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Citizens' Protection in Federal Databases Act Introduced
SewersOfRivendell writes "Quote from http://boingboing.net/: 'EFF, EPIC, CDT, ACLU and Free Congress have drafted a bill that's been introduced by Senator Wyden today, for a new law called "The Citizens' Protection in Federal Databases Act." This is a hell of a law. It finds that various species of spooks are making avid use of commercial and governmental databases, merging them and aggregating them, without transparency, accountability, or any real understanding of the danger to civil liberties involved in this practice. Accordingly, it requires any Fed agency using non-Fed databases to cut it out and make a full report to Congress on who they're buying database and database-services from, what they're doing to preserve privacy, why they're doing what they're doing, and whether they actually have a realistic chance of catching any bad guys. And it calls into account Feds who abuse their authority and limits the kind of doomsday hypotheticals that can be used to justify such abuse.' PDF draft of the bill here."
I am looking at Senator Ron Wyden's website right now and I don't see anything mentioning this possible bill. Hmmmm. Does anyone have a link to a .gov version of this so called bill?
Unique signatures are rare.
The "accountability" thing is going to be quite a trick. This is the same government, after all, whose own GAO (General Accounting Office) concluded that government agency accounting is so bad, there's no way they can determine how much the government is actually spending--and that if this degree of lax accounting was taking place in a private corporation, the owners would face legal action.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
Glad to know my ACLU membership dollars aren't going to waste.
It's obvious that the EFF, EPIC, CDT, ACLU, Free Congress and Senator Wyden are terrorist sympathizers
Trolling is a art,
This is a good start. Now, what can we do about all of the non-government entites that are doing the same thing?
Thomas Galvin
Spooks have to justify what they are doing? It will be a cold day in Hell before, unfortunately its still summertime
I'm only human!
...when I can sue for damages.
various species of spooks is this an x-files/mulder reference? wow. way to be obscure.
This will protect against one of the most effective, obvious and yet least legislated and obvious data harvesting technique of all: triangulation. Even though in general only certain data columns from detailed personal information databases is available, one can combine and merge the data from multiple such subsets of databases to reformulate the data in a coherent whole. For example:
There is a medical database, an edited down version of which is available, giving just gender, date of birth, a list of medical defects, and a list of medical injuries (with the remainder omitted for privacy). Then there is also the employment database of the company you work at, an edited version of which is available, giving name, gender, date of birth and phone number. If you were a manager at this company you could use the two databases together, using the "gender" and "date of birth" fields to merge the two. This data could then be used, say, leaked to insurance or marketing companies, or you could even use it yourself for other nefarious purposes.
Thus, it is possible to obtain a good deal of data even from just small portions if one uses a sufficiently large number of different databases. Someone did a study on this, but right now I can't find the link. I'll be greatful to anyone who replies to this comment with it. This Act can only be a good thing.
Bash script for FP whores
I think I'll start the official R.I.P. thread here. BushCo seems to hate the word privacy as much as the term Wind Power.
On the other hand, does this law apply to the private sector?
I already emailed my Rep. to support it. You should do the same.
...to me. I'm Canadian. Our government doesn't invade our privacy.
They get even more information now! Next thing we know, they'll be requiring "spooks" to not investigate anything at all. So, the US government keeps everything to itself, the "spooks" go out of business, extra red tape is added, and the government continues its slow crash. If they're so concerned, why is this stuff around in the first place? What's new?
Wow, that is quite a law! Since when do laws find what "various species of spooks are making avid use of"?
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Question is, how likely is it that it will pass or even come up for a vote?
Where I work, our job is to collect *public* information in government databases. We make it possible so people can research a property in just a minutes, rather than a few hours.
According to the ACLU, because I'm consolidating public information, I'm a national security threat. I should also be forced to submit to even more beaurocratic loopholes to get data that's already public, or be stopped from accessing to much public data to begin with. And I thought the ACLU was all about personal freedom and open governments
I'd like to see some corporate accountability added into those sorts of databases. I want to be able to walk into the front door at Citibank and say, give me a printout on all the information you have on me.
Then I want to be able to read the printout, walk back up to the desk, and say, Okay, now delete it. All of it.
