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Just look at England, a camera network set up specifically basically to spy on the public. The fact that it has no impact on the crime it was meant to deter and punish [...]

These claims are often made by privacy advocates, but other sources have the opposite view.

However, even the EPIC acknowledge, that there was some contribution made by the CCTV surveillance: "Evidence from Europe, however, suggests that the benefits of CCTV are significantly overstated." They then skillfully juggle the facts: "While the average Londoner is estimated to have their picture recorded more than three hundred times a day, no single bomber has been caught," — omitting completely the case of the fairly high-profile recent case of German train-bombers. The EPIC-guys are not being entirely honest, and you should not be falling for it.

I don't think, a camera is any worse, than a policeman standing there watching. A society just can't afford so many policemen, so we resort to these cameras as productivity tools.

Epic fail.
What does the Electronic Privacy Information Center have to do with it?

we're still an incredibly free and wealth country, and the vast majority of people are annoyed but still content.

Although I do agree some of what you said, I strongly disagree with the part which I quoted.

It appears that you are confusing individual freedoms with civil liberties .

Individual freedom is the ability to get in your car at 3 a.m. and drive 3 blocks to the convenience store to buy an unhealthy snack, to pick what you want to eat for dinner at the grocery store, to choose which movie you want to see with a friend, to stay in bed all day, etc. Yes, as a society we generally do have a great deal of individual freedom.

Civil liberties by contrast, are much different. Civil liberties are things such as your right to not have your property seized or searched without a court order, your right to vote, your right to petition the government, your right to peacefully assemble to protest the government, etc. ...and the all important Habeas corpus, your right to petition the government for unlawful imprisonment, which by the way, we did not have until just recently when it was restored by a Federal appeals court.

It is of civil liberties which we are speaking when we say that a society is free. When it comes to civil liberties in the United States, we are far from "free" to do as the Constitution allows.

Some examples:

The Protect America Act, The Real ID Act, The Patriot Act, the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003, The Military Commissions Act, Free Speech Zones, Unconstitutional Wiretapping, etc. provide overwhelming evidence that we are in fact very far from being a free society.

"a free people [claim] their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate." -- Thomas Jefferson

"What a curious phenomenon it is that you can get men to die for the liberty of the world who will not make the little sacrifice that is needed to free themselves from their own individual bondage." -- Bruce Barton (1886-1967)

"The basic test of freedom is perhaps less in what we are free to do than in what we are free not to do." -- Eric Hoffer (1902-1983)

CLICK IT!
"There has never been a more urgent need to preserve fundamental privacy protections and our system of checks and balances than the need we face today, as illegal government spying, provisions of the Patriot Act and government-sponsored torture programs transcend the bounds of law and our most treasured values in the name of national security." -- ACLU

MORE QUOTES:

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and hence clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." - Political commentator Henry Louis Mencken (1880-1956)

"Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposit

The case law for online anonymity is currently unsettled (yes, I know some of those are incompatible jurisdictions.)

As much as we don't like Lori Drew and her despicable, possibly criminal behavior, this isn't the way to go about it (from the posts so far, seems most here agree that way.)

No anonymity would lead to a boring internet... people would begin to resort (more) to (ab)using open proxies to get the job done.

...I'm reminded of the sorry attempt by the US Government to introduce its version of DRM known as the "Clipper Chip." The F/OSS community isn't known for its attention-grabbing project names (think Gimp here), so this comes as no surprise. Still, am I the only one who, upon first sight, related "Clipperz" and "Clipper Chip"? Is this the best moniker the Cesares could come up with?

You think that the a Democratic president would have invaded Iraq?

Something like that is conceivable.

Imprisoned and tortured innocent people?

It's happened before.

Pushed for telecom immunity in the first place?

Who do you think is pushing for it now?

Undermined the military?

There's a reason why even Bush used to be against nation-building before he was for it.

Don't get me wrong, it's obvious that on average the Democrats are doing a lot better than the Republicans lately. But you can't just say "a [party I like] President" wouldn't have done such bad things; that kind of tribalism valuing affiliation over actions is at the root of how the Republican Party self-destructed, and the Democrats aren't immune from the same human impulses.

To get down to specific examples, I think it's pretty clear by now that Gore wouldn't have made most of the mistakes Bush did, but I don't think it's clear that the privacy issues we're discussing right now aren't an exception.

Far more importantly, where does it say that you do not?

