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Do You Know Where Your Privacy Is?
blankmange writes "CNET is reporting coverage of the Computers Freedom and Privacy Conference, being held in San Francisco this week. 'The conference, normally a forum for digerati to pose a series of frightening "what if" scenarios, has morphed into an event where participants' worst surveillance nightmares may be poised to come true following the terrorist attacks.' Sounds like we may want to listen for any definitive solutions that come from this conference."
The people question at the FBI raid of the chicago 2600 meeting were threatened with the death penality under the patriot act...
another law do to mass hysteria and paranoia
Chicago2600.net more than a lifestyle, its a survival trait.
From the ACLU
A national ID would not prevent terrorism. An identity card is only as good as the information that establishes identity in the first place. Terrorists and criminals will continue to be able to obtain -- by legal and illegal means -- the documents needed to get a government ID, such as birth certificates and social security numbers. A national ID would create a false sense of security because it would enable individuals with an ID -- who may in fact be terrorists -- to avoid heightened security measures.
A national ID would depend on a massive bureaucracy that would limit our basic freedoms. A national ID system would depend on both the issuance of an ID card and the integration of huge amounts of personal information included in state and federal government databases. One employee mistake, an underlying database error or common fraud could take away an individual's ability to move freely from place to place or even make them unemployable until the government fixed their "file."
A national ID could require all Americans to carry an internal passport at all times, compromising our privacy, limiting our freedom, and exposing us to unfair discrimination based on national origin or religion. A national ID would foster new forms of discrimination and harassment. The ID could be used to stop, question, or challenge anyone perceived as looking or sounding "foreign" or individuals of certain religious affiliations.
By the way you can send a free fax to your congressmen opposing the national ID at the aclu's website at:
http://www.aclu.org/action/id107.html
I say we do everything possible to run their faxes outta toner.
Chicago2600.net more than a lifestyle, its a survival trait.
..that one of the new 'what if' topics to come up will be the US Government mulling over whether to use Microsofts Passport as a national ID system (for the USA at least) as detailed in the earlier thread.
That is quite alarming.. Microsoft are not renowned for having 'the best interest of the consumer at heart' - how long till you start getting bombarded with junk mail and trial CD's for MSN, or the latest version of Windows because of your National ID? Scary..
"Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"
"The homeland security budget is pork for the IT industry," said Andrew Schulman, chief researcher of the Privacy Foundation.
Thank God.
Throw some of that pork my way. I'm tired of the current job market.
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It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Yeah. It'll prevent terrorist attacks.
While your naïvete is touching, it worries me that you could think it to be true.
Look at a half-century of wiretaps. They were supposed to prevent terrorism too. They were never used against terrorists. In fact, they were only used against serious criminals around 2% of the time.
Wiretaps were used in the phoney "war on drugs", they were used to spy on opposition politicians, they were used to spy on civil rights campaigners.
Yes, these new powers will weasel their way in by convincing an ignorant public that (a) they stand a chance of working, (b) that they were even designed to stop terrorism, (c) that they won't be abused, and (d) that they'll be used to target terrorists.
Right. I've invented a new form of clue-stick, and it consists of a slashdot-connected webcam in the bedroom of everyone who thinks ubiquitous surveillance is a good idea. "It's the price of preventing terrorist attacks" you can tell the wife.
The problem is that we have identified our vulnerabilities (a huge one of which is illegal immigrants) but refuse to confront them out of fear of the PC crowd. Toss out everyone who is here illegally, and we wouldn't have need of this crackpot National ID card.
I know I'll probably be modded down for this, even though fundamentally I wholeheartedly disagree with a National ID card, but it has to be said by someone.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
So what is your point - I need to move into a cave and hunt for my dinner to get my privacy back? I'm talking about living in the real world, which is pretty much next to intolerable if you don't have a credit card or use your SSN as ID where people would like you to.
I'll stick to my original point - in real society you already have no privacy.
That being said, the problem with even the naming of the "Patriot Act" is that I consider myself a patriot to the United States, however I do NOT like the implications of this legislation. However, to speak out against it, the sheeple (those who don't know/care about the issues being raised) are feed the line that if you don't agree with this act, then you must be a terrorist.
Ok ... so if I'm forced to go along with it, at what point do we have to say NO MORE? By the time that we get some prominent voices logically explaining the situation to the masses, it will be too late. In Micro$oft we're forced to trust. We opted you in for your own good.
One problem is that if I attempt to start encrypting my email (to preserve my freedoms), two things would happen. One, I would have a really tough time convincing my Non-Technical friends to do the same, so we could carry on conversations. And two, I would be branded a terrorist, since I'm not following the herd.
This isn't the only thing to do, however it's a fairly easy concept to get across.
IF, and that is a big if, there was a large enough group together (in philosophy), we maybe able to stop this runaway train before it's too late.
Another problem with this whole area of legislation, is ... Who monitors the monitors? (to quote Enemy of the State).
Obviously, carnivore and it's brethern IS being used for survallance, but who is making sure that it's being used for good? Likewise, who would make sure that our MS Passports aren't hacked into? The CIA/NSA/FBI should be able to be trusted, but are they trustworthy? Microsoft ... well we all know where Microsoft stands in this matter.
I know that this is preaching to the choir ... just some points that I believe ...
Karma? Karma? I don't need no stinkin' karma.
