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Annual Big Brother Award Winners Announced
SteamyMobile writes "Privacy International announced its Sixth Annual Big Brother awards today. These are awards given to the governments, business and individuals who are doing the most to bring us closer to Orwell's world of 1984. Normally this award is reserved for the British, but there are so many great candidates from other countries this year that they had to acknowledge that. So, who won, and who shall we nominate for next year? This certainly is an area with some tough competition lately."
The Department for Transport won runner-up for its electronic vehicle-identification program, currently under development. Known as the Spy in the Dashboard, the program will embed microprocessor chips into cars. The chips would automatically report any instances of speeding, illegal parking and other grievous offenses to authorities, who would follow up with a summons.
We already have cameras logging every vehicle that drives into London, cameras logging the time it take you vehicle to drive between two points and issuing a sumons, car tax cameras that issue a sumons when its out of date, GATSO camera that automaticly issue sumons, Digital GATSOs and so much more! Also in the area I live in (Bristol) the police equip old ladies with speed guns, and they take down your number plate if your speeding, you don't get a fine just a nasty letter.
Are there any things like this in the states?
BTW. Some guy got his fined nulled because they took a picture of him face on and he was in the car with his lover, this played on some european privacy law.
Avontech | Play dirty! They started it!
"British Gas was cited as the Most Invasive Company, after it declared that U.K. privacy rules prevented it from helping an elderly couple who were found dead of hypothermia in their home last winter, weeks after their gas service was cut off due to nonpayment of a 140-pound ($255) bill."
How is this invasive? It sounds like the exact opposite. I'll admit it's a bit obsessive, but behavior like this is exactly what privacy is all about.
Turn it around - would it be better if British Gas had notified all the welfare groups when the bill didn't arrive? "Hello, welfare groups! These people might be poor! Sic 'em!" Isn't this just a step away from notifying alcoholics-anonymous and drug rehab clinics whenever they see evidence of beer or pot?
I have to admit, I really don't see what British Gas could have done here better, aside from keep providing gas despite these people not paying.
Now, "most unfeeling", sure, I'll buy that. But this is about as far from invasive as it gets.
Breaking Into the Industry - A development log about starting a game studio.
We are just supposed to let foriegners in willy-nilly to trapse about and not know anything about them?
..since when is that "orwellian?"
No, that's why you have passports and visa requirements. Why do you need fingerprints and a mugshot?
Since the data will be kept in a database in a "foreign" country where the person whom the details refer to has no legal recourse to oversee the data. How will I know who will use the data in the US-Visit database? How can I stop them when I'm not in the US? I can't.
Defense of borders is part of maintaining soverignty
Great, you're correct, but US-Visit does nothing of the sort. You do realise that none of the September 11th hijackers used false documents to enter the US, right? They all used their own passports issued in their own names. They would have been allowed entry under US-Visit; the only difference is that their fingerprints and mugshots would have been in a database. What use would a fingerprint have been to the authorities at 9am, September 11th, 2001?
But I believe Ashcroft is most deserving of "Worst Public Servant," worldwide.
Oh, please. If you really want to take a worldwide competition, I can immediately name a few serious contenders - such as Fidel Castro (Cuba), Kim Jong Il (Norh Korea) and Robert Mugabe (Zimbabwe). South America and Central Africa probably offer abudance of these, but I have no knowledge of their leader names. While I'm not a fan of Bush administration, I really can't understand the contemporary American trend for self-loathing ("oh dear, with the Patriot Act we are now the worst dictatorship of the world").
Maybe you wanted to name Ashcroft "the worst public servant that at least actually tries to serve the public"?
Doesnt that frighten you? For me, it scares the hell out of me. And I am not even a US citizen.
And to be honest: I think the difference between Ashcroft and Mugabe is not that Ashcroft tries to serve the public - the only difference is this: everybody knows that the dictator of some African nation is only serving his own fortune - and we would expect better from officials of a democratic nation.
There's an inspiring slogan for the free world, eh?
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
I thought this competition was for breaches of privacy? It seems the whole problem with the British Gas situation was that they obeyed the privacy laws. As negligent as it may be, they shouldn't have gotten this particular "honor".
Hint: the post you are replying to is not the article. If you read that, it says that they got the award for blaming the Data Protection Act - that is, for using a good law as an excuse for their own negligence.
Big companies don't like the Data Protection Act, because it limits what they can do with our private information. Big companies do things like using the tragic deaths of an elderly couple - due to that big company's penny-pinching and negligence - as a way of trying to get the Data Protection Act changed, to help them violate our privacy more.
Doesn't that deserve a Big Brother award, perhaps?
Yes, maybe BG were justified in cutting them off and maybe they followed the procedures to the letter, but after cutting off the gas supply to a couple who are both over 85 years of age they informed no-one. They then claimed that they wanted to tell someone in authority but were prevented by the Data Protection Act (the law in the UK that companies must follow when dealing with data they hold about private citizens). Now this might be strictly true, or actually a bit of a grey area, but these are peoples lives they are dealing with - old people who are perhaps not as able to look after themselves as well as they used to. Perhaps they couldn't get out the house to pay their bills - perhaps they could, but to say that you couldn't inform anyone because of the Data Protection Act is a bit like saying you couldn't drag someone out of a burning building because you would be guilty of 'breaking and entering'. Its strictly true but in spirit its not.
In the UK we call these kind of people 'jobsworths' - the kind of person who says things like 'I'd love to help you, but its more than my job's worth'
But the list of nations that claim to be the best democracy whatsoever and that feel entitled to liberate other countries on the fly [killing thousands and thousands - without couting them btw] ... while acting otherwise; well that list is much shorter.
But that doesn't mean you have to play by them.
There are lots of ways out. If you have locked yourself into a certain set of parameters which you feel are impossible to break, then you are probably chumped. But if you have a working brain, a back, two legs and a set of hands, then you can pretty much do whatever you want. I'm an example, and I know of many others who have worked out the puzzle and live their light comfortably and without fear. --Little known secret; the economy is so big and complex that long ago it became a matter of belief; the health of the economy is based entirely on what people believe. This is true whether everybody agrees or not.
Anyway, just ask yourself, "What do you want to do?" Pick the creative endeavor which fascinates you and takes the least effort; (and by effort, I'm not talking about elbow grease, which you'll need; I'm talking about the get-up-and-go factor. That which you are supposed to be doing in this life will drive you and not the other way around. Once you find it, everything will run smoothly.)
Once you settle down and figure out which way your internal loadstone is pointing, go out and follow it. Couldn't be simpler.
The universe will provide you with the means. I see it work like this every day. You have to have faith, and you have to recognize that opportunity isn't just knocking, it's pounding at the door. Don Juan called it the, 'cubic centimeter of opportunity'. True; being able to jump at the moment is important, but Don Juan was always a little too morbid for me; it's also true that there are lots of cubic centimeters flying around all the time. And slow-moving cubic meters, too. The trick is believing that you are worthy, which the instant you move to get involved in your path, you are.
Intent and Faith are two of the most powerful and misunderstood tools humanity has ever had access to. Part of the control system has been to fool all the nerds into believing that such things don't exist. Once that was achieved, people instantly became cattle.
Are you a man or a burger? Make up your mind, because whether you want to hear it or not, somebody is going to want fries with that. And they'll get them too if you don't wake up and get the heck off the grill.
Oh, and the clue you have that I'm not full of shit is that I'm not asking for $29.95
I'd wish you good luck, but you don't need it.
-FL