quote:

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The officers yesterday stressed with fervour that these are not just pictures of kids, but of kids being victimized. So is watching pictures of a crime now a crime?

---

These latest series of mass arrests aren't, I fear, the vehicle for eliminating child exploitation and abuse. When fear and hysteria gets whipped up like this, people turn off their brains, common sense gets sidelined, and lives are ruined for no reason other than someone pointed a finger. The media feeding frenzy alone is enough to make any sane, rational person shudder with trepidation.

The abuse and sexual exploitation of children makes me sick with outrage. But so do mindless witchunts that do more harm than good.

Edited to add: For the record, Salutin makes some good points, but his article is a too lenient on the users of child pornography for my comfort.

[ 17 January 2003: Message edited by: Rebecca West ]

I can see the inconsistency that Salutin points out. I think there's also an inconsistency with resolving the rights to freedom of expression with the idea of a criminal publishing a book to profit from his crimes.

quote:

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I'm confused, I thought you were against pornography in general?

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But why shouldn't looking at it be illegal then ?

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But why shouldn't looking at it be illegal then? When you look at it on the internet, you're creating as much of a market for it as if you buy it in magazine form.

---

quote:

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Or do you believe that someone merely looking at a child porn magazine in an adult bookstore should be arrested in the event the police raid the store?

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I'm sure there is. That's what worries me. What will be next?

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Don't forget, if you're looking at it, then it's been downloaded to your computer. Many people say "download" when what they really mean is "save".

Anything you view will appear in your browser's history (for a while) and cache (for a while). A cursory search of your computer would reveal the file in your c:\Documents and Settings\%user%\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files directory (or similar if you aren't using IE on W2K). I have no idea what a Mac does with it.

And I don't need to remind you that the web server that delivered the file to you has a record of the fact stored in its access log, which typically gets rotated every few days, but may in fact be archived... forever (cue ominous music).

quote:

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Rebecca, that's SO not fair. You could legally challenge that, I'm sure.

---

quote:

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Surf safe. If you want to explore the seamy underbelly of the web, use an anonymizing proxy. Or somebody else's computer

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Thanks, McGoo.

I'm sure that will be of use to anyone who wants to use the 'net for illegal purposes.

[ 17 January 2003: Message edited by: josh ]

Sheesh."

Anon proxies are no different than encryption software or cellphones... or boxcutters.

They can all be used for good or evil. But I don't think their mere existence will lure any honest folk over to the dark side, nor would eliminating them force the dishonest or malevolent over to the light.

[ 17 January 2003: Message edited by: josh ]

[ 17 January 2003: Message edited by: josh ]

quote:

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Anon proxies are no different than encryption software or cellphones... or boxcutters.

They can all be used for good or evil. But I don't think their mere existence will lure any honest folk over to the dark side, nor would eliminating them force the dishonest or malevolent over to the light.

---

Or guns... or grenades... or nukes...

quote:

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And as they say, "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it."

---

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Besides, what about people who are told about a site, and go to look at it out of curiosity, not sexual titillation? Someone says, "Oh man, this is disgusting, look at this!" and sends you a link?

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When was the last time these were used for "good or evil"?

"tracking people's net use is the opposite; it's sharing information that is otherwise kept private."

Private for a reason. How would tracking people's internet use differ from, say, opening people's mail? Or checking to see who they've been talking to on the phone? And we want to be able to do this "just in case"? Didn't we learn anything from the Clipper Chip?

quote:

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"Or guns... or grenades... or nukes..."
When was the last time these were used for "good or evil"?

---

Exactly my point.

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Private for a reason. How would tracking people's internet use differ from, say, opening people's mail? Or checking to see who they've been talking to on the phone? And we want to be able to do this "just in case"? Didn't we learn anything from the Clipper Chip?

---

Sorry, I don't buy it. I don't think people should have unrestricted freedom to commit serious crimes.

I don't care if my phone calls are tapped, or emails are searched. I know I sound crazy, but that's how I feel.

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I think that social problems call for social solutions.

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I agree with this, but a social solution is only one side of the coin, the carrot. There' still the stick to watch out for, and that stick hurts when it whacks you.

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Tell it to the judge, ma'am !

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Oh please. Can you imagine how clogged our court systems would be if everyone who had ever seen an obscene image were brought up on charges? Come on! Be realistic.

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Oh no, I can't stand well-meaning torture porn!

---

That wasn't quite what I was getting at, lagatta, but I see your point. On the other hand, let's think about your example of Iranian students who are "big on" that type of thing. Is it possible that they're big on showing people images like that because they want us complacent North Americans to know just what kind of fucked up things have happened in their lives?

I saw an online video of an actual stoning that took place in Iran - a friend had sent the link to my ex and I while we were still married. The site it was on was trying to show what kind of atrocities the Iranian government commits. I had nightmares about it for weeks afterwards. Should I be prosecuted for having watched it, even though it was obscene? I don't think I should be.

Do you need examples of anon proxies, encryption software and boxcutters being used for good? How about the corrolary - invasions of privacy such as wiretaps (which are ostensibly only to be used for good) used for evil?

"Sorry, I don't buy it. I don't think people should have unrestricted freedom to commit serious crimes."

Then let's take this ad absurdum and just put everyone in jail! The freedom to commit crimes is permanently attached to the freedom to not commit crimes.

"I don't care if my phone calls are tapped, or emails are searched. I know I sound crazy, but that's how I feel."