No shit. I'm not terribly worried about the government doing it.
:P
I'm worried about the corporations that do it.
The government, at least, has some manner of accountability in place.
It has to start somewhere
It has to start sometime
What better place than here
What better time than now
Seriously though, it's really nice to finally see someone doing something.
The Attorney General, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of Homeland Security, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Director of Central Intelligence, and the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation shall each prepare...
All of the other agencies, particularly the Department of Commerce and it's Bureau of the Census, utilize numerous public databases in the process of their daily work. Why not include reports from them too?
even it fails: the bill encourages dicussion.
ACLU and EFF members will learn more.
The media will write about it, and learn more.
And Congresspeople will read it,
or have their staffers research it,
and maybe learn something.
I thank the EFF and ACLU for this.
And I donate to both of them.
Cheers, Joel
does anyone know where i might purchase tinfoil in sheets wide enough to wrap my house? it only has to be wide enough for the walls, you see the roof is covered with solar collecters so that i am not supporting the evil-power-conspiracy.
Well, as far as Sig's go, Freud was a doozy.
My mistake, this bill only applies to the federal government, not for average private citizens like me.
However, because Slashdotters never like to admit total defeat, I'd like to pose the question. Do you think the the ACLU is still opposed to private citizens like me consolidating so many public government databases about individual people and properties?
This probably won't be on any .gov sites yet as it hasn't been introduced... It's just a draft. If you check the PDF, the date of presentation is still blank.
I'd keep an eye on Thomas over the next week or so. Once it's been read on the floor, it'll wind up there.
"BSD: Free as in speech. Linux: Free as in beer. Windows 10: Free as in herpes." --Man On Pink Corner in #52607549.
Legislation and regulations are all fine and good, but they must be backed up by fair and thorough enforcement to truly work. Self-enforcement of Government regulations when it applies only to Government is far too tempting.
I always save my last mod point to mod up a good troll. You people are too serious.
I haven't been over there in awhile, is Slicer still alive?
...that the bills that protect citizens' rights always have names that make awkward, unpronouncable acroynms like "CPFDA," but the ones that restrict citizens' rights always seem to have catchy, pronouncable ones like "PATRIOT"?
This is from another article, reprinted from Newsweek
And finally, from Dr. Latanya Sweeney's CV itself:
Bash script for FP whores
Simply letting federal agencies run around and spy on people simply because they can doesn't seem to be the best idea for a country based on freedom and all of that jazz. Accountability is what keeps things from going bad to worse, look at dictatorships all over the planet, when people aren't held accountable for their actions they go to extremes. Americans or not, I don't fel very secure when someone can peer into any old asset of my life without asking my permission or without being checked in some fashion. I for one, feel more threatened by the current way the administration is going in regards to policy (foreign, fiscal, energy, environmental, copyright, and pretty everything else) than I do by any terrorist threat (then again, like 90% of americans I don't live in a threatened area, I likve in the 'burbs, well, the sort of burbs).
Slavery? Gone! Who's going to pick the cotton?
Male only voting? Now even women can vote!
Child labor? Now they go to school instead, those lazy bums!
Too bad the pentagon cancelled their "terrorist prediction" market, cause I bet the likelyhood for assassination of "EFF, EPIC, CDT, And ACLU" members just went up!
Service guarantees Citizenship! Questions Guarantee GITMO.... Amerika Uber Alles!
(Congress)
Random Congresscritter: And now Senator Wyden will be presenting a bill to.....o, excuse me, one moment please (whispers to man in black suit with mirror shades)....Well, it seems Senator Wyden is no longer with us. Moving on to the next piece of business.....
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
Although I'm all for the protection of privacy, I also think it's important to point out that the integration of various government databases has a lot of potential positive effects as well. There are a lot of agencies out there maintaining separate (and redundant) databases that could be combined or used together to make government services easier to obtain. There is also a lot of potential money saved, in terms of government functions currently done manually that could be automated.
/.ers will agree are useful and productive.
