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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.
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Don't all American newborns or immigrants, for instance, get entered into somekind of a citizen register? How else would the government keep track of the population and demographics?
The owls are not what they seem
Of course, if it weren't for Larry Ellison and his so-called "scary" ideas, they wouldn't have a [cushy, high-paying] job.
The goatse guy for president. Win one for the gaper!
I heard about this on NPR yesterday. It definitely sounds scary and I don't support it, but unless Americans have completely forgotten some of their libertrian roots, I could see it happening. All Dubya has gotta do is get up and say, "Well with a connected database, the INS would have known that some of the 9-11 hijackers had warrants out." Nuff said.
The longer this idea takes to get into the mainstream though, the better. For once maybe our tendency to forget something (Sept. 11) when CNN stops covering it will play to our collective advantage.
sig
...everything begins to look like data.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
I asked if there would be any controls on access to the database. For example, would Ellison want people to be kept off a plane because they were late on their alimony payments?
''Oh, no, I don't think we would keep anyone off on alimony payments,'' Ellison said. ''But if the system designed to catch terrorists also catches mere bank robbers and deadbeat dads, that's O.K. I think that's a good thing. I don't think it's a bad thing.''
never mind anyone else who is politically incorrect.
Talk about trust worthy computing.
Who do you trust?
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Ah yes, but they are *ASKING* you to voluntarily provide the information. They have no way to verify it, or even verify your identity. The stuff this article is talking about is airlines (etc) findout our information from your credit card company, etc, without your permission (and maybe even without your knowledge)..
Voluntarily providing information, VS having one entitity share information about you with another.
Basically, give fake/false information, and maybe they wont bother asking anymore (and they wont have anything to share)..
Busness in the 21st century is interesting. They have switched the cost of enforing copyrights to the goverment e.g. DCMA. Now the govermant is going to create the bigest and best marking database that will probably fail. But of couse once it is created it will be to valuable to destroy. The goverment will sell the data to get back their sunk costs and repay those that got them into office.
Exporting costs to goverment were the copyright holder or marketer can do what he does best and the goverment can do what they do best. Why recreate a police force, census, or intelligence agency when the goverment already has them. Isn't that what globalization about, doing what you do best and buying services of what you are not as good at.
It is a new mellennium.
While it's not perfect, I think one reason the founding fathers insured we had a Constitution was to protect us from ideas like those forthcoming from Mr. Ellison. They made it trump all, less than easy to change, and instituted a federal court system and Supreme Court that can't be easily replaced to allow the whims of a single person or even masses overnight.
Mr. Ellison is listened to because he as a lot of money, mainly. IMHO, however, the man wears blinders, isn't concerned about minor things like the Constitution, and doesn't seem to bother to take into consideration existing problems with that's out there when wanting to roll over everything. I have no opinion as to whether it's his nature or his money that gives him this nature, or if he's spent too much time in his oriental surroundings, I'll leave that for others to decide.
But some things are troubling. He points out the huge databases that already exist. What he fails to also acknowledge are the problems. Forget about the 'mall experience'; but when, for example, credit data is incorrect in a database, it can take years to straighten out. It took Congress to act to even get the companies maintaining them to act even in a less than timely manner. Identity theft is greatly on the rise; again becuase of the existing databases and through theft of information, people can 'take over' another person's identity. It takes, IIRC, years for people to get that straightened out. That generally doesn't, though it can and HAS, get people tossed in jail. Mr. Ellison wants a single federal database of everyone with it's likely error rate to equal or exceed the individual databases that already exist? Now instead of a credit problem, people could be subject to being tossed in jail as suspected terrorists.
