Ban internet anonymity – says US Homeland Security official Internet anonymity should be banned and everyone required to carry the equivalent of a license plate when driving around online. That's according to Erik Barnett, the US Department of Homeland Security's attaché to the European Union. Writing in French policy magazine FIC Observatoire, Barnett somewhat predictably relies on …
The old adage comes to mind: "Those who want power are the last people who should be allowed to have it".
We have to live with a certain amount of risk. Those who wish to control the world so that there is no risk - are merely showing their own insecurity about themselves - and possibly fearing/hiding their own dark thoughts.
People with power in the USA over the centuries have form on paranoid witch hunts - both literal and figurative.
You wrote:
"People with power in the USA over the centuries have form on paranoid witch hunts - both literal and figurative."
You should have written:
"People with power over the centuries have form on paranoid witch hunts - both literal and figurative."
You do a grave disservice to those people living outside the US who have suffered, are suffering, and will suffer from the paranoid witch hunts of the powerful throughout history
This is not an issue confined to the US (although they're in it up to their eyebrows), this overreach has happened, and is happening, everywhere.
All of us must fight together in this battle against those who would presume themselves to be our masters. If they succeed, they will have levels of control only dreamt of by the likes of Beria, Himmler, or Mielke.
Erik Barnett says:
"The license plate's identifiers are ignored most of the time by law enforcement"
That is a lie Mr. Barnett. The identifiers are NEVER ignored.
Police vehicles in the US have license plate readers integrated into the vehicle's computer system. The readers automatically scan the plate number of EVERY vehicle in front of them, and check it against any database they can access.
The most discussed aspect of all this is the length of time the data will be retained. The coppers want to hold it indefinitely, the more astute members of the public believe the data should be discarded immediately after the plate is shown to be clean.
I wonder what Mr. Barnett would have to say about that.
It doesn't matter. He's a surveillance addict, like (it seems) most in his line of work. Addicts will rationalize their way out of any argument. They're not interested in debate, except as a way of confirming their own beliefs.
It's not surprising that surveillance is addictive. Humans are social animals; we find each others' activities interesting, generally speaking. And surveillance is powerful and profitable. So it both satisfies an innate need and brings pleasure. Not surprisingly, it's very like other forms of interpersonal dominance in that way; but it's unusual in that it can be exercised in secret, which makes it appealing to those who have negative affective reactions to confrontation, and makes it easy to achieve through technological means.
Consequently, we'll never stamp out the government inclination toward surveillance, and probably the best - probably the only - way we have of slowing its growth is to push for a popular reaction against it on civil-rights grounds, which can at least throw up some impediments to it. Historically, that's been the most successful strategy against systemic oppression in the modern era. The combination of popular agitation in the short term and changing prevailing attitudes in the longer term has achieved moderate success on a number of areas that have been framed as essential human rights.
The more-accomplished proponents of surveillance, like Barnett, are aware of this, of course, which is why they couch their position in terms of anecdotes and vague warnings about violations of those same rights (Papism, witchcraft, sex trafficking, terrorism, international Communism - whatever the bugbear of the day). And there is some benefit to debunking those arguments, for the benefit of third parties who are still open to reasonable persuasion. But you aren't going to get the policing types to admit a mistake, and for the masses you'll need to appeal more directly to liberal1 ideology.
1In the political-science sense, not the US "I don't know what 'liberal' means but I don't like it" one.
The readers automatically scan the plate number of EVERY vehicle in front of them
Not just USA. When I drive across Europe the state of affairs is:
UK - In theory, a nation under ANPR. In practice, the smaller roads and small cities are not covered
NL - well, the birthplace of GATSOMeter corp, shall we say more
DE, CZ, A - All motorways, supposedly for toll enforcement. They read all plates, unclear what they do with them
Hu - All motorways, road tax enforcement, considering the inclination of the government there ....
Ro - A camera here and there for road tax enforcement, not even close to rest of Eu (they are surprisingly law abiding down there).
Bg - All A roads and all motorways, supposedly for road tax enforcement which interestingly enough is not done. So god only knows what is done with the data.
