Privacy invasion

KnowItAll

I see that the government is going to hold data on people for 3 years now. Another example of Irish peoples liberties being eroded because of the Islamic wave sweeping through europe at the moment. The London bombings were the perfect excuse for the government to do this (along with our sister government, Britian).

Once again I'll say that they should be watching the Islamics only. If this means they'll not be treated as equals, well thats just tough.

Kare Bear

I see that the government is going to hold data on people for 3 years now. Another example of Irish peoples liberties being eroded because of the Islamic wave sweeping through europe at the moment. The London bombings were the perfect excuse for the government to do this (along with our sister government, Britian).

It aint that bad unless u have something to hide.

county

if it makes a safer society and you have nothing to hide whats the big issue?

aidan_walsh

Irish people have built bombs.
Irish people have set bombs off in England.
Therefore, you are a terrorist.

county

i am british and i would never make a sweeping statment like that!

pete

KnowItAll wrote:

the Islamic wave

aidan_walsh

It was a sarcastic statement aimed at the OP, to point out that his attack that only Islamics should be watched is baseless. Sorry for the confusion.

rsynnott

KnowItAll wrote:

Once again I'll say that they should be watching the Islamics only. If this means they'll not be treated as equals, well thats just though.

"I am not a RACIALIST, but, and zis is a BIG BUT, de National Botialist Party says...."

tomMK1

why would Islamics only have to be a suspect? Bombers could be anti american, anti british, anti war in iraq - theres countless reasons for anyone with a grudge to help out. By limiting the people you keep tabs on, wouldnt you be increasing (or at least not lowering) the chances of such a thing happening again?

KnowItAll

Kare Bear wrote:

It aint that bad unless u have something to hide.

Would you like to be stared at walking down a street?

Usually it takes the government months or years to get anything done but the government reacted with lightening speed to the london bombings as they saw a chance to impose more laws.

I'm looking at the big picture here. I've nothing to hide and have never even been arrested but eventually we are all going to be living in a big brother world where everything is being watched and monitored even though people don't like being watched.

The real problem I have is that the law applies to Irish people.

aidan_walsh

KnowItAll wrote:

The real problem I have is that the law applies to Irish people.

So there are no Islamic Irish people? You realise Islam is a religion and not a country, right?

tomMK1

to be hinest anyway, i doubt it'll make a major difference to irish people since we're more than likely have been spied on for years at this stage anyway both in britian and in ireland.

KnowItAll

tomMK1 wrote:

why would Islamics only have to be a suspect?

Because they are the ones who are bombing everywhere at the moment. When other groups start doing it, watch them.

tomMK1

read the rest of that post you quoted. I doubt you have to be in a 'group' to lend a hand.

Guy:Incognito

Wasnt the guy that set off the nail bombs in London a few years back targeting Gay people or summat? I recall he may also have been a skinhead, so maybe all people with shaved heads ( and naturally bald people- theyre shifty at the best of times) should be put one some sort of round the clock anti gay watch list. :rolleyes:

Guy:Incognito

KnowItAll wrote:

Would you like to be stared at walking down a street?

Why would people stare? are they going to put personal details with pictures on billboards or something?

KnowItAll wrote:

The real problem I have is that the law applies to Irish people.

Yeah, they should alll be immune from laws in Ireland.

KnowItAll wrote:

Because they are the ones who are bombing everywhere at the moment. When other groups start doing it, watch them.

Like the Irish did for 30 odd years?

And dont forget those Germans too, they started a war you know.

KnowItAll

aidan_walsh wrote:

So there are no Islamic Irish people? You realise Islam is a religion and not a country, right?

That depends on your point of view. If you think having an Irish passport makes you Irish then there are plenty of islamic Irish. For me being Irish involves a little more than having an Irish passport (i'm not going to go into more detail on this issue, thanks).

Of course there are some Irish people who converted to Islam but I don't think much of them tbh.

Guy:Incognito

KnowItAll wrote:

If you think having an Irish passport makes you Irish then there are plenty of islamic Irish.For me being Irish involves a little more than having an Irish passport (i'm not going to go into more detail on this issue, thanks). .

