Slashdot Mirror
Privacy Concerns Moving Into The Mainstream
Realistic_Dragon writes "The BBC today ran a thoughtful radio article (website, transcript, real audio) on the issues of privacy vs practicality in our modern society. An ideal primer for those that haven't given these things much thought before, with a balanced treatment of the subject and very few technical errors to drive one up the wall.
Listening to the narrator's acerbic comments in reply to those that advocate the innocent have nothing to fear mantra is worth the download alone. Is this the kind of image that is presented in the media in the rest of the world, or are they still running with the 'big brother is your friend' party line?"
I certainly hope this is getting accross to the public. But seriously, how many people that don't already know about privacy actually care? I almost feel as if these words have been wasted on an audience that could care less. But I hope the message gest accross. I applaud the reporter who took the time to do the research into these privacy matters.
A lot of people can't accept that if you go out in public, you lose privacy. It really doesn't matter if your mobil phone company can find your position, because you're transmitting RF to their towers. I EXPECT them to know roughly where I am from which tower I am connected to.
CCTV cameras? They can't be serious, how much damage do CCTV cameras do? How much damage would have been done if the shops can't see who's stealing stuff? Privacy is important, but if CCTV cameras are a problem, then don't go into shops. If camera phones are a problem to you, don't go out in public. They can't invade your privacy unless you let them.
... as far as the average user is concerned.
If someone thinks that they need this software 'blah', then they are going to install it, no matter what the 282 page EULA says.
You can't expect to wield supreme executive power, just because some watery tart threw a sword at you
The BBC often (and perhaps ironically) often takes an antiauthoritarian position. Their interviews are great since they're so much more combative then what you're used to from NPR and our media in general - they really try to get their guests to answer questions.
We don't trust the government or corporations becuase they have gone from "protecting our rights" mode to "enslave the entire population" mode. How can we trust them when they're using the technology to enslave people instead of relieving us of work so we have more time to do other things?
Candy-Coated Knowledge
The BBC data recordings always remind me of how most people set up their VCR's, i.e. setting the recording going about a minute before the actual start time.
Surely they shouldn't need to do this, considering they should know when the programmes started.
Oh great, now everyone knows about my privacy concerns!
No, installing any of Real's crap on Linux (nor windows) is NOT an option.
From the transcript:
The response of Scott McNealy, boss of Sun Microsystems and one of the most outspoken figures of Silicon Valley, to the challenge from
electronic devices was famously blunt. "You have zero privacy," he said. "Get over it."
Much as this is the unpopular stance to take here, I think we do have zero privacy, and hopefully more people can learn what this means for them.
What has alwauys comforted me in the past, however, is that to exchange informatation about my purchases, my bank details, my crimial record and my health records would be rediculously complicated with vastly different systems of data storage being used.
Mibby I'm just sticking my head in the sand, but there's a difference between being watched and having data stored about me, and it being available to different people beyond it's intended purpose.
That's why I opposed the RIPA extensions act.
Sorry, got OT there...
BAMFORD: It's something that people cherish.
I think it's something that we do need to safeguard. I think it's
important to recognise that privacy, rather like trust and confidence -
once you've lost it, it's very, very difficult, if not possible, ever to
regain. It's something we need to work hard not to lose in the first
place.
CAIRNCROSS: One of the most powerful symbols
of intrusion into privacy has been the ability of the authorities to watch
over us. In that sense, George Orwell's Big Brother is alive and well,
and gleefully acquiring all the latest gadgetry. There are close-circuit
television cameras on almost every street corner, speed cameras, and
cameras that monitor people entering London's congestion charging
zone. Caoilfhionn Gallagher is a lawyer with Liberty, a campaigning
group on civil liberties, and follows the latest monitoring technologies.
What are her current concerns?
They talk as if most people care. Most people ignore the traffic cameras, the red-light cameras, the bank cameras, the whatever cameras... They openly hand over their address and telephone number to anyone who asks (in person, on the telephone, or over the Internet). These are the people that tell you that you are paranoid when you suggest to them that they might want to keep that information more private than they already are.
HARKIN: In Scandinavia and in Japan, you
have services whereby young people can pass along street corners and
they can be automatically hooked up via location based tracking to
someone who meets their personal profile for the purposes of dating or
finding a friend.
And people want this? Can't people make up their mind for themselves?
CRAWFORD: We can track a mobile phone even
if it's not in use. As long as the phone is on, we can track it every
minute of the day - in rural countryside, in cities. And, for example, in
London we can track it right down to if somebody was in, for example,
Earl's Court Exhibition Centre, we can know they're in that building.
In rural countryside, it's a little bit wide - I mean we'd know what hill
they're on.
CAIRNCROSS: Now that's wonderful if you're a
parent worrying about your child. But another usage is for companies
to track their employees. And I think you suggest it is a way of making
sure that your employee is secure if they are late returning to the office,
but you and I know that what employers really want to know is is the
guy in the pub or is he doing what he's supposed to be doing.
