Do Privacy Fears Allow Terrorism?

carbon3C writes "Privacy advocates are luddites, says Heather MacDonald, a lawyer at the Manhattan Institute. She says we should shut up and let the government do what it wants. Our government only wants to protect us, and would never misuse technology. How do we send a clear message that non-luddites (conservative and liberal) are concerned about privacy precisely because we do know so much about technology?" Leaving your front door wide open is a great idea, until someone you don't know walks through it.

Comments

Use technology to invade her privacy

[Vendekkai]

Do what those guys did to Poindexter - collect all available information about this woman, and post it on a web site.

Teach her to call us Luddites!

Re:Lack of liberties (e.g. Privacy) != Security

[Anonymous MadCoe]

I have never seen evidence that giving up privacy actually worked effectively against terrorism.

Giving up privacy provides IMHO a false sense of security. Even worse, I think that giving up privacy leaves the door open to a type of government that I'm even more scared of.

Leaving your front door open

[joelparker]

Leaving your front door wide open is a great idea, until someone you don't know walks through it

Actually I meet a lot of interesting people that way. They're called customers.

The problem isn't open data, it's that we believe the data can be abused and have terrible real-world consequences.

Here are real examples from the Top 10 Police Database Abuses

Cheers, Joel

Here's what you can do...

[hugesmile]

If you don't like your freedoms taken away, I urge you to look into the Free State Project.

I struggle with the pro-drug perception (I should say anti-drug-regulation views) of the Libertarian Party. But it's hard to argue with a platform that wants MORE freedom - and no other party is promising this. Unfortunately, I still feel obligated to cast my votes for the most freedom-oriented Republicans (or Democrats), until the Libertarian Party has a chance of winning, but how can you knock the party that advocates more FREEDOM?

I liked their Quiz to see where your beliefs lie.

Unfortunately, this post will probably be added to my FBI file. :(

Re:Privacy is Dead, there is only one thing to do

[MourningBlade]

Unfortunately, total exposure is not a successful option. At least, not yet.

You can find many instances of this in small towns, where everyone knows everything about everyone else. The problem is that it often disallows people to make mistakes.

One of the things that people complain so often about regarding the internet (and, to a lesser degree, regarding newspapers) is that once something is said, it's there forever and ever and ever. And you can search for it, and find it.

This wouldn't be such a problem except

• people change their minds

• decisions are made in context, hindsight-judgement is often made without.

If I used to be a libertarian, and I became a communist because I realized that my views were wrong, then that would be my decision. But later on, let's say that there comes a "blue scare" - the libbys are coming to steal your children and rape your horses! Let's get a list of these preverts, and exterminate them!

And, gosh...there you are in the newspaper oh-so-long-ago talking about the joys of libertarianism. Never mind that you're a good, decent commie now. You're gonna fry.

Now imagine that with all your information. Ever looked at your credit history and wonder who the hell was doing those transactions, as it sure wasn't you? Imagine that on a grand scale.

Also, what if you fucked up royally? These days bankruptcy is wiped off your record after a while. A long while, but it does get done. Imagine if that was never wiped. Remember that story about employers requesting credit histories? Well, now they wouldn't have to request them. They'd already have them. And it would be forever, and ever and ever.

This wouldn't be helped by the fact that everyone would have access to everyone else's record. There's an interesting rule in psychology, it's called externalism (I think it's called that): everything you do is motivated by external factors. Everything others do is motivated by internal factors. Want an example of this? Remember that time when you were at work, and your boss had this really bad look on his face? What's the first thing you think? "Uh oh. Someone did something. Hope it wasn't me."

Externalism is supported by experience, but...it has some dire consequences. People tend to think that your negative actions were intentional, and their own negative actions were unavoidable.

If that's not enough for you, there is a cheaper argument: there are people in this country who can't stand certain things about certain people. I'll take the simple one of being gay as an example. Some people hate or fear gays (I admit, I am terribly frightened of the fashion gap. I just know that some day I'm going to NEED to be able to identify an Armani jacket, and I'm not going to be able to do it, and that freaking queer is going to get the girl. Errr...yeah, that's it). Non-flaming gays are protected by the fact that they're a bit difficult to casually pick out unless you've got better gaydar than most breeders have.

What do you think would happen if those people who can't stand gays could easily find out who was gay?

Oh, sure. Many would discover that they were surrounded by them, and would think "gosh, there's so many. Maybe it IS natural." There'd be some tension for a while, and then things would blow over as people just learned to accept it.

