Slashdot Mirror
Human Rights and Echelon
Anonymous Coward writes "Proposals for a new definition of human rights now before the European Parliament, writes Duncan Campbell in Telepolis, would ban ECHELON and update data protection rules to latest developments in telecommunications technology." Compare and contrast to the United States, where the only legislative proposals before Congress are to increase government spying on the citizenry. Hey, the FBI says "If there's going to be a Big Brother in the United States, it's going to be us. It's going to be the FBI." What more is there to say?
=( This situation can play out in any one of the following ways:
A. EU support of eschelon is cut, but the rest of the network remains, no pollitical change in the US.
B. A happens but then the EU goes on to presure the US to cease such activities. The US eventually gives in...
C. B happens but then the US does not quit its dirty ways and a new cold war develops between countries who value their citizens' rights and authoritarian countries... (we would be on China's side. =\ )
D. C would happen but then after a few years the EU decides to shut down Eschelon via military force. Naturally the US would be hard pressed to recruit soldiers to defend an unjust cause, the US would inevitably loose the war (which would last no less than 10 years...) and the federal government would be abolished and the states would join the UN as independants... The most hopefull outcome would be some really cool tech... but if it goes nuclear then we would be hunting for our food again... =(((
On the other hand this initiative could fail, probably due to US diplomatic influence, and then we'll be back to hacking on freenet and 128 bit encryption... =((((
mailto:alangrimes@starpower.net
Well, let me clue you in honey, PP and all the other abortion providers sell their mailing lists, and it goes on your medical records, anyway.
First of all, even if they do sell your name, they are not allowed to divulge any information on the procedures you've undergone. That's part of your medical record, which they aren't allowed to give out or sell.
When you sign a job application, you're giving permission to get your credit and medical history.
Not sure about anyone else, but I've never signed anything for any company I've worked for that would allow them to have access to my medical record or credit history. The most I've agreed to is a drug test. (except when applying for a government security clearance, which allows the government to root through my credit history and pretty much anything else they like, but they have this capability anyway)
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Oh right, that's happened too. And did anyone owning a gun make a fscking difference?
People aren't going to go out and try to overthrow the government over censorship. It's going to take something much more grievous than that. The vast majority of people don't just start shooting because the government pissed them off. They have to really feel threatened. This has only happened a few times when the government has confronted some of these groups living in "compounds in Montana", and we've seen how those usually end.
One day the government will likely go too far. People might not even realize it at first, but we won't be happy, and we'll eventually figure out why. That's when things could get messy.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Being in a country that suffered intensely from anglo-saxon domination for almost a quarter of a millenium now made me interested in anglo-saxon history, and having studied it more than averagely, I wonder that given the facts that:
So, given all this, then can somebody explain why in thell it is mostly in anglo-saxon countries (USA & U.K.) that you find the most blatant attempts (both by the State and by [big] private companies) to squash individual freedom, liberties and privacy????
--
This is total OXDUNG. Your half-witty piece of paper only applies to the State. Nothing prevents any private concern from taking away your free-speech rights, unlike the european and canadian charters, which apply to everyone, even big companies.
This is the PROBLEM with the U.S.: the big companies have all the power they want over individuals. Just like lords had in feudal France.
--
There are two basic rights that are requered for a democracy: The right to free speach, and the right to private speach. Without those, a democracy is just a hidden dictatorchip worshipping democracy.
Why is encryption regulated as atomic weapons?
Why is encryption of communications unlawfull in france?
--The knowledge that you are an idiot, is what distinguishes you from one.
--The knowledge that you are an idiot, is what distinguishes you from one.
Oh, really. I doubt it, severely.
Whatever the problems in the FBI, and there are a slew and a half of them, they have one thing that is in short supply among the intelligent half of Slashdot.
That commodity is real experience with law enforcement and the criminal element.
We don't even have more theory than the FBI does, and theory is always subordinate to real-world experience.
The FBI does a lot of things wrong, but they do a lot more things right; it's only the former that we notice. The FBI's main job is interstate law enforcement, and they do a much better job of that than a bunch of Slashdot geeks would.
Because of our different perspective on things global, we could teach them a lot. But that doesn't mean that we could replace them.
--The basis of all love is respect
If the FBI has a file on me with private information, my problem isn't that the FBI might want to screw me over. My problem is that there are ten thousand FBI officers with the magic passwords, and if one of them is crooked, he's going to want to screw me over.
I can trust the FBI. I can't trust 10,000 of its officers, when it only takes one.
