Big Brother is marching on....

Started by Simon, September 20, 2007, 02:20:17 AM

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Simon

Since the 15th September 2007 all Danish telephone and internet suppliers are to store all information about the Danish people's telephone calls and use of the Internet by law. This is not only the traditional operators that are to store information. This also falls down on hotel and camping sites with wireless net, Internet cafes and so on. The Danish government want a total control of what everyone does on the Internet, it is that simple. Libraries and non-commercial universities are the only thing that is excepted in this law.

As this wasn't enough all suppliers of Internet connections must also have a network centre that is manned 24 hours a day who's job is to help the police or the secret Danish police to get information about what has been stored. This goes for everyone that holds a connection to more then 100 people.

I would like to add that this is NOT a local thing, this has already been decided in EU to be applied over the whole region even if what was decided by the Minister Council wasn’t this strict but within one or few year the whole internet traffic over EU will be monitored in one way or the other.

Infromation:
http://logningsdirektivet.dk/
http://147.29.40.91/_GETDOC_/ACCN/B20060114405
http://147.29.40.91/_GETDOC_/ACCN/B20060098805

I didn’t find any English translation of the text from the EU about this, only in Swedish but if somewhat knows how to search the enormous database on:

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/site/sv/oj/2006/l_105/l_10520060413sv00540063.pdf

Zakharra

 Are they telling you it's for your own good?

Simon

Of course they are... Aren't that the normal way gorverments always has done when they take away freedom from people. Problem is that there are no political force in EU that is fighting this it is already happening and no-one (with any power behind) is trying to stop it.

RubySlippers

Say what you want about the United States we may be warmongers, have lousy leaders and a system run by coroporate interests but damn it we will protect everyones right to watch perverted crap on-line. As long as no children are involved that is too sick even for my libertarian values. Looks like the US could be the last bastion of a free internet in the coming years as long as I and other fight for it. As long as we keep up our grass roots fight to keep it in our country. Oddly this is one place we libertarians, conservative Christians and other odd bedfellows get together in the US. After all the loss of freedom in one area would go after the others. But I see no problem with government looking for terrorists and child abusers on-line as part of Court overseen and approved cases, we have unfortuantely many in government now that attack the most valued aspects of our government.

I have a question though to Simon what are YOU doing to fight it? Maybe the problem is no one wants to fight it out but someone has to start maybe instead of complaining you can meet up with others and try to stem the flood. You cannot be the only concerned person in your country. A person that has a value they hold dear must protect that at all costs or they are just as guilty as those that strip that value away.


Swedish Steel

Quote from: RubySlippers on September 20, 2007, 10:44:31 AM
Looks like the US could be the last bastion of a free internet in the coming years as long as I and other fight for it.

Bwahahahahahahaha. You crack me up, that's good stuff.
"Ah, no, not bukkake chef! Secret ingredient always same."

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Celestial Goblin

What's important is what the 'big brother' will do with the information, not how and if they will gather it.
Having freedom of speech and expression is important, having privacy on the internet is quite impossible anyway.

As for the net in USA, it's a strange situation. On one hand, USA constitution, 1st ammendment and stuff like that are very important things and US people are lucky to have them.
On other hand, net in US has it's own share of problems that arise from other sources than official goverment interferance.

Simon

Quote from: RubySlippers on September 20, 2007, 10:44:31 AM
I have a question though to Simon what are YOU doing to fight it? Maybe the problem is no one wants to fight it out but someone has to start maybe instead of complaining you can meet up with others and try to stem the flood. You cannot be the only concerned person in your country. A person that has a value they hold dear must protect that at all costs or they are just as guilty as those that strip that value away.

I'm one of the few that tries to do something about this, I'm one of those 0.69% in Sweden that voted for the Swedish Pirate Party the only party in Sweden today that is against this change. I would say that problem is that a majority of the population buys the propaganda fed to them; "we are not after you, only those that isn't good guys."

US have their own problem as the US goverment are already scanning the Internet with the use of the Echelon network (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON). Not that you can compare Echelon with what is going to be done in EU but it is just as bad.

Celestial Goblin

I'm certainly sympatethic to the pirate party and might vote for them if they'd be here.
Generally though, it's not the technology that matters but the law.
If law allows the RIAA to sue kids for downloading music, there needs to be no ECHELON for them to screw people over.
If laws are relaxed and police pays more attention to real crimes then internet monitoring will affect that much.