When I was a student working in a Multimedia office, a friend and I stumbled on some mainstream schmut while doing a web search for "free fonts". It made a great "in" joke.

"Got any plans this weekend?"

"Hang out... maybe search for free fonts..."

quote:

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"Do you need examples of anon proxies, encryption software and boxcutters being used for good? How about the corrolary - invasions of privacy such as wiretaps (which are ostensibly only to be used for good) used for evil? "

---

Technology has an inherent behavior built into it that supplants any ideas of "good" or "evil". Guns aren't about good or evil, but force. There's a primal human drive behind all of them.

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"Then let's take this ad absurdum and just put everyone in jail! The freedom to commit crimes is permanently attached to the freedom to not commit crimes. "

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As long as no one's watching, I suppose.

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Then upload some of the more private ones for us to read And feel free to run your "zero privacy" idea up the flagpole and see who else salutes it!

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Do you really care about my secrets ?

My porn surfing has fallen off to nearly zero in the last year or two. Seen all I want to see of the stuff I like.

I remember surfing several pages into a site that I thought featured people playing with red wax. It didn't dawn on me until a few pages in that what I was looking at was staged murder scenes.

It's a leap though, to assume what one looks at is what turns one on. And, another leap to think that what turns one on in viewing is somehow indicative of a criminal nature.

I can't believe a casual notation of the odd image on someone's hard drive is enough "evidence" to be convicted of a crime.

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I can't believe a casual notation of the odd image on someone's hard drive is enough "evidence" to be convicted of a crime

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Well, I think the new legislation is pretty clear that downloading to the hard drive is a crime if the image is criminal.

That is why it is important to recall how broad the definition of child pornography is. It in cludes explicit sexual activity of anyone under the age of eighteen years, or who are portrayed as if they are under 18.

When the police throw around the term "kiddy porn", few people are thinking of consenting teenagers.

[ 17 January 2003: Message edited by: jeff house ]

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I don't care if my phone calls are tapped, or emails are searched. I know I sound crazy, but that's how I feel.

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They always say that until they get nailed by some overzealous government official who misinterprets something perfectly innocent.

THEN the shoe's on the other foot, and what's worse is that some people will actually believe the hypocritical uncivil libertarian.

I, for one, am not of the mind that my civil liberties are infinitely reducible.

When I was born in this country my parents implicitly accepted the social contract for me, and when I became of majority, my remaining in this country constituted my own acceptance of the social contract.

But the social contract doesn't just impose obligations on me. It imposes obligations on the government, and one of them is to preserve my civil rights as defined in the constitution.

Even in the Hobbesian form, the government has the obligation to keep me alive.

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Well, I think the new legislation is pretty clear that downloading to the hard drive is a crime if the image is criminal.

---

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I don't care if my phone calls are tapped, or emails are searched. I know I sound crazy, but that's how I feel.

---

Then you are evidence of the failure of whatever public school system you went through to turn you into a full-fledged, serious democrat. How sad for you.

Invasion of privacy is not the "opposite" of censorship; it's a related but separate issue.

Even when people (like, apparently, Townshend) have paid to view these sites, I remain disturbed by prosecution on those grounds only. Why is participation in "the market" suddenly a crime in this instance? Did the people who sent in their VISA numbers know that they were doing something illegal, in the way, eg, that someone who acts as a fence for stolen goods knows that he's contributing to a crime?

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Then you are evidence of the failure of whatever public school system you went through to turn you into a full-fledged, serious democrat. How sad for you.

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Ha ! Why am I a failure because I'm not afraid of the state reading my emails ?

It would be easy for me to brand you a failure of the system because you're unable to think independently of your education, but I wouldn't do that because I'm not self-righteous, except when it comes to self-righteousness.

I'm simply not afraid of state intrusion into our private lives, and I don't see why so many people are worried about it.

quote:

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Invasion of privacy is not the "opposite" of censorship; it's a related but separate issue.

---

Privacy entails the restriction of information. ie. I keep my information private from you.

Censorship, too. Someone keeps information from the general public.

quote:

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Even when people (like, apparently, Townshend) have paid to view these sites, I remain disturbed by prosecution on those grounds only. Why is participation in "the market" suddenly a crime in this instance? Did the people who sent in their VISA numbers know that they were doing something illegal, in the way, eg, that someone who acts as a fence for stolen goods knows that he's contributing to a crime?

---

I don't know what you mean by "suddenly" a crime.

I'm pretty sure anyone who downloads child porn and pays with their credit card must have an inkling that it's illegal. And anyway, ignorance is not a defence of breaking the law.

Reponsible states don't allow completely unfettered market access to any material.

quote:

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Research, intellectual or artistic meditation -- I continue to believe that these are possible motives for doing things that most of us don't want to do, couldn't do ... I think that Salutin's arguments about the extent of our denial of the realities of the mind are sound ones -- conservative, even. This all feels more like manners than law to me, and that always bothers me a lot. Manners are so shallow.

---

I don't think it's manners when the objective of the law is to protect children of abuse. Of course, there's a certain amount of public mania about child porn but that's beside the point.

Other comments above;

quote:

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They always say that until they get nailed by some overzealous government official who misinterprets something perfectly innocent.

---

I find it curious that at certain milestones in a discussion, the positions of right and left reverse polarity.

When it comes to health care, gun control and regulation in general we seem to trust that the government will act properly, and we choose collective rights and control over individual rights. But for some reason, when it comes to security, we assume that the government can't be trusted with our emails or phone calls.