Actually, as far as protection of data or at least access, I'd give the FBI higher marks historically than the private sector. My only experience dates back many years at the advent of the NCIC, but the FBI had some very strict (and followed up on) procedures on connecting to it, who had access, logging data, etc). At that point, it was mainly a repository for things like stolen boats, airplanes, etc. Criminal history databases didn't exists, and I don't think warrants and other data was kept on there, certainly not centrally from states. But they had good controls becuase it WAS limited in who accessed it and what went on it. Even then, there were errors and problems with some who'd access the data. Mr. Ellison's gandiose plans would obviously make control of both access, updating information, and accuracy a nightmare. Identify theft wouldn't necessarily be any harder, as there'd still be corrupt people to sell false ID's just like the terrorists who purchased false drivers licenese data; it might only cost them more. Had it existed prior to 9/11, it wouldn't have prevented anything; since most were here legally, it seems. Would they have been prevented to board a flight becuase they had a speeding ticket in some other state? Probably not. Though if so, then a LOT of people are going to be missing flights.
Also, as one amasses huge amounts of data, the accuracy goes down and there's nobody to really analyze it. It all becomes automated. If that leads to profiling the entire country, it becomes another nightmare. And based on what? and by whom? The courts have shot down some profiling methodolgy, and undoubtedly would others. Even with existing data we had, the INS seems a mess, unable to control data and process what it already has. So adding millions and millions more pieces of data is going to improve that?
I think the BIG downfall and the area that needs to be upgraded are the areas that the gov't thought they were going to do with techonology or were afraid to do for public opinion. AS others thought the USA still had 'war fright' and wouldn't potentially react as it did to 9/11 or for that matter the Gulf War, they found out wrong. But the other area that was shackled upwards of 30+? years ago was the intelligence community, CIA for example. They got bad press, people compained we actually had 'spies', technology was improving, and even gov't types revolted aginst them. Were there problems? Sure. Mr. Hoover destroyed the perceived integrity of the FBI for years. But the gov't also pretty much wiped out foreign intelligence too. We ended up with satellites and pictures of everyplace on earth, probably damn good pics, but we didn't have agents to hear what those were saying or plotting that we had pictures of from miles up in space. If we dont' go back to the practice of infiltrating foreign groups that are a threat to us, we'll probably only learn of acts after they occur instead of preventing some of them. I think we're probably doing a lot more than previously, but maybe that's where we should be putting our resources and support. I don't blame the CIA for 9/11, but I have a hunch, strictly an opinion, some of those in gov't who highly criticized those agencies for 9/11 are the same ones who voted to tightly restrict them many years ago.
Before we listen to someone like Mr. Ellison and destroy much of what the founding father's wrote, let's take the things that we already have and 'fix' the problems that exist, and go back to obtining accurate intelligence, having the right people to analyze it, and keeping those that are going to be the terrorists and keep them out before they even have a chance to end up in any 'national database' that Mr. Ellison so highly values. (along with the revenue. The article did mention he'd give the gov't the software. It also said they'd pay for upgrades and maintenance in the future. I guess that'd give Mr. Ellison even more money and connections in case any data was ever wrong in HIS profile. Though that doesn't solve the years other people would have fixing problems with errors on them in his database as they couldn't call their lawyers at 3am or their local congreeman or senator or president to get an appointment 10 minutes later.)
...but if 9/11 has convinced him to trade his life for the freedom that makes it worth living, then he is nothing but a coward.
I pity the company he controls, for being under the thumb of someone like him. I can only hope they find a way to boot him out before he drags them down (or worse, succeeds in his mad scheme). If I have anything to say about it, he'll never see a dollar of mine; I'd sooner give it to Microsoft now.
Then why is most of the US Department of the Interior disconnected from the internet by court order? (Hint: It wasn't as secure as they thought it was.)
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.
Actually, the Fourth is clear and privacy isn't named in it. A person's records are what the word "papers" mean. And it takes more than just a whim to legally set up a pen register or get unlisted phone information from the phone company.
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.
What have you done for our nation's security? How many of the major threats have you personally dealt with? How many drunk drivers have you taken off of the roads? How many child abusers and wife beaters have you locked up? How many weapons have you taken away from high school students?
And how many times have you been shot on behalf of our society? I'm willing to bet that I'm ahead of you on all of these. And Ellison's wet dream scares the hell out of me.