2001 Big Brother Awards Announced

DaHat writes "ABC News.com is reporting that the latest round of Big Brother Awards are out. This years list includes the FBI's carnivore system being named "Most Invasive Proposal." The NSA won a "Lifetime Menace" award for, allegedly, "50 years of spying" on Americans and others and even the Florida company ChoicePoint was named "greatest corporate invader," for their actions during the Florida recount. Get the whole scoop and whole article here." We should have a different award, the Stalin award or something for entities advancing the destruction of the first ammendment. We can nominate the evil organizations oppressing freedom of speech like the RIAA, the MPAA, and Slashdot.

Comments

Leave Stalin alone ok?

[Ektanoor]

Ok Americans, you don't have anyone destroying the first amendment? Why Stalin and first amendment here? When did Stalin stepped on first amendment? When do you stop thinking that the world starts in New England and ends in Alaska?

Stalin was a butcher. But he was a Soviet butcher who lead Soviet Union and not America. And there were no First or Last Amendments of the likes. Pick up you OWN people for that and point out and leave Stalin alone. If anyone has anything to say about Stalin then it is Germans, Poles, Czecks, Slovaks, Yougoslavians, Chinese, Koreans, Georgians, Azeris, Tatarians, Russians and a several other tens of nations that lived in the grip of the Butcher of Nations. But you should THANK GOD that there was Stalin as he saved the world and YOU from being swallowed by the Nazi machinery. And NEVER DARE to forget about that!

Pick up you McCarthy's, Hoover's, Nixon's for that First Amendment of yours... And never forget History. And if you have any troubles about this then go and pick some old films of the 50's and look at your First Amendment and how it worked. Btw, on Slashdot someone, not long ago, published a link to such type of archive. I took some of those films and OH MY. How you loved Uncle Joe in the 40's... And how you HATED him and Russia in the 50's. You hated SO MUCH that you could not say a correct thing about Russia's History or say Lenin's true name...

Re:Leave Stalin alone ok?

[Ektanoor]

Well in fact I got a little bit hot... Yes the US did a big help to Russia. But that does not mean that US saved the world. In fact Russia had to do it before even the US really entered the war. If Germany had taken Moscow and pushed over the Volga then hardly the US would not deal with Germany on its own shores.

In fact one should say that Europe was saved by the Soviets while US did the same for Asia and Oceania. If these two countries didn't do what they did then 80% of europeans would probably be slaves or near that. And millions would have ended in a factory or have its skin turned to shoes.

Normandy was a Hell. Sorry but even you americans of today may not totally understand this. In fact only veterans may say what is to stand in a shoreline with Hell falling on you. That should be honored.

But one should also note how many such Hells Russians have seen:

Smolensk
Leningrad
Moscow
Stalingrad
Sevastopol
Kursk and its famous Pokrovka Battle
Kiev
Minsk
And several others. Near Leningrad once Russians lost no less than 200000 soldiers in a German flank attack. Till now people dig their bones from that place...

And note. The first and the only complete Techno Battle that ever happened in History is Pokrovka. Not even Desert Storm goes near it. In Pokrovka both sides had infantry completely pissed off and went full contact with tanks and artillery. Just try to imagine thousands of tanks and other machinery go against each other in a small piece of land... And don't think about those "slow" tanks from films. There the T-34 jumped over the barricades and hills, a heavy German artillery pieces played face to face to several more maneuvarable Russians. And the same happened with Russian artillery cars and German tanks. Russians and Germans not only shot each other as crunched their tanks against each other.

Normandy. Ok I honour the vets who where there. But please people don't say it was the biggest and the best. Not even mighty Pokrovka has this title. That was Stalingrad.

Re:NSA != spying on americans

[mr_burns]

NSA speis on all communication outside the USA. That is correct. However, some communications are routed outside the USA and sometimes people within the USA contact the rest of the world. Therefore, the NSA is spying on Americans de facto, even if unintentionally.

I'm in the USA. If you're not and you're reading this, then the NSA is reading my words, even though I'm a private citizen.

Stalin awards

[mr_burns]

I'm all for it...let's do it. We can all submit our top offender and why. We can post the results on a reporter-friendly page, with links to threaded discussions as to the why's

that would rock, we just need a /. front page blurb to coordiate it.

ball and chain

[ywwg]

I'd prefer the Ball and Chain awards for the consumer product with the most strings / ropes / chains attached. Thus appliances with GPS, windows XP, and dvd would all be eligible.

I think the winner would be windows XP hands down, but the restrictions on things like copy "protected" hard drives are pretty ball and chainy too.

IBM for selling computers?

[jvj24601]

(link to the actual awards)

Lifetime Menace, Runners Up
IBM for years of selling computers to developing countries that are used to suppress populations and for lobbying against privacy laws and standards wordlwide

IBM awarded, partly, for selling computers to developing countries that are used to suppress populations? Doesn't every company in the US try to sell computers to as many other countries as it can? Should Linus get mentioned for a reward because the Chinese government (who don't give a damn about privacy) get to use Linux (and for free)?

OH BROTHER

[nege]

I would like to see this televised. Its cool that we as geeks can appreciate it, but nothing will be done to STOP these companies until we bring it before the regular joe kinda guy. All joe knows is that windows XP will make his life easier. Does he know about SAP or what it does to his mp3 collection?? Does he understand the real draconian measures being taken by MS, NSA and others?

Re:McNealy was right - Get over it.

[infinite9]

I think you'll find that the americans complaining about privacy are not the same americans that are appearing on talk shows. In america, like all countries, there are plenty of stupid and smart people to go around. The only difference here is that america offers up its stupidity for all to see and laugh at. Just enjoy the show and lighten up. And the social security number is only one of the reasons americans are complaining about privacy. Had you been here to experience eight years of clinton/gore, perhaps you would have the same perspective on privacy.

NSA != spying on americans

[Coolfish]

NSA spies on everyone BUT Americans. Spying on americans is FBI territory. CIA, again, is external.

Come on people, I'm not even American and I know these things.

Flip side of Privacy International awards

[f3e2]

Neither ABCNews nor the Slashdot write-up seem to link to the actual Privacy International site or their 2001 US Big Brother Awards page.

Also, the ABCNews article and Slashdot write-up dwell entirely on the privacy violators, while the original site also mentions that

2 awards were also given to champions of privacy. The Brandeis Award is named after US Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, who described privacy as "the right to be left alone." The awards are given to those have done exemplary work to protect and champion privacy.

...and awards the Brandeis Award to...

• Evan Hendricks - 20 years of publishing the Privacy Times. Hendricks goes after companies that traffic in children's private data and tells Congress how important privacy is, since they don't seem to get it most of the time.
• Julie Brill - Vermont Attorney General's Office. Brill spearheaded Vermont's litigation against the tobacco companies, and she goes after banks you sell your private data, record companies that fix prices, and drug companies that try to stamp out generics.

These are the good guys (and girls). They deserve some recognition, too.

-M

You're smart; why haven't you learned Python yet? http://diveintopython.org