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:National ID cards

[dotslash]

Add to that:

Identity cards may prove identity. What we need to know about is behaviour. Identity tells you nothing about behaviour.

If you take the idiotically simplistic notion that people are either "good" or "evil-doers", then you make behaviour some timeless abstract "inate" feature of identity. Based on that premise then, identity is useful because it allows you to separate evil-doers from do-gooders.

In the real world however, behaviour (good or evil) depends on environment, past history and future circumstances and opportunity. It also changes. A do-gooder today can become an evil-doer tomorrow (say, if an innocent relative of theirs is killed by a "smart bomb"). It is even possible (gasp) for an evil-doer to become a do-gooder (blatantly optimistic tree-hugging belief in "rehabilitation"?).

Case in point: Richard "Explosive Sneakers" Reid, had a past history (the only element an identity can point to) that was totally clean. His identity was never doubted, his past history contained no violence or terrorism. They knew who he was, they just didn't know what he was about to do. Unless you assume that behaviour such as belonging to a mosque or being a muslim, makes you a potential "evil-doer" (we generally refer to that kind of association as "prejudice", or sometimes "racism"), then identity is useless.

In the larger context therefore, establishing identity, at a time when mind-reading and behaviour-guessing is impossible, is simply a different way of enabling "prejudice". Prejudice, meaning literally, pre-judging someone on past behaviour.

Obviously, in some very limited cases, identity provides knowledge about highly relevant past criminal activity. For those cases, identity would be useful, although it can be "fooled" as described by the ACLU. Unfortunatelly though, this whole argument is trying to push identity using the narrow case, in order to pursue or enable the broader prejudicial, racist, discriminatory policy which is characteristic of the anti-Arab backlash after the attacks. Hating "them" is just as narrow minded as "them" hating "us".

WHAT PRIVACY???

[Ars-Fartsica]

How naive are we collectively? We haven't had privacy in a real sense since the 70s. You can be tracked by your driver's license. Your SSN, legally or not, is used at many banking sites as ID. Your credit history is widely available. Your viewing habits may be tracked if you have a PVR. Your employer can potentially listen to your phone calls. Your internet traffic is trivially observed....

And this was before 9/11! What privacy do you have to save? These people are just engaging in mental masturbation, there is no privacy, the point is moot.

Monitoring won't help...

[dainkenkind]

I just fail to see how any monitoring of people's personal transmissions, web site viewing habits, etc. can help law enforcement against terrorists. Since 9/11 it isn't only the governmental agencies who are being more cautious about goings on around them, but also the terrorists. I would assume that terror rings, knowing the FBI, CIA, and other national security agencies are monitoring for possible terrorist activities on the internet will be more careful in the future to use public internet terminals, web email accounts, and encryption. This is just another ill fated attempt at law enforcement trying to get more power while they can, using public fears to convince the general population that it is needed.

Re:I'm willing to give up my privacy

[Spamuel]

"Those who give up essential liberties for temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin

Re:I'm willing to give up my privacy

[dainkenkind]

Will you be willing to give up your car if it means preventing automobile accidents? Or the ability to recieve mail if it means it will prevent the possible spread of Anthrax through the postal system? Everyone agrees that the terror attacks were a truly terrible thing to have happen, but this isn't treating the root cause of terrorism, it is only giving the government another way to intrude into the general population's right to privacy, and people who really want to find a way around it will.

I know where my privacy is...

[MonkeyBot]

...there's a website that monitors it 24 hours a day with a webcam.

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.

Re:I'm willing to give up my privacy

[Mr_Matt]

Is the right of hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants to be here now considered an "essential liberty"?

Funny, there was a time when there was no illegal immigration - everybody was welcome. Personally, I find that the right to travel wherever my feet take me is indeed an essential liberty, and I'm sure the Framers thought likewise. But it would seem that those who prefer a false sense of security to God-given freedoms followed the patriots to America and set up shop.

People have used that phrase to justify alot, and frankly, I'm not buying it this time either.

Justify what? The granting of freedoms? Actually, the only time that phrase gets mentioned is when people attempt to take away liberties we already have. What are you talking about, exactly?

Toss out everyone who is here illegally, and we wouldn't have need of this crackpot National ID card.

Riiight...it's those damn furriners who are causing all the trouble. Except, of course, for Timothy McVeigh, Ted Kaczynski, the KKK, etc. PC has nothing to do with it, pal - the problem is we live in a free society, and that scares people who can't deal with the responsibilities of freedom. Illegal immigrants aren't the problem - criminals exploiting the vulnerabilities inherent in a free society are the problem. And you solve the problem by going after the criminals, not by locking down the free society, be it through immigration or national ID cards. Your 'solution' is not only too simple-minded, but further imposes restrictions of freedom in an increasingly oppressive society.

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.