I think you'll find that from a legal pov ( which is far more binding than your opinion btw) that it means exactly that.

rsynnott

KnowItAll wrote:

That depends on your point of view. If you think having an Irish passport makes you Irish then there are plenty of islamic Irish. For me being Irish involves a little more than having an Irish passport (i'm not going to go into more detail on this issue, thanks).

It involves being a white heterosexual conservative catholic, doesn't it? Go join the National Men's Council (yes, really, it exists). And you can't just stand up and say "I define Irish different from the rest of the universe and use this in arguments, but refuse to go into detail". It's silly.

KnowItAll wrote:

Of course there are some Irish people who converted to Islam but I don't think much of them tbh.

Goodness, they converted to another religion. How dreadful. Wasn't their local priest's assurence enough to convince them that Catholicism was right in every way?

And as to groups who bomb people, a small subset of Irish people have a bit of a reputation for that themselves, you know Just see every other post on the Politics board.

kasintahan

Everyone has something to hide.

If it's a surprise trip for you and your parther to Paris then perhaps it might not be the end of the world if everyone knew.

But what if it was a politcal Watergate type issue? What if the vested interests were the very ones with the access to your email and browsing habits? Even if was only to gain some leverage over you - perhaps you were cheating on you wife, nothing illegal but enough to silence you. This may not affect most of us, but it affects those that count.

My problem with it is that it hands far too much power to those we know from experience we can not trust (polititians, police, civil servents etc).

It also criminalises the entire population from the outset, your communications are recorded as a matter of course - guilty until proven innocent.

Besides all it going to do is force the criminal element to use alternative means (encryption, mix master relays, proxies and shell accounts in foreign nations).

rsynnott

kasintahan wrote:

Besides all it going to do is force the criminal element to use alternative means (encryption, mix master relays, proxies and shell accounts in foreign nations).

This is the real problem, of course; none of these "terrorism" precautions work for terrorists, organised crime or anyone with technical knowledge. They merely serve to make normal people feel safe and under the illusion that the government is doing something.

Also, your stance conflicts with your sig

kasintahan

PS - in Germany (among others) the information is kept for 6 months and for billing purposes only, all other use requres court order. Attempts to extend this to 1 year for the entire EU have been fingered as being breaking the UN charter on human rights. Here we now have 3 years (which is actually a step down for from the 7 years the Telecom Eireann records were kept).

Hail to the Fuhrer,
kas

kasintahan

rsynnott wrote:

This is the real problem, of course; none of these "terrorism" precautions work for terrorists, organised crime or anyone with technical knowledge. They merely serve to make normal people feel safe and under the illusion that the government is doing something.

Also, your stance conflicts with your sig

Agreed.

As for my sig, I saw it as a triumph of science and not Marxist ideals .

county

kasintahan wrote:

PS - in Germany (among others) the information is kept for 6 months and for billing purposes only, all other use requres court order. Attempts to extend this to 1 year for the entire EU have been fingered as being breaking the UN charter on human rights. Here we now have 3 years (which is actually a step down for from the 7 years the Telecom Eireann records were kept).

Hail to the Fuhrer,
kas

**** the fuhrer!!!

Hobbes

KnowItAll wrote:

Because they are the ones who are bombing everywhere at the moment. When other groups start doing it, watch them.

Irish people bombed England and NI. We should start watching them too.

(i'm not going to go into more detail on this issue, thanks).

Oooh Please do! I can't wait to hear this. Please tell me it doesn't involve having to listen to Enya though.


.. Btw, you have a 10 year passport? That information is kept for at least 10 years. Revenue Commisioners keep information on people well past 3 years if needs be as do the police I'm sure.

Frank Grimes

KnowItAll wrote:

Of course there are some Irish people who converted to Islam but I don't think much of them tbh.

Why is that?
Could it be because they dispel your notion that all Muslims are "foreign" and are therefore fair game to be treated as criminals regardless of whether they've committed a crime or not?
As for your original post, no I don't think the government should watch Muslims only, there's other people out there that would want to cause damage too (not just terrorists even, plain old gangsters too) so directing Garda resources to "monitor" 20,000 people would be a total waste and potentially dangerous for all of us.