I, for one, don't think the government cares much about my surfing preferences, private phone calls and the like.

And I think the era where the RCMP would care about your marijuana habits, closet homosexuality, or DVD copying is gone.

[ 18 January 2003: Message edited by: CyberNomad ]

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I'm not afraid of the state reading my emails...

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OK, so today you're fine because you don't download kiddie porn. But what if I find out your email address, and sign you up for free porn bulletins?

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I don't think that you should be able to be convicted based on someone else putting your email address onto a site. I'm pretty sure you'd have a valid point in court.

But, surely using your credit card to download images to your computer is harder to set up as a 'frame'.

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This is an amazingly easy way to harass someone, and although you're completely innocent, you will have porn-related emails in your inbox. When the state checks up on you, you become a pervert, and they open you up for criminal investigation. Happy days! Let me know what the food at the prison commissary is like!

---

quote:

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Besides, what if you do have something to hide, but it's not illegal, just something you don't want people to know about?
Are we not allowed to have secrets anymore?

---

A secret you don't want who to know ? And what kind of information are we talking about ?

Thousands of people across the country have access to my personal financial information, my health records, my police and education history. Does it bother me ? No.

Would it bother me to know that the RCMP was reading these posts ?

quote:

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When it comes to health care, gun control and regulation in general we seem to trust that the government will act properly, and we choose collective rights and control over individual rights. But for some reason, when it comes to security, we assume that the government can't be trusted with our emails or phone calls.

---

Precisely. Interpersonal communications are not the provenance of unrestricted government intrusion.

As in, no. Nein. Nyet. No way Jose. Not in a million years.

Capeesh?

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I think that's a little extreme.

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I think it should be illegal, making it, paying for it and actively downloading it should be illegal. But just looking at it?

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Are you familiar with the sections of the criminal code dealing with child pornography? If not, refer to jeff house's comment above, and read it for yourself. I have some experience (as counsel) in the sort of discretion applied by the Crown in prosecuting people, and I'm sure they would be most interested in hearing your theories on active and passive viewing when they visited you in the lock-up.

This is an offence that doesn't really contemplate criminal intent, judging by the wording and what I read from the Sharpe case. It seems to be more of a strict or absolute liability offence. Which means when you write

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Tell it to the judge, ma'am !

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And aren't you concerned about what use may be being made of your personal records? For instance, what if you were to find out later that you were refused employment because you carried a gene for a disease that could result in disability after a certain age, or that you are duped in a financial transaction because of your financial records giving insider information to one of the participants.

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Yes, the potential for abuse is there now.

If a corporation paid a Ministry of Health employee to release personal information, or a financial company giving my personal information out. This type of abuse is a concern now, and it has been in the past.

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Precisely. Interpersonal communications are not the provenance of unrestricted government intrusion.

As in, no. Nein. Nyet. No way Jose. Not in a million years.

Capeesh?

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This doesn't constitute a rationale.

quote:

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It's one thing for the government to regulate your purchase of an object (specifically a car or a gun) and require you to follow certain procedures before you're allowed to use it. It's another thing for some overzealous snoop to tap your phone line on John Ashcroft's say-so (or whoever his equivalent is up here, if we ever get as nutty a government).

---

Your argument sounds very similar to the pro-gun arguments that the NRA espouses.

quote:

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How does one not actively download pornography? And what is the difference between "just looking at it" and "actively" just looking at it?
Are you familiar with the sections of the criminal code dealing with child pornography? If not, refer to jeff house's comment above, and read it for yourself. I have some experience (as counsel) in the sort of discretion applied by the Crown in prosecuting people, and I'm sure they would be most interested in hearing your theories on active and passive viewing when they visited you in the lock-up.

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Well, maybe you can explain it to me then.

Is there any way to structure a law to provide for receiving something accidentally, versus actively searching for it ? I'd have to think that there is.

If someone's computer has hundreds of child porn images, you can't reasonably think that those images got there by accident.

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I think a certain amount of privacy is necessary.

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In classical democratic theory, precisely the opposite is true, at least if by "private" you mean "personal," the freedom and autonomy of each citizen.

In other words, ANY infringement of the basic civil liberties of the citizen MUST be rigorously scrutinized by ALL citizens and policed by them. We run the police, not the other way 'round.

M Hardner is arguing the basic position of all tyrants. By his logic, M Hardner should be perfectly happy if, a few hours from now, late on a Saturday night, the police barge into his home and instruct him and his family, "Just go on with what you were doing. We just want to have a look around. If you're not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to fear. We may be here only a few minutes; then again, maybe we'll stay till 4 a.m. But as long as you're not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to fear from our watching you ... " etc.

quote:

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M Hardner is arguing the basic position of all tyrants. By his logic, M Hardner should be perfectly happy if, a few hours from now, late on a Saturday night, the police barge into his home and instruct him and his family, "Just go on with what you were doing. We just want to have a look around. If you're not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to fear. We may be here only a few minutes; then again, maybe we'll stay till 4 a.m. But as long as you're not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to fear from our watching you ... " etc.

---

Not exactly. It's entirely different thing to have police come into your home than to have them monitor your emails, phone calls, or to have cameras put in public places. I'm sure you can see that.

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For chrissakes! I was about seven years old when my dad taught me what was wrong with the "If you're not doing anything wrong" argument. And what is utterly gaseous about the people who use it.