Back to the "save the children" thing. Let's stop appealing to the paranoid, careless parent who wants everyone else to know where his kid is and let's pay attention to the fact that it is intrusive and basically unnecessary.
CRAWFORD: Well what we're doing is we're
actually sending messages on a regular basis to phones to make sure
they continue to consent. The employee would then receive messages
saying that that phone is being tracked. He needs to know that that
phone would have to be the company's property, so really you know
another way of looking at it is saying the company has a right to know
where their property is. Obviously this is tracking which is during
office hours, and it's all been approved by the Information
Commissioner who's studied it very closely.
And when you say no? They fire you, right? In this day and age people can't just say, "oh well, I don't need a job w/a company that tracks me, I can find one in a single day somewhere else." Unfortunately for most it doesn't seem to work that way.
This is the same stuff rehashed as always. We need to better educate the public to remind them that this sort of intrusion is not a necessary part of their lives no matter how much the government and third parties want to make it be.
I heard that the NYT ran a good piece of privacy concerns and IT, but I couldn't read the article since I had to register....
John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
We're all part of the grid on the "Net" as Sandra Bullock showed us back in 1995.
Not to point out redundancy...but is this anything new? Better question, does anyone care? Obviously motivated individuals wish to track and/or locate you they have the means to so more easily these days. Unless you're in deep doing questionable activites these days are you really that concerned? Prehaps I've just become ignorant as I know I'm 0wn3d by someone out there.
Some aim to please, I aim to tease.
"They want to shackle law enforcement in the name of privacy"
As it should be. Most Western countries are part of "The Free World", not police states. Supposedly.
This is me. Don't like it? That's unlucky.
How do people reconcile that with the privacy provisions in the U.S. constitution? Obviously they wouldn't have put them in there if they had thought there was nothing to worry about. I don't think the writers of the constitution were given to empty aphorisms.
"The bottom line is that your privacy isn't worth squat if you're dead."
And my life isn't worth squat if I'm not free. You aren't a patriot. You're a coward.
"Gold still represents the ultimate form of payment in the world." - Alan Greenspan, 1999
What do you define as innocent on the net these days. Just by simply clickin on certain web sites malicious users have just marked you, obtained your ip address and have more than enough effective tools to obtain information from your computer. Sadly, there is no fool proof method of security. One can easily setup most firewalls these days with little understanding of what's really going on, but is a firewall enough? Should there maybe not be some kind of anonymous connection from the users ISP to the world outside his ISP?
Is this the kind of image that is presented in the media in the rest of the world, or are they still running with the 'big brother is your friend' party line?"
Quote from Douglas Adams in Wired.In precisely what way is this post a troll?
The problem with this attitude is that it assumes trustworthyness on the part of the law enforcement agencies. While this is a valid assumption in most cases, there have been quite a few cases of abuse of power by law-enforcement agencies. "Harassing the innocent" may not be the primary use, but in the past there has been enough of that kind of thing to make many law-abiding people nervous whenever more power is put into the hands of the "authorities".
There are many facets to the electronic snooping being done today. Mobile phone locators can be both bad and good - take for example an elderly gentleman having chest pains. If he cannot communicate his location, then the signal-tracking might save his life. My employer having the ability to see I visited the nudie bar 20 times a month is a privacy invasion.
The government being able to thermal image a 'warrant'-ed drug house is OK. Using it whenever is not. To go further into the paranoia realm, some states in the US still have arcane laws on the books like '2 unwed people shall not engage in sexual activities' OR '2 unwed people shall not co-habitate'. With advanced thermal/spectral imaging law enforcement can 'snoop' and arrest said people.
If I choose to give my personal information away (or walk in public where cameras are present), that is OK. If I am on my own property and no one has a warrant for illegal activity monitoring, it is privacy invasion and the invaders should be arrested/fined/flogged with a noodle.
Time for more tin foil...
While this may be a little off-topic, in an effort to get a slightly better privacy/security profile, I've been researching a bunch of anonymizer services. I'm looking for something that will either let me configure a web proxy to use from a browser (transparent to the user) or a full-blown VPN, for more than web traffic. Does anyone know of any other sites that offer this? Are they reputable? How can I find out?
The ones I'm looking at are findnot.com and anonymize.net but I know there have to be more out there. (yes, I understand that they could be monitoring me as well, but at least it gives a more indirect link for everyone else.)
fair.org counterpunch.com truthout.com indymedia.org salon.com
eff.org guerrilla.net debian.org gentoo.org
That wasn't a troll. It's calling a spade a fucking spade.
Xine plays Real media fine.
It was the parent which was trollish, if anything.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
So when they tell you that you've been issued a new ID card with a tracker tag that means you can be traced wherever you go you'll be fine with that?
What about when it's made compulsory to carry it with you whenever you leave the house?
Governmental agencies are always looking for methods of tracking/controlling people. Their job would be sooo much easier if we were all obedient little drones who moved in predictable cycles (ok, most of us are, but that's another argument). Right now their favourite trick is to claim that its all "To protect you from the evil terrorist scum lurking among us."