Sparks

county wrote:

if it makes a safer society and you have nothing to hide whats the big issue?

I have nothing to hide. Why, therefore, should I be monitored like a criminal? What did I do wrong to justify the invasion of my privacy, which is a civil right enumerated in our constitution?

Gurgle

KnowItAll wrote:

I see that the government is going to hold data on people for 3 years now.

What kind of data, what people & what government department ?

Sure you're not making a big issue out of an administration procedure ?

kasintahan

Gurgle wrote:

What kind of data, what people & what government department ?

Sure you're not making a big issue out of an administration procedure ?

Nope, it's not the goverment that does the holding, but the telecoms companies - they hold you email (full), a list of all IP's visisted, a list of all phone calls (with time, date and duration + location information). That's not the full list.

This is not for administration, this is assumed criminality of the entire population.

I am unsure yet of how easy the information will be to legally access.

rsynnott

kasintahan wrote:

This is not for administration, this is assumed criminality of the entire population.

As long as access is secure and requires a court order, that is fine. Maybe fewer paedophile judges will get off... It's how safely the data will be held and who will have access that worries me.

kasintahan wrote:

As for my sig, I saw it as a triumph of science and not Marxist ideals .

Yes, that it was (arguably; though impressive at the time the Sputnik 2 was a complete failure from a scientific point of view; the radiation sensors didn't work properly and Laika died after a few hours), but it is rather a good example of Soviet (not Marxist; the Soviets were about as Marxist as George W Bush) propaganda art.

kasintahan

rsynnott wrote:

but it is rather a good example of Soviet (not Marxist; the Soviets were about as Marxist as George W Bush) propaganda art.

Off Topic - I would have said Soviet, but my sig is Romanian. Marxist was as close a parallel as I could draw.

nobodythere

KnowItAll wrote:

Because they are the ones who are bombing everywhere at the moment. When other groups start doing it, watch them.

No they are just an umbrella scapegoat when you're not sure who to blame...
An important point of this is that it has very little to do with terrorism - you can't stop a guy from walking on a train and blowing himself up - that would take an insane amount of monitoring and destruction of fundamental civil liberties...

Weapons technology has eroded the right to privacy...

rsynnott

kasintahan wrote:

Off Topic - I would have said Soviet, but my sig is Romanian. Marxist was as close a parallel as I could draw.

Ah, yep (silly me). Stalinist would be closer to the mark, IMO.

SparkyLarks

People complain about records being held.

I wish that govt departmetns all had access to a central database on me.
It would make life so much easier if the revenue comissioners had access to my hospital records so I didn't have to keep all my recipts all year. ther is so often I'm dealing with one dept or another wishing why can't all this info be on a register

If by monitering my phone calls and internet connection, along with everybody elses, heps to catch criminals, terrorists, pedeofiles, drug dealers ect then I'm all for it.

If you don't want society keeping tabs on you, go off to a secluded wilderness somewhere. If you want to live with other people it is essential that you forgo some of your rights. i.e the right to shout your head off at 2 in the morning.

Up untill this centurary everybody was kept tabs on. Living in small communities people knew everything about everybody else. Who was a con artist, who was responsible, who had a temper ect. The guy sitting next to you at work might have been in jail for randomally atacking his co-workers. You should know that type of information

The guy in the apartment above you might be a rocker who plays loud music all the time. We don;t know the people we live with any more. The girl you going out wil might have had 3 husbands before and cheeted on them all, or all of them may have died in mysterious circumstances.

We now live with strangers, people we don't know.
Glases are currently being developed that can perform face recognision and then display the name of the person on the street. The idea is that in the future you could walk down the street and whoever your looked at, their name would apear on the inside of you glases. In the future that could be expanded and you could find out what other people think about the person your looking at.

Apart from the obvious benifits of finding out if the hot person across from you is single or not,( and what drink she likes) this would mean the world would truly become a global village again

People would be forced to live with the consequences of their actions. their past would follow them around.

rsynnott

That's all very well, as long as you assume that everyone in the world is ethical. If not... you're in trouble.