Certainly, it is prudent to keep prying eyes from using their power to intrude into our lives. But there is a balance to be struck as well, between protecting privacy and allowing government to make use of tools that I think many
If I was a bank (OK, maybe if I was a bank branch manager), and I had no way to verify that someone who walked in the door was the legitimate owner of a bank account, I wouldn't allow them to carry out any business with me. You would never find a bank that would do so, as they would be wide-open to any type of fraud you can think of.
If the government legislated that I (as a bank) couldn't keep any information about you - if I had to "delete it... all of it" as you say - if I couldn't retain your signature on file to verify your documents - if I couldn't perform a credit check on you to ensure you hadn't defrauded other banks - I would never be in the banking business. And neither would any other responsible person or organization.
Take your idea to its full conclusion, and we're all stuffing money under our mattresses and sleeping with a shotgun under the pillow.
Slashdot is entertaining like pro wrestling is entertaining
I am looking at the ACLU news page and it is right on top!
Certainly a better resource than "Boing Boing".
I read a story about this on the Fox News site earlier today. I think the headline was something like "Terrorist sympathizer Senator Wyden attempts to open the gates of hell."
Hmm.. I'm confused. How do we feel about cops writing an essay about what they did last weekend, instead of walking the beat?
"I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
and that if this degree of lax accounting was taking place in a private corporation, the owners would face legal action.
So in other words the US Govt is significantly (Enron) better (Worldcom) than (Anderson) most (ImClone) companies... and (Martha Stewart) people.
Thats a relif.
**AA: a bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes
There is only one thing that secures my freedoms, rights and privacy: My .45
.45.
.45 won't protect your "freedoms, rights, or privacy" if the government decides otherwise, even if the entire population were behind you. The second amendment has been gutted. Its present interpretation is nowhere near the spirit your forefathers intended.
I find it highly ironic that you would cling to such a false sense of security, particularly considering your opening statement:
America of 2003 is a far far cry from America of 1776.
The Second Amendment (The right to bear arms one that you reference) was added during a time when the most sophisticated weapons the US military sported were little more than muskets with bayonnettes. The second amendment was intented to ensure that the citizenry was guaranteed access to the exact same firepower and weapons as the military, thus ensuring that should the government ever need to be overthrown, the citizens would win. Same weapons * more people = ensured victory.
However, over the years, the government has slowly castrated the second amendment, insidiously changing its interpretation to guarantee ownership of little more than peashooters, while reserving the real hardware for the "good guys" (i.e., the military). Nowadays, citizens are not allowed to own anywhere near the same firepower as the military.
In an all-out battle of every citizen against the entire military, the military would wipe their collective asses with your piddly little
Combine this with the fact that for any kind of uprising to last more than a few hours, you'd require the support of a large percentage of the population, meaning you'd need to convince the masses that the government has crossed a line, and is finally corrupt enough to warrant violent resistance.
The people at Waco felt they were resisting tyranny. So did the people at Ruby Ridge. And the government crushed both of those "problems."
So in summary, I guess what I'm saying is, your
But hey, if it gives you a warm, fuzzy false sense of security, then who am I to rain on your parade.
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
"How do we feel about cops writing an essay about what they did last weekend, instead of walking the beat?"
Like in Cincinnati?
Following the advice of a previous article...
Let's pretend that everyone has an equal chance of being born on any given day of the year (366). There are 99999 possible ZIP codes, and not all of them are used. You are either M or F (trans-gender issues aside). 366*2*99999 = 73,199,268. Why is this news exactly? Who couldn't figure this out before now?
Webmaster Wanted - Entropic Reactions
> AFAIK malloc will not return you memory more than the total virtual memory
> (RAM+swap) in the system. So if you want more than 2GB allocations from
> malloc, make sure you have at least 2GB virtual mem, keeping aside some
> space for the kernel.
...in such context, I remember Al Capone, he was "protecting" people too, and he was doing it just the same way as the government does now.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
I think this is designed specifically to close a loophole where some agencies would simply outsource to contractors any data collection they themselves were forbidden from doing.
Frankly, for all the billions of dollars we are paying to keep our government running, I want THEM to be generating these databases anyway. That means I can hop on some website and suck it down "free" of charge. (I already paid for it.)