Greece - what camera? Camera? You expect a country which did not even have a national birth register till less then 5 years ago to have working ANPR? You mean someone will pay tax? You are joking, right.
E - I have not noticed any cameras, but that does not mean there aren't any.
F - camera at every toll and by god, they have more tolls than USA.
Back to your HOMEland!
What the Feck is HOMEland security doing with a European attache?
Aren't there enough other US agencies blundering around other people's countries trying to keep the terrists out of 'The Land of The Free'?
We'll have the TSA with their rubber gloves at boarding gates for US bound flights soon.
If one reads the articles coming out of the EU, the UK and just about every other country, they're all pulling this crap. Not sure who's leading who here but it is more widespread than just in the US. Our masters want to know everything...
I'm surprised we're not all living in glass houses and driving glass cars so they can see that we're not doing anything illegal. So far, no one's suggested that we all walk around naked so they can see if we're carrying bombs, guns, or anything else illegal.
<sarc>Maybe the 'no clothing" part is coming once global warming is embraced. Then they can mandate it without worrying about anyone freezing.</sarc>
We'll have the TSA with their rubber gloves at boarding gates for US bound flights soon.
We most certainly will:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3367396/US-guards-guns-patrol-British-airports-time-controversial-new-plans-discussed-London-Washington.html
Excuse the source, just the first news link to this story that Google chucked up.
I've just read the article you've linked, and while it isn't a done deal yet, the very fact that HM government did not immediately tell the DHS to sod off, is very depressing. I hold out hope, against the evidence it seems, that the Europeans will resist the blandishments of their counterparts in Washington.
Please, please, please, tell them to fuck off.
You want to see my digital fingerprints? I can only let you see one.... (or two if your european)...
Same tired arguement that is used by LE whenever they want to invade our privacy...
"It will stop kids from being molested, and of course, if you are against that you are obviously one of the pedos!"
I bet these same "law enforcers" would not like us going through their computers and emails en masse either.
"As the use of technology by human beings grows..."
There's the problem. Right....there. Perhaps we should henceforth ban human beings from using technology and just teach panda bears how to run everything. I mean, who could ever get angry at a cute, fuzzy panda bear? They seem peaceful enough, just let them take care of it all while we spend our lives growing bamboo. Human beings, especially ones in positions of power over other human beings, are stupid, power-hungry, selfish critters. But mostly just stupid.
I, for one, welcome our adorable ailuropoda overlords.
There are situations where people are legally entitled to anonymity. For example the victim of child abuse, name one online and you could end up doing time. So say a victim of abuse is looking for help is this idiot saying they aren't entitled to this basic legal right while on line?
Think again cretin, I bet you don't.
Actually you probably don't give a shit about the victim.
The argument probably goes: "they shouldn't use the Internet"
No, I don't agree with that point of view either. I don't think one should have to be a victim of abuse to claim anonymity if they feel a need to do so.
Paradoxically, by forcing everyone to be identifiable, the US government is more or less making everyone a victim of its policies, thus pretty much giving everyone all the reason they need to make themselves anonymous.
He played the "Think of the Children" card right off, didn't he? The problem is that people saying this never are concerned with the actual children and want us proles to focus on the horrible predators out in the wilds of the internet. When we stop to consider what we would actually want for our children (and ourselves), the answer is usually the opposite of what is being requested.
"When a person drives a car on a highway, he or she agrees to display a license plate. The license plate's identifiers are ignored most of the time by law enforcement [unless] the car is involved in a legal infraction or otherwise becomes a matter of public interest."
Not in the UK... Registration plates are routinely scanned by roadside ANPR equipped cameras and the details stored on a database.... Hardly "ignored" are they?
There are too many plastic policemen wanting total oversight of our lives.
"Who determines the level of 'extremism' of a group? Few would disagree that law enforcement and intelligence services should have the ability"
Few people, I suppose, except the hundreds of peaceful and legitimate political organizations that were infiltrated by intelligence agencies in the US, the UK and elsewhere, apparently for no particular reason other than someone in a position of authority didn't like the cut of their jib?
