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Many Tools of Big Brother Are Up and Running
wildfrontiersman writes "NY Times article, Many Tools of Big Brother Are Up and Running, quote: 'Because of the inroads the Internet and other digital network technologies have made into everyday life over the last decade, it is increasingly possible to amass Big Brother-like surveillance powers through Little Brother means. The basic components include everyday digital technologies like e-mail, online shopping and travel booking, A.T.M. systems, cellphone networks, electronic toll-collection systems and credit-card payment terminals.' This is too scary. I am now ready for a little less convenience and a little more privacy. How about you?"
"It's not like I'm doing anything illegal" says the name of the man with the uid of a virus. Maybe in France you aren't, but here in America we have rules. So please, take off your shoes before you enter the house.
if they can link my AC postings to my ID then I am screwed
What a dim outlook on life you have. Perhaps you need to spend some time in the Ministry of Love...
There's no wrong way, to eat a Rhesus...
> This is too scary. I am now ready for a little
> less convenience and a little more privacy. How
> about you?"
Anomolous behavior will flag you as a "person of interest". Find out what the typical consumer of your age, income and education does and do it.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Who doesn't have any subscriptions to anywhere except for my driver's license, bank cards (one credit, one debit) and Social insurance number?
People who become peons of Big Brother do so because they want big brother to nurture their lazieness... It's almost like selling your soul to the devil in exchange of comfort.
I could travel to an arab country and back (from Canada - with a canadian passport), and nobody would know.
Wake up people - it's not that hard.
So George Orwell was off by 20 years.
Hey Democrats. Looking for an issue? How about dropping the "Tax cuts for the Rich" and the "It's the Economy Stupid" Garbage and adopt a platform based on the Protection of civil liberities? With all of this "Homeland Security" running out the wazoo and back, and our freedoms going out the door one by one, maybe you would get people listening to what you have to say if you start informing people that their freedom is at risk.
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
A few hundred web sites devoted to tracking the mundane habits of the guy who wants to do the same to you seems rather appropriate.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-Benjamin Franklin
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
Of coure they'd know. First, you need a passport. To get that, you need to present a birth certificate or other legal proof of identity. Then, you plaster a nice mug shot of yourself on the passport.
If you fly, you'll need to present your passport multiple times before you board the aircraft. And, the airliner will feed all that lovely personal info into databases shared with scads of agencies.
Don't forget passport control at your place of departure and at your destination. Oh, odds are you'll need a visa to get into that Arab country. A passport alone won't cut it. More database entries.
Now, once you beyond passport control and out of the airport at your destination, smile at the local police officers, 'cause you are almost certainly already in there records. And, if you appear sufficently interesting, the local intelligence service knows you're there, too.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
I wonder how many remember Poindexter and Iran/Contra? Iran/Contra was the last time the government broke the law in a "the ends justify the means" sense where they not only sold arms to Iran, which supported terrorism at the time, but used the money to support the Contras, a South American terrorist group, which they also helped sell cocaine in the US for even more terrorist money. All parts of the deal were illegal, the congress had told Reagan not to sell weapons to Iran, and not to give weapons or money to the terrorists; importing cocaine was illegal, though I think that took everyone by surprise.
I think there are few that would justify Poindexter's pro-terrorist ends in this day when we are at the unfortunate end of the terrorist gun. But, knowing that he was part of such a conspiracy tells you that he has a contempt for the law and so can expected not to follow any meagre protections that may remain in it.
They haven't read the book most likely. Took me a second but I got it.
For the record, it's talking about the "Ministry of Love", which was actually in charge of distributing hate, in the book 1984.
Heck, a lot of people probably don't even know that the reference "big brother" is from there as well
More info
>
> I feel the same way about Big Brother. I don't consider them to be a threat about what they might intentionally find out about me or my friends/family. I fear what they might "think" they found in a fit of total incompetence.
Amen to that. I heard the swordsman comment phrased a little less elegantly:
"Evil has to sleep at night. Stupidity is 24/7."
At least Big Brother as depicted in Orwell's 1984 was competent - it was staffed by dedicated bellyfeeling Party members who were capable of doing a pretty good job of hunting down and exterminating those who presented a threat to the Party, while leaving the proles alone.
