Canadian Chat → [Serious] Regressing Civil Liberty across different countries

During the past 10 years, I have seen serious regression in civil liberty in many countries and are turning into the society depicted in 1984. The advance in technology and the pretense of terrorist attack greatly facilitates this.

Here are some evidences:

1. Surveillance Camera are installed everywhere in London (depicted in 1984).
2. Mini-drones have become so inexpensive and many police forces are testing them for surveillance purpose (Mini-drones in Half Life 2)
3. License-scanner fitted on patrol cars that take photos of your license plate and GPS coordinate of your car. The car is fitted with many cameras that can take license plate of cars 360 degree. The data is stored indefinitely in police and private company's database due to inexpensive data cost.
4. Government surveillance of all online and offline communication. This topic is being watched as well.
5. Facial recognition tool that can identify a person using image.
6. Incredible computing power and data storage capacity enable massive information for being scanned and analyzed which was not possible with paper.
7. Google's database can identify your exact location(~+-3 meters) based on your wifi signal they scanned using their cars.
8. Facebook's initiative to link offline purchases(data collected from your loyalty cards) to your online profile so they can shows you relevant ads.
9. GPS on your smartphone can tracks where you are exactly.

I'm not talking about the conspiracy theory where one group wants to do mind-control. Instead, it is the advance in technology is so much faster than relevant privacy laws can be erected or public awareness can be generated.

I also don't believe the law can protect us because it is usually the lawmakers that are utilizing these technology to increase control.

Is anyone not concerned?

You've got some valid points, but #3 has been outlawed in a number of jurisdictions under those relevant privacy laws. As has 8, without an opt-in.

Temporary setbacks, I suspect.

Private companies are tracking license plates in a big way:

This is from the Wall Street Journal----

»online.wsj.com/article/S ··· 296.html

»blogs.wsj.com/digits/201 ··· te-data/

----------------------------

To slightly change an ending to a long-ago Asimov story:

"Happy goldfish bowl to you, to me, to everyone, and we all will fry in hell together."

3 hasn't been outlawed in any prov's that I know of. Matter of fact, I can't think of one prov that outlawed it.

I see most of these things as positive developments that in no way regress civil liberty. Laws that circumvent due process or constitutional rights (like the US' Patriot Act as an example) certainly do regress civil liberty, but technological advancements like crowd-sourced wifi positioning is something great, and doesn't have any direct impact on civil liberties.

We don't need Google cars to build the wifi database either, any phone with GPS can crowd-source it. It basically works like this:

1) Smartphone sees a new wifi hot-spot
2) Smartphone knows where it is via other positional means (GPS, GLONASS, cell tower triagulation, etc)
3) Smartphone sends an anonymous report (if you specifically enabled "send anonymous usage data") to the aggregator
4) Aggregator builds database of wifi hotspots (SSID/MAC address) versus GPS locations, being able to get a decent fix on the hotspot's location by examining the multiple reports (sort of a find-the-middle-of-the-point-cloud thing)
5) New device without GPS wants to get a location fix, sends a list of visible hotspots to the server
6) Server calculates an approximate position based on the known location of one or more of those hotspots

This is fantastic, a really cool way to crowd-source data and provide a valuable service, and I can't wait to see what other sorts of awesome stuff we can do with these sorts of techniques.

I agree with you. My only exception is concerning surveillance cameras but my issue isn't with municipal governments concerning their requirements but with the erosion of societial values that encourage their requirement.

I'm surprised camera phones weren't on that list.

God forbid someone photograph you... in public...

What "privacy laws" ? You're driving a car, in public, on a public roadway. The cameras take a picture of your license plate, not the driver inside - and even then, windows are plain view. There shouldn't be - and isn't - any expectation of privacy, and anyone who thinks otherwise is so very naive that words cannot properly describe it.

Speaking of the devil, this is a new article about HD surveillance camera

»www.telegraph.co.uk/news ··· way.html

The issue is not about being photographed. Instead, the issue is the ability to amass a massive amount of data and pinpoint exactly where you are. This is the problem.

