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This would be a likely outcome if used as you describe. However a big danger is using it to convince minorities/immigrants who haven't done anything actually wrong.


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Isn't it likely that this would perpetuate any existing biases against minorities? If so, I hope this becomes illegal.

Yes but so you can try and target your scare resource against those more likely to commit illegal acts not round up all insert ethnic group of your choice.

Right now? No. Could it? Sure. Minorities being 'accidentally' targeted for harassment in 'coincidental' yet statistically reliable ways is something many governments have a long history of doing.

Using race as a proxy for suspicion would probably scale just fine, however, there are other reasons it is unlikely to work in the US.

Even if it's perfectly safe, it will deepen disparities.

Targeting a specific individual may not be possible, but targeting an ethnicity might be practical

Generally I’d say that this could work on people that don't expect violence, like the racists who go around the city harassing immigrants.

Why are they making other people’s lives miserable? It’s not fair and the law doesn’t protect you.

This won’t change their opinion, but it might very well stop them from acting out again.

IMHO. I have no psychology background.


This is very bad for minorities

Sadly, doing this might only further perpetuate the racial biases people already hold; only now they're imbued with the feeling that the government is trying to suppress the truth because the situation is so bad. And in this case, they'd be right. Not a great situation...

On the other hand, some governments may find it extremely convenient to use 'accidentally' biased technology to harass and persecute members of disliked minorities.

Which is a terrible idea if you consider it for more but a moment. Makes it very easy to abuse a minority population, because now not only does the majority just get to abuse them, they get to profit off it too. Sure, the minority group might get back some of what was taken, but it won't even be close to equitable compensation for what was actually taken.

Especially if they target people by race.

Filling someone's head with hateful, racist lies is 100% legal so it would not be applicable to the proponents of the bill. Terrorism is another beast.

You will find a lot more people than you would like in a lot of communities are racist. I do not approve of it but preventing it would enter the realm of thought policing and would require a totalitarian police state.


I'm worried about minorities; our government has a terrible record in recent years.

They'll use this to hound poor people and anyone who isn't white.


That's already happening. I've witnessed people trying to intimidate minority folk here in the East Bay, yelling 'you're going over the wall!' unprovoked at people on the street for example.

like so many other laws, it will be selectively used mostly on certain ethnicities/groups

> Does being black or Muslim, having far-left or far-right political views, increase or decrease your threat score?

One of the things they explicitly mentioned was "gang associations". In my US experience, groups of black or Hispanic* youths who sometimes do illegal things (shoplifting, trespassing, underage drinking, pot smoking) are often called "gangs" in cases where groups of white or Asian youths wouldn't, even if they were doing the same things. So I think it's inevitable that this kind of Citizenship Score will reproduce and fortify existing structures of racist discrimination.

* This primarily applies in parts of the US where the local system of racism classifies Hispanic people as nonwhite.


It will also make minorities more accountable for being minorities. Also known as "driving while black".

"Enemy of the State (1998)" but as mundane everyday reality, not a blockbuster movie and with your jelaous neighbours reporting you for anything and everything.


Except that there are already laws against planning to do those things. What this is is a move towards non-evidence-based police harassment of certain groups. If there were evidence, it could be used to secure convictions. For an illustration of how police harrasment of minorities works out, see whichever US city has an anti-police riot going at the moment.

(In particular, I think this is about using intercept material to target people without letting it anywhere near a court.)

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