Silicon Valley vs. Your Privacy

TreeRat submits word of an article in the New York Times' magazine section, including mention of the proposed national database which has been talked about on Slashdot before. "The story goes into great detail with Larry Ellison, who is still pushing hard to bring 'Big Brother' to life. When asked if this database will be created, and run on Oracle, Larry's response was 'I do think it will exist, and I think it is going to be an Oracle database. ...And we're going to track everything.' There's a lot more than Ellison in this piece, though, and much of it is scary.

Comments

We already have enough databases

[dattaway]

What about TRW and all the other information companies? Sounds like Leasure Larry just wants a snoop database for a few tax dollars.

Re:We already have enough databases

[Dock]

The judicial system does not enforce, it interprets. Perhaps you should study our government a little more before telling others to read the law. And your own interpretation of this amendment is a thousand miles off.

A database listing information about you does not belong to you, therefor no one requires a warrant to access it. You may own land but you do not own your address, the state does. You do not own your telephone number, the telephone company does. You do not own your SS number, the government does. You obviously do not own your medical, criminal or license history, if you did it would be your responsibility to protect and manage it which is obviously not the case.

I am fairly certain any national database would be more protected that you would ever be capable of, what right do you have to demand such things you can not even do yourself.

The fourth amendment was to protect a persons privacy, and most of this information is not private. That which is, is already protected by law such as medical records.

You people are getting much too smug and righteous about personal privacy now. Just because some schmuck who abuses his access to a piece of information about you does not mean you have to declare war over a minor nuisance at best. Our government does more for you in you a day than you will probably do for it and the rest of your country in a lifetime, they have a greater responsibility that you can possibly fathom and all of you need to grow up and try to contribute to our nations security instead of crying about it like spoiled children.

I was going to say...

[OblongPlatypus]

I was going to say "this is the sort of thing that makes me glad I don't live in the US". But then I realized it would be much more efficient to list the sort of things that make me wish I did live in the US:

...well, I can't think of any just now, I'll let you know when I do.

Re:Safety and Security come first

[FleshWound]

Fact of the matter is, though, that the current methods of profiling criminals and preventing horrific criminal acts work, and they work well . . . but only when they have the proper funding.

The tragic events of September 11th had a lot of root causes, and we can debate about them until the cows come home (I would've said "...until Larry Ellison goes insane," but that's clearly already happened), but no one can deny that there's a pretty good chance (and by that I mean the chance was about as good as the sun rising tomorrow) that if Clinton hadn't cut the budget on the CIA, they would have known this was going to happen, and they could have taken steps to prevent it.

It's unfortunate that this happened before Bush had a chance to fix what Clinton had broken, but truth be told, re-funding the CIA was just one item on a laundry list of necessary resources that Clinton raped mercilessly, and Bush feels the need to fix them all (I can't say that I blame him). I'm sure he would have gotten around to it "eventually," but he was too busy nursing the U.S. military back to health.

In my humble opinion, if we want to stop terrorism from affecting our country, there's one simple thing we can do: stop electing Democrats into important offices. If they want to be selectmen in East Bumdoodle, Utah, let them. When they want to be the President, or a Senator, or a Congressman, we need to "just say no."

Let's be Realistic

[Sentry21]

A national ID card and centralized database won't lose you any of your privacy. All it will do is take away the illusion of privacy. You think the government can't track you now? Show ID at the airport, use a bank card or CC when you land to get some cash, activate your cellphone while you're in the taxi, and they can track you if they want to. They can do all this stuff already.

All an ID card will do is make it slightly easier for them to do it, and much harder for terrorists to use forged documentation to travel, make it easier to prove you are who you say you are.

Many European countries have national ID cards, but The Man isn't keeping them down. UK has cameras all over the place, but they're still not being taught Newspeak. The problem is not in the cards, it's in how they're used. If you don't trust your government, elect a new one. If that's not feasible, move to another country. Yeah Ellison's a nutjob, but so what? Leave the country and don't go back.

--Dan

Re:HOWTO fight terrorist the right way, using the

[blibbleblobble]

We all agree that terrorism is bad and that it should be fought...

No. We don't. Sorry to expose myself to US mindsets here, but (Terrorist == Soldier) and the only difference is whether the reporting media are on the same side as the combattant, or on the opposing side.

So please, before you condemn the people you consider to be terrorists, bear in mind that most of the world considers Bush/Blair/Sharon to be murderers and terrorists, and that your needling of Israel to kill yet more civillians sickens us.