Communion Of Dreams

Man, I love the UK, particularly Wales. Have been there half a dozen times, and enjoyed it every time.

But I have to admit, the whole creeping and creepy 1984 mindset about CCTV there drives me nuts. The Brits are well on their way to being a true surveillance society. As I have written recently:

I am constantly dismayed by just how much Great Britain has become a surveillance society, to the point where it is a dis-incentive to want to travel there. In almost all towns of any real size, you are constantly within sight of multiple CCTV cameras, and there is increasing use of biometrics (such as fingerprint ID) as a general practice for even routine domestic travel.

Well, there’s another development related to this: the mindset that for “security purposes” the police and public need to “be aware” of people taking photographs. I’m not talking about around some kind of secure military base or something - I mean in general. This sort of thing has been mentioned numerous times over at BoingBoing (in particular, check out this, this, and this), but an item yesterday really jumped out at me:

Middlesbrough cops, goons and clerks grab and detain photographer for shooting on a public street

That links to this Flickr account of the incident:

My friend and I were photographing in the town. I spotted a man being detained by this security guard and a policeman, some kind of altercation was going on, i looked through my zoom lens to see what was happening and then moved on.

Moments later as i walked away this goon jumped in front of me and demanded to know what i was doing. i explained that i was taking photos and it was my legal right to do so, he tried to stop me by shoulder charging me, my friend started taking photos of this, he then tried to detain us both. I refused to stand still so he grabbed my jacket and said i was breaking the law. Quickly a woman and a guy wearing BARGAIN MADNESS shirts joined in the melee and forcibly grabbed my friend and held him against his will. We were both informed that street photography was illegal in the town.
Two security guards from the nearby shopping center THE MALL came running over, we were surrounded by six hostile and aggressive security guards. They then said photographing shops was illegal and this was private land. I was angry at being grabbed by this man so i pushed him away, one of the men wearing a BARGAIN MADNESS shirt twisted my arm violently behind my back, i winced in pain and could hardly breathe in agony.
A policewomen was radioed and came over to question the two suspects ( the total detaining us had risen to seven, a large crowd had now gathered)
The detaining guard released me, i asked the policewoman if my friend and i could be taken away from the six guards, she motioned us to a nearby seat and told all the security people to go. She took our details, name, address, date of birth etc. She wanted to check my camera saying it was unlawful to photograph people in public, i told her this was rubbish.

Now, before you get all worked up hatin’ on the Brits for not respecting the civil liberties of their citizens and guests . . .

. . . here’s a little gem about New York’s finest, also courtesy of BB:

NYPD cop: videoing me breaking the law is a terrorist act

This video is of a man filming a cop who parked illegally in front of a fire hydrant. He follows her, asking questions, and she mostly ignores him. Then something truly disturbing happens.

A retired police woman comes by and informs the first cop, and the man filming that citizens aren’t allowed to film anybody who works for the police department “’cause of the terrorism.”

OK, isolated incident. But here’s a little something else to consider about how the “War on Terror” is suppressing civil liberties of all of *our* citizens and guests:

Border Agents Can Search Laptops Without Cause, Appeals Court Rules

Federal agents at the border do not need any reason to search through travelers’ laptops, cell phones or digital cameras for evidence of crimes, a federal appeals court ruled Monday, extending the government’s power to look through belongings like suitcases at the border to electronics.

The unanimous three-judge decision reverses a lower court finding that digital devices were “an extension of our own memory” and thus too personal to allow the government to search them without cause. Instead, the earlier ruling said, Customs agents would need some reasonable and articulable suspicion a crime had occurred in order to search a traveler’s laptop.

On appeal, the government argued that was too high a standard, infringing upon its right to keep the country safe and enforce laws. Civil rights groups, joined by business traveler groups, weighed in, defending the lower court ruling.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the government, finding that the so-called border exception to the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on unreasonable searches applied not just to suitcases and papers, but also to electronics.

So, it isn’t just your underwear and sex toys that the Feds want to paw through when you travel outside the US. It’s also any data you might have on any kind of electronic device. “‘Cause of the terrorism,” you know.

