Loss of Privacy

While the things I posted yesterday were on a wide variety of topics, today’s post covers stories that typically remain in the spying and surveillance area. So, here is my list of things that I wished I had more time to read, discuss, and write about in 2007.

Keep an eye on the losses to your privacy by having a look at the Surveillance Society Clock.

The Washington Post let us know in August that the terror suspect list yields very little results. The government, however, still wants you to believe otherwise by increasing the size of the list.

Chinese bloggers are being “encouraged” to register themselves with their real identities. China is also building the largest, high-tech people tracking system in the world.

Germany wants to email trojans so they can break into suspects’ computers more easily. They just want to have a look at your computer. They also added fingerprints on their passport.

Look! An invisible tank! Oh, check this out! A flashlight that makes you puke.

The Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 pretty much created thought crime. This isn’t how the world was supposed to work.

The FBI is still following Abraham Lesnik.

The NSA claims that warrantless surveillance datamining is okay, especially if it’s related to ADVISE in any way. But, don’t worry. This information would never be used wrongfully, say, oh, I don’t know…..to stalk your ex-girlfriend. Don’t worry, though. AT&T will always protect you.

Rumors of the FBI installing spyware remotely continue. While over in Mumbai, India, mandatory keyloggers were installed at cyber cafes. Interpol would like to track you too.

Wiretapping was only the beginning. Next up, body searches without warrants.

If you’re overconfident in London, you might just get stopped and questioned by law enforcement.

There are so many stories out there about how electronic voting doesn’t work and is in shambles that one hardly knows where to start on such a topic. Just remember, no paper trail means whomever the government wants in power will be in power.

Many US Senators want to censor the web. Some judges are on their side.

Most people have no clue that their personal data is being shared with companies they don’t even associate with. The vast majority of people are ignorant to this information. Snoopware could eventually play a part in this. While we’re at it, you can be spied upon at the beach too. Bluetooth scanners can help in all this. The FBI has probably already datamined your grocery store with a little help from the credit card companies.

Questions remain as to whether you need ID to fly within the United States. Your right to travel is disappearing, but is the risk of an anal probe worth not carrying the ID though? There’s at least one man who has been arrested for refusing to show his driver’s license when exiting a retail store.

The airlines are still incompetent. Many suspect baggage still clears scans, so the airlines are now eliminating their “baggage neutrality.”

Spotting terrorists and criminals based on their movements seemed like never-ending stories in 2007.

Big Brother officially started watching you on October 1st under the guise of the new DHS office called the National Applications Office. Of course, he has some neat gadgets to do so with, both here and in the United Kingdom. Starting in February, 2008 you’ll need your papers and permission from the TSA when traveling anywhere. Once on the plane, you won’t have to worry about being subjected to harmful movies. Big brother is also watching how many cigarettes your carrying over state lines.

Homeland Security special agent in charge of recent immigration raids says it is “not uncommon” for lawful citizens to be arrested when agents roust them from their beds and demand papers. Adds “We don’t need warrants to make the arrests.”

I believe the Pirate Act, version II [pdf] is still working its way through Congress.

Washington, DC are now scanning with infrared cameras to detect humans in cars.

We can’t forget to think of the children, so we’ve put GPS onto school buses and are trying to pass legislation about what you can and can’t see on TV. We’re also training children to spy on their parents. If the children don’t conform, we’ll just let the police watch the schools on CCTV cameras.

You have to be afraid of Little Brother too these days.

You can still try to remain anonymous, though it’s getting more and more difficult each day.

We never seem to have enough time to do all the things we want to do.  There are numerous stories that I wanted to discuss over the course of the year, but time constraints prevented me from doing them all.  Here is a select list of things that need more media attention than what they have received.

TechCrunch had a story about tracking individuals within a retail store by pinging their cell phones.  Bad news for these folks as I don’t have a cell phone with which to be tracked! HA!

Slashdot also had some interesting comments on the ability to beam sonic advertising to you.  Think Minority Report and the bombardment of ads individuals were forced to look at everywhere they went.

It’s not left versus right that matters any more. The real division is between authority and personal liberty.  So goes the headline in the Guardian.  It’s a short read, but the longer comments are also worth checking out.

