We need a privacy revolution

[eyeball]

It's much harder to cloak the backroom with a well designed online process.

That reminds me of a phrase we heard a lot when we started discussing all this stuff 20 years ago where I live; it's harder to stab someone in the back when they're staring at you from the other side of the negotiating table.

Look at it this way, at one time the press was supposed to keep an eye on such things. It worked for awhile, but not anymore.

Before that the fear of God was supposed to keep our rulers on the straight and narrow. The accountability kool-aid people are steeped in that makes them imagine the media is any more effective a check or balance is no less delusional.

Only because money buys votes more easily when you have a mass model. You can buy TV ads to convince the masses to vote against their interests. This works for both sides of the political coin.

With a public, you have a group that understands their own interests, and the issues at stake. There's no other way to get to them other than through policy.

You seem to be in the grip of some notion that policy-makers are just dying to get in touch with us and tear down the walls of their back rooms but they can't because there's all this money getting in their way. I mean...is it my fault why this sounds so ludicrous?

There is no way for the public's you and I hang with to uncloak the back rooms and protect their own interests without a well designed oversight mechanism. In other words there is no way to protect ourselves from being stabbed in the back. How do you force the Jimmy's of the world to sit down and face us from across the negotiating table? You keep declaring this that and the next wondrous thing will happen without saying a thing about what the mechanism will be that brings them about. The internet is just another information delivery system that still has to be connected to something, like cameras and a microphones for example. Open.gov? I'm pretty sure that idea or something much like it was borne by fishermen long before you ever heard of it.

The mass doesn't need to be plugged into it to make penetrating secrecy work, I care no more about the issues you face in downtown TO than you care about the issues I face out on the 100 fathom edge but how we face them should be of utmost concern. We bloody well better get it right because we're probably only going to get one shot at it.

Edited May 12, 2014 by eyeball

[Michael Hardner]

Before that the fear of God was supposed to keep our rulers on the straight and narrow. The accountability kool-aid people are steeped in that makes them imagine the media is any more effective a check or balance is no less delusional.

Ok - but you just said that fear of God kept everybody honest until... when ? The 1980s ?

Either it was always terrible, or it's getting worse - pick one. And if it was better once then why was it ? God had nothing to do with it.

You seem to be in the grip of some notion that policy-makers are just dying to get in touch with us and tear down the walls of their back rooms but they can't because there's all this money getting in their way. I mean...is it my fault why this sounds so ludicrous?

They are bottom feeders, that eat the plankton of votes. They respond to money now because money buys votes cheaply, but that's today. The cost of votes will go up soon, and actual ideas will matter more. With a public it's much harder to buy votes. You're stuck in the current system.

There is no way for the public's you and I hang with to uncloak the back rooms and protect their own interests without a well designed oversight mechanism.

What have I been talking about if not a well designed oversight system ?

without saying a thing about what the mechanism will be that brings them about. The internet is just another information delivery system that still has to be connected to something, like cameras and a microphones for example. Open.gov? I'm pretty sure that idea or something much like it was

borne by fishermen long before you ever heard of it.

Cameras and microphones... old technology.

The mass doesn't need to be plugged into it to make penetrating secrecy work,

Secrecy also works better with masses, who are too distracted to pay attention to details. The system design is so complicated now that the masses can't hope to get to the heart of the matter.

I don't know the details of how these things will come about, nor do I know how long it will take but it will happen.

[eyeball]

Ok - but you just said that fear of God kept everybody honest until... when ? The 1980s ?

Either it was always terrible, or it's getting worse - pick one. And if it was better once then why was it ? God had nothing to do with it.

Until the fear of God wore off, the fear of being caught and facing a penalty. Of course God had nothing to do with it, it was always the fear of penalty that worked - like the cameras and monitoring that keep me honest. That's what works. really really well too. I know from direct experience.

They are bottom feeders, that eat the plankton of votes. They respond to money now because money buys votes cheaply, but that's today. The cost of votes will go up soon, and actual ideas will matter more. With a public it's much harder to buy votes.

Where are you getting this public's and masses stuff? Can't you just say, communities, fishing associations, business groups - or just plain people, that is what you mean don't you?

Secrecy also works better with masses, who are too distracted to pay attention to details.

This is precisely why I said it doesn't matter if the entire country is paying attention to the little details that are associated with all our regional or area based issues. I'll happily pay someone out of my association dues to audit the meetings around issues that affecting me directly and I'll be fairly secure in the knowledge that you and your "public" will be doing the same thing to protect your interests. All I need to know about your business with the government, is that it's being conducted in a similar manner. That way I can have faith that things won't be falling off the rails due to neglect and distraction.

The system design is so complicated now that the masses can't hope to get to the heart of the matter.

What heart of what matter, your's, mine or our's? The only single thing the mass of Canadians is collectively faced with is how all the individual public's it's is composed of deal with and negotiate their myriad issues with or through the same government.

What is so complicated about understanding why people can't do this when they can't see or hear what's being discussed and planned in-camera in a closed back room meetings between officials and the wealthiest amongst us? It's actually really simple.

I don't know the details of how these things will come about, nor do I know how long it will take but it will happen.