(see the unfolding story about undercover spooks *getting engaged to people* in such organizations, thus entirely ruining their lives...)
Well, quite. In 2006, Benjamin Netanyahu attended a commemoration of a clear act of terrorism... the bombing of the King David Hotel in 1946 and the death of 91 people and one terrorist. Yesterday he claimed there could be no justification for terror. This illustrates both the hypocrisy of politicians (bombing hotels is OK if you're fighting for The Right Cause(tm), but not otherwise), but also the fungible nature of "terrorism" vs "freedom" or "independence" fighters.
When given access to power, or even when put in close proximity to great potential power, and information is power, people will ultimately do exactly the wrong thing. If there are rules in place to prevent abuse of power, then those rules will eventually be whittled away until they are no longer a concern. It is not a matter of "if", it is a matter "when".
Free societies are supposed to be above the tools of the "bad-guys", the likes of which killed millions of people in the first half of the 1900's. Eternal vigilance is indeed the price of liberty; vigilance against those who would peddle fear to undermine those liberties.
"All good is hard. All evil is easy. Dying, Losing, cheating and mediocrity are easy. Stay away from easy"
-- Scott Alexander
So, how much for a license? Can it be revoked? Is it like EasyPass? Are at least the political elite exempt as usual?
But then again, why not just tiptoe around common sense and silly documents like the US Consttution and just request the "digital fingerprints" on the "Information Super-Highway" from the Google and Facebook directly? Why not just regulate ISPs to cough up traffic data? It's been done with AT&T on phones, can be done again?
There is a tiny bit of difference though between being able to lookup someone's license plate and find out if there is anything dodgy about the car or the owner - and being able to type in a license plate and find out every vehicle ever linked to the owner, every location the owner has ever driven and every person the owner has ever had contact with (including a handy lookup to explore the entire history of these people too) - even though the owner doesn't have a criminal record or any involvement ever with law enforcement - what is being suggested is very much more like the latter situation than the former.
You know, cameras should regulated too. After all, you cannot have child pornography without first taking a picture. And terrorists use video messages to spread their hate. So, every picture and movie should require you to enter your ID before it can be operated so that a watermark can be embedded in the images. You shouldn't mind. After all, if you have nothing to hide ...
(Maybe I shouldn't be given these bureaucracies ideas.)
(Why Do You Hate America So Much?)
Barnett bleats:
"As the use of technology by human beings grows and we look at ethical and philosophical questions surrounding ownership of data and privacy interests, we must start to ask how much of the user's data is fair game for law enforcement to protect children from sexual abuse?"
A: Any and all of it...once you have a properly sworn warrant for it, and not one millisecond earlier! (Mr. Barnett, you do know what a millisecond is, don't you?)
Anything else is unconstitutional, and sponsoring or advocating anything that is unconstitutional makes you an unpatriotic, anti-American mongrel worthy of the most loathsome of contempt and scorn.
Oh, and you're also a fuckhead.
The internet is not a public space like a road.
It's a semi-private space, like a party in my house. A couple of other students wander in, and I don't know them but they seem cool so grab yourselves a beer.
A cop walks in ... hey GTFO fascist pig! Do you have a warrant? No, so GTFO.
particularly when you deal with issues regarding forming an opinion. This is one of the most basic rights in any society.
We do accept number plates on cars since driving a car usually isn't a form of political expression, however you can potentially harm other while doing so. This is something completely different, though there are edge cases where you are driving with a car to a demonstration or something.
A completely open society won't work either, since certain people can just create new legal persons (companies) and use those to obscure their actions.
We need to agitate for a law that requires any politician, spook or cop who uses the "think of the children" excuse for any reason, to mandatorily spend a year in this schoolteacher's shoes.
What we're actually discussing here is making a change to our entire society from "Rule Of Law" to "Rule By Law", and these are two VERY different things. A good explanation of the differences between these at can be found at http://branemrys.blogspot.ca/2005/08/rule-of-law-vs-rule-by-law.html. Below are two snippets from that blog;
"Rule of law is an intrinsically moral notion. Indeed, I don't see how one can have a consistent theory of rule of law without appealing either to natural law theory or to some higher rule by law (e.g., divine command theory)."