First, they start tracking the children...
http://epic.org/privacy/rfid/children.html

Then everybody else:
Human implantation

The Food and Drug Administration in the US has approved the use of RFID chips in humans.[69] Some business establishments have also started to chip customers, such as the Baja Beach nightclub in Barcelona. This has provoked concerns into privacy of individuals as they can potentially be tracked wherever they go by an identifier unique to them. There are concerns this could lead to abuse by an authoritarian government or lead to removal of other freedoms.[70]

On July 22, 2006, Reuters reported that two hackers, Newitz and Westhues, at a conference in New York City showed that they could clone the RFID signal from a human implanted RFID chip, showing that the chip is not hack-proof as was previously believed.[71] Some conspiracy theories surrounding the chip point out the dangers it could pose to the freedom and liberty of people if it were to be common place in the future. Furthermore, it might lead society into a "1984 state aparatus system" that could potentially mean the end to free speech. Opinions such as this are pointed out in the 2006 award winning documentary Zeitgeist, which suggest that the RFID chip being implanted in every person in the future could very well happen through a campaign of fear implemented by a totalitarian regime.

Katherine Albrecht and Liz McIntyre, authors of Spychips: How Major Corporations and Government Plan to Track Your Every Move with RFID, wrote a new book on the subject.[72]

Shamelessly copied from Wikipedia, by the way...:-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RFID#Human_implantation

Enjoy what (little) freedom you have left, while it lasts...

Sadly it's not just a Republican or Democrat issue. The Patriot act, communications decency act, etc were all pretty bi-lateral. The Bush administration have clawed their way to a lot of executive privileges and trampling of rights, far more than any other president. However the Congress hasn't done much complaining. Where are the changes the Dem's promised when they took back the house?

There are a few individuals who are good on privacy and the rule of the constitution. This election cycle I can think of Paul (R) and Kucinich (D) as candidates who didn't get the attention they deserved since they weren't soundbite only types of people. Upholding the constitution doesn't seem to be generally a popular topic for people when they vote.

The EFF and EPIC are good places to visit regularly, especially EPIC's bill track.

The reason downloading ANYTHING from Sun is such a PITA is because of US crypto export restrictions.

Can't have those pesky Iranians downloading munitions, you know.

You think I'm joking? Go read about it.

Sun does a huge amount of business with the US Gov't. Sun would rather annoy users than risk its lucrative government relationships. Ergo, stupid download portals that make you verify that you're not from the axis-of-can't-get-strong-crypto.

Stuff like this doesn't really inform the general public, it only frightens them and makes them even more irrational. It's like the occassional story about the kidnapped kid or terrorist attack that causes everyone to freak out and start demanding irrational laws.

I suppose you wanted to say: "nobody is allowed to store your personal data without warning you and giving methods to correct and erase your data."
This is a principle of German "Recht auf Informationelle Selbstbestimmung".

Anyway, I agree with Germany's 'commissioner for data protection and freedom of information' Peter Schaar (wrong name in TFA) that an IP is public, but nevertheless personal data (better term in German: "personenbezogene Daten") because as the 'Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 October 1995 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data' (see Directive 95/46/EC) states:

Article 2
Definitions

For the purposes of this Directive:
(a) 'personal data' shall mean any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person ('data subject'); an identifiable person is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identification number or to one or more factors specific to his physical, physiological, mental, economic, cultural or social identity;

Some prior commentators already agreed that a telephone number is personal data (though many don't seem to know the difference between private and personal data). Why not treat IPs the same way?

Please note that not all is well in Europe since telephone numbers (already regarded as personal data) and IPs have to be stored by the associated carriers (ISPs for example) for later processing by law enforcement agencies (allegedly solely) in the course of investigating terroristic activities and other crimes (see 'Directive 2006/24/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 March 2006 on the retention of data generated or processed in connection with the provision of publicly available electronic communications services or of public communications networks').
This is heavily disputed (see e.g. http://www.dataretentionisnosolution.com/ and Digital Rights Ireland challenge to Data Retention).
By the way, there are some proposed methods to disable logging of IPs regarding Apache webserver - et al..

For more information about 'EU Data Retention' see EU Data Retention - doqumentation and Electronic Privacy Information Center.

It doesn't even take malicious access. In the UK, some low level government peon recently snail-mailed the financial details of 25 million people on discs that went missing. Since that broke, a slew of other government agencies, from health through to defence have dumped "me too" admissions into the shitstorm.

The government's response? They'll put "new procedures" in place to ensure that it can't blah blah again blah fight them on the beaches blah.