Jim Downey

(Cross posted to UTI.)

(I’m still fighting a nasty bit of a sore throat and related poor health, so forgive me if this is a little more jumbled and unclear than what I usually post. But I wanted to address the topic, because it is, in many ways, at the heart of some of the issues I try and deal with in he overall scope of Communion of Dreams. That being the case, this post also contains major and minor spoilers about the novel; I will note warnings in advance of each within the text, for those who wish to avoid them.

- Jim D.)

Bruce Schneier has an excellent editorial up at Wired and over on his own blog about how the argument of ‘Security versus Privacy’ in dealing with the threat of terrorism is really better characterized as being about ‘Control versus Liberty’. I would definitely encourage you to read the whole thing, but here is a good passage which sums up what I want to address on the subject:

Since 9/11, approximately three things have potentially improved airline security: reinforcing the cockpit doors, passengers realizing they have to fight back and — possibly — sky marshals. Everything else — all the security measures that affect privacy — is just security theater and a waste of effort.

By the same token, many of the anti-privacy “security” measures we’re seeing — national ID cards, warrantless eavesdropping, massive data mining and so on — do little to improve, and in some cases harm, security. And government claims of their success are either wrong, or against fake threats.

The debate isn’t security versus privacy. It’s liberty versus control.

You can see it in comments by government officials: “Privacy no longer can mean anonymity,” says Donald Kerr, principal deputy director of national intelligence. “Instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguard people’s private communications and financial information.” Did you catch that? You’re expected to give up control of your privacy to others, who — presumably — get to decide how much of it you deserve. That’s what loss of liberty looks like.

Exactly. In many ways, it is a question not of control itself, but *who* is in control. If I am in control of my own privacy, my own security, then I can decide on what limitations I am willing to live with, what trade-offs I will accept. But we do not have that control, according to our government - they do.

That is precisely what was behind this recent post - showing how governments think that they should be in control of our knowledge, as an argument of their power to provide security.

[Mild spoilers in next paragraph.]

This is one of the reasons I set up the whole ‘expert systems/AI’ of the book - so that each expert such as Seth would be dedicated to maintaining a wall in protection of the privacy of his/her client. He is the little ‘black box’ which interacts on behalf of a client in exchanging information/data/privacy with the rest of the world.

[Major spoilers in the next paragraph.]

And, in the larger picture, this is exactly why I set up the whole “embargo” around our solar system - some alien culture has decided, for whatever reason, that it needs to be in control of our knowledge about the outside (and here’s a hint - it also is in control of who knows about us). They have assumed to act on our behalf, without our knowledge or permission - and when Seth, the AI who has shown he is willing to act on behalf of Jon in the first part of the book, becomes in contact with that alien culture, he makes the decision to continue the embargo for at least a while, though with some changes. Up to the point where Seth does this, we are nothing but children - that a ‘child’ of mankind (an Artificial Intelligence of our creation) then steps in to assume this role carries with it not just an inversion of relationship, but also some legitimation of the decision. While I don’t address this specifically in the book, I can see how this might be a ’standard protocol’ for contacting new, young civilizations - keep them isolated and pure until they develop an artificial intelligence which can make decisions on their behalf with regards to the larger galactic/universal culture. That procedure would make an awful lot of sense, if you stop and think about it.

Anyway, go read Schneier’s essay.

Jim Downey

(Ah, I see Cory Doctorow at BoingBoing has also posted on this - no surprise.)

Intrusive governmental surveillance is a staple of Science Fiction, and was part of the horror of Communism during the Cold War. Just about every spy movie set behind the Iron Curtain showed it, and of course the fictional world of George Orwell’s 1984 was predicated on a complete lack of privacy.

We do not live in a totalitarian society. I was behind the Iron Curtain during the 1970s for a brief period, and saw what it was like first hand. And say what you will, 1984 did not become a reality.

