We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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From dc.internet.com:
U.S. Rep. Ed Markey (D.-MA) introduced legislation Thursday to allow cell phone customers to choose at no cost to not have their numbers listed in a national wireless directory. Although there is currently no such service, the wireless industry hopes to roll out directories next year similar to the landline 411 call assistance service.
The bill, known as the Wireless 411 Privacy Act, would require wireless carriers to have “clear pre-authorization” before listing an existing customer’s name and number in a directory. New customers would have to be given a “clear conspicuous mechanism” to decline to participate in any wireless directory assistance database.
The legisation further requires that no fee be charged for opting out of a national wireless directory.
Clearly this is White Rose Relevant, but taht last bit bothers me. “Choosing at no cost” sounds to me like loading costs onto other people.
More RFID coverage in the Chicago Sun-Times:
RFID chips could make your daily life easier, but they also could let anyone with a scanning device know what kind of underwear you have on and how much money is in your wallet
But these same super-small computer chips might also, for the convenience of retailers, be tucked into every shirt you wear, every book you buy and even every dollar bill you put in your wallet – and that could inadvertently create a profound threat to your personal privacy. A clever snoop, armed with a scanner that can read the radio signals coming from the microchips, could size you up in an instant while just strolling past you on the street.
Spooky. (Actually it sounds rather fun. Sorry. Sorry.)
Courtesy of COMUSNAVEUR Security Staff, via my sources I received the following warning:
You are advised that hotel room keys that look like a credit card will contain personal information, including:
- Customers (your) name
- Customers partial home address
- Hotel room number
- Check in date and check out date
- Customers (your) credit card number and expiration date.
- In Europe, passport numbers are also frequently recorded onto the cards.
When you turn them in to the front desk your personal information is there for any employee to access by simply scanning the card in the hotel scanner. An employee can take a handfull of cards home and using a readily available scanning device, access the information onto a laptop computer and go shopping at your expense. Simply put, hotels do not erase these cards until an employee issues the card to the next hotel guest. It is usually kept in a drawer at the front desk with YOUR INFORMATION ON IT!
You should always destroy the card. NEVER leave it behind in the room and NEVER turn them in to the front desk when you check out of a room. The hotel will not charge you for the card.
Statewatch reports that legal opinion says that under the ECHR mandatory data retention is disproportionate, contrary to the rule of law and cannot be said to be necessary in a democratic society
Privacy International (cannot find a link to this on their site) have obtained a Legal Opinion from the international law firm Covington and Burling which presents a devastating critique of plans by EU governments and the Council of the European Union to introduce the mandatory retention of communications data. The Opinion examines in particular the draft EU Framework Decision on communications data retention and access to it leaked by Statewatch in August 2002.
The Opinion concludes that:
The data retention regime envisaged by the (EU) Framework Decision, and now appearing in various forms at the Member State level, is unlawful.
…
The indiscriminate collection of traffic data offends a core principle of the rule of law: that citizens should have notice of the circumstances in which the State may conduct surveillance, so that they can regulate their behaviour to avoid unwanted intrusions. Moreover, the data retention requirement would be so extensive as to be out of all proportion to the law enforcement objectives served. Under the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, such a disproportionate interference in the private lives of individuals cannot be said to be necessary in a democratic society.
The Telegraph reports that a police force is recruiting driving instructors, milkmen and delivery drivers to be its “eyes and ears” on the streets in response to criticism over lack of visible policing.
West Midlands police said that as “trouble spotters”, they will be urged to report crimes and traffic accidents, and will be issued with clipboards and asked to write down any activity they believe needs investigating.
Rising crime and paperwork for officers has meant that beat officers and roving patrol cars are seldom seen.
Twenty instructors have already joined the pilot scheme in Halesowen, which will be expanded across the force.
Maria of Crooked Timber has posted this, warning that there are proposals afoot to oblige those who register domain names to give lots of personal information.
Here is a clip from Maria’s post:
Next week the body that oversees the technical co-ordination of the internet, ICANN, meets at Carthage in Tunisia. The top item on the agenda, for anyone who cares about privacy and freedom of expression, is the WHOIS database. This is the set of data of domain name owners which was originally collected so that network administrators could find and fix technical problems and keep the internet running smoothly.
Of course no collection of personal data can remain long without various interests campaigning to open it up to a variety of unintended uses. In this case, those interests include IP rights holders, law enforcement, oppressive regimes, stalkers, and of course spammers.
