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Bringing Echelon In From the Cold
An anonymous reader writes: "UPI columnist James C. Bennett says that governments are going to spy no matter what. So he suggests that it would be better to admit that Echelon exists, and formulate some reasonable guidelines on such spying, than to pretend that it doesn't and let governments go about their business without any scrutiny. Interesting suggestion. But who will watch those watchers? And who will watch them? "
There has always been a "Big Brother" in every medium (tcp/ip, radio frequencies, etc..). There has always been a way for someone to listen on to communications that was not destined to them.
Independent of what the latest craze is and what name it's given, it's a sniffer and it will sniff stuff. All people gotta do is make sure that what it DOES sniff is garbage to everyone except for the final recipient (PGP for email anyone ? The same pub+private key encryption can apply to just about anything digital).
The philosophy of openness is nice, but somehow I don't think the "Intelligence Community" will buy it, without something fairly spectacular in return. . . . .
It would seem to me that the Echelon system has worked well at its intended purpose since its inception, that is, collecting and sorting through reams upon reams of data. Since little is known about its actual operation, this statement may or may not be accurate. Hence, the "it would seem to me" part.
I digress; what I think really needs the watching and oversight is not what information is collected, but how that information is used by people with power. The scariest part about the whole post-September 11th security whackabout is how the US government has arrested and held hundreds without charge, essentially incommunicado (and I'm not talking about the Taliban and Al-Qaeda people in Cuba).
To me, the fact that my conversations may or may not be monitored is not particularly scary - after all, Echelon seems to have been around longer than me, and though I can't be certain, I'd say I and millions of others in the Western world have benefitted more from it than we have been harmed.
But being held without charge indefinitely by the government of a country that can't stop talking about how democratic it is? This sort of violation of basic human rights scares the crap out of me; the invasion of my privacy wrought by Echelon is peanuts in comparison.
What on earth has this to do with Echelon? It is a problem that comes with any situation where someone needs to have someone watching over someone else, i.e most governmental activity.
Rather, the problem is of course that admitting the existence of Echelon is the same as legitimizing it, which for obvious reasons isn't the best idea in the world. It would probably be helpful for those European guys trying to figure out what the hell is going on though...
"If you think education is expensive, try ignorance" - Derek Bok
Out of curiosity, why does it matter if "they" spy on you? Who's really going to care if you buy a copy of the South Park movie from Amazon? Or if you get some caffeinated soap from Think Geek? Or any of that. There's so much communication traffic in the world that for someone to pay a particular interest to you you'd have to be subscribing to the Child Porn for Mad Bombers Who Want to Poison Drinking Water with Alfalfa mailing list. Or some such nonsense. It's crazy to assume that anyone cares about what you write to someone in an email. Hell, you could send emails saying the president's a bastard and someone should off him. If you're starting to research into buying a Cesna and getting a pilot's license and begin looking for some C4 or the such then they should be looking into you. Otherwise who's going to care? The FBI/CIA/Uber secret agency you never heard of isn't gonna waste time looking at you. Time is money, after all. The US works because when things get too big and worrisome then people find out about it and things percolate through the news. If you worry about privacy then why not worry about the checker at your grocery store who sees you buy a certain deodorant or maybe some fungal cream. He or she now knows what you smell like and that you've got nasty feet. That's an invasion of privacy in essence and possibly more embarrasing than having some FBI guy who never met you and likely never will knowing that you subscribe to some porno sites (not that an agent would likely even see such a thing unless you had a lot of red flags against you to begin with in which case, once again, I personally feel secure knowing that they are looking into you). That's just my thoughts on it though
The first rule of spying is that you get away with everything you possibly can, and the second rule of spying is that you get away with everything you possibly can. Admitting that you're spying is one thing, as everyone has spies, but saying how you're doing it, or even acknowledging that you're using certain methods, is a Bad Idea from the government's standpoint. They won't admit to unlawfully tapping people's phone lines, why the heck would they want to admit that they help run a global communications monitoring system?
Besides, the "leaky information" approach is much more effective at keeping people guessing. Any high tech security agency would use high tech methods (like packet sniffing) to increase it's knowledge base. The fact that Echelon exists should not be surprising or amazing. However, by not telling the masses about it, the population who know and care about the technology is left only to speculate, and the rumor mill probably works in the favor of the government on this issue. It's like guerrilla marketing.