---

I've come to challenge a lot of things that I learned when I was seven.

And I didn't use that argument, either. I'm saying that the greater public good is served by allowing more powers to the police.

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I'm sure you can see that.

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No.

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Is there any way to structure a law to provide for receiving something accidentally, versus actively searching for it?

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How are the authorities to determine whether I intentionally saved that image to my hard drive, independent of what I tell them? The law doesn't give them that discretion anyway.

(I saw the title-line with SHH following, and I thought to m'self, I did, "Oh, good night, M Hardner and SHH too! Oh, skdadl, what did you do to deserve this???"

quote:

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The basic democratic principles I was outlining above emerged in the European C17-C18, among people who wouldn't have known what you seem to mean by "shame," M Hardner.

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Really ? I don't know a lot about history, but it seems to me that the American "founding fathers" probably felt comforted by the fact that they could keep their concubines and slave children secret.

But, please elaborate. I find this interesting.

quote:

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I suspect that it is you, M Hardner, who is having a bit of a tussle with Victorian contradictions, and it's interesting that it's you who raises the issue of "shame." Serious democrats just skip that stuff.

---

Well, happily for me, your suspicions about me are immaterial to this discussion.

As for being a serious democrat, that's your opinion. But, as I've stated, the NRA believes that the right to own a gun is central to democracy; they believe that it keeps the powers that be in check.

I see the government, and the police as being our representatives to keep peace and order. This means they should have extra rights that civillians don't, including the right to bear arms and to look in places where we're not allowed to look.

**Edited to add:**

In my quest to reduce secrecy, I will lead by example and explain that I'm leaving this discussion for now to attend an informal dinner party. Names and addresses will be furnished upon my return...
mh

[ 18 January 2003: Message edited by: Michael Hardner ]

quote:

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the American "founding fathers" probably felt comforted by the fact that they could keep their concubines and slave children secret.

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M Hardner, you must learn how to read.

I carefully referred to the European C17-C18. I said nothing about the American founding persons. To me, the Enlightenment ended with the Romantic rhetorical coup of the first sentence of the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence (see "self-evident truth").

Whatever else the American founding persons were talking about, it wasn't democracy as the Europeans of the C17-C18 understood it, and, of course, it hasn't much been that since. Has it? Gee, I am having to resist saying self-evidently here.

quote:

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Not exactly. It's entirely different thing to have police come into your home than to have them monitor your emails, phone calls, or to have cameras put in public places. I'm sure you can see that.

---

Nuh-uh.

It's the same damn fundamental concept. The police are barging into your business and sticking their noses where they bleeding well shouldn't be sticking 'em and where no decent human being with a shred of respect for the personal affairs of others would.

As for the similarity of argumentation with the NRA, I don't see it - especially as they vigorously oppose any gun laws and scoff at the argument that a gun is of a nature such that it should be regulated.

How would YOU like it if I were a bored cop with nothing to do, and on "suspicion" of you being an Al Qaeda sympathizer, I started spying on you? Not just for the few minutes you think the cops would take to ascertain your harmlessness, but all the time? Watching everything you did, monitoring all your calls (even the ones you make to your pookie), and ruffling through your e-mails, which only would have encrypted bodies - the headers would still be in plaintext and thus give me an idea of who you were chatting with?

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I see the government, and the police as being our representatives to keep peace and order.

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No, the government claims the authority, through the use of violence and other coercive techniques, to enforce their order, using as a proxy the police - (State Morality Enforcement Army)

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It's the same damn fundamental concept. The police are barging into your business and sticking their noses where they bleeding well shouldn't be sticking 'em and where no decent human being with a shred of respect for the personal affairs of others would.

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Yes, the fundamental concept is the same, but you can't say that having police search your house in front of you is the same as having your emails invisibly monitored.

quote:

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How would YOU like it if I were a bored cop with nothing to do, and on "suspicion" of you being an Al Qaeda sympathizer, I started spying on you? Not just for the few minutes you think the cops would take to ascertain your harmlessness, but all the time? Watching everything you did, monitoring all your calls (even the ones you make to your pookie), and ruffling through your e-mails, which only would have encrypted bodies - the headers would still be in plaintext and thus give me an idea of who you were chatting with?

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No, I wouldn't like it. But is that at risk of happening ? It's a matter of trust. I don't see the threat of abuse in the way you describe to be significant.

I'm talking about invisible surveillance here, and not harrassment, stalking or physical searches. That would constitute an undue inteference with innocent people.

quote:

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But I return to my first point, M Hardner. Do you ever listen to anyone else? How could you so misread me? You give every evidence of imposing your own assumptions on others, instead of reading/listening to them, and following a little.

---

Skdadl:

I don't think this is quite fair. Please re-read the exchange below. I have put italics in where they weren't there before.

You wrote:

"The basic democratic principles I was outlining above emerged in the European C17-C18, among people who wouldn't have known what you seem to mean by "shame," M Hardner. "

I wrote:

"Really ? I don't know a lot about history, but it seems to me that the American "founding fathers" probably felt comforted by the fact that they could keep their concubines and slave children secret.

But, please elaborate. I find this interesting."

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

I was trying to say that my limited knowledge of history in this area revolves around some facts about the early American experience. I closed by asking you to provide more information for the discussion.

Maybe with the italics on American you can see that I was listening to you, and would like to hear what you have to say about the C17 and C18 Europeans.