Heretic, Parlimentarian, Unionist, Nazi, Sexual Deviant, Communist, Terrorist - the name that is put on the bogeyman used to scare us into submission changes. That's all. The rest is still the same.
'Don't worry' said the trees when they saw the axe coming, 'The handle is one of us.'
If the parent post is a troll, then perhaps Ben Franklin was also a troll: "Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security, will not have, nor do they deserve, either one." - Benjamin Franklin
Here in the UK, the govt. has been trumpeting this line as a justification for the introduction of compulsory ID cards: "these ID cards will help in the fight against terrorism!" The question that they haven't yet answered is: "How, exactly?" ID cards would not have helped prevent 9/11. This isn't to do with being Luddite; even if these cards had foolproof biometrics and instant access to a flawless national database detailing all citizens in the country, it still wouldn't have stopped the particular foriegn nationals entering the US with their perfectly valid visas. This isn't about shackling law enforcement agencies - it's about keeping the shackles off the general public. You should know this best of all, Mr Patriot - "Land of the Free" indeed.
mplayer, with the Codecs package will play it. Use mplayer -playlist http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsa/n5ctrl/radioseq/analysi s.ram
Though I don't see what's wrong with Realplayer 8. I have it installed and I don't find it intrusive in any way.
Allergy advice: Contains eggs.
When people remove themselves from the electoral roll its harder to get credit...
Virtually impossible, I've been led to understand. In fairness, however, the Electoral Commission recently established *two* Electoral Roles: one full list that can be used by mailing list companies, and a restricted list for voters with privacy concerns. The second list probably won't help voters concerned about their disappearance from the list during the Poll Tax debacle... ;)
This is where the serious fun begins.
With respect, it's rubbish.
There's no need to violate privacy any more than it already is in order to stop terrorism, nor to do it in unreasonable ways.
All of the "anti-terrorism" privacy arguments tend to hinge on how xxxx communication method "could be used to plan terrorism", "could be used to set up terrorist actions", yadda yadda yadda.
All of which is totally irrelevant if the terrorists a) can't get the weapons, or b) can't then use them in public to kill people.
a) doesn't require anything other than voluntary breaches of privacy which the vast majority would consider reasonable. b) doesn't breach privacy at all, since a public act by definition can't be subject to privacy.
The whole basis of using criminals' plans to "target" law enforcement is a shaky one. Law enforcement needs to be everywhere, all the time - otherwise criminals will inevitably learn the prediction strategies and work around them.
Well ... democracy isn't worth squat either if you're death. I wonder, why have so much people died to get freedom, if it isn't woth ...
The majority of our society has turned into puppets for the corporations who crave their Nike shoes, Playstations, mobile phones and Macdonalds hamburgers.
The populace has gone retarded overnight - entertainment now consists of formulaic movie remakes, plastic music where rather than having music as integral to our culture over thousands of years, music is now plastic and disposable "sung" by artists under total corporate control, "reality TV" where the talentless are elevated to celebrity status...
People simply do not care anymore because even that human trait has been handed to the lawyers to sue somebody or some corporation when something goes wrong.
As a society, we are becoming more and more introverted - we don't socialise with our neighbours any more and we think that bringing up kids is about handing over responsibilities of parenthood to the teachers until they get home from school whereupon they're thrown a Macdonalds hamburger and sat if front of a games console for the evening. Then we wonder why teenage pregnancies, binge drinking and drugs are at an all time high...
The good thing about this is that either we continue this way until we destroy ourselves in which case we don't deserve to exist anyway or we rise up in revolt in the near future as we recognise how we've allowed ourselves to be coccooned and kept stupid for far too long...
Until we recognise that governments, law enforcement agencies, corporations and the RIAA are all just trying to control us, privacy is just one more (and possibly the last) facet of our lives that will disappear...
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Wow. I got modded both insightful and a troll! What talent! :-P
This is me. Don't like it? That's unlucky.
But there is almost NO chance that you will ID someone on the CCTV cameras in the street. The ones in the shop are different, but they are usually pretty damn obvious (they are meant to DETER criminals, not catch them).
The OU have a 10 week course based on The Future of Ideas.
8 2
http://www3.open.ac.uk/courses/bin/p12.dll?C01iT1
This will help mainstream more slashdot concerns. The OU - a truly fantastic and original resource - it really is.
If we kept wandering past his house, trying to look in, followed hib about all over the place and basically ensured that HE had no privacy, how fact do you think the police.bodyguards would step in.
He really does me "YOU have no privacy". He has plenty and he's A-OK with that!
There's a new Real Player for Linux! Check it out now.
"If your Government is doing nothing wrong, then it has nothing to fear from FIOA".
'Course, that's a whole 'nother ball game, son!
Well ... democracy isn't worth squat either if you're death.
The Grim Reaper's a Republican?
Think of the ultimate end to currently known technology:
Every person with an implanted RFID chip.
Every person with their DNA on record.
Were on our way.