How sure are you that you won't be stigamtized for what you say in private? And not just now, or tomorrow, or next week, but EVER? I regret your loss o 9/11. I was there, and also was affected. But I'd rather it happen again, 100 times, than live in a society where law enforcement feels that it has the power and the right to routinely listen in on private conversation. The violation of someones privacy should be an important act, overseen by the checks and balances of our judicial system, not something casual.
The victims of rogue G-Men? Who knows? Anyone who's going to be actively victimized by the FBI will sound exactly like all the kooks with aluminum hats. But the potential for abuse is immense. And I'm not interested in putting powers like that in the hand of law enforcemnt without oversight. Heck, I'm not comfortable with the lack of oversight we have NOW, much less with granting even broader powers.
I'm a libertarian, and I strongly value the important of our freedom of speech rights. That, however, does not mean we should have fifteen layers of Oversight.
Anyone here watch La Femme Nikita? Well, gee, lets see, there was Section, which was the anti-terrorist organization. Then there was Oversight, which was supposed to watch over Section and make sure everything was going alright. Then there was Center, which was supposed to make sure that everything was going ok in Oversight and Section. Then there was The Agency, which was supposed to make sure everything was going fine in Center, Oversight, and Section.
Do you see my point? We should not have a zillion layers over oversight -- watchers upon watchers upon watchers upon watchers, etc. Bad idea. That just means higher taxes, more beurocracy, less efficiency, and less accountability.
What you need is checks and balances, like the three government branches set up, as well as electability, and amendments.
In our government, the legislative, executive, and judicial branches all put checks and balances on each-other. Meanwhile, we the people, elect the legislative and executive branches, and in some cases, parts of the judicial branches (i.e., local judges).
Meanwhile, there is this little thing called The Constitution and The Amendments, which gaurentee that no branch goes way overboard; thus, protecting (sort of) our rights. Its not perfect, but its decent.
The same thing should be set up for government spying and information gathering.
The problem with our system isn't the system itself, but the implementation of the system, where there are layers upon layers of beurocratic bullshit, and where varioius government officials are bought off and paid for by organizations like the RIAA, MPAA, BSA, etc.
So what's needed is two things: (1) Eliminate the beurocratic bullshit; (2) Get serious on political contributions, bribes, blackmail, etc.
Only these two things, and our system would be much better? Well, for the most part, yes. It wouldn't deal with Christian Conservative idiots getting elected who think that the worst crime on earth is homosexuality and prostitution, and who think that the purple teletubby is gay, and who also believe that we should all be brainwashed in school to be Christians. But it would deal with alot of problems.
Of course, accomplishing those two things -- eliminating hte beurocratic bullshit and dealing with politicians being owned -- is a difficult goal. To eliminate beurocratic BS, you have to destroy useless organizations and eliminate useless positions -- something w/c is not favored by some of those in power b/c they'd be put out of a job. To stop politicians from being owned, you'd have to eliminate political campaign contributions -- something w/c politicians won't like as it won't help them get elected, and will actually allow people other than Democrats and Republican's to win.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
Ok, lets say you regulate Echelon after it will be disclosed. So what exactly prevents them from setting up another system that won't be regulated? Seems to me like a vain task :)
If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
While a law doesn't offer you any iron guarantee that someone in a govt. position won't use his position to hurt you for any petty reason, it does provide sanctions. For example, a police officer can use his job to find out just about anything he wants to know about just about anyone--easily, and without suspicion. He could use that information to blackmail or harass someone, and get himself a little cash. Or he could use that computer system to get phone numbers of pretty girls in cars by their license plate numbers (I think Slashdot did a story on this before).
While a privacy law doesn't directly prevent the officer from doing any of these things, most people won't take the risk if they think they could get into serious trouble for it. The citizen's privacy was protected. That "secret" information might still be known by some people, but they aren't going to act to abuse it.
Imagine some of your friends admitting to having a secret alliance and talk about certain things without you, how would you feel?
Maybe it's like finding out your girlfriend has been hanging out with your friends and not telling you about it.
I think the problem is that we humans have caveman residue (for lack of a better term), a kind of primal competitive mindset.
Thinking that we are separate nations rather than a single species. Maybe the time is ripe for an international revolution of humanity, I can smell it in the works, we just have to evolve, think and wake up. not neccesarily in that order.
Imagine all the people, living in harmony. I don't think it's that silly if you think about it.