--The basis of all love is respect
That's an interesting idea you give, and it would explain much. But do you have any defense of it, or can you at least point me to same? It's not particularly a statement I can believe on its own.
--The basis of all love is respect
This is a variant on the "Washington Monument Scam".
The term refers to the hardball tactic of making budget cuts calculated to cause the maximum possible PITA (e.g. closing the Washington Monument to tourists) when the politicians deadlock or when the citizens refuse to vote for all the taxes/loans the politicians want to spend. Effectively, the most visible and desired services are held hostage to protect the pork and fat.
Similarly, some elements of law enforcement (typically the upper bureaucrats, not the street cops or field agents) want to hold basic citizen security hostage to protect the ability to snoop on political dissidents.
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
Certainly, and the government has no business overruling my chosen balance in the matter (absent a specific reason to suspect me of a particular crime, supported by warrant or affirmation). I'm glad that we're in complete agreement.
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
You know, I would be perfectly happy if every internet connection was ECHELONed, as long as it could not interfere with packets, and strong crypto were legal. That way, law-enforcement can get the information they want, but I can still make it hard for them, if I want.
--------
"I already have all the latest software."
tsunake
That the FBI would actually say something like that indicates that they don't give a rip about their poblic image. Either that or they don't think much of the American public's literary consciousness. Of course, it's hard to underestimate the American public.
OK, I'm sorry. I screwed up by saying it was a small sacrifice to have the FBI reading your e-mail to catch terrorists. Having read the other comments, I have changed my mind. "Not doing something to arouse suspision, so don't worry" is a bad saying, and I regret having used it. The arguments of my fellow Slashdotters have swayed me.
Thanks, Guys
You were doing so well until here. Why do "people need to learn"? What makes you think they have anything to learn? Have you ever thought that another person could be just as well informed as you, thought just as much about it, be just as intelligent, and yet come to a different conclusion than you have? Guess what, it happens a lot on all sorts of different topics.
There are worse things than losing a little "privacy". (I put privacy in quotes due to a /. tendency to claim privacy rights to the particular way they are observed in explicitly public places.) It is the judgement call of every individual based on their experiences and logic to decide how much loss of privacy balances how much gain of security. It is the conservative composite of those judgements which will guide our society's responses to law enforcement.
On the main subject, I can't help but think that we're looking at a culture that still allows genital mutilation of infants, and their next big step in human rights is gonna be protecting the obsolute privacy of your email? Lets hope there's a bit more to this proposal.
-Kahuna Burger
...will work for Chick tracts...
support gun control: take guns from cops
It doesn't control it. It doesn't benefit from it. If Echolon was lets say Germany-UK-France-Italy alliance, EU would keep it's mouth shut. EU want's to monitor it citisens just like the US does. A lot of new laws which decrease privacy have been introduced or proposed in various countries. Here in Finland, wiretapping by police was banned until 10 or so years ago. Currently police needs a court order to wiretap someone, but law that allows the police to decide when to wiretap is in the making.
First of all, even if they do sell your name, they are not allowed to divulge any information on the procedures you've undergone. That's part of your medical record, which they aren't allowed to give out or sell.
This is wrong. People typically believe that certain "common sense" privacy measures actually exist - but they don't. There's no law that says your doctor, employer or HMO can't sell every bit of information they know about you, from your cancer status to your counselling for depression to the abortion you had when you were 14. There's no law. Not in the U.S. Show me otherwise if you think I'm wrong. You can't.
Most people believe that there are some sort of minimum privacy standards protecting medical records and the like. But there aren't.
--
Michael Sims-michael at slashdot.org
Many (far from all) of the states have privacy protection built into their contitutions. The federal government does not. Every federal right to privacy has been judicially inferred from other rights (4th, 5th, 1st A.s in that order), and the current S.Ct. is ruled by conservatives who fundamentally disagree with that inference. In Novemebr we will pick the president who will choose the next 3 S.Ct. justices. If it is George Bush, your right to privacy will be revoked as "liberal judicial activism." If it is Gore, his administration will likely be just as intrusive, but the S.Ct. will be returned to the center and may provide some protection.
;-)
The only long term solution that would protect privacy from renewed attacks every four years, is a constitutional amendment.
Oh yea, and the Crypt
The FBI keeps a nice library of its doings at its Freedom of Information Act homepage. They also explain why, and what they've left out. They even had a file on Lucille Ball ("I Love Lucy") at the request of the house Un-American Activities Committee. Here's an alphabetical listing of what they'll show, which is much less than what they've got.
--
He lives in a world where those who do not run the client software of the omnipresent meme are unacceptable.
