Loss of Privacy

Given my intense hatred for CSI: Miami, I cracked up laughing at the cartoon below of Horatio Caine.  I don’t know who uploaded it to image shack (or how long it will be there), but it’s great.

It might sound like something out of sci-fi, but plenty of parasites can control the minds of caterpillars, roaches, crabs, and maybe even us. In many cases, scientists don’t know exactly how these creatures achieve mind control.

Check out this great photo gallery of zombie animals and the parasites that control them.  It’s pretty cool, ending with a crazy cat that could kill humans.

American and EU security officials are claiming that they need closer ties in order to fight terrorism.  To accomplish their goals, officials say that they need to be able to freely share information contained in their various databases.

The group’s controversial proposals are certain to trigger major disputes, not least its calls for Europe to create an expeditionary corps of armed gendarmerie for paramilitary intervention overseas.

Such a pact, which should be finalised by 2014 at the latest, would entail the transfer of vast volumes of information on European citizens and travellers to the US authorities. Negotiations have long been under way to agree such a pact, but have been bedevilled by divergences in privacy law and data protection regimes.

“The European Commission and the US homeland security department are also trying to iron out discrepancies in privacy laws to allow the wholesale exchange of data.”

While urging a comprehensive transatlantic electronic pact, the Future Group focuses mainly on boosting police cooperation and integration between EU states, policies which would reinforce the powers of European agencies and institutions bearing acronyms such as Europol, Eurojust, Frontex, and Sitcen and perhaps see new agencies established to deal with security and intelligence operations.

Several member states, not least Britain, will have deep qualms about the proposals, with the British likely to balk at automatic pooling of national intelligence.

Big Brother Britain would just like to keep all the details about their citizens in their own hands.

The Government will store “a billion incidents of data exchange a day” as details of every text, email and browsing session in the UK are recorded under new proposals published yesterday.

The information will be made available to police forces in order to crack down on serious crime, but will also be accessible by local councils, health authorities and even Ofsted and the Post Office.

Why do local councils and the post office need access to this data?  For that matter, why do health authorities need to know that your mom sent you a text to remind you to pick up some milk on the way home?  Oh, that’s right.  It’s because Big Brother needs to know every minute detail of your life.

Figuring out how the UK, EU, and USA are going to store, mine, and sort the massive amounts of data is going to be so huge, it could just be financially unviable.

Better go learn The GNU Privacy Guard, FireGPG, Encrypt This!, Fire Encrypter, GPG, and truecrypt.

If you don’t want the governments of the world knowing what you’re doing, regardless of legality, then you need to start scrambling and hiding what you do.  Governments are already snooping and want to expand further.  Don’t make it any easier for them.

If mass arrests happen at the Democratic Convention, those taken into custody will be jailed in a warehouse owned by the City of Denver.

The newly created lockup is on the northeast side of Denver. Protesters have already given this place a name: “Gitmo on the Platte.”

Inside are dozens are metal cages. They are made out of chain link fence material and topped by rolls of barbed wire.

“This is a secured environment,” Capt. Frank Gale of the Denver Sheriff’s Department told CBS4. “We’re concerned about how that’s going to be utilized by people who will be potentially disruptive.”

Potentially disruptive.  If the police believe you might be disruptive, in the cage you go.

Each of the fenced areas is about 5 yards by 5 yards and there is a lock on the door. A sign on the wall reads “Warning! Electric stun devices used in this facility.”

Ah, we know where this is going already.  Potentially disruptive people will be tasered for any little thing they say or do.  They might even use pain guns, goo guns, and powdered pepper spray.

The plans were to keep this lockup a secret, at least for now.

Oh, so you wanted to keep it a secret that you intended to arrest lots of people that probably haven’t done anything wrong because they might disrupt your setup for the perfect convention?

The American Civil Liberties Union is asking the City of Denver how prisoners will get access to food and water, bathrooms, telephones, plus medical care, and if there will be a place to meet with attorneys.

Well, this is why they wanted to keep it secret.  Now, they will have to give their prisoners access to all this stuff.

More disturbing is that the Denver police are already monitoring the protesters’ websites.  The police appear to be looking for any excuse to show who’s in charge and who they can provoke to make their original claim, that the cages are necessary, valid.

If you commit a violent crime, then, yes, you should go to prison.  However, the problem with these cages is that the Denver police wanted to keep it a secret.  The signs declaring the use of tasers is equally disturbing.  Added to this is the fact that the government and police departments have used agent provocateurs before, which helped create riots, which, in turn, got a whole lot of people arrested that shouldn’t have been arrested.  These cages’ sole purpose is for large, sweeping arrests, innocent and guilty.  It happened in 2004 at the Republican Convention.  It’s not really a stretch to see that it’s going to happen again.

