Circuit switched landline service is still very much alive. It isn't and hasn't been electromechanical for a very long time, but it's non-packetized in a very large part of the US, provided you actually get a service that legally qualifies as a landline (voip is unregulated).
With the way wiretapping laws work and the bus operator not being a party in any of the conversations they surveil, I wonder if it's legal to be recording peoples' voices here.
I think that public transport would count as a public place. My understanding is that wiretap laws and laws on recording focus primarily on private conversations.
In Baltimore, wiretap laws only apply where there is a 'reasonable expectation of privacy' (https://cite.case.law/a3d/197/27/#p685) per Fourth Amendment standards (which would suggest that any recordings made in a public place would be lawful).
California is a bit more complex—Penal Code 632 talks only about the confidentiality of the discussion. It would be possible to have a confidential discussion in a public place, however, 632 c) specifically excludes circumstances 'in which the parties to the communication may reasonably expect that the communication may be overheard or recorded'. It's therefore likely that a simple sign saying 'recording in progress' or something similar would be adequate.
> In Baltimore, wiretap laws only apply where there is a 'reasonable expectation of privacy' (https://cite.case.law/a3d/197/27/#p685) per Fourth Amendment standards (which would suggest that any recordings made in a public place would be lawful).
It is absolutely insane that not assuming a computerized private investigator is following your every step and listening to your every word as soon as you step through your front door is considered 'unreasonable'.
> It's therefore likely that a simple sign saying 'recording in progress' or something similar would be adequate.
It's even more insane that a simple "conversations may be recorded" sticker is all it takes to nullify the 4th Amendment in public.
I get what you're saying, but I keep trying to bend my head around it and my thoughts end up going down one of two separate tracks here and I end up not reaching a conclusion:
1. The bus is a public space - in which case, there's no reasonable expectation of privacy in public (which is well established), and therefore recording should be both legal and protected under the First Amendment.
2. The bus is a private space open to the public - in which case, the owner or the operator of the private space should have the right to record on his/her/their property.
Honestly though, whatever the legal arguments, it FEELS wrong.
1. You're using "no privacy" to mean both "overheard by the grandma in the next row" and "recorded by a centralized mass surveillance system to be analyzed and correlated with the millions of other data points it has on your and your social circle, wholly subservient to the ever-changing will of the state".
So are the courts. By some twisted logic, they concluded that because you can't expect that a random passer-by hears you, you have no reasonable expectation that everywhere in public isn't infested with microphones and cameras uploading everything to intelligence agencies or corporate headquarters.
2. We should be careful, as ever more spaces are becoming "private, open to the public". Perhaps most notably the parks in Wall Street. Soon we may have to travel out of city bounds for any meaningful privacy, if that isn't already the case.
These laws vary wildly by state... And posting notices in many states work to avoid these issues.
So are they legal? Mostly. Yes. But depends where you live and what steps are taken to inform the riders ... But they likely would not record without lawyers saying they are safe to do so.
I can't even read the original article anyway because they keep giving me a page saying they detected unusual activity from my IP. I've tried pressing and holding their captcha button to no avail and this is just another reason why these paywalled sites suck. Thank you for the mirror!
I'd love to know what, in his view, creates the inevitability that Democracies die (or become autocratic) during times of war. Is it because the state becomes more aggressive/potentially overreaching in order to combat an enemy, never releases that power, and citizens either absolutely hate it or go along with it?
While I don't support the war on Ukraine, it's fascinating to hear this guy's perspective. Especially if Russians are largely choosing to support the war as recent articles are saying, it can only help us to understand why people would embrace it.
Agreed. VoLTE is VoIP anyway, so there's not a lot of drawbacks relative to changing out a circuit switched landline. I believe at least in the US as well, STIR/Shaken is being implemented on circuit switched networks.
I think that this "concern" is the reason why this war is actually taking place. If NATO countries would have told that intervention is not out of question and invasion is not acceptable then Russia would have moved its forces back into their barracks after exercises.
When the risk is nuclear war, that is not good enough. No no-fly zone, no hot war between nuclear powers. We are already risking way too much. The expected value of a 1% increase in the odds of a nuclear war is somewhere around a million casualties.
The world is precariously close to returning to "might makes right". That is the recipe for world wars. Not "he cannot remain" comments.
The two world wars are in the vicinity of 100 million deaths, direct and indirect. This is why the judgement of Nuremberg was that wars of aggression, i.e. wars of conquest to expand borders and/or subjugation, are the supreme international crime. This is how the League of Nations and United Nations was formed. The reason why this particular invasion is a big deal is because it's once again (a) in Europe and (b) rolling tanks into a sovereign nation. This is perhaps worse because Russia is a party to two treaties that say Russia will not do exactly what it is doing, and to this particular country.
So we are well past the point the WW2 generation had learned was the hard stop.
We're confronting the real possibility that nukes are a better deterrent against aggressive war than the UN. And the unwinding of the UN system, which would surely extend to the NPT. And at that point it's proliferation.
In 1994 Poland insisted on joining NATO or else they were going to develop their own nuclear weapons program, because they didn't trust Russia. They weren't alone.
We might be doomed. We can't directly attack Russia out of fear of a nuclear war. We can't appease by accepting a surrender.
> The world is precariously close to returning to "might makes right".
This paradigm never left us, you (and I) are just on the team with the most might at the moment.
> We can't appease by accepting a surrender.
Again, on what basis? Because you say? The term appeasement was popularized before the existence of the existential nuclear threat, and it is not a certainty that diplomacy will lead to the same outcome as starting a hot war between nuclear powers.
We might be doomed, certainly. But we might not be, and the option currently pursued by NATO (aside from some incendiary slip of the tongue about regime change in Russia) is, thankfully, to not pursue direct conflict with Russia for this reason.
>This paradigm never left us, you (and I) are just on the team with the most might at the moment.
It is contrary to the international legal system. And it's thoroughly argued against by Socrates versus Thracymachus.
>Again, on what basis?
On the basis of UN Charter article 2(4) and (5). Surrender means (4) is set aside if in fact you can start a war of aggression and come out ahead. That is completely untenable in the international institutions that exist right now. And willingly setting aside (4) means (5) has also been set aside. The Charter isn't some aspirational document, it is a treaty countries are legal parties to insofar as their sovereignty was used to acknowledge its truth and their agreement to be bound to it.
141 countries agreed to UN General Assembly Resolution ES-11/1. Russia must withdraw from all of Ukraine. It is in the interest of most countries to agree to this resolution, because it is one of the easiest calls to make since the UN was founded, and why it was founded.
If the UN unravels... humanity has no institutional means of stopping another world war.
> It is contrary to the international legal system
> On the basis of UN Charter article 2(4) and (5) [...] Russia must withdraw from all of Ukraine
> If the UN unravels...
The US and Russia routinely violate international law. The UN is not capable of enforcing these laws against actors like the US and Russia. We may not like it, but might continues to make right.
For the second one, I'm getting "Please, enter your password", then, after typing the passcode – "The toll-free number you have dialed has been disconnected. No further information is available about this number. 074T"
Potentially as a backup distribution service. If you're running a translator transmitter to extend service range, and can't get the signal some other way, maybe you can dial in and pipe the phone out the radio.