Not in your lifetime following what ever it is you don't know is misleading you.

[Michael Hardner]

Where are you getting this public's and masses stuff? Can't you just say, communities, fishing associations, business groups - or just plain people, that is what you mean don't you?

Because they differ depending on the issue being discussed. The public for email monitoring would include business interests from the telcos, security analysts, hackers and just plain people - for example.

Masses is everybody who has a TV.

All I need to know about your business with the government, is that it's being conducted in a similar manner. That way I can have faith that things won't be falling off the rails due to neglect and distraction.

You're describing a public there - in person meetings, holding

As for the greater country, the regular people will probably always be part of any public to a degree, because they pay taxes.

What is so complicated about understanding why people can't do this when they can't see or hear what's being discussed and planned in-camera in a closed back room meetings between officials and the wealthiest amongst us? It's actually really simple.

Why do you think politicians want to please rich people ? Because they like how they smell ?

There are many good reasons they do this, and as for the bad reasons you're focussed on: if it's outright illegal bribery, then that hopefully will be exposed at some point. If it's the more system-ingrained type of lobbying/bribery that they depend on, then you have to look at the system a little more closely to see why that works.

[eyeball]

you have to look at the system a little more closely

No, you have to look at it a lot more closely.

[Michael Hardner]

No, you have to look at it a lot more closely.

I've looked at it pretty closely already. The solution is to let the system die, remove the head and see how the body does without it.

[eyeball]

Well that's pretty much my conclusion too, the status quo is almost entirely unsustainable as I see it. But if letting it die means waiting an inordinate amount of time and it comes down to actually having to remove it's head - what did you have in mind, conventional guillotine or are you just speaking rhetorically?

[Michael Hardner]

Rhetorically.

[Moonlight Graham]

Thats not a silly analogy at all, in fact its very apt. It needs to be drilled into people that searching your email is no different than searching your car or your house or tapping your phone. The danger here is that electronic communications can be siezed in a much less obtrusive way so we might be stupid enough to allow it. But the government reading your email is absolutely no different than them putting a microphone in your living room so that they can here your conversations.

People either have the right to communicate in private or they dont.

Electronic communications should be treated exactly like phone calls or verbal conversations. The government can eavesdrop on you if they need to... they just need to give a judge a good reason for why they need to do it.

Well, to try to end this quarrel with Michael H., MH is right in that the feds physically entering your home (your private property) is not exactly the same as them hacking your email etc.

However, I agree with pretty much everything else dre said. It's also unconstitutional for the feds to secretly search your private conversations without probable cause. Section 8 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms:

8. Everyone has the right to be secure against unreasonable search or seizure.

If it's important enough to be among the 8 basic legal rights guaranteed in the Charter, I'm not overreacting over this privacy issue. A very similar right makes up the US's Fourth Amendment:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Edited May 15, 2014 by Moonlight Graham

[Michael Hardner]

Hey @Moonlight Graham ....

 

Yeah, you started this thread.  Did you forget what you reported ?  Don't sweat it if so...

[Moonlight Graham]

49 minutes ago, Michael Hardner said:

Hey @Moonlight Graham ....

 

Yeah, you started this thread.  Did you forget what you reported ?  Don't sweat it if so...

No I do remember the thread  but not its contents.

[eyeball]

10 hours ago, Moonlight Graham said:

No I do remember the thread  but not its contents.

I still feel much the same way except for where I called Michael an extreme centrist.  I'm pretty sure there's no hard feelings.

Nice blast from the past Mike, thanks!

[Nationalist]

People...I know that the government of Canada, along with pretty much every other government in the world, has been running crawlers through email and web accesses all along. Since the late '80's. Probably even before that. They're trying to legalize it now because the general public has finally found out.

I believe that opening and reading someone's mail is a crime?

With Pixie-Dust so willing to "cancel" Canadian citizens, this is a tool he should never have access to.

[Michael Hardner]

1 hour ago, Nationalist said:

  Since the late '80's. Probably even before that. They're trying to legalize it now because the general public has finally found out.

Wow.  Now a double-anachronistic conspiracy theory.  It's like watching someone dunk a basketball with their pants over their head and using their feet... amazing.

The WWW was invented in 1989.  I doubt Mulroney had code monkeys in his employ at that time, as mobile phones were still the size of footballs.  

Second anachronism - "they're trying to legalize it now".  It was legalized during the Harper government.

Boom goes the dynamite...

[Nationalist]

38 minutes ago, Michael Hardner said:

Wow.  Now a double-anachronistic conspiracy theory.  It's like watching someone dunk a basketball with their pants over their head and using their feet... amazing.

The WWW was invented in 1989.  I doubt Mulroney had code monkeys in his employ at that time, as mobile phones were still the size of footballs.  

Second anachronism - "they're trying to legalize it now".  It was legalized during the Harper government.

Boom goes the dynamite...

LOL...what a pip you are.

Mikie...I was there. I was a DFAIT network administrator back then.

Bill C-13 was a watered down version of the rejected C-30.

If I'm not mistaken, C-30 has still not gained acceptance to law.

BTW...it doesn't take a code genius to crawl through logs. Programmers have been doing that for...well forever.

Quit shooting duds.