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It's "1984" in Europe, What About Your Country?
An anonymous reader asks: "A few hours ago, the European parliament accepted a proposal '...on the retention of data processed in connection with the provision of public electronic communication services...'. Summarized: any data (internet connections, traffic, email, file sharing, SMS, phone calls) of 450 million people of Europe has to be collected by telcos, to be used by governments in their fight against 'crime and terrorism' ... oh, and child porn, of course. In Germany, over-the-sea reports are limited and usually do not include the latest developments in law and order, but since Slashdot has readers all over the world, I would like to ask: how is the status of YOUR country in terms of anti-terrorism-laws, observations and such? Any recommendations where one can still live free and unobserved in a non-nanny state?"
It is a relatively modern Idea that Freedom is equal to Privacy. While the truth they are rather disjunct concepts. You still have the right of free speech you can still say whatever you want and just as long as it doesn't cause direct harm, (Like yelling Fire in a crowded room) you have the right to say it.
But just recently the right of privacy seems to be implicit to your freedom of speech. With freedom of speech (At least the American ideal) you should be able to state your views without getting arrested for it. But it doesn't state that you can say it without anyone knowing that you said it.
I am not saying you shouldn't fight to keep your privacy, but it is not taking away a right, it is taking away a luxury, that we enjoy. In many ways I want to keep privacy, because then we are able to say our views that can shake things up without breaking social norms of living in the real world. But on the down side as with any luxury, if we over use it we get comfortable and abuse it. Saying things that should not say and shake things up that if a person had a chance to think twice about it wouldn't shake up. Pushing society too fast is as dangerous as letting it become stagnate, and Luxuries like privacy should be treated well or could be forced to be removed.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I have nothing more to say at this time.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Let the flaming begin...
-------------------------------END--COMMUNICATION
I'm guessing that's a British billion (i.e., an American million)...
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Million, not billion! ...Else that's a lot of people in the EU.
I ate your fish.
Last I checked there were only 6 billion people on earth - so 450 billion people in europe in the last month would be a intrest feat.
(On a related note - why do they have a "mail us if you see something wrong" when it doesnt do anything to email them)
snowulf.com
That's billion with a B folks
All goverments crave power, it's people not fighting them that lets them grab it.
Shin: a device for finding furniture in the dark.
Any recommendations where one can still live free and unobserved in a non-nanny state?"
The answer is directly proportional to how much money you have and how willing you are to spread it around.
Funny? Yes. True? Sadly yes as well in most of the world.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
That's an impressive surge in population growth in Europe, since last I heard the entire planet only had 6 billion people. (guess that makes me a demographics / statistics / math nazi?)
Quantum mechanics: the dreams that stuff is made of.
I agree the concepts are distinct, but most people who value freedom are wary of "big brother" style governments that perform far too much surveillance on their own citizens, because that puts them in a dangerously powerful position to later use that information to restrict freedoms.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
We still think Member's Only jackets are cool.
From those numbers you would never suspect the population was on the decline! http://www.overpopulation.org/older.html!
The moon, I guess (assuming that nobody else owns it). Let's face it, liberty is dying. Unless some libertarians, Goldwater conservatives, Ron Paul, socially liberal Democrats and Republicans (in the true sense of the word liberal; somebody who advocates freedom), and other liberty-minded people band together to take control from our power-hungry authoritarian leaders, the USA is going to turn into "1984" as well.
It was once you should never get in to a land war with China... Forget that... Never get in to a land war with the EU...
Being an illegal Mexican immigrant in the US appears to meet all of your criteria.
Any recommendations where one can still live free and unobserved in a non-nanny state?"
Well, there's alway Luna. Set up a nice colony, far enough away and hard enough to get a lot of troops to that you could live in freedom.
You can panick now, and avoid the rush!
It's the other way around - the British billion used to be a million million, i.e. 1000 American billions. They officially changed it, though - see here.
Aw shessh! It's bad enough trying to keep how many hours ahead/behind it is in Europe, now you're changing the year too?
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
So who has the storage space necessary to pull this off?
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The Signature could not be accessed. Please try again later or contact the administrator
The fathers of our nation enshrined in the constitution the right to pamphlet anonymously. You have the RIGHT to criticize the government without fear that they will track you down and punish you.
But just recently the right of privacy seems to be implicit to your freedom of speech. With freedom of speech (At least the American ideal) you should be able to state your views without getting arrested for it. But it doesn't state that you can say it without anyone knowing that you said it.
If I call my friend up to chat about the old college days I absolutely have a right to privacy. What I talk to an old friend is ABSOLUTELY none of the governments business.
I'm astonished at how some people in the United States act. NYC recently implemented random bag searches in the subway- only they can only search your bags and only before you get on the subway- if you don't want to be searched you can walk away (exactly what kind of terrorist this is supposed to catch is beyond me and a subject for another debate). What astounds me about this, however, is just how many people go out of their way to be searched. If the cops don't call you over to be searched you don't have to stop- I've walked past every time without being stopped. Some people, however, walk over to the cops, open their bags and show them the contents without being asked. I have no idea what society I am living in but I would love to find some place in this world where people actually have self respect and care about their rights.
-sirket
450 Billion people? gee...
Mine doesn't look as good now that I weigh 50 pounds more than I did in highschool, I'll give you that, but it is still extremely cool.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Obscurity is the only true path to privacy.
Open Source Sushi
Why, the internet is just fine here in China! Come in and experience the wonderful "protection" from the horrific democratic and gawd-awful Falun Gong sites! It is just peppy!
1948, it will come to nothing...
:-]
What kind of hardware would this require? There have to be billions of terabytes of data flowing back and forth across the internet. How would a group store all of this data? How long would it be held? Would tax money even remotely begin to cover all of this? Just my $0.02US... and for the super-paranoid: how says they aren't already doing this?
Speaking from Denmark (part of the EU), I would say that 1984 is definitly moving closer. The techincal aspects that makes it, more or less, impossiple to record everything a person says and of course the loss of privace aside, I find it the most scary thing, that the general attitude seems to be: "If you don't have anything to hide, so it doesn't matter, does it?"
It has been shown that slick monitoring of information does not protect citizens from terrorism. Monitoring the general public is such a large undertaking that funds spent doing that have far better places to be spent. If given the chance, the general public would not elect to do such a wasteful activity. It is ineffective, just as the current rules regarding airline screenings do not work. Knives and "weapons" still make it on the airline, etc. By monitoring the general airwaves, terrorists will use encryption. What then? Force all communications over non encrypted channels? What about bank transactions, etc? You can not protect the public from its self. Safety is relative, and its been proven that consumers do not want that level of "safety" for that price.
I'll just summarize my fears like this: If you lack privacy, tyrants can go unchecked in power.
/need/ privacy in order to sustain a democracy.
And of course, without privacy, everything the citizen does is clear to the government, but the government can act without the same level of transparency.
The government stops working under the whims of the people, and the people start working under the control of the government.
We
http://mediagoblin.org/
Until countries decide that the central banks are evil nothing will change. This is something that has been a very big issue historically. Most great leaders were killed going against the Central Privately Held Banks. They have complete power and now want complete global control. Only a very, very, brave leader will fight the Central Bank. Here in the US, our late President Kennedy issues US Bank Notes in direct competition with the Federal Reserve. They day he was assasinated they revoked them. This is by far the one issue that completely trumps all others. The central banks are responsible for wars, depressions, murders, and complete financial enslavement. Money may be the root of all evil, but the privately held central banks are pure evil.
Mind | Body | Spirit | Cash
What's this sudden rash of the "nanny state" term? Seems like it's popped up whenever there's a "threat" to your right *cough* to view porn, download illegally, etc. This only amounts to some sort of nanny control if you're underage. What's wrong with making it difficult for kids to access such material? I say bah to such cries of control as they likely come from a 15-year-old who's PO'ed that his parents have installed CyberSitter.
Yes, I recognize this is off-topic. To bring it somewhat back to topic, what's this data collection have to do with the so-called nanny state, anyway?
we are enjoying the secret police in USA too, just make sure you smile , do not go to anti-war demonstrations (even in free speech zones)
The United States is currently ...okayish on privacy, in my opinion. We had a law passed called the Patriot Act soon after 9/11 that raised severe privacy concerns, arguably the greatest in quite a long time. In essence, it did less than the new EU law you cite, so for that reason I say that my country is still the land of the free. (Its major provisions allowed the government access to personal information and library records when terrorism is suspected.)
Really, many countries these days are cracking down, but I still like what I see.
ACs are modded -6. I don't read you, I don't mod you, I don't see you. Don't like it? Don't be a coward.
Here in the US we have the "Patriot Act" from 2001, which grants the government a rather extrordinary collection of survalence powers. 16 sections of the bill expire on Dec. 31 of this year, including many of the electronic survalence portions that would be of interest to the /. crowd. The Republican party is trying to push a 4-year renewal through congress by the end of the year, but the 9/11 carte blanche that got it passed initally has run out and there is serious resistance this time around, including threats of a filibuster. Its worth noting that there are some minor improvements in the 4 year extension, and a more substantal overhaul, called the safe act, currently stalled in comitte. For those interested, some stories on cnet and msnbc (look, balance for the news bias whiners!)
CNN reports: By a 251-174 vote Wednesday, the U.S. House of Representatives agreed to renew 16 of the act's provisions that were set to expire at year's end.
While I agree with your point of not having to have anonomity in speech, I see that something like this would be used to monitor what people read as well. The problem with that is that without some level of privacy in regards to what we read and practice, we cannot be expected to act in a truely free manner. People don't want and shouldn't have to have someone standing over their backs watching what they read or what they believe. Also, this has a huge possibility for abuse. I can imagine some politician getting ahold of his or her competition's browsing habits from back in college and using it to their advantage.
From TFPDF:
"Member States shall ensure that the following categories of data are retained under this
Directive:
(a) data necessary to trace and identify the source of a communication;
(b) data necessary to trace and identify the destination of a communication;
(c) data necessary to identify the date, time and duration of a communication;
(d) data necessary to identify the type of communication;
(e) data necessary to identify the communication device or what purports to be the
communication device;
(f) data necessary to identify the location of mobile communication equipment."
Aside from the repeat story and population inflation in Europe, look at the data being collected.
There's quite a difference between the government seeing WHAT you talked about and the government seeing WHO and WHEN and HOW LONG you talked.
If they're going to make a power grab, I'd rather they see who and when, rather than what, I'm saying.
But as it is, I'm in the USA, Land of the Free(TM). My government probably has these powers...they just don't outline them so neatly.
I give up on Slashdot. Digg.com: I'm finally ready to commit.
Wow! I had no idea that 9000% of the world's population (give or take) lived in Europe!
Their may be a grammatical error, misspeling, or evn a typo in this post.
Those 450 Billion Europeans obviously already understand the utility of multiple screen names.
Welcome to Canada the Land of the free !!! Seriously we do have a bit of big brother in here but with our evident lack of budget ... what else can i say !
We cant even keep our damn borders safe , i would never want to be a border patrol officer.
Wer war der Thor, wer Weiser, Bettler oder Kaiser? Ob Arm, ob Reich, im Tode gleich
Tatooine. Nice place, a bit too sunny though
... and I'm not talking about the average attractiveness quotient of your typical /. readership.
Summarized: any data (internet connections, traffic, email, file sharing, SMS, phone calls) of 450 billion people of Europe
You didn't work on the Mars Polar lander by chance?
"There are no facts, only interpretations." --Friedrich Nietzsche.
You obviously never studied this issue seriously. The absence of privacy forces people to modify their behavior. The less privacy, the less freedom of behavior. It is not just illegal behavior that is suppressed, but any behavior that is outside the accepted norms.
Lack of privacy is the single greatest threat to freedom we now face.
The big thing about 1984 was that the telescreens were in everybody's house, making private conversations impossible. Anybody remotely in touch with reality can see that 1984 is a long way off. So is the submitter trolling, or are they genuinely that out of touch?
Also, Europe is a continent. The EU is a group of countries. It is not a country itself. So well done for getting under the skin of a whole continent full of people by implying that the EU is just another country. Again, trolling or ignorance?
With all the businesses incorporating there, they must have some attractive privacy laws.
Any recommendations where one can still live free and unobserved in a non-nanny state? .25 klicks. Please depart civilization now and leave us in peace.
Uhhh, yeah - like the Congo, the plains of Afghanistan, or any other third world cesspool that you would find intolerable because it doesn't have a starbucks every
It is a relatively modern Idea that Freedom is equal to Privacy.
And equally so is it that only in modern times has the capability to log every single activity and statement made by individuals become possible. The idea of privacy being synonymous with freedom has evolved directly in proportion to the capabilities of governments to compile dossiers on their citizens' movements and activities. The reason that there is no prohibition of this activity in the American Constitution is because it wasn't even imagined to be possible. We don't have any legal protections against cerebral implants that send what we see, think, and feel to a centralized server because such things do not exist, not because we believe such devices to be a reasonable exercise of state surveillance power.
People who support, or even fail to oppose such Orwellian surveillance are the larger threat to our freedom than the terrorists themselves in my opinion. As we inch towards the very type of state that would have Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin turning over in their graves, the terrorists are laughing all the way to the bank. Mission accomplished.
If anything, wasn't Orwell early?
New Zealand is relatively good. I'm biased, I live here.
One of the last attempts at privacy invasion that hit the media was a case of the postal service (which is an SOE) was gathering data on house conditions. This information was deemed to assist with targeted advertising, for a price. There was a large public backlash.
On TV news, there were some quick queries put forward to members of the public. I'll never forget the American dude was simply said, "I moved to here from America to get away from this kind of stuff."
The one thing worrying me is possibility of NZ signing a Free Trade agreement with the US. You get dicked when you do that. But we're quite anti-American here due to the Iraq war, so we may be safe for now =)
I'm not certain that the concern is necessarily with what you say, or the possible ramifications of what you say... So much as it is with things that other folks really have absolutely no need to know.
Yes, I have the right to say what I want. I can choose to say that I hate the President of the United States and I can't wait to get rid of him. And if my boss hears this and happens to like the President, I may have to deal with the consequences. That's ok. I can deal with that. It really doesn't bother me. Even if I start losing privacy and they wind up tracking this post to me and I have to deal with the consequences. Unlike a large number of US citizens, I do not believe that "freedom of speech" should mean "freedom from consequences".
What I'm personally somewhat concerned about is losing the simple privacy that we all enjoy at home - in the bathroom, in the bedroom, in the livingroom. I don't want to discover that my boss knows I watch Star Trek reruns every single time they're on, or that I sleep with a teddy bear, or that I use dial soap. I don't want to have to worry about keeping or losing my job because of my favorite sexual position, or how geeky my DVD collection is. These are things that really shouldn't matter to anyone else out there...but you KNOW that if it all winds up online and documented someone will go data mining and turn up all sorts of embaressing details.
I guess what I'm saying is that I'm usually fairly aware of when I'm saying something controversial (ie: Dubya sucks!) and I can choose when/where/how I say that. I'm really not worried about my political/religious/whatever beliefs getting me in trouble. What I am concerned about is the gory, insignificant, private details of my life suddenly becoming public knowledge.
I live in the United States, but I haven't really kept up with news or politics in the last five years or so (I've been pretty busy). I assume everything's roughly as it was last time I checked. So, situation's not bad! We killed the Clipper Chip and stopped Big Brother.
I should check and see what this new president has been up to.
xkcd.com - a webcomic of mathematics, love, and language.
On Wednesday, the US House of Representatives voted to renew 16 parts of the "USA Patriot Act" that were set to expire at year's end. These include National Security Letters (basically search warrants the FBI issues itself without judicial review) and the ability of the FBI to obtain your medical records and records of library activity. Hopefully, the Senate will remember why the Constitution was written in the first place. Heck, some of this probably contravenes the Magna Carta.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
I've heard that Europeans are skinnier than Americans, but I think that's a bit extreme, don't you?
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
I thought the enlightened europeans were a model we should all follow.
Now we find it racist, full of riots (France) and keeping records of your every communication. London is loaded with thousands upon thousands of cameras to make sure they can see you at all times.
When you hear EU, just say no thanks.
Utter tosh!
Privacy allows one the right to think what one wants without a coersive government locking one up.
When a government monitors emails, and builds networks of who knows whom, I find it extremely intrusive.
Europe has history. If any of the evil governments that existed in it's past existed today, they would need about fifteen minutes to get a long list of everyone they did not like, (and those that communicated with them) and lock them up or worse.
The "luxury" you speak of was in existance previous to the information age when governments could not track your thoughts, personal networks, banking information, health information and all the other info that they keep in large databases. Today, fridges and toasters are networked and will betray you, not simply a disgruntled family member or the neibour's kid. Did you know they keep track of what food you buy via your safeway card? That is "total information awareness" and it is not to protect you, but to protect your government from you. What did Echelon do to prevent Sept 11? Nothing. Terrorists used countermeasures and will continue to do so. They may be deranged fanatics but they're not stupid.
Look at Iraq. They have government goon squads that execute thousands a month. (Morgues are filled.) Thanks to the information age, not are actions considered treasonous but thoughts also. An email. A phone call. It's OK until it's your ass. (Or knee cap or skull.) Your slashdot posting of 2002 may seal your fate.
Don't be so foolish to assume that all future governments will be benign.
In the mean time it is our responsiblity to build networks resistant to these policies.
-b
I heard a report on this, and they aren't storing the content... just the fact that a connection was made.
So you send an SMS to me... it get's logged. So later when they want to look at the phone records and see who yo umade calls to, they can also see who you sent email to, SMS too, and used your VOIP too.
The thing is, with the internet it's nearly impossible. They would have to log every single connection your computer ever makes. Now imagine you've got some virus... it'd be terrabytes of data per day.
As far as I can see government isn't monitoring everything as in 1984. Rather the data is held by the respective service providers so the government can get specific information if it has specific reason to.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
You can say any right is a luxury. People define what are rights.
I suggest you read about Griswold v. Connecticut for more information about the U.S. Supreme Court's take on the right to privacy.
Total population of Europe =450Billion (Ref:slashdot.org) Total area of Europe =4,170,000 sq.mile so density/sqmile=450000000000/4170000=107913.669 so..107913 people are living per sq.mile.. what do I achive by proving this NOTHING.. Just wanna say I am good in Maths.. plz outsource ur job to me
Last I read, the world population was a little less than that.... http://esa.un.org/unup/p2k0data.asp
Though I'm hardly old enough to remember this but only thru my parents and some very early memories, the propoganda during world war II about how evil to population of hitlers rule was.
Today, thanks to the internet, we all know it was bull shit... that people of one country are just like the people of another... all having their daily living concerns.
This whole terrorism blow up was not without a cause. You screw someone enough and they will retaliate or someone else will use it as an excuse to.
So it is with the WTC..... and the trillion dollar bet... a stock market gamble that drain south east asia of their economy. and then the totally disconnected but some how magically connected via bush adminastration and threated media helping to bang war drums.....
The point is simple... of the over 6 billion people on this planet, it is a small fraction of a percent that is totally responsible for the excuse of terrorism.
Search the web for trillion dollar bet and "what the world wants"....
And see what the few are doing to keep a much better world from us all.
They are the real terrorist and as the deceptive do, they clain its someone else.
...you're still a wingnut.
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
This whole thing reminds me of ACDC's song "We're on a highway to hell", because... - oh hello there uniformed men - I was just posting on Slashdot, nothing to worry.. - aah let me go - neeed to keeep posting...
And when you gaze long enough into the code, the code will also gaze into you.
True, they are not equivalent, but that does not mean privacy is not a right. In the US its considered covered under the 4th amendment: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated More on this here.
Same here. Leftist political correct suburbian feminist bitches (and of course ethnics) rule everything. White males must pay up and feel bad for everything. What a bummer.
Well here's a big fat FUCK YOU BACK
:-)
:-(
You feel good now that you've got that off your chest, don't you?!
if nothing else to prove that things are fucked up everywhere
Considering that the US House of Representatives just passed the Patriot[sic] Act today, your timing is impeccable.
"Fascism could better be called 'corporatism', for it is merely the merging of state power with corporate power." -- Benito Mussolini, the Italian dictator who "invented" fascism
It's gotta get through the Senate, and it looks as if it will be filibustered. By Republicans AND Democrats.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
Obviously you do not understand the term "Chilling effect". Without some privacy you simply DO NOT have any freedom. Seriously. I can't beleive this was modded insightful.
No problem for us down under it's 1984 here too. Except on weekends when we like to revert to the 1880's
You know... if you were a terrorist, isn't that exactly what you'd do? Get your buddy to distract the cops by showing them his bag while you walk on to the subway with the bomb in your bag.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
is a privacy paradise :) But an insecurity hell :( We wish we had 1/10th of the security the US enjoys.
:)
Well, at least i can D/L anime (without needing a tinfoil hat) to forget about everyday problems
Yeah, but the difference is that most other countries in the world have been slowly gaining more freedoms over hundreds of years, and have been able to witness firsthand their governments' behaviour when possessing more power and control over the population, and said government's slow relinquishment of such powers. In the US, the country was founded not long ago as a new libertarian society that valued freedom over all else, including one's personal safety (hence, joining militias, and sacrificing lives to gain freedom from the laws of england), and that freedom rather than increasing, seems to have decreased since it was first won. I always find it funny when Americans now talk about "the most important freedom of all, the freedom of safety"... What ever happened to laying your life on the line for your freedom?
The country I'm residing has done far more than mere wire-tapping and/or data-collection.
Please read this BBC report and/or this report from Australia
See if it qualifies to be on the infamous 1984 list.
Thank you !
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
"GETDOWNONTHEFLOOR! DOWNONTHEFLOORNOW!!"
"But I'm just trying to post to Slashdot."
"HANDS OFF THE KEYBOARD PUNK!"
"But I'm an American citi..."
Hmm... 450 Billion people, eh?
If the ISP's have to keep all the data I transmit, I can use them as my backup. Thank you, Big Brother!
They've gone back in time to relive such great pop chart moments such as;
Kenny Loggins - Footloose
Ray Parker junior - Ghostbusters
Van Halen - Jump
In Argentina they tried something like that this year ( http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/11/19 44204&tid=158&tid=95&tid=17 ) but it quickly disappeared because of the public outrage...
Ok, fine. Head on down to St Kitts, or some other small island nation. The government won't be watching your telecommunications because you won't have any. You will, however, have no interest in computers anymore because the beautiful weather will keep you outdoors all day.
Honestly, you just have to face the fact that in every developed nation, they are going to be watching what you do to an extent. You just have to hope that they only do things like stop people from sending/receiving kiddie porn or stealing music. Even those are questionable sometimes, I understand that point of view as well.
Bottom line, if you don't do things to draw their attention you likely won't be watched. If you show up on a few warez ftp sites, or in some irc room where movies get posted 0-day you are going to be watched I imagine.
http://www.sealandgov.com/
The 'Net is a waste of time, and that's exactly what's right about it. - William Gibson
How do you capture this information.... do you try it at an application layer? You'd probably capture it at IP as you don't want to ignore TCP/UDP/other layer4 protocols. Do they expect telcos to SPAN all the traffic inbound AND outbound to some monster sniffer(s). You'd want to filter out the control (bgp,ospf etc..) traffic, but a 10Gb pipe (20Gb/s if you think about full duplex). If we used marketingmath whereby a 10Gb ~ 1GB...
The largest EMC DMX (DMX-3) can handle approximately 251TB of storage. You'd fill up the array in ~70hrs (3days!) using ONLY a single 10Gb/s link. Remember that large disk arrays out there have interfaces that are 2Gb/s FibreChannel. So you'd need atleast 5 interfaces (in a perfect world once again), that were capable of 2Gb/s. So you can forget about SATA arrays, as those couldn't dream of this bandwidth.
Oh yeah... how do you back this thing up... Fastest tape drives out there run 150MB/s (LTO-3) application throughput with compression.
Good Luck...
Your local SAN Administrator.
Yes, but is Privacy necessary for Freedom? Some might say that you don't have freedom if you don't have privacy, but this still doesn't make Privacy == Freedom.
Damn, I already moderated this topic. Now I'll have to log in with my sock puppet to comment.
if by recently you mean dating back to the founding fathers then yes, it is a recent phenomenon, though in the history of human civilization all of america is rather recent.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
Here in Washington state, it's still perfectly legal to have sex with horses, but draw Bush's head on a pike, and the secret service will show up.
Back in April a bill was passed that was supposed to crack on "express kidnappings" by making telcos hold more data on cellphone calls (often used in this kind of crime), but it was extended to internet traffic and suddenly ISPs would have to keep records of users email, sites visited, etc. for 10 years. When the news broke what the government wanted to do, the negative response was so big that the president vetoed the law and proposed a rewriting almost immediately. Barrapunto (Spanish Slashdot) story on the veto
US_CITIZEN == 1
I'm sorry; but this is dumb and its modded insightful. Sad. What you are saying is that I may put a video camera in your house to make sure you don't commit a crime. Privacy is a RIGHT. You have the right to shower in your bathroom without one viewing you. You have the right to be alone and not be viewed by others. Luxury? Luxury is a highend car with leather, it doesn't PROTECT any of your freedoms. PRIVACY DOES. You comparing it to a luxury clearly spells out that you firstly don't respect the persons who died to provide you with the RIGHT to speak what you do. Secondly, you don't know what freedom is.
People like you have these "ideas" about privacy and somehow have taken over this country. It's truly a shame this has been modded up, at least hopefully not by Americans.
US_CITIZEN == 0
Americans don't believe in that bull shit; you can keep it.
Hopefully Americans, true Americans will fight to take this country back, because with shit like this its only a matter of time before we are looking to shed a little blood to make the green grass grow. I'll proudly spill some if it brings this country back to its spirit.
...Somalia. They've been without a central government for 15 years. Some say it's anarchy, some it's the libertarian dream. But it's not a police state for sure.
please excuse my apathy
8.836382222 x 10^-6 square km = 8,836,382.22 square mm = 13,696.4198 square inches = 95.114 square feet.
Still not a lot of land, but more than 1/4 inch.
Oh?
Privacy, of which anonymity is a part, is vital in protecting freedom of speech. If you have something controversial to say, you may still be effectively restrained from saying it if you know that it'll attract suspicion from your fellow citizens or the government. For example, a business owner who has some kooky political views might not be able to discuss them if such discussion can be traced back to him, because he'll risk a boycott from customers who disagree. Should he have to choose between political speech and his own livelihood?
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
They say that there is a silver lining to every cloud. This is a pretty damn big cloud (as it covers all of Europe) and the silver lining is impressively small...
/dev/urandom | nc $FOO.co.uk 9 to fill the databases with garbage and render the monitoring economically unfeasible.
But hopefully this will spur the use of encryption in all communications, with temporary key pairs. If you don't have your secret key anymore, they can't subpoena it.
HTTPS by default is better than HTTP by default. (Though we'll have to deal with millions of self-signed certificates...)
I can imagine the protesting now, by the way: cat
"Citizens of the World", we are called.
I suggest you read Slashdot
Do not ever think that you, a middle class westerner, has ever suffered as any suppressed man in the past. You have experienced nothing and you know nothing. Perhaps most importantly though, you (like millions) will do nothing.
Last I checked: http://www.secretsituation.com/geo/graphic1.htm the global population is at 6.6 billion. Stop selling Viagra to Europe!!!
There's a little spot on the UC-Berkeley campus that is not under the jurisdiction of any government. "This area belongs to no nation or territory and is not subject to any laws or treaties..."
You could always try to live under the sea. "Homer, that's your solution to everything: to move under the sea. It's not gonna happen!"
Not with that attitude, my friend. Not with that attitude.
Good luck.
Q: What did the comedian say to the crowd?
A: If I knew, this joke would be funny.
It is a relatively modern Idea that Freedom is equal to Privacy
I don't know about your country, but Spanish's constitution says:
"Article 18
[...]
3. Secrecy of communications is guaranteed, particularly of postal, telegraphic and telephonic communications, except in the event of a court order to the contrary."
And this shit breaks that. I'm all for fighting terrorism. But it's NOT my fault if politicians are stupid. Fix it with politics. It was Bush and all those ultra-right-wing politicians who started all this crap, not "communications". I don't understand why they're limiting my freedom just because all those stupid people made lots of errors.
Tell the nearest Black guy you see that he is less free now then he would have been 225 years ago. [ "Freedom is Slavery", right? ;) ]
There are important points that the US has gotten worse on, but there are also a few that we've gotten better on. I don't mean this post to be a "Don't Worry, Be Happy!" statement to make people complacent. On the contrary, I point out the successes to show that not all is lost.
Fight on, my fried. The struggle for freedom did not end 225 years ago.
"Nobody writes jokes in base 13." - Douglas Adams
"This legislation proudly bought to you by EMC, NetApp, and Sun"
Probably not, but right now I do suspect those three will be partying hard.
Things are so bad that free speech that "doesn't direct harm" is actually meaningless speech. Or rather, irrelevant speech.
"I am not saying you shouldn't fight to keep your privacy, but it is not taking away a right, it is taking away a luxury, that we enjoy." I don't know what country you live in, but in the US it's considered a right defined by the Fourth Amendment to the Constituion: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. Of course, the gov't is trying to eliminated the idea of "unreasonable" down in the name of homeland security.
You don't make any sense. (1) Budgets are in order here in Canada. (2) Our (your) government just passed a bill allowing to intercept ALL e-mail and internet data. Apparentlty you just felt the urge to burp on Slashdot without knowing anything.
And as for 1984: things are getting much worse here. You can't even spank your kid anymore without some sexless seventies-vomit-person calling the cops. On the street or at the workplace you cannot even say anymore that it is not normal for men to stick their dicks in the poop-bowel of other men.
So. "Bad" Eh?
"What I talk to an old friend is ABSOLUTELY none of the governments business."
Not even if you two are seriouly planning on flying planes into buildings or releasing sarin gas in a subway?
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
Based on this info it is time to invest in storage companies and those that provide SAN management. The EU will be buying most of the storage produced in the next few years. Another good market would be ISP floor space and backup companies. They will need thousands of square feet of raised floor space and vaults for tapes for all this storage. To say nothing of the generators and other infrastructure needed to support all that storage.
Sun has some good products and their new processor line uses less power and space which will become a premimum shortly.
So go out there and invest!
Why is it that people (at least Americans) assume that because a right is not specifically enumerated in the Constitution, it doesn't exist. Try reading the rest of the Bill of Rights-
Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
Yeah-it's there.
We really ought to be able to ding ./ editors who dupe *on the same day*.
I, for one, welcome our new Antichrist overlord.
Submitter seems to have forgotten one of the main ideas of 1984.
ALL paper that is not going to be part of official record is BURNED. Anything in official record that didn't fit the current administrations views was burned and then rewritten. People on the street were told to bring any paper they find to chutes leading to the incinerators. This way the government could change all records and no one would be able to prove that it was ever any different because there was no evidence. Ingenious and evil idea to say the least.