RubySlippers

ECHELON has value our government does have fully legitimate security concerns and does deal with crime globally that can affect us here. And lets face it if there is a major difference is intent the ECHELON program prvides the US a layer of intelligence gathering for important security and organized crime interceptions. Your government is spying on everything that their citizens do on the internet. By what I can tell the program we have is targeted to key words and names in a database, to counter and further investigate real threats. Although I do want to see strong government oversight and legal oversight for the program it could potentially be very destructive. I may be a libertarian but I cannot deny the value of countering a real threat by superior technology if its overseen properly in some cases like this one must trust the government. And pray that the controls are sufficient to avoid abuses over its intent and the rights of citizens.

A bigger issue are companies here that want to charge for internet access of specific materials creating a two tier level or more of access. I deem this corporate threat to the internet in the US a higher concern.

Swedish Steel

Hehe, you can't call the US the last bastion of free internet and then defend the ECHELON program! That's just silly.
"Ah, no, not bukkake chef! Secret ingredient always same."

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Celestial Goblin

Quote from: RubySlippers on September 20, 2007, 01:01:06 PM
A bigger issue are companies here that want to charge for internet access of specific materials creating a two tier level or more of access. I deem this corporate threat to the internet in the US a higher concern.

Uh, yes. So called 'Net neutrality'. The goverment often has nothing to gain in screwing over an individual person, but corporations... As long as they can get money of it, they'll screw and screw and screw.

It's not military at ECHELON and not bureaucrats at EU that lose sleep over not being able to control each and every internet user. It's the bussinesmen.

Zakharra

Quote from: Celestial Goblin on September 20, 2007, 02:05:41 PM
Uh, yes. So called 'Net neutrality'. The goverment often has nothing to gain in screwing over an individual person, but corporations... As long as they can get money of it, they'll screw and screw and screw.

It's not military at ECHELON and not bureaucrats at EU that lose sleep over not being able to control each and every internet user. It's the bussinesmen.

Agreed.

RubySlippers

Quote from: Swedish Steel on September 20, 2007, 01:05:10 PM
Hehe, you can't call the US the last bastion of free internet and then defend the ECHELON program! That's just silly.

I must point out the United States is the main target of terrorism and much if the international criminal syndicates, the program is important. But must be properly overseen by the legislative and judicial branches of government. It has clearly some security value if properly used.

Simon

Quote from: RubySlippers on September 20, 2007, 05:57:40 PM
I must point out the United States is the main target of terrorism and much if the international criminal syndicates, the program is important. But must be properly overseen by the legislative and judicial branches of government. It has clearly some security value if properly used.

Exactly the same bullshit our goverment tells us and why they just have to implement the changes they want to do within EU. Problem is that it is just that; bullshit. Neither ECHELON nor the starge of Internet activity will not stop a terrorist attack.

Wasn't it Roosevelt that had a good quote about this?

RubySlippers

I'm not saying its a great idea and I think it hasn't the right oversight for its monumental power, but information is power and the more we can gain about enemies the better. Its still amounts to the gathering of intelligence by us for the use in covert ops and law enforcement of cross nation state lines. I saw the list are there not many listening stations in many nations surely they also share the benefits.

But as far as I can tell it has been limited to countering terrorism and international criminal activities, not see what we do in our everyday activities as normal citizens.

Elvi

Simon, Echelon IS in the EU, do you really think that European countries won't be tapping into this resource?

Ruby, yet again your blind nievity astounds and frustrates me.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/503224.stm

"Journalist Duncan Campbell has spent much of his life investigating Echelon. In a report commissioned by the European Parliament he produced evidence that the NSA snooped on phone calls from a French firm bidding for a contract in Brazil. They passed the information on to an American competitor, which won the contract."

Don't for one minute think that the only words that are monitered are 'blow up' and 'America', this has been going on since the 80's and will carry on for as long as there is global communication.

New technology is making it easier and easier for others to find out about people, be that Governments wanting to know about people to a nosey neighbour listening in on conversations.
The only thing that protects us is safety in numbers, the fact that there are so many with mobile phones and PC's, they can only 'listen' to so much.
Mind you, if they choose a key word that you use often, then you'll get flagged......   


