Let’s look at evidence:
this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2024
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It was a disingenuous post. They compared a CVS security camera to mainland China. This is a leading question and shouldn't be posted by a journalist. She is leading the reader into thinking this is a question of US surveillance vs CCP surveillance, but it isn't. It's just some shitty corporate choice.
It's not like that corporations have historically been bedfellows with the American Government. Never heard of PRISM myself. It's also not like local and state officials can ask for the recordings to be handed over to them.
Corporations watching the public is not better than when governments do it. Personally I like my right to exist without people constantly watching me, and I don't act like it's better if the people watching me wave a country's flag or a corprate logo.
I'm not saying you should waive your right to privacy. I'm right there with you. I just want to make sure we fight this bullshit with facts and not clickbait. There is plenty of reason to fight surveillance without resorting to inflating the truth.
That, and the corporation cannot compel you not to "loiter" on the sidewalk in what is clearly a downtown area, which is therefore not their property and is a public right-of-way. Best they can do is chuck you out the front doors.
I agree that corporate v. state actions are definitely important to distinguish, but in the US, corporate malfeasance is left untouched and unpunished by the state so often that the line between the two is pretty damn blurry.
*Also, thinking on it a bit more, it's not like the surveillance is inaccessible to the state, either. If cops subpoena the footage, or even just ask for it, they'll almost certainly get it from a corporation. So this is more so just a layer of obfuscation from direct state surveillance, with the added nuisance of harassing people for standing on the sidewalk for "too long".