Instead of burning paper, the US government is classifying ANYTHING. Shit from the cold war is still classified. I believe the amount of classifying materials has shot up significantly since Bush took office. Instead of doing something as obvious as burning the past, they classify it.
If people see a long line and a short line, they will invariably get in the long line "because everyone is in the long line."
In addition to the above mentioned Griswold v Connecticut which established a constitutional right to privacy based on penumbras cast by the explicitly stated civil liberties, several other Supreme Court cases have further expanded on the right to privacy. So unless the Supreme Court decides to overturn these decisions (which would likely only occur after an Amendment denying privacy as a right), our right to privacy is vital and as important as our freedom of expression. At the very least, it's more dear than our neglected right to associate.
Finally!! someone is acting like us, lets blame them!!!
pathetic
Here's a giant hint for you: us Europeans already know that things are fucked up everywhere. Those flamewars you mention? They are provoked by dumbass USA citizens constantly claiming that they are "the land of the free", going so far as to invade other countries in the name of "freedom".
Shut the hell up about how free you are and you'll get far less criticism for not being free. Don't build a fucking "freedom tower" while passing laws curtailing your freedom and you'll get far fewer people laughing at you. Europeans aren't being hypocritical because we aren't criticising you for being non-free, we're criticising you for constantly putting yourselves up on pedestals as the Land of the Fucking Free[tm] while making it abundantly clear corporations, halfwits, fascists and religious fundamentalists are in charge of your country.
You know, I honestly can't decide whether the USA is going to be a fascist oligarchy or a theocracy in ten year's time. What I do know is that while it's happening, you guys are 95% either in favour of the change, or too lazy or self-involved to do anything about it. If I were French, I'd be asking for the Statue of Liberty back right about now. Your country was great once, but ignorance, apathy, malice and greed have turned it into a complete joke. The terrifying thing is that the joke possesses nuclear weapons. I swear, I'm happier with the thought of North Korea having nuclear weapons, at least there's a good chance of that country acting in their best interests and not using them. The USA, you just can't trust to act rationally any more.
And yet many people with lots of money choose to live in Monaco, which is the opposite of private. I guess because they know that abuses of police power will be directed at those with less money than they have.
(N)o Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause(.)
I thought Europe was a continent!
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
Freedom is slavery.
...to be used by governments in their fight against 'crime and terrorism' ... oh, and child porn, of course...
War is peace.
Ignorance is strength.
That's 1984. Not your laws.
What exactly are we crying about here? Oh no, you can't download kiddy porn, wage war against the infidels and generally do stuff you're not supposed to in Europe any more. Who cares about privacy?
Hiding nothing is nothing to hide
The government doesn't really care what you're doing in your personal life, what you're doing with your friend tomorrow, and they're not going to bother following along with it.
Don't do the wrong thing,
Don't get arrested,
Don't cry about it.
I'll subscribe to Slashdot when I see a month without a dupe, a typo, or an article the "editors" didn't read.
emagine a beowulf cluster of....
:)
oh, never mind.
just ask google how they do it.
Free countries do not monitor their citizens without due process and reasonable suspicion.
(%i1) factor(777353);
(%o1) 777353
Until everybody but me works for the NSA (or Europe sends over it's "450 billion citizens"* to spy on me :-0 !), I'm not too worried.
*450 billion! All that attention just for me! My blog ads would BANK!!!
Putting the issue of the right of privacy and is privacy==freedom asside, one must wonder why a government would wish to spy on its own citizens. It seems to me that governments such as these are afraid of the very people they govern. Shouldn't this alarm us?!
In my country, they're coming after the diabetics now http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051215/ap_on_he_me/tr acking_diabetes
rewriting history since 2109
Just cause the government has the worst of intentions there doesn't mean they could pull this off yet. Just think of how messed up this kind of project will get with the government beuacracy.
Do you trust your government to find its ass with both hands?
I don't.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
A billion's bigger than a million, Numbnuts.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
95% either in favour of the change, or too lazy or self-involved
You spelled "favor" wrong.
And BTW, if you were french, you'd be speaking German today if it wasn't for us, so spare us the "I'd be asking for the blah blah blah" bullshit, mmmkay?
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
We're behind schedule.
Sincerely,
The National Security Agency
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
I suggest you read about Griswold v. Connecticut for more information about the U.S. Supreme Court's take on the right to privacy.
Precisely. Privacy is certainly not a freedom of speech. It is a freedom of self interest though--bound up with that 'pursuit of happiness' that was oddly enough put into one of America's founding documents.
Griswold is the legal backing of this right. It was a '65 case about contraceptives that 7 of 9 justices backed, because the understanding of privacy is inherent in the other constitutional protections (in their "penumbras," as Justice Douglas wrote for the majority). All Justice nominees are asked about their agreement with this case, since it's pretty important to senetors as well. Roberts was non-commital on everything, but you could tell from his tone that he agreed with Griswold at least.
The problem comes down to a (possibly) simpler moral question of order versus freedom. In D&D terms, Lawful vs. Chaotic. The mean of American humans, I'm pretty sure, is still in the neutral range.
Which is not to say that it's not something that should still be faught for. (Yeah, yeah, I'm Chaotic Good, you shouldn't have asked.)
Aaanyhow. Firstly, everyone seems pissed that there is legislation that permits authorities to hold people for a limited amount of time without charges or trial. Yes...we have it, Canada does, the US does, the UK does...infact....every country with a police force does. The difference between the 'free' countries of the world, and most others, is that there are mechanisms within the government for self regulation (Like a PID controller (Electrical Engineer)). And besides, I think those worried about having thier freedoms severely infringed upon by the 'man' are flattering themselves way too much, you're free because you're not interesting. The government really doesn't care what you do so long as you pay your taxes, and don't fly planes into very tall buildings.
The responsability of the government, in exchange for our obedience, is to protect us from threats within and afar, among other things depending on what charming little corner of the world you're from. But the government only has the power that we choose to give it. If you don't like the government, run for president, or prime-minister (canadians certainly have enough elections lately to almost guarantee you one of 308 spots in parliament).
The vast majority of us, law abiding (mostly...I love my MP3's and donkey porn), are not in any danger, unless that donkey porn includes a 12 year old girl..or boy....or we do something that makes it worth the government's time to worry about us. Keep in mind that 9/10 of what you hear in the media is crap.
Basically...do whatever you want, as long as you don't piss off anyone who can really do anything about it.
My message is: So what, you live with 'Big Brother', but that asshole has way more important fish to fry than you, don't flatter yourself
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
Historical Review of Pennsylvania.
How old is the average american mentally?
Fuck you guys are pathetic, completely and uterly.
I hope you fuckers know the only thing separating you form the war the world will wage against your country is time...
You concentration camp detentor, torture legalisation bastards, freedom killing freaks.
God you are idiots, beyond anything imaginable. And you just don't help yourself every fucking minute of the hour, every chance you have.
and don't forget to point out my english is bad and I should spell correctly, that will make you right for sure.
For once I can just let my sig make my comment.
Vote Libertarian
Well, it seems that the people on the other side of the pond are putting up with this pretty well. Especially since they've been stripped of most of their guns..
A population kept docile by literally begging them to have families and lots of responsibilities is one that's signing up to lose freedoms. First our guns, then our right to get head in a dark alley, and then our right to not be watched in the shitter.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
I live in North Korea, and we don't have anything of the sort.
This directive had been previously discussed in Spain in barrapunto, and we got to the conclusion that it's a head-on collision against three important articles of our Constitution (by important I mean they're essential rights and won't be easily changed).
My 0.02 cents
The rich, powerful or corrupt have always had the power to invade our privacy because it's just an illusion and will alway be so. Privacy laws just protect the powerful from being watched by the masses.
Instead of fighting a lossing battle to stop this technology we need to ensure that it will be available to everyone and that the information will be open to the public. Put cameras on the streets, in the police stations and in government buildings. Build cheap RFID readers that everyone can own. If you want to read my e-mail that's fine by me as long as I get to read yours. I don't mind being watched as long as I can watch everyone else. Living in a fishbowl canbe a wonderful thing. Imagine a world where everyone is equipped with their own personal cameras and recording devices... with so many eyes spreading their light everywhere the world might become a more peaceful and happy place.
So many words, so little understanding. Mock away, my anonymous friend. Your beliefs, and the beliefs of those you claim as compadres, have not one iota of effect on reality.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
Some people, however, walk over to the cops, open their bags and show them the contents without being asked.
That's nothing.
Once, when I was a kid playing with a friend in Central Park, this guy came over and, without being asked, opened his raincoat.
"Any recommendations where one can still live free and unobserved in a non-nanny state?""
You can live wherever you want. What you really ment to ask is, what society can I participate in free of constraints and unobserved in public? There will ALWAYS be a price for being a participant (and enjoying the benefits of being one) in a society. The thing is, most people want all the benefits, without the price. Nor do they want to exercise the means in place to steer their chosen society towards it's growth. Right now it's leech, leech, leech, whaaaa, leech, leech, whaaa, "I want a revolution. You go die for me.", leech, leech, whaaa, death.
Yes Privacy != Freedom but they are closly related. So much so that we can say that you cannot have freedom without privacy. If anything, the state (governemnt) proves time and again that when given power they WILL abuse it. If stands to reason that making it easy, nay manditory for the state to spy on its population AUTOMATICALLY means less freedom for those very same citizens.
What part of "No" is considered relative Down Under?
READ THE FEDERALIST PAPERS. In the USA, the Federalist Papers were written and posted on trees in public areas, often where roads intersected, and often without an acknowledged author. From this came the understanding that the right to free speech AND the right to your privacy is a right that exists above government and not as just a "luxury".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_Papers
and don't forget to point out my english is bad and I should spell correctly, that will make you right for sure.
Why worry about that?
The simple truth is that no one gets up in arms about taking down #2. Keep up your envy. It's not productive, but the fuel it provides to your fire will keep you warm inside, at least until it burns you out.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
Has anyone bothered to read the article? On page three it says..
"Furthermore, the proposal limits its effects on the private life of citizens: firstly
through clearly establishing the purpose for which the data which are retained can be
used, secondly through limiting the categories of data which need to be retained, and
thirdly through limiting the period of retention. A further important safeguard is that
this Directive is not applicable to the content of communications - this would amount
to interception of telecommunications, which falls outside the scope of this legal
instrument."
Notice the part that talks about the "content of communications"
No... no, 'detentor' is fine. It means "cheesecake", right?
... our electronic privacy rights are absolute. Unlike the Europeans, we can communicate without fear of being eaves%^*,_-+7 ...
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
It *has* to be.
So, having pedophilia records, which should be in the top five best weapons against this, is retrograde? Fighting organized crime and, possibly, preventing terrorism attacks and loss of innocent lifes isn't worth risking some government guy knowing something about you he shouldn't need to know?
Forgive me for not being selfish and sacrificing some of my "freedom" so that others can have the same or more opportunities I had while growing up.
And before someone attacks me on this matter: I cherish privacy and believe it should be fought for, but not at the expense of the benefits that could be reaped.
Besides, if you're that concerned about privacy, you should already be able to know or assess when it is or not secure enough to do whatever you want to do privately. Or even take measures to *make* it secure.
Any recommendations where one can still live free and unobserved in a non-nanny state?
Still whining about your dear old privacy, try living in a cave.
This has got to be one of the most *biased questions* in existence. 4.30AM, I'm going to bed.
Moderators: Don't agree? pray tell why.
the "but" part.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
But on the down side as with any luxury, if we over use it we get comfortable and abuse it. Saying things that should not say and shake things up that if a person had a chance to think twice about it wouldn't shake up. Pushing society too fast is as dangerous as letting it become stagnate, and Luxuries like privacy should be treated well or could be forced to be removed.
I understood what you were trying to say until I read this point. It makes no sense to me. Exactly how does one abuse the "luxury" of privacy? And how is demanding that we be able to enjoy our lives in privacy "pushing society too fast?" And how could privacy not be "treated well," leading to the need for its removal?
I see so many people around me ready to give up certain liberties, written or implied in practice, all for the sake of "safety." Let's get real here, people. Giving up things like privacy and habeas corpus is easy; after all, if you aren't a "terrorist," you have nothing to fear, right? But let's put this into perspective for a minute. These practices and laws are not established to protect criminals. They are in place to protect the innocent from being wrongly accused or persecuted and to ensure that the average citizen can have a reasonable expectation of not being harassed without cause. Any "freedom loving" patriot can see this. Yet, we have people who don't mind giving up their basic liberties because they are either apathetic or they just don't think it will ever affect them.
Are people really that scared? Has the government and the media actually succeeded in its apparent goal of scaring the average person shitless? I don't know about you, but I don't walk around thinking "man I sure am scared today - I wish I could do something, give up something, just so I could feel more secure." Tell, me, exactly: What is the logic here? I have yet to hear anyone who takes a stance similar to this give me a sound, logical, non-emotional reason for it.
Didn't they just do that this morning? What are they gonna do with TWO sets of data?
And Americans would be paying taxes to the British Crown if it hadn't been for the French, so I take it you're even?
I don't know about your country, but Spanish's constitution says:
Spanish's constitution? Remind me again where the country "Spanish" is located.
It was Bush and all those ultra-right-wing politicians who started all this crap
You're well on your way to getting modded Insightful for that gem right there. Unfortunately there's no way you can even come close to blaming Bush for the situation in Europe. Remember, the EU was the bunch that has been against Bush for some time. What the EU has done regarding privacy is Europe's own making. After all, it seems obvious that when a bunch of countries decide to give up a good chunk of their sovereignty you're just asking for local laws to be rewritten to fit the agenda of the new and improved value-sized Big Brother. Spanish and the others are getting what they asked for methinks.
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
/)
I read that as Piracy != Freedom & Freedom != Piracy
I was sad.
Well, its certainly easy to say that pretty much everyone everywhere is less fucked up than you :)
Looks like the Federalists were right.The argument that privacy is not a right is based on the fallacious idea that our rights are limited to those listed in the Bill of Rights. The 9th Amendment is pretty straightforward: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. (Emphasis mine).
There are only two possible rational interpretations: First, that all actions are rights unless that action is explicitly prohibited, or Second, that there is a mystical list of "other rights" floating around somewhere that nobody knows about, except obviously you, and maybe some other people in government.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Wow, Europe sure had alot more people in 1984!
The US was also the only western country that discarded slavery using violence. Hell, the whole emancipation was a political move by Pres. Lincoln during the Civil War, in an attempt to garner support from the South to support the war.
This is not the best example to use. Europe doesn't have slavery, either, and for longer a period than the US.
If you want civil rights as an argument, then you just have to look at the loss of freedom we endured to achieve "equality". Now we have legally required discrimination.
I love my country, and I work actively to fix what I see as wrong. We've made a lot of bad choices, and there is lot to fix today. The worst is that most people don't see the problems, think the problems are progress, or are too lazy/content to do something about the problems. The US is certainly not alone in this; it seems to be a modern world epidemic.
I'd recommend you read about Peter McWilliams, specifically the circumstances of his death. Then you can start reading some of his books. You might want to start with Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do. It's very light and engaging, despite its length. I know I devoured my hardcover edition (now out of print, but available via special order from your local Borders, if you have one) in a week.
This is not an indictment, but a suggestion based on the assumption you would care to expand your knowledge. If you're just trolling, then pay me no mind.
sic
Yeah, but the difference is that most other countries in the world have been slowly gaining more freedoms over hundreds of years, and have been able to witness firsthand their governments' behaviour when possessing more power and control over the population, and said government's slow relinquishment of such powers. In the US, the country was founded not long ago as a new libertarian society that valued freedom over all else, including one's personal safety (hence, joining militias, and sacrificing lives to gain freedom from the laws of england), and that freedom rather than increasing, seems to have decreased since it was first won. I always find it funny when Americans now talk about "the most important freedom of all, the freedom of safety"... What ever happened to laying your life on the line for your freedom?
You're overgeneralizing to the point of absurdity.
The goal of the founding fathers was not some idealized freedom, but self rule. They devised a system where citizens elect their fellow citizens to govern. The system also included a set of checks and balances which prevented people from gaining too much power. They did not make the system so that some bum feels he has to right to sit in his house and look at kiddie porn and screw chickens. Every 'evil' congressman or president who is trying to eat our freedom was freely elected by the citizens of the US no longer than 6 years ago.
I don't see how we're less free now than in the 1700s when slavery was legal and women couldn't vote. Keep in mind that our early laws were heavily religious based. Things have been slowly lightening up over the years, which you fail to see. I think the confusion that you and many others have is privacy versus freedom. The US government is not trying to taking away any of our rights. They are, however, trying to gain more access to information, and trying to organize that information. I think it's funny that people here cry that information wants to be free, but then cry when the government wants information for itself to help serve us. That's a great thing to help them to run our country more efficiently, however, it opens up the potential for abuse. So.... that's where the issue lies, and that's where the 'freedom fighters' need to focus. It's the abuse of the rights that the people allow the government that we must fight against. The CDC gathering info from flights shouldn't put us in arms. That's just a government agency trying to do it's job.
So put down the flag, toss away the gross generalizations and look at the real issues.
Help me take back Slashdot. When did 'News for Nerds' become 'FUD and Conspiracy Theories for Extremist Nutjobs'?
While I am happy to be "offshore" and in Costa Rica I am sure with laws or without my government owned telco is keeping an eye on it's customers - I do not care.
.... so they can log the crap out of me if they want.
....
... but hey, you get it without paperwork :)
:). And I am a well organized person - before you think I am an anarchist of some kind or something ...
I am not a privacy freak, and I know how to look at stuff privately if I really want, however I do not watch childporn, or visit "terrorist websites", nor call drugdealers and so
European laws: not with the privacy but with over taxation and with bureocracy they drove me crazy... police stopping me 5+ times a week to check if my car papers were OK? Come on....
Tax agency sending some shit all the time while I paid all my taxes?
Here I live in peace, make less, live in a bit of chaos, but still happier
Hate me for that or agree, that is just my 2c. Since I moved here I have once a year contact with authorities and agencies to renew my stay permit, and report taxes if I have to. No other crap, and it makes my life just so great. In europe it was a constant headache, no matter if I made my tax reports or my bookkeper. no matter if my car was new or 20 years old, no matter if I was a student or a worker.
Oh well, you can get a double flat tire in a pothole the size of a smaller car
BTW if it gets too organized here I am sure I will move to somewhere else
Well yeah, but it was the USA who started it all. It took Europe hundreds of years to establish a rather liberal political system focused on the civilians where civil rights actually existed and respected, where you had the right to education, medical treatment and to vote plus the tolerance to diversity. Some of these ideas where exported to other countries and heavily influenced them, like the USA for example, and then it was their turn to contribute even more. Of course not everything was perfect, for example the Europeans where not that liberal in their colonies, but at least when they withdrew they left something back worth having. The above are oversimplified but I think you get the idea.
After 9/11 , it was the USA who declared the war on terrorism, passed all these laws that where limiting civil rights and not only that but it is furiously trying to force Europe to do the same thing. They mess with Europe too much anyway and these terrorist laws are part of the agenda. And here we are, watching hundreds of years of social evolution being brought down because of YOU! Europe had problems with terrorism before 9/11 as well, more lethal if you would like to know, in Britain for example with IRA. But it is now that we see these laws getting passed. Coincidence?
Anyway, to cut the long story short ( it is 04:25 here already ) if I where you, I would have STFU and try to figure out who to vote to the next elections and why.
PS. These fundamentalist Muslims say that they want to enforce the Muslim way of living to the Europeans. Unfortunatelly, it is the USA who is trying to do exactly the same thing for their own causes.
Jokes? I get jokes
There was a time, that is, shortly after six million people were singled out and genocided, that you didn't need to explain to European leaders why privacy and anonomity rights were a big deal. What the hell is going on over there????
Can't read own links
I think there is only a total of 6-7 billion people in the entire world, where the hell did
europe get 450 billion from?
ooh thats right its the invaders from outter space.....
step1: something
step2: something else
step3: ???
step4: the thing after ???
Arash Partow's Philosophy: Be a person who knows what they don't know, and not a person who doesn't know.
Actually, recent studies show Privacy = sin(Freedom)^3 + cos(x).
I have been looking for just such a place in which to retire, but without much success. It's ironic that the people of the Russia now have more personal liberty than we do here in the USA from what I've read. It's almost as though we're slowly reversing roles with them.
Grand Cayman island is probably the place with the least governmental interference in people's lives that I've found thus far, but the cost of living is pretty high there judging from the cost of real estate.
9/11 Eyewitnesses to Explosive WTC Demolition 1 of 2
No more. Europe is too large of a hub in data such as tv shows and such. That .fi and .dk If they are retaining full logs of
also knocks out tor to a certain extent, as there are a lot of tor servers, in
Europe as well. I get a lot of
ALL data, they have non-realtime partial global analysis. Big
enough view and they can see a bigger piece of the whole. There are a lot of
tech savvy people in Europe with fat connections who have an idea of what they
are doing, even encryption will not beat traffic analysis.
Ways around.
Set up tor servers elsewhere. I recommend everyone with a box with an ip set
up a tor server. That includes our S.Korean and Japanese friends. Tor needs
people with fast connections, broadband, just 20k/B. If you read
this and you run linux, that's what we should do to prevent this. Against a
big enough scale, tor is ineffective, (global scale traffic analysis) but, with
the right use of proxies, you could have some fun and slow down the search.
Warez/TV Shows and shit.
NNTP-SSL baby. Only way to rock. Sucks I know, but you admin types can do
what I do. If you got windows boxes, sign on to easynews and do their grid
program thing. I was able, with permission to run a folding screensaver on
about 50 boxes all the time to generate credit for downloads. It adds up.
Communications.
Tried and true, ssh. Grab sshtor if you want to evade source ip and traces.
Laptops.
People don't really realize just how great wireless access points are. If you
have one, and you how, consider donating some bandwidth for free wireless. I
know there is a fear of liablity, but you dont' really have to enable anything
more than port 80 and maybe 443. That's all that someone who is clever really needs
and port 80 is enougth. I admit, I have one and don't do this, but I will, it's
just because I am lazy.
Hackerism
It won't really change much. You should always assume you are going to be
monitored and plan for such. People still have wireless and I haven't tried
plugging in my laptop at the local library, but I will. I'm sure I can find a
way. College campuses are great too, nothing like a college computer lap, all
you need is a port, and they will all assume you are a student. Tell them
you're an exchange student and you haven't gotten your id yet if they hassle
you. Use your imangination.
SealBeater
-- Its survival of the fittest...and we got the fucking guns!!!
1984 when it was written, was meant to shock people out of complacency. Referring to it every time there is a privacy law or violation diminishes this effect. What happens then is that people stop paying attention to these messages and you then have an effect counter to your intent.
sic
I beleive the Question "asked to slashdot" was meant in direction to create a united publicty spanning countries (also over oceans). We are all in a way separated by "national" media that is able to project a "national opinion". Slashdot can easily be (and partially already is) a place to surpass this "media-opinion-stream".
So to evreryone: don't let your proud get hurt, instead stay interested!
"Unreasonable" changes with the circumstances. What was "unreasonable" one decade is no longer "unreasonable" the next. It is not surprising that "unreasonable" has been defined downward as information gathering has become a more invisible function, as there is less physical intrusion on the individual required to gain the information.
Good heavens, are you saying you blame us for the actions of your stupid politicians?
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
(Not to be flippant.. but I had to add this)
I'd say the biggest problem is not with emails and SMS messages, the problem might be with defective condoms.
The Fourth Amendment has two very distinct clauses. The first bars "unreasonable" searches and seizures. There is a whole body of law that tells us what is "reasonable" in different circumstances, but it is well settled that there are many cases where it is reasonable to search without a warrant. The clause of the 4th you quoted simply says if you get a warrant, it must be supported by probable cause. The existence of this clause creates a strong judicial preference for warrants -- a judge will require a warrant if there was any practical way to get one under the circumstances. But there are many "reasonable" searches that require neither a warrant nor even probable cause.
Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
"With the first link, a chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied -- chains us all irrevocably." - Aaron Satie
As the first reply states, privacy is not equal to freedom. In the state of the world where all governments have unlimited visibility of all its citizens and no government ever abuses this power, no law such as Texan prohibition on deviate sexual intercourse with another individual of the same sex," would ever be enacted. (Please do not view the legal example I chose as indication of anything at all, it is merely the simplest one.) The problem comes from what defines abuse of power from the government. If the nearly limitless amount of information was used to fully enforce every law that we currently have we would be most discontent. If every jay-walking attempt, every second of speeding, every marijuana joint smoked and every lipstick shoplifted had resulted in the fullest legal punishment and fine, it would leave the world very discontented indeed. I very much doubt that our world would be a better place. It would be dull and uneventful, and many people would be in jail. Somewhere between a world of anarchy and a world of "1984" politicians and three-laws-safe iRobots, there needs to be a happy medium. Another problem is the fact that what constitutes illegality are very aubject to the political sway of the time. At certain times and at certain places, it may result in laws like the one stated above. At others, it may be that the people then in power have a personal vendetta against GMO's and laws would be enacted prohibiting them. The result is that the lack of privacy almost always reduces personal freedoms, though, yes, they are not equal. Privacy almost seems like it is the most basic and simple, and yet most powerful, defense against overactive, overeager, and oppressive governments. (Imagine how the evolution of a certain central European country would have turned out if humans were able to hide their race.) So in the end, yes, an honest man has nothing to hide. But we are not all that honest. And even if we didn't have anything to hide, we still might get embarrassed and want to hide it, whatever it may be. All that said, I am grateful I am not living in a nanny-state, and if the U.S. federal government ever gets close, and I don't think it will, I'll build me my own Galt's Gulch in the Rockies. All y'all who swear by the dollar are welcome to join.
huh? Did I hear something about the 4th ammendment?
:)
I am sorry to disappoint you, but constitution, as well as its amendments apply only as long as there is no mass hysteria and utter indifference of the general population. When we go into the "we are under attack, so we need to kill all those terrorist bastards" mode, none of that applies anymore. When the great majority of the population is in panic mode, we are willing to sacrifice any freedoms and privacy for a (false) sense of security. After the panic subsides, however, we never revert back to how things were before panic hit. Sometimes we do a little, but not much. Consider the PATRIOT act in the US. First this draconian fact overwhelmingly gets passed. And then, even though we see that it does not real good except destroy any remaining hints of people's privacy, we extend most of its provisions indefinitely. Some may say "well, the new extended act is not as terrible as the original one, os you actually get more privacy than you did before!", but you have to remember that originally there was no PATRIOT act to start with!
What? you are saying that it is really all our fault because we voted those lawmakers and the executive power into office? Well, duh! First, only a particular type of a person will ever run for office. Most people that would probably try to implement policies that I would agree with would not even consider running for office, ever. When electing a president, for example, our choices are usually terniary - (1) a weak candidate that can't do a thing, good or bad, (2) a strong militaristic candidate that is just too scary to elect, or (3) you do the un-american, un-democratic and un-patriotic thing and do not vote at all because it's pointless to vote for the (slightly) lesser of the two evils.
Anyways, getting off my soapbox and back on to the original question. In the US we have PATRIOT act and a few others that came before it. Also, we blatantly disregard any protection offered to citizens by law if we can claim (no proof required) that it is a matter of national security and we are fighting terrorism.
In Russia there are laws requiring internet providers to keep logs and provide backdoors and connectivity at their own expense. They are not allowed to talk about that, and more often than not, they themselves do not know what the government is doing through the connections they are required to provide, "black box" style. They are also required to turn off cell phone encryption on their networks on demand, as became widely known after the terrorist acts in that theater in Moscow a few years ago. Similar to the US, a lot happens that is not covered by law. I guess, if you've got the gun, you've got the power...
Most of Eastern European countries are in the same boat. Some at least pretend to put some legal framework in place to justify destruction of what's left of privacy; others do not care and do not do even bother to pretend.
I've heard rumors that in China there's a great firewall of China. I imagine there's some law that mandates that, and also makes it an offence to try to bypass that, although I am not familiar with the laws of that country one bit.
I think you need to move to the Principality of Sealand if you want some real privacy. That, or just toss all technology and move into Alaskan/Canadian/Russian wilderness where nobody will even know you exist
Jobs? Which jobs?
is about the only place where you can live on your own terms (and those of the local war lord). There are quite a few countries with no effective government or no government at all, eg. Chad, Central African Republic and so on. Good luck...
Oh well, what the hell...
Yeah! Props to Chuck Chunder! You tell that coward!
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
we've been blanket-collecting signals intelligence since WW2
remember, junior g-men: you only need a warrant for the evidence you use in court!
By Michael James in Frankfurt, Germany
12-14-5
"Not one of the judges responsible for the arraignment, prosecution
and imprisonment of Ernst Zundel is a legal office-holder under true
German constitutional law. They are fakes. They are entitled to
practise federal law no more and no less than a teenage student
flipping hamburgers at McDonald's."
Those struggling to come to terms with Germany's absurd "holocaust
denial" laws must first understand that they really have nothing to
do with the alleged Jewish holocaust and the affirmation or
refutation thereof. If that were the case, there would be no reason
to use them, since the truth, being self-evident and requiring
neither proof nor vast armies of supporting lawyers and judges, would
stand on its own merits and win the day.
These statutes, which also require that a defendant charged with such
"crimes" be represented by a lawyer who is expressly forbidden under
the same punitive laws from introducing in court evidence that would
support his client's arguments, fly in the face of basic human
intelligence and make a mockery of the rule of law in the so-called
age of reason.
Ostensibly designed to protect a controversial and hotly disputed
post-war narrative written against the backdrop of contrary findings
established by the Red Cross and British and American occupation
tribunals, these ridiculous impositions on intellectual inquiry and
the resultant show trial of the historian and patriot Ernst Zundel
are now, despite an almost total nationwide media blackout, having
the effect of exciting the curiosity of younger Germans who simply
refuse to be told what to think without the benefit of a free and
open public debate.
Ironically, Ernst Zundel has never denied that thousands or possibly
millions of European non-ethnic Jews, together with communists,
Gypsies and others out of favour with the regime, were persecuted and
murdered by the fascist state.
His argument that the mysteriously magic, sacred occult number of six
million is simply untenable is supported not only by Jewish academics
such as Norman Finkelstein, it has been confirmed, albeit without
fanfare, by the German government itself. The dramatic downward
revision of the number of European non-ethnic Jews alleged to have
died at Auschwitz and other detention centres is a case in point. I
am mightily impressed by government statistics: 6 million minus 2
million still makes 6 million. Now, who could argue with that kind of
logic - and not go to jail?
If statistics can be trained to sing "Puppet on a String" while
leaping through rings of fire, why the hysteria and the recent
police-state crackdown on professors of history, journalists and
biographers? Such actions, unprecedented in any society that likes to
think of itself as progressive, liberal, democratic and free, are in
themselves clear evidence of blind panic and fear at the highest
levels of government and among the elite who own and control the
German and European mass media; for what is at stake here is surely
more than the alleged iinfringement of an eccentric statute: it is
the very existence of the Federal Republic itself and the despised
European Union which its long-suffering taxpayers are forced to
subsidise.
The cult of the Jewish holocaust is fundamental to Germany's
officially imposed state religion: legalistic, political Zionism,
propagated daily in the mass media and reinforced by a legion of
judicious bureaucrats and self-obsessed politicians. Whether Social
Democrat or "Christian" Democrat, neo-Marxist or neo-liberal, the
government of the day is dutifully trained to look first to Tel Aviv
for its legitimacy. It is instructive to note that, at least once a
year, the incumbent German President or Chancellor must stand in
front of the Knesset in Israel and, with quivering lower lip and a
freshly peeled onion, throw his best Elizabet
Well, sir, if privacy is just a luxury we can do without, would you mind sharing with use your real name, date of birth, full address, phone number, SSN (or whatever ID is used in the country of your residence), bank account numbers, a few choice passwords, etc.?
No?
Hmmm. How about the name, address, phone number and an accurate physical description of your current "significant other" and, while you're at it, please tell us how he or she is in bed, in as much elaborate detail as you can recall.
Also no?
Fine, Just take some digital pictures of your adorable children (or other pre-teen family members) in the shower and put them on a publicly accessible web page along with their names and the address of the school they go to.
Still no?
You know what, forget it. I'll just contact the establishments that have your personal info and ask them for it. Maybe install a tap on your phone line and a key logger on your computer as well and, just to be thorough, ask your cell phone company for some triangulation data.
What? I can't?
Bummer.
Hey, not a problem. There's this individual, Joe something-or-other, who's desperate to get a date with my cousin. She says he's not very bright but still sort of fun to see him go out of his way to impress her. Lately he's been telling her about his job in some law enforcement agency and how they're tracking suspected terrorists and that they can do all those things I talked about without needing a warrant or "probable cause" or anything because, let's face it, those pesky accountability issues just made their job harder so they got a couple of laws passed to get rid of them.
Anyway, I spoke to cuz and she believes Joe will do it if she's nice to him and pretends to be really interested in his boring stories. So you see, chum, not a problem!
$sys$freedom
Wow... Europeans sure got busy in the ten years since I left...
The stated purpose of the directive is to combat terrorism and serious crime. Governments have gone to great lengths to explain how useful internet traffic data can be. It simply won't collect evidence about the activities it's supposed to in practice.
Any terrorist with half a brain will not disclose useful phone traffic data by using public payphones. As for internet data, using an encrypted proxy server via an open wireless AP with a spoofed MAC address should do the job nicely.
So what's next? Forcing customers to show ID in net cafes and starbucks? But they might use fake documents. Maybe we need a law that requires wireless hotspots to be covered by CCTV. The governments of China and Cuba certainly thought this was a good idea but I don't think they were so interested in catching terrorists.
It's a sad day for Europe. Yet another legislative decision demonstrates an extraordinary lack of technical awareness. It's the beginning of the end for anonymity, privacy and indeed freedom online.
Seriously, if you really think the 'average american' gave a damn about their rights, then why doesn't the Libertarian party get more recognition?
Why don't more people actually research candidates before voting instead of bitching after an election?
Lots of people like to point fingers, but I would rather they just shut their mouths. There are plenty of ways to actively work towards greater freedom (or towards more government control, welfare, or whatever you wish).
As a Representative Republic, elected leaders should do what is BEST in the interest of citizens regardless of what they are griping about with their shallow common knowledge. (this has no direct relation to 'freedoms' or being big brother).
I don't believe in gun control (let's see, compare the crime rates in Illinois..where guns are highly feered vs Kentucky with an open firearms policy). Armed citizens thwart criminals. Criminals will ALWAYS have guns regardless of any laws (duh..they are criminals).
On the other side, there are a few instances of when it isn't in the public's best interest to know what it takes to keep our country secure. Joe Public cannot handle the reality. Good example: most Americans don't want to visit slaughter houses to know what gets put into their hotdogs. They just want to eat them without being bothered with the details.
So on that note, most people never wanted to be bothered with the fact that the Echelon network has been inplace for longer than porn sites. Carnivore (FBI system) has been around for awhile too.
Why do you think 128bit export encryption was banned for so long?
Do you _really_ think that they are getting lax? How about the fact that technology exists to circumvent it? (oh, you thought the best cryptographers and graduates from Cornell, Harvard, Berkeley work at some company like Symantec or Microsoft???)
oh, and throw out the tinfoil hat. Tempest technologies suggest a hat made of thick Pb. And they are more stylish.
Erm, I wasn't comparing Europe, or any country, to America. I was comparing America 225 years ago to America today. It hasn't all been down hill.
"Nobody writes jokes in base 13." - Douglas Adams
EU elected officials passes an anti-privacy law, and it's somehow George W. Bush's fault?
I hate Bush with a passion, being about as anti-libertarian a President as can be. But on which planet do its citizens blame somebody for something he/she had no control over?
The EU law is the fault of EU politicians. Whatever the outside influences might be -- and I think you greatly over-state Bush's influence here, given the tepid-and-cooling opinion among Europeans of the U.S. -- the buck nevertheless stops with the EU's elected officials, not with American officials... The "stupid people" you seek to blame are the ones who have the power to decide things on your behalf, whom (presumably) you and other Europeans elected -- just like we Americans have stupid people (Bush, most of our Congress) to blame for our political failures.
Lesson learned: governments are stupid because the politicians who form them are stupid, and even when such politicians are supposed to be non-stupid, they tend to make stupid decisions. There's a larger lesson here about the role and size of government...
Is Capitalism Good for the Poor?
Eh, two outta' three ain't bad.
Wait, that's from '77!
It is good for people to think about the actions of their government and not just blindly accept.
Remind me again where the country "Spanish" is located.
:P It's a direct translation from "constitución española"
If you can't say "spanish constitution" then english is crap
Unfortunately there's no way you can even come close to blaming Bush for the situation in Europe.
Of course I can. Bush politics have promoted terrorism with the irak war (and this antiterrorism laws proves exactly that). Fighting terrorism is the reason why this european law has been approved. If world leaders kept doing things right, there would be no need for such laws.
There's a missing ingredient. You have to lack privacy, but you also have to have a tyrant.
I'm not saying anybody in particular does or doesn't, and I'm certainly not saying that more privacy isn't a good thing. But there's more to an invasion of free expression than the ability to invade it.
...but is it art?
Bad logic and completely besides the point.
/need/ privacy in order to sustain a democracy.
/. crowd, please let's have a
> If you lack privacy, tyrants can go unchecked in power.
They can, they can also start a military coup. And once tyrants take over Europe then they
can certainly change all the privacy laws.
> We
Huh?
How about just counting the votes?
I am not sure if actually agree with the legistlation but dear
real discussion & stop shooting the same crap over and over again. Europe has some of
the strongest privacy laws in the world and most of the data available to the government
and corporations here in the US are simply not available or usable to European govt's and corps.
For instance, i know that in several countries (say Belgium or Hungary) parking tickets are not
enforcable b/c the city governments don't have the information to connect licence plates with
people and addresses. I've never seen spam in my mailbox and the kind of information collection
going on about every one of us is here in the US is simply illegal in the Europe. And this
has important consequences on a daily basis not just b.s. arguments about democracy.
Please try inform yourself before posting.
I doubt America would be paying taxes to England without France's help in the revolutionary war. Is Canada still paying taxes to England? How about India? Australia? I think you get my point. But, yes, France was instrumental in America gaining its freedom. It didn't do it out of the bottom of its heart though. It intervened for its own reasons; just as America intervened in WWII for its own safety and not to just free France from Nazi oppression. These threads are just ridiculous, with absurd anti-American claims, and claims in the opposite direction. I'd say most people that come to Slashdot should stick to debates on technology and science, and stay out of other areas, as they just embarrass themselves.
I supose my first reaction is to say that it's the inequity of the relationship. If the government gets more and more of our secrets, while we get less and less of the governments secrets - both phenomenon said stemming from the 'conern for OUR security'. Such a one way street in any human relationship just begs for abuse.
I always find it funny when Americans now talk about "the most important freedom of all, the freedom of safety"... What ever happened to laying your life on the line for your freedom?
FDR's "four freedoms" happened:
Freedom of speech,
Freedom of religion,
Freedom from want,
Freedom from fear.
Abraham Lincoln transformed the US Civil War, and the US itself, with his Gettysburg Address. The conflict was successfully reframed. It was no longer a question of self rule vs. union, but an idealized quest for freedom and human rights.
About 80 years later, FDR accomplished a similar transformation during World War II with his "four freedoms" speech. He gave two new freedoms the same status as the basic freedoms of speech and of religion.
And so in the name of freedom, the government took on unprecedented powers in order to provide people with food, shelter, employment and other needs ("freedom from want"), while at the same time the authority of the police, FBI, and military were greatly expanded ("freedom from fear").
The PATRIOT Act, the Medicare Drug Benefit, and so on are just the latest in a long chain of steps which began with FDR. And there will be many more steps along this road.
That was you? Awesome.
We live in a reactionary society. A major event occurs and we react to it in illogical and hasty manner. We implement devices and measures in hopes to curb such activities, then as time progresses, we look and see that nothing has happened, and believe that the measures put in place actually prevented such activities to occur. This is a completely illogical deduction, and one that further allows these irrational measures to be put into place. What happens when subways are bombed? We start searching bags, as if it would be impossible to detonate a bomb in a line of people waiting for their bags to be checked. What then, start searching outside the subway? Get rid of the right to carry bags all together? We are so simple, and our greatest flaw is ultimately our lack of imagination. To think that putting metal detectors in school after Columbine "prevented" school shootings is a failure to realize that these murderers walked into their school armed and prepared to commit the atrocities which they did. A metal detector would have provided no deterrence to their ultimate goal. We have to look at the big time line of the world. How often have subway bombings occurred? School shootings? Planes used as missles aimed at large buildings? These are sporadic, isolated instances. If it were happening on a daily basis, then there might be cause for concern. We need to focus less on patchwork legislation and more on fixing the underlying problems. Believing that increased ability for law enforcement to tap our phone lines and collect our data would also assume that law enforcement has the ability to predict the future and find the needle in the haystack. This data would provide nothing more than an after-the-fact "we should have seen this coming...the evidence was staring us right in the face" reaction. It's very easy to put the puzzle together once you've seen the end result, once you know what you're looking for. Had all of these post-9/11 laws been in place, could 9/11 have been prevented? Look at what we had. Some of the hijackers had been flagged by the FBI. On August 6, 2001, the CIA presented a report aptly titled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States." In the end, when there's a will, there's a way, and these laws in place do nothing more than destroy the very rights in which this country was founded on.
And Europeans (nearly all of the ones I've conversed with, but this was over the Internet; be advised that my evidence is anecdotal) have the gall to criticize the Patriot Act, under which only some correspondence is archived.
...but is it art?
It's also in an inconspicuous place. Article 1, Section 8, paragraph 7.
Given that privacy is such an explicit right in regards to mail, how come the courts just don't get it when it comes to the modern day equivalent? I guess it's because privacy in America died in 1967 when the Supreme Court ruled in favor of search warrants for "mere evidence" overturning the 1886 Boyd decision. (A brief history of the Privacy Protection Act)
And if you have probable cause then get a warrant and tap the line. But keeping a record of every call and communication that everybody makes on the off chance that a terrorist may have made a call? No way.
-sirket
I propose we all check out the principality of Sealand. Hell, you can even get a Lordship for ~£80. We can all thank the sovereign Prince Roy for his hospitality :-)
But Maaa! Everyone else has a
I for one, can see why they have such strict laws!!! In a place with 450 BILLION people and with space so tight, there must be rampant crimes!
"If I call my friend up to chat about the old college days I absolutely have a right to privacy. What I talk to an old friend is ABSOLUTELY none of the governments business."
If you call up your spouse, lawyer, doctor or spiritual advisor (excluding Ms. Cleo) you have a RIGHT to privacy. When you talk to your old friend you have the EXPECTATION of privacy. If you tell your old friend that you beat your wife, make kiddie pron, burried your boss's dead body in the basement, etc... Your friend has no legal requirement to not tell any one, and your government has the right to tap your line (given a judicial review), record your phone calls, arrest you, and use those recordings against you in a court of law.
In this case the point is mute though at the new law (If I read it correctly) only states that the time of the call, the caller's number, the number called, whether or not the call was answered, and the length of the call must be tracked. Big Bro doesn't know what you told your old friend, just that you called him friday afternoon, he answered and you talked for 3 minutes and 40 seconds. Nothing more fancy then pulling the luds on a number here in the states except that the lists must now be maintained for 2 years.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
You know, really, I think the government reactions to terrorism have and will hurt this country more than the destruction of two sky scrapers and the loss of thousands of lives. A good quote someone here on /. I think has in their sig, says something like "Terrorists can attack our freedom, but only Congress can destroy it." Isn't that the truth.
The more and more we limit people's freedoms, the more similar we become to the sick visions of people like Osama bin Laden. They want a world in which people have few if any freedoms, and where no one may dare diagree with Islam. We are moving in the direction of the first, and if you replace 'Islam' with 'our government', we might be headed towards that one as well.
What I'm saying is that, while terrorist attacks are horrible and despicable, having a "few" people die from terrorist attacks is far better IMHO than giving in to those terrorists who love to murder innocent civilians in cold blood and volunteering to give away our freedoms. Granted, this may be easy for me to say, as I have not been directly, personally affected(no one I know has been killed/injured/involved) by terrorism, but I would really like to think that I would still believe this even if I had been directly affected. I'm sure that probably wouldn't be the case though.
Every time you post an article on Slashdot, I kill a server. Think of the servers!
This world will be under governmental/computerized control in about 20 years.
Someone of imporantace will come to power-a nice guy, a hard worker. He'll solve some logstanding problems. He'll suffer some kind of head injury which will kill him, but he'll be revived. And when he starts doing things from there on out, it'll seem a miracle. Then he'll bring peace in the middle east.
You'll love him.
But he'll completely control access to all purchases. This will seem convenient at first, but he will soon control the mindspace, too. And once you've supported him, changing him will be impossible. And he'll become in real terms, all the things the left thinks George Bush is now, but worse. Then comes the war. It's going to be miserable on a planetwide scale.
Don't you guys READ? The story's only 2650 years old, sheesh.
--- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov
"And if you have probable cause then get a warrant and tap the line."
That sounds quite a bit different than "[w]hat I talk to an old friend is ABSOLUTELY none of the governments business."
So which is it? Do they have ABSOLUTELY no business, or do they have business if they get a warrant?
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
But just recently the right of privacy seems to be implicit to your freedom of speech. With freedom of speech (At least the American ideal) you should be able to state your views without getting arrested for it. But it doesn't state that you can say it without anyone knowing that you said it.
I agree wholeheartedly with this point. The idea of being able to say whatever you want is not freedom of speech - it would just be freedom of thought, but the idea you can say whatever you want and not be in trouble for it is. People who think the right to anonynmity is part of this really don't believe they have the right to free speech. If they truly believed they can say whatever they want, they wouldn't be so worried about keeping their conversations private. I'm not saying people shouldn't have a need for private conversations, but if people are actively worried about the government doing something with their private conversations, then those people don't think the governmnet is upholding their right to free speech to start with.
"I have a new found respect for the EU if they can track 450 billio...", and that's when he was modded redundant to death.
So you see kids, the real question you should be asking yourself is, "How many prostitutes do you have to kill before an adventure becomes a misadventure?"
To find the answer, multiply the number of times this gets modded redundant by the number of times it gets modded offtopic and subtract the number of times it gets modded funny.
Does this rag smell like chloroform to you?
This has been coming in the USA for awhile.. and it is being unfortunately pushed by BOTH the Republican and Democratic parties over here. SOME of the Republicans want to control the flow of some of the data to protect the government and the children, Ban books for being something they might not like (Huckleberry Finn). SOME of the Democrats want to kill Christmas (it as religous as my ass these days), ban certain words (like picnic) and outlaw things that my case harm.
If people dont wake up, we will live in 1984 in the next 20 years. A joyless, souless world where our every step is watched by some ubergovernment and we are more or less cattle.
It makes me really sad, because I dont know how to wake people up. Liberals are so sure they are right, Conservatives are so sure they are right... yet they dont see it coming (I hope). We as Americans (and I would say some Europeans) are controlled by the Media, through fear, depression and longing for safety.
I miss being a kid and being in bliss.
-Randy
To the claim that the citizen must surrender to the state an essential part of his freedom as the price of the safety of his person, Benjamin Franklin replied in the incisive words: "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Get your tinfoil hats people. I don't watch a whole lot of media or tv. I don't read the news other than geek type stuff. The other nite though a friend had CSPAN on, and they were talking about medicare and medicaid and how there is so much money owed to these two that we won't be able to pay the bills, somewhere in the neighborhood of 43 trillion dollars. The solution to this was 'cheaper' health care, such as attaching devices to our senior citzens that monitors them for more acurate data collection and removing the requirement of a visit and staff to deal with such an event. Brilliant idea really, but that's the slippery slope. I don't believe mankind has the ability to implement such an idea with out drawing out the bad sides of it. We will all be chipped soon and we won't even notice it.
if they legalized pot, i wouldn't care. silly isn't it?
When socialism goes to an extreme it's called communism and when capiatlism goes to an extreme it can be called fascism. I think it's clear that in certain aspects, the government is shifting from a government for the people to a government that does nothing but serve corporate interests. The fear induced by the threat of terror is just a clever excuse/diversion. The grand irony I find in all of this is that if you want to get away from this you actually have to shift to the left. One of the only vocal members of the Senate who is standing up to this (Russ Feingold from Wisconsin) is a democrat.
http://www.stockmarketgarden.com/
If nobody does anything with the data unless you're breaking the law, and only law enforcement can get into it with a search warrant or something similar, why should you care if someone - something, even, knows what you do on the internet? If there was no limit to privacy, don'tcha think the crime rate would hit the roof? Not only is losing a little privacy not losing freedom ... it could be gaining freedom! Think about it: if there was no privacy, and you you weren't doing anything bad, you'd never have to worry about looking or acting suspicious! Of course, no privacy would ruin everyone's lives, but not having every single possible bit of it just might do the trick too.
-Ethan
I make websites and stuff. Buy one.
... kiddie pr0n sites free of inconvenient persecution. Is there no safe haven?!?!
Sorry, kiddie porn wins the huddled masses (stacked ten deep, 450 billion with a "B"?) of Europe, or North America, or anywhere -- no sympathies from me. Child pornography is *not* a victimless crime. Because people pay dollars, or euros, or yen, or pesos, it is produced, and the children being victimized in CP photographs do not participate voluntarily.
Freedom of speech is one thing, and I'd die for our right to criticize wrongdoings and hold unpopular opinions. On the other hand, the victimization of the innocent is to the expression of speech as the assassination of a leader is to negative commentary regarding the group he or she leads. Neither "expression" is condoned by humane societies.
Mod me up, mod me down. I don't give a flying fuck -- I have karma to burn. Some topics are open to intellectual debate -- messing up children for profit is not.
Get off my virtual lawn, you damned virtual kids!
wow, that's a lot of people :-)
I know that over here in Europe we have different attitudes to sex, but not quite so much that've multiplied the population of the earth by a factor of 75 overnight. I mean really, if there were 450 billion of us those rules on data retention might be seen as unworkable even by politicians.
Why assume you've lost either?
Until the gonvernment starts policing (and blocking) specific data patterns used insides the packets, there's nothing stopping people from going to a totally encrypted infrastructure.
Yes, they'll still have a record of the final IP address, but the recording of the session should prove useless. Yes, governments can force harcore crypo-folks to give up their keys, but if strong encryption become trasparently ubiquitous (ie: Joe Sixpack is sending ecrypted email, but doesn't even know it), this move to "record everything" would not be as attractive as it is now.
But just recently the right of privacy seems to be implicit to your freedom of speech. With freedom of speech (At least the American ideal) you should be able to state your views without getting arrested for it. But it doesn't state that you can say it without anyone knowing that you said it.
I guess it all depends on your definition of "just recently" - anonymous speech has been a core part of America since before the USA even had a constitution.
Of course it isn't just Americans who know that freedom of speech must include freedom of anonymous speech, Europeans have been practicing for at least as long, here is but a small sampling of famous anonymous writers:
Voltaire was really Francois Marie Arouet
George Sand was really Amandine Aurore Lucie Dupin
George Eliot was really Mary Ann Evans
Charles Lamb would often use the pen name "Elia"
Charles Dickens used the pen name "Boz"
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Gee, it is happening in Europe, too, it must be that huge block of fundamentally Christian Europeans, right?
... some of them are just trying to do what they think is best for the people. Most of them, however, are just out to get what they can.
===
Politics are, sadly, about control. We give up control for security. There comes a point where people must decide how much control they are willing to give up.
Screaming, yelling, and blaming things on particular parties does nothing. It isn't a particular party. They ALL want control.
Don't get me wrong, politicians aren't just doing it for themselves (well, not all of them)
===
Problems don't just materialize in a year or two... and the bigger problems generally take a decade or more and have their roots in many places.
These are just general comments on the subject of politics and our rights. I am of the opinion that most people are content to buy the party line (whichever side they decide to buy) without considering history, economy, culture, and plain old human nature.
Two things...
Think before you blame.
Act before you complain.
Cheers!
MoM++ - A Classic Expanded - [Master of Magic 1.5]
http://mompp.sourceforge.net/
And am I really actually seeing people argue over whether or not this is wrong? For those of you who think there's nothing wrong with this, ask yourself this: Why do Americans have the right to a secret ballot? There's a lot more to Freedom than living sans shackles.
Good God! Orwell would be spinning!
By the way, when was the last time the EU actually granted you any rights, Europeans? Every time I look, you're either losing rights or fighting to keep them.
And even if you did get asked you could, I don't know, walk away and come back for another try tomorrow.
It is a relatively modern Idea that Freedom is equal to Privacy.
Have you read the Fourth and Fifth Amendments?
They do not all stand alone, but work in concert with each other, giving the right to say what you want, decline to say what you don't (that's the flip side of Freedom of Speech that few pay much attention to and relevant right of freedom in this case) want and the hide what you say and do.
It is true that the word privacy does not appear in the Constitution, but that is because the wording of the Constitution denies the government the very right to question your privacy.
A right is what is nobody else's fucking business and thus the idea that freedom has a relationship to privacy is as old as the idea of freedom. It is the heirarchical control stucture of formal state government that is the relatively modern idea.
Just go watch a cat or something.
KFG
Telecom companies already have to keep track of all your phonecalls (which phone you called, when, and for how long, and in case of mobile phones from where) and store that information for 5 years or more.
This is for their own tracking and tracing in case they get complaints or audits about their billing or finances.
All this does is add ISPs to it (which is troubling but does little but make sure the same rules apply all over the EU, since most countries have such laws already within their own borders).
It will also ascertain once more that law enforcement can access these records for any reason they want at any time without needing a court order, again something that in most countries either already is the norm even if not always the law.
Yes it's troubling and another sign that the EU is quickly moving towards a communist style totalitarian government (the ruling elite is already unelected and hardline socialist). But it will mean little change in the privacy situation for most people in most countries which is already such that they effectively have no privacy.
What's so amusing about all this hysteria is watching all these posters freely expressing the most outrageous nonsense about how their free speech rights have disappeared.
I'm not defending E.U.'s actions - I'm not a lawyer, and I haven't read an analysis from anyone I trust - but that doesn't matter. I'm mainly reacting to U.S. posters, many of whom would be barely effected by this EU action, no matter how awful it might be.
In the U.S. (and many other places), free speech is much more imperiled from the left than the right. To take just one example: why on earth is "hate speech" against the law? Isnt it still speech? It certainly is more so than other "protected speech" like exotic dancing and obscene photography. "When I was a boy, I learned that "sticks and stones won't break my bones, and names will never harm me." If I ever came home crying because of someelses *words*, I wouldn't have gotten much sympathy from *my* parents. What's changed since then?
The truth is, this whole notion that "privacy is a Right" is solely a beard for abortion. Remove it from the equation, and all the rest vanishs. Unless, that is, you believe that technology creates Rights. To see what I mean, think back to 19th century America. Small towns, in-person shopping, face-to-face conversations, - all of which lend themselves to other people knowing everything you buy, everyone you meet, and everything you said... unless you were very, very careful about where and with whom you interacted. Did the people back then like that? Probably not. But neither did they think they had any right to expect anything else. Did they any privacy rights? Certainly - but only those explicitly in our Constitution: things like protects from unreasonable search and the like.
Nor should they have such privacy rights. The very idea undermines, for example, criminal prosecution on all types of cases. Say you bought an ax, snuck out of the basement one night, and hacked your mother to bits (because, see, all slashdotters live in their mother's basements...). If you bought the ax from me in person, am I not permitted to know that? Am I forbidden to testify to that? How then is that different than if you bought the ax online from Al's Little Shop of Axes? The website can't testify, and the UPS guy won't know what you bought. So how else is that testimony going to be given, if not through a trace of your on-line activity?
I think a big part of the reason for all the misunderstands is the whirl of "privacy memes" floating around these days. If you stop for a moment and think about them, you can see what nonsense they all are. For example, take this one: "keep government out of our bedrooms." People say that to protect their own sexual behavior, or behavior which they personally tolerate, but do they really mean that incest should be ignored? How about child molesting? Rape? Bestiality? Those are all sexual behaviors that often happen inside bedrooms too. Doesn't the government have a right - even a responsibility - to regulate those behaviors? If you think that you've been over-regulated, then take up the matter with your lawmakers. If they won't listen, try talking to the voters. If even that doesn't work, then live with the restrictions, or move to someplace more to your liking. But don't try to distort the entire structure of society!
I could go on and on, but the point is, hopefully, made. Take off your tinfoil hats, children - it's time to face reality! If you're really overwhelmed with concerns about your privacy, here's a thought - quit doing and saying things of which you have reason to be ashamed!
"Lord, grant that I may always be right, for Thou knowest that I am hard to turn" -- A Scots-Irish prayer
The founding fathers of the United States hoped to create a brief but neccessary list of powers that the Federal government could have. They did not strive to create a list of the things that the federal government couldnt do, but things that it could do. So even if the Patriot Act wasnt specifically in violation of the bill of rights, it would still be an absurb violation of the intentions of the founding fathers. A majority of the things that our government does today are unconstintutional abuses of the "elastic" and "Neccessary and Proper" clauses of the constitution. If the constituion does not specifically grant the government a power, and it is not reasonably believable that their actions are neccessary to support a power that they are granted, then their actions are inconstitutional. Public Education, etc...
See It, Measure It, Manage It.
What dont you understand?
Freedom is not equal to privacy,
but once in investment to monitor the public "pays off"
there WILL be more managment to follow,
and that's where the freedom goes.
Unfortunately, the federalists were wrong.
Here in Australia our constitution was based on the very principle you refer to and includes no individual rights other than freedom of religion and the right to a trial in relation to certain types of offence. To this day a bill of rights is opposed, mainly be conservative politicians, because "we couldn't list all of our freedoms" and "it would be unneccessary" and so on.
Sadly, we have recently seen wave after wave of terrible, terrible legislation encroaching on the lives and freedoms of ordinary, innocent people. Refugees are treated like criminals rather than people who are likely to be seeking shelter and are detained in appalling conditions in the desert or on remote islands, potentially indefinitely. The original inhabitants of this country are marginalised and ignored. More fundamentally, every Australian is now subject to arbitrary and relatively unchecked laws relating to 'terrorism' which allow for extended periods of detention without trial and without a warrant. These laws are enthusiastically promoted by the police and security agencies. Australia has one of the highest rates of phone-tapping in the world, and also retains ridiculous sedition laws essentially making it illegal to criticise the government too strongly.
We have it worse than the US - at least you have SOME protected rights. We have none, and in times like these that means we are gradually losing them all. A bill of rights is essential in protecting basic freedoms, which are not inherent characteristics but human constructions and therefore must be protected by humans.
Read Pynchon.
Oh, so privacy is a "luxury" now? Really? When did that happen? Say how about habeas corpus, is that a luxury too these days?
Idiots like you make me vomit. So cowardly and dumb you are willing to hand over all your liberties to the government and fasten the chains of tyranny on yourself just so you can get a momentary and false feeling of security. When this nation finally completes its journey into the septic tank of a Police State mental midgets such as yourself will bear a large part of the blame.
I do not put the blame on you or the parent poster, I am not personalising this. I strongly believe, however, that it is the USA goverment who has forced the EU parliament to introduce and vote this law and similar others to come. There are many things going on behind the scenes and it is really sad to see that the EU can't show character.
I would say we are pretty free here compared to the rest of the world. We have a culture of open-mindedness and acceptance, and this has spilled over into our media and politics.
Our laws are slightly different in some respects though... if you tell a person A where he can meet a person B who sells illegal goods, then you are breaking the law, which means that torrents and linking to illegal data (child porn/pirated goods) are technically illegal. At the moment we have bigger problems (crime/poverty/education) and don't spend time chasing after these.
For all the bad things here we have loads of freedom.
Privacy is a different matter, but privacy you can forge with encryption, and as we don't have the silly encryption laws of the US, we can actually use encryption for privacy.
Thus we even have the freedom to enforce our privacy.
I know this may be slightly off topic, but as I was reading up on "1984" on wikipedia I stumbled over the following quote:
"Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country." - Nazi Reich Marshal Hermann Goering, before committing suicide at the Nuremberg Trials
Seems as relevant today as ever.
My UID is prime. Hah!
I used to feel all idealistic and outraged about this, but by now I'm ready to face reality. Governments and media corporations are big and powerful; privacy-conscious individuals are tiny and weak. Most people don't care about privacy, because they simply do not understand it (and because they don't exercise their free speech rights anyway). After all, if you're not a terrorist, then you have nothing to hide -- right ?
So, I am pretty sure that the erosion of privacy is inevitable. It will happen sooner rather than later. Question is, how can a tiny, weak individual protect himself from the Homeland RIAA anti-terrorist piracy-fighting taskforce ? I can think of a few solutions, but all of them are sub-par.
So... any other bright ideas ?
>|<*:=
wow... 450 BILLION ppl in europe.. thats some growth spurt :P
http://www.nrgvibe.com
"There's a missing ingredient. You have to lack privacy, but you also have to have a tyrant."
...
Aah well which country doesn't have one
My parents always believed in pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps. To me, this means solving your own problems.
Privacy is your own problem. Never expect other people to solve it. Solve it for yourself. Encrypt, shut up, set up trusts, use pseudonyms, whatever. I don't do any of that because I personally don't care about privacy. I don't see the threat. And I'm not embarrasable and cannot be blackmailed because I am a stand-up person. So I don't care.
But if I did, I would.
As for countries, I second the New Zealand responses. I'm a U.S. expat living here since May. Even though the country is somewhat nanny-state leaning, the culture of the people has a stronger effect. People are very reasonable and practical, which in itself more than makes up for the nanny-state part. People have strong moral ethics and a solid sense of duty. People believe in their government, and participate, and have hope (as opposed to the U.S. where people only get involved to milk the system). People don't seem to abuse positions of power. Politicians are suprisingly regular people. People care about each other. It seems quite possible to be heard, and to have a positive effect, because it's so much smaller. There is a tall-poppy syndrome, which has good and bad effects. Also, because of the history (1984, Rogernomics, and the reasons that had to happen), people here are clued into all the benefits of free-trade, market competition, etc. Overall, I have to say that the positives far outweigh the negatives.
The downsides are (1) schools are going from bad to worse, for predictable reasons of a lack of proper market forces (2) same with health care. Also, as a small economy, economies of scale, uh, don't. Cost of living is dearer, more work required for less output. Oh, and Kiwi's are very nationalistic (I say "bad") and tend to isolate themselves... not enough world trade going on down here.
But lots of land, not too many people. Great place to relax if you have fears of war.
I've heard Chile is nice, but I haven't visited yet. And I don't want to bother with a language/culture barrier.
China and India have a lot of catching up to do.
1 is the square root of all evil.
It should be obvious what can happen when intelligence organisations are allowed to work outside of the rules and are uncontrolled to allow those in power to have deniability. The current US President may be immune to blackmail due to being "born again" and having a clean slate in the eyes of the voters no matter what his past is - but an uncontrolled intelligence community that abducts, tortures and carries out assassinations is a serious danger to a democratic society. I really don't want to see what are still functioning democracies with dark corners and a few theives turn into outright kleptocracies.
This is not insightful. Privacy is one of the rights granted by the Bill of Rights (see: Amendment 5). Or maybe the courts have simply interpreted this bit of the Constitution incorrectly year after year after year.
FTFA:
"Collection and use of expertise:
There was no need for external expertise."
Read:
"We set the length and types of retention. Suck it up, kids. You're gonna get fucked."
I disagree most vigorously. The phrase "A man's home is his castle" originated in feudal Europe when most people were not free but some semblance of privacy was respected. Privacy is -not- of modern origin but has been the bulwark of freedom and the last bastion of freedom througout history. Just because it's possible to invade privacy more easily now does not mean it has always been so. Just look at the fact that you can kill a man for entering your home (in the US anyway), with no questions asked. Your house is your castle and you can expect privacy. That has always been the law of the land. To say that it is a luxery and not equated with freedom is disengenuous. It's even written into the constitution fo the United States. Read the fourth amendment.
m endments.html
3 /overview.htm
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/a
Here's another article that exposes older privacy laws of England, France, Norway, and Sweden. Those countries are arguably as free, or nowdays more free than the United States.
http://www.privacyinternational.org/survey/phr200
No, the right to privacy is not a modern luxery. To the contrary, the lack of privacy is a modern invention and not practiced to anywhere near the modern extent in previous eras. The parent post should be modded down as ill-informed malarky.
In the whole world their are 6 billion people, how can their be 450 billion in Europe alone???
From the beginning of this republic, freedom has demanded privacy/autonomy. It's a bit harder to autonomously author that little series of pamphlets now known as "The Federalist Papers" if the government can see who you are (albeit, I admit, marginally so--though much more of an acute issue in places where speech is more repressed), and ditto "Common Sense."
-
Incorrect: The content of the communications themselves are to be kept.
-
Incorrect: This is a fundamentally new kind of data that is being retained.
-
Incorrect: There are no controls on accessing the data; law enforcement can access it at will.
Disclaimer: I'm no pro-government shill -- I have problems with the USA PATRIOT act and I believe government must be denied any authority it is not explicitly granted. But this legislation is just reasonable adaptation to technological reality.Correct: Only metadata (time, source, destination, duration, geo-location) are to be retained.
Correct: Phone companies have retained exactly that kind of data for decades -- for billing purposes. Law enforcement has successfully used that data for decades without excessively infringing citizens' privacy rights (see next bullet for why). The primary justification for the directive (as stated in the linked document) is to react to the fact that companies no longer need to retain the metadata for billing purposes; the directive acknowledges that fact but makes them keep it anyway for law enforcement purposes. Without it there would actually be a reduction in legitimate law enforcement capability.
Correct: Individual countries' existing legal frameworks dictate when law enforcement may access it. If a country requires a court order to get the metadata for phone conversations, they'll still need one for this new data.
-- Bandannarama
Bandannarama
The purpose of privacy is to act as an actual, rather than theoretical, shield against government and corporate abuse. Even though it is illegal, an FBI agent may still freak out about something innocent that you said, and harass you. But this is physically impossible if that agent never found out what you said. Similarly, a company may be absolutely certain that you want to hear about their special offers, because they can see what you like to buy. You can outlaw spam and apply civil penalties, or you can make it literally much harder for the concept to ever be realized.
Placing value on privacy means less information for law enforcement officials (ie, sworn agents of the group), but arguably more happiness for the individual. In America, we have classically valued the individual over the group. I believe the legal events in America post-9/11 will fade with time, just as other mid and post-war abuses of our past have faded, gross and unjust though they were.
Human Error.
more people die by car crashes, diseases, normal crime, etc etc.
Where are the billions spend to fight those?
"Not one of the judges responsible for the arraignment, prosecution and imprisonment of Ernst Zundel is a legal office-holder under true German constitutional law. They are fakes. They are entitled to practise federal law no more and no less than a teenage student flipping hamburgers at McDonald's."
Those struggling to come to terms with Germany's absurd "holocaust denial" laws must first understand that they really have nothing to do with the alleged Jewish holocaust and the affirmation or refutation thereof. If that were the case, there would be no reason to use them, since the truth, being self-evident and requiring neither proof nor vast armies of supporting lawyers and judges, would stand on its own merits and win the day.
These statutes, which also require that a defendant charged with such "crimes" be represented by a lawyer who is expressly forbidden under the same punitive laws from introducing in court evidence that would support his client's arguments, fly in the face of basic human intelligence and make a mockery of the rule of law in the so-called age of reason.
Ostensibly designed to protect a controversial and hotly disputed post-war narrative written against the backdrop of contrary findings established by the Red Cross and British and American occupation tribunals, these ridiculous impositions on intellectual inquiry and the resultant show trial of the historian and patriot Ernst Zundel are now, despite an almost total nationwide media blackout, having the effect of exciting the curiosity of younger Germans who simply refuse to be told what to think without the benefit of a free and open public debate.
Ironically, Ernst Zundel has never denied that thousands or possibly millions of European non-ethnic Jews, together with communists, Gypsies and others out of favour with the regime, were persecuted and murdered by the fascist state.
His argument that the mysteriously magic, sacred occult number of six million is simply untenable is supported not only by Jewish academics such as Norman Finkelstein, it has been confirmed, albeit without fanfare, by the German government itself. The dramatic downward revision of the number of European non-ethnic Jews alleged to have died at Auschwitz and other detention centres is a case in point. I am mightily impressed by government statistics: 6 million minus 2 million still makes 6 million. Now, who could argue with that kind of logic - and not go to jail?
If statistics can be trained to sing "Puppet on a String" while leaping through rings of fire, why the hysteria and the recent police-state crackdown on professors of history, journalists and biographers? Such actions, unprecedented in any society that likes to think of itself as progressive, liberal, democratic and free, are in themselves clear evidence of blind panic and fear at the highest levels of government and among the elite who own and control the German and European mass media; for what is at stake here is surely more than the alleged iinfringement of an eccentric statute: it is the very existence of the Federal Republic itself and the despised European Union which its long-suffering taxpayers are forced to subsidise.
The cult of the Jewish holocaust is fundamental to Germany's officially imposed state religion: legalistic, political Zionism, propagated daily in the mass media and reinforced by a legion of judicious bureaucrats and self-obsessed politicians. Whether Social Democrat or "Christian" Democrat, neo-Marxist or neo-liberal, the government of the day is dutifully trained to look first to Tel Aviv for its legitimacy. It is instructive to note that, at least once a year, the incumbent German President or Chancellor must stand in front of the Knesset in Israel and, with quivering lower lip and a freshly peeled onion, throw his best Elizabeth Taylor act and read from the same worn script stapled together with exhausted and sometimes ludicrously inappropriate diplomatic cliches.
This perennial ritual is always embarrassing, obsequious and viciously h
The Open Rights Group have been writing on this for a while.
Do join them in fighting this and other legislation that limits our digital freedoms.
In reply to the editor's last question, the countries outside the EU will hopefully remain unaffected by this new resolution. It's also possible that it will be found unconstitutional before it's implemented in the EU's member states.
I don't know where the original poster is living, but I cannot think of anybody who can righteously smugly say it privacy is not in danger in his own country. If this is a troll for a US-EU flame war on who is the least Big Brother nanny state, it has certainly succeeded with me1 1) This move by the European Parliament is mainly caused by the proliferance of terrorism, which may not be caused by, but certainly has been amplified by the US American arrogance towards the rest of the world. 2) The difference between the US and the EU may be, that in Europe we have laws about eavesdropping. In the US they just do it! There were US agencies lobbying for introducing back doors into encryption chips. The Echelon network is eavesdropping on the whole world, without asking for permission. But off course, the American Constitution only talks about freedom for American citizens, not the rest of the world, so it's perfectly legal to spy on the rest! 3) I'm quite sure, that whenever a US agency approaches an agency in certain EU countries, they will have no problem getting the information obtained legally under this EU law. Some dogs cannot stop wagging their tail at big brother US.
They should've listed what it must do, and stipulated that it can do nothing else. That would have been much more restrictive to the growth of the federal government. Instead we have a list of what the government must do, some things it can do, and some things it can't do, and the rest is subject to interpretation (thanks to the elastic clause). It's a recipe for allowing the majority to coerce and control the minority, which is probably not what the founding fathers intended.
Jeez what an unresearched story this is.
(a) data necessary to trace and identify the source of a communication;
(b) data necessary to trace and identify the destination of a communication;
(c) data necessary to identify the date, time and duration of a communication;
(d) data necessary to identify the type of communication;
(e) data necessary to identify the communication device or what purports to be the
communication device;
(f) data necessary to identify the location of mobile communication equipment.
That is the question....
It's the biggest goof I ever seen on /.
Europe has 450 MILLION citizens, that's 4.5*10^8, roughly half of an American billion. Or the editors mean a French billion ?! Now we're speaking big numbers!
Let's call 10^9 a milliard, to avoid all the confusion, shall we? :P
One man, one word.
e.g. http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=1 3&art_id=vn20051215065506468C620082/
or
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=1 3&art_id=qw1133699580568B265/
Surely someone who rapes or murders a baby should be terminated with extreme prejudice?
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=1 3&art_id=vn20051202115945207C367037/
Terrorism? Pah! We don't need no steenking terroristas! More people are murdered here, in crime related incidents, than died on 9/11. Usually terrorists are fighting for some cause or other. Our animals don't need a cause. If they like your car/watch/bag/shoes they'll just take it, and put a bullet or 5 in you, whether you put up any resistance or not. It's so bad that incidents like that don't even usually make it into the newspaper. Half the time, the cops don't even bother to take a statement. It's not their fault, they're just so backlogged that an armed robbery is low priority.
Oh, and communications of any sort is so ruinously expensive here that you probably won't be able to afford to surf long enough for any patterns to emerge. Broadband? What's that? Only about 100 000 people out of about 45 million can afford it. Oh, and our bandwidth is usually capped as well. Anything more than 3GB a month is seen as abuse of the system, and you're cut off.
Used to be we could blame all this type of crap on apartheid, sanctions and post-apartheid confusion. Not any more. Our health minister eschews anti-retrovirals and is promoting garlic and olive oil as a cure for AIDS. Our communications minister has no idea how much it costs to make a phone call, and our president spends more time outside South Africa than in it. Oh, not to mention our (now ex-) deputy president Jacob Zuma has recently been charged with fraud AND rape.
Yes, you'd definitely want to move here. There's so many other problems that worrying about monitoring your surfing habits takes a back seat to your basic survival. It's not "1984" here, it's the frikkin Dark Ages all over again...
remember to loot and pillage before you burn!
That's true, but it hardly means that NAZI Germany was not a threat to our (the rest of the world) way of life.
The real lie about the holocaust that is perpetuated nowadays is that anti-semitimism and eugenics were common only in NAZI Germany, when they were actually a world wide social trend. Countries in Europe and America turned down boatloads of Jewish refugees, and many nations were considering their own laws on how to remove them from society. The nations invaded by Germany during WWII like to claim that it was the Germans doing, but something that big doesn't happen without popular support. Eugenics was the next big thing, and many believed it would be a cure to all disease, and all of societies societies social ills. They believed we would breed our way to a better society, by making people better.
People know this very well. Consider any situation where you spoke with a person and intentionally omitted a piece of information that came to mind during the discussion. You are protecting your freedom by giving the person less access to less of you and thus reducing their ability to know and control you.
The two words are different, but they are intimately related. Privacy is a freedom, but it is not the only freedom.
The BBC also reported this. Apparently the UK was primary in proposing and promoting the changes.
t m
? cmd%5B347%5D=x-347-478392&als%5Btheme%5D=Data%20Re tention
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4527840.s
Privacy International wrote an open letter to the EP encouraging them to vote down the measure. They attempt to assess the impact.
http://www.privacyinternational.org/article.shtml
FYI, the European Parliament (EP) cannot initiate legislation, but they can amend it. It appears their current actions are an amendment to a 2002 law. Once the EP votes to amend a law and the EP and the Council of Ministers approve it (which already occurred), it becomes law. However, according to the BBC article, said changes must still be approved by member states.
The European Parliament
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_parliament
Randy
Since when does europe house 450 billion people?
Last I heard there were only 6 billion people on earth.
Why didn't they catch that before posting?
This signature has Super Cow Powers
I don't think it's quite as easy as us resting on our laurels and taking privacy for granted. You act as if people's privacy has never been an issue, and perhaps rightly so; mass, structured invasion of personal lives on this kind of scale has never been technologically feasible before. After all, it's not about their ability to tap the phones of 'evil doers' - they can do those things as it stands now. We're talking about the systematic profiling of every citizen. Of course, it's for 'our own protection.' We should be happy to have a government who wants to help us better ourselves on an individual basis, right? Like Santa...but creepy. Creepier.
We'll never have total privacy. God-willing, they'll never have uniform control. However, to act as if it doesn't matter because some control is deemed 'necessary' is pathetic. Privacy of this kind just hasn't been an issue before, and it doesn't take more than a glance at previous privacy infringements to know that it's easier to head these little 'protection' programs off before they gain too much steam.
Now, I don't think it's some conspiracy to control all the free-thinkers and transform us in pencil-pushing proles, but the argument is not with how these systems are ostensibly meant to be used. The fear has to do with likely misuse and mismanagement. Think about the witchhunts of the past. Sure, it's all well and good when there's total civilian transparency and it's being used to fight your enemies. But public favor is a fickle thing. What happens when it's turned on you?
Yes, a terrorist-seeking-whatchamajig sounds excellent. But even by today's standards, 99% of leads in any capacity are false. Do you really want some suit knowing your kids' school schedules and where you buy your coffee in the morning because you downloaded the Anarchist's Cookbook in 5th grade and got put on some watchlist? Giving up on privacy now ensures that by the time your own children are grown, they won't know any other way. Once we give it up, at least in a bureaucracy, it'll be gone for the interim, come hell or high water.
The way I figure it, most legal controls come down not even to ideals, but to attainable levels of human right. They're in constant shift based on public demand and political revision, but the fact is that you can usually ignore the letter of the law as long as you're obeying the spirit. You can go 5 miles over the limit, you can smoke a joint if you're careful about it. But why? Certainly not because bad things don't happen to good people. It has more to do with the fact that watching all the people all of the time is impossible, and so little fish get away as chaff while the mackerels draw all the attention. However, if you raise every fish with a hook in its mouth already, there's nothing to prevent you from pulling at will. And history tells us that whenever Joe Masses needs a scapegoat, we'll pull as many little fish as it takes to satisfy his blood-lust. That kind of power has NEVER been used to further people's individual freedoms.
You could argue that freedom does not demand privacy (nor vice-versa). Historically though, they've consistently grown in the same soil. Like I said, it'll never be perfect. But to ignore our own part in the balancing act between control and suppression will open us up to a world of hurt. Dismissing it is about the worst thing we could do.
Categories of data to be retained
I.e. it is NOT REQUIRED (and illegal unless done with the consent of the courts) to retain content of the telephone calls or e-mail. Only connection logs and location data for cellular networks have to be retained.
FYI, these data are routinely kept anyway for monitoring and troubleshooting purposes (ever heard about logs?), what the directive does is that it sets formal framework for how long and which data need to be kept to simplify life of the police - internet-related data (IPs, usernames, e-mail addresses, login/logout times, etc.) for 6 months, telephony-related stuff (telephone numbers, cellphone location data) for 1 year. Otherwise it may be difficult to trace a call or internet connection (e.g. hacking attempt), if every ISP on the way has different data retention policy (as it is now).
So no need to put on your tinfoil hats yet. Of course, I would prefer to work without this sort of surveilance in place, on the other hand it is a necessary tradeoff for crime fighting (not only terrorism - think viruses, scams, phishing, credit card fraud, etc.)
Until countries decide that the central banks are evil nothing will change. This is something that has been a very big issue historically. Most great leaders were killed going against the Central Privately Held Banks. They have complete power and now want complete global control. Only a very, very, brave leader will fight the Central Bank. Here in the US, our late President Kennedy issues US Bank Notes in direct competition with the Federal Reserve. They day he was assasinated they revoked them.
And then, the Gnomes of Zurich, via the Multinational Oil Companies and the Fiendish Fluoridators, used Orbital Mind Control Lasers to destroy the Society for Creative Anarchism.
Illuminati is such a great game.
If I call my friend up to chat about the old college days I absolutely have a right to privacy. What I talk to an old friend is ABSOLUTELY none of the governments business.
You are absolutely right there.
With regards to this new EU rule, the slashdot blurb of course doesn't mention this, but what they are going to store is the fact that you chatted to your friend between this and this time, but not the content of this conversation. While this is bad and stupid, it is not by far as bad as the blurb is trying to make it look.
Supposedly this is usefull to get an insight into the conenctions between individuals who might be involved in terrorist or criminal activities.
Of course, about all investigations resulting from attacks in the last half decade point at a lack of cooperation and not of information (usually the information was actually there), but who cares.
What about a junk p2p network then? A network that sends randomly generated data to as many nodes as it can reach. Wouldn't that be fun fo all our friends att the european union to sort out?
Not even, no.
Your view has the color of propaganda. Republican?
Just a note, yes its 1984 in almost every country in the world basically. A few months ago President Bush's wife said on a public speech that she plans to create plans to promote 'Education for men' because in USA with all this 'feminism' going on men do not choose to study any more.
Over 50% of high school 'guys' quit before they graduate university and find jobs as Mechanics or other lower paying jobs. She was making sense. 2 weeks after, she dissapeared, President Bush cancelled all such 'educational' programs.
A few years ago in a campaign started by 'Adbusters Inc. Magazine and No Logo (TM)' The people of america decided to boycott Nike shoes because they were 'hiring cheap labour' mostly women of ages 15-25 in factories in korea. In a violation of human rights we boycotted them. Why did they hire women ? They said 'they are more controllable work force than men'...
So then, why are there so many programs focussed on trying to push women even in fields where they don't even want to go?.. What is up with increasing women work force?... well you guessed it.. They are more controlable or so say most psychologists.
There is no true democracy except this illusive image which only works because the government is making sure we make our education programs soo easy that people basicaly think they are smart without ever having to 'think'.
I live in Canada, but most of my friends went to the states after thier highschool education in UK. My friends who went to USA 2 of them are in Stanford and one got accepted in California Berkley (Smart and rich one). They find it funny that even in 'such' high level universities, teachers basicaly 'give' you A grades because they want a 'better' ranking in the end. Any one who can hold a pencil and a rubber can pass their exams. Why do that one may ask? hehe Why does the government allow this degradation of education systems and quality of teaching?. Well its a business idea really.. The dumber people are, the more productive and less 'thoughtful' they become.. Now wonder why even after tricking the world into believing that Iraq had WMD's, Bush still got elected. wierd huh.
Bull shit. You really will say anything, won't you?
I can buy a game with any level of violence I like.
If you don't have self control, you still don't have to hurt other people.
The more and more we limit people's freedoms, the more similar we become to the sick visions of people like Osama bin Laden. They want a world in which people have few if any freedoms, and where no one may dare diagree with Islam. We are moving in the direction of the first, and if you replace 'Islam' with 'our government', we might be headed towards that one as well.
See, judging from what I've heard of their material, what they're wanting is pretty much what most slashdotters seem to be wanting - the US government to get it's nose out of their business. What they want is the US to stop interfering in middle-eastern politics, and letting them get back to killing/getting killed by the Israelis. I'm the first to condemn terrorist methodology, but really, let's not get into demonizing our opponents. It's stupid, irrational, deceitful, and it clouds the real issues.
(Note to any outraged future posters: I am not endorsing terrorism, I am simply asking we look at their motivations analytically rather than emotionally)
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
I for one spit at and plot the downfall of our data collecting overlords.
Baka Drew
That is something strange (and costly) in Europe, that this elected, well funded, widely publicized parliament can't do laws. Oh, of course, texts are voted there, but for it to become law, national parliaments have to adapt the text to their country's constitution and existing corpus of law and vote again to make it truely an enforceable law.
In France, they are currently debating over a 1994 european directive about copyright (it is a dmca-like law).
I like Europe but the current political system of the union is inefficient, heavy, slow, opaque and, sometimes, non-democratic. It is technocracy in its worse aspect.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
billion = 10**9
million = 10**6
The European Union has about 450 million people (about 1.5x of USA)
Whole world is about 6.5 billion, China is 1.3 billion alone.
Reading the article I cannot help but assume that the proposal put forward to the EU Parliament was forwarded by "our" minister of law, Mr Tomas Bodström. I say "our" because he is a socialist, and I am a liberal (what Americans call "libertarians"), so he is certainly not my minister of law, if such a distinction can even be made. The socialists are in power, and my party is not.
The suggestions and proposals forwarded by Mr Bodström are nothing short of amazing. A year ago he proposed that data on "all transactions" be saved for "up to three years". Telephone calls, instant messaging, e-mail, even web browsing.
Responses and ridicule was swift, one ISP and cell phone service company pointing out that in order to comply with such a suggestion, Sweden would have to pave its largest island of Gotland and fill it with disk server racks from end to end.
The ridicule did however not put a stop to Mr Bodström's hawk instincts. Not only is his suggestion now brought to the Parliament, he has had other flashes of inspiration. Now prepaid cell phone cards have been targeted, as well as monitoring of public internet terminals.
So, what is the state of the nation (Sweden)? Struggling, I would say, against a socialist turned Orwellian rogue - not that it's very far to turn. The problem, I think, is that Bodström is merely a minister in Sweden, but in the European Parliament, he is not restricted to what his superiors and country may demand of him and he is free to give his "suggestions" unchecked, in a place where they may take root with delegates from nations which do not have the fairly long history of freedom and neutrality that Sweden does.
As so many times before, by the way, Germany longs for a police state to prevent the rise of neonazis. It really is amazing. Rebuilding the past in order to prevent the past from being rebuilt. PS: Europe is not a nation.
/ Per
Can you imagine a world with 450 billion people? It would be like rush hour on the tube in Tokyo at all times of the day...
When all is said and done, nothing changes...
What is the use of logging data, when you don't do anything with it?
Take for example Samir Azzouz (Dutch). At age 17 he went to Russia to fight in the jihad. A year later he is arrested again for planning a terrorist attack. At his home, the police found detailed maps of the primary Dutch airport and a nuclear power plant as well as explosives and weapons. The police has all the evidence.
Just the fact that Samir used the wrong fertilizer and that he does not have the financial resources to perform a big attack, was enough for the judge to release Samir.
What good is logging data, when you got all the proof and the terrorist, yet you release him because "he hasn't done it yet"?
.sig: No such file or directory
-1 Troll
James P. Barrett
In many ways privacy does protect that, and in a sense that's one of america's founding principals, that citizens reserve the right to become "terrorists" if the government gets out of hand. To the British, the american "rebels" were terrorists. This is the thing that scares me most about terrorism, it's persicuting an "idea" not a crime. The people who crashed a plane into the towers were MURDERERS -- who cares what their motivation is. It's like "hate crimes" - is it any worse to kill a random stranger than it is to kill someone because they're a certain race that you hate?
Also, if the government had just cause to think that those two friends were plotting to crash a plane into a building, then they should go to a court, state for the record what they think, and why, and with a judge's permission tap the phone for a certain amount of time. If it turns out they were wrong, they should tell the person and destroy all evidence. They shouldn't be able to get a secret warrant and never disclose what/why the did to anyone.
The whole idea is that there's supposed to be a balance. The balance is getting out of whack.
RandomAndInteresting.comdefending the world from stupidity since 1979
So whats the end game? This isn't going to work, so they'll double their efforts and try something doubly draconian and doubly futile.
A well encrypted ham signal should sound like static, but with it you can co-ordinate attacks just as easily as on the internet. Encrypted letters have been used to wage wars since the greeks. A well designed script can see the transmission of a childs christmas list turned into a plan for a bomb by encoding the white space. There arn't the resources to monitor every human / human interaction and a list of visited websites and voip calls isn't going to stop the next terroist attack.
You want to stop terrorism? Stop spreading the terror. 24 hour news does more for terrorism than the internet ever did. What's more valuble to a company: it's phone line or it's advertising? (Hint: phone lines weren't invented until the 20th century) But I would no more sanction the removal of the press, than I would the logging of the internet.
Every year 40,000 people are killed by traffic accidents in the USA alone. Thats a Madrid bombing every two days, or a London bombing every 5 hours, or a 9/11 every month. Its a tragedy, but your not going to stop it by bombing the hell out of Detroit and monitoring the sale of cars, you'll rust 'radicalise' those that you are trying to protect - isn't that what the right to arms is all about?
So is it the governments business if your planning an attact? Sure it is. But the result of a terrosist attack is never going to be as bad as the sanctions imposed trying to stop it from happening.
Scared of flying, pointy things snce 1979!
Dude! I just noticed that statement about WeArab in your sig. Have you contacted FSF about this stuff? If you still didn't I strongly suggest you doing it, because FSF must know this and must deal with it.
May Peace Prevail On Earth
I get so pissed when people refer to the European union as 'Europe'. And, yeah, this is a sad day. I'm glad my country, Norway is not in the European union. But sadly we're in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Economic_Are aEuropean Economic Area (EEA), and we might get forced to this too.
If we simply reduced our dependency on oil, then we would devalue its worth enormously
once its not worth much, then the countries which use oil as their bargaining power will no longer
have any power or influence on the world.
for all the money our governments are wasting on importing billions of gallons of oil so much
research and alternative technologies could be done. We could be energy self-sufficient in all
or europe by now (solar, geothermal, hydro and better building designs).
Did you think that it was because of terrorism or other shit like
that? Wrong! It's just something to control average citizens. In
just a few years this will be end up being a giant citizen harrasment
machinery. Excuses for harrasment will range from uncomfortable
political opinions to minor copyright infridgements. And not only
that, only an accusation by someone will be enough to drop the
individual's right to privacy.
Some say, that surveillance technology and surveillance enabling laws
are not inherently evil but can turn bad if they are misused. I argue
for the opposite. The right to do something that contrary to the basic
human rights totally ensures that rather sooner than later those rights
will be abused.
Remember what happened in psychological tests a few decades ago, when
ordinary students were given full power over the other group of ordinary
students.
I think that all this is a strong motivator to keep systems like Freenet
and Entropy alive and make them more usable for the generic public. I'd
also propose adding more stealth and de-centralized functionality to tools
like BitTorrent and alike.
George
Ah, well it's because the dead can vote here. So they're counted too.
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
Just refuse and go away if they stop you and try again until you get through.
That's an incredibly dumb argument. Are you seriously saying that everything which is legal is a right?
I am trolling
There ya go. Somalia - dream home of libertarians the world wide. No taxes, no rules on guns, no government, money rules. Do what ever you want, carry what weaponry you want, thriving free market selling whatever you want if you've got the money. Any questions?
Unless you define freedom, you're both lost arguing back and forth about two different subjects. No intelligent discussion can be made without agreeing on the basic definitions, and freedom is far from clear-cut to define. It depends on so many contexts it's almost impossible to discuss rationally, it's better to omit the word freedom entirely.
Privacy is an easier word, but there's many levels of privacy.
When you come back to the basics, the discussion either boils down to agreement or differences in preferences.
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
At least here in Europe (Spain), privacy is a RIGHT, unless a judge says the contrary with strong fundamented reasons. The problem comes when the Government starts to control the third power (justice). Then, it affects freedom.
Quite so. What this all boils down to is a single question that our societies must answer: 'is freedom worth dying for?'
We certainly used to believe that the answer was 'yes'. Many of our ancestors died fighting various oppressors, be they warlike dictators or exploitative bosses or selfish aristocrats or slavers... They believed in freedom, and fought for it, and often died for it. Millions and millions of them.
Now, however, we're cowards. We aren't prepared to die for freedom. We're prepared to give up every last precious liberty in order to slightly reduce the risk of a few hundred or thousand people getting blown up every few years.
This is pathetic, and a horrible betrayal of what was fought for in the past. We're no longer prepared to die for freedom; we're prepared to give it all up to marginally reduce an already minor risk to our own precious lives. We suck.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
What's everybody worrying about?
The porn industry will think of something.
You limit freedom to freedom of speech. But even with freedom of speech you have privacy. You can't keep track of anything you say to anybody. You can't know exactly the context of your word as this includes the lives of all the people you speak to. Would you say everything you said if you knew more about the ones you speak to? Would you repeat everything? Would you rate what you say on one occasion to any sentence you said the last 12 months or even longer? Would you be able to turn around and completely change your opinion?
What happens here isn't that anybody does hear what you say but that somebody takes it as his right to record all your words, positions and personal connections and evaluate these data over a long period of time, keeping track of far more that just your word.
The question is not how valuable each single right is that gets limited by this surveillance. Each single right gets limited somewhere else in one way or the other. Each single right of yours or mine can be called luxury, one only needs the right thing to compare. Simply being alive can be a luxury sometimes...
The problem is something different. What is the right of the other party to collect all these data? Are their rights more valuable than mine? What will happen with the data and what will come back to you? Who decides what is wrong or right? By what measures? Will you be held responsible for your audience's lives? Will you get shot because you did say the wrong word to the wrong person? Who will be held responsible if your data get mixed up with some others data? Who will be held responsible if your data get lost?
I am not able to answer even one of these questions in a way that doesn't make me fear.
cb
- overload the system! use spook mode! generate random phrases:
Defcon Ft. Meade Janet Reno supercomputer undercover eavesdropping
ASIO kilo class Rubin high security interception morse Skipjack
keyhole condor morse FBI Ceridian UFO digicash fraud electronic surveillance
unclassified argus embassy Clinton Montenegro Bletchley Park AVN JUWTF South Africa IRA gamma class struggle cybercash Ft. Meade PGP benelux
supercomputer MD2 illuminati PLO AVN Aldergrove BROMURE
- you get the idea!
Are you actually suggesting that a state keeping an eye on its citizens is better? Look what happend to the communist countries. Surveillance of it's own citizens was at its peak there.
And it's not a matter of privacy here. I don't have a problem with someone knowing I have porn on my computer. I have a problem the moment when someone is blackmailing me with that knowledge.
I'm sure surveillance existed throughout the US as well, the same period USSR still existed. The difference was what someone could do with the information gathered this way.
You can't fire cruise missiles off at a few million a pop against car crashes.
Without someone to bomb, how will the poor defense industry execs feed their starving, Harvard-attending children?!
Won't somebody think of the children?!
Your assertion that freedom and privacy are completely separate is misleading: they may be separate concepts, but the one affects the other very closely, especially in 'modern' society.
Until very recently a certain degree of privacy was not just assumed, but practically guaranteed in most societies: until the modern age there simply weren't the resources or the means for a government to collect all communications. Governments could attempt to collect such information but past a certain point it would invariably involve the use of force and/or fear, which are just the kind of societies that modern democracy is supposed to get rid of.
Also, saying that privacy is not a right but a luxury is making quite a big assumption - that governments have a fundamental right to know everything about us, and that in cases where this isn't true the situation is a luxury for the common man. I don't share that opinion: I am of the view that the government that I had a part in electing, via the democratic process, is there to act in my interests and on my behalf. It is there purely to allow myself and people like me to live my life. That is basic principle of democracy - power of the people, not *over* the people. You're forgetting this fundamental distinction.
You might also want to check the Universal Declaration of Human Rights - which includes an article on privacy. (I know this declaration is worthless in today's "the facts on the ground have changed" world, but I still think it's a worthwhile document). The fact that intelligent people now believe privacy is a luxury is just one of the many ways in which our world is changing for the worse because of the spectre of terrorism and, mainly, because of the knee-jerk overreactions to it from otherwise sensible people. Sacrificing your rights will not protect your liberty.
As Benjamin Franklin very rightly said: "They that would give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
450 billion people of Europe should read 450 million !
Has anyone read the PDF? it says the following:
"Member States shall ensure that the following categories of data are retained under this
Directive:
(a) data necessary to trace and identify the source of a communication;
(b) data necessary to trace and identify the destination of a communication;
(c) data necessary to identify the date, time and duration of a communication;
(d) data necessary to identify the type of communication;
(e) data necessary to identify the communication device or what purports to be the
communication device;
(f) data necessary to identify the location of mobile communication equipment."
So your privacy should be safe, or at least what I think is more important, the data.
You're quite right. All such conversations should be taped and logged. The Soviet Union was right all along.
Wrong, Bush made you believe privacy is a luxury. It is a luxury in a nation of paranoid people each spying on his neighbor, not in a society buit on "innocent until proven guilty".
Europe doesn't want the data to be stored, so the need for privacy or freedom of speech will not be attacked directly.
However, data (when, where, how big...) is stored about the email traffic, cellphone calls etc.
Okay, you might argue that that is also a piece of your privacy, but as long as nobody starts reading my emails or listening in on my calls... (uhm other than the american government, that seems to be doing that for years), I'm not complaining.
Strange. Last time I checked, the world's total population was around six billion. You know, ten-to-the-power-of-nine. However, maybe they are collecting data from birds that sit on telephone wires as well. You can never tell with Europeans, they'll even tax tea if you let them...
(Real editors check names and numbers of every story before it is posted. It is part of their job description. They get into trouble if they don't. What Slashdot needs is some real competition to force the editors to at least pretend that they are doing their job.)
During WW2 did not millions die for freedom agains repressive regimes? We all seem to forget this now we are ready to throw our freedoms away and embrase repressive regimes because a few thousand died. and before anybodys says you don't know what its like I have lived in london through the IRA bombs. I have had 5 bombs go off less than a mile from where I was. During that campaign Londoners just got on with it shrugged it off. Now everybody seems to painic about it...Not sure what has changed but its not good. All these things have a life span We don't get IRA bombs any more everything has a limited lifespan. Lets not throw our freedom away for a bit of piece of mind that will come to nothing. If phone and email is being monitored so heavily terrorists will start only communicating in person or by letter etc.
Use traffic encription and do not care about any Echelon-clons.
;o)
Yes, in my country we have the same situation like you describe. I using GPG for private correspondence. In other respects, I use the "algorithm of the elusive Joe"
Imagine a world in which everything every government (or other group in power) did was immediately 100% transparent to any observer. I can see no downsides to this whatsoever - the depressing thing is that it's eminently possible, equally sensible - but ultimately impossible.
About time the Freenet gets going!
i agree with this, its an ugly control issue.
And after the fact/crime, all that data will have to be filtered somehow, and my bet is that this will be anything but 'equal' snooping.
data retention leads to more profiling, which only guarantees more suspects (most of whom have done nothing) and less equality. It does nothing to take on terrorism preemptively.
Could saying "Weapons of Mass Destruction!" land the sayer in prison?
How do you protect an open society? We are caught in this conundrum where the government keeps infringing on our freedom and privacy as the only way to protect us, but we still keep calling it a free country when we aren't guaranteed the right to due process anymore thanks to the patriot act.
Thomas Friedman answered this question by saying we should spread hope, and not fear. He is as right as anyone else on this issue.
If you really want to get into the privacy issue, lets not talk about individuals, lets talk about ALL privacy, government privacy, corporate privacy... Privacy is a basic freedom. And guaranteeing privacy to certain factions i.e. government only increases the inequality. Lets have a truly transparent society or one where everyone has the same amount of privacy.
I do agree somewhat with Privacy != Freedom && Freedom != Privacy. In a transparent society you wouldn't call privacy a freedom. Since you would still have freedom. Freedom is something fundamentally different from privacy.
"Summarized: any data..." It's a bit misleading to refer any data as summary. Here's the any data: "Directive: (a) data necessary to trace and identify the source of a communication; (b) data necessary to trace and identify the destination of a communication; (c) data necessary to identify the date, time and duration of a communication; (d) data necessary to identify the type of communication; (e) data necessary to identify the communication device or what purports to be the communication device; (f) data necessary to identify the location of mobile communication equipment." So if you call your uncle, it really doesn't matter what you talk to him. Unless, the phone call is listened by the authorities - this usually needs some kind of further permit.
Well, most of you. Most of you voted for the idiots that did this. Most people want to feel safe and secure, and they'll believe *any* load of bullshit out of politicians and vote away *any* rights they can think of. We're in the bread-and-circuses stage - nobody gives a crap because they've got mindless TV and sports to watch.
Yep, i agree, that does sound kinda scary.
Did strike me that he meant 450 mil people - but just imagine, what are the odds that in 450 billion people, 2 people share the same finger prints? What would that do for law enforcement?
Oh, you live in West Belfast? :)
I can't believe how light you make of this. As you said, it's easy to say something like this when you haven't experienced any personal loss yourself. OK, at a theoretical level the above quote is right.
But let's look at it from a practical POV. Furthermore, let's make it preemptive. Let's say you knew ahead of time that a terrorist attack will kill your parents or your wife or your kid daughter, or all of them. Given a chance to stop that, but not Rambo style, but through preemptive measures, such as increased airport security or tapping of personal phonelines, would you take it?
Let's imagine that the FBI comes to you one fine day and says: "Sir, we have reasons to suspect that a terrorist attack will destroy a certain flight. Incidentally, it's the one your entire family is on. In order to prevent it we need to trample the freedom and the rights of several possibly unrelated individuals. We'd like you to decide whether we should do that. And make it quick, we only have 15 minutes before we can act."
What would you do then? Uphold the righteous choice?
i ate crayons when i was a kid and now i have two braincells and the blue ones taste nicer
You know. It's bad when Americans are concerned about your freedom.
Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty?
A friend of mine was pulled over for something that in no way justified a breath test. Of course, my friend was clean, but my impression was that the police are doing something akin to random testing now (against UK law), but looking for the tiniest excuse for doing so.
On the other hand, a police officer who drove a government minister to a political meeting and was caught got let off.
So the arguement is: within the framework of stopping political violence where is the functional middle ground between monitoring everybody all the time and anarchy. How about monitoring the usual suspects?
1) people that already have committed crimes like the key followers of Aum Shinrikyo.
2) members of organizations that engage in political violence like Mohamed Atta.
3) people so desperate that blowing themselves up seems fair.
4) armed groups and militaries, often the cause of #3.
Universal Declaration of Human Rights: http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html
Article 12.
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
s/Billion/Million/
I could not disagree with you more. Privacy is an absolute necessity in any free society. To call it a luxury is madness. Our freedeem flows from it. Voting: private, religion: private, abortion: private, private property, protection of privacy from unwarranted searches, right to private council. But you take away citizen privacy and increase government secrecy and power you get the conditions that give rise to despots and facism.
Good signature, I find you gain great insight when you strongly play devils advocate on point you feel strongly about.
A transparent society is worth thinking about, It could be more open and more free than we are. Until then, privacy will continue to be counted as a valuable negative freedom, one which lets everybody do less.
You don't know what you are talking about
Anonymity != Privacy
--exa--
Code is Speech. No to Censorship.
I'm the "Anonymous Reader" who submitted this "article". I'm from Germany, so my command of the English language is limited at its best (it's impressive how many comments bitch about that billion/million typo ... my apologies to the /. editors).
... to be honest, I prefer not to be shot. Then, New Zealand http://ask.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=171228&cid =14261456/ which seems to be sort of an option ... unfortunately this seems to be the one and only serious answer =(
... hey guy, here you can not! At least, neither in Germany nor in Switzerland ahref=http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/35261 /rel=url2html-19262http://www.heise.de/newsticker/ meldung/35261/> (sorry, German only). Admitted, Switzerland is not a member of the EU and I don't know about all other members, but I assume that it is not possible to purchase a prepaid card anonymously anywhere on the continent -- and no, in my eyes, privacy is NOT a luxury http://ask.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=171228&cid =14261289/
... how is this possible? http://ask.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=171228&cid =14262340/.
My request was a serious one, answers as The Moon http://ask.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=171228&cid =14261341/ are funny to some extend, but not very helpful. Bugmaster asked http://ask.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=171228&cid =14262445/ which solutions there are. Moving out is one, keeping a low profile another, also encryption keeps bubbling up. Encryption is not much of a help if the connection data, who spoke to whom, is stored (but I use it anyway). On the other hand, I know about tools/services like the Freenet Project http://www.freenetproject.org/, TOR http://tor.eff.org/, JAP http://anon.inf.tu-dresden.de/index_en.html/ and GnuPG http://www.gnupg.org/ -- but most of my peers do not. If asked, their answer is similar to this one http://ask.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=171228&cid =14262263/, which, in my eyes, IS crazy. In addition, if more and more people start to use these services, any estimate much time it will take to outlaw encryption technologies as such?
So, keeping a low profile is sort of an option, but not calling grandma for her 90th anniversary is HARD to explain, don't you think?
Last solution, move along. As said, my request was serious, not intended as anti-european flamewar http://ask.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=171228&cid =14261813/, nor as troll http://ask.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=171228&cid =14261813/.
Somalia was mentioned http://ask.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=171228&cid =14261597/
One comment (sorry, no link) stated, that as long as one can purchase SIM cards without ID
Btw, I heavily agree with bmh129
Regards
First of all, this doesn't apply to the continent of Europe. It applies to members of the European Union. Secondly, the law requires the collection of connection information, not content. That is, the phonenumber dialed. The from and two fields of an email etc.
I'd still say it's about time for the public to wake up to the wonderful new world of cryptography. I've been chanting the "encrypt your freakin email" song for years and years and still can't get anybody to do so. I'm sure this law is just the first step (and a major reason I'll likely vote NO on the next attempt to ratify a EU application in my country). Be very worried.
Even if evil government doesn't exists anymore in Europe, it should be considered that the evil government time is not too far in the past and in the culture. For exemple, extreme right have around 20% of the votes in france. For exemple, the have been strong police intervention against political groups in italy in the last five years, and no less than 20 years ago Amnesty International investigated the use of torture in Italian prisons. For exemple, in some countries that are candidate to be members of the EU there have been wars in the last few years, and a political situation that is not completely cleaned up, with riots defending (supposed) war criminals. This without talking about Turkey. In general, political confrontation is a lot stronger in Europe, with wider differencies between mainstream left and right parties, and the presence of more radical (but perfectly legal) right and left wing parties. There is a long history of private data used for political reasons, like the big french scandals of the phone tapping of the Mitterand era; by the way, it mat be interesting to know a little more about that scandals: Mitterand (the French president at the time, in the 80s), set up an special anti-terrorism group, with special powers. This group used these powers for the political goal of the governing party, and personal goals of the president, doing illegal phone tapping and other things. This in a fully democratic European state. This directive is criminal and ignore reality in Europe. Barbogio
Let's suppose:
The state does not limit my freedom of speech, but they have a camera on my neck an a microphone attached to my mouth an a
gps system to know every what where, what, who and when of my life.
I have done nothing wrong, I am legal, I pay my taxes, NEVER break the law.
I am an activist against let's say government corruption or the influence of corporations in government. Causing trouble to our well to do politicians. Very uncomfortable.
Let's say I am happily married with two kids but have some moral stain which can destroy my public life. Let's say they have information that can hurt me. It's not illegal to have lovers in Europe and most parts of the world. Whatever, anything i want to keep PRIVATE or secret. Let`s not get on the Lewinsky case PLEASE!!!.
Since I have no privacy and information is POWER, they have power over me, I have no freedom even if they say I do...
Cheers
And now all phone calls can be monitored without warrant in Russia and most other post SU countries, including most "european" ones: Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania
The problem with this choice is that it is fundamentally different to the choice that is actually being offered. With this question you are offering a sure fire cast iron guarantee that you can stop a terrorist attack by using limited (time and scope) infringements of a limited number of peoples freedoms and privacy. If this was the case then everyone would vote to stop the attack.
The real choice being offered, however, is this: wide spread infringement of liberty for a (possibly) reduced risk of a future unknown terrorist attack. If this choice was offered to you would you opt for it? We don't know that there is even going to be another terrorist attack (although I think it's likely). We don't know where a future attack would take place. We don't know when a future attack would take place. There are so many variables that it is absurd to even think we can stop a terrorist if they really wanted to blow something up. It might be possible to lock down the airports and the subways but is it possible to lock down all the shopping centers, petrol stations, football stadiums, rock concerts, churches, theaters, etc, etc. There are just too many places to blow people up. Even if you did manage to secure all of those what about the roads. A terrorist willing to die for his cause could case havoc simply by deliberately crashing his car on a motorway.
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
Let's take the 450 mil figure (ignoring the typo), and assume a country 1/10 of that, 45 million. Now let's say that every day, 50 percent of people are using one of the forms of communication. There are businesses where people make dozens of phone calls every day. A person casually surfing online can easily visit a dozen sites per hour, and some torrent clients can connect to dozens of different computers every minute. So how many events to log is that? In just one country, 23 million people multiplied by potentially dozens of transactions each per day, possibly hundreds. The daily events to log could easily run well into the hundreds of millions, from just this one country. It won't really be "useful" to government spooks unless it's all reachable by one database--and this is the EU--so they will be wanting one database to reach it all. Good Fucking Luck! There's no database system that can really do that, is there? And oh yea--not only does it need to be comprehensively searchable, but they want it maintained for 6 or 12 months, for net and phone traffic.
Hmmm, do I own any stock in tape-backup manufacturers?,,,
I would advise fine citizens of the EU not to worry themselves over this a whole lot. Whoever thought this up didn't know a lot about the technical limitations of current computer systems, or even of the cost that even attempting to construct such a system would total.
It sounds like an obvious idea--this concept of simply "monitoring everything"--but it really isn't practical now, and will continue to be less and less so in the future.
~
it is taking away a luxury The final goal of the terrorists is not just to kill our civilians but shake our democratic system which had not been gained for nothing. Hitler had tried to demolish the democracy, Stalin had tried to stifle the freedom but none of them had succeeded. They had killed millions of people but they failed. And voila the terrorists. They killed thousands of people and they are shaking our system of democracy. How can one say the word "luxury" for something so precious and so essential for real democracy. Not a few people think that sacrificing our privacy will help to eliminate terrorists. But abandoning the essential part of the democracy is to give way to the ultimate goal of the terrorists. Terrorists and anti-democrats are not equal but they share the same idea: stifling the privacy and shaking the democracy. Didn't any tyrant in the world had always an excuse for choking democracy?
"Reasons to suspect"? Reasons to issue a warrant. Nobody's complaining about good old fashioned with-warrant phone tapping.
To all of those who never bothered to inform themself on the issue :
The law states that only the meta-information is stored (sender, recipient, date & time etc...)
NOT the content itself.
...You are over-qualified and under-paid. If we give you a raise, we will break the cosmic balance of the universe.
"At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years. At what point, then, is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide".
- Abraham Lincoln; The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume I, "Address Before the Young Men's Lyceum,of Springfield, Illinois (January 27, 1838), p. 109.
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
The information is already publicly available, this just means that the companies have to store this information a bit longer.
Does anyone think that their emails, internet browsing and phone conversations are private at all? We all know that emails can be easily intercepted by 3rd parties, someone's browsing can be easily tracked and phone conversations can be tapped.
While I do believe that Governments should be given as little power as possible, this measure doesn't really grant them any more power.
Quote "Summarized: any data (internet connections, traffic, email, file sharing, SMS, phone calls) of 450 billion people of Europe"
;)
Thats gotta take them a LOT of storage space to keep tabs on so many
here in Indonesia, the new law for us is to register our prepaid cellular phone number. the various providers' haven't found any certain way to do this, though, because most people here use prepaid cards already, and as of now can switch numbers as frequent as they want. In future, we will not be able to use our current number unless we register, but as of now the law is still blurry to us, mere folks.
Of course I'd want my family to live.
But lets change this situation to something closer to reality:
Let's imagine that the FBI comes to you one fine day and says: "Sir, we suspect that a terrorist attack will destroy a flight at some point. Incidentally, your entire family is going to be flying on a plane at some point. In order to possibly try to prevent it we need to stomp on the freedom and the rights of everybody in this country, including you and your family. Also it is almost a given that your family will be directly negatively affected by this - your daughters ex-boyfriend has made a call to the terrorist burning hotline in a fit of jealous rage, so she'll be vanishing soon. We'd like you to decide whether we should give you the illusion of security. And make it quick, you never know when they could strike again"
Even if you give up every right you ever have and become a slave to your government, you will not have made terrorism impossible, it will still be able to happen, and the side effect is that you will be living in fear like you wouldn't believe every damned day of your life, because that guy you just cut up? Might call the 'Witch / Terrorist buring hotline' with your license plate. You run a sucessful business? Your competitor can get the competative edge, whilst you are in solitary for planning to blow up a turnpike.
You need to ask yourself, IF these actions are taken will it solve the problem? Could you think of a way of doing it anyway? The answer is almost invariably NO, it wouldn't solve anything, but it would harm you. Remember the old saw: Cutting off your nose to spite your face.
How would ANY new laws bring back your dead loved ones? How would fewer rights bring them back either? How would living in a constant state of fear honor their memory? And most importantly, how would surrendering everything stop it happening again? Sure you can stop / make much harder a particular attack vector, but there are always new ways to do something... If you are alive, you are at risk, the only way to be safe is to die.
One last thing, how would you like to know that your innocent wife was locked up on death row about to die as an innocent casualty of the war on terror. That your new laws to protect your wife actually killed her? Because all this 'so some innocents will be caught in the net, its worth it to protect the rest of us' is fine, until you or those you love are the innocents lost for the cause....
Seen in historical context, the current trend towards government regulation of every little detail of people's lives is a result of ever-growing population density and ever-higher expectations. When people lived on farms a mile apart, privacy was automatic. We didn't need a "right to privacy", any more than we need a "right to breathe" - we just enjoyed it. As population density increases, and we get crammed together in cities (and on highways, aircraft, and other forms of transport) privacy becomes a lot less feasible - if only because a lot of people can watch and listen to you most of the time. It's the old story of balancing rights against duties. When we say "I have a right to privacy", we are also saying "Everyone else has a duty to respect my privacy". If it becomes difficult, inconvenient, or even impossible for them to perform that duty, my right is attenuated accordingly.
The other big factor militating against privacy is the mounting complexity and sophistication of our culture, and the rising expectations most of us have. We want convenience and low prices, so we often sacrifice our right to privacy by filling in forms to get supermarket loyalty cards and suchlike. And, of course, most of us expect to be safe from terrorist attacks - so we hasten (in Ben Franklin's cutting words) to "give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety".
To be honest, with computer and communication technology progressing as it is, millions of people sharing relatively small living areas, and staedily growing expectations of quality of life, I don't see any chance of turning back the tide. Within a few decades, life in most civilised countries is going to make 1984 look like the Stone Age. We won't be able to cough without our underwear informing on us to our medical insurers, or think without being scanned and intuited by ubiquitous machines. Think tailored hologram commercials, like those portrayed in "Blade Runner", that are not only tightly customised for each individual, but do a perpetual Sherlock Holmes mind-reading number on us (at machine speeds). Now imagine what governments will do with that technology... Anyone for the cold sleep ship to Procyon?
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
As for the notion that the USA is the "Land of the Free" Hahaha.
Can you go out and buy an anonomonus pre paid mobile phone with cash for
around 60 ($75) that comes with 90 ($110) call credit!
HInt: To avoid being tracked, REMOVE the battery to the phone when not
in use, it's no good just turning it off!
Ireland - It doesn't matter what laws are passed, we just ignore most of them!
__
Sigs are like arse-holes, everybody has one
If you actually read the document, it states clearly the contnet of communications is explicitly ignored, instead only the following data is to be archived by service providers:
Article 4
Categories of data to be retained Member States shall ensure that the following categories of data are retained under this
Directive:
(a) data necessary to trace and identify the source of a communication;
(b) data necessary to trace and identify the destination of a communication;
(c) data necessary to identify the date, time and duration of a communication;
(d) data necessary to identify the type of communication;
(e) data necessary to identify the communication device or what purports to be the
communication device;
(f) data necessary to identify the location of mobile communication equipment.
If you are doubtful that freedom or any human right is in jeopardy here, you need to answer one simple question. Will they (the power elite, i.e. government) or will they not employ force as a means to an end? (Will the consumer and producer engage in free association, as natural human rights would have it, or will government interfere?) According to the summary, they will indeed interfere -- and there's your answer. Freedom IS in jeopardy.
Privacy may not be an intrinsic human right, but free association is. Stalking and spying is NOT an example of free association, unless you are so naive as to believe "the people brought it upon themselves" or "the people are the government".
Luxury my ass. Free association is a natural human right (god-given if you prefer), and I'll be damned if anyone tells me otherwise.
Obviously you didn't. And being Americans and not Europeans you don't know anything about EU laws. 1: This is a directive, not a law. It has to be ratified by a member single state before being in effect in that state. 2: They don't record the content. They just record who called who, when and whit which username/telephone number/IMEI/cell. BUT the point is that... 3: They are already doing it. This is about retention, which means that they have to keep the data for a certain amount of time. What happens is that now you can delete the logs whenever, but after this will be ratified, you'll have to save the logs. BTW in most of the state this is already law (or good practise) and it's not like our freedom is compromised, luckily our privacy laws fork fine. To have access to these logs (in my country) a judge approval is needed.
With voting, generally you have two options:
Take away your freedoms "for God" guy
or
Take away your freedoms "to protect the children" guy
Both douches drool over control.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -Benjamin Franklin
"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it." -Thomas Jefferson
There you have it. Straight from the words of two founding fathers. The freedoms that have been bestowed upon us should not be infringed upon simply because we need to feel a bit safer or because it is a bit harder for the FBI or CIA to legally do their job.
I have personally had feelings along the lines of Franklin's quote since 9/11. I believe that everyone too quickly and too freely gave up rights and freedoms in the name of safety (and a false safety at that). Every individual has a right to privacy and that right is protected by many laws. There are clauses in the laws of many states that protect people with a "reasonable expectation of privacy."
The government has no business being able to read all my e-mails without a warrant and probably cause. The idea they could read millions of e-mails and find that terrorist A sent an email to terrorist B does not change the fact they invaded the privacy (unlawfully so in my opinion, and probably in the opinion of some judges) of law abiding citizens.
One of the central ideas of the distopia of 1984 was that "Big Brother" was always watching. People were monitored almost constantly and there were very few places anyone could escape to find privacy. Even the words uttered in one's sleep could and would be used against a person, so they could be sent for "re-education". This nation was founded on the principle of small central government. I believe this is pretty evident from the 10th amendment to the bill of rights: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."
As our government gets larger, our freedoms get smaller and you begin to fall down the so called "slippery slope" into a state where the government now wields total power over its people and the only thing you have left is your freedom of thought.
"Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb."
There are about 450 million, not 450 billion (as the article states) people living in Europe.
... assuming that I can also have unfettered access to what the politicians are doing as well. Let me listen in on their "private" and personal conversations, let me access their bank records, let me track their credit card purchases, online behavior, and email - let me get all the info on them that they can get on me, and I'll be the first kid on my block to agree they can do the same to me.
I wonder - if such access were to be given to the citizenry, how many elected officials would commit suicide the day before it went into effect?
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
So what happens is a helicopter can fly over your house, your property that you OWN, and take pictures of your backyard to find out if you're growing Marijuana, or for science, or paparazzi even. People like Barbara Streisand think this is an outrage (go figure). Jennifer Aniston apparently walks around topless in broad daylight and she will suffer the consequences, she mistakenly assumed she had a right to privacy when she showed her breasts to the sun gods. I don't see how telephone calls or internet transmissions are much different. If I really had something to hide (like credit card info) I would encrypt it, lets see the government beat 1024 bit encryption in my lifetime. I think so long as terrorists are only sending encrypted messages back and forth the investigating authorities have no reason to suspect anything. It's when there is a $1,000,000 wire transfer or an unidentified boat arrival (with bombs, drugs, slaves, whatever) or pictures of rape and incest flowing on the internet that will require investigation. But I say if it's unencrypted, sure, use all the high-tech surveilance you can afford to try and prevent any harm at all.
Read the constitution if you don't believe me. There is nothing in there about privacy. It's an illusion, created by certain Judiciaries who have overstepped their bounds. As for the parent, I think you aren't looking at the bigger picture. This isn't the American Revolution. For one, the American revolutionaries were way out of bounds, if everyone thought like them today we'd all still be killing each other, not that what they did was a bad thing, just that their time has come and gone. The same gung-ho attitude lead us into the civil war. You know those slave owners would have loved to maintain ultimate privacy. These days we fight for other people's freedoms, and that in turn SHOULD lead to a more peaceful world. We'll see I guess.
Even simpler plan. Just blow yourself up then and there, taking out everyone else waiting to get on the train, and saving yourself another commute...
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
The idea of Privacy being a Freedom has been around for a couple of centuries. Take this little tidbit of information:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
It comes from a small document known as the Constitution of the United States. This is in the Amendments section. It's called Article IV. As you can see for yourself, the concept of privacy, though not called "privacy", is pretty explictly defined.
The Europen Convention on Human Rights is more explicit:
Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence. (Article 8, para 1)
Unfornately, the ECHR introduced a rather large loophole in para 2:
There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others. (emphasis mine)
Nonetheless, the point is that Privacy is a freedom, enshrined in law, available to at least 700 million of the richest inhabitants of this planet. I plead ignorance to the laws of the other nations, rich and poor, where such laws may also be written down.
Anonymous pamphleteering has a long tradition in the US, at least as far back as our founding fathers, with their Federalist Papers.
several countries went from democracies to totalitarian governments and dictatorships in the space of a few months. A spotty fraction of this kind of information was used by these governments in europe to steal, inprison, starve, torture, rape and kill millions of european citizens, and their families and closer friends.
A few years ago in Europe, several countries which did not have totalitarian governments where invaded and conquered by countries that had them, and the same thing happened. Other "voluntarily" gave up a part of their soverignty to join as "allies". To pay for that "privilege", they put millions of their citizens at the mercy of those countries peacefully.
Those citizens weren't always jews.
In a few years we have NO guarantee of which kind of government we are going to have in our country. It may even be a government from a foreign power, or our country may be forced to join an "alliance".
Do you know what Hitler would do with this kind of information about you?
This is not only another salvo in the war for freedom, it means the ante just went up thousand-fold. It means there is no turning back, because everything is at stake.
People who have commited no crime will die because of this, and other, collected and stored information.
Democracy is no guarantee against the future.
Emmanuel Goldstein
DISCLAIMER: If you are a dictator of my country sometime in the future, this message is designed only to catch people likely of commiting thought-crimes.
Please mod this up doubleplusgood.
Any recommendations where one can still live free and unobserved in a non-nanny state?
Well, at least in Norway, The Data Inspectorate ("Datatilsynet") is extremely unsatisfied with the EU directive, and there are talks of Norway using it's veto right in order to not implement the directive.
Also - we've got laws protecting people copying code, reverse engieneering code, etc - so at the moment, Norway is a nice place to live.
By the way, the directive does not mean that data carriers need to store the body of the communication, it's just the headers (sending and recieving number, time, etc).
Linux IS user friendly, it's just choosy of who it's friends are.
No, the only thing new today is that we have the ability to monitor a lot of "stuff," and we need to determine just how *much* privacy is an intrinsic human right. Complete lack of privacy is utter tyranny. Complete privacy is impossible.
Privacy is not a luxary, that's just idiotic.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
A Proxy or an anonymizer can be usefull.
Freenet: Version 0.7 of Freenet aims to create a scalable darknet, where users only connect directly to other users they know and (at least marginally) trust. The core innovation in Freenet 0.7 will be to allow a globally scalable darknet, capable of supporting millions of users. (DEFCON 13 presentation by Ian Clarke and Oskar Sandberg)
Tor: Tor is a network of virtual tunnels that allows people and groups to improve their privacy and security on the Internet. It also enables software developers to create new communication tools with built-in privacy features. Tor provides the foundation for a range of applications that allow organizations and individuals to share information over public networks without compromising their privacy.
Then again the only people who have to worry about this are the ones who've got something to hide (IE pedophiles..)
If I call my friend up to chat about the old college days I absolutely have a right to privacy. What I talk to an old friend is ABSOLUTELY none of the governments business.
And it still isn't. The demand isn't to log WHAT YOU SAY OR WRITE in a telephone call, an SMS or an email, it's just traffic monitoring and it's not ACTIVE surveillance.
They only want logs that say person A called person B at this date and time for this long. No need to put on a tin foil hat and go hide in the basement just yet.
I'm not overly happy about this either, but there's no reason to go completely overboard - yet.
Its a right. Anyone who says otherwise is either not too intelligent, or an emeny of humanity.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
This is what bugs me. There was sufficient intelligence before 9/11 to indicate something was about to happen. Some of the attackers were in the country for years before it happened, preparing for the attack. Intelligence was collected alluding to the project, there were spectators lining up in Jersey City to watch the attacks before it happened and some kid in a Brooklyn school pointed to the WTC the day before and told his teacher "that won't be there tomorrow." The President himself was briefed on it. For whatever reason, nothing was done and there's a crater in Lower Manhattan. They blew it. Unless you can prove that 9/11 wouldn't happen with current precautions in place, I don't buy it. And using what happened that day as an excuse to put in mechanisms to spy on citizens is insulting.
Collecting intelligence at the expense of privacy is delicate business. Putting these mechanisms in place may or may not serve purposes contrary to what's been publically stated, but I don't feel any more comfortable that someone's not going to nuke us because the government can monitor cell phone conversations without a wiretap order.
It's easy to give these things away when you feel you have nothing to hide. What's the point, right? They'll just use them to get the bad guys and bad guys get too much protection as it is. Well what happens is that the government becomes more of a factor in your life. I don't want them knowing my business, whether benign or otherwise. I pay them good money to leave me alone. I want to be able to live my life without feeling like someone's watching my every move. Treating your taxpaying citizens as if they were potential terrorists is completely unacceptable.
I thik of privacy as my right, not a luxury. I think this right is mentioned in many countries' constitutions. This is sometimes in conflict with freedom of expression and many countries deal with this by different means.
I would not dare to define what privacy is or whether electronic communication services data are private, but I surely don't see privacy as a luxury. It is something more.
The U.S. is a Republic, not a Democracy.
And you are an idiot who doesn't understand what either mean.
Its Apples and Cars - the two are different things that are not in contradiction.
The USA has a presidency rather than a monarchy, that makes it a republic, the government is elected by the people that makes it a democracy (a representative democracy to be more precise). "Republic" and "democracy" are not alternatives to one another. A country can be both or neither or either one but not the other.
Iraq, pre-war, was a non-democratic republic.
The UK is a democratic monarchy.
Saudi Arabia is a non-democratic monarchy.
The USA is a democratic republic.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
The population of the earth is around 6 billion. How can there be 450 billion people in Europe? Probably a typo of the order of 10^3. They must mean 450 million.
They are not going to log all the information, but instead among the logged details will be:
email sender (only when using the ISP mail account)
email recipient (only when using the ISP mail account)
voip service connections (only using the ISP service, not for example Skype. Time and recipient saved)
numbers where sms message was sent (time and place of action, recipient)
phone numbers called (time and place of call, length of call, recipient)
Something positive here, Finns actively wanted as limited version as possible, whereas many other countries proposed saving of all the data, including content. Finns consistently told that the cost would be way too high and the amount of data will be too large for processing.
?SYNTAX ERROR
/me dons his flameproof clothing - this will come across as flaimbait, btu not intended as such.
This is aweful close to Godwins' law I know:
Suppose I support the ideals of the Clu Clux Clan (sp?). Suppose I want to speak and talk about white supremacy. I'd hope someone had the right to do that. I doubt that there's many places that you could do that without being attacked by the populous.
From that example I'd guess we see that people don't exactly want freedom of speech; they want what they're used to.
Consider a random tribesman. Would he consider our police force with rights to search your house under warrant and rights to observe camera footage an invasion of his privacy? Probably he would, do i think we're better for those rights being invaded - yes.
Consider 200 years ago, no-one needed passports to travel then, yet we don't object too strongly to them now. Would we want to go back to a world without passports? Yes I'd like to lose passports between the UK and europe, but not the rest of the world.
Why are people afraid of a surveilence society? people cry 1984, but that's not enough; under the assumption that everyone is watched (including the watchers) then where is the issue?
I'm guessing most people are reasonably happy with the current level of infringement of personal rights, they just object to any further ones? Would our great grandparents be happy with current surveylence, would our great grandchildren wonder what the fuss was about (given they'd be monitored much more)?
As a better example I was against the Town Centre CCTV now ubiquitous in the UK. However I can see how much safer the towns are, and although there are some cases of abuse of this power, can we at the moment highlight any cases of this abuse of power? I'd bet it's much easier to point to cases of Police abusing their power anyway, yet we're not talking about getting rid of the police force and all the personal right they regularly infringe.
i.e. the surveylence is a tool, what people seem to be afraid of is those using the tool rather than it itself, they can't stop the person so try to stop the tool? Is this not similar to people who are afraid of computers or nuclear power?
--
The right to offend is more important than the right to not be offended
"The weirdest thing about a mind, is that every answer that you find, is the basis of a brand new cliche" -
Visiting warez or keygen sites? The SPA would love to pay you a visit. Downloading too many songs and movies? The RIAA and MPAA likewise.
Visiting too many "trouble" sites like /.? Who knows when the next Un-American Activities Committee will be formed to investigate and blacklist potential troublemakers.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
Which is exactly whatt they wanted! The goal of terrorists is not to destroy buildings (though they do that to achieve their goal) but to spread terror: to make people/govt afraid and life painful and unpleasant. Apparently they succeeded at that.
I've posted this before, but I'll say it again anyway.
Imagine a screensaver like SETI@Home that's designed to generate false random data by connecting to various ports and IP addresses. Think how quickly storage space will get chewed up if only a small number of those 450 million ran this screen saver. Not to mention polluting the logs with false data.
This technique has had some affect in thwarting spammers who are harvesting e-mail addresses, but in this case it should be even more successful as it would be harder to determine what data is real and what data is fake and the program can be run from a household desktop instead of a web server.
Of course anyone who develops such a program will be locked up without charge or trial under anti terrorism laws.
And unlike in many other states, the NH constitution doesn't specifically prohibit seccession.
Once your in NH, there are many different groups you can join to effect positive change. NH Free regularly stages protests on usch things as emminent domain, and national ID
Free MacMini
Did you read what you posted??
"Everyone has the *RIGHT* (emphasis mine) to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
I expect the Ministry of Truth will be rewriting this posting soon.
You're right that privacy isn't necessary for freedom. But asymmetric information is a huge problem for freedom, because asymmetric information means asymmetric power.
And that's the situation we're facing: the government is hiding more and more information under the mantle of national security, corporations are hiding more and more of their operations as proprietary and trade secret, and at the same time, they are gathering more and more information on individuals that can be used for anything from distorting the market to blackmail.
This measure will help authority to trace the terrorists, who use cell phones to trigger bombs.
Right. And this new law just ensures that should a warrant be optained (and the definition of what is reasonable tends to vary over time, and from judge to judge since it is not formally defined anywhere), the data would still be available to mine. I don't really understand the over-reaction from everybody here. I suspect many ISPs already practice that kind of data retention on their own.
Of what conceivable importance are their motivations? They attacked us; ergo, they must be subdued or destroyed.
Their reasons may be of interest to historians in the future -- but not to us, not now.
I live in America. Here, we have the PATRIOT Act, which is the least patriotic thing about this country. I'm sure we'll be catching up to Europe, soon, which sucks.
Not even if you two are seriouly planning on flying planes into buildings or releasing sarin gas in a subway?
Correct: not even then. If you want a free and democratic society, you have to accept the fact that people can plan to do bad things and that they will sometimes get away with it.
We have a choice: a totalitarian state with perfect security, or a democratic state in which we accept the risk that people can successfully plan and launch terrorist attacks.
The only way to reduce terrorist attacks in a democracy is to behave more justly in the world. 9/11 is a good example of what not to do: 9/11 wasn't a random, unpredictable act of violence by people that picked us for no reason, it was the predictable consequence of decades of wrongheaded foreign policy, and our reaction to it has made the situation worse. In the long run, one cannot pacify the world through miltary action or national security.
I believe that could fall under the category of cooperating with the authorities in the prevention of terrorism, and the drain on taxpayer resources. The common good is ( protection of citizenry ) being served. Cooperating in this manner and in this way is good ... being asked or subjected to unreasonable search / seizure is the surest and slipperiest slope to the ninth circle of hell and should be fought on ALL fronts with all available weapons to the very last breath ...
Question Authority before IT questions You
We do have lots of problems here, indeed, but at least privacy is not a concern for the average guy. Oh, there is news from time to time about wiretaps and such but they are very restricted and a court order is required. All kinds of comunications are protected by the constitution so yes, we're good, thanks. :)
One tip for my European friends: housing is cheap here, the people is nice and the weather even nicer so come along
Scientia est Potentia
"That's all it does now, and who says that information in and as of itself can't be sold and abused. Called the cancer hotline? I'm sure your insurance company would love to know."
That is the only realistic fear you posted, but the bill specificly mentions limits for personal privacy, so for a government agency to resell your luds they would be in huge trouble.
"Been associating with known (your old friend, unknown to you) criminals? Time to put you under close surveilance and institute a tax audit."
Do you think there are an army of green men reviewing every connection all the time? No. The primary reason for this bill is to determine social networks of people under investigation. So yes, if your old friend is a wanted criminal, and the police pull up his call history for the last 2 year and find your number, then may want to ask you some questions about your relationship.
"Visiting warez or keygen sites?"
Again, this is traffic history tracking, not content, all they could tell is that you dialed up a phone line owned by an ISP and stayed connected for 3 hours. No idea where you went. The bill doesn't have a single reference to the internet or ISPs in it, it will not require ISPs to record web activity for 2 years.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
I would love to see a (voluntary) media black-out on all terrorist activities. Terrorists kill people? Notify the families privately and don't give them any press coverage. That way, they are completely unable to fulfil their objective - to spread terror.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Well, in my country, it was 1984 almost 22 years ago!
Not even if you two are seriouly planning on flying planes into buildings or releasing sarin gas in a subway?
That's correct. What you are suggesting is the assumption of guilt of every private citizen.
For example: Homeland Security Guy: "We'll just listen to you to make sure you're not doing anything wrong."
Exactly how is this acceptable in a free society?
BDR Gear
Outdoor gear, MREs, and more!
just in case you haven't noticed, Slashdot != the federal government. Why exactly would the OP be obligated to release any details of his personal life to a private entity such as yourself? Not to mention the fact that you seem to have missed the part where it said "I am not saying you shouldn't fight to keep your privacy".
At the risk of putting words in someone else's mouth, I believe the arguments are that privacy has not always been viewed as an intrinsic right (or an extension of the right to free speech and expression), and that people have a duty to exercise their rights in a responsible manner.
There are, in fact, valid arguments equating privacy and freedom, contrary to what the parent post argued. Yours just isn't one of them.
the coolest club on
Let's say you knew ahead of time that a drunk driver will kill your family. Would you outlaw alcohol? Would you outlaw cars? We accept risky devices and behaviors that we know will kill people. It's part of being free.
This example is much better than yours, seeing as how drunk drivers kill about 20,000 Americans every year. Terrorists in the US killed about 3,000 people 4 years ago. Where is the $21B "War on Drunk Driving"?
Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it. --Mark Twain
Freedom and privacy are certainly not the same, but the reason for the connection stems from the fact that freedom in a traditional sense bestows at least some privacy. The freedom that the US is truly founded on is the right to own property. So for example the right to own your own house prevents the gov't from invading your house without your consent - thus you get privacy at home. I would say that this privacy in your own space is not a mere luxury, but in fact a right just by virtue of its codified nature in US law and the fact that without that privacy your freedom to do things on your own time in your own space that society may frown upon (but that aren't illegel or harmful to others) your freedom to do these things would be curtailed.
Privacy in public is another matter entirely, however. You can't walk down to the mall, start picking your nose, and then get mad if someone takes pictures. You should keep your embarassing habits to your own space or abandon your expectation of privacy.
So the first question we have to ask is whether or not phone conversations, emails, blogs, etc. take place in the public or private sphere. While blogs are obviously public by nature, it's less clear with direct person-to-person communcation (which is generally conducted with the expectation of privacy). All things being equal, these communications should certainly be private, in my opinion.
But there are two more things to consider. 1 - in the law above, are conversations actually monitored actively, or merely recorded? If they are merely recorded, so that once someone is under investigation and a warrant can be obtained then the relevant phone calls can be made I see no problem with the law. How is this substantially different from obtaining a wire-tap warrant? As long as the procedure to open the records is identical it doesn't seem to be a genuine encroachment on privacy any more than society already generally allows. 2 - is the communcation actually read or just scanned by a computer? This is a bit more tricky. Privacy is maintained for all people who don't, for example, use the word "bomb" in their conversations. In that case perhaps a filter would kick in and someone actually listens/reads the conversation to determine whether it's genuinely dangerous or not.
In the last case I think it's clear that privacy is being encroached on because saying the word "bomb" in conversation isn't, as far as I know, sufficient grounds to get a warrant. But the last thing to consider is: are the benefits of this encroachment worth the cost? We all sacrifice some privacy for security. Otherwise warrants would never be allowed. The question is where to draw the line.
Personally I think that stopping child porn isn't just a fringe benefit. Before the advent of the internet the crime was incredibly rare, but now more and more children are being abused every year for profit. The increased power of communication in a digital age probably needs to be met with at least some increased monitoring to prevent abuse. Terrorism is also a valid threat. Sure, the US administration may "sex up" the threat for their own purposes, but that doesn't alter the fact that the threat is real.
If monitoring conversation can be done with an efficient filter, and if the process is subject to public scrutiny (obviously the algorithms or code-words would have to be secret, but the rules that govern monitoring and obtaining records as well as stats on the # of arrests/preventions should be available) I think we don't have a 1984 "big brother" situation at all.
Sure, the ACLU would be all over any such law in America (the result of which is we get the Patriot Act instead - which is easier to abuse and has practically no oversight by the public or our elected represtentatives) but depending on the specifics of the law, I can see myself actually in favor of it.
stormin
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
I don't know about your country, but Spanish's constitution says:
"Article 18
[...]
3. Secrecy of communications is guaranteed, particularly of postal, telegraphic and telephonic communications, except in the event of a court order to the contrary."
Of course, since the Spanish Constitution is only 27 years old last Thursday, I think that it fits within the notion of "relatively modern idea".
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
They want a world in which people have few if any freedoms, and where no one may dare diagree with Islam.
This is what everyone always says.. "They hate our freedom!".. but Osama really only got pissed after we insisted on keeping our troops in Saudi Arabia after the Iraq Prequel. He's since escalated his 'cause' to include Palestine and Iraq, because that helps in recruiting and raising money. His original beef had nothing to do with hating freedom.. in fact one could even say it was the opposite. Not that anything excuses or justifies his actions, of course.
Oops, that should have $2.1T (if you use one years worth of stats), or $24T is you want to scale proportionally over the deaths of all 4 years.
Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it. --Mark Twain
And George Washington was a MURDERER. By England declaring our 'freedom fighters' to be 'enemy combatants', not governed by the rules for real POWs, Washington would have been a MURDERER, not a General or a soldier.
Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it. --Mark Twain
You try and spin that as a positive.. imo it's actually a negative. Without the actual content of the conversation, that means that law enforcement is going to investigate using circumstantial evidence, aka guessing. You may have chatted with your friend Joe about the newest car.. but Joe also chatted with Bob who is a known terrorist.. what does that make you? A suspect.
How can we prove you guilty if we don't have recordings of your phonecalls? Duh!
Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it. --Mark Twain
1984? Then it must be morning in America. Thank you President Reagan!
an ill wind that blows no good
So so so wrong, and the fact that you believe this is indicative about how bad things have gotten.
Osama doesn't care about your freedom. He doesn't care about your democracy. He is enacting revenge on country that have pissed him off in some way. In the case of the US, his initial beef was the presence of US troops in Saudi Arabia, ironically there to support a non-free and non-democractic dictatorship, who are also US allies.
There's a reason they don't let you hear his words on TV. You might start asking awkard questions of your leaders if they did. Like "why are we supporting corrupt evil governments when it makes some not-so-nice people want to fly planes into our buildings?".
Check it out:
Isn't socialism a wonderful thing?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xmlWhat?
You try and spin that as a positive.. imo it's actually a negative. Without the actual content of the conversation, that means that law enforcement is going to investigate using circumstantial evidence, aka guessing.
What I said is:
While this is bad and stupid, it is not by far as bad as the blurb is trying to make it look.
Indeed I am arguing it is not as bad as storing all the conversations (or all data transfered). Where I live, just as in most of the EU, circumstantial evidence has no place in court. It has a place in providing law enforcement with clues as to where to look. They will still have to provide actual (non circumstantial) evidence, but don't get to keep a tap on everyone. That is indeed less bad, but as I already mentioned, the whole idea is still stupid and imho pointless because as I mentioned in my previous post:
Supposedly this is usefull to get an insight into the conenctions between individuals who might be involved in terrorist or criminal activities.
Of course, about all investigations resulting from attacks in the last half decade point at a lack of cooperation and not of information (usually the information was actually there), but who cares.
Now, where was this positive spin you saw?
I, for one, believe it should be somewhat of a right. While it's not anywhere to be found in the bill of rights, that is the exact reason people like Jefferson didn't want the bill of rights to be in the constitution, because people might start to think that those rights are the only ones they have. I believe there should be some right to privacy. I don't even think paparazzi should be able to take pictures of you sunbathing topless in your backyard.
I don't think the government should be able to have access to every insidious detail of anything you've done: from where you get your pr0n to what you read and who you talk to. Terrorism and the drug war are nice excuses, but they wanna have an all seeing eye. I honestly don't think the government should be able to setup servaillance without a warrant (even if it's a secret one, these government voyeurs should be accountable to someone).
I think it's ridiculous to sit back and say "well they probably won't do anything too wrong with the info." It's garbage that they have the info to begin with.
I'm a purist, I say if you want to catch criminals, catch them with real evidence. I don't think things like those cameras that give you traffic tickets should even exist. You can't catch me in the act with a squadcar? Too bad, you don't get your hundred dollar reward.
No right to privacy means that if you say anything about the government they could potentially dig up every single skeleton in your closet to use it against you. And let's face it, we all have some.
Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold.
yes hate crimes are worse, and terrorism is worse.
... hmm maybe not") are less negotiable.
if the state can show, by the judical process, that killing your business partner for his share is a bad economic decision because you'll go to jail, then people won't do it. and if they do, when they get out they won't be in a position or have the motive to do it again.
not so for people who are doing these things due to some belief they have that they have allowed to get so extreme that it almost defines them and all their actions. the state must be harsher here because the motives ("if I kill this guy I get a $million, hmm could be worth it, maybe not if I get 10 years
You might also arrive at this conclusion if you consider a scenario where you discard your privacy. In a large, crowded bar of strangers, would you feel anxiety or hesitation in sharing personal secrets (perhaps about your sexuality) or removing all your clothes (with the threat of revealing personal inadequacies)? If you do, then privacy is important to you. If you don't feel any anxiety or hesitance at these thoughts, do you think everyone else would share your indifference? I think not.
Why do people close curtains? Why do people wear clothes? Why do people whisper to one another? Why do people use passwords? Why do people keep secrets? Why do people masturbate alone? Why do celebrities revile the press intruding into their holiday and home spaces? The common thread in these questions is privacy.Therefore, I think privacy is indelibly entwined with freedom.
Doesn't Echelon already do this?
The thing I like most about this job is all the rocket scientists who bang their mice on their desks shouting 'It Broke!
"It's really not any different, just lower tech."
Yeah! Heaven forbid you should actually live in a community. The thing you all are forgetting is that you know as much about other locals as they know. Second being in a local area DOESN"T mean that one knows everything. How many times do we hear on the news, when someone in a rural area kills someone. "Well he seemed so nice. I didn't see this coming." So much for knowing everything because you're in a rural area. Anyway become a hermit. There you can be as "free" and "unobserved" as you all want.
Bill C-60: Internet service providers have also done very well. They obtain clear provisions that they are not liable for caching or other hosting of third party content. Further, there is the notice and notice system, which obligates ISPs to send a notice if there is a claim of copyright infringement and retain "records that will allow the identity of the person to whom the electronic location belongs to be determined" but they are permitted to charge for the service (the government will set the maximum fee). ISPs that fail to abide by these provisions face only statutory damages of either $5,000 or $10,000.
o pic=493&hl=bill+c-60b ills/government/C-60/C-60_1/C-60_cover-E.htmlo ntent&task=blogsection&id=0&Itemid=100&topics=1003 6
What is troubling me the most is who is going to watch the ISPs? So much noise is being made about watching and tracking users but no one is watching the ISPs. At least in Canada. I say put QOS and Code of Conduct laws in place first then consider protecting other countries faling business models. I certainly don't trust my personal information in the hands of a small local ISP. Would you?
http://www.talksudbury.com/forums/index.php?showt
http://www.parl.gc.ca/38/1/parlbus/chambus/house/
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/index.php?option=com_c
You might also arrive at this conclusion if you consider a scenario where you discard your privacy. In a large, crowded bar of strangers, would you feel anxiety or hesitation in sharing personal secrets (perhaps about your sexuality) or removing all your clothes (with the threat of revealing personal inadequacies)? If you do, then privacy is important to you. If you don't feel any anxiety or hesitance at these thoughts, do you think everyone else would share your indifference? I think not.
Why do people close curtains? Why do people wear clothes? Why do people whisper to one another? Why do people use passwords? Why do people keep secrets? Why do people masturbate alone? Why do celebrities revile the press intruding into their holiday and home spaces? The common thread in these questions is privacy.Therefore, I think privacy is indelibly entwined with freedom.
Sorry, but have we learned nothing from the 20th century?
"Abuse of power comes as no surprise"
Anonymity ensures that the government does not *ever* limit free speech, rather than just assuming that every government in the future will be benevolent enough to respect that freedom.
In 5 short years the Bush administration has already done things to limit freedom of expression in the United States that I would have thought impossible in 'democratic America'. Who's to say that someday there won't be someone worse someday?
This is what those protections are there for.
Look, I'll give up my anonymity, if you will do the same.... You want to look at who I called on my phone three years ago? fine. But I want those same records watermarked so I can look and see, at any time, and for any reason, who is looking at them. I want it on permanent record which invidiuals looked at my record, when they looked at my records, an if they had a warrant at the time they looked at them, and who they work for.
Hell, I want a program on my computer that allows me to click on it, and see if and when someone personally looked at my bank records (not only the feds, but the credit check people, and spammers would get caught by this too), my phone bills, and whatever other records I can think of, even my grocery purchases. Basically I want it to track how often theses specific records are being accessed, by who, and maybe even read the internal notes on the account to get a glipse of why.
THAT, and only that, will shut down this kind of abuse.
It isn't the freedom of speech that is being violated. It is our right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure without probable cause supported by oath. Check your Bill of Rights, it's number 4.
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." --Unknown
Well, I have been directly affected by terrorism. I stood on the sidewalk and watched in horror as innocent people flung themselves out of a quarter-mile-high building instead of being burned to death. I saw, heard, and felt the impact of the second plane. I dodged falling debris with the rest of the crowd, and walked up Broad Street to get away from the site with my fellow New Yorkers, hitting the redial button on my cell phone until I could get through to my family to tell them I was still alive.
And, I agree with you.
I watched three thousand innocent people murdered just because they had the courage to live as free people. And how are we honoring their memory? By giving up the freedoms they died for, for a false sense of security.
We've been told "They hate us for our freedoms." If that's true, then why has Switzerland, where people have at least as much individual liberty as we do, not been attacked by The Terrorists?
We've been told that we need to give up some freedoms in the name of safety. If giving up individual liberty makes you safer, then why is it that in countries where individual liberties are suppressed the most that people have the most to fear? I'm not saying that the people who want to reduce our liberty in the name of security are tyrants; I believe they think they're doing the right thing. However, the belief that you must choose between liberty and safety is not true. Perhaps it's up to the citizens of the free world to let our politicians know this. Or, we can just sit around on our well-regulated duffs and hope that the government can keep us safe.
User Training for Busy Programmers
The government hoax is probably the oldest, most pervasive and stubborn of hoaxes. It's the belief in non-existent "states" and "nations" and that "government" is both legitimate and necessary. In the geographic area of the North American continent commonly referred to as the "United States," it's claimed only "government" can provide the service of protecting "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness." This is nonsense if only for the reason "government" has no duty to protect anyone and their property.
Another reason is: no service or product should be provided at the barrel of a gun. It's that simple. There are no exceptions unless one believes people have no rights. If one believes people have no rights then "government" is not "necessary" to "protect" what doesn't exist. If you believe people have rights, then you don't "protect" them without their freely given consent. Also, protection is not submission to the violent unaccountable control of another nor is violent domination a legitimate method of doing business. Would you hire people who don't acknowledge you have property, to protect your property? I wouldn't:
"The ultimate ownership of all property is in the State; individual so-called "ownership" is only by virtue of Government, i.e., law, amounting to mere user; and that use must be in accordance with law and subordinate to the necessities of the State." Senate Resolution #62, April 1933.
What exactly is "government?" Have you ever seen a "government?" While there are varying degrees, "government" is one man violently controlling the life and property of another man. In some places this violent control is "decreed" to be for the latter's "own good" and "protection" and hailed as the "best system in the world." Because it's based on violence, there are no "states" or "nations," "states" being "voluntary associations." You may recognize that violent control over a man's life and property is what we like to call... slavery. Slavery is a form of "government," and in most cases, if not all, synonymous with "government." Govern means control, not protect. Have you ever noticed the word "protect" is mysteriously not included in any definitions of govern?
"govern. To direct and control; to regulate; to influence; to restrain; to manage. State v Ream, 16 Neb 681, 683." Ballentine's Law Dictionary, page 530.
In "democracies" and so-called "democratic republics," slaves are given the false choice of choosing new masters. The old plantations can be seen as "political subdivisions" such as "cities," only smaller: "nations" have "presidents," "states" have "governors," "counties" have "commissioners," "cities" have "mayors" and plantations have masters.
"Government" is a group of men and women providing the service of protecting "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness" at the barrel of a gun. We have no choice in accepting and paying for their wonderful services. Their services are so valuable we're compelled to accept and pay for them. And non-political libertarians and voluntaryists are the extremists?
To keep this short, I'll use statements from politicians themselves i.e., their sacred "law" that's worshipped, revered and most important, feared. Compare the following:
"tax. A forced burden, charge, exaction, imposition or contribution assessed in accordance with some reasonable rule of apportionment by authority of a sovereign state upon the persons or property within its jurisdiction to provide for public revenue for the support of the government, the administration of the law, or the payment of public expenses. 51 AmJ1st Tax 3." Ballentine's Law Dictionary, page 1255.
"The organized use of threats, coercion, intimidation, and violence to compel the payment for actual or alleged services of arbitrary or excessive charges under the guise of membership dues, protection fees, royalties, or service rates. United States v McGlone (DC Pa) 19 F Supp 285, 286." Ballentine's Law Dictionary, page 1051.
The first is a "kinder, gentler" way of descri
Don't do the wrong thing,
I'm sorry, but it has been determined by the Ministry of Truth that Slashdot is only visited by people guilty of thoughtcrime. As of 2005/12/13 it was decided that anyone posting to slashdot is guilty of thoughtcrime and must report to the nearest deten.. er.. re-education center immediately. You didn't get the memo? Too bad.
Don't get arrested,
Arrest will not be necessary. You will report voluntarily or the Ministry of Truth will start sending your family and the press photos of you in "compromising positions" with various, underage, people. Why else would you be going downtown every Friday night? (we control the records and record everything, remember?) Report soon or we'll accuse your family members of other (unrelated) crimes and take them in too.
Don't cry about it.
Your family won't cry. You're reporting in voluntarily so you must be guilty, right? Oh, by the way, you aren't allowed to tell anyone about this or you'll get in even worse trouble.
Thank you,
Some Asshole (Ministry of Love)
There are two kinds of people: 1) those that need closure
What planet is this article from?
Of course, you could just go the Ted Kazinski route and live 'off the grid' in the back woods somewhere.
When you're poor, suddenly your lifestyle suddenly seems less attractive.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Not even if.
The government would have to be violating my privacy without probable cause in the first place to know what we were talking about.
The end DOES NOT justify the means. See slavery and economic prosperity in the pre Civil War south.
You missed his point. His hypothetical situation included him having a contact within a government agency that would be willing to get the information for him.
Mod parent up, and reply accordingly to posts on this article...
The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
They have no absolutely no business listening in on private communications until they have probable cause.
Thats a perfectly legitimate statement. Wether or not you agree is a different matter, but saying that it doesn't make sense or is irrational is just plain wrong.
The problem with Freedom is that it gives people the Freedom to complain... I personnaly think that, ultimately, Freedom and Privacy are not only not the same thing, but they are mutually exclusive in under a modern Republic. The government can grant you a crapload of Freedoms (speech, the press, etc.), but then they'll take it as their obligation to ensure that those freedoms become maintained. What then happens is what we see now, people sacrifice the right to private thought for what they've already chosen, public freedoms. The US Government, for example, ideally will never stop you from standing in a park and talking about how corrupt and unfair the US government is. However, to protect your ability to do this, they have to enforce lots of laws that will prevent you from getting shot while doing this. To do this they have to regulate who can have guns, what kinds of guns they can have, and when they can legally use them. Another example: The US Government grants it's citizens the right to publish whatever written words they want, saying whatever they wan. To ensure this freedom is maintained, they have to enforce laws preventing people from destroying the paper you print on, or burning down the house that you print out of. The point i'm trying to make is this: Governments like the US and, from what I can tell, most of Europe, put into affect laws that will make sure that they know everything, so that they can best ensure your freedoms. The result is this: you have the right to print anything, and the government has the right to read it. you have the right to say anything, and the government has the right to hear it. you have the right to assemble, and the government has the right to send people to assemble with you. In the end, and probably too late, people will realize that, to ensure your personal Freedoms, your government has to sit on your shoulder, protecting you. If you have a government focused on providing and protecting individual freedoms, by God, that's what they're going to do. Look at it the other way around, though. Imagine if we placed Personal Privacy at the top of the list, with Freedoms coming in a close (but ignorable) second. Then, to protect your right to not let anyone know what you're doing, the government would have to do whatever it could to make sure that nobody can read your emails, or find out what sites you visit online. This means establishing and enforcing strict guidelines that have to be met for internet access, so that the Government can be sure you're not going to spy on anyone. Do they take any personal information in this? Of course not, that would violate your privacy. As a result, they would have to restrict what you can visit. After all, if there are only 5 sites available for you to look at, nobody is going to know which ones you visited, and the government will know that you aren't looking at anything that would violate someone else's right to privacy. This "protection of privacy" would downward spiral until you couldn't have windows in your home, for fear of someone walking by and seeing you without your consent. Eventually, even, you would not be able to speak, for fear of someone you don't expect hearing your thoughts or ideas, thereby violating your privacy. There is a point to all of this. A good government, concerned about the people, will balance Freedom and Privacy. A bad one will emphacize one or the other. If you live in a democracy, elect the representatives who will maintain that balance.
- Enchantrem - "I do not regret the things I've done, but those I did not do" - Lucas.
You're just jealous that you didn't make such an awesome post.
Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
The actual enforcement/defining of a privacy right in the United States was in 1928 in Olmstead v. U.S., 277 U.S. 438, 478 (1928) where the phrase "right to be let alone" was coined. The right itself was always presumed and it was the government attemtp to invade this right which caused the right to have to be defined.
Privacy is a natural right of all people and anyone who allows another to invade or intrude upon that right is a moron and does not deserve to live in a free society.
Governments are created by the people to serve the needs of the people. When the governemnt no longer serves the needs fo the people, the government will be overthrown in favor of a government which meets the needs of the people.
Not even if you two are seriouly planning on flying planes into buildings or releasing sarin gas in a subway?
Not even then. Not if they've never done anything suspicious before. The alternative you are suggesting, although you probably dont even realize it, is for all of us to constantly prove our innocence by NOT talking about releasing sarin gas with our buddies. Guilty until proven innocent. Great idea. I'd love to live in that world.
Why stick up for big business?
That works both ways.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
Supposedly this is usefull to get an insight into the conenctions between individuals who might be involved in terrorist or criminal activities.
Tons of people use P2P software. This software "talks" to hundreds of IPs each day. As long as you do not use a specifically logged protocol like e-mail but merely a "IP 80.123.232.2 connected to IP 21.43.65.33 from 2005-12-12T21:43:20 to 2005-12-13T14:22:21, recieved 23,134,343 bytes and sent 1,232,343 bytes" is close to worthless. The S/N ratio is abysmal and there's no reason to believe they actually know each other. This only step one, it will be expanded to include traffic data simply because otherwise it doesn't really say anything at all.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
'private security consultant' - mercenary
'free trade' - colonialism
'skills shortage' - shortage of cheap labor
'spin doctor' - professional liar
'innovation' - copying or buying out smaller and more creative companies
'security' - oppression
'neoconservative' - facist
I could go on but am too depressed.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
What kind of idiot mods up "you're stupid" comments as insightful? Modding up somebody who disagreed with me and then explained why is alright, modding up somebody who can't give a reason to disagree, but can only call people names is stupid.
(Note to any outraged future posters: I am not endorsing terrorism, I am simply asking we look at their motivations analytically rather than emotionally)
But then we wouldn't have anyone to 'liberate'!
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
What astounds me about this, however, is just how many people go out of their way to be searched.
Its a lot easier to just make with the search. Seriously. Single white male (with a beard? is that it?) traveling alone on airlines, I get asked to step over a lot and get the metal detector run over me. I don't care i have nothing to hide. Just make with it, takes like 30 seconds and if you don't make a fuss everyones a lot happier. Whats up with everyone trying to piss off authority figures. Most of them hate inconveniencing people. But its their job. Most of them just want to feed their families...
-everphilski-
Well, I am not as familliar with other countries as I am with America, but in America privacy has nothing to do with the right of free speech. privacy has a lot more to do with the idea that:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
I think it is so funny when I hear people likle you talk about privacy as some fanciful luxury that we are silly to think we are owed. What we are owed, at least in this country, is the ownership of our property, and information is (in case you haven't heard) property. You can buy it, you can sell it, and you can even go to jail for stealing it. In fact, that little quote from the constitution about even explicitly protects it. After all, they aren't making a point of protecting the actual pieces of paper, they are protecting the information on the paper.
The problem with the modern state of "privacy laws" is that they do exactly what you are doing here, which is try to set up privacy as some special luxury, which they then say isn't mentioned anywhere in the constitution. It is a dodge specifically designed to make it seem like personal information is not property. Meanwhile, in the corporate sector, every year we have more and more laws aimed at protecting information as a tangible good, a commodity, property. The effect is to set up a de facto double standard, where actual people are second class citizens not allowed to own intellectual property, while corporations are the first class citizens allowed to use the full power of the law to protect their ownership of intellectual property.
Information is either property, or it isn't. If you can buy and sell the ideas in a novel, and you can face legal action for stealing the ideas in a novel, then it is obviously property. If the ideas in a novel are property, then what you and your wife are saying to eachother in email is just as much property, and so should be protected by the fourth amendment just like any other property.
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Which is exactly why it's perfectly plain that I have a right to chop you into pieces with a chainsaw if you annoy me. I mean, it's right there in the Constitution. Look!
The Ninth Amendment does not mean what you think it means. It was created to address the antifederalist argument that having a Bill of Rights at all would give the government the right to take away anything that wasn't in it. It means that if you have rights written down somewhere besides the Constitution - like your state Constitution - they are valid too. It also means that if neither the state nor the federal government has passed a law against it, you may do it. But if there is a law against it, like me hacking you up with a chainsaw, then, guess what - you can't do it. Ssssshocking!
Let's say you knew ahead of time that a drunk driver will kill your family. Would you outlaw alcohol? Would you outlaw cars?
We don't outlaw alcohol, but we do restrict its sale and consumption. We also restrict the licensing for cars and revoke that licensing for drunk driving.
We accept risky devices and behaviors that we know will kill people. It's part of being free.
There is an inherent risk in using these things, but we don't accept the behavior you speak of. We give people the opportunity to use these things responsibly and take away those opportunities when they clearly demonstrate that they are incapable of using them responsibly.
Where is the $21B "War on Drunk Driving"?
It's not labeled "War on Drunk Driving" but if I had to guess how much money and time was spent on finding, arresting, processing, trying, convicting, and jailing just the drunk drivers in our country, I would not be surprised if we hit that amount every few years. Ask your local police officers how many drunk drivers they pick up every week and then multiply that by every other city, county, and state officer across the country. Factor in the time spent by the clerks, judges, guards, DMV workers, and all the other people that come into contact with these idiots and you're looking at a huge sum of money.
But you still need a warrant and you still need to convince a (relatively) third party that you need one. You can't say "ZOMG, maybe they're of terroist descent!" and start tapping phones at your whim.
I am not saying you shouldn't fight to keep your privacy, but it is not taking away a right, it is taking away a luxury, that we enjoy.
Excuse me? Privacy is a luxury? It's every man's right!
Not having your privacy protected is like alowing any stranger to "know" you (as in knowing how someone will react in certain situations).
Example:
- If your boss has access to your personal email, phonecalls, and whatnot he may know when you are about to quit and find another job. He's able to "pull the right strings" in order to persuade you into staying.
- What if everybody who knows you suddenly has access to all the details about your intimate life?
- If malicious people know when you are not at home, access to codes of your house's alarm system and know that you don't have a dog they can just walk in and shop around.
- What if malicious people know exactly where your children are at what time?
It's so obvious! Privacy is not a luxury. Some people are naive enough to think that our sensitive information will always be in the hands of noble people.
Your information is your virtual self. Giving away information is putting all the cards on the table and being surprised that you lose the game. Wake up people!
And what if there's nothing behind the door until it is being opened?
The term 'absolute' can have no modifiers. It's either absolute or it's not. A phrase like 'Absolutely, but' is a logical contradiction, like 'partially destroyed'.
These sentences have the same meaning:
"They have absolutely no business listening in on private communications until they have probable cause."
"They have no business listening in on private communications until they have probable cause."
In the first sentence, the word 'absolute' adds nothing. If you're looking for emphasis, pick another word.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
Both the original post and my response are Austin Powers references, Dr. Evil saying the original and Scott Evil responding.
Bill Posters will be prosecuted!
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
Not according to Thomas Jefferson. According to Thomas Jefferson, "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
If people define the rights of other people, then people can take them away. If their Creator endowed them with unalienable rights, they cannot be taken away by lesser beings than the Creator.
Privacy is not a luxury, it is inherent in the individuality of a person. Yes, privacy is distinct from freedom, but only in the sense that each comes from a different source. Both are related to the individual. Freedom is the result of groups of individuals agreeing to allow each other to express, act, and behave in a way that has only those controls needed, or intended, to protect from harm. To the extent that either privacy or freedom is willingly sacrificed in reaction to an enemy whose intent is to deny freedom or privacy, then that enemy has won.
> just in case you haven't noticed, Slashdot != the federal government. Why exactly
> would the OP be obligated to release any details of his personal life to a private
> entity such as yourself?
Just in case you haven't noticed, that was exactly the point of my post, specifically the last part.
However, I'll try to state it in more clear terms:
Governments (federal and otherwise) are comprised of people. the same goes for law enforcement, intelligence, "secret service" and other governmental agencies.
Individual people, in general, have their own agendas. They can be dishonest, deceitful, jealous, vengeful, prone to criminal activity or just under pressure to perform wrongful acts.
Therefore implicitly trusting a group of individuals that you have never met is not a very good idea.
And the logical conclusion is that implicitly trusting a government or its agencies is not a very good idea.
The question that you need to ask yourself is: is there a chance that my private information will be abused?
Most of the SlashDot tinfoil-hat crowd fear governmental abuse but I believe that abuse by individuals is at least as likely.
Now, I can live with some loss of privacy, provided I trust the safeguards against abuse but, unfortunately, given the incidents of policemen planting evidence and getting off with "a note in their permanent record", I do not have this trust.
If the constitution (or the equivalent) of a country said something to the effect of "any person in a position of power or authority who is found guilty of abusing their power or authority shall have their genitals publicly mauled by a pack of rabid rats" and there were significant safeguards implemented to ensure that a large number of violators are caught, convicted, and punished accordingly, then I would be satisfied that the risk of abuse is low enough for me to trust a government.
The motto of the Spider-man movie was "with great power comes great responsibility". I believe in a different motto "with great power there should come a great fear". Because responsibility is just an empty word, easily brushed aside unless backed by a real fear of the consequences of abusing this responsibility.
Until that day comes, I don't want their prying hands anywhere near my information.
Any private information that has the potential of being misused must remain private unless there is a *really* good cause for the government to peek at it, and then there should be a rigorous process of examining the cause, approving the *limited* invasion of privacy and safeguarding the data, with lots of people involved and each one *accountable* for their decisions and actions.
Freedom is not when the people fear the government, it's the other way around.
They're is no rules similar to the Patriot Act or anything similar yet in Canada. But the politician speeches are showing that they are slowly preparing the canadian population for it, for the sake of "security", of course.
This is interesting, because only on theses times we see which principles are held serious and which are not. Freedom of expression and the rights for privacy are always the first things to fall when things are getting "serious". Just like it's a favor they're doing to us when we're good kids.
Ok. But who's going to control THEM while they control us?
You must not live in my country. In the US if you use the b-word (b0mb) in a sentence you are automatically a terrorist...
Ah but you see, sadly our leaders would tell us that this is because of all the money spent on fighting terrorism...
"If you haven't done anything wrong, you have nothing to fear," might work in a world that only looks down upon real crimes, like murder, rape, arson, burglary, and so on. In reality, people can be jailed, blackmailed, or just plain ruined if it is revealed that they use drugs or that they have weird fetishes or unpopular opinions, even if they harm no one.
And will the government ever be held to the same level of transparency as citizens lives are? I doubt that very much.
Step into a huge movement. Don't Tread In Me.
No one has the right to know where I am, what do I do, where do I live... From where I see it, privacy is a human right.
In order to maintain some order in our society, we need to give up some privacy, everybody would agree on that.
But thanks to people like you, that understand it as a Luxury, some day everybody will be carrying a chip capable of transmitting even our thoughts (just in case we are thinking about little boys, bombing a bridge or kill the president).
__
Chäïnÿ
if we would all give up on our privacy, we would be ultimately free...
you go first!
Just to underline the police's corruption, there was also the false imprisonment of the Guildford 4 and the Maguire 7. Of course, you rarely hear about the times when the security forces are actively involved within the terrorist groups themselves.
My guess: Orwell was only 30-50 years off.
This is the first bastion of the Ministry of Truth. The transfer of data over the internet is the closest you'll get what a person is thinking. When you sit, surfing, coding or whatever, you're mind wanders remarkably little (Check yourself when your doing some hardcore coding).
These new data retentions put the foot in the door more more invasive tracking and more firghtenly, soon this data will be cross refrenced (taking timescale into accoutn) with other aspects of your life.
God, I thought DRM was the worst thing to happen recently.
You feel sleepy. Close your eyes. The opinions stated above are yours. You cannot imagine why you ever felt otherwise.
as you can see here infringment of intellectual propriety is one of "crimes" that they want to fight
Actually, I believe God gave me my rights... ;-)
"An ability to defend yourself is often desirable, but that doesn't make it a "basic human right."
So you're saying the ability to protect your life isn't a basic human right?
Wow. Just wow. That's the most ridiculous statment I've ever seen anyone make.
How pathetic are you that you follow me from topic to topic and waste all your mod points at once modding me down?
That's about the only situation Timmy could USE such a weapon though. The guns you named aren't hunting weapons, so that's out.
.22 caliber rifle. However outdoor ranges that serve high powered rifles, such as hunting rifles, will be able to accomodate it.
Not true.
Sporting uses of firearms are not limited to hunting. Target shooting, an Olympic sport, is more common and less controversial. Some may question how applicable an M4 is to target shooting, the more common indoor ranges won't be able to accommodate it as they could a
The M4 is at it's core a low-end hunting rifle in terms of power. In fact a civilian model (AR-15 type - no automatic fire) only differs from low end semi-automatic hunting rifles in cosmetics, and they often ship with 5 round magazines to be compliant with hunting regulations.
Come on, we're *far* ahead of Europe in moving towards 1984. We've got Goldstein, er, Osama, Bush, Rove et al are re-"purposing" why they invaded Iraq almost daily, the GOP has completely and totally forgotten every reason they gave for impeaching President Clinton*, and the media, at least until the last month, has almost exclusively reported what the White House and the GOP wanted, denigrating any opposition.
mark "I am not a number, I am a free radical!"
* draft dodger
smoked dope (ignore Bush & cocaine)
lied to Congress
sent troops in without proper equipment
sent too few troops in
no exit strategy
nation building
etc, etc, etc...
"The judgment of good, honest folks is not something I'd bet my life on."
And yet you choose to obey the laws they made, in effect relying on their judgement.
Unless your position is that your legislators aren't good honest folks which raises other problems...
You really need to examine your thought processes. Someone reading your posts would believe you were taking completely untenable, erroneous positions to be contrarian, but you appear to genuinely belive the tripe you spew.
I feel very sorry for someone like you who thinks their right to life is not a basic human right.
How pathetic are you that you follow me from topic to topic and waste all your mod points at once modding me down?
"The trouble with "true" freedom in the libertarian sense is that I sacrifice my safety for someone elses freedom."
Do I need to trot out that tired old quote about sacrificing freedom for safety (security)?
Or do you just agree that you deserve neither?
How pathetic are you that you follow me from topic to topic and waste all your mod points at once modding me down?
The simple truth is that no one gets up in arms about taking down #2. Keep up your envy.
Actually, the USA got "up in arms" about taking down Afghanistan and Iraq. I take it by your logic the USA must envy them?
Except that companies there cannot be bothered with using the Labour Law paragraph that allows foreign spouses of EU nationals to get their work permit free for the asking. They all insist on "playing it safe" by systematically avoiding non-EU nationals, whether married to an EU national or not, which is why I am not in Ireland right now, even though just about all my Estonian, Latvian and Polish friends have already moved there and are earning good money.
Software is not supposed to be about how to work around a useability issue. - Ken Barber
There is no such thing as a transparent society.
Freedom is being able to do what you went when you want how you want without anyone knowing or denying anothers freedom.
Include all words that fit in there.
That IS Freedom.
There is no fundamental difference. There is no Utopia, there is no transparent society. There are no what ifs, maybe, likelyhoods.
It is was it is. Maybe in some Alien world they refer to it differently but we live on Earth.
It is a relatively modern Idea that Freedom is equal to Privacy.
If by relatively modern you mean the 1700's then yes.
But just recently the right of privacy seems to be implicit to your freedom of speech. am not saying you shouldn't fight to keep your privacy, but it is not taking away a right, it is taking away a luxury, that we enjoy.
Umm no.
Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Obviously, for my papers and effects to be secure, I must be able to lock them away from prying eyes. Privacy is a RIGHT. (at least when it comes to monitoring by the government).
I have a real problem with people who assume we have no rights except those clearly delineated by the constitution. Remember this?
Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
In theory, the government has only the power listed within the constitution, that power given to it by us. We the people however have and always will have inherent natural rights. As shocking as it may seem to you, we even have rights NOT LISTED within the constitution.
Service guarantees Citizenship! Questions Guarantee GITMO.... Amerika Uber Alles!
I should be able to state my views, in a private email, with the expectation that only the person in the recipient field is privy to those views. This is a reasonable expectation under the 4th amendment. Tampering with the USPS is typically a felony because one also expects snail mail to remain private. It doesn't matter if you think privacy is a "modern" concept of freedom. It is in fact one of the basic underpinnings of what we claim as our 'freedoms' in the US. I have no expectation of privacy by posting on this board. Were I to email you though, I would expect that the communication would remain private - at least from some government agency - but then you would probably blab whatever I wrote all over the universe. Your conflation of freedom of speech and privacy is silly at best. Your contention that the right to privacy is a luxury is appalling. It is a basic right, not a luxury. It is why law enforcement officials have to go through the judiciary to obtain warrants to look in our homes, check our phone records and other private items. I don't know what your real world is like, but if you think privacy is a luxury that can be taken away by the government, I hope I never live in it. In case you didn't notice, all the good ammendments to the constitution are the ones that limit government powers. The ones that limit the rights of the people (prohibition anyone?) suck. It is also fun to note that so-called small government conservatives are always the ones that want to limit the rights of the people and expand the power of government to meddle in our private affairs - limit who can marry whom? outlaw alcohol? Privacy is a right, not a priviledge.
At the edge of every disaster stands a clever fellow who points. Virginia Wolfe
Er, no. Raking through people's private lives won't reduce these false imprisonments because the intent was to pervert the course of justice in the first place. The authorities had ample evidence that they were innocennt, but chose to ignore it, and indeed fabricated evidence to establish guilt where none existed, purely to get a result.
Ah, how clever. You must get all the ladies with the razor sharp wit.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
Exactly. We accept reasonable restrictions, but not police-state restrictions.
We already accept some restrictions on freedom, but complete 1984-level police-state fascism is unacceptable.
thanks for making the point.
Democracy:
Demos = people
kratos = power
(check)
the power belongs to the people
Republic:
Res = thing
publica = public
the things (of the state, bridges, schools) belongs to everybody, as opposed to "the state belongs to the emperor|king", it is also translated as commonwealth.
(check)
Go read wikipedia definitions if you want more info.
Republic
Democracy
The internet is internation. If the Europeans log what there population does to keep out terrorism, why wouldn't they also be studying all the incomming information from Iran. What's to keep them from studying all the incoming information from the U.S? Why wouldn't these countries have detailed records of every pron site you visited, every post you made on slashdot. I know right now there is a limite on how much they can storage, but it is rapidly getting much easier for them to do this. Remember when a gig of storage was only for big bisinesses? I can have a secure computer, but those routers are going to be under the governments eyes.
Btw, if you live in the U.S., Hillary Clinton is was a strong supporter of the Patriot act. Don't vote for her in 2008.
"There are no laws that would directly put me to death here,"
Way to completely miss the point. Whether there are or not, you're placing the resposibilty for your life in the hands of legislators. You are expecting them to make laws to protect you.
You are relying on their judgement, despite the fact that you appear to beleive otherwise.
"this is a democracy, I do have some influence over the laws."
Without knowing where here is, that too is essentially irrelevant. If it is truly a democracy, you're relying on the judgement of the other people in your democracy to protect you. The point is still valid.
How pathetic are you that you follow me from topic to topic and waste all your mod points at once modding me down?
Ummm... To keep from getting attacked again? Do you really think that subduction and destruction is the way to keep people from attacking you? Yeah, that's worked so well throughout history.
I live in America... you insensitive clod!
Ok, there are a lot of opinions that have been posted here, but not a lot of research and fact. Let's take a step back and get some reasonably agreeable points of reference before spouting off. I will use the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) as a means to define the words that we are talking about, i.e., right, privacy, freedom, democracy. (There are many definitions for these words, and I will choose the one relevant.) I will then make some general statements about those definitions and their relevance to the conversation at hand.
right - noun - 2 a moral or legal entitlement to have or obtain something or to act in a certain way : [with infinitive ] she had every right to be angry | you're quite within your rights to ask for your money back | there is no right of appeal against the decision.
privacy - noun - the state or condition of being free from being observed or disturbed by other people : she returned to the privacy of her own home. the state of being free from public attention : a law to restrict newspapers' freedom to invade people's privacy.
freedom - noun - the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint : we do have some freedom of choice | he talks of revoking some of the freedoms. See note at liberty . absence of subjection to foreign domination or despotic government : he was a champion of Irish freedom. the state of not being imprisoned or enslaved : the shark thrashed its way to freedom. the state of being physically unrestricted and able to move easily : the shorts have a side split for freedom of movement. ( freedom from) the state of not being subject to or affected by (a particular undesirable thing) : government policies to achieve freedom from want. the power of self-determination attributed to the will; the quality of being independent of fate or necessity. unrestricted use of something : the dog is happy having the freedom of the house when we are out. archaic familiarity or openness in speech or behavior.
democracy - noun - ( pl. -cies) a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives : capitalism and democracy are ascendant in the third world. a state governed in such a way : a multiparty democracy. control of an organization or group by the majority of its members : the intended extension of industrial democracy. the practice or principles of social equality : demands for greater democracy. ORIGIN late 16th cent.: from French démocratie, via late Latin from Greek d?mokratia, from d?mos 'the people' + -kratia 'power, rule.'
A couple more for good measure:
moral - noun - 2 ( morals) a person's standards of behavior or beliefs concerning what is and is not acceptable for them to do : the corruption of public morals. standards of behavior that are considered good or acceptable : they believe addicts have no morals and cannot be trusted.
belief - noun - 1 an acceptance that a statement is true or that something exists : his belief in God | a belief that solitude nourishes creativity. something one accepts as true or real; a firmly held opinion or conviction : c.ontrary to popular belief, Aramaic is a living language | we're prepared to fight for our beliefs. See note at opinion . a religious conviction : Christian beliefs | I'm afraid to say belief has gone | local beliefs and customs. 2 ( belief in) trust, faith, or confidence in someone or something : a belief in democratic politics | I've still got belief in myself.
opinion - noun - a view or judgment formed about something, not necessarily based on fact or knowledge : I'm writing to voice my opinion on an issue of great importance | that, in my opinion, is dead right. the beliefs or views of a large number or majority of people about a particular thing : the changing climate of opinion. ( opinion of) an estimation of the quality or worth of someone or something : I had a higher opinion of myself than I deserved. a formal st
However, we don't have traffic cameras, or tollroads, or grocery store cards, or neighborhood policemen (or even much of a police presence at all).
In other words, my friends and neighbors know what I'm doing, but the government has no idea at all (except where "the government" is my friends and neighbors, like the IRS guy I go to lodge with). That's a fundamental difference, in my opinion.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
ok, from the telephony standpoint, those records are already collected. It's called a Call Detail Record, it notes things you'd expect like origination number, termination number, billing number, dialed digits plus things you might not such as interconnect call time, switching addresses, etc. It gets used for diagnostic information, billing, system monitoring (as in, how well phones are being switched, failure rates, etc).
In the US, that information can also be requested for police use, but requires a subpoena.
Retention of the records varies by state. IIRC, Florida has the longer of the retention laws, at around 5 years.
Dump the IRS - http://www.fairtax.org
It's called "data mining", and is one of the stated reasons _why_ they want all that information to be stored in perpetuity.
"Are you, or have you ever been, a member of the Communist Party?" (I'm sure I have that quote slightly wrong, but the gist of it should be the same.) Joseph McCarthy would have creamed his slacks if he had been able to violate the civil liberties of his enemies with the same impunity that our current law enforcement can.
Who knows how J. Edgar Hoover would've used such powers, considering how he abused the powers that he already had.
We've got a great deal of historical evidence demonstrating that giving law enforcement too much unauditable power _will_ inevitably give rise to abuse. Why should we keep on committing the same historical mistakes over and over?
Not even if you two are seriouly planning on flying planes into buildings or releasing sarin gas in a subway?
I think if one were planning such a thing, you would not discuss such matters over electronic means that could be tapped in such a blatant way.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
I do not agree that privacy is a luxury. It is an essential right to be anonymous, especially not the government knowing every of your steps, likes, dislikes and such. You are right that this is not directly related to freedom of speech. But with the recent news about kidnappings by the cia of a German citizen (innocent, by the way...) without intense scrutiny by public (media, others) this makes me feel very scary. It was because of his name, that he was kidnapped. And nobody can assure me that no government will kidnap me because I like /. Or black cats. Or whatever. So, no government should know that much about me, because a government is not to be trusted, given the recent developments all around the world (haven't finished reading all comments about the sweet spot in the world). And this is a reason that no telco should be forced to hold that much data about me. If the government has some concern about me and my habits, please, go ahead and ask a judge to get a subpoena (however it is called in whatever country). THEN, and only then, a company shall collect data about me and hand it to government.
To the abuse point. There will always be abuse. Of freedom (e.g. "fire" in a crowed room) and privacy (any example). But the mis-habits of single persons NEVER should be used to remove a right from many! Rights always come with abuse, it is to be balanced and not black or white.
There is always a plethora of pedantic jackasses on Slashdot. First off- try quoting everything I said and not what you want to cherry pick.
What I said was: "If I call my friend up to chat about the old college days I absolutely have a right to privacy. What I talk to an old friend is ABSOLUTELY none of the governments business."
Let me restate this in a way that will make you happy- "The government has ABSOLUTELY no right to UNILATERALLY log or monitor the calls of it's citizens."
Thomas Jefferson once wrote: "As revolutionary instruments (when nothing but revolution will cure the evils of the State) [secret societies] are necessary and indispensable, and the right to use them is inalienable by the people." --Letter to William Duane, 1803.
How can one work to keep the government in check, or overthrow it if necessary if the government can keep complete track of a persons communications?
Does that mean that I am forever limited to rights that my parents afford me?
Blar.
During or after a war, there are some traditional ways to decide who won. For instance, if there are armed guards at every intersection in your town, you probably lost the war. If you now have to ask permission to leave your house/neigborhood/city, you probably lost. The winners have imposed their will upon you.
So I ask, who is winning the war in Israel?
Who is winning in Europe?
Who is winning in the U.S.?
Under a libertarian scenario, the cops never show up because the citizen Timmy is threatening hasn't sent his monthly police services check.
Under the current system, however, the victim can shoot him as long as he's feeling threatened. That's called self-defense.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
I agree with you in that our resources aren't being sent where they're really needed. This similar to an argument that the gun lobby uses that says that more children are killed every year by backyard swimming pools or bicycle accidents than by guns, but no one is trying to outlaw pools or bikes.
Then problem with the drunk driving analogy is that drunk driving isn't one organized group of people trying to destroy western civilization. Also, drunk driving will never gat a hold of a dirty bomb or nuke and wipe out possible millions. So I think we do need some sort of focused effort to fight terrorism. Unfortunately, airport security like we have in the US and invading iraq aren't really going to help much.
Disconnect your television. Do your own research. Draw your own conclusions. They're probably lying. Don't be a sheep.
Move to mexico where people aren't so aggressive.
work to live not live to work
It is a relatively modern Idea that Freedom is equal to Privacy. While the truth they are rather disjunct concepts. You still have the right of free speech you can still say whatever you want and just as long as it doesn't cause direct harm, (Like yelling Fire in a crowded room) you have the right to say it.
But just recently the right of privacy seems to be implicit to your freedom of speech. With freedom of speech (At least the American ideal) you should be able to state your views without getting arrested for it. But it doesn't state that you can say it without anyone knowing that you said it.
False.
You should revisit American history around the time of the American Revolution. The Federalist Papers were written under a pen name by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay. Hoping you have heard of at least one of those.
The pamlets supporting the idea of breaking away from Britian were written under pen names to protect the lives of the authors. The idea of anonymous speech dates back to the birth of the USA. The US Supreme Court has upheld that anonymous speech is a corner stone of free speech. Without anonymous speech, one does *not* have free speech.
You should read at least Amendment 9 of the Bill of Rights.
If the govt becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law, it invites man to become his own law, it invites anarchy
Government agencies have been snooping through packets the whole time.. the only difference is now they can do it without "guilt" thanks to new relative laws. It is easy to do.. even in 1989, a 15 year old kid could hack into something like the JANET (Yugoslavian Packet Switching Network) and rule supreme unnoticed.
The truth is that society hasnt changed that much over the last few thousand years.. it is just getting easier to persecute folks for their "sins".
Sure sure. . . crime and terrorism and child porn. Certainly most people in their right mind are against child porn. I certainly would consider taking justice into my own hands if someone were to put my children in such a situation. And, yes, terrorism is terrorism. Whether you are a CIA contractor torturing prisoners, a soldier killing innocent civilians 'accidentally', or even the real deal Jihad warrior with your holy cruise missile buried deep in sand, terrorism is terrorism.
However, this is just a big scam for governments to launder more money. Child porn will not be reduced but they will certainly say that they reduced it by 25% as soon as they get a few more scapegoats for the new 'program'. Agencies will claim that it has helped decrease crime and terrorism by some arbitrary percentage. The only real solution is the Muslim extremist approach. It will save all countries extreme amounts of money. Hang child porn sickos in the middle of town and broadcast it on TV nationally. If you think this would be inhumane, then obviously you have never been molested or had gangs kidnap your little sister and threaten to kill her if you testify. You want to stop crime? feed the poor and hungry! Maybe the world needs a new Marie Antoinette to hang as well. Want to stop terrorism? Its simple. Stop creating it. Quit financing wars and switching sides every 20 years to hedge your bets. It has nothing to do with the internet. Say bye bye to all those tax dollars - they wont be used to help you or anyone you know!
"There is always a plethora of pedantic jackasses on Slashdot. First off- try quoting everything I said and not what you want to cherry pick."
And there is always a bunch of loudmouths who go off half-cocked and say things *that they don't actually mean*.
"Let me restate this in a way that will make you happy- "The government has ABSOLUTELY no right to UNILATERALLY log or monitor the calls of it's citizens."
OK, if that's what you MEAN, then that's what you should TYPE. This is the internet. We can't read your mind, all we have is your words. If you mean "unilaterally" then SAY "unilaterally". We can't know what you mean if you don't type what you mean. You sounded like an extreme libertarian or anarchist, saying that the government *never* listen in on a conversation.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
Has anyone done the math on the amount of storage that this will take? Seriously - it seems like it is a good time to be selling hard drives. And who the hell is going to be responsible for administrating this mess? Are gov't employees in the UK better than gov't employees here in the states?
P2P traffic (except possibly P2P ip telephony) won't be logged. Regarding internet traffic, mainly email and ip telephony will be logged (along with who got which ip address from when till when).
Donate free food here
Nope, sorry. While the ideas of free speech and privacy may have been separate in the past, recent events teach us that you simply cannot have free speech without ANONYMOUS free speech. The temptation for retribution is just too great otherwise.
I would say that Privacy is a subset of freedom, and that freedom with privacy is much more desirable than freedom without privacy. The US constitution protects privacy to some extent, but I would like to see it better protected.
Tying free speech to privacy appears to be a relatively recent idea NOT because there is no historical connection between freedoms and privacy, but becuase it's only recently that privacy is something that can be infringed upon by the state even without the willing involvement of a party to the private conversation.
The right to carry on a private conversation is not an enumerated right in a document such as the US Constitution because 220 years ago no one could have conceived that it could be infringed upon. Step 20 feet away from other people and whisper, and the conversation is private. Take further arrangements, and the conversation is secret.
Free speech, however, is broader than just private speech, and can be infringed upon. Ever since there have been governments, they have been able to restrict or punish public speech (Socrates, anyone?). Thus, modern democracies have taken steps to prevent theirs from doing so.
That doesn't mean that the right not to be heard by those you choose not to be heard by was not and should not be considered to be just as fundamental, or that it was considered (or should now be considered) a "priviledge" any more than the right to the privacy of your thoughts (also closely tied to the freedom of public speech) should be considered a priviledge.
Get your buddy to distract the cops by showing them his bag while you walk on to the subway with the bomb in your bag.
:)
I call being the distractor!
Talk about drawing the short straw: "ha ha, you have to blow yourself up!"
Where are the billions spent on those?? Are you serious? Police budgets? Health and human services? Traffic safety? Department of Transportation? Regulations? Prisons? Hospitals? After school programs? The government already spends billions on trying to combat these issues. What do you think the federal budget does??
"If you want total security go to prison. There you are fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking is freedom." Dwight Eisenhower
I want to shoot the messenger!
Privacy is reduced to bare minimum, for example, making it customary to subject yourself to a mind-read in order to prove your good intentions. I'm posting this here because the book contains detailed justifications why the society evolved in this direction, and then explores problems with this system.
Very interesting read for those interested in "philosophical sociology".
...is the freedom to take the consequences, like Terry Pratchett wrote in "Going Postal".
Nevertheless, being in europe is yet a nice thing. Wait 5 years and we'll have reached a state like USA. I guess I'll have to wander off. But where to?
My last hope in this case is the european politicians doesn't make the same errors and become paranoians like the US-Administration...
Greetings from good old Germany!
P.S.: Old Europe? How about the old US (the brave one, now buried under a pile of cowards being in charge).
Bro, we do spend billions to fight traffic accidents, disease, crime, etc. etc. What the hell are you talking about?
far more important than the 4th is the 9th: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
In Griswald the SCUSA found (correctly, IMHO) that the right to privacy was one of the non-enumerated rights, hinted at under the "penumbra" of amendments such as the 4th.
War is profitable, short term.
Fighting drunk driving / disease / poverty is not profitable, short term.
Most businesses care little about long term goals.
You still have the right of free speech you can still say whatever you want and just as long as it doesn't cause direct harm, (Like yelling Fire in a crowded room) you have the right to say it.
It is impossible for speech to cause direct harm. Speech doesn't cause anything. Somebody has to act on it. Just like a gun. Somebody has to point and pull the trigger. The listener is responsible for his actions. NOT the speaker. Don't try to blame the victim for leaving the door open to burglars.
You have to lack privacy, but you also have to have a tyrant.
The tyrant need not be a classic dictator. Some democratic govts simply behave like tyrants, forcing the politicians' views upon the people. And of course if you oppose, you're criminal (if lucky) or terrorist (otherwise).
Many governments believe they are owners (like in slavery) of their citizens. Where I live, every person is assigned an "inventory number", just like the chairs and desks in the govt offices. To them, I'm property and bullshit like constitution, laws etc is just a camouflage.
Regarding the directive... the only real change is that they will now store info on calls that were not picked up. The completed calls data is being kept in databases for billing purposes anyway and is already available for those armed with some paperwork.
The moon is not fully subjugated. I demand a second assault wave preceded by a massive nuclear bombardment.
Hehehehe.
You, sir, are hereby awarded 'funniest parody post of the day'.
They start with the copyright and IP laws, and move from there ... I'm afraid North America's true bastion of freedom won't last much longer, but wait, didn't you have to go to foreign sites to read about the Liberals' money for associates scandal? :(
... :)
Um, maybe there's some little backwater republic hidden away on an island somewhere
-Joe
Get off my virtual lawn, you damned virtual kids!
Russia suffers from all the problems of a typical poor country.
There are corrupt judges, racist police, numerous and incompetent bureaucrats, politicians who use their office to amass personal fortunes, horrible jails, gangsters who run for parliament to get immunity from persecution, terrorists who blow shit up once in a while, drunk soldiers whose actions only help the terrorist cause, etc. You know, the usual sort of thing. Go to Indonesia or Brazil or any other country in the same income range -- they all have the same problems.
The thing about Russia though is that it has an extremely popular president. The people -- espeicially out in the rurual areas -- love Putin. As a result, Putin and his ex-KGB buddies have managed to push through just the type of laws you would expect from ex-KGB people: taking over mass media, stifling freedom of the press, appointing provincial governors, excluding small parties from the political process, harassing NGO's and outspoken businessmen, etc. Which totally sucks. Hopefully the Russian people will realize that KGB officers do not make good politicians before Putin&Co turn the country into a real police state.
I am sick an tired of seeing this showing up on this site.
China, Vietnam and Cuba are Republics, but are not Democracies.
The UK, Canada, Asutralia are not a Republic, but they are Democracies.
Germany, the US, France are Rebublics and Democracies.
Saudi Arabia is neither.
For bunnies sakes, stop ejaculating such obvious nonsense.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
"Any recommendations where one can still live free and unobserved in a non-nanny state?"
I think you should stay where you are. Instead of finding some miracle spot in the universe, you should focus on organizing how to send a clear message to your elected political representative that thank you, you don't want this. If your elected political representatives don't agree what that, THEY can resign, or be recalled.
The beauty of these laws is that your elected politicians play your fears for your family, for yourself. It's been pointed out, that countless other causes (from car safety failures, outrageously unhealthy food products to medical malpractice) claims way more lifes than terror attacks.
But it's much easier to mobilize the freightened public against some foreign terrorists than against faulty safety laws, faulty regulations that create loopholes that corporations or crooks will exploit without hesitation to make a dime. Especially if these corporations are supporting the re-election of your elected political representatives.
The only hope is that governments will allow themselves - without the consultation and approval of the public - so much intrusive powers that citizens will start to feel the burdon of it personally. As long as breach of privacy is a theoretical question, politicians can count on the "laziness" of their electorate to keep them under control.
If you are a concerned citizen, the best you can do is to plan preparations for that time and put everything in place for a sweeping campaing against your elected political representatives - in case if they forget that they are there to represent your interest.
The question I posed was that of keeping an open society safe. The government has shown its willingness to take away our privacy to make society safe, what is the alternative to 1984? There is surely something that preserves Everyone's right to due process. "Freedom is being able to do what you went when you want how you want without anyone knowing or denying anothers freedom." The 'without anyone knowing part' can in no way be guaranteed to anyone, it is far from an inaliendable right spelled out in any bill of rights, please show me if it is, you added it on because you felt like it. your definition of freedom is thus just plain wrong, take out the without anyone knowing part and then we can start talking about positive and negative freedom/liberty. I don't need privacy, 1/2 the people of the earth who live on less than $2/day don't have privacy. Privacy as a need is overrated, especially in your reply. You can have no privacy but still have freedom and liberty. See why I brought up the idea of a transparent society? Privacy rights are not egalatarian by nature. Why should corporations have the right to disect loads of consumer data, this data should surely be made open, why isn't there a bill in congress for this? I'm trying to make a strong case for equal privacy... movie stars have to buy privacy, does that help? If you really want to argue this, I suggest you look up the definitions of positive and negative freedoms on wikipedia. Everyone having privacy infringes on my negative freedom/liberty. Hence again, maybe a semi-transparent society, where transparency is the rule, not the exception. I am for privacy in the status quo, The government needs to earn my trust before I give up more of my privacy rights.
"They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security."
Benjamin Franklin
True freedom is when you don't have to be afraid to be impopular. The fear of having less privacy is an implicit fear that we do not have the freedom of being impopular. I am concerned about losing my freedom. I am living in Paris, France.
You have your terrorist ghosts in the middle east, we have ours in the Caucasia. Had them for hundreds of years, to be specific.
Well, 'having them for hundreds of years' is what happens when you invade a foreign land and force your traditions (that also implies religion) and rules upon the locals. I understand that it's tough to live thru the day not having the guarantee that your house is not going to be blown up in the course of the night.
But then, think about all the pain that was caused to the enslaved peoples - did your grandparents and grand-grandparents live with a permanent chance of being deported to Siberia for absolutely no reason? Was there a deadly hunger in Russia caused by someone else except the Russian government itself? Does someone force Russians to learn a foreign language (or worse - substitute their native with an alien one)? [I can make a long list of these]
The Chechens of today are the Russians of yesterday (metaphorically speaking), it's just that new tools are used, and the numbers are different - the essence is the same though - if you attack, you'll get a reply.
The saddest poem
Nope, I'm pretty sure calling you a pedantic jack-ass was definately not half-cocked.
Why does there not seem to be any comments anywhere regarding what motivates terrorism in the first place? What does it take to motivate a person to kill themselves and other innocent people? Most of what I hear, from governments and from individuals is regarding the current situation and how to deal with terrorists. But why are they terrorists in the first place? What has been done to piss people off so badly that they are resorting to killing innocents to convey their message? We need to deal with the cause, not the symptoms.
Privacy is important because it serves as a check. There's a hidden concept in the operation of any society and that is difficulty of enforcement. Many laws that would cause the destruction of a society (through revolt, crippling of a necessary process, etc) don't simply because those laws are too difficult to effectively enforce.
Privacy is an obstacle to total law enforcement, and that, ironically, is why it is crucial to keep. Privacy standards make up for imperfections in the law by placing a higher barrier to enforcement of laws in general.
Specifically, it prevents unjust and unnecessary laws from being practical to enforce. This, in turn, requires law enforcement to pick their battles and go for what's really important. If an issue is truly important, da gubment will go through the rigamarole of enforcing it. If it's not, they won't bother. Thus, privacy acts as a sort of "Buffer zone," preventing law enforcement from becoming petty tyrants. Privacy is the solution to stupid things like the fact that gay sex or drinking alcohol on a sunday are still overtly illegal in some states and counties.
On a more well-known level, privacy is important because it reduces harassment. If a policeman is not allowed to look at your private stuff, they can't threaten to look at your private stuff to get their way or for a petty thrill.
Freedom cannot exist in a society with no barriers to law enforcement unless the laws are perfect. Which is roughly as likely as Superman joining forces with Jesus to fight the Chinese. Somebody is going to get in a position of power and write a laundry list of utterly retarded laws based on their own personal preferences, and at that point, the only thing that will prevent the destruction of the liberties of that person's constituents is the sheer impracticality of enforcing said laws.
Of course, it's also important not to place the barriers to enforcement too high, or you end up with a world run by criminals. "Reasonable expectation of privacy" has been a good middle ground, and that's why we defend it.
The problem with internet junk in particular is there's no middle ground between total privacy and no privacy. Thus, "Reasonable Privacy" is impossible. If telcos have to record everything you ever do and that is accessible at the drop of a hat by any law enforcement agency, the protections afforded by privacy are severely eroded. Specifically, they are eroded according to how hard it is to compel a telco/ISP to reveal the data (whether it requires a warrant, probable cause, or a "National Security Letter," i.e. nothing).
The difficulty in ordering releases of information has been eroded simultaneously. A loss of liberty is inevitable under these circumstances, which is why people equate these acts with a stripping of their liberties.
All Hail the Maggott Show
Anonymity + free speech means that the public will never know what happened to the person who said that controversial thing. the government will find out, and when they drag you to an anonymous prison as a terror suspect nobody will know why you are there. Anonymity allows the government to get away with breaking free speech.
-John Fenley
To paraphrase Ben Franklin, Anyone who will surrender essential liberties for temporary safety deserves neither liberty nor safety.
There are lots of people every year who fail to survive because they can't shoot someone who is trying to hurt them. There are some who do survive because they do. I'm no "Cold dead hands" nra-head, but I understand why the second amendment was included in the Bill of Rights, and agree. Regardless, it's a fact of reality, of life, from amoeba on up, that it's always possible for every creature to be faced with the need to defend itself with deadly force. I hope you're never in that situation - I have been before, and hope I am never again.
On average, cities with a high percentage of concealed carry licenses have a lower violent crime rate than cities that prohibit said concealed carry. Not exactly conclusive, of course, just indicative.
Your assertions about Missouri are true, but I would note that until just recently, the leading county in those murder statistics you mentioned was excluded from the concealed carry law because it was declared an unfunded mandate, so you couldn't get said permit in that county.
Even though I agree with your sentiments, it doesn't in any way address the (for me) primary issue, which is, the bad guys *already carry weapons*; I find it irritating that I *can't*, without breaking the law. People are rarely murdered with legally carried weapons. No gun laws will stop thugs from getting and carrying them; they'll only keep me from being able to defend myself.
Thinking outside my Head
"OK, if that's what you MEAN, then that's what you should TYPE. This is the internet."
I couldn't have said it better myself- this is the Internet- welcome to it. People type quickly, state hyperboles and take many liberties with the English language on the Internet. Moreover this is Slashdot where everthing is exagerated 100 fold- get use to it.
"You sounded like an extreme libertarian or anarchist, saying that the government *never* listen in on a conversation."
Glad to hear one us sounds like a libertarian. Would we have had the American Revolution if the British government had been able to track down all the revolutionaries simply by looking up phone records in a database?
So seriously- who is to decide when it is ok to listen in? You? What are you going to do in a few years if revolution becomes the only means to fix our government, only you can't revolt because the government can track you down any time they want to by your phone records and wire taps and the like?
I'm not scared of being killed by a terrorist- I'm terrified of being slowly smothered by a repressive government. We're becoming more and more like the communists we use to dread every day. In "We The Living" Kira asks Andrei: 'Andrei, why doesn't your Party believe in the right to live while one is not dead?' Left unchecked, that's exactly where our country is headed.
In "A Historical Review of Pennsylvania," Benjamin Franklin said "They that would give up essential liberty, for a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-sirket
Nobody gets shot if everybody has guns, at least that's what slashdot posters say would be the result if only the pesky government wouldn't keep infringing our god-given right to bear machine guns while popping down the shop for a pint of milk or something, anyway... ;-)
Not sure how I'm trolling here - maybe because I asked a question instead of jumping right into flame mode? I was trying to understand. I thought that was a good thing.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
In Canada, the Liberals are poised to confiscate handguns from the handful of lawful owners who registered them when they promised registration wouldn't lead to confiscation.
They just lost a vote of non-confidence, but they're poised to get re-elected right now, and start stealing guns since there's NO toppling the incumbent, and the entire West half of the country may as well not vote for all the good it does.
I'd say... we're lined up to be a police state in 5 years.
Any recommendations where one can still live free and unobserved in a non-nanny state?
Well, I do know this island in the pacific... Nevermind, satellites still fly overhead.
I love my sig.
"Glad to hear one us sounds like a libertarian. "
My problem is that he *sounds* like a libertarian, but he's actually not, as he says later. He's just muddying the waters. You can't get a fix on him.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
...who actually *needs* to be free to trade in child porn?
People collect data all the time - that's not important, what is important is *how* they use the data.
Neither of those actions (restriction and revocation) prevent nor even slow down those that commit drunk driving. What slows down repeat offenders of drunk driving violations is to throw them in jail. (You can't do anything to prevent the first incident. Education is about all you can do, and I think we just about go overboard on that one as it is. It's like perfume, a slight spray is enough, but some just bathe in it, and it really doesn't do any good and, in fact, may actually have the opposite effect.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Yes, I do, thank you. But that wasn't an example of my razor-sharp wit, it was an example of a reductio ad absurdum argument.
So far as the state you were looking for ... actually we were kind of counting on Europe for that.
"Are you, or have you ever been, a member of the Communist Party?"
Except in this case the quote would be more like "We have proof that Jimmy is a Communist and that over the last 2 years you and Jimmy called eachother 5 times a week, are you also a Communist?"
Thankfully civil liberties in the US have improved greatly over the last 40 years, and being part of a non-violent law abiding political party is significantly more exceptable. The danger here is for people within a single or double degree of seperation who are unknowing of the investigation target's illegal/suspect behavior, expecially in cases dealing with terrorist threats. (Given the White House's apparent history of snatch first, admit guilt later)
The bright side is that social networks could be quickly mapped out once a target was selected. Patterns could be picked out and warnings could be sent up. Just imagine if you could quickly pick out a calling pattern an extremist group, a suspected handler, a previously unknown target, and a flight school. At that point you have no idea what people are talking about, heck, maybe the unknown target is an immigrant who works as a custodian at the school and has no idea that his uncle is under investigation. A couple quick background checks, maybe and interview or two, and it becomes clear that the person is not a threat, no harm, no foul. On the other hand, if the person were a threat, you could have just identified a potential terrorist extremely quickly.
In the US the police can already pull the numbers, times and call durations from any phone with the carrier's cooperation (and a warrent if necesary), I'm not sure how long of history they get, but you would assume it would be atleast a month or two and likely longer. So don't go thinking the US is on some moral high road here, we just have the FCC make rules instead of having to pass a bill through congress.
And for the record, I always thought McCarthy was an ass hat.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
The twin towers were a great media event for all involved. Terrorists got a great boost, started the fight they wanted, and attracted lots of new devotees. The governments got what they wanted too--carte blanche from the people to do whatever they want, as long as it's in the name of fighting terrorism.
The actual number of people killed was so small compared to almost any other cause of death, but the dramatic fashion in which it happened (and the endless media hype) hit people a lot harder than, say, drunken driving deaths, which come at a more comfortable pace of one or two every now and then.
Plus, most people take a drink now and then and that's the kind of right they're willing to fight for.
I think you are placing far too much trust in the good intentions of _all_ of the law enforcement agents who might have access to that data.
Even if just out of sheer probability, the easier you make it for a system to be abused, especially without the ability to detect the abuse or identify & punish the abusers, you _will_ see the system being abused. In a more practical sense, such a system will more likely attract the type of people who would like to abuse its power.
Abuse of such a system is practically an inevitability, and anyone who pushes such a system is encouraging a police state of the worst sort. Even the most ambitious terrorists could only dream of the sheer amount of damage that a tolitarian government could inflict on its own citizens.
Forgetting Poland is one thing, but forgetting Russia? It's almost double the US's size!
While you're right that Canada's numerous lakes make it larger in total area but smaller in land area than the USA, you're also forgetting that the USA's numerous lakes make it larger in total area but smaller in land area than China.
Any way you measure physical size of the country[1], the US is in third place.
[1] Not making obesity joke...
You might think legalization of drugs would prevent many of the ills associated with them. I had wondered that myself. So did the government of Switzerland. So they basically tried it, legalizing most things related to drugs in Needle Park.
It failed. Badly.
Treating drug addiction like a disease, with hardcore users given their drugs under medical supervision seems to be more helpful for society and for the users themselves.
The libertarian notion of "less laws means better living!" is very appealing. It's also very naive.
Freedom does not equal privacy, privacy is one aspect of freedom. Freedom does not equal free speech, free speech is merely another aspect of freedom.
Is that you Mr Bush, or is it Mr Stalin posting?
Actually, they just sent me the code, after months of no contact.. perhaps some people saw my signature and pressured them.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
America is the world's shining example of governmental restraint and repsect for human rights. A sizeable piece of western Europe is sliding head long into 1984 and 1938 (the great depression). Japan is second only to America in terms of governmental restraint and quality of life for its citizens. Go democracy, go capitalism!
Well, in baltic states government and it's agencies (SAB and such) covertly pushed few new laws which, besides all phone call and email monitoring and storage also proposes that from the same date (january 1st of 2006) all streets and places all around city are equipped with cameras for monitoring and storing livestock (umm sorry - citizen) movement.
Remote controllable servo cameras (black balls) are now appearing all around the streets in places like building walls, light installations and such, mostly positioned in front of the windows (guess why).
Nice that we have a huge monument in the center of the capital called "Memorial of freedom". Good that we are jused to live under oppression from any parity the last thousand years, so it's nothing unexpected.
I hate to break this to you but they already do that its called Echelon. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON
Having access to the data is worthless. What are you going to do with a listing of billions of phone calls? The only value to system provides is social networking of specific targets. So yes, if they choose you as a target, they can find out who you have been in contact with... Which they can already do! The only difference is that now the carriers are required to maintain that data for 2 years instead of their previously established time frames.
And I'm still not seeing a large posibility for abuse. Ok so some crooked cop could theoreticly pull the listings for the local "cancer hotline" as mentioned before and sell that info to insurance companies. But with a simple set of checks and balances the likelihood would be next to nothing. Especially if a warrent is still needed to get the listing/networking info. And in any case, they can do that exact same thing right now, but I haven't heard of any cases of call lists being resold from police stations.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Every ISP on the planet now has a Cryoserver (www.cryoserver.com) installed. I know this, because the World Govt ordered a million petabytes of RAIDed IBM storage and my friend got the commission. The likely solution is Hushmail to Hushmail. But then THEY know that, so stick to write-once pads just to be safe.
that movie "V for Vendetta"'s background story seems all the more plausible now. How very ironic.
he who trades freedom for security deserves neither freedom nor security.
and usually ends up with neither as well.
there is no such thing as 'security', there is always a chink in the armor and tougher 'security measures' only force terrorists to be smarter to do damage. it is foolish to trade our privacy for a nonexistent 'security blanket'. grow up and put the teddy bear away.
PS sorry about the spelling/grammar/punctuation ect.
-verlorenModus-
Privacy is a "luxury"??? You've got to be fscking kidding me! Are you the kind of person who thinks that the US Constitution *gives* you rights rather than *limits the power of government*, too???
As with any RIGHT, when I trespass upon another human being, I deserve to lose my right to privacy where a legal investigation needs to take place so that they can prove me guilty. Beyond that, I can't think of any reason that my personal data should not be under my full control and be sold uncontrollably under my nose.
See, when the right to privacy is gone, it will usher in a new era of state-defined criminal offenses that have no victims.
You read the "Anarchist Cookbook"? You must be a terrorist. See you in military prison.
You bought a six pack of beer on a weeknight? You must be a drunk. You're fired!
Luxury???? Privacy is an understood subset of freedom. I am free to do what I want, and it is none of your fscking business unless I trespass upon you. If privacy is a "luxury" to be tampered with, does that mean that the Law is meant to *prevent* crime (rather than *punish* those who break the Law)?
I see that you've recently converted to Islam. That means you're likely to want to blow stuff up for your jihad. You're under arrest.
Privacy is the glue of a free society. Any lesser designation for the importance of privacy is simply opening the door for a police state. In a police state, the law is designed to dictate your behavior to ensure it is "right." Therefore it is necessary to negate the importance of privacy so that all perceived negative behaviors can be curbed. In a free state, the law is designed to punish wrongdoers, so that those with poor judgment who abuse their free will can be weeded out.
>Luxuries like privacy should be treated well or could be forced to be removed. Or just sold
It's true I tell you, feller at work's next door neighbour read it in the paper.
I would not kid you: the Lincoln quote is authentic. There was quite a lot of difference between 1812 and 1838; look up the growth in US population, territory, and potential armed force. After all, just 23 years later, the Union forces put forth quite remarkable power, and the Confederates likewise. United, they would probably have been a match for any army. (The final campaigns of the Civil War bear an uncanny resemblance to those of World War I, with armoured warships, machine guns, trench systems, and massive artillery barrages). Moreover, Britain's naval power was at a peak in 1812, while the USA's was just beginning to ramp up. Lastly - and I guess I am down to picking nits here - the British sacked Washington, which is accessible by sea. They never got anywhere near the Blue Ridge or the Ohio.
But the real point of the quote does not lie in its objective truth. Lincoln was a bullshitter, and a world-class one at that, and he was certainly exaggerating - a little patriotic bragging never harmed a politician's prospects. The key is that (like Benjamin Franklin before him) he believed the USA would be destroyed, if at all, from within.
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
Who is this "he" to which you refer? The only person you have been responding to in this thread is me (sirket) and I _AM_ a libertarian.
-sirket
I'd like to see the percentage of the GDP the USA spends on its "war on terror", and the percentage it spends on traffic accidents, disease, crime, etc. ...
I don't want to know how many more lives could be spared if you switched those figures
The term 'absolute' can have no modifiers.
Pff. You are thinking of the wrong word. Absolutely is an intensifier, further along the same spectrum as kinda, mostly, very, really, etc.
i'd hit it so hard, if you pulled me out you'd be the king of britain [bash.org]
The opinion isn't moronic because he disagrees with you, but because it betrays your total lack of comprehension and understanding regarding the described situation.
Now, before I get started, is it possible that your friend Jonny really would use lethal force against a "drunk asshat", which implies he is 1. drunk and 2. only armed with his natural weapons? Yes, there's almost always an exception to every rule. If you imply that would be the norm in said situation, however, you need to get your facts straight.
The law protects the use of lethal force ONLY where there is an immediate threat against the life of the person with the weapon, or another "innocent" party nearby. Some states/areas also protect the use of lethal force if the offender is in the act of committing or about to commit a felony. This means there are only specific situations where lethal force is allowed - all other use of lethal force is in itself a crime.
So, let's say Jonny opened up on the rather unimpressing drunkard - depending on the severity of the aftermath, he is punished for his improper judgement, and those of us who have a brain learn from his mistake(s)... falling back to that same idea that an idividual is responsible for his/her actions.
If I don't think people should have access to LAW rockets, 23mm anti-aircraft guns or second hand armored fighting vehicles am I implying that people are losing fundamental rights?
There is a legal term mentioned in the Second Amendment: the word "arm". "Arm" has a specific definition, which is, paraphrased, a "man-portable weapon". This would indeed include weapons such as a LAW, RP-7, RPK, M-4 (with attached M-203), hand grenades, Stinger missiles (ooh, MANPAD ground-to-air missiles!), and all manner of other such devices designed to be lugged about by humans.
This does, however, appear to mean that I, sadly, have no right to own a second-hand M1A1 Abrams tank (nor a 23mm AA system, nor a crappy Striker). Do also note, however, that this does not explicitly deny me the ability to own such a device, if not otherwise prohibited, as all that is not explicitly denied is allowed for "we, the people".
Remember, the Consitution and associated amendments are limits on the *government's* power, not our (we, the people) own.
The exceptions on that section are provided here for your convenience (no, they don't detract from the parent's argument):
(a) To be eligible for original enlistment in the National Guard,
a person must be at least 17 years of age and under 45, or under 64
years of age and a former member of the Regular Army, Regular Navy,
Regular Air Force, or Regular Marine Corps. To be eligible for
reenlistment, a person must be under 64 years of age.
(b) To be eligible for appointment as an officer of the National
Guard, a person must -
(1) be a citizen of the United States; and
(2) be at least 18 years of age and under 64.
From here.
The idea that privacy equals freedom is as old as the Bill of Rights. In a abstract way (and to the best of my knowledge a way NOT decided upon by the Supreme Court to date) if you have no privacy then how can any search be unreasonable per the Fourth Amendment?
In a way that HAS been ruled upon by the Supreme Court the First Amendment's right to Free Speech and Gather are both protected by anonymity. I don't recall the first Supreme Court decision to hold something like this but I think it had to do with the right to gather being effictively worthless if people could not gather anonymously since the threat of adverse consequences could (and likely would) be used to dissuade people from gathering anonymously.
Two recent decisions that link privacy with the First Amendment can be found here http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/97-930.ZO.ht ml and here http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/93-986.ZS.ht ml.
My apologies for the lack of HTML.
The Venezuelan government, recently touring the spotlights as the darling of the FLOSS world, due to a new law about to come into effect that compels the use of open source software has now for over three years, instituted a lamp stack based system useful for 1984-style barbarisms.
With this "list" http://www.maisantalist.com/>, a 3 1/2 gig install on your windows pc, anyone (yes anyone, can buy it on many Caracas street corners for about a couple of bucks), can tell how anybody in the electoral roll (inputting his identity card number) voted, whether or not he's loyal to the president, if he receives government handouts, where he lives, where he votes ... etc. and so on.
After all the ins and outs that the opposition went through to collect over 3 1/2 million signatures to request a presidential recall vote, the electoral authority not-so-secretly handed over the names, identity card numbers of every signatory, which, cross referenced to the electoral registry database, makes a handy database.
Does this animal really exist? Indeed, if it does, how is it used? I hear these questions accompanied with stares of disbelief by people not familiar with the way things transpire lately in this lovely South American country.
Well, it is ... and how! The first version, widely known as the Tascón list (published originally at http://www.luistascon.com/>, not there anymore) was used to gauge the "fidelity" of government employees like this: if they were on the list, they were sacked ... just like that, no severance pay, no nothing, just slung out unceremoniously, in their thousands.
A couple of years later (after hundreds of thousands of people were summarily execrated) this list was publicly "buried" with great showmanship by the president on one of his Sunday telethons. Ah, that sneaky fellow, in the eyes of the world he seemed to do a laudable thing, he "buried" the Tascón list ... but only because he knew his geeks already had its eagerly awaited replacement, the Maisanta/Batalla de Santa Inés list (you can try and download it yourself at http://www.maisantalist.com/>, or search for tascon on your favourite bt tracker) where the data was cross referenced to other government databases, making it not only a useful tool for getting rid of people they don't like but as an election tool as well.
Now, presidential supporters can wield a fully 1984-capable laptop to yank other possible government supporting neighbours out of bed and into the voting lines.
This system worked surprisingly well for the president on the actual August 15th recall vote, where this list played a significant role. However it's not always bleak orwellian weather down in tropical Caracas.
In their majority, Venezuelan citizens are quite a peaceful crowd and seeing themselves cheated time after time of voting as a peaceful means of communtiy problem resolution by these government miscreants, had a little surprise in store for the next round.
During the recent campaign to elect the new National Assembly representatives, the government was being its usual rule-breaking self, bullying public empleoyees, plastering the country with posters depicting the president and his ministers personally endorsing a cast of unknowns that people were to rush out and vote for (after all, the president constantly reiterates that he will be re-elected in 2006 with over 10 million votes).
The surprise was prepared by ordinary citizens, peeved by rapidly increasing authoritarian methods employed to govern Venezuela and its citizens today (not the least of which are the aforementioned orwellian lists). Support was agreggated by face to face, word of mouth. Self-censoring press, television and radio attempted to block space to those who proposed abstention.
Just before the election proper, a humble, temporarily accredited technician proved
Prosecuted indeed; plainly you have no problems getting jokes... =P
I live in Ireland.
There are practically no anti-terrorism laws but then again our government is a bit of a shambles.
Right on.
It's good to see someone else being pro-active about the rights of the dead. We have a very pro dead administration here too. How else do you explain George Bush getting elected twice?
This signature has Super Cow Powers
But truely...when the people can be so easily manipulated as we witnessed in the 2004 election...there is no hope.
Blar.