It does not matter if 10,000 strangers have seen you in different places; it matters when ONE party has seen you in 10,000 places, organize this information, and create a profile of you. It has the ability to know exactly where you are and what you are doing. The difference is the organization of information which can lead to abuse. It is impossible to abuse something when it does not exist. However, when it does, it can be easily abused.

Technology itself is not evil but it enables people to do evil things more easily.

By the look of the replies, most people don't seem to care. It fact, it might become a way to life being watched 24/7 .

Some of us care but wadya gonna do. I don't use smartphones or facebook or a host of other useless techno junk mindless drones seem to consume like crack. Still trying to figure out how to get away with no licence plate.

Sheite, I have to agree with Petrebora on that.

Oh that must have hurt. Get momma to kiss your finger tips better.

There's no expectation of privacy, but up until now there [was] an expectation that no one would take note of your travels, and keep permanent records of them, unless the person was under specific surveillance.

Yes indeedy it was a constipated moment to be sure.

Wasn't it these surveilance cameras that helped to identify and convict the murder of UK toddler James Boldger in 1993...

Yup.

I suspect that was their intent. To help solve crimes and not to spy on people. AND who would have the time to review all these types just to record peoples activities unless of course it was to assist in solving a crime...

Considering all of the problems that London and the UK as a whole had with the IRA, I don't blame them one bit.

The issue is now technology has progressed to the point that there will no need for manual review of the footage. Before, unless you are a major threat, it would not be cost effective to analyze all the tapes. But now, anyone can be analyzed because it has become so cheap.

Examples are mini-drones(getting cheaper so they will be eventually patrolling out street 24/7 than putting costly policeman, facial recognition tool (identify faces in films, know about that tool can find actors'f face in movies?)

I don't want to quote family guy but one of its episode puts this brilliantly: "the controlling party will leverage FEAR of people in promise of security".

I'll finish this with a quote from Benjamin Franklin:

hey that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Those Who Sacrifice Liberty For Security Deserve Neither.
He who would trade liberty for some temporary security, deserves neither liberty nor security.
He who sacrifices freedom for security deserves neither.
People willing to trade their freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both.
If we restrict liberty to attain security we will lose them both.
Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.
He who gives up freedom for safety deserves neither.
Those who would trade in their freedom for their protection deserve neither.
Those who give up their liberty for more security neither deserve liberty nor security.

Camden and Buffalo didn't exist in 1770 and Baltimore was created during a time when the United States had things like capital punishment, so people committed less crimes.

Now we live in a society where we hug our criminals and hope really hard they don't commit heinous acts again, and when they do we feel really, really bad.

So sorry about your liberties but we've allowed societal values to erode to the point where they're necessary.

Well, this is an example of trading liberty for safety. I don't know the stats but I would argue human nature for criminal activity has not been changed throughout our human history.

There are lots of countries that prescribe to those sentiments, you are free to go anytime. If you really mean what you say and are not full of hot air and false bravado, because whining here is not going to change anything.

... clearly you're incapable of reading as my post didn't suggest I needed to go to another country with better values. I was responding to someone else who was complaining about civil liberties.

Just as you still live in Canada accepting all the issues you whine about in your posts, I accept that not everything can be perfect.

I get why your avatar is the picture of a jackass. Although the picture of a blind person might be more apt...

Based on my experiences over my life, from young to old, I'd say that human nature is intact but, as you've even quoted, I referred to societal values and punishments. As our punishments for crime are weakened, the inclination to commit crimes increases.

Well Ive been called worse LOL. At least you didnt say Donkey. You know after all Im just concerned with your high blood pressure which If was to guess based upon the vitriol of your cig posts is through the roof. Now we cant have you eating up the health care budget for visits to the ER and those pesky expensive blood pressure medication just on account of canchat.

... I don't smoke, I'm in excellent shape, the only doctor's I've been to were regulatory and my contributions to the health care system are far above and beyond what I've obtained from it, so you don't need to worry about me!

Phew, and congrats your doing great and honestly people making the effort and taking care of themselves should get a 50% tax break.

Even until their old age?