be assisting in determining if a search is reasonable in the moment.

That is truly bananas. Whose AI? Trained on what data? We've had numerous studies show how AIs can be biased, and a police dept. is going to choose whatever AI "works best for them" — i.e., keeps most out of their way.

You can see Flock for examples here: despite requiring justification for searches, cops are entering things like "hehehe"[1]; the AI would similarly be given bad or falsified inputs.

> If there is an actual constitutional violation that that happens it can be resolved after the fact.

The entire point of the Constitution is to prevent exactly that. There is no resolution for violating someone's rights; you cannot merely go back in time and unviolate them. The point is to be free from unreasonable searches & seizures.

Your comments read like police have no ability to search without a warrant, which isn't true. If circumstances warrant it, a warrant from a judge is not required, and I'm sure a good number of people would argue that that's already true more often than it ought to be.

Part of the point of having a separate branch of government involved, too, is to prevent the first branch from just deciding "why, of course I'm right. What else would I be?", and to evaluate the facts separately (which the police cannot by definition do).

> I believe every part of the law enforcement and legal system needs to be systematically reevaluated finding ways to increase efficiency.

I'm all for increased efficiency, but AI is not that. "Slop, faster" is not the same "the correct action, while respecting the rights of the citizens, faster".

[1]: https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/tracking-alpr-c...