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."

Comments

National ID cards

[cdf12345]

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.

Re:I'm willing to give up my privacy

[blibbleblobble]

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.

Re:I'm willing to give up my privacy

[Deagol]

I had to respond, since this hit us here locally during the Games last month.

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 &lt 100 -- even below 50%) but with my freedoms, I'd take the latter in a heartbeat.

Is privacy a right?

[Arandir]

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.