Keeping an Eye on Government Snooping 232
abb_road writes "BusinessWeek looks at the need for better electronic privacy safeguards in light of NSA call monitoring, and more recent administration pushes for ISP data-retention. As the article discusses, though safeguards are already in place, they're easily bypassed, based on older communication norms and don't take into account any 'war-time necessity' arguments." From the article: "There's a crying need for better privacy safeguards that reflect today's world -- and mirror a consensus among America's gadget-happy, cell-phone addicts whose daily chats and text messages are grist for Echelon's computers."
Consensus? We've already got one. (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course this audience will blame it all on other people not being as smart, etc., but by a 2-to-1 ratio [go.com], people just aren't worried about it. That would usually qualify as a workable consensus... and makes it hard to gin up that sense of urgency needed to move things, politically.
And, of course, when Canadian intel people used online chat monitoring as part of their bust on those clowns that were busy procuring weapons and explosives to attack the parliment building (and that makes the news for the average viewer), that tends to further lessen the general public's interest in reducing the ability to repeat that success. Let's face it - most people aren't really all that worried if it's clear that they dial everyone they know and send a flurry of text messages at the end of every American Idol episode. Articles and comments by and for the technorati aren't going to ever feel meaningful to most folks (you know, the ones that form the consensus). Just sayin'.
Is skype still encrypted all the way? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Consensus? We've already got one. (Score:3, Interesting)
Your anecdote represents one side of the public perception, and you're right that there's a disturbing apathy about these things among the population at large.
But there's another side that also makes the news. In the UK, the police now shoot people for getting on tube trains, and veteran members of the Labour Party are manhandled out of party conferences for having the audacity to... <shock> utter a single word of criticism (it was "nonsense") about the government justification for invading Iraq </shock>. Stories like those make headlines, too, and at least for a while even the average man or woman in the street thinks something's wrong. If only they remembered...
Nobody weighs the "good vs. bad" results. (Score:5, Interesting)
Why is there no statistic whatsoever? Not even a forged one? Why can't be said "Look, there was this or that attack, and because we did efficient wiretapping it was avoided"? Maybe because there was NOT A SINGLE incident like this?
Instead we have innocents arrested and even shot because they "acted suspiciously" or because "someone thought they were doing something". Who does the bigger damage? The terrorists, or those that claim they're fighting the terror?
Balance between risk: terrorism vs state power (Score:2, Interesting)
After two centuries of liberal democratic evolution, we have developed many checks on state power. Since we haven't faced terrorist foe on this scale in a long time (perhaps since the Barbary Pirate days), our pre-9/11 system wasn't particularly well-adapted to deal with such threats.
The question we need to ask is not "Are we living up to the Platonic ideal of a free state?" but "What is the reasonable tradeoff between the risk of giving the state too much power and the risk of making it too easy for terrorists to attack us?"
The operative portion of the old adage of about trading liberty for security is that giving up essential liberty is a mistake. Until someone can point to any material harm being done by the NSA wiretapping, it doesn't sound like any essential liberties are being sacrificed here, and the improvement in security seems reasonably compensatory for the risk (of over-empowering the state) undertaken.
hmmm (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Not likely when you shoot the watchers (Score:4, Interesting)
What really bothers me is that, despite what we might like to be the case, history has borne out this fact. Most human beings who have lived, have lived under the boot of some warlord/king/dictator of some kind. What's more, many of them lived happily under that boot.
Sometimes I wonder if the human race is predisposed to living under tyrannies, and if decomcracy is just a blip, a temporary anomaly in the long story of human servitude.
Re:Only terraists... (Score:3, Interesting)
Sure, we can catch people mixing up homebrew TNT or crystal meth, but that only scratches the surface.
Just think of the benefits to be gained in hygene. Currenly there's no point in passing laws making hand washing mandatory after performing an excretory function, but with video evidence such a law would be enforceable. We could write automatic image processing routines to detect those occasions when you got to the loo and don't wash up afterwards. Three strikes and your're doing time - let's have a zero tolerance policy here. Later versions could evaluate for the thoroughness of the cleasing and make sure that only government apporved brands of soap were employed in the cleansing operations. Just think of the epidemics that could be avoided.
And it's not just physical hygene we could enforce. We can address spiritual cleanliness. All we need to do it pass a law making it illegal to play with yourself. You could put all the names on a sex offenders register perhaps. We could criminalise millions who might otherwise remain beyond the reach of law enorcement. Oh what a great day for mankind!
(and, yes likewise)