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

I understand that my views on privacy are a little out of the mainstream, but the more I analyze peoples' mistrust of the police, the more I see that it comes from experiences of harassment in the recent past. The 1960s, the blacklist era, and what have you.

And quite frankly, I trust the RCMP about as far as I can throw it, which isn't far at all.

quote:

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No, I wouldn't like it. But is that at risk of happening ? It's a matter of trust. I don't see the threat of abuse in the way you describe to be significant.

---

quote:

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A secret you don't want who to know ? And what kind of information are we talking about ?

---

A secret I don't want anyone to know! I don't know, I don't have anything specific in mind, but I'm not necessarily talking about home address or health issues or stuff like that. I'm talking personal stuff. What if I get a secret thrill out of cruising all the S&M websites. Sure, lots of people are open about that. What if I don't want to be?

What if I'm having online sex in a private chat room? What if I'm married and looking for some action on the side? What if I'm scanning the online personals trying to meet someone who likes to wear pink bunny suits and bark like a dog in bed? We can all decide whether we think these are morally correct pursuits, but the point is, none of them are illegal but there are lots of reasons why people might want to keep them PRIVATE.

Sure, you could say that the person scanning my email and monitoring my browsing won't know me and therefore won't care. But that's not the point. The point is, it's an invasion of my privacy, and who knows, if my online tastes are odd enough, the person monitoring it COULD become interested in what is basically none of their damn business, because it all comes down to human nature - humans aren't machines. If you think that people who monitor security cameras and things like that are completely professional and ethical and would never use what they see for their own amusement and the amusement of colleagues or friends, then I think that would make you naive in the extreme.

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The Pentagon's new project, called Total Information Awareness (TIA), is a prototype database that has the potential to track every embarrassing prescription you place, every pop starlet CD you buy, every wart you have removed, every trip you make to a foreign country, every subversive book you borrow from the library, every quarter you drop in a slot machine, every withdrawal grade you get in school -- anything you've done that wasn't done under Internet anonymity.

And if the government had its way, you wouldn't even have that corner of the Web in which to pretend you're a model who plays Everquest because you're studying for a breakthrough role in an independent sci-fi movie.

Anonymity on the Internet has annoyed both Democrats and Republicans, and if opposition hadn't been strong enough, it's possible the government's plan to track Internet users, called eDNA, would have gone forward.

---

And finally, my main point in all this:

quote:

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The country won't be safer because a cubicle weasel knows you bought The Fine Art of Vaginal Fisting days before you paid for a box of Monistat-7 with your Visa debit card, but you might make someone's work day a little less dull.

---

quote:

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What if I'm scanning the online personals trying to meet someone who likes to wear pink bunny suits and bark like a dog in bed?

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Hee!

I think it's analogous to not wanting to use the toilet in front of a crowd of people. Everybody uses the toilet. Everybody knows everybody uses the toilet. Everybody knows that everybody knows everybody uses the toilet. Doesn't matter. Most people (well, most adults) like to keep that very very private.

Would you like the government recording you every time you used the toilet? That would freak me the fuck out. Not because it's illegal, or immoral, or anything like that, but just...because!

I think you're getting at the nub of the issue for most people. That is, they're uncomfortable with the idea of some stranger being able to know what they're doing.

It's summarized by your statment here:

quote:

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Would you like the government recording you every time you used the toilet? That would freak me the fuck out. Not because it's illegal, or immoral, or anything like that, but just...because!

---

But, I think if people could get used to the idea then it could possibly help to serve the public good. And if you think about it, there are people who have access to all your personal information now, but it's not the police it's your service providers, and they don't have to justify their use to anybody like a judge first.

Someone told me a story once about a Bell Canada tech who told of an electronic component that techs would plug into every day at a certain time to listen to a certain woman's phone calls to her friend about her sexual escapades.

I like analogies. Yours is a good starting point:

quote:

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Everybody knows everybody uses the toilet. Everybody knows that everybody knows everybody uses the toilet. Doesn't matter. Most people (well, most adults) like to keep that very very private.

---

Toilet use is one example of a private activity. It's very personal, and not something that most people would like to have monitored by the police.

Another example is a person, or corporation's financial activities. I don't know if you're aware of this, but in the US a corporation has recently attempted to secure the right to lie to the public. Private corporations regularly mislead the public about their earnings, pleading for government assistance when their pockets are bulging.

That's a rough approximation of my view of the spectrum of privacy and security in the world. The more I think about it, the more I see problems with the sweeping way in which we tend to look at these things.

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But, I think if people could get used to the idea then it could possibly help to serve the public good. And if you think about it, there are people who have access to all your personal information now, but it's not the police it's your service providers, and they don't have to justify their use to anybody like a judge first.

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Well, the thing is, the energy and resources spent by law enforcement on tracking the inane would be better spent on actual law enforcement.

And I rather dispute the idea that Judges-- more often if not entirely Justices of the Peace-- play any significant role in the issuance of Search Warrants.

We have a system where the judiciary is appointed more for their political toadying than knowledge of law or respect for the Charter. We have Crown Attorney's that for reasons of ego, fabricate evidence and purchase false testimony, with no reprocussions.

No, not all are like that. In fact, I would hazard that few are like that. But as long as there are some, I'd rather these bozo's keep thier nose out of my business.

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But as long as there are some, I'd rather these bozo's keep thier nose out of my business.

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What you're doing with that statement is fixing a threshold for allowing state intrusion into one's private affairs. You're saying that as long as there are some that would abuse the power, then you'd rather they stay out of your business. The implied converse is that if there isn't a threat of any abuse, then you'd be willing to allow it.

