Congress Just Made It Basically Impossible to Track Taylor Swift’s Private Jet
Legislation just signed into law has made it exceedingly to difficult to track private jet activity.
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I would bet that every single person commenting here thinks of him- or herself as being deeply invested in privacy, ranting against things like ad tracking, etc. But as soon as someone (or some ones) you don't like, or have no affinity with, wants to have the same privacy afforded to every single person who drives a car, all bets are off.
Or are you suggesting that people (including the police!) should be allowed to have real time, constant information about where you drive to every day?
Just because it's a plane, and just because it's a rich person, doesn't make it any less of a privacy violation.
Sorry, but once you're so filthy rich you can own and operate a private jet, you lose the right two things:
So "privacy for me but not for thee"? Despite your feelings about the individuals involved (which are fair enough) you do see that's exactly as bad as the "laws for thee but not for me" that we rail against? Balancing these rules is one of those thorny problems we have to address if we ever want things to get better for the majority, but just saying "you're filthy rich so you don't get privacy" isn't the way. Neither is saying that they can hide completely.
If I ever ger a private jet they can track me as much as they want
Would you be ok with people tracking you in your car, or on public transport? At what level does that change for you? Is it just planes that should be publicly trackable, or boats too? What about limousines or jyst big cars?
Don't get me wrong, I think people using any of those methods should be held accountable for the harm they're causing, but that should apply all the way down too if that's what we're doing. Car drivers already pay tax on fuel and to register their vehicle so you could argue they're already accountable, but I'm not sure that's quite enough when you consider the harm tailpipe emissions do.
Private jets and boats and everything above sounds fine for me
Large cars too? We're starting to get into rather dystopian territory here. I don't drive a large car, but I know I wouldn't like to be tracked just because someone decided I was.
I'm not actually averse to saying the loss of anonymity is the penalty for using particularly polluting modes of transport, but we should frame the rules in those terms, rather than just making ownership records public.
If I meant cars too I would have mentioned cars, please don't start making up strawman arguments.
Sorry, when you said 'and everything above' I thought you were referring to the things I'd listed above.
Reading it the other way, fair enough, you're drawing the line for anonymous travel at private boats or planes. Personally I don't think that's helpful as they just end up chartering them from shell companies they own so their details aren't attached to the flight so they can dodge scrutiny that way. You can try to investigate the companies but they're anonymous that often all you can tell is they're a charter firm a particular person uses a lot. That might be enough, but personally I'd rather either have proper accountability, or accept this isn't the way to do it.
No problem, I could have been more precise.
If they'd start doing that people would find new ways to follow them. I believe that rich people must be named and shamed for their wealth and I don't really feel sorry when not everything goes their way. That topic would open a whole new can of worms though so let's leave it at that I'd say.
Yup, I think that particular can can stay on the shelf. I appreciate the conversation.
Won't someone think of the billionaires?!
Nevermind the billionaires, they're just being used as scapegoats to distract you. You don't beat an unfair and unjust system by creating a new unfair and unjust system, so the rules need to apply to everyone, no matter how annoying that feels, otherwise, you may find yourself or someone you care about in the out group and suffering because of it.
If we want privacy, everyone gets the same right. If we want free speech, everyone gets free speech (that's the one that I find hardest to reconcile. If we want people to be able to protest or raise issues freely does that alao mean we must grant the same to those who spew hate and seek to twist the minds of others? How do we balance that?).
I don't know what the 'perfect' system looks like, or even if there is such a thing. What we have now isn't it, but saying 'that group over there should have less rights than me' isn't the way either.
You are whining about double standards in a thread about a federal law specifically to protect billionaires' feelings.
I hope I'm not whining. I am saying we should apply the same rules to, and ensure the same rights for, everybody though; not doing so is a large part of how we got here in the first place.
You or I can travel anonymously, or at least without our movements being tracked by the public. If we want to deny that to certain people, or to certain modes of transport, we should have a clear reason why and ensure that it's effects are balanced with it's benefits. As I mentioned in one of my comments above, if we want to hold people accountable when they use certain types of transport, that's fine, and if removing their anonymity is the way we want to do it, that's fine too, but we should apply it all the way down, from planes to cars.
They have the same protection as everyone else all the way up to chartering a flight. They lose privacy for the privilege of owning an entire jet. We also lose privacy for owning certain things, like home ownership is all public record.
But they are sad that their small-scale climate disaster flights are recorded, so they get their own law.
Home ownership is a good example of what I mean about making the rules apply to everyone, and it applies to all types of houses, from the smallest to rhe largest, the most efficient to the least. This is an equitable rule.
Applying the same logic to transportation would mean making all car and bike ownership records public too, which I don't think it a great idea. As I mentioned before, if we want to make the loss of anonymity the penalty for owning a massively polluting vehicle we should apply it to all significantly polluting vehicles including planes, yachts, trucks and maybe even excessively large cars. The problem is where to draw the line.
As far as I can see, the current change just brings plane ownership in line with other vehicles, and so, even though I appreciate being able to track some of these people, without rules applying to other vehicle types, it seems fair to me.
I think people are more upset about the fact that basic laws protecting the privacy of millions are not even discussed but when a few billionaires cry that they can be tracked a law is enacted swift-ly (hehe) and public data that the government collects is no longer public.
Maybe they should focus on the greater good.
And while your privacy argument could be a good point, a plane has no privacy and just like other registers the public had a legitimate interest to know.
Aren't all commercial planes currently tracked and have their data open to the public? Why should anyone be exempt except for military?
I think most people on Lemmy would agree that private planes simply shouldn't exist, at least on a personal use level. I don't actually care at all where these rich bozos are going, but the ability to shame them for their method of travel outweighs any potential privacy concern. Airports are public places, airplanes (were) a matter of public record. If they truly want privacy, they should find an alternative means of conveyance. If they absolutely need to travel incognito, they could just charter a plane, for Pete's sake.
They do have the same privacy afforded to every single person who drives a car. Maybe they should stay in the car, then?
there is nothing from us keeping a database and tracking cars like this, It is just not required by law to do this with active updates. I mean with all the cameras in cars (and I am sure their are insurance companies that are looking into putting more AI cameras in cars to track not only your driving [progressive did a massive push on this already] but also those around you) you can just machine learn those plates and pool them in a public area where we can all pull and push info about these drivers. The airways we can still do this with, and we will, they will anon the info, but I am sure it will be an easy thing to overcome.
Nothing is anonymized for me, wanna know my house address, just look up the name on the internet, it will give you an idea and then just call the local county clerk, they will hand over any details about properties owned by me in that area. Its a matter of public record. My car has an ID on it that is required by law to be shown and not hidden until asked for by the government. Hell all your siblings and children, they are a matter of public record, so I can find out a LOT about you, just by knowing small info about you. (try it, look up an old partner on a search engine, they will give you known addresses for like 20 years.)
So please dont make this about, they wanna just be as private as you are. I dont have shell companies to hide all my properties onto. I dont get laws that state I can randomize my lic plate on my car. And also least we forget, the police can already have access to your cars real time data, the car companies are selling that info, so is your phone provider.
This is actually a really good point and I'm not sure why you're being down voted for it. I hadn't thought about it that way
Because it's a false equivalence. Why should they be above the law? Cars and planes are not the same thing in the slightest.
It's a giga-stupid post, barely worth refuting, but private jets are not cars.
You can track every flight I've ever been on, if you know the flight number, or plane ID. Now billionaires have their own special carve out.