It's been fun, but Elvi has now left the building

Swedish Steel

I actually know a guy who ended all his mails with words like "bomb", "terrorism", "Bin Laden", "Talibans" and so on. After a few months of doing this he got a polite but irritated mail asking him to stop doing this, cause it was starting to bug the nice people of Echelon. :)
"Ah, no, not bukkake chef! Secret ingredient always same."

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Elvi

PAH!
That's nothing, went shopping yesterday and bought a none EU regulation cucumber!
We know how to rebel in the UK.....
It's been fun, but Elvi has now left the building

Swedish Steel

What did you do with that then, eh? Remind me to never accept a cucumber sandwich from you...
"Ah, no, not bukkake chef! Secret ingredient always same."

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Celestial Goblin

You know, all that said, it isn't a bad thing to be concerned about goverment trying to do someething that reduces people's privacy. It isn't bad to do something about it.

It's just that most of the time, the technology used to do it matters less. I mean, people 100 years ago had much less ability to spy on others, yet civil liberties were worse and goverments more authoritarian.

RubySlippers

Well may I ask do any of you have problems with your nations military, intelligence services or various levels of national police forces? If one accepts the need for a military, FBI and CIA then its logical to include a large scale intelligence gathering unit as part of a proper defense.

My concern is oversight not that its there. With this prgram of the EU who is in charge of it and what oversight limits are there?


Zakharra

 Do you trust the people running the program and those in the government?

OldSchoolGamer

Quote from: Swedish Steel on September 21, 2007, 03:45:46 AM
I actually know a guy who ended all his mails with words like "bomb", "terrorism", "Bin Laden", "Talibans" and so on. After a few months of doing this he got a polite but irritated mail asking him to stop doing this, cause it was starting to bug the nice people of Echelon. :)

That's hilarious...like real terrorists would actually use those words in non-encrypted emails.

Seriously...if I ever decided to hatch such a conspiracy, I'd refer to bombs as "dandelions," Al-Quaeda as "giraffes" and Bin Laden as "Mr. Ed."

"Mr. Ed. wishes all loyal giraffes to plant dandelions in (insert target here)."  Yeah, they'd be all over that like white on rice...

Nell

Quote from: TyTheDnDGuy on September 30, 2007, 10:12:15 PM
That's hilarious...like real terrorists would actually use those words in non-encrypted emails.

Seriously...if I ever decided to hatch such a conspiracy, I'd refer to bombs as "dandelions," Al-Quaeda as "giraffes" and Bin Laden as "Mr. Ed."

"Mr. Ed. wishes all loyal giraffes to plant dandelions in (insert target here)."  Yeah, they'd be all over that like white on rice...

Am I glad you're not dumb enough to be in one of 'em.

I'm gonna state the obvious and say that the U.S. is already close to there with the Patriot Act. However, some local and state judges have been striking down the monitoring of telecommunications and the internet as unconstitutional without a warrant. The thing is that while warrants are required, warrants for things like these are beyond easy for officials to obtain. It is somewhat of an abuse of power. I'm also going to venture to say it's not the law that matters, but it really is the technology. It's often these days that it really doesn't matter whether people abide by the law or not, government and governed both; at least that's what some people think to themselves. If the technology is there, then I can guaranteed that it's going to be used by someone. So I would brace yourselves folks, cause whether you like or not, I bet that some day in the future we're all going to be fully monitored somehow and may or may not be aware of it. And no, I'm not just paranoid. If it's about whether or not you believe that your first amendment is being violated, then it just totally depends on your personal ideals. But unfortunately like I said, I don't think it's going to matter what you think in the future.

Simon

In the UK the police can now from the 1st October demand that any person who is under investigation must tell them their encryption key, if you don't... then you go to jail everything packaged under the charge that is always used in such things: you are susprected to be a terrorist.

http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2200371/uk-police-demand-encryption-keys

So what does this mean? Well if you have spoken with the wrong person over the net, say the wife or sibling to an already suspected terrorist then you can end up in the investigation. When this happens your usual rights as a suspect vanishes and you can now be charged by "something" that you as a person has no right to know what is.

But then, these laws isn't something that we as "normal" people has to worry about (so far anyway)... as long as your name isn't Muhammed that is.