So we're basically on the same page, but my threshold is just far lower than yours. Here's why:

With large systems, (the banking system, the healthcare system) the authority that acts as custodian to the system necessarily has access to personal information about people.

It's unreasonable to expect that, with the hundreds of people who have access to your personal information, there would be NO chance of abuse.

If you set were the threshold for your private affairs uniformly across all the systems you use, you wouldn't have a bank account, or use the health system or sign up with an internet service provider. For some reason, we trust these pieces of information to individual agencies but police agencies strike a harsher chord of suspicion with us.

The reasons for this suspicion, I would guess, are that the police stand foremost in the public memory as having trespassed against individual privacy and unleashed abuse against people.

Here are some examples:

RCMP illegally opened mail in the 1970s. Blacklists against communists and others in the US and Canada were compiled from the 1950s onwards. The FBI kept "dirt files" on certain individuals.

But as you look down the list, it comes clearer that it would be difficult for the state to use such information against individuals in the sane way, in a post-cold war environment.

I understand that society isn't ready for completely open information. But at one time, thousands of years ago, we were all naked in front of each other and the only privacy we had was whatever we could do behind a bush, or whatever we thought in our heads. Slowly, over the years, we have developed technology and customs to the point where we can have completely different incarnations of ourselves (corporations, double identities, secret accounts etc. ) that hide our misdeeds.

If people were willing to give up their attachment to the idea that an anonymous police officer might find out about (but not be permitted to act upon) your legal porn habits, illicit affairs, your misdemeanor marijuana smoking, etc. etc., then it might be possible to chip away at the veil of secrecy which permits far worse deeds to go undetected.

And how more freaking naive can you get, Hardner?

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But, I think if people could get used to the idea then it could possibly help to serve the public good.

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"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all, irrevocably." - Judge Aaron Satie, a few hundred years from now.

(I make no apology for using this line even though it's from a TV show. They come up with some gems every now and then and this is one of them)

People like you are the thin edge of the wedge; the government (and big corporations, too, but that's beside the point) loves people like you because your sort lend an authenticity to their motivations that not all the spin-doctoring in the world can do on its own.

And so if enough people can be "convinced" by you or others like you, then the attitude that privacy really isn't "that" important spreads through the populace and before you know it we really WILL be in Soviet Canuckistan.

Well, I for one am a paranoid fart in some respects and one of them is in who gets to know what I do and why I do it. I keep my cards close to my chest, and even my friends don't get to know everything I do. I'm the only one who tells people more than once in a blue moon that something I'm doing is none of their beeswax.

And it's none of the RCMP's beeswax what I do in the privacy of my home when I harm no human being or cause one to come to harm. It's also none of the bank's beeswax what I do with my bank account and the information contained therein is for interactions between me and the bank anc that's it.

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How comforting. How so eminently reasonable.
And how more freaking naive can you get, Hardner?

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I don't know if naive is the word, but I know what you're getting at. Maybe I'm being overly idealistic, but I see growing secrecy and privacy as a negative reaction to a world that is becoming less trustful and less communal.

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People like you are the thin edge of the wedge; the government (and big corporations, too, but that's beside the point) loves people like you because your sort lend an authenticity to their motivations that not all the spin-doctoring in the world can do on its own.

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I'm not sure if you've read everything I've written above. I think big corporations above all would start to worry if we dropped some of our reverence for secrecy.

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And so if enough people can be "convinced" by you or others like you, then the attitude that privacy really isn't "that" important spreads through the populace and before you know it we really WILL be in Soviet Canuckistan.

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You haven't responded to my points above. I understand that a loss of personal privacy is threatening to individuals, but as I say there may be something to be gained here.

I think the first step is to enter into dialogue.

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Well, I for one am a paranoid fart in some respects and one of them is in who gets to know what I do and why I do it. I keep my cards close to my chest, and even my friends don't get to know everything I do. I'm the only one who tells people more than once in a blue moon that something I'm doing is none of their beeswax.

And it's none of the RCMP's beeswax what I do in the privacy of my home when I harm no human being or cause one to come to harm. It's also none of the bank's beeswax what I do with my bank account and the information contained therein is for interactions between me and the bank anc that's it.

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But the bank already HAS all the information on what you do with your money. Where and when you withdraw, what your credit card is used for - it's all there.

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I don't trust big corporations farther than I can throw them either, but they don't have men with guns invested with the legal authority to give me a very bad day.

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Do you really think that you will somehow be threatened by men with guns if the police are given more authority to listen to phone calls or monitor internet use ? I don't think so.

Your response is mostly based on how the idea reduced privacy makes you feel, emotionally. Let me ask: Do you agree that there would also be some social benefits to reduced privacy ? Wouldn't you also like to see corporations with less leeway to lie ?

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I live in an apartment building with perfect privacy. People don't speak to each other in the elevator. No one knows who lives next door.

Alternately, I've lived in communities where people are completely involved in each others' lives. You could leave your door open and people would march right in and say 'hi'.

Which of these two communities seems more humane to you ?

Increased privacy, to me, is an extension of a disintegrating community; where people don't want anyone else to know anything about them, other than the information they control.

And the corporation is the ultimate secret - a giant immoral entity that has a high degree of control over anything that anyone says about it.

The homosexual community has seen how secrets can hurt society. Remember the trend of 'outing' a few years ago ? They wanted to show the world that no one should be ashamed of their sexuality.