On the other hand, there are those in whom this would instill a "bunker" mentality. Defense against the gays. Maybe...an active defense? Deny them jobs. Deny them social memberships. Deny them your vote. Deny them their life?

And not all towns have a bunch of gays. Some small towns will undoubtedly have only women in uncomfortable shoes, and only manly lumberjacks with heavy loafers and boots.

An insular population, in other words. Us against them can easily breed there, and this lack of any privacy would give them easy, local targets to vent their rage upon.

Remember, many people go around doing what they do without moral regret: because they don't think it's wrong.

Your lack of privacy bit only works if people think that what they're doing is wrong. That is not the case, most of the time.

Re:Scary, at least

[debrain]

I wish Fortunate Son was required reading as well ...

Unlikely, since I believe the USA has burned 70,000 copies of this, several publishers (five?) have started and stopped its printing, and the author, J.W. Hatfield a credible author and father, has committed suicide as a result. Very interesting text, though; I would be far less inclined to believe it reflected some truth if so much effort had not gone into preventing its dissemination.

Why governments and data handling don't mix

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

My identity wasn't used for illegal purposes, but I had a rather strange tax status for several months last year after someone at a tax office mistyped by NI number (similar to a US SSN).

After noticing that my pay cheque for January was smaller than usual for no apparent reason, and tracking this down to a change in my tax code, we did some more investigation and concluded that I had moved house to the far side of the country and started a new, full-time job there... and all without noticing! I must be smarter than I thought. :-)

The greatest part, though, was when I rang up the tax office to sort things out. Sensibly enough, they first wanted to confirm my identity, so they asked me for my name, current address and employer. I provided these details, and got back, "I'm sorry, those details don't match what's on my computer. I need to hear what it says here before I can help you. Are you sure those details are current?"

I recited every previous address and employer I'd ever had since working and paying tax, and none of them showed up. It took saying the right thing at the right time* to get them to listen to me at all, and then three further months of hassle to sort things out, luckily just in time for the end of the financial year. Still, even though everything is (I hope) OK now, I was out of pocket by hundreds of pounds for several months. To many people, that would have been crippling. And all it took was someone mistyping a digit on a computer in a government office.

But it's OK. I've got nothing to hide, so I should trust the government to collect lots of data on me, and take it as read that no problems will result, right?

*If you ever have the same problem in the UK, where you surprisingly start a non-existent second job and change to a new address at the same time, one of your jobs will get a tax code change to BR (basic rate only, no allowances). Tell your tax office this while explaining what's happened, and they may at least start to believe that their records of your address may be incorrect as well. You will probably still have to write to them and formally state that you are who you say you are, unless you're lucky enough that they can spot the problem fairly quickly and your "official" situation is obviously implausible, but at least you'll be able to get things sorted out.

Hard statistics

[cgenman]

(Repost from another board, discussing the National Security Advisor's terrorism threat forcast of "high" for the week with early morning fog of fear burning off by the evening into a patchy haze of mistrust)

So... we have a generalized threat warning that someone, somewhere may do something to hurt somebody? And this is supposed to inpact my life how?

Seriously, living in Boston I'm far more likely to be shot by a Hong Kong gang, disappeared by the Moffia, mugged by the homeless, run over by the crazy drivers, accidently blown up by a kid from MIT, get clubbed by falling ice, poisoned by the atrocious water supply, or get carbon monoxide poisioning from these 1890's era heaters in this aesbostos-laden apartment than I am to get killed by an Iranian for being an American. The total Us population in 2000 was two hundred eighty one million, four hundred twenty one thousand, nine hundred six people. If a terrorist attack an order of magnitude worse than the original estimates for the world-trade center massacre were to occur, there is still only two hundredths of a percent chance that I would be effected. One thousand deaths happen every single day due to smoking in the US. In my age group the death rate by congestive heart failure is 90.3 in 100,000. Motor vehicle accidents cause 29.3 deaths per 100,000. Suicides will cause 4,300 deaths this year (extrapolated) in the 18 to 24 year old age group alone, which is significantly higher than the amount of 18 to 24 year olds killed in terrorist attacks in 2001. Hypertensive heart disorder killed twenty-five thousand, three hundred twenty-seven people last year. two hundred fifty thousand people die every year from accidental medical mistreatment. Lung cancer killed one hundred fifty-four thousand people last year in the US. Blood poisioning caused thirty-thousand, six hundred seventy deaths last year. Eighty-nine die every year in the US by lightning strikes.

