Techdirt: Why Don’t Surveillance State Defenders Seem To Care That The Programs They Love Don’t Work? »
Archive | April, 2015
How to get the general publics attention on surveillance issues
But most notably of all, Oliver might finally have pinpointed a way to make the debate about surveillance accessible to a wide audience. By honing on one aspect of the government surveillance, the capacity for intelligence agencies to access “dick pics,” he captures the attention and summons the outrage of numerous passersby in a filmed segment in Times Square. Many of those interviewed can’t properly identify Edward Snowden or don’t quite recall what he had done, but all recoil at the thought of government access to intimate photography.
“If I had knowledge that the United States government had pictures of my dick,” one man says with dire seriousness, “I would be very pissed off.”
“The good news is there’s no program named ‘The Dick Pic Program,'” Snowden says in response to the video. “The bad news is they are still collecting everyone’s information, including your dick pics.”
The Atlantic: What It Takes to Make People Care About NSA Surveillance »
UK to ban anonymous porn surfing?
The UK is about to “shut down hardcore pornography websites that don’t put in place age-restriction controls”. The purpose is said to be to protect children from being exposed to pornography.
As a consequence, anonymous porn surfing will become impossible. This is bad, in many ways.
Porn surfing on the net is a way for many people to explore their sexuality and to learn more about non-mainstream sex. Not being able to do this anonymously will keep some people away. Maybe most people.
Keeping people away from anonymous surfing on esoteric porn sites may also have other, unintended consequences. If people are deterred from fulfilling their sexual fantasies online, they might move to other ways and places. Like your lokal park.
But what about the children? Well, I think they should be aware of sexuality, being ready to embrace it when that day comes. And it is moronic to believe that you can keep young people away from porn. All you may accomplish is to make “forbidden fruit” even more thrilling for them.
My guess is that the British Conservatives are just using children as a pretext for antiquated moral dominance. (Which seems a bit kinky to me.)
/ HAX
Links:
• Porn Websites Without Age Verification To Be Shut Down, Sajid Javid Pledges »
• Are a Tenth of the UK’s 12-Year-Olds Really ‘Addicted’ to Porn? »
Our governments do not trust people with their own money
There are rumors that Greece will default to the IMF, nationalise the country’s banking system and introduce a parallel currency. [Link»]
If this will happen, Greece will have to introduce some sort of currency regulations – to stop a bank run, to stop money from floating out of the country and to uphold the value of the new, parallel currency.
This can not be done without coercion and control.
So, I guess Greece might not only end up being bankrupt – but also becoming something of a neo-socialist totalitarian society.
The thing to follow closely is how currency regulations (and nationalisation) will be enforced – as this has never been tried at this level in a society with modern mass surveillance capabilities.
At the same time other countries, e.g. France, are introducing ever tighter regulations and controls when it comes to cash and international money transfers. So there is surely a new European “market” for financial mass surveillance.
From the EU there are indications of a coming EU database for surveillance and analysis of all European bank transfers. (According to the 2009-14 European Commission.)
So, I guess the next big battle on surveillance and government control will be about money. Your money.
Our governments simply do not trust people with their own money.
/ HAX
Registration of air travel back in the EP
EDRi reports…
Despite the decision of the European Parliament to refer the EU-Canada PNR agreement to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in December 2014, the urge to keep increasing surveillance citizens’ movements across Europe seems to be irrepressible. Timothy Kirkhope, Rapporteur (MEP in charge) of the Fight against terrorism and serious crime: use of passenger name record (PNR) data (procedure file 2011/0023(COD) ), is again launching the EU PNR proposal in the European Parliament, after it was rejected by the Parliament’s Civil Liberties Committee in 2013.
Eternal fools to ban filesharers from flying?
EDRi reports: French filesharers to be banned from flying?
A proposed European Directive threatens the ability of French filesharers to use airlines. The problem is a new attempt to adopt a Directive on the collection and storage of “passenger name record” (PNR) data. The European Commission’s plan is for air travellers’ data to be used for profiling individuals, to guess if they are involved in “terrorist offences and serious online crime”. A “serious crime” is defined as punishable by imprisonment for a “maximum period of at least three years”. In France, filesharing (like manslaughter and death threats) can be punished by a period of up to three years in prison, and so falls under the Directive’s definition of “serious crime”.
No, this is not an april fools joke. Read the rest of the story here… »