They're still pressing ahead with the National Database, misnamed as a National ID card (the equivelant of the USian Real ID). It's Total Information Awareness with a fluffier spin on it, but exactly the same goals: to know everything, about everyone, all the time, and Goddamn the consequences when (not if) the black hats get their greasy fingers on it.

Here's a working link to the URL...

http://www.epic.org/free_speech/watchtower.html

I wonder if this http://www.epic.org/free_speech/watchtower.html/ Supreme Court case relates.

"Anonymity--the ability to conceal one's identity while communicating--enables the expression of political ideas, participation in the government process, membership in political associations, and the practice of religious belief without fear of government intimidation or public retaliation."

I'll post anonymously in keeping with the spirit of things.

This sounds factually similar to the Robert Bork video rental disclosure issue. See here.

The Right to Privacy, as put forth by the Constitution of the United States of America, never intended for any one to be anonymous. Anonymous people have no voice in the government because they are unkown and faceless. Only those who stand up to be counted, by their vote and their enumeration in a census, can be a part of the government.

You've got thing switched around. According to USSC rulings without anonymity the First Amendment's Freedom of Speech means nothing. As one USSC ruling said if a person can't reasonably expect to remain anonymous then they do not have freedom of speech. The Watchtower Bible And Tract Society of New York, Inc., et al.[pdf] case is one such case. In Watchtower Bible v. Stratton the USSC upholds "Anonymity, Free Speech." In another case a CATO brief argues "Anonymity and Associational Privacy Remain Important Guarantors of Free Political Speech."

For those keeping track, the PATRIOT Act was only 342 pages (PDF warning) - and wasn't really read by anyone who signed off on it because it was long, had a nice name, and there was a sense of urgency to pass it.

I get the feeling that with more than twice the pages and a nice name attatched to it (College Opportunity and Affordability Act), this will get a similar reception. "Oh, well, it has a nice name - and it's far too long to bother reading and understanding... Plus, if I vote against it I'll be mentioned as voting against opportunity and affordability for students!"

Sad, but true.

No, that's not what its for. Clearly you have been mislead.

"Under REAL ID, the government would have easy access to an incredible amount of personal data stored in one national database (or, according to the DHS description, 56 State and Territory databases, each of which can access all of the others)."

The senator from New Mexico (I believe it was New Mexico anyway) said that the ultimate goal is to track everything. Every time you buy something, even with cash, it will be entered into the national database. 7Eleven will require you to swipe your card for purchasing gas, a snickers bar, or explosives from their terrorist discount bin.

Real ID IS bad news. It has severe privacy implications. Please research before commenting. The quote above is from here.

The purpose of a driver's license is to show and prove proficiency in driving, not anything else. It is not meant as a defacto identification card or anything else. It is a license to drive, period.

The fourth amendment guarantees us security of papers. How can we have security of papers if all of our information is stored in every government database across the entire union? That sounds like the opposite of security of papers. We can refuse to show our papers, but it won't matter because the government will already have them.

proof?
There is no disputing it, you can read it yourself if like:
http://www.epic.org/privacy/terrorism/hr3162.html

There is no argument on this subject that I am aware of.
The administration is actually proud of it. They think it is a good thing.

I have not heard about MS allowing backdoor access to some data but that would be nothing more than an administrative efficiency which I would have assumed they would have implemented by now. The 'right' of the CIA/SS/FBI/DHS/NSA to access the data is laid out in the patriot act.

That may be true. But it will be a practical technique for a long time. Personally, I see nothing in the 4th amendment that is intended to limit non-intrusive searches, such as eavesdropping. Outlawing encryption would be a clear violation of the 4th Amendment. However, whether or not it's a "good thing" I don't see anything unconstitutional about eavesdropping or "warrantless wiretapping."

Oh? What part of 'The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized' are you having difficulty understanding? Seems to me that telecommunications is covered under 'papers and effects' by the Constitution. But, hey, IANAL The government keeps telling me that I'm too 'ignorant' to understand the full implications of this so I really need THIS instead.

My question: is there ever a case for letting national security issues dictate the limits of an open source project?"

Crypto was kept out of the Linux kernel for a long time, since the US had regulation on exporting crypto systems. These were mostly lifted under Clinton, though there's still a list of countries that it's illegal to export to (Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria, according to: http://www.epic.org/crypto/export_controls/regs_1_ 00.html).

RMS has stated that if copyright laws in the vein of the DMCA continue to be passed, Free Software development could no longer take place in US borders.