The justification will be crime/terrorism prevention. McNealy may be correct.
The two statements:
There's no need to violate privacy any more than it already is in order to stop terrorism, nor to do it in unreasonable ways.
and
Law enforcement needs to be everywhere, all the time - otherwise criminals will inevitably learn the prediction strategies and work around them.
seem contradictory. I'm not sure of your point here.
Not everything is analogous to cars. Car analogies rarely work.
"Virtually impossible, I've been led to understand."
Only if you don't already appear in Experian's database and you've changed address in the past 3 years. The change has to be confirmed with the electoral roll for which there is a £1000 fine for not submitting your details.
I went to court a couple of times over the non-submission of my details to the electoral register simply because I pointed out that it's used a list for marketers. The non-listing version appeared afterwards.
The amount of data warehousing around in the UK is dizzying...I'm still trying to get an answer as to the Data Comissioner's standpoint on the database held by 'Envision', the TV licensing people. This is the _largest_ database of live locations in the country that is built from television purchases. You have to submit your details when you buy a TV, and if you aren't on the list when you shift your rental details or buy a TV, then they hit you for the license.
TV Detector vans were the biggest scam in the world; the handheld detectors used to cause me much hilarity.
Oddly Draconis
Too cynical to live, too stubborn to die.
on Salon: Three Cheers for the Surveillance Society!. I can't say I agree with everything he says but I think there's a lot of merit in it.
Bottom line executive summary: Privacy is dead; get over it. Instead of trying to hide everything we do, we should insist that every citizen has the same access to surveillance technologies that the government does. He offers the Rodney King tapes and the Abu Gharib prison photos as ways in which saturation surveillance has advanced the cause of justice and the empowerment of the citizenry.
Worth a read, in any event.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Forget "relieving us of work." Back when technology was glowingly thoought to "relieve us of work" we forgot that doing so would also "relieve us of a paycheck." Even though one can accept that you'll need to improve your skills, learn new things, etc, the assumption that there'll be even more new higher-skill jobs doesn't play true.
At the executive level, you implement technology to improve profitability. Eliminating low-level jobs, only to require more high-level jobs doesn't make economic sense, unless it increases your volume/revenue even more.
In other words, today's market is largely demand-limited, and in such a market supply-side economics just plain fail.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Cue the Ben Franklin quote about those who trade off liberty for security in 3... 2... 1... Sean
The government owns our lands. That's why we pay "rent" in the form of taxes.
If privacy is such a big risk, then why have phone directories existed for so many decades? (They list people's phone #'s AND names AND addresses)
The real trick is to get Score: 5 Troll. (Modded up to 5, Troll down to 4, then an Underrated bump.)
"...keep everyone afraid, and they'll consume."
-Marilyn Manson
Having a bookmark to Google does not make you an expert on everything.
I had no TV or video. I hired a video machine for a club function, then returned it to the hire shop.
I then started receiving letters from the TV Licensing people saying I hadn't paid my TV licence (although I had never owned a TV).
So I sent the hire shop a letter asking them to update their database with my change of address (to some bogus address). And I never heard from the TV Licensing people again.
They sure don't ask who they can share your personal information with.
Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird -- Proverbs 1:17
O stop whining about terrorism. There are far worse things out there. Compared to the number of deaths caused by traffic accidents, shootings, food poisening, malnutrician, extreme wheather conditions and what have you terrorism is realy, realy insignificant.
Giving up privacy isn't going to have much of an impact even if it could help stop terrorist attacks.
Those rights you have left, that is.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Look here and see for yourself: "Figuring out what is popular can be accomplished through a mix of anonymously monitoring what people are sharing."
Even if we believed in "anonymous monitoring" there would then be no way to detect when people are cheating through download bots, etc...
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
Woman arrested for eating candy bar
"Then I saw another beast which rose out of the earth... it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark."
-Revelation 13:11,16-17
>> "Virtually impossible, I've been led to understand."
> Only if you don't already appear in Experian's database and you've changed address in the past 3 years.
Daft me; when I discussed this with a credit reference geek it was in the context of having moved house more times than I care to remember ;)
This is where the serious fun begins.
First off, I think that privacy is good and agree w/ the spirit of the parent. However, who's to say that the US Constitution is some magically ordained super-document that is completely infallible and utterly trustworthy? It was written by men. Smart men, true, but still just men. It's great to have a common root for our legal/government practices, and to keep a (relatively) clear and concise record, but why this continual return to "the Constitution from 225 years ago says so!"? If we dropped some of the stigma around the Constitution, it could be _changed_ and actually be a living document that helps the US develop into the future. /rant
"I must not fear. Fear is the mind killer." -Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear
I thought the BBC was going to be shifting everything to Ogg-Vorbis? If it was anything interesting, mplayer -dumpstream works well.
Look, it's simple. There is public life and private life. Public life is where I go to interact with others to help me form identity and have discourse on the subjects that matter for us all. Private life is where I sustain myself in order to participate in public life. The tradition of this distinction is from the dawn of democracy from Plato and Aristotle, through Hobbes all the way up to Arendt and others in the 20th Century.