Say what you will about free enterprise. Where would this country be without the post office and the Census keeping track of who lives where? Most marketing firms exist by leaching hard data from Government sources and then adding in a few spot surveys.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
We had to shred everything and we were instructed not to share/cooperate the information we collected with the FBI, the CIA, or most importantly, the INS...
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
The red-breasted spook is known for its territorial displays. It is very protective of the land surrounding its home. Look for loud denouncements of spooks from neighbouring territories while it chews on your wallet.
The great blue spook is characterized by a tendency to hoard sticks and leaves, not for building its nest but for chasing away long-nose interrogators, who can smell rotten policy in spook nests. Great blue spooks communicate in coarse, barking noises before attacking but do not normally communicate with red-breasted spooks.
There are rumors of other spooks, such as the lesser term-limited spook which surrounds its nest with important papers as a hiding mechanism, but their existence has not been confirmed.
I can't believe the crap I'm reading on this one, although I guess I shouldn't really be surprised. It seems that most Slashdot posters are grumpy, bitter and jaded. This bill is a really good thing, and yet the majority of the responses are "Pfff, like that'll happen". With the likes of you folks, it'll never happen. It seems you'd rather sit around and simply be negative about everything! You're simply part of the problem that you like to grump about. Get off your ass and write a quick email to your representative. Then go find a puppy or something to play with for god's sake, and quit being so damned negative.
I moderate "-1, Fool"
...since according to the panelist (reptoids.com)on "Conspiracy Zone" claimed Reptilian (Reptoids) aliens call the shots at MiB, I want to make sure the law protects me from them as well. Gee, I thought they were known as the Zeta Riticulans; I sure hope the law protects against the Kappa and Lambda Riticulans as well... :)
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
The only reason the feds want access to all this data is to troll for reasons to make you a criminal. There is no other reason. They sure as hell are not doing it to make government more responsive. They are not concerned that most of this data is inaccurate. Just feds looking for people to arrest, imprison, fine or otherwise harm.
When you have people like Ron Wyden and Bob Barr agreeing on something you better pay attention.
As you can see I don't care about my karma.
There is only one thing that secures my freedoms, rights and privacy: My .45
Do you have a license for that .45?
Thanks,
The Government
but I know better than to click a link that has "boingboing" in it at work.
Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
Whoever moderated this as a troll is a complete asshat.
The report all hinges on this section...
Section 3 2A a list of all contracts, memoranda of understanding, or other agreements entered into by the department or agency, or any other national security, intelligence, or law enforcement element under the jurisdiction of the department or agency for the use of, access to, or analysis of databases that were obtained from or remain under the control of a non-Federal entity, or that contain information that was acquired initially by another department or agency of the Federal Government for the purposes other than national security, intelligence, or law enforcement.
"Uh, correct sir, we didn't provide a report on the use of this information because it was previously used for national security, sir. We are obligated to report if its for purposes other than national security, intelligence, or law enforcement. Yes sir, toilet paper purchase behavior is taken very seriously in the intelligence community, sir."
"Last one in is a rotten goblin!" - Kepp
I don't recall the second amendment saying that the people were to have the same firepower as a standing army. I do recall it saying that one has the right (not obligation) to have weapons that would aid in defending the country from tyranny, either internal or external. All this guaranteed was that if it came down to fighting, the government was never in the position to have left you with nothing but a pointy stick.
If a people cannot win on one front, they will fight on another. Iraq is demonstrating that right now. They could never win against the USA in a direct confrontation, so militant (or patriotic, if you will) Iraqis have begun a guerilla warfare campaign that has already resulted in more American deaths that during the actual war. Vietnam was similar.
A handgun is easily concealable and is a very effective weapon. Just because it wouldn't be of much use in a rifle fight doesn't mean that we should throw it away.
Or atleast the gov doesn't have much competency with what they use.
It's the corporations that have a $ behind what they need to do that worry me. It's amazing what those munchkins can accomplish if you wave a dollar in front of their nose.
"Last one in is a rotten goblin!" - Kepp
You are the guy on the freeway overpass taking a leak, and he is down there looking up....