The FBI says that the choice is between getting raped and murdered and losing "a little privacy"...well, do they have any evidence that losing privacy leads to me being safer? If they do, "Bring it out and show it".
Am I the only person who is harassed by police, etc. more often them I am harassed by criminals?
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
"If there's going to be a Big Brother in the United States, it's going to be us. It's going to be the FBI."
What's more is that when you only print one line from any source without the surrounding quote, you completely take the quote out of context and nine times out of ten misquote the person. This is what in the news world is called "bad journalism" and it has become a hallmark of YRO reporting on Slashdot (that's right, hallmark, like the standard identifying trait, like the one thing that discredits YRO more than anything else, including the paranoid posters).
What Paul George, the FBI guy, was saying is that everyone knows the FBI could be the Big Brother which is why they're regulated so tightly to prevent something like that from ever happening. He was making a point about how the FBI is being suffocated, prevented by law from being able to do its job, which is monitoring criminal activity, effectively because people are so paranoid that it could be them being monitored. You may not trust your government, but I trust mine, and frankly, I'm happy that someone out there is doing this because it's too damn easy for people to wreak havoc in this world. Trust me, the FBI can do it a lot better than a group put together by Slashdot ever could.
So what more is there to say? Try telling the whole story instead of just one line of it. Then maybe people can make informed, rational decisions instead of the irrational paranoia we see in YRO every other day.
Here's what another article had to say about that same quote. It looks to me as though George himself wasn't the one who talked about the privacy rules. Looks more to me like he was advocating Big Brother. He says "information needs to be collected... if justified," never mind that the FBI would like to justify any "information gathering" it can get away with, as evidenced by many of its recent technology-related actiona and proposals. Recently, to give one example, it tried to persuade Congress to give it the ability to wiretap anyone, at will, without a warrant to do so.
And yeah, the CIA can't legally spy on US citizens. So what? The US government and the various pieces thereof do illegal things every day. I very much doubt the CIA is any different; they're just better at hiding it.
I'm no patriot. There are a lot of things the US has done that I don't approve of. Hell, in recent years I don't approve opf most of the stuff the US government has done.
But every once in a while a truly insipid diatribe comes out, blindly attacking the US without knowing a damn thing. This is one of them.
I'm sick of them trying to make macho posturings about their military on the world stage, whilst not commiting a single soldier in Kosovo.
Strange; I see more than a few soldiers there.
I'm sick of their "moral" centre, whilst at the same time their Red Cross "missionaries" disrupt the lifestyles of villages across SE Asia which had been happy for hundreds of years.
Um... the Red Cross doesn't do that. It isn't even a religious organization; it's a medical one. You're thinking of that other kind of cross. I'm sick of those myself, but at least I have some idea of what I'm talking about.
I'm sick of the US and it's stupid lawsuits - the latest being the woman suing Nike for tripping over her shoelaces.
I haven't heard about this one yet. But I have to agree; the frivolous lawsuits here are way out of control.
I'm sick of the US way of spelling things, and then trying to claim that it's England that are spelling it wrong.
Well, guess what. I'm sick of the British way of spelling things, and then trying to claim it's the US that spells it wrong. They're two different dialects, and within themselves, they're both right. Deal with it.
I'm sick of the US claiming it is the greatest nation on Earth, when any number of other countries could in reality nuke the fuck out of it.
Do you really think a nation's greatness can be measured by its nuclear arsenal? I should add that any arsenal large enough to "nuke the fuck out of the US" would very likely destroy the rest of the world in the process. What, pray tell, is so great about that?
And I'm fucking sick of the US proclaiming that they are the only nation who are "free", when they know nothing about any other country in the world, and precious little about their own.
Here, it depends on your point of view. In one way, the US is actually right in this regard. Read the laws of most nations. To give you one example, take the European Convention of Human Rights, Article 10. It says all people have the right to free speech. The Canadian Charter on is another example, and says, again, that Canadian citizens have the right to free speech. Look, though, at the US Constitution. It doesn't say this. Rather, it says that the government is forbidden to take away the right to free speech. The difference is extremely important; a law can be repealed, thus revoking the right to free speech, but if the government's forbidden to take away free speech then there's nothing it can do. That's the difference; other governments grant freedoms; the US Constitution guarantees them. And there is a school of thought, one with which I happen to agree, that freedom which is not guaranteed is not freedom at all.
And yes, I know the government has been ignoring a good deal of the Constitution in recent years. Eventually that will catch up to it; even the US government can't run from responsibility forever. I don't know how it'll happen, but eventially it will. I certainly hope it comes in the form of something as peaceful as a major legal smackdown from the Supreme Court (the only US court whose job is to actually do justice, rather than simply interpret existing law), simply because that way causes the least suffering for people.