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Mr. Hardner, I suspect you haven't had very much insight into the operational aspects of a police investigation, or a prosecution by the Crown.

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You're absolutely correct.

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If you had, you simply wouldn't be giving the state the benefit of the doubt here.

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Well, maybe you can explain it to me. I realize that my idea is pretty jolting to most people.

Bring out your points, and advance the discussion.

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I suspect your comfort with the whole idea centres on your personal belief that you would escape censure. Aside from being a rather selfish perspective, it also highlights again how unfamiliar you must be with the process of oppression.

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Why is my point of view selfish and not the others who say "I don't want MY phone calls monitored" etc. etc. ? I certainly don't think I have less to hide than the average person.

Let's put aside the personal perspective and examine the ideas as they're put forward, shall we ?

You're correct that I'm unfamilliar with the workings of the justice system, but I'm not totally uninformed either.

There's a difference between a secret and desiring privacy.

Men with guns might well say hello if someone up here decides to play mini-Me to John Ashcroft, and has nothing to to besides be an overzealous moron.

I grant that the community wherein people say hello, know about each other, and generally stay social may seem inherently more desirable, but that's a function of voluntarily choosing to give up some personal privacy to your equals.

It is not voluntarily giving up privacy when the government (which is not an equal to you in terms of relative power, but is instead much larger), ostensibly under the mandate of the people, decides that that mandate extends to sticking its nose where its agents are bloody well not wanted.

The paradox is this:

Your idea of expanding police powers to the point where they can just grab all your personal communications without so much as a by-your-leave would create a police state.

And police states don't function efficiently by expanding security at the expense of no privacy; instead they create imagined conspiracies that must be destroyed in order to continue to justify the immense repressiveness of such an apparatus. They also foment paranoia and distrust among people who would otherwise say hello to each other.

In short, your idea contains the seeds of disaster.

And that is why I feel that you are being patronizingly naive about the implications of having a casual attitude about who can and cannot butt into your business.

You wouldn't like it any more than I would if someone, on the basis of an innocent conversation, decided to haul you off to the max-security jail.

As I said before, "they" always claim that it's perfectly fine and they have nothing to hide, and don't worry, be happy, right up until the Gestapo comes for "them". Then "they", always too belatedly, trumpet the virtues of personal privacy and legal safeguards to that effect.

[ 19 January 2003: Message edited by: DrConway ]

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Hmmm... another interesting idea appears: that the government and the community are one in the same. Although I would agree that this is the ideal that we should work towards, the example of the two apartment buildings misses the issue of centralized power and dissociate authority.

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The example I gave was meant to illustrate the general effect of more privacy on a community. Your point is well take, and my example can't be taken as an analogy to the effects of centralized power.

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When the state investigates you, it is not your neighbours investigating you. I suspect you've never worked for government, especially an authoritarian one.

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I have worked for the Canadian government. I'm not sure if you consider that to be authoritarian.

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There's a difference between a secret and desiring privacy.

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Secrecy and privacy are different things, I'll grant you. Maybe privacy is a secret that no one else has a right to know ?

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Men with guns might well say hello if someone up here decides to play mini-Me to John Ashcroft, and has nothing to to besides be an overzealous moron.

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Right. And as I said, if we get a J. Edgar Hoover type in the right place, there's nothing much you can do about it anyway.

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I grant that the community wherein people say hello, know about each other, and generally stay social may seem inherently more desirable, but that's a function of voluntarily choosing to give up some personal privacy to your equals.

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Ok.

I'd definitely like for people to voluntarily give up more privacy to their equals.

But, I'm for giving the government more freedom to watch us too. Did you know that in France, you can be charged for not carrying ID ? The police there can stop and question you without cause.

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Your idea of expanding police powers to the point where they can just grab all your personal communications without so much as a by-your-leave would create a police state.

And police states don't function efficiently by expanding security at the expense of no privacy; instead they create imagined conspiracies that must be destroyed in order to continue to justify the immense repressiveness of such an apparatus. They also foment paranoia and distrust among people who would otherwise say hello to each other.

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I've been saying that I think these powers should be limited to investigating major crimes, although I don't know how feasible that idea is...

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In short, your idea contains the seeds of disaster.

And that is why I feel that you are being patronizingly naive about the implications of having a casual attitude about who can and cannot butt into your business.

You wouldn't like it any more than I would if someone, on the basis of an innocent conversation, decided to haul you off to the max-security jail.

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No, I wouldn't like it if that happened but I don't honestly see the RCMP having the inclination or the resources to start combing through every individual's life and drag them off for every little infraction.

Maybe we could limit these powers to investigations of violent crimes, for example.

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As I said before, "they" always claim that it's perfectly fine and they have nothing to hide, and don't worry, be happy, right up until the Gestapo comes for "them". Then "they", always too belatedly, trumpet the virtues of personal privacy and legal safeguards to that effect.

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We need to find ways to get rid of secrets and show our true selves to those around us.

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This principle is common in authoritarian cults such as that at Jonesville. Usually, the Supreme Leader is thought to be beyond reproach, and remains not subject to scrutiny. Eventually, the citizens above reproach include the Leader's agents, also.

Always, though, disclosure of secrets is mandatory for everyone else, it is not something that he or she is allowed to think about and decide upon.