Now private life is constantly being eroded and it is time to stop. I want to DESIGN my society so that when I choose to interact in public and in particular with the state then the state should be able to demand that I authenticate my entitlement to do so, however this does not require that i identify myself. This is what technology can bring. We can have both. A completely accurate entitlements system that does not require the revelation of identity to the organs of the state (except in order to establish the entitlement).
My health care records can be kept on a big central database but they should not be able to link that with my social security records. It is _I_ who provides them with that link when I authenticate my entitlement to free health care because of my social security status. Further that big database needs to know _nothing_ about my identity specifics other than they are the file 61272123. I know that the records for 61272123 are mine but the state does not need to know. Similarly the state can know that medical procedure 2453/CD/2321 for file 61272123 received an entitlement token, MPET23/5T from the Social security entitlement system and that is all it needs to know.
Technology of the kind that all the centralists love can completely enable their utopian vision of eliminating fraud for public services etc etc, but it can be done without even having to compromise my right to privacy, and it doesn't even need law it can be done technically. there are logistical issues for this vision, but they are not an order of magnitude different to the ones that exist for the current idea of "biometric id cards".
The fundamental thing is for us to decide what we want. And what I want is to be able to walk out of my house without having to carry a card that enables the state to prove _who_ I am because until I choose to enter the public sphere about which I spoke earlier, the state can just fuck righ off out of my private life.
On the flip side, it is up to me to price the value of my privacy wrt to banking, mobile phone etc and decide whether using these services (or specialised privacy enhanced version at a premium) is currently worth the cost. the examples of how this can be implemented are many and varied _already_ technology can only make them more effective.
As for preventition of terrorism, crime, even fraud, I am all for it, but not at the expense of designing a state that is built around knowing every facet of my life. I want the privacy. It should be _my_ choice as to when I leave my mark in public (so to speak) not the state's.
Sorry for the rant.
"The first thing to do when you find yourself in a hole is stop digging."
"If you aren't doing anything wrong, then you have nothing to hide and nothing to fear".
How naive we are. Who exactly defines what is "right" and "wrong"? Do you think it's Joe off the street who cares about privacy? No. Laws are written by corporations, special interests, and other powerful people who are looking to create a situation where they will gain a whole lot of money from their actions.
To a corporation, what's "right" is the thing that makes them the most money, plain and simple. To the government, "right" may be the thing that some politically-motivated person wants to get done, regardless if it benifits the public or not. To a special interest group, "right" is an idiology they want you to follow for their own ends. These are not people who have a vested interest in protecting your rights- except to the extent that you tolerate their actions enough long enough that they can stay in power.
So are you being spyed on? Yes, you are. But does it really matter? It only matters if you focus on it enough to let it change your actions. It's kind of like worrying about a philosophical question like if this reality is the true reality or not (questions posed by the Matrix movies). These are interesting things to think about, but ultimately, they don't have any bearing on our lives. So someone's spying on me, so what? I can't do anything about it, so why make a big deal? You have a choice, really. You can make yourself crazy by thinking about how much you're being spyed on, or you can live your life. It's up to you.
I challenge you, try to explain this topic to a non-technical person. In their terms, not yours. It's really hard.
Try this analogy:
True this is only one aspect of the privacy issue, but you don't want to over-challenge yourself. See how it works.
You got two kind of people, dumb criminals and those who are never caught. Innocents? Wich planet have you been living on?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Here's a flash back from 2002:
It's not slowing down. Media consolidation is also reducing the likelihood that your average Svensson is going to be aware or informed of issues not to the advatage of major sponsors or owners.
It's up to those that are aware to increase that level of awareness.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
You define very vehemently what you are prepared to contribute to society. You do not seem to want to acknowledge that you have responsibilities towards that society.
You seem to forget that society isn't just you but all the others. As a functionning member of a society, you owe all the other members of that society some degree of responsibility, accountability and cooperation. That's what makes the difference between a healthy community and a rag tag of beggars.
By attempting to avoid any form of accountability that you owe society, you are in fact contributing to its dissolution.
If society needs anything right now, it's for its for the whole and the individual to come closer together through accountability and cooperation.
People with your stance serve only to shake off any remaining traces of what civilisations spent millenia building : stable and strong societies that gave birth to amazing civilisations.
Way to go.
You'll have rights. You'll have the right to work for any of the government approved corporations to earn money(after tax, and assuming that your parents filled in form 378b prior to conception) and you'll have the right to spend that money in any one of hundreds of corporate approved shops.
You'll also have the right to vote for one of two corparate-sponsored presidents who can only be told apart by the sponsor's logos.
You have the right to shut up and behave
Oh, and you have the right to be declared an Enemy of the People if you choose to not exercise any of the aforementioned rights.
George Orwell had it right - he just thought we'd get here 20 years earlier. So typical - even our facist opression is late. And I suppose 3 will come along at once...