The Harrold School District in Texas will allow teachers and staff to carry guns starting on August 25th when the new school year begins.

To deter and protect against school shootings, trustees have altered district policy to allow employees to carry concealed weapons if they have a state permit and permission from the administration.

Why?  If there are only 110 children in the entire district, why do you need to carry a weapon to school?  Surely, there are enough teachers and staff that they know the children well enough and a school shooting should not be a worry?  Or are these some sort of mutant children who just want to cause destruction and mayhem?

Superintendent David Thweatt said a main concern was that the small community is a 30-minute drive from the sheriff’s office, leaving students and teachers without protection.

Protection from what?  How bad is your tiny town that this is even a remote possibility?

The district’s lone campus sits 500 feet from heavily trafficked U.S. 287, which could make it a target, Thweatt said.

So here we go.  We must protect the children.  Blah.  Blah.  Blah.  Some random person might come in here and start shooting, even though there’s little to no chance of that, well, until now that you’ve told people!  Even then, there’s still no chance.

Other security measures are in place, including one-way access to enter the school, state-of-the-art surveillance cameras and electric locks on doors. But after the Virginia Tech massacre and the Amish school shooting in Pennsylvania, Thweatt felt he had to take further action, he said.

So, there is no threat near you.  There is very little chance that threat is going to increase, yet you’ve decided to make school a prison for the children.  How very progressive of you.  While you’re at it, make sure you indoctrinate them into believing the state is always right too.

“When the federal government started making schools gun-free zones, that’s when all of these shootings started,” Thweatt said. “Why would you put it out there that a group of people can’t defend themselves? That’s like saying ‘sic ’em’ to a dog.”

Really?  I didn’t know that school shootings were so rampant in America.  Oh, that’s right.  They aren’t.  There are a handful of these unfortunate incidents, but there isn’t such a pandemic of school shootings that it’s necessary to arm yourselves in this way.

What is the school district going to do when they break up a fist fight and lose their gun?  Now, instead of just having a few bloody noses, you’ve got a loose weapon to finish the fight.

“The naysayers think [a shooting] won’t happen here,” he said. “If something were to happen here, I’d much rather be calling a parent to tell them that their child is OK because we were able to protect them.”

And, by arming up to 50 staff members, you’ve just increased the chances of someone’s child getting shot.  The teacher also now has a target on their head.  Anyone with a weapon is going to be taken out first by any attackers that might possibly appear.

You’ve also put the responsibility on the teachers and staff should any incident occur.  Sure, the teacher may put down a bad guy, but now, you’ve got to look for a new teacher because, at best, that teacher is going to go to jail for manslaughter.  Oh, and when they get out of prison, they can’t go back to teaching because they’ve been convicted of a felony.  This is a seriously bad idea that’s hard to believe ever got approval.

Guns will not solve the problem of making thugs behave in class either.  Yes, many thugs fear guns, don’t want to get shot, and don’t want to die.  However, they also know that the teachers would not be able to use the guns when they swear at teachers, when they punch people in the mouth, or when they are being generally disruptive.  Do you want your teachers pulling out their gun and saying, “Sit down and pay attention or I’ll shoot you?”  No.  That’s not going to happen.

Guns are not going to take care of the thug problem, it’s only going to worsen it.  The thugs will taunt the teachers into using the guns.  Eventually, someone is going to cave in and use it unnecessarily.  Remember, this is being implemented in a school of 110 students in the entire district.  What’s going on in this school that makes guns an ideal choice?  That is what people should be investigating.

Educational staff are not security specialists.  To use them in such a manner is a terrible idea, one that is going to eventually backfire.  If the school and the area it’s in is so bad that this is necessary, hire properly trained people instead of making your teachers do the work for free.

Creating the scenario where some nutjob just happens to be driving down the highway near your tiny school and decides that now is the perfect time to jump out of his vehicle and run into your school, shooting up the place is something from Hollywood.  It’s as likely as a terrorist blowing up your local Wal-Mart.

Putting innocent children into harm’s way is not only stupid, it’s irresponsible.  It’s too bad that the people in this tiny town probably think arming themselves for such a slim chance happening is a good idea.  Arming yourself against the boogeyman is never a good idea.  It only creates more fear over something that is highly imaginable.