E-borders Referred To In Chief Secretaries Service Delivery Plan 2008!

[Albert Tatlock]

Do you have a checklist of buzzwords and catchphrases you tick off when you post? The dramatic language you employ works against you as you just come across as simply another paranoid conspiracy nut.

I know a lot about this issue and keep up-to-date with it. I also served in the forces, and in order to protect the liberal democracy we live in, was trained to point guns at the same type of people and systems the UK seems so now willing to adopt.

 

Sorry if it's not as simple as: 'if you've got nothing to hide you've got nothing to fear' - these events are quite dramatic, far more complicated and involved than most people realise, and involve a fundamental change to our way of life that is being attempted - and it needs to be stopped in its tracks.

[Slim]

I know a lot about this issue and keep up-to-date with it. I also served in the forces, and in order to protect the liberal democracy we live in, was trained to point guns at the same type of people and systems the UK seems so now willing to adopt.

 

I think that assumes a malicious intent behind a lot of these systems. I think generally most of these things come from a desire to improve, not a desire to remove any kind of freedoms in the way you suggest. I also hate the way the assumption is government data = bad, when we're all quite happily giving tonnes of data to the private sector without a worry or a care, and many government systems are often playing catch up to this kind of ease of use demands from the public.

 

It's daft tinhattery e-generalisation in my opinion, and shows a fundamental lack of understanding.

[ans]

My point is, that the language you choose to get your point over damages your credibility. It's possible to present your case without over egging your metaphors.

 

You claim to know a lot about the issue, but the way you come across, it's clear that the sources of your information aren't exactly painting you a balanced picture.

[Albert Tatlock]

I also hate the way the assumption is government data = bad, when we're all quite happily giving tonnes of data to the private sector without a worry or a care, and many government systems are often playing catch up to this kind of ease of use demands from the public.

Speak for yourself. You don't have to hand over so much information if you don't want to, and moreover, you can ask to look at any information they have, and ask for them to remove some of it if it is not appropriate or even correct.

 

Sorry, I shall try and keep my words down to two syllables at most from now on. O K

[Slim]

Speak for yourself. You don't have to hand over so much information if you don't want to, and moreover, you can ask to look at any information they have, and ask for them to remove some of it if it is not appropriate or even correct.

Sorry, I shall try and keep my words down to two syllables at most from now on. O K

 

Oh behave, I'm sure you've got a bank account, an email account, an isp, a travel agent, a supermarket points card, or walk through a shopping centre with CCTV, etc. Most tin hatters don't bat an eyelid at this stuff, but start screaming if the government wants to keep a record of their movements through an airport.

 

Take Dodger as an example, hopped up and down about using a thumbscanner in a school library in an age when kids are putting every facet of their lives on Bebo. It's daft in the main, and the misunderstanding of what's going on detracts from the real issues.

[Albert Tatlock]

Speak for yourself. You don't have to hand over so much information if you don't want to, and moreover, you can ask to look at any information they have, and ask for them to remove some of it if it is not appropriate or even correct.

Sorry, I shall try and keep my words down to two syllables at most from now on. O K

 

Oh behave, I'm sure you've got a bank account, an email account, an isp, a travel agent, a supermarket points card, or walk through a shopping centre with CCTV, etc. Most tin hatters don't bat an eyelid at this stuff, but start screaming if the government wants to keep a record of their movements through an airport.

 

Take Dodger as an example, hopped up and down about using a thumbscanner in a school library in an age when kids are putting every facet of their lives on Bebo. It's daft in the main, and the misunderstanding of what's going on detracts from the real issues.

The government make no secret that they want to collate all of the above system information - the key is the databases, interconnectivity and access to data behind all the ID cards, e-borders etc.

 

In fact I'm for tightening up what a lot of the above organisations already keep on us, and who they give access to it. Fine if people have done something wrong, there's already lots of ways of reporting that and monitoring that - that's what the cops, MI5, MI6 etc. are paid to do - but to keep all that information on the innocent is a stage too far and a breach of privacy, one of the mainstays of a liberal democracy. Such information is also now already being spread to other countries without our permission (e.g. govt driving licence info lost in the US etc.). I am not a US citizen, so why the hell should the US hold any of my data - and yet this government lets them.