Germany was recently hit with a law that outlawed "hacking software", apparently including nmap or packet sniffers.

It's nice to say that you want to do things for the good of humanity, but beaurocrats have other ideas.

"total information awareness"... but hasn't congress killed this project http://www.epic.org/privacy/profiling/tia/? If you are saying someone is still working on that might be newsworthy.

I notice that you very carefully leave off the real issues.

Like Guatanamo and the whole imprisonment without due process thing.

Or like illegally spying on US citizens.

Or...

You mention only the things that noone who's seriously talking impeachment would mention. I applaud you for attacking those that talk impeachment out of a knee-jerk political stance, however, you don't seem to realize that there's a relatively strong case for it.

You're right, but that would involve me going back to using the FBI to investigate political opponents, Vince Foster, Jane Doe Number Five" and other Clinton Scandals, but I thought I'd keep it brief.

Besides, we could trade scandals like this all day and get nowhere!

Don't forget that the purpose of having a federal government represented by congress has changed: The idea was to make laws to govern the land, for the benefit of all, while not imposing on the individual citizen's or states lives.

Now, that it has somehow morphed into being sent there to battle for funding for their state/district/pet project, rather than actually trying to pass laws.

Also, I don't know this for sure, but I'm guessing 200 years ago they didn't write 1,000 page bills. Who the hell can read through 10,000 pages a week to search for this crap?

The constitution is brief: As all "laws of the land" should be.

Description - Law - Consequences of not obeying. Period. Try reading through some of this crap:

Patriot Act

Try searching for some of those dependencies for what is amended in that "law" - its worse than trying to install a Linux program that has 1,000 deps that you don't have.

Today's announcements on encryption represent important steps in
the implementation of the Administration's policy on this critical
issue. Our policy is designed to provide better encryption to
individuals and businesses while ensuring that the needs of law
enforcement and national security are met.

Encryption is a law and order issue since it can be used by criminals
to thwart wiretaps and avoid detection and prosecution. It also has
huge strategic value. Encryption technology and cryptoanalysis
turned the tide in the Pacific and elsewhere during World War II.

I can mention I've been looking around for ssh tunnel services and shell account providers. And not surprising that I am able to find global privacy services that are claiming to allow high bandwidth encrypted tunneling services with allowance for P2P and Usenet levels of traffic. It may be like a 2nd ISP bill on top of the original connection, but it helps to ensure that you're not the sucker in case the MAFIAA gets a hold of your IP, and some of them let you pick and choose the continent which your proxy resides... I'll drop a couple links I bookmarked recently when COTSE had their outage (thank you assholes at Verizon)...

COTSE
TriLightZone
List of Shell providers
Secure-Tunnel
Electronic Privacy Info Center Tools list
Spyware Warrior Resources Links

Anyways there's tons of stuff out there if you look, people can just put up SSH servers running on port 80 and encrypt everything and then what are the ISPs gonna do? Degrade all encrypted traffic like that Canadian ISP did? Ah the battles continue...

"The plan will create a massive national identification system without adequate privacy and security safeguards. It will also make it more difficult for people to get driver's licenses. And it will make it too easy for identity thieves, stalkers, and corrupt government officials to get access to such personal information as a home address, age, and Social Security number."

Slashdotters should offer their perspective. REAL ID was approved without Congressional hearings, and this is the last 24 hours for the public to comment on this proposal!

Here's more from passablynews reactions (article link):

p1 "The treatment of Cody reflected the result, and the intent of the Patriot act 1 & 2. Cody was deemed a terrorist and as a result, his rights were suspended. Is what happened to Him, what's happened to others, whats going to happen to countless more, the absolute disrespect, humiliation, and utter disregard of Constitution O.K.? This is the Security we have been given in exchange for Liberty?

Here is the patriot act itself.

http://www.epic.org/privacy/terrorism/hr3162.html

"

Alex Epstein "This is exactly how the Patriot Act operates. Innocent people being jailed on hysterical accusations while the real culprits go free. And this is why we need our civil rights protections. When you can jail people without a trial, it's just too easy to jail the wrong guy."

That quote about First Amendment rights being "chipped away", is from Reed's opinion in ACLU v. Reno, 31 F. Supp. 2d 473, issued in 1999.

That only goes back to 2001, so it misses a lot. But here's a typical example:

"The current Passport Terms of Use agreement not only fails to guarantee confidentially, but actually gives Microsoft and its business partners the right to own your information, and do pretty much what they want with it. That encompasses all your Hotmail and MSN Messenger communications today."