"Rule by law is very different, despite some superficial similarities. Rule by law is prudential: one rules by law (properly speaking) not because the law is higher than oneself but because it is convenient to do so and inconvenient not to do so. In rule of law, the law is something the government serves; in rule by law, the government uses law as the most convenient way to govern."
That sums it up pretty nicely. What we are seeing today is a movement to change society in a subtle yet detrimental manner. Enforcing the rule of law while maintaining a free society is not an easy task, nor should it be. Making it an easy task by turning to "rule by law" may ultimately lead to despotism, which, history shows, will eventually crumble. When that happens (not in my lifetime (I hope)) it may involve a great cost of life and set humanity back into a dark age.
Internet anonymity is almost akin to wearing a burka or a ski mask.
Privacy does not require anonymity. Privacy the public not knowing. Anonymity is nobody knowing.
Privacy is something people historically have had going back centuries. Anonymity that few people used to have until most of the population moved to large cities. Even then we lived in communities where everyone knew us. Only transients had anonymity.
Replacing anonymity with privacy would mean less desire to monitor us because there would be less criminal activity on the internet.
Replacing anonymity with privacy would mean less cyber crime because cyber criminals could be more easily tracked and arrested by police.
It is the blanket monitoring of everyone by the NSA, GCHQ, etc. that I most hate.
I think I would give up my internet anonymity in exchange for privacy of a sort where a judicial order would be required to lift my internet aliases to reveal my legal name.
Just think fewer DDoS attacks, fewer viruses, fewer trojans, and less phishing emails -- not zero DDoS attacks, viruses, trojans and phishing emails, fewer. And improved odds of the culprits being found and prosecuted.
That is my current thinking. But again, the sort of privacy where a judicial order would be required to breach my anonymity. Anything easier just leaves us all open to Doxing and dirty tricks by bureaucrats.
Has anyone noticed that when people are out and about in public and *not in cars*, they're not displaying *any* kind of license information? That means that they can't be tracked and identified. Surely, this means we should tattoo license numbers onto everyone's foreheads.
For the sake of the children.
I've seen the way people attack each other on internet forums and get savagely over emotional about the littlest things. If one could find the other there would be a hate crime. Multiply this by the number of forums on the web and we'd have an explosion of stalkers and hate crimes on Armageddon-like levels across the US. It's anonymity that's been keeping the peace...
would you kindly GTFO my internet you cockwomble!
This idea will never work, it will cost money, reduce fredoms and security and won't have the desired effect.
The interenet is argueably one of the more important tools ever developed. It got to be so without regulation and tard's like this meddling, you start messing with it with your typical BS red tape and incompitence then your just going to fuck things up.
A great idea, for the crooks.
To push the car-plate analogy it's a good thing no criminal ever worked out how to use false plates on a vehicle involved in a crime.
Enforce this and it would be circumvented in minutes while wasting millions of pounds/dollars/euros to introduce.
Well, if this view point is to be given any value, then the rest of the world should be equally entitled to track and identify all of the political associations, financial investments, personal interests, family members holdings, sexual partnerships including boyfriend/girlfriends in the wings, etc. of every person wishing to be a politician or statesperson, on the grounds that at least 10% of them are caught red handed doing naughty stuff - like, preying on young boys (Janner), State Hacking (Stuxnet), Guns for Dope (Columbia), financing and training terrorists (Al Queda).
Need I go on ? These people would need a licence to breathe in my world.
ALF
Speaking as someone who was a child rape victim when they were three, I'd like to point out a few things about this proposed law:
(1) No one should want to be a child rape victim, and
(2) Banning the transmission of images hides the acts, which helps them flourish, however
(3) hiding the ugliness will help make everyone feel better, but also
(4) in terms of lives lost, law enforcement tends to be a bigger threat than terrorism, but also
(5) government is not in the business of backing down from supporting their own enforcers, and
(6) hiding the ugliness will help make everyone feel better - or at least shut them up.
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