Homeland Security Secretary, Michael Chertoff, wants to quell the anxieties of privacy advocates so that he can get his satellite surveillance system up and running.  It’s still going to cost $15 billion to “protect” the nation.  It’s still also shrouded in secrecy, so how much quelling he’s going to do is up in the air.

As soon as he claims this, Chertoff is off claiming yet more craziness that freaks out privacy advocates even more.  Now, he’s claiming that it’s perfectly legal to turn spy satellites, once aimed at foreign surveillance, onto American citizens.

As much as I wanted to write about the Toilet Conference, or World Toilet Summit, I found I just didn’t have the time.  I really would enjoy going to the conference though.

Some other cool things I would have liked to have written were topics covering open libraries and public domain books.  Project Gutenberg is the first place I ever went to for an online library many years ago.  Then there’s the ever popular Internet Archive.  Yahoo is backing the Open  Content Alliance, which, in turn, joined with the Internet Archive to for the Open Library.

On a similar, but much cooler, note, there’s the online translator that can translate English words into cuneiform script from the Assyrian, Babylonian, Sumerian and the hieroglyphic script of Egyptian.

I also came across a scanned column that included the worst advice you could ever receive.  It’s funny and sad at the same time.

The neatest thing I didn’t write about this year was about the lost text (now found so not lost anymore) of Greek mathematician, Archimedes, who used a prayer book 700 years ago to scribble a bunch of notes in.  The evidence suggests that he was very close to discovering the principles of calculus.

Over in New Delhi, there’s over 1,000 street kids that have started their own bank.  It helps them manage the small amounts of money they make each day and prevents theft of their hard earned money from would-be muggers.  It also means that they won’t spend their money on spontaneous, stupid things, thus giving them hope of not being street kids the rest of their lives.

There exists tiny probes that can see inside your body.  Cool and scary.  It’s about the size of a grain of rice and is still being tested by US researchers, but it could also have some cool medical applications.  It’s shaped like a 3-D hexagon so it won’t suffer from the tunnel vision that the current probes are forced to deal with.

The FBI is planning on putting up 150 digital billboards in 20 major cities to display fugitives, missing persons, and security messages.  These billboards will be updated in real time so that American citizens will know immediately of a crime committed or an attack perpetrated.

The FBI said it tested its first billboard in the Philadelphia area in September, with crystal-clear images of 11 of its most violent fugitives on eight billboards and a 24-hour hotline for the public to call. The billboards paid quick public safety dividends. In October, two fugitives were captured as a direct result of the publicity, the FBI said.

Chicago, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Miami will be among those cities provided with the new billboards, along with Milwaukee and Philadelphia.The FBI said Atlanta, Cleveland, Indianapolis, Memphis and Minneapolis will also get the billboards, as will Akron, Ohio; Columbus, Ohio; Albuquerque, N.M.; El Paso, Texas; Des Moines, Iowa; Newark, N.J.; Wichita, Kan.; and the Florida cities of Tampa and Orlando.

I eagerly await the day when some idiot hacks the system to put up big boobs or the picture of the president onto the billboards.

So, what’s the problem in this?  It sounds like a good idea, right?  Well, the road to hell is paved with lots of good intentions.  They aren’t plastering the faces of local sex offenders…yet.  They aren’t letting you know of recently released convicts…yet.  They aren’t putting up the pictures of deadbeat dads…yet.  They aren’t putting up the photos of those that file for bankruptcy…yet.

What will the government do when they put up a photo of a supposed child molester, simply because he walked into the store around the time a child disappeared?  It doesn’t matter if you’re later found innocent.  I saw you on that billboard, so you must be guilty.

This system is designed to put up “just committed” crimes so that you can find the suspect.  Even if he’s cleared later on, you will already believe he is guilty due to the slanderous nature of these billboards.  Try repairing the damage to one’s image after something like that has occurred.

As Americans, we will also be segregating ourselves into an us vs. them world, whereby criminals are no longer seen as people, but only terror suspects of one type or another.  If you question why someone is on a billboard, you will be put into the “them” category simply for questioning those in authority.

I also suspect that many of the crooks on the billboards will be minorities and we all know where that is going.  See enough minorities wanted every day on a billboard and you will soon believe that only minorities commit crimes.

The America I grew up in has almost completely disappeared, replaced with an amalgam of all the dystopian worlds I’ve read about in books and saw at the movies.