Of course, MS also has a long history of paying people to act as unbiased supporters in letter writing campaigns, forums, and other arenas. This is known as Astroturfing. ASTROTURFER :P

Next to the things Bush has done we can contrast stuff like the Clipper Chip from the current liberal darling, Al Gore. Government monitoring of all encrypted communications? Al Gore really did invent that.

I'm wondering, do you have a source for that? Because from what I can tell, the Clipper Chip was in full swing in 1992. Which was, ahem, before Gore was in the White House.

FOIA Document from the FBI dated December 1992. Curiously, this document suggests that the FBI did not seek explicit approval from the Bush administration at the time because that might encourage the incoming Clinton administration to dismiss the policy out of hand. Clearly the Clinton administration did eventually sign off on the program, but "Gore really did invent that" is clearly a false statement.

`(d) No person shall disclose to any other person (other than those persons necessary to produce the tangible things under this section) that the Federal Bureau of Investigation has sought or obtained tangible things under this section.

"Yeah, if you wanted to help crime NATIONWIDE, you really couldn't come up with a better plan than this."

It's good enough for the rest of the world.

(a). I am aware that the FISA court has only outright rejected a few applications (they have rejected others but still approved them with modifications). I tend to think (at least, pre-Bush) that means that the AGs are doing their jobs and are only pursuing this course when absolutely necessary. (The number of applications (and applications approved with modifications) went way up under Bush - see here.)

(b). That is why the law opens the AG to civil remedy, and the law also includes criminal sanctions in certain situations. It doesn't sound like any other solution would satisfy you, so we should just not issue warrants, or even indictments and convictions for that matter, since they could be wrong.

The idea was that you would have settings in your browser to indicate what personal information you would reveal before connecting to a web site. However, it was supposed to be negotiable. The web site would specify what personal information you would have to reveal before you could connect. The reality is that if P3P ever took hold, all web sites would demand enough to identify you at a minimum. Enough people would blindly follow directions and release the information. Those of us vigilant of our privacy would have to configure our browsers to do the same or be out of touch with 90% of the world.

And anonymous and pseudonymous speech is protected by the First Amendment - see Talley v California :

Anonymous pamphlets, leaflets, brochures and even books have played an important role in the progress of mankind. Persecuted groups and sects from time to time throughout history have been able to criticize oppressive practices and laws either anonymously or not at all. The obnoxious press licensing law of England, which was also enforced on the Colonies was due in part to the knowledge that exposure of the names of printers, writers and distributors would lessen the circulation of literature critical of the government. The old seditious libel cases in England show the lengths to which government had to go to find out who was responsible for books that were obnoxious to the rulers. John Lilburne was whipped, pilloried and fined for refusing to answer questions designed to get evidence to convict him or someone else for the secret distribution of books in England. Two Puritan Ministers, John Penry and John Udal, were sentenced to death on charges that they were responsible for writing, printing or publishing books. Before the Revolutionary War colonial patriots frequently had to conceal their authorship or distribution of literature that easily could have brought down on them prosecutions by English-controlled courts. Along about that time the Letters of Junius were written and the identity of their author is unknown to this day. Even the Federalist Papers, written in favor of the adoption of our Constitution, were published under fictitious names. It is plain that anonymity has sometimes been assumed for the most constructive purposes.

I wonder, when some lefty group launches one of their "spontaneous" demonstrations with paid protesters, should they register too?

You "Bush is tearing up the Constitution" lefties are such fucking hypocrites. And you non-lawyers really expose yourselves as insipid when you discuss the law.

"[oversight] authority has been given to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and [it] already has approved one request for monitoring the communications of a person believed to be linked to al Qaeda or an associated terror group.""

That's nice. How many requests has this court denied, or is it just a rubber stamp like FISA?

http://www.engadget.com/2006/10/23/researchers-hac k-rfid-credit-cards-big-surprise/

Seeing as companies don't really care about a consumers privacy (they sell the data as fast as they can anyways) its no surprise that the government wants in on the action.
GET YOU NEW IDENTITY HERE! NO APPLICATION NEEDED!