A Big Brother staffed by the cluel^H^H^H^H^H fucknoz^H^H^H^H^H^H^H twit^H^H^H^H individuals presently working at INS, or even your local DMV, scares me far more than the one in 1984.
But compared to either of those alternatives, I'll take a Big Brother staffed by NSA and CIA any day. Heck, I'll even give the FBI a shot at joining in and redeem itself.
Short of spending trillions to achieve the 1984 total security state, the way you achieve the optimum balance between freedom and security is that you have your police force be just a little bit stupid, and just a little bit slow.
We got hit on 9/11 because we went for very slow and very stupid. Bureaucratic stonewalling (no information sharing between FBI, CIA, and NSA) was part of it, as were politically-motivated fuckups like diverting FBI resources away from the Islamokazi whackjob terrorist threat to investigate the domestic militia whackjob terrorist threat. As for stupidity, it doesn't get much dumber than giving visa confirmations to the 9/11 hijackers six months after all hell broke loose - only the INS could pull something like that. And only in the INS could Ashcroft himself not fire those responsible.
IMNSHO, the proposed Big Brother composed of our intelligence agencies (NSA, CIA, post-9/11 FBI design goal) has the potential to achieve the right degree of stupidity and slowness for the job -- and I don't mean that as an insult. Any stupider and slower (pre-9/11 FBI, current INS), and we'd have another 9/11. Any smarter and faster (Stasi, KGB, Gestapo), and it'd be 1984.
The issue is not whether we should be afraid they may find something, it is that they will.
For years, the NRA has been fighting gun registration. Guess what, they just lost and it did not even require a vote. If I can record every electronic transaction, then the legal purchase you just made at Walmart was recorded and we know who bought the gun, where you live, etc... Now before you hit reply with "maybe we should know.." maybe we should. But, it should be explained to people that way, no usurped.
Working in the travel business, specifically hotel systems, we try to have a "no spook" policy. We do not tie anything about your stay together. We don't send a "thank you for staying" note to you and your spouse just because two stayed in the room. We also don't comment on things you did there. (Porn channel, liter of scotch, etc.). This makes people uncomfortable, because they learn they are being tracked to an incredible detail. (when you entered and left your room, what you ate, drank and purchased in the hotel shop)
The Information Awareness Office(IAO) is going the opposite route. They will be tying all this type of information together with your financial, banking, medical and police records. Consider what Bill Clinton or Newt Gingrich would have been willing to do, to avoid having their "indescretions" revealed? Simply tying Newt's calendar to the hotel registrations in the area to the credit card paying for it...
The problem with this information is we cannot trust people not to abuse it. The IAO is currently being run by John Poindexter a person convicted of five felony counts of lying to Congress, destroying official documents and obstructing the congressional inquiry. He thought he knew the best course of action for the country. Now given the information that would influence where we might go, that beats dollars any day.
So if you don't do anything wrong why do you care? Because people in power will do something wrong and this makes Hoover's files first grade stuff.
Becayse the amount of things you can be screwed in court over for is increasing. And as they increase, it's getting easier and easier to become the victim of a lawsuit, incidental criminal action, etc.
Remember, when the wrong person gets your number, bad things may happen. I've been a tightly law-abiding citizen my whole life. I've also had unavoidable/semi-unavoidable run-ins with the law on a few occasions.
a) Problem with ex-girlfriend. A "good samaritan" saw "a dispute", called it in, and I landed in court. Nobody believes when a woman is the one beats you down, even if you're the one with a black-eye and split lip.
Now, I'm sure there are other things they can dredge up to make me appear guilty. Police, at least around here, have also been known to be somewhat liberal with the "truth", especially when there's no evidence against any claims they make.
Luckily, all my various incidents worked out, and I have a good job. One should realize however, how easily it is to be screwed over by those in power, and how a thourough lambasting can make one fear for fear for ones security, employability etc. Nobody wants a rap sheet, especially one that's not deserved (semi-private or not).
Prove it. Show me *any* evidence that either:
a) The Driver ID# is based on SS#
b) This transform is reversible.
Quite frankly, I don't believe you.
When Nixon was President the FBI and CIA were actively engaged in suppressing expressions of political ideas that didn't conform to the Republican party line. Their activities included character assasination, IRS audits, getting people fired and ruining their careers, even blackmail and extortion.