'Don't worry' said the trees when they saw the axe coming, 'The handle is one of us.'
Paxman. Right, uh . . can you help us with this then . . ?
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.overrule Derek Lewis.
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You stated in your statement that the Leader of the Opposition had said that I (that is, you) personally told Mr Lewis that the governor of Parkhurst should be suspended immediately, and that when Mr Lewis objected as it was an operational matter, "I threatened to INSTRUCT HIM to do it".
Derek Lewis says "Howard had CERTAINLY told me that the Governor of Parkhurst should be suspended, and had threatened to overrule me". Are you saying Mr Lewis is lying ?
Howard. I have given a full account of this, and the position is what I told the House of Commons, and let me tell you what the position is .
Paxman. (Interrupts) So you ARE saying that Mr Lewis lied ?
Howard. (re-interrupts) Let me tell you exactly what the position is. I was entitled to be consulted and I was consulted, I was entitled to express an opinion and I did express an opinion. I was not entitled to INSTRUCT Derek Lewis what to do, and I did NOT instruct him what to do.
Paxman. Well, HIS version .
Howard. And you will understand and recall that Mr Marriot was NOT suspended, he was MOVED, and Derek Lewis told the select committee of the House of Commons that it was his opinion, Derek Lewis's opinion, that he should be moved immediately. That is what happened.
Paxman. Mr Lewis says "I (that is, Mr Lewis), told him what we had decided about Marriot, and why" . . "he, (that is, you), exploded - simply moving the governor was politically unpalatable, it sounded indecisive, it would be seen as a fudge. If I did not change my mind and suspend Marriot he would have to consider overruling me."
Howard. Mr Marriot .
Paxman. You can't BOTH be right.
Howard. Mr Marriot was NOT suspended. I was entitled to express my views, I was entitled to be consulted .
Paxman. (Interrupting) Did you threaten to overrule him ?
Howard. I . . I . . was not entitled to INSTRUCT Derek Lewis, and I did not instruct him.
Paxman. (Interrupting) Did you threaten to overrule him ?
Howard. The truth of the matter is that Mr Marriot was not suspended. I .
Paxman. (Interrupting) Did you threaten to overrule him ?
Howard. . . . did not .
Paxman. (Interrupting) Did you THREATEN to overrule him ?
Howard. I took advice on what I could or could not do .
Paxman. (Interrupting) Did you threaten to overrule him Mr Howard ?
Howard. . . and I acted scrupulously in accordance with that advice, I did NOT overrule Derek Lewis .
Paxman. (Interrupting) Did you threaten to overrule him ?
Howard. . . Mr Marriot was NOT suspended.
Paxman. (Interrupting) Did you threaten to overrule him ?
Howard. (pauses). I have accounted for my decision to dismiss Derek Lewis .
Paxman. (Interrupting) Did you threaten to overrule him ?
Howard. . . in GREAT detail, before the House of Commons .
Paxman. (Interrupting) I note that you're not answering the question of whether you THREATENED to overrule him.
Howard. Well, the important aspect of this which is very clear to bear in mind .
Paxman. (Interrupting) I'm sorry, I'm going to be frightfully rude, I'm sorry, but it's a straight yes or no question which requires a straight yes or no answer. Did you threaten to overrule him ?
Howard. I discussed this matter with Derek Lewis. I gave him the benefit of my opinion. I gave him the benefit of my opinion in strong language. But I did not instruct him because I was not ENTITLED to instruct him, I was entitled to express my opinion, and that is what I did.
Paxman. With respect, that is NOT answering the question of whether you THREATENED to overrule him.
Howard. It's dealing with the relev
I stay at home and send multiple cloned copies of myself out to roam about with my mobile and rfid tagged clothes just to fuck with their heads - excellent entertainment!
Oh, but he is a patriot -- a brave new patriot for a brave new world :)
--
Power to the Peaceful
The difference between the BBC and US News Media is that BBC reporters are reporters, the reporters in the US are by and large entertainers.
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
Suddenly, the number of people who are Bill Gates is larger than the size of his fortune....
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
But Big Brother is your friend in many cases... given the choice between Big Brother and Uncle Osama which would you support?
More seriously, few people dispute that CCTV in public places (for example) has helped in solving some crimes and deterring some others. Being afraid to go out at night, or use a mobile phone in public, is a much greater curtailment of liberty than almost anything the government might dream up. I don't see why we shouldn't trade one form of liberty for another.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
Or, dare I say it, political stooges. "Fair and balanced", haaaaaahahaaa. Fox, CNN and ABC are all *appalling* and I, for one, am glad that the BBC exists, and that the (unfair) grilling they got in the Hutton report hasn't taken all of their bite away. It's a shame that the Butler report didn't get quite the same coverage, but the Iraqi invasion is already old news now. Funnily enough, that reminds me: I was listening to the Bill Hicks's Chicago 1991 bootleg (Google for the Bill Hicks archive and you'll find it) and I swear that if you didn't know the date that it was recorded you could well believe he was talking about Dubya.