But we are living in an “endemic surveillance society”. And it is as bad here in the US as it is in China and Russia. That is the conclusion of Privacy International’s 2007 International Privacy Ranking. From the report:

In recent years, Parliaments throughout the world have enacted legislation intended to comprehensively increase government’s reach into the private life of nearly all citizens and residents. Competing “public interest” claims on the grounds of security, law enforcement, the fight against terrorism and illegal immigration, administrative efficiency and welfare fraud have rendered the fundamental right of privacy fragile and exposed. The extent of surveillance over the lives of many people has now reached an unprecedented level. Conversely, laws that ostensibly protect privacy and freedoms are frequently flawed – riddled with exceptions and exceptions that can allow government a free hand to intrude on private life.

At the same time, technological advances, technology standards, interoperability between information systems and the globalisation of information have placed extraordinary pressure on the few remaining privacy safeguards. The effect of these developments has been to create surveillance societies that nurture hostile environments for privacy.

Actually, while we are grouped in the tier of worst countries (along with China and Russia) when it comes to protection of privacy, our score is slightly better than both of them. This doesn’t give me a lot of comfort. Take one look at the map they have created, and you’ll shudder too.

Jim Downey

(Via BoingBoing. Cross posted to UTI.)

I notice that I’ve been writing a fair amount on civil liberties and the encroachment on them by the government thanks to the “War on Terror”. I’m not really that obsessed with this stuff, but I just keep stumbling across things which should make anyone concerned.

The latest is an item I saw on Yahoo! this morning, from the AP:

AP: Firefighters help in war on terror

WASHINGTON - Firefighters in major cities are being trained to take on a new role as lookouts for terrorism, raising concerns of eroding their standing as American icons and infringing on people’s privacy.

Unlike police, firefighters and emergency medical personnel don’t need warrants to access hundreds of thousands of homes and buildings each year, putting them in a position to spot behavior that could indicate terrorist activity or planning.

You know, at first glance this doesn’t seem that unreasonable, and I’m sure that is what the government is counting on as the word of it spreads to the public. Sure, if some firemen happen to stumble across a big pile of bombs in the basement of someone’s apartment, it would be reasonable for them to report it. What’s the big deal?

Well, think a little more about it, and see what else is in the news report:

When going to private residences, for example, they are told to be alert for a person who is hostile, uncooperative or expressing hate or discontent with the United States; unusual chemicals or other materials that seem out of place; ammunition, firearms or weapons boxes; surveillance equipment; still and video cameras; night-vision goggles; maps, photos, blueprints; police manuals, training manuals, flight manuals; and little or no furniture other than a bed or mattress.

Be alert for someone who is hostile? Uncooperative? Expressing hate or discontent?

That is dangerously close to thought-policing. If the simple act of expressing discontent (or being perceived as doing so) with the government or any of its agents is enough to get you reported to Homeland Security (which is what the firefighters are being trained to do), then we have slipped past simple awareness to making judgement calls as to what is appropriate political behaviour.

And think about how this might be received: do you seriously want any community or individuals who *might* be at-odds with the political leadership of the state, local, or federal government to be reluctant to report a fire, for fear that some literature they have sitting on a desk could be perceived as necessitating a call to Homeland Security? Isn’t that a good way for a fire to get hold, perhaps destroying whole apartment blocks or close-together urban neighborhoods?

Or put another way, would you want your neighbor, who maybe does a little pot on the weekends, to be afraid to call 9-11 for you when you’re having a heart attack, because he fears that the EMS team might notice that he’s a little red-eyed when they show up? Or have your roommate, who likes to go target shooting and is set up to do his own reloading, not want to call when you think you’ve accidentally swallowed some poison, since the EMS team might see his guns and gunpowder?

This undermines our trust in the neutral agency of our emergency-response personnel, and so makes us all less safe in the long run. The government has the authority to serve us when in need, not spy on us when it wants. If they want to conduct police actions, they should have to meet the necessary legal requirements to do so, and not try to pull some end-around trick like this.

*Sigh* A reminder that I need to renew my ACLU membership.

Jim Downey

(Cross posted to UTI.)

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Added: Bruce Schneier reminded me of this post of his touching on the same topic earlier this month. Definitely read it.

JD.