And what defines 'arouse suspicion'? Whose definitions are we going by? Do your political views warrant monitoring? The FBI thought that Albert Einstein's did...
Albert Eienstein's FBI files, recently released under the FOIA
If you have no reason for the FBI to pay attention to you, they won't.
This is similar to the arguement that "You wouldn't use encryption unless you had something to hide..."
Just because I have nothing to hide doesn't mean that I enjoy being watched...
-jerdenn
Recently, I started a small SourceForge project (erm... my project's not much yet, I'll talk about it more later...), and to administer the project, I finally had to get around to downloading OpenSSH ( the Linux Port ), and felt a strange feeling as I watched it compile... the thrill of the would-be forbidden... that which the Powers-That-Be fought tooth and nail to supress.
Finally, after logging into SourceForge with SSH, a profound realization hit me: no third party can intercept my communications. Even if they did, it'd all be gobbledlygook to them. I laughed. True privacy, the most wonderful feeling in the (online) world...
After that, I can't wait until strong encryption becomes ubiquitously integrated into all communications software, (and all new Linux distributions! ;-).
The day when every person can communicate freely, without being spied upon from above, or snooped on from below, will be the greatest day in a very long time.
And don't give me that crap about "criminals" using it to coordinate terrorism. Any serious organized criminal or terror group in all probability has strong crypto, as well as countless other safeguards. Although, I'm not an authority on the subject. (Like Nixon, IANAC ;-)
Stay up hacking each weekend. Sleep is for the week.
Some memorable similar sentiments in the past:
"Rule number four: no cheating!"
-- Merlin, Disney's Sword in the Stone
"The High Contracting Parties solemnly declare in the names of their respective peoples that they condemn recourse to war for the solution of international controversies, and renounce it as an instrument of national policy in their relations with one another."
-- Article I, the Kellog-Briand Pact of 1928, outlawing War.
"Section 1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Indiana: It has been found that a circular area is to the square on a line equal to the quadrant of the circumference, as the area of an equilateral rectangle is to the square on one side. "
-- A bill introduced in Indiana c. 1897
"Your actions are illegal!"
-- Anonymous British officer, c. 1776
Thinking they have some God-given right to stick their noses into the rest of the world's business.
There is some truth in this. The USA has been laying mines in harbors in Nicaragua in the '80s, clearly an act of war. Americans feel they are justified to do this kind of stuff, because "we're the good guys", and "who's gonna do anything about it?"
The invasion of Grenada is another example. You don't have the right to invade another country just because you don't like their internal politics (it would be a different story if gross crimes against humanity were committed, but that was clearly not the case here).
As despicable as Noriega is, the invasion of Panama also left a bit of a strange taste in my mouth. Apparently you can just invade another country to arrest someone. Never mind about innocent until proven guilty.
I'm sick of them trying to make macho posturings about their military on the world stage, whilst not commiting a single soldier in Kosovo.
That's not entirely correct, I think. Also, I don't completely disagree with the argument that Europe has the first responsibility here.
I'm sick of their "moral" centre, whilst at the same time their Red Cross "missionaries" disrupt the lifestyles of villages across SE Asia which had been happy for hundreds of years.
I thought the Red Cross was a Swiss organization originally. Anyway, you can't credit/blame the US for what the Red Cross is doing.
I'm sick of the US and it's stupid lawsuits - the latest being the woman suing Nike for tripping over her shoelaces.
True, it's stupid, but it generally doesn't bother people outside of the US.
I'm sick of the US way of spelling things, and then trying to claim that it's England that are spelling it wrong.
That's too silly to get worked up about, but I guess you could argue that since US English is derived from UK English, Americans can not reasonably claim that the English spelling is wrong.
I'm sick of the US claiming it is the greatest nation on Earth, when any number of other countries could in reality nuke the fuck out of it.
I'm not sure about the nuking part. Fact is that, however horrible nuclear weapons are, they do act as an equalizer in the sense that no country can be protected from them. Not even the USA, and forget about SDI part II, it won't work.
More interestingly, what I have found in the last four years is that Americans truly believe that the USA is the greatest and most wonderful nation on earth, in every aspect imaginable. You can't really blame them for this, since they have been brainwashed with this idea since they were born. Even so, even the most educated, intelligent and open-minded American cannot completely divorce himself from this idea. Although they can accept on a rational level that some things might be better in some other countries, there is always this subconscious part of them that can't fully accept the notion. I have found this rather disturbing.
