Techdirt: Why Don’t Surveillance State Defenders Seem To Care That The Programs They Love Don’t Work? »
Category: Big Brother
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 »
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… »
Europol lobbying against encryption
The law enforcement lobbying campaign against encryption continues. Today it’s Europols director Rob Wainwright who is trying to make a case against privacy on BBC 5.
Europol chief warns on computer encryption »
This is the same man who told the European Parliament that Europol is not going to investigate the alleged NSA hacking of the SWIFT (international bank transfer) system. The excuse he gave was not that Europol didn’t know about it, because it did. Very much so. It was that there had been no formal complaint from any member state.
So the EU police agency happily turned a blind eye to ongoing crime — when possibly committed by the NSA.
That will give you an indication about where the Europols sympathies lies. That is, not with the general public.
/ HAX
US tech gigants to Obama: End bulk collection mass surveillance
TechCrunch reports that US “technology companies, tech trade groups and privacy organizations sent a letter today to the President Barack Obama, various members of Congress, and governmental security officials, urging reform of the U.S. government’s surveillance practices.” From the letter…
“There must be a clear, strong, and effective end to bulk collection practices under the USA PATRIOT Act, including under the Section 215 records authority and the Section 2 214 authority regarding pen registers and trap & trace devices. Any collection that does occur under those authorities should have appropriate safeguards in place to protect privacy and users’ rights.”
TechCrunch: Tech Giants Call For “Clear, Strong And Effective End” To NSA’s Phone Metadata Surveillance »
The coming War on Cash
War on terror has become an convenient excuse for governments to start a war on cash.
Naturally, cash can be used by terrorists. But it will not mainly be terrorists who suffer from tighter control. It will be ordinary people.
One of the real reasons behind tighter cash regulations are convenient is quite obvious: taxation.
If you want support for this theory, take a look at the EU directive against money laundering. Where implemented strictly (like in Sweden) it makes handling of any substantial amount of cash almost impossible.
The latest is the French tightening the regulations on cash. From Mises.org…
“These measures, which will be implemented in September 2015, include prohibiting French residents from making cash payments of more than 1,000 euros, down from the current limit of 3,000 euros. Given the parlous state of the stagnating French economy the limit for foreign tourists on currency payments will remain higher, at 10,000 euros down from the current limit of 15,000 euros. The threshold below which a French resident is free to convert euros into other currencies without having to show an identity card will be slashed from the current level of 8,000 euros to 1,000 euros. In addition any cash deposit or withdrawal of more than 10,000 euros during a single month will be reported to the French anti-fraud and money laundering agency Tracfin. French authorities will also have to be notified of any freight transfers within the EU exceeding 10,000 euros, including checks, pre-paid cards, or gold.”
The whole idea is based on the presumption that people are up to something suspicious. This seems to be the new default mode, replacing the presumption of innocence (that happens to be one of the fundaments of rule of law).
But this is not just about distrusting citizens with their own money. The common European currency, the Euro, is in a precarious state. Cash regulations can (and will) be used to stop people from rescuing their own money when the shit hits the fan. Just see what happened when the Euro-crisis overwhelmed Cyprus. The government confiscated money directly from peoples bank accounts — and most people had no possibility to rescue their savings.
“Coincidentally” mass surveillance is an excellent tool for governments to enforce financial regulations aimed at the general public…
Is this the moment when people finally will have to turn to free digital currencies in a big way? Is this the tipping point?
/ HAX
Business as usual
The worst of two worlds
For the sake of argument: Let’s assume that we are stuck with mass surveillance and Big Brotherism.
Such a society can be very unpleasant and very difficult to live in.
There is a trend among politicians and bureaucrats to regulate and micro manage more and more about our lives. Today, all western countries have more laws, regulations and rules than anyone can grasp and relate to. Every day most of us break the rules. Often several times every day.
Many of these rules are irrational, moralistic, prejudiced, paternalistic, subjective, stupid, unnecessary or malicious. Some laws creates crime where there is no victim. Some are outdated. Some are simply wrong.
In a total surveillance society this abundance of rules will lead to a situation where each and every one of us might be investigated, “corrected” and / or punished. Especially people in opposition, those who don’t fit in a “one size fits all” society and those who would like to live a free life (taking responsibility for their own actions). If people in power and their functionaries think that you are annoying — there will always be a reason for them to make an example of you, as a warning to others.
For a Big Brother society to be at all tolerable to live in — it must be open minded, tolerant and liberal. It must have fewer intrusive rules and more freedom.
But that is not the direction society is going, is it?
Today we live in a society where every day, we are under more surveillance, subject to more intrusive rules and under stricter control. That is a very toxic mix.
/ HAX
FBI to expand hacking capabilities
“A judicial advisory panel Monday quietly approved a rule change that will broaden the FBI’s hacking authority despite fears raised by Google that the amended language represents a “monumental” constitutional concern.”