While the first two groups have some legitimate interests in this data [Some of us here might disagree re law enforcement – NS], the others clearly do not. (I have blogged before about the unholy alliance of law enforcement and IP holders on this issue.) But instead of pushing for proportionate lawful access requirements, the latter are demanding that the entire database be policed for accuracy and published on the internet for all to see. Which means that if A.N. Other wants to publish a website, he/she must be content for his email and postal address to be made completely public. There are plenty of good and legitimate reasons to want to publish a website anonymously (and you don’t have to be a Chinese dissident to think of them)…”
The rest of the post includes some sample letters to the bods at ICANN. I am not sure I would sign up to every word in them, but it does look to me as if now might be a good time to register our protest.
In Australia it is common for voters to receive letters from their political representatives, and these letters are becoming more and more sophisticated in targeting the interests of the individual voters.
The two major political parties are able to do this because they have established databases. The inner workings of the databases have been somewhat elusive, but Wayne Errington and Peter van Onselen have written an academic paper (warning- PDF file) on how these databases work. The implications for the privacy of voters are odious, especially considering the temptations for political parties in government to cross check their party databases with government ones.
I found this via Ken Parish, and check out the comments on his post where Wayne Errington makes some further good points about the database’s operation. He says the saving grace (so far) is that the political parties are actually rather slack in maintaining their databases; however, as time goes on, you can expect the party machines to become more professional in this matter.
PRIVACY INTERNATIONAL
MEDIA RELEASE
LEGAL BLOW TO UK GOVERNMENT’S “SNOOPERS CHARTER”
Retention of phone and Internet records breaches European human rights law
15th October 2003
EMBARGOED UNTIL 11 PM, WEDNESDAY 15th OCTOBER 2003
Details of a legal Opinion announced today has dealt a blow to Home Office plans to snoop on the phone and Internet activity of the UK population.
The Opinion, which relates to an EU framework directive on the retention of communications data, has profound ramifications for ten EU states that have implemented, or are planning to implement, measures to place communications users under blanket surveillance. The UK is in the early stages of implementing such measures.
A series of regulations (Statutory Instruments) recently laid before the UK Parliament intends to create a legal basis for comprehensive surveillance of communications. The regulations will allow an extensive list of public authorities access to records of individuals’ telephone and Internet usage. This “communications data” — phone numbers and e-mail addresses contacted, web sites visited, locations of mobile phones, etc. – will be available to government without any judicial oversight. Not only does government want access to this information, but it also intends to oblige companies to keep personal data just in case it may be useful.
The twenty-page legal Opinion was commissioned by Privacy International and was provided by the international law firm Covington & Burling. It has unequivocally concluded that such plans would be unlawful.
The Opinion states: “The data retention regime envisaged by the (EU) Framework Decision, and now appearing in various forms at the Member State level, is unlawful.
“Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) guarantees every individual the right to respect for his or her private life, subject only to narrow exceptions where government action is imperative. The Framework Decision and national laws similar to it would interfere with this right, by requiring the accumulation of large amounts of information bearing on individuals’ private activities. This interference with the privacy rights of every user of European-based communications services cannot be justified under the limited exceptions envisaged by Article 8 because it is neither consistent with the rule of law nor necessary in a democratic society.
The Opinion continues: “The indiscriminate collection of traffic data offends a core principle of the rule of law: that citizens should have notice of the circumstances in which the State may conduct surveillance, so that they can regulate their behaviour to avoid unwanted intrusions. Moreover, the data retention requirement would be so extensive as to be out of all proportion to the law enforcement objectives served. Under the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, such a disproportionate interference in the private lives of individuals cannot be said to be necessary in a democratic society.”
The Opinion details a lengthy history of case law that clearly rules against the use of indiscriminate surveillance of communications.
Privacy International today warned that it intends to pursue test cases in at least two EU countries where mandatory retention has been implemented. It is currently seeking litigants from within the communications industry.
The Opinion – along with the substance of the government’s proposals – will be debated at a public meeting hosted by the London School of Economics on Wednesday October 22nd (see http://www.privacyinternational.org/conference/sfs7/ for details and registration information). The meeting will involve speakers from the Home Office, the Department of Constitutional Affairs, the Department of Works & Pensions, Local authorities and ACPO, together with industry representatives and parliamentarians.