I totally agree with you on this. The second ammendment was set to protect the people from tyranny. The one problem with the way it was written is the founders did not anticipate the replacement of State militias by a federal military machine. During the start of the civil war, most troops were state militias and not federal. With the advent of conscription that picture changed.
It also fundamentally changed the perception of citizenship as well. Initially, people thought of themselves as a State citizen first, and not as a united states citizen. I.e. a New Yorker, not an American. The balance of power was inalterably skewed in favor of centralization by that war. Most people do not appreciate the idea of checks and balances our system was created on. It was not merely checks within the federal level, but checks UPON the federal level by leaving the majority of power within the individual states.
Service guarantees Citizenship! Questions Guarantee GITMO.... Amerika Uber Alles!
Rather than delete the information, I'd like to see a process similar to but much more streamlined than the one we have for dealing with the credit reporting agencies.
Basically, walk into any place I think has information on me and ask to see it ALL. I then get to validate it for accuracy, and if I find parts inaccurate I get to say so. They then would have 30 days to prove me wrong, and if they can't, what I say is inaccurate gets deleted from my file automatically.
And validation needs to be based on something more than just "It says the same thing in this other computer we got here". Paper records, something tracable to a real human situation, not just bits on disk.
They have to be able to hold some info on you for the modern economy to work. My beef with this is that these systems are considered tautological and the burden of proof is on individuals to prove the information invalid. "I'm sorry sir, but the computer says you're an 87 year old woman, and it wouldn't be in the computer if it wasn't true.."
Wow people make a career outa this stuff huh? May want to try to get out of the house more often. Ya know there's a whole beautiful world full of sunshine and happiness out there boys and girls. It's just waiting for you to take a juicy bite out of. Keep that smile a goin fella. Umkay?
"Last one in is a rotten goblin!" - Kepp
This Senator makes me proud to live in Oregon. I would love to see more people of his mindset elected in the next election. But anyways, what I hope comes of this bill even though it is unlikely to pass is more discussion and a general awareness of what all this government FUD is driving the people to do. I hope that this bill gets a lot of attention, and maybe wakes up the country from it's state of fear and warmongering. Chris Hedges had an excllent book about Nationalism, Fear, and all the troubles that this bill aims to stop. Also this bill does a lot to protect our liberty. I enjoined this link on Liberty so I figured may as well share http://www.isil.org/resources/introduction.html
True words seem paradoxical.
If everyone on /. would just spend 2 minutes we could get this passed.
- Click here to go to senate.gov.
- Pick your state from the list.
- Click on both of your senator's e-mail contact links, each link opens a new window.
- Fill out your name and address in the form, then paste the following:
Fill in the blanks, and get this passed! The statement about it improving security is true, and since it's the big thing in congress lately, they want to do everything to help that out.frob
//TODO: Think of witty sig statement
Ya don't need to live near ground zero. I don't feel any different because of a policy or practice or not. An event like that can happen anywhere, and it has. It doesn't take 2 years to orchestrate a disaster on a large number of people. It may, to make it symbolic. But hell, any fool can pack a big boom surprise and walk into grand central station. A little more planning than 2 or 3 months and a volatile chem or nuke fac can really waste a population. I'm not sure if I buy any of it. If they really wanted to strike terror in everyone, I think we would see relentless shit happening everywhere. What do they have? A team of like 3 people or something? If they are as big as the feds make it with 100s of sleepers, whats with all the slo go? Sounds like negotiations are being made under our noses. Either that or someone needs a reason for a budget.
That 2-3 years planning I heard about I think was all coordiantion of "evidence", who to point the finger to and burning documents.
"Last one in is a rotten goblin!" - Kepp
But if you had said "A minor group of citizens who can't convince the common citizen of the validity of their views", I would agree with you.
//TODO: Think of witty sig statement
The only real protection that the "average citizen" has against the military (and the more heavily armed members of law enforcement) is that most of the members of those organizations are "regular Joes". If they were ordered to commit a wholesale massacre on US citizenry, it would be more than likely that they'd arrest the person giving such orders.
Most dictators/oligarchs & such take a fair bit of effort to build up an elite military/police force with loyalty ties mainly to them (isolating the force from the public), which they can then use to intimidate the public.
