Holy cr*p. That's my nightmare as well. The Public transport system has been hacked many times. What is the Electronic Patient, Electronic Passport or Tax system gets hacked? Anyone could take all your information and you're screwed. I think anyone owning any system whatsoever should be FORCED to go public if there system gets hacked. (Especially banks!)
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I'm a big fan of Open Government, but what does that have to do with securing data that isn't meant to be public?
> You can purchase one without your name and address but you can only add money to it using your bank-account. The system tracks all travelers' movements (departure and end points for each leg of every journey), in most cases combined with the traveler's identity. It retains the data for seven years Not to discredit your whole post but is this really the case. You can buy those 1 hour/24 hour/48 hour passes for cash.…
Funny that this thread has become about the Netherlands. I moved to Amsterdam from Seattle last November, and have to say that I feel far less vulnerable here, information-wise. Perhaps if I compared the policies and behaviors of only the national governments, I would remember the US as the land of the free, but I prefer to take all levels of government and corporate power into account.
> I moved to Amsterdam from Seattle last November, and have to say that I feel far less vulnerable here, information-wise.
This is happening in Europe since a while now: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_data_retenti... What makes me really angry is that since that law has passed in Austria, we have to pay a so called "service fee" on all providers - which is 20EUR/year for all internet and mobile contracts. We basically pay for our own surveillance.
You'd still pay for it one way or the other. It's the government, you/we pay for all of it.
> You can purchase one without your name and address but you can only add money to it using your bank-account. The system tracks all travelers' movements (departure and end points for each leg of every journey), in most cases combined with the traveler's identity. It retains the data for seven years Not to discredit your whole post but is this really the case. You can buy those 1 hour/24 hour/48 hour passes for cash.…
Funny that this thread has become about the Netherlands. I moved to Amsterdam from Seattle last November, and have to say that I feel far less vulnerable here, information-wise. Perhaps if I compared the policies and behaviors of only the national governments, I would remember the US as the land of the free, but I prefer to take all levels of government and corporate power into account.
True. When I was in the US I was weary to approach a police officer. To me they looked rather edgy. A 'don't f*ck with me attitude'. Our police are pussy's compared to yours! My travel agency even warned me for the police in the poorer parts of Missisipy. As a non-american I could not fully understand the English some people over there spoke. (Alabama and in The deep south). Oddly enough people over there thought I was from NY or something when I talked to them.
> do find it funny how abortion even rises to the level of audibleness in the conversation. Legalized abortion, allowing half the species agency over a basic biological function central to their ability to equally participate in society, is the single most important human rights issue since the outlawing of slavery. Of course it rises to the level of "audibleness." It should be deafening!
You completely missed the point. When you give so much power to the government, it doesn't matter what your individual opinion is on abortion or any other noise issue. You have given your opponent a checkmate because you allowed that opponent to take your queen earlier thinking that he was somehow your friend.
Your language of "audibleness" clearly refers to the importance of abortion versus privacy as issues, not any sort of long-term tactical battle. I'm not addressing the rest of your post, just the first sentence.
I hate to use this tone but, so be it. Maybe now you morons who continue to vote in the pieces of shit into our government who are bent on taking more and more power for themselves will wake up and figure it out? How much more proof do you need? Does this make you angry yet or is Obama still your diety? Oh, and Republicans don't get a pass either. The point is that all of you morons voting like robots along party lin…
There is nothing more intellectually childish than saying "x isn't working in this case, therefore x never works and should be totally abandoned." I agree 100% that 99% of people don't care about politics enough and vote blindly. Look at the turn out rate for primaries and years where people aren't voting for president. Libertarians like you are all talk. There plenty of places in this world with no government but you would never go there because they are 3rd world shit holes. Ask yourself, "why aren't there any first world countries that are prosperous that have libertarian governments?" You love government. You love roads, infrastructure, safe food, safe cars, you take things like electricity, water, and internet for granted, you bathe in government funded projects that have made your life better in every way. The answer isn't no government, it's better government. In some areas that means drastically reducing it's power and I think even the left most progressive could agree with the right most libertarian on many things. However it's just childish to say "no government". It's been tried before in the past, and it's being tried now, it never works. We do better when we work together.
Vote Republican: Patriot act created Vote Democratic: Patriot act abused I'm not sure where this leaves us, which is worse?
Get out of the Republican vs Democrat team mindset? Choose individual candidates who believe in and you trust to legislate based upon some core principles. Examine voting records when possible since speeches can be useless. Too many people get caught up in the complexity of noise issues that aren't that important. These noise issues are like the trade-in value of your used car when you go to buy a new one... or the i…
The problem is that if NONE of the candidates adhere to my principles and I don't vote, SOMEONE wins by default.
In addition to making your opinion heard to your senator and representative I would recommend using strong, vetted and open source encryption whenever possible. Whisper Systems is a good place to start for mobile security on Android.
TextSecure and RedPhone will secure the content of your communications, but I'm not sure they will prevent the "metadata" from being captured (who called who, for how long, ect).
The biggest hurdle to me effectively using these tools is convincing others to use them. Many people seem eerily not bothered by being spied on by their own government or private companies. It's a strange world...
I hate to use this tone but, so be it. Maybe now you morons who continue to vote in the pieces of shit into our government who are bent on taking more and more power for themselves will wake up and figure it out? How much more proof do you need? Does this make you angry yet or is Obama still your diety? Oh, and Republicans don't get a pass either. The point is that all of you morons voting like robots along party lin…
There is nothing more intellectually childish than saying "x isn't working in this case, therefore x never works and should be totally abandoned." I agree 100% that 99% of people don't care about politics enough and vote blindly. Look at the turn out rate for primaries and years where people aren't voting for president. Libertarians like you are all talk. There plenty of places in this world with no government but yo…
He didn't say nor have I ever heard a libertarian claim they wanted no government. I believe that's a different ideology.
I'm an American and a Verizon customer. Maybe I'm the proverbial frog in a pot of boiling water, but I'm not outraged. I'm not really even annoyed. I don't know why exactly, but I think it boils down (no pun intended) to two different things. First, I'm under no delusion that the US federal government has my personal best interest in mind with everything that it does. I think that usually the federal government as a…
Am I being downvoted by someone who disagrees with my opinions, or did I do something wrong here?
Downvoting something that's contrary to your opinion just seems childish. If you disagree with me, tell me why I'm wrong...