Later, under Reagan, you could be investigated if you participated in organizations (don't try to be smart here - this included Catholic Church activities) trying to stop the wars in Nicaragua or El Salvadore, and these investigations involved agents coming to your workplace and making you look like a criminal in front of your employer.
Now the current administration is hiring people convicted of previous political crimes to run various agencies, including the Total Information Awareness initiative, which involves collecting ALL data about you, including now intercepting e-mail and phone conversations! This agency is run by a man convicted of using his job to engage in political activities any engaging in a cover-up so that Congress wouldn't find out. THIS is who is running this operation, and this should tell you all you need to know about the Administration's intentions!
This will be a political spying operation.
At risk of bringing back memories of Jon Katz and "The Hellmouth"... A lot of the postings I'm seeing is that we geeks object more to the fact that information about us can be twisted to the benefit of those in power than to the fact that it's available in the first place. I also gather that this concern is totally lost on the "average" American.
Could it be that the sorts of experiences we had as teenagers fosters these particular kinds of fears? One of the things that hurt me the most in high school was the way anything I said got twisted around as something to make fun of me for until the only way to escape was to never say anything. I've also got an enormous distrust of those in power and a persecution complex from hell, and all this is suddenly sounding very familiar now that I sit and think about it.
Of course it's not a scientific argument by any means, but I have to wonder if there's something to debate here...
--Fesh
Kill -9 'em all, let root@localhost sort 'em out.
You know, something like 911 is exactly what the price of freedom is. If you want to live in the land of the free, you have to accept that sometimes these things happen; you'll just have to make sure that you don't piss off the rest of the world.
/with your active consent!/! It's real scary to me how Bush got his Reichtag and is using it in nearly exactly the same bloody way as Hitler did. Don't you learn from history?
And don't you think it's odd that the only thing which could have prevented 911 (installing locked, iron doors to the cockpit) hasn't happened yet? And at the same time, your privacy has been taken away,
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
But let me clarify: I don't want a police state - I just want to give the guard dog a few more links of chain. As the house has been broken into, this is perfectly reasonable. That the kids will have a bit less yard to play in is unavoidable. That they will in some short order have absolutely no yard whatsoever to play in is an unreasonable assumption.
Well, this is an interesting analogy. I had been thinking in terms of popping a hole in a balloon or making a crack in a dam.
Where did the robbers come in, the front door? Did the dog's chain already reach the door? Maybe instead of a longer chain, we should get a dog that won't be asleep when the robbers come the way this one was!
And this isn't an ordinary dog. This is a dog that can put you in jail and take your house away from you. The dog has already been busy, lengthening its own chain one link at a time, granting itself powers that previous dogs have never had but that subsequent dogs will always enjoy, using your own fear of the robbers coming back as an excuse. Its chain is now longer than it will even let on. The dog can now hold you and not even give you a bail hearing if it considers you dangerous. It can conduct surveillance of your private life. Once the dog acquires the ability to unilaterally lengthen its chain, along with the ability to hide its chain length from you, the entire concept of a chain becomes meaningless. Maybe the dog can reach the part of your yard where your kids are playing. Maybe not. Are you comfortable not knowing? Maybe it will stop the robbers next time. Who knows? What if it turns on someone you like someday? What if it turns on you?
Such "domino theory" logic has reared its ugly head before in American history. It would seem prudent to me to circle the wagons around the truly important rights.
Yeah, but back then the abstract concept of a "domino theory" was incorporated into a larger political theory that made no sense. Nobody ever explained how or why communism should spread from Vietnam to Laos. (Nor was it ever explained why we should even care.) The abstract concept of evolution has also been dragged into confused political thought, more than once in fact, but this says nothing about the validity of biological evolution as a theory. And we don't even have to talk about dominoes. Ever hear of the expression "give them an inch and they'll take a mile"? That sums it up!
When Jefferson said "the price of freedom is eternal vigilance", this is what he was talking about! We have to constantly be on guard against the chipping away of civil liberties by those in government who falsely promise security and safety in return. Which rights are "truly important" to you? The ones you aren't using personally, right this minute? Please don't hand away any that I might need in the future when you're adding more links to your dog's chain.