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Demo of EU's Planned "INDECT" Hints At Massive Data Mining, Little Privacy
Ronald Dumsfeld writes "Wikinews puts together some of the details around the EU's five-year-plan called Project INDECT, and brings attention to a leaked 'sales-pitch' video: 'An unreleased promotional video for INDECT located on YouTube is shown to the right. The simplified example of the system in operation shows a file of documents with a visible INDECT-titled cover stolen from an office and exchanged in a car park. How the police are alerted to the document theft is unclear in the video; as a "threat," it would be the INDECT system's job to predict it. Throughout the video use of CCTV equipment, facial recognition, number plate reading, and aerial surveillance give friend-or-foe information with an overlaid map to authorities. The police proactively use this information to coordinate locating, pursing, and capturing the document recipient. The file of documents is retrieved, and the recipient roughly detained.'"
Cyclic logic. Calling it a "private conversation" implies some belief of privacy, even when none should exist.
What about a "private conversation" held using bullhorns at a baseball game? It's private, so all those people listening must be breaking the law, huh?
Much better is to define "private" not based on stupid people's ignorance but on physics. A "conversation" carried via public airwaves shouldn't be considered private. That's where the cellular carries brainwashed everyone. A "conversation" carried over someone else's wires has some reasonable expectation of privacy, but it's still someone else's wires. If those wires go into another country where the rules are different, don't expect your side to stay private under US rules while the foreign part is open under foreign rules.
Privacy should only be assumed if you control the wires, or if you encrypt the message YOURSELF. To simply say "this is private, you can't listen" is silly.