:( Considering that we both have what is basically a two-party race, and the state of the opposition... oh dear...
What's tragic is that I think the general public have such short memories that by the time Bush and Blair go to the polls it'll all have been forgotton, and they'll both get back in
ACLU came up with an good privacy presentation. Imagine trying to order pizza at a place where they already know everything about you.... http://www.aclu.org/pizza/index.html?orgid=EA07190 4&MX=1414&H=0
Osama does not have the power to take away our freedom. Any government is far more powerful, and therefore potentially far more dangerous, than bin Laden or any other terrorist.
Though I don't see what's wrong with Realplayer 8. I have it installed and I don't find it intrusive in any way. Trick me once, shame on you... I'll try mplayer tho, thanks!
Funny how my post was modded off-topic. Just goes to show you that IQ and mod points are the same polarity...
The problem with what some of the people here are saying is this; the modern corporation is an intentional government construct. Corporations, and dominated monopolies, do not naturally appear in a free market.
Since corporations are government constructed, and not created within a free market, you cannot blame capitalism for this.
FDR and Wilson, two of the most anti-capitalistic Presidents in U.S. History, were key players in the creation of the modern corporation.
You're proposing making more government laws to reform government in business. What you need to be promoting is removing government regulation from the market.
The_ORIGINAL_Primer, you're making alot of good points and I agree with you. However, you need to understand not only the deffiency of government involvement in business, but also that more government (laws, regulations, three letter acronyms, and more bureaucracy) is not the answer.
When is the problem ever the solution?
Speckpot?
But Big Brother is your friend in many cases... given the choice between Big Brother and Uncle Osama which would you support?
I think I'd rather be estranged from that entire twisted family!
Uncle Osama and his band of psychotic Islamic fundamentalists are just Big Brothers with turbans. Their means are different but the ends are just the same: they wish to have total control over you. Men must let their beards grow, women must cover their bodies head to toe. Women must not read or obtain education outside their homes, and men must go out and face certain death defending the Taliban against infidels at their leader's whims, and no one at all can vote. To enforce that requires constant surveillance.
Osama detests the western "free world" because it champions individual freedom--he views the USA as a decadent from a religious standpoint, but what he REALLY hates and fears is the lack of control, and the fact that the USA threatens what control he has. The free world is playing right into "uncle Osama's" hands by instituting draconian measures under the guise of the "war on terror". We need to find the terrorists and make security more effective, goes the argument. Thus, we must link the automobile registry with the gun registry with the medicare system with the immigration system with the court system with the tax system. We must install cameras everywhere to make sure terrorists aren't hiding bombs in buildings, and we'd better not tell them they are being watched--it would compromise security.
This kind of survaillance leads to control--that guy's name is Mohammed, we gotta run extra checks on him before we hire him. Mrs Jones, you can't take those nail clippers in your carry-on luggage, they are a security risk. Mr Smith, you're going to have to come with us--that information you discovered and published about the weak security in some of our systems could be used by terrorists. Big Brother is just Uncle Osama in reverse--the desire to see leads to the need to control, rather than the desire to control leading to the need to see. In the end, the result is the same, and Osama wins either way.
No, we're not. This is a self-correcting problem.
As in, when the 2014 DOJ crime statistics report that "indoor crime" has been on the upswing for the past eight years, this problem will self-correct.
Marketing it would be trivial: set it up as a new entitlement program: "Secure Homes for a Secure Homeland!" This is a strictly voluntary, free 24/7 monitoring service provided to you by DHS. A secure home is the right of every Citizen! Contact your DHS office for an installation appointment today!
... install Media Player Classic, Real-Alternatice and download the .ram file. Rename it to .m3u and drag it into Media Player Classic.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
From his essay: "A popular response is: "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear... the truth is that we all do have something to hide, not because it's criminal or even shameful, but simply because it's private. We carefully calibrate what we reveal about ourselves to others... The right not to be known against our will - indeed, the right to be anonymous except when we choose to identify ourselves - is at the very core of human dignity, autonomy and freedom.
"If we allow the state to sweep away the normal walls of privacy that protect the details of our lives, we will consign ourselves psychologically to living in a fishbowl. Even if we suffered no other specific harm as a result, that alone would profoundly change how we feel. Anyone who has lived in a totalitarian society can attest that what often felt most oppressive was precisely the lack of privacy."
And continuing his argument:
"Now "September 11" is invoked as a kind of magic incantation to stifle debate, disparage critical analysis and persuade us that we live in a suddenly new world where the old rules cannot apply... If Parliament and the public at large have been slow to react, it is probably because for most people, most of the time, privacy is a pretty abstract concept. Like our health, it's something we tend not to think about until we lose it - and then discover that our lives have been very unpleasantly, and perhaps irretrievably, altered.
But though we tend to take it for granted, privacy - the right to control access to ourselves and to personal information about us - is at the very core of our lives. It is a fundamental human right precisely because it is an innate human need, an essential condition of our freedom, our dignity and our sense of well-being...."