On the other hand, even though our current forces won't follow drastic orders like "enslave the public", they probably won't do much to stop a gradual erosion of everyone's civil liberties. I highly doubt that personal ownership of firearms also stops erosion of civil liberties, either, and in fact, taken too far, is far more likely to convince law enforcement to reduce civil liberties.
Really, the only realistic way of stopping the erosion of civil liberties is to constantly monitor the state of said liberties, and to unleash electoral retribution on any politicians stupid enough to ignore their REAL constituency.
your tax dollars at work!
"Just by knowing the birth date and ZIP code of the governor of
Massachusetts, Latanya Sweeney, a computer-privacy researcher at
Carnegie Mellon University, was able to retrieve his health records
from a supposedly anonymous database of state employee
health-insurance claims. Sweeney also demonstrated that she could
do the same for 69 percent of the 54,805 people on the voting list
of Cambridge, Mass."
I used to live in Cambridge, MA. It is true that the voting public has somewhat socialistic tendencies. But I find it very hard to believe that more than two-thirds of registered voters are state employees.
That none of the big 3 credit agencies know where I live and still show my employer from nearly 4 years ago.
I guess the funny thing is the feds would be better off calling me than going to my house if they had reason to want to talk to me. Since public databases are so innaccurate.
But what's not funny is the fact that a government agency working on bad/outdated information could very well surround a old lady's house and when she goes walking around with her big black maglite they open fire and killing poor grandma. Of course they'll use the same tired excuse of we had bad intel.
I'm sure the guy that dropped the bomb on the chinese embasy said the same thing.
Go back 20 years before these and you could say the same about the Black Panthers. Those who have survived openly admit their romance with firearms was a serious mistake - provided the perfect excuse to supress them, while not contributing one whit to their ability to stand up to "the man". You own a firearm to "defend" yourself against the government, you may as well have a target painted on your back.
And yes, I understand the ethnic composition and politics of the Panthers made them easier targets than the "heros" of Waco and Ruby Ridge. The ultimate lesson is still the same
Good Post, Sloppy.
How could I say to men: "Speak louder, shout! For I am deaf!"? -Ludwig van Beethoven
I think, in short, the biggest issue against things like the TIA is this:
The TIA was thought of as a means to search for patterns among public data on American citizens. This equates to the government (computer program or not) evaluating you and your habits for potential trends. It is, in effect, a way for the government to stake-out its citiziens.
Rights to privacy and due process state clearly: you are innocent until proven guilty, and you have a right to be left alone. What the TIA is doing is investigating every citizen regardless of their behavior.
A good analogy is putting up cameras in every public place. The place is public, and they're not targeting YOU specifically, so what's there to worry about, right?
For one, I want to live my life without knowing someone is looking over my shoulder unless they have a reason to look over my shoulder. Playing big-brother to all citizens is not where we want things to go.
Secondly, the argument "if you're not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about" shows logical ineptitude. The first step in any police state is the ability to monitor citizens. The next step is to deem minority actions illegal (e.g. possessing communist doctorines [see McSurely v. McClellan, Supreme Court]).
When a single body controls both the laws and the force that enforces those laws, the only things they lack are the tools to find those breaking their laws.
History has shown that the public won't stop a government from enacting laws against minorities, especially if the law and/or enforcement of that law are vague, so instead of trust our government not to abuse their information gathering tools, I'd rather just not give them those tools.
If terrorists are on every street corner, either we should be having a lot more bombings (how hard is it to strap TNT to your chest and walk into a Burger King?), or the government has been doing a damn good job in the last decade without these tools.
If you folks want guarantees that terrorists can't do anything to us, enjoy living in a police state, I'll be buying a private island.
PS: To any trolls wanting to call me a liberal whiner who doesn't want my ID checked in an airport, I'll save you some time and humiliation. I typically agree with conservatives over liberals, I believe in airport ID checking and the like. Where do I draw the line? Going to an airport is not generally a regular experience for the vast majority of Americans and often involves international travel. Airports are a good place to scan, IMO. However, if I can be watched just by going through a normal week, I have issues.
~Dalcius
Rome wasn't burnt in a day.
its realy did , the best news i heard today .
Lets just hope it passes .