I have doubts to the veracity of this. Frankly, it smacks of troll. But then, there's no pro-Microsoft pro-Intel pro-whatever the the latest 'it's evil!' fad is today stuff. ;)
At any rate, I strongly disagree with the notion that a national ID will stop terrorist attacks. The attackers already had false state and other IDs of various natures.
What I think a nation ID could do.. is make life a whole lot easier and more convenient for people. A national driver's license.. That would be nice, no more out of state bars/officers/people taking your checks gawking at your state DL, attempting to decipher whether or not it's real.
A passport. No more fumbling around for yet another document while travelling.
An easy way to prove identity when attempting to get hired. It beats carrying around unneccesary extranneous documents.
At any rate, would we be giving up our privacy with a national ID? I think not. We must, of course, realize the fact that it can't be mandatory. Right now, there are people over the age of (insert your state's legal driving age) who don't have driver's licenses. People without social security cards (and/or numbers).
If it wasn't mandatory, I'd go for it. It'd be quite convenient. And, frankly, I wouldn't be giving up any more privacy than I already am. Do you shop online? If you use a credit card, they're seeing where you shop. You can bet your arse that they look at that for direct advertising as well. Use a discount card at Wegman's/Food Lion/What have you? You can bet they're seeing what's most popular and adjusting sales accordingly.
Fill out information for an account with a public forum on the internet? Surf with cookies enabled?
The fact is, the current hype about privacy is FUD. Nothing but. We already give up so much of our supposed privacy, that it isn't funny.
..And I'd trust the government more with information about me than I would a corporation.
Ashcroft decided to clean house at some major airports, including SLC, before the Winter Games. Quite a few illegal immigrants were detained, arrested, and (of course) fired for having false info about their citizenship.
Fine, you say. They broke the law. They should be punished.
In theory, that's fine. However, I believe this was Ashcroft grand-standing, rather than for anyone's safety. It was selective. Did they clean out any illegal immigrants from the many downtown hotels? Hell no -- the hotel industry in SLC would shut down if they did that. (I'm sure this is the case in many cities.) Even the airport allegedly turned a blind eye (some allege they even helped with the paperwork) when the illegals were filling out the forms, so they could get cheap labor.
So Ashcroft ruined many lives here in SLC (those of the airport workers and the families they supported), because it looked good to the press. They didn't go after all the illegal immigrants because it would hurt big business during an especially profitable time.
If all laws were enforced 100% and without bias, then I'm all for 'em. However, as long as pricks like Ashcroft run the show, our laws should be left alone and not made even more broad in the name of "security".
I'm happily willing to live life knowing that I might be the victim of a random terrorist attack if it means that I can retain what's left of my remaining privacy and freedom. If I had to choose between a life of 100% certainty of safety in which I had to give up my right to own/carry a gun and have my purchases/travel/etc/opinions tracked or a life with a n% certainty of safety (where n < 100 -- even below 50%) but with my freedoms, I'd take the latter in a heartbeat.
Method of processing duck feet
On the issue of privacy:
Would it be possible to trade privacy for guaranteed freedoms? Such a thing might require a constitutional amendment, but hypothetically, suppose in exchange for your privacy you were given certain guarantees.
What limits would you place on the use of the information?
Of course, for many, privacy maybe a way to limit embarassment over certain things. Suppose EVERTHING were out-in-the-open. Would certain socially embarassing things become more acceptable? Would this give everyone a truer picture of human behavior?
Okay, the heretical question of the day: Is privacy a right?
I don't think it is. Every other legitimate right that I am aware of hinges upon the ownership of property, including the ownership of the self. Do I own the information that pertains to me? Do I own Spamcentral's database entry that lists my email address? Do I own Megamart's correlations into my shopping habits? I don't think so.
Privacy is one of those things, like reputation, that one has to protect through other mechanisms than legal rights. Rule one: if you don't want people to know your email address, don't send email. Rule two: if you don't want Safeway to know your shopping habits, don't use your Safeway card. Rule three: if you don't want the government to know your travel destinations, don't take an airplane. It's damn inconvenient, but the fact remains that once you place your personal information into the public's domain, it becomes public domain.
Privacy is what you make of it.
The government should have no right to search your luggage at airports, because that luggage is your property. But the only thing stopping them from tracking your movements is propriety and decency, two traits which have been lacking in every government since Hammurabi's.
p.s. I find it somewhat ironic that the same community that argues that information should be free is the same community that screams the loudest when their personal information gets traded on the open market.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Umm, when you refer to "You All", please don't include me!
I'm always been an advocate of preserving the Constitutional rights of U.S. citizens to keep and bear firearms!
What's sad is that the framers of the Constitution didn't have the ability to envision today's society with gigantic computer databases capable of data-mining. Nor did they forsee parabolic microphones that can eavesdrop on conversations from hundreds of feet away, infra-red cameras that let you see past walls and curtains, and many other things. If they lived in this world, I think you'd see a pronounced right to privacy in there too.
Anyway, the right for individual citizens to own and carry firearms was a key piece of the "freedom" puzzle back then, and still is today. The bottom line is, without this right, citizens will always be forced to bow down to government that still has ready access to these instruments controlling immediate "life or death".
The gun control advocates are looking at the "big picture" with tunnel vision. They see killing (and accidental death) as a bad thing which clearly gets lessened if you take away citizens access to firearms. I don't really have an argument with that. It's just a question of values. Do we strive for freedom and liberty, or do we strive for control and safety? It's pretty easy to design a safe world, at the expense of almost all individual rights. But sorry pal, that's not the world I want to live in!