To my mind, telling "everything to everyone" is a recipe for totalitarianism. Telling the police everything is also asking for trouble. In that case, it becomes a matter of their discretion (that is, whim) whether to prosecute or not, whether to use or not. And while some may be confident that police thinking will not be affected by arbitrary criteria such as race, sexual orientation or political opinion, experience suggests that misuse will occur.

If the police know, for example, that I think Jean Chretien is an idiot, will my application for government employment remain untainted by this fact, or will it make its way into my employment file? And if the police know my sexual orientation, will I be successful in competing for employment in the private sector when a background search is performed? Or will the private employer decide, without giving a reason, that I "don't fit" his company?

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If the police know, for example, that I think Jean Chretien is an idiot, will my application for government employment remain untainted by this fact, or will it make its way into my employment file? And if the police know my sexual orientation, will I be successful in competing for employment in the private sector when a background search is performed? Or will the private employer decide, without giving a reason, that I "don't fit" his company?

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Yes, I *get* this point guys. And as I said, I can understand how this could be a concern given the abuses of the past.

But, with the sheer volume of information that's out there now, would the police bother telling the government what you emailed your brother-in-law about Chretien ?

I don't think so.

Yes, it's possible, but part of a program giving the police (RCMP) extra powers would have to try to stop them from using it for such trivial purposes. And, again, I don't know how feasible this idea is.

................................................

Anyway, it's just an idea. I've made my points, and it doesn't seem to have convinced anyone. At least I spawned some discussion, and maybe I've challenged you enough to reconsider your opinion.

To summarize...

One of the things I like about Canada is that we trust our government more than Americans trust theirs, and that allows us some advantages. I'd like to see this trust leveraged, and applied towards a redesigned relationship between state security and the individual, for the purpose of better control over major crimes, such as violence.

I think such an action would be a good first step in reducing the amount of secrecy in our society, which I believe to be a negative force.

Being charged for not carrying ID is pretty trifling compared to having a government in the HOME OF THE BRAVE AND LAND OF THE FREE being able to swipe anything just by suing it.

Also, in case you hadn't noticed the crime stats, IIRC, show that violent crimes are falling off again.

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Another example is a person, or corporation's financial activities. I don't know if you're aware of this, but in the US a corporation has recently attempted to secure the right to lie to the public. Private corporations regularly mislead the public about their earnings, pleading for government assistance when their pockets are bulging.

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A couple of things:

1) I don't think corporations should be given the same rights as people, and

2) when you plead for government assistance with something, you waive much of your right to privacy in that area, IMHO.

[ 19 January 2003: Message edited by: verbatim ]

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The basic problem is two-fold: Give the police an inch and they'll take a mile. It's always been like that

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As I've said, I understand that it's been this way.

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Being charged for not carrying ID is pretty trifling compared to having a government in the HOME OF THE BRAVE AND LAND OF THE FREE being able to swipe anything just by suing it.

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Are you saying that you think that you think requiring citizens to carry ID would be a good idea ?

If so, then I agree.

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Also, in case you hadn't noticed the crime stats, IIRC, show that violent crimes are falling off again.

So not only are you advocating something useless at best and dangerous at worst, it isn't even necessary.

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Yes, I'm aware that violent crime is on the wane but I certainly wouldn't go as far as saying the statistics indicate that better tools aren't necessary.

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Do you actually get your perceptions of crime from the media, or do you do a little fact checking?

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My ideas aren't based on the idea that violent crime is increasing or decreasing.

I just finished reading John R. Saul's "Voltaire's Bastards" and he had some damning things to say about how the elite uses secrecy, and how we're taught to believe that absolute privacy and secrecy are necessary to maintain an ordered society.

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You're comparing apples and oranges. It's really quite obvious that the financial activities of a large corporation are going to have an impact on the outside world, even if said corporation is entirely honest. It is not obvious that my personal habits - where I go, what I read, what I buy - have that sort of an impact. And I don't ask the government for help buying porn or checking my e-mail, so I really don't see why I should allow them to assume it's their business.

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Yes, you're right about apples and oranges. And although you're also right about your personal porn use, I think that the population as a whole would consume less child porn if they knew that there was more of chance they'd be caught.

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[Edited because it was a dumb post. Mea culpa]

[ 19 January 2003: Message edited by: verbatim ]

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We need to find ways to get rid of secrets and show our true selves to those around us.

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This principle is common in authoritarian cults such as that at Jonesville. Usually, the Supreme Leader is thought to be beyond reproach, and remains not subject to scrutiny. Eventually, the citizens above reproach include the Leader's agents, also.

Always, though, disclosure of secrets is mandatory for everyone else, it is not something that he or she is allowed to think about and decide upon.

To my mind, telling "everything to everyone" is a recipe for totalitarianism. Telling the police everything is also asking for trouble. In that case, it becomes a matter of their discretion (that is, whim) whether to prosecute or not, whether to use or not. And while some may be confident that police thinking will not be affected by arbitrary criteria such as race, sexual orientation or political opinion, experience suggests that misuse will occur.

If the police know, for example, that I think Jean Chretien is an idiot, will my application for government employment remain untainted by this fact, or will it make its way into my employment file? And if the police know my sexual orientation, will I be successful in competing for employment in the private sector when a background search is performed? Or will the private employer decide, without giving a reason, that I "don't fit" his company?

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I think that the population as a whole would consume less child porn if they knew that there was more of chance they'd be caught.

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True, but I think they're going to have to come up with a better solution for that than tracking every move made by ordinary citizens.