It's really really hard to remain anonymous when you have lots of joinable databases. We have lots of joinable databases, and there are more all the time. Outlawing joining of databases to preserve privacy strikes me as a lost cause.
However, if the only goal is to add more public information to databases, namely which databases are being joined and why, that's a good thing. Especially if it can be automated.
...you glanced at the above message and saw the mime type.
next year or so we'll be at war with the North Koreans, they will lose and in desperation or spite detonate a nuclear weapon on US soil.
Bush will use the panick to get the public to give him all power to rip up what's left of the Constitution and start instituting a fascist dictatorship.
So this really won't matter in a year or two.
Think I'm paranoid? They're not preparing to draft eighty thousand medical personnel via the Selective Service because they think there MIGHT be a WMD problem "someday"... You heard it here first.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Frankly, the only experience I ever had with the ACLU was in my junior year of high school, where a student wore a "Straight Pride" shirt into school, and the school, knowing full well it was freedom of speech, wouldn't suspend him, just gave him a stern talking-to letting him know that while he might have the right to say it, it might not necessarily be considered appropriate.
Then some gay student's parents got involved. The lawyers got involved. The ACLU got involved. Next thing you know, the ACLU is threatening to sue the school, and the school finally caves in and assigns some disciplinary measures. I believe he was suspended for 10 days.
While it might not have been the most sensitive thing to say in a school that has an above-average population of liberals in Rent shirts, I am certainly of the mentality "I agree not what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
It's nice to see the ACLU doing something constructive instead of persecuting people.
Did you hear about Florida paying a private data company $2.3 million to screen their list of 57,000 supposed felons, who by state law aren't allowed to vote. Of course the list was disproprionately black and likely to vote for the Democrats. The data company found that around 4000 were cases of mistaken identity etc. including mistakes as egregious as conviction dates in the future. Florida said "uh, forget it, keep the money, we don't want to know" and left the list as it was!
The moral of the story, besides that Bush is a fraud, is that sometimes private databases are far preferable to government ones.
Right now, I am so disenchanted with the US government that even if the bill passed, I wouldn't expect any agencies to truthfully disclose WHERE they got the information, or WHY they needed it. What kind of checks and balances are there to insure that the agencies are telling the truth? What happens if they don't tell the truth? These agencies would need to answer to the people whose information they are using.
Ah, another brother in Christ here on Slashdot. There are very few of us aren't there?
Exactly this is law, at least in Sweden.
Corps are required to provide you with any and all records they may have on you. That recordkeeping is subject to your consent (which you usually agree to when entering a business relationship, but can revoke at any time).
In addition, this bill is a non-starter in Sweden. What, US government agencies now would have to declare how they're merging databases? Won't happen here because they're not allowed to in the first place. Yes, you heard me correct: government agencies are not allowed to cross-reference databases.
Sounds to me like the US is playing catchup?
This can be done in the UK. Under the Data Protection Act 1998 anybody can serve a 'Subject Access Request' on any organisation holding data about you. The organisation has to respond quickly and has to act upon incorrect information and justify their reason for still holding this data about you. They are fined heavily if they don't comply with this.
Even more amusing is video footage of yourself is classified as "personal data" because it can identify you. So, I go to Tesco and do some shopping, then fill my car with petrol at the petrol station down the road and then drive through the village where they have CCTV cameras. I can legally write to Tesco, the Shell garage and the Council, tell them I was in their shop/area at X time and request the video footage of myself under the Data Protection Act.
And those suckers have to search through their video footage for me and send me copies of the tapes! So, if a shop really pisses you off and they have CCTV you can serve them with a subject access request and use the law to get your own form of revenge.
This isn't advertised (for obvious reasons!) but I work for a large credit reference agency and had to research the recent changes to the Data Protection Act, this is how I found out about it.
~~~~~~~~~ "I must create my own system, or be enslav'd by another man's." William Blake, Jerusalem.
In an all-out battle of every citizen against the entire military, the military would wipe their collective asses with your piddly little .45.
Umm... last time I checked like 99% of the military were citizens. So I think the military would be on the revolutionary side. Or have you never heard of a coup?
But thanks for playing.