The tinfoil hat idea may be passe, but the tinfoil wallet may be the wave of the future.
http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,61264,00. html?tw=wn_tophead_1
So long as the RFID signal is kept weak, atleast.

http://www.epic.org/privacy/dv/real_id.html
And of course it was added as a rider, and got through, as the REAL ID act was put into a "must pass" bill appropriating money for tsunami relief and defense. Pub. Law 109-13. REAL ID was added to this bill without any hearings.
Sometimes I -HATE- the fact that little bits of law can be added in as a rider and passed with otherwise "must pass" bills, even if the bits added in as a rider never would have passed on its own.

Have you actually read it? Or just skimmed the TOC? After having taken the time to read it, I can say you're not quite wrong -- but you're also not correct. In short: it ensures that powers already held by the US government for use in various investigations also apply to counter-terrorism. It expands what information can be shared and with whom (increasing communication) -- but it also limits the use of that information to the matter at hand. That's section 204, which also seems to cover improving information coordination. All of Title VII is also dedicated to information coordination and sharing.

There's a lot to the PATRIOT act, but contrary to popular belief very little of it is new.

Um, have you actually read the Patriot Act? Of the Act's 10 Titles, only one section of one title (Sec. 504) even remotely relates to improving coordination among government agencies. Most of the rest of the act is designed to increase government powers relating to anti-terrorism enforcement, anti-money-laundering enforcement, anti-counterfeiting enforcement, and increasing the powers and authority of the Director of Central Intelligence and the President.

The Patriot Act does not setup DHS, nor does it put any other federal agencies under the discretion of DHS.

No, but maybe soon they can condense the display from the new http://www.epic.org/privacy/surveillance/spotlight /0605/ backscatter machines without the blurring function.

According to NIST http://www.epic.org/privacy/biometrics 98.6% accuracy can be achieved with one fingerprint, 99.6% with two, and 99.9% with four or more fingers. Wonder how many fingers they're working with.

"...the [Supreme] Court held that the right to travel is an inherent element of "liberty" that cannot be denied to American citizens. Although the Executive may regulate the travel practices of citizens, by requiring them to obtain valid passports, it may not condition the fulfillment of such requirements with the imposition of rules that abridge basic constitutional notions of liberty, assembly, association, and personal autonomy."

Kent v. Dulles
357 U.S. 116 (1958)

Summary from http://www.oyez.org/oyez/resource/case/1053/

EPIC cites other cases in their comments on the proposed rule:
"The Supreme Court has long recognized that there is a constitutional right to travel
internationally. The right to travel is "not a mere conditional liberty subject to regulation and
control under conventional due process or equal protection standards . . .," but "a virtually
unconditional personal right." Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U.S. 618, 642-643 (1969); see also
Aptheker v. Secretary of State, 378 U.S. 500, 505 (1964); Kent v. Dulles, 357 U.S. 116, 126
(1958)"

Vote, damn it. If you haven't before, call your local Secretary of State's office and ask what the rules are. You might be registered automatically in some places. You might be able to cast a provisional ballot if not. Check http://www.canivote.org/ if you prefer, but in the name of everyone who has crawled through mud, spent years with combat flashbacks and nightmares, or *died* to preserve basic rights, drive to your polling place. It won't solve the problems but it's an indispensable first step.

Cameras would only be a problem for me if they were joined together in some kind of global tracking system using something like face recognition. An IT project I'm happy to say is vastly out of the UK government's league :)

Yes, but likening the neocons (with their tendancy to reduce civil liberties and centralize power) to historical fascists is reasonable because there's truth to it. Traditional conservatives aren't so bad -- at least they still believe in personal liberties[*]. The neocons are f'ing scary.

[*] - Except the personal liberties they don't believe in (abortion, sexual behavior among consenting adults, etc); that's still a big improvement on attacking freedom of the press, privacy rights, the Freedom Of Information Act, etc.

They have no right to monitor your system first off.
Secondly, you payed 50 Dollars for said game (bf2142), and they have the nerve to advertise to you in game?
If there are advertisements the game should be absolutely free as in beer.

I think it is time for a boycott against companies like EA thinking that they have this much power to tell the User that they must submit their privacy to play a game.

It is a sick world out there.
It is not just this, everything out there these days is out to minimize your privacy
Examples:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15221095/ (loss of privacy)
http://www.epic.org/privacy/terrorism/hr3162.html (the patriot act)

Personal Freedoms FTW!

You do have something to hid: Your business. It's not Their business. Keep it that
way. Pretty soon it will become Their business to know your business and you won't be
able to stop them. They will want to know what medicines you take, what time you have
sex, what books you read, etc. The TSA probably already collects that information.

http://www.privacy.org/
http://www.epic.org/