 

But it's what people could do with such information in the future that is even more worrying - especially when it is all tied up with DNA profiles eventually (which is only a matter of time IMO) e.g. don't shout at me when one of your kids doesn't get a job sometime in the future, or loses a place at a university etc. because someone somewhere has based their opinion of him/her on information they have got hold of from 'a system'. That's how these people work, they say it's for one thing, and then it soon becomes used for another. That has happened throughout history, and has already happened several times in the course of this current UK govt.

 

Sorry, but I'm against it. And IMO more people should open their eyes to what is actually happening and say something about it.

[Slim]

Sorry, but I'm against it. And IMO more people should open their eyes to what is actually happening and say something about it.

 

People should open their eyes, exactly, and that doesn't mean automatic resistance to the collection of data. I understand the need for data collection, and I'd rather it be done securely and centrally and without duplication than spread manually over different places with multiple vulnerable opporutunites at each.

 

Otherwise, your reaction just looks like a kneejerk to me. Your example of DNA, yes that could be used against people in terms of prejudicing them, but it's also overwealmingly positive. Say a new discovery that makes a person susceptible to a terminal heart condition is discovered, medical professionals could search the dna records for people with that pattern and single them out for treatment. DNA is also unquestionably unique, so can help improve identification and protection of your individuality.

[Albert Tatlock]

Otherwise, your reaction just looks like a kneejerk to me. Your example of DNA, yes that could be used against people in terms of prejudicing them, but it's also overwealmingly positive. Say a new discovery that makes a person susceptible to a terminal heart condition is discovered, medical professionals could search the dna records for people with that pattern and single them out for treatment. DNA is also unquestionably unique, so can help improve identification and protection of your individuality.

That example should be between you, the doctor and the hospital - and only if you so choose. And nothing, nada, sod all to do with, nor used by and communicated to various others by - a government.

 

I'm not against data collation, I'm just for specifying the access, accountability and control of data - and getting people to remember that the state is responsible to us not the other way around. The data is yours, and provided you do nothing wrong, you have the right to control who stores it and what they use it for IMO, and the right to see it and ensure they delete/amend it if is unnecessary or wrong when stored.

 

E-borders is a classic example of a change in the goalposts - no terrorists nabbed, a few criminals maybe - but the vast bulk were fine dodgers and speeding motorists with the emphasis on cash generation. Another system used for other purposes than for which it was originally specified - yet again - catching the guilty by filtering the innocent, which is fundamentally an unacceptable and the wrong approach in a liberal democracy.

[keyboarder]

Rather entertaining to see Jacqui Smith hoist by her own petard. In a technology kind of way you know, lol,lol..... ; )

[Slim]

I'm not against data collation, I'm just for specifying the access, accountability and control of data

 

For me, adding the 'e' makes those goals more attainable. It's far easier to do this with digital centralised systems than federal or manual data stores.

[Albert Tatlock]

I'm not against data collation, I'm just for specifying the access, accountability and control of data

 

For me, adding the 'e' makes those goals more attainable. It's far easier to do this with digital centralised systems than federal or manual data stores.

Of course it is. But it is also makes it easier to give unnecessary access, hack, or lose the data too.

 

Until those controls (access, accountability and control), let alone the necessity for keeping much of the data are debated - for me at the moment adding the 'e' makes it all more like: e-xperimental, e-xpanding, e-xposed and e-xpensive never mind in a liberal democracy IMO 'e'-legal.

[Slim]

Of course it is. But it is also makes it easier to give unnecessary access, hack, or lose the data too.

 

Right, which is why my point was, 'e' doesn't make it automatically bad, which seems to be the case with many people.

[Slim]

Just for you Albert:

 

[manshimajin]

Why don't they just insert a satellite trackable chip into our brains so they can download our thoughts, locations and viewing habits!

 

The thing that gets me is that the excuse for the erosion of personal freeom is always 'terrorism and crime' - still a minority activity despite bert's attempt to overthrow the Manx Government earlier this year.

 

It was interesting that when it was suggested that a minimum price be set per unit of alcohol e.Brown.com came out immediately and said that it was not appropriate for the majority to be penalised because of minority behaviour - despite the enormous social and personal costs caused by irresponsible alcohol use.

 

So there are minorities and then, there are minorities.