"When people are worried about their safety, when we have seen the horrors of which toda
Use of most illegal drugs (including marijuana and cocaine) is actually falling. Use of alcohol among young people has also declined.
What they won't mention is that the most likely reason drug use goes down in one area is because people increase use of other drugs or find something else entirely (like whippits).
You've obviously studied this in detail. I'd just like to suggest for the general good that you realise that promoting privacy in the way you did (total privacy) could lead to the same mis-conceptions that arose when what's-his-name lectured on the "Selfish Gene". I know I was confused.
It's been good reading you !
It _is_ an excellent essay. It's quite ironic, then, that Radwanski himself abused the privacy he was granted (i.e. to be a prominent public servant yet unsupervised by the Access to Information Act) and signed his own highly excessive expense submissions.
But Althusser wrote wonderfully about the possibilities for human conviviality then chopped his wife into little bits.
Humans. pfft.
Damn those pesky terrorists
When I was in high school during the cold war, the surceilance society that existed in the soviet union was given as an example that the soviet system was flawed and repressive. Now, in the U.S. it is far worse so far as lack of privacy than it ever was in Russia. I don't want to get over the fact that I have no control over my personal data anymore. I want some of the privacy that I have lost back. The government and businesses that are stealing my privacy, recognize the importance of privacy, as they demand it for themselves while taking it from me at the same time. My supermarket has a sign on the front door stating that unauthorized photography inside the store is prohibited. Walking through that same door, you are confronted by an overhead tv monitor with your image on it making it very plain that they feel that it is within their rights to photograph you. Don't steal from me what you reserve for yourself. What we need is a personal data bill of rights. Here are a few amendments to start:
1) No selling of my personal data to third parties without my consent.
2) No mining of public data that people are required to give to government
(motor vehicle, voter registration, tax records, etc.) for the sake of marketing.
3) I am allowed access to any data you have about me in order to correct any errors.
4) No allowing cheaper prices for necessities such as food if one uses a "loyalty card". In other words, everyone gets the same price. It is a necessity. I need it to live The arrogance of the "loyalty card" to get a better price angers me in the extreme. The well-to-do customers can chose to pay more and keep their privacy, while the poor pretty much feel compelled to use the cards out of pure economics.
5) Data about me that a business has aquired remains mine. It does not become theirs because they gathered it. I retain the right to have it removed should I so desire.
6) This list is not exhaustive. Fell free to add your own amendments.
well said. I posted before I read your post, and had I read yours first, I probably would not have posted. I did not mention the loss of freedom that is so inherent with the loss of privacy, but rather I was mostly concerned with corporate abuse. At the end of the day, the danger of loss of freedom is much more inportant as you state. I was impressed with the idea that so many of our freedoms would become meaningless without privacy, again, as you stated.
Certainly "everyone does it" is not an excuse for his large expense account. And if true, there is no excuse for his bullying behavior. What I don't see is evidence that other officials were subjected to the same level of audits, with the same consequences if their expense numbers were too high. As this article suggests, many other officials could be caught (or have been caught) with the same or larger expenses for food and travel. He may have been a bullying boss as well, but again, how many other officials have been kicked out for that?
GR was warning Canadians not to lose the privacy rights already lost to those in the US. His replacement seems to think privacy is not a right but simply a value, so that the 'right to privacy' is much less like the "right to vote" and much more like the value of good butter tarts.
And Canada has now become much better at "sharing" its information with the US. I'd want to say that's a problem for Canadians whose info has been given to the US, because who could those Canadians complain to? But then here in the US US citizens themselves don't have a right to review or correct what information the feds have- no matter how incorrect it is or how harmful incorrect information can be. Would Canada be less likely to share if GR was still commissioner? I'd be inclined to think yes.
So, so right. As Spock from Star Trek said "the good of the many outweighs the good of the few", except when the few have things to hide like Homosexuality, transvestitism, extra-marital affairs, chocoholism, a desire to play with lego or paddling pools.... whatever. these are all legal, and all things which should remain private.
I felt sorry for the French official they were interviewing about France's policy regarding Sudan, and how France (and pretty much everyone else) were letting the diplomatic process go through its motions while people are being killed. I love it when they confront an official with a recording of someone else's interview, like they did to this South African official regarding women who found themselves legally married to a man they don't know. Basically the women had been told by another official that it was up to her to get the 'divorce' (and put their actual marriage and whole life on hold in the mean time), but the South African official had already said it wasn't just a big deal to do away with the marriage.
Not sure if these were Today or another program... since I don't have TV this summer I've started listening to BBC World Service and then BBC 4 when Service goes into repeat. BBC 4 is great for American insomniacs, it has all its morning programming late at night.
Basically the US should steal the House of Commons debate style (watch Prime Minister Question on CSPAN, its great), the BBC, and curry, and let Britain keep the rest of their food and tabloid press. We would be in good shape.
Don't forget Hacker and Pirate!
You're making us feel so... neglected.
:`(
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Vaccine?
Haha. Touche.
Speckpot?