And I'm fucking sick of the US proclaiming that they are the only nation who are "free", when they know nothing about any other country in the world, and precious little about their own.
Yes, and to give you some examples: even though there is freedom of speech, you cannot say 'excrement' on national television (see, even I'm afraid to use the proper word)
Less than 5% of adult Americans have a passport. So, 95% have never been ouside the US/Mexico/Canada. You can't live in every country, but a little travel now and then greatly helps to see issues from more than one side.
To balance this out a little, consider the following:
- The US Constitution is a brilliant document. Especially the part about being able to amend it is evidence of great vision.
- Americans are not shallow minded. This is a European prejudice that I had myself when coming to the US, and it is not justified.
MSN 8: Now Microsoft even has bugs in their ad campaigns.
What the guy was saying is that out of all the government agencies, the FBI is the one that has the resources and can legally investigate US citizens. The CIA can't do that, at least not legally.
What he was not saying is that the FBI does spy on people. He's only saying that the opportunity is there, but if you read the article, he goes on to say that there are strict laws regarding what the FBI can and cannot do, and those laws are in place for a reason.
Okay, so the FBI can go outside of the law. So what? So could Bill Gates. So could anyone with enough money. It's even more likely that a private company would be acting as big brother -- because there are fewer people watching the backs of private companies. No one is scared of a medium- or large-sized corporations, because they are all over the place. They are part of everyday life. But they are where the danger lies.
I think the intelligent half of Slashdotters could put together a better system than the FBI is today. As computer geeks and scientists, we're familiar with the extreme benefits of peer review. It is the only way to get exactly what you are looking for, whether it is a piece of software, an accurate scientific theory, or a fair and just policing force.
You cannot run a democracy in the middle of a shroud of secrecy. Every American needs to know exactly what its government is doing, otherwise democracy falls apart because we can't make any informed decisions. Since the days of JFK we've been voting for a pretty face and a smooth talker. The reason we're resorting to superficial means is that we really don't know what our leaders and agencies are doing. If we knew what decisions our president made behind closed doors, we might not have reelected Clinton, maybe not even Reagan.
It's easy to argue that a degree of secrecy is required to run a government, that we have to keep secrets from other nations, but I think this arguement falls apart under close scrutiny. The method of government by secrecy is no different from the concept of security-by-obscurity that has been ripped to shreds so many times by computer security experts. It simply is not the best way to do it.
We are entering an era where we need to start acting like a planet rather than a huge tribe trying to make sure the other tribes don't step on our land. The internet has done some wonderful things for international communication, and it's just getting started. Once the communication infrastructure is in place, it starts to redefine the way people think. Within the next 50 years, nationalism will fall apart. People will not define themselves as Americans, British, French, or Japanese, but as people. Boundaries between people can only exist so long as boundaries to communication exists.
When people start thinking as one, the governments must follow suit and stop trying to function by isolation. The U.S. has traditionally been the slowest to notice this. We have blatantly stupid crypto laws because our government thinks for some reasons that only American programmers can write good crypto software, and if we isolate them from the rest of the world, the rest of the world won't get crypto. Yeah, maybe America used to be the software center of the world, but as the internet boomed, suddenly the shift focused. Everyone was shocked when no U.S. universities scored in the top ten at the ACM World Programming Finals. I would have been more shocked if we had maintained dominance.
There have been talks on here before about getting some sort of geek political action committee. We need way more than that, we need to get our ideas and philosophies, the wisdoms we take for granted, and apply them to our system of government in a practical way. The concepts we consider obvious aren't just for world domination of our operating systems, they can actually improve the world. The FBI could learn a lot from slashdotters if we could only teach it how to effectively apply what we know.
More directly, the poster also says:
First, I happen not to feel it's a small sacrifice at all. I recognize your right to feel differently and I respect your exercise of that rightSecond, if these hypothetical terrorists are stupid enough to transmit in plaintext over unsecured routes, then they're so inept that the FBI would capture them without the email surveillance. Let's face it -- the proposed measures won't be effective against true, dedicated opponents. But they'd be perfect against the large, undereducated, unmotivated public.
Existing laws on surveillance, wiretapping, etc., have been (easily) extended to cyberspace. They protect, nominally at least, the rights of citizens. Although the FBI guy intended the oppositie, he's right: These things must be balanced. What worries me is that many (upper) law enforcement officials seem to place no value on citizens' privacy at all. They don't seem clued in as to why people get edgy about this.
Until the government does understand that privacy is a valuable right, I'd rather it not get any more powers to poke around my life.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach