Slashdot Mirror
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?"
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'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.
Uh, no.
FTFLink
"In British English billion has traditionally meant a million million."
If you're going to use a citation to support your argument, use one that supports it.
s/Billion/Million/