In two parallel actions, Privacy International today lodged a complaint with the Information Commissioner alleging that the government’s regulations and voluntary code on retention breaches at least three of the core Data Protection principles enshrined in the Data Protection Act. The complaint requests the Commissioner to take urgent action to alert the appropriate Parliamentary committees, and to support a referral to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights Committee.
The complaint argues that the blanket retention of communications data breaches the principle of proportionality, that the practice flouts the specificity principle, and that the existence of a voluntary code for communications providers takes no account of the consent principle.
Privacy International has today also lodged an Open Government request for disclosure of the government’s legal advice relating to the regulations before the Parliament.
Simon Davies, director of Privacy International, said: “This is an important legal analysis. It clearly exposes the government’s intention not only to snoop unnecessarily on innocent people, but also to force unwilling companies to be complicit in an unprecedented and disproportionate surveillance regime”.
“The government’s plans are illegal. We are calling on all communications providers to support their customers’ rights by ignoring the government’s proposals”.
_____
Simon Davies of Privacy International can be reached for comment on 07958 466 552 (from the UK) or on (+44) 7958 466 552 (from outside the UK). Email simon@privacy.org
Copies of all documents mentioned in this release can be obtained by contacting Simon Davies.
Privacy International (PI) (www.privacyinternational.org) is a human rights group formed in 1990 as a watchdog on surveillance by governments and corporations. PI is based in London, and has an office in Washington, D.C. Together with members in 40 countries, PI has conducted campaigns throughout the world on issues ranging from wiretapping and national security activities, to ID cards, video surveillance, data matching, police information systems, and medical privacy, and works with a wide range of parliamentary and inter-governmental organisations such as the European Parliament, the House of Lords and UNESCO.
Here’s a White Rose Relevant speech in the House of Representatives, from April 16th of this year, by Representative Ron Paul of Texas. Apologies if it’s already been flagged up here, but I don’t believe it has. Paul is not the kind of man who gets to decide the law, but his opinions still count for something.
First two paragraphs:
Mr. Speaker, I rise to introduce the Patient Privacy Act. This bill repeals the misnamed Medical Privacy regulation, which went into effect on April 14 and actually destroys individual medical privacy. The Patient Privacy Act also repeals those sections of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 authorizing the establishment of a “standard unique health care identifier” for all Americans, as well as prohibiting the use of federal funds to develop or implement a database containing personal health information. Both of these threats to medical freedom grew out of the Clinton-era craze to nationalize health care as much as politically possible.
Establishment of a uniform medical identifier would allow federal bureaucrats to track every citizen’s medical history from cradle to grave. Furthermore, as explained in more detail below, it is possible that every medical professional, hospital, and Health Maintenance Organization (HMO) in the country would be able to access an individual citizen’s records simply by entering an identifier into a health care database.
STL today.com reports that Charter Communications Inc., third largest cable provider in the United States, filed a suit on Friday seeking to block the recording industry from obtaining the identities of Charter customers who allegedly shared copyrighted music over the Internet. Charter filed papers in U.S. District Court in St. Louis in a bid to quash subpoenas that the Recording Industry Association of America issued seeking the identities of about 150 Charter customers.
“We are the only major cable company that has not as yet provided the RIAA a single datum of information,” said Tom Hearity, vice president and associate general counsel for Charter.
Via Slashdot
This is like something out of a comic novel:
The players know who they are, the media knows who they are and, thanks to the internet, millions of members of the public know who they are.
But yesterday, despite fears that fans of the clubs involved in the Premiership rape allegations would publicly finger the suspects at the tops of their voices, football crowds showed uncharacteristic restraint.
Just to make sure, sound engineers turned down microphones to prevent obscene chanting being heard by television viewers and radio listeners. But there was no need. Football fans, armed obviously with a better working knowledge of the law of contempt of court than the editors of some of the websites and papers they read, kept any taunting of the players involved in the 17-year-old girl’s claims to themselves.
So, no chanting on matters that are sub judice.
Patrick Crozier reflects on the privacy dilemmas of celebs, in this case the soccer celebs who are being accused of gang rape.
He concludes: (1) privacy for such people is dead (“I found out the name of the club involved in 10 minutes”), (2) for a celeb simply being cleared is not enough, (3) this affects the club(s) hugely (well yes! – BM), and (4) If Patrick were an accused celeb he’d tell the truth in public (either way) quickly.
The whole thing (not that much longer than this) is here.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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