Even if one could acquire antibodies for Smallpox, Ricin, Botulism, VX, Sarin, Cyanide, Anthrax, and Radiological Emergencies, the series of injections is far more likely to kill you than the chances of a terrorist attack utilizing one of the above. Get some perspective, and get some sun. Actually, better avoid the sun: skin cancer killed 9,600 Americans last year.

Re:Lack of liberties (e.g. Privacy) != Security

[Sentry21]

Noam Chomsky has this to say on the issue, as relates to Iraq currently:

In the last few months, there has been a spectacular achievement of government-media propaganda, very visible in the polls. The international polls show that support for the war is higher in the United States than in other countries. That is, however, quite misleading, because if you look a little closer, you find that the United States is also different in another respect from the rest of the world. Since September 2002, the United States is the only country in the world where 60 per cent of the population believes that Iraq is an imminent threat - something that people do not believe even in Kuwait or Iran.

Furthermore, about 50 per cent of the population now believes that Iraq was responsible for the attack on the World Trade Center. This has happened since September 2002. In fact, after the September 11 attack, the figure was about 3 per cent. Government-media propaganda has managed to raise that to about 50 per cent. Now if people genuinely believe that Iraq has carried out major terrorist attacks against the United States and is planning to do so again, well, in that case people will support the war.

This has happened, as I said, after September 2002. September 2002 is when the government-media campaign began and also when the mid-term election campaign began. The Bush Administration would have been smashed in the election if social and economic issues had been in the forefront, but it managed to suppress those issues in favor of security issues - and people huddle under the umbrella of power.

This is exactly the way the country was run in the 1980s. Remember that these are almost the same people as in the Reagan and the senior Bush Administrations. Right through the 1980s they carried out domestic policies that were harmful to the population and which, as we know from extensive polls, the people opposed. But they managed to maintain control by frightening the people. So the Nicaraguan Army was two days' march from Texas and about to conquer the United States, and the airbase in Granada was one from which the Russians would bomb us. It was one thing after another, every year, every one of them ludicrous. The Reagan Administration actually declared a national Emergency in 1985 because of the threat to the security of the United States posed by the Government of Nicaragua.

From Indymedia.org.

--Dan

Same thing in Pittsburgh

[maomoondog]

Our awesome Privacy maven here at CMU, Prof. Latanya Sweeney, used a new publically available housing record database to find photos and estimates of the houses members of Pittsburgh's zoning commission (which created the database) lived in. You'd be amazed what these guys were buying on small civil servant salaries. Where does all that money come from?

Well what did they do about it? You guessed it. Passed new regulation that members of the zoning board can't be included in the database.

Re:Lack of liberties (e.g. Privacy) != Security

[frankie]

Nothing will prevent bored, spoiled sons of rich Saudis to kill innocent people. Reflection might help if you suffer from terrorist acts committed by people you actually harm.

Know your enemies in order to defeat them. A few corrections:

1. While Osama was certainly spoiled by most standards (he lived in a palace and received millions), he was actually treated quite badly by his half-siblings and stepmothers. As the only child of a low-ranking wife, he didn't get nearly as much good stuff as the other Bin Laden (now Binladin) kids.
2. And he certainly wasn't bored. He studied fundamentalist interpretations of the Koran, and later CIA insurgency (aka terrorism) techniques, quite hard.
3. In the 1980s we sent Osama to attack the Russian puppet government in Afghanistan. He was on our side. It was only when we moved a bunch of troops into Saudi that he got pissed at us. Infidels in the holy land, added to our Israel policy which he was already unhappy about, amount to serious harm to all "true" Muslims from his point of view.

Speculation: if Prime Minister Rabin had not been assassinated, and his peace plans had continued, the WTC would probably be standing today.

Rediculous!!!

[cosmosis]

This article, and Heather MacDonald is so idiotic I'm nearly speechless in responding. As someone who is a strong advocate of accelerating technology, stem-cell research, cloning, genetic engineering, nanotechnology, and space colonization, and also PRIVACY protections, I challenge anyone to back-up calling me a luddite. If I oppose the use of nuclear weapons does this also make me a luddite?

This has nothing to do with technology and luddism, this has to do with how this technology is used.

I have only this to say about invasions of privacy. If the government wants to eliminate all privacy, then I demand that it be BOTH WAYS. But when you have a government that is getting increasingly secretive while our lives become less so, then you have a gaping hole for abuse. As David Brin so eloquently shows, only societies that are transparent in every area have a chance of remaining democratic and free. What Heather is suggesting is pure Orwellian Tyranny - nothing more.

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