privawotsit & paranoia

[Teep]

Originally posted by ramza500
If there is one major bad thing I remember I didn't like about
Amsterdam it's those cameras. I'm moderately used to cameras here in America but not as many as were around Amsterdam. I know not 'everything' is as illegal over there but for some reason I was so paranoid about everything I did.

I know exactly what you mean... with growing media attention on crime and terrorism, a lot of people are getting scared ... as an easy fix, governments provide technological solutions to problems that are not technological in nature... and people accept these solutions, without paying mind to the impact it has on their privacy, because they help making the country a saver place to live in... yeah right...

I'm not sure how the situation is in other countries... but in the
Netherlands it is, as of january this year, required for all people age 14 (!!) and up to be able to show an ID at any time. Starting somewhere in 2006, ID cards and passports will be equipped with a microchip containing a digital image of the face and two digitalized finger prints. A couple of weeks ago the suggestion was made in the dutch parliament to keep a copy of this data on a central database (!!). This would enable authorities to identify you using your fingerprints, even if you wouldn't carry ID and whether you had been arrested before or no. Also, theoretically, it would enable them to run image-recognition software over the video-feed from a surveillance camera, and automatically identify everybody that passes over Dam-square.

And the scary bit is, people accept these things. "Well, if it's for our own safety, why not? I've got nothing to hide!" indeed not... but they are forgetting that should the government drastically change their ideas about society (e.g. as happened in Germany in the 1930's) ... whatever you deem yourself as perfectly social and legal, might be deemed by the government as to be illegal, and worthy of surveillance.

And the problem is, one of the biggest arguments used by the government to explain these measures, is terrorism. And I don't think you can really stop terrorism using ID-regulations and datamining applications. In fact, there hasn't been that much terrorist activity at all in the Netherlands, safe from what was called a "political murder" on a dutch film-director. And this murder was commited by a young man from north-african origin, with a dutch nationality, that was remembered by his highschool teachers as a pleasant and intelligent guy. You wouldn't have caught a guy like this by running face-recognition software over the video feed from the street the murder was committed.

Okay, this is turning out into quite a rant... It's just, this stuff is kinda freaking me out... and I'm curious how this compares, for instance, to the situation in the US.

[Teep]

The following image is completely unrelated to this topic...

or is it??

[Tattooz4u]

Originally posted by Teep
I already posted this in reply to a mainpage topic... but it got kinda lost in the other topics...

do not click me (God is in the TV.)

about government security measures and their impact on individual privacy...

I am curious how the situation is in the states and what you think about it...

Well, with the Patriotic Act in full effect, we are basically giving up our rights to privacy. Law enforcement can get wiretaps much easier than before the Act, and they are able to do surveillance much easier now. All in the name of "Homeland Security." Got to be on the watch for those terrorists you know.

I think that the people of the United States in general, don't want to do any thinking of their own and would rather have the government do it for them. Our rights keep getting eroded everyday it seems like, and we, in general, allow it to happen, so long as it doesn't mess up our plans for our vacations and whatnot.

As you can see Teep, I'm pretty cynical about it all. :-)

[Teep]

People have no clue about their privacy and how it is being impacted... they wouldn't have me rummaging through their closets, but they would have officials rummaging through their email...

"Hey, I don't care, they can have any information they want, I've done nothing wrong."

...Which may be true, but ofcourse they forget that it's not about what's wrong and right in their eyes, but about what's wrong and right in the government's eyes...

The government is drawing in more and more power, which will make it increasingly hard to keep them in check...


btw, the pic of the (very cute) trekkie-girl is completely unrelated... I just needed a place to put it online ;-)

[medfield]

I think people have a clue as to exactly what is going on. Generalizations about masses is always that they are of lower intelligence than the individuals or groups applying the methods to the madness. I agree that some are rather non intelligent people but mostly it is just people who are willing to sacrifice simple liberties because they feel it is for the greater good. They turn their backs when our gov't commits a crime, because we are influenced through the media and tv that it is what must be done. Somehow I doubt that is the truth, and I think that most people would see that if thye just stopped turning their backs on this shit. Truth only comes out when the walls crumble, and when you only have a few people dominating the ways in which we learn about our world, we are human and we slip up, and when the inevitable happends and it backfires and happends to the wrong individual, I think that is when grassroots movements start to succeed. Thank you for reading my pointless arguement of the mind.

The End

[Teep]

dammit... this thing is going quicker than I thought...

I know this link is in dutch, but the 5th article in this newsletter is explaining how in 3 months time some shops in Utrecht (one of the larger cities in Holland) will be equipped with camera's with facial recognition... shopkeepers can upload pictures of known shoplifters and have the systems automatically identify them so that they can be denied access to the shop....
nice :-/

(www.bof.nl = bits of freedom, a dutch digital human rights organisation)

[Teep]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/05...compatability/

The UK government plans to issue its ID card as a passport with biometric identifiers stored in a chip – and the US wants those chips to be compatible with its own scanners, raising the possibility that US agencies could have access to the ID Card database.

This is just getting better and better...

Worst-case scenario: within 2 or 3 years one centralized database containing biometrical data of all individuals from the US, EU and possibly others, accessible to all government agencies from said nations?

[OblivionJake]

So whats the plan?

[Teep]

An island (News from the New Chick)...



No, seriously, I'm keeping tabs on this... and if things get too crazy, I'm out...