SparkyLarks wrote:

Apart from the obvious benifits of finding out if the hot person across from you is single or not,( and what drink she likes) this would mean the world would truly become a global village again

And creepy stalker enablement is not, IMO, a good thing.

Hobbes

SparkyLarks wrote:

If by monitering my phone calls and internet connection, along with everybody elses, heps to catch criminals, terrorists, pedeofiles, drug dealers ect then I'm all for it.

Read up on J.Edgar Hoover. He is a good example of why such information should have checks and balances and not freely available as made out by you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Edgar_Hoover

Long and short of it, he had files on everyone of importance and used those files to stay in power and ensure that the *wrong* people didn't get into power. Sure thats fine if you will never amount to much in life, but you don't appreciate how dangerous this is until your a victim of it.

BuffyBot

If by monitering my phone calls and internet connection, along with everybody elses, heps to catch criminals, terrorists, pedeofiles, drug dealers ect then I'm all for it.

If you don't want society keeping tabs on you, go off to a secluded wilderness somewhere. If you want to live with other people it is essential that you forgo some of your rights. i.e the right to shout your head off at 2 in the morning.

Well there you have it. What exactly is the acceptable balance? How much monitoring is ok. Do you want the government to be able to read your personal communications. Would it be ok if they opened your post? Listened in live to your telephone calls?

People shouldn't have to go to the wilderness to have privacy. Privacy is a fundemental right that everyone is entitled to, everywhere. This blanket record keeping is nothing but an impractical knee jerk reaction on behalf of the governments involved.

ressem

As long as access is secure and requires a court order, that is fine.

After the bombing the ISPs in the UK got a form mail from the national high tech crime unit that day asking that
content of servers (email/sms/mms/voicemail) and logs be preserved, with an addendum saying that data is exempt from the 1st Data Protection Principle, if it is processed for the purpose of prevention and detection of crime or the apprehension and prosecution of offenders.
(section 29(1) Data Protection act 1998)

So for example some UK universities warn that they will turn over data on submission of a standard form from the police stating subject and reason based on this section.

Red Alert

My private e-mails are not for the eyes of the government (nor Microsoft or advertising companies) to read. Will an post have to open every letter, photocopy the contents, reseal and send on as well???

Gurgle

Red Alert wrote:

My private e-mails are not for the eyes of the government (nor Microsoft or advertising companies) to read.

Ha!
You used the words 'private' and 'e-mail' in the same sentence.

re. The original point, the government cannot (officially) access your phone records without a court order. To get a court order, the gardai have to have evidence that you were (or are) involved in a crime.

Sparks

Gurgle wrote:

re. The original point, the government cannot (officially) access your phone records without a court order. To get a court order, the gardai have to have evidence that you were (or are) involved in a crime.

Sean Doherty mean anything to you?

Wheely

Just to add, Im completely opposed to any erosion of civil liberties especially our constitutional right to privacy which i beleive is one of the most sacred. However I dont know enough about what in the name of god the OP is talking about so therefore i cant comment. You cant just say "ise the govt is keeping info on us for 3 years" what does that even mean...its ridiculous!!! If he could elaborate maybe we could have some sort of coherent discussion. I expext ill be fobbed off with a " i dont feel like going in to it thanks..." talk about a cop-out!!! And seriously (this is to the OP also) you dont think much of Irish people who converted to Islam???? COME ON!!! What did they convert from...."Irishness"??? You cant convert from a nationality to a religion!!!!

nobodythere

SparkyLarks wrote:

We now live with strangers, people we don't know.
Glases are currently being developed that can perform face recognision and then display the name of the person on the street. The idea is that in the future you could walk down the street and whoever your looked at, their name would apear on the inside of you glases. In the future that could be expanded and you could find out what other people think about the person your looking at.

Ideas like that make me glad that oil is sky-rocketing and the technology age is going down the shítter

tim3115

Agree with the people in power statement, not trusting them etc. We need a strong leader, voice for the nation, not some woman walking around shaking hands. Someone to be held accountable for.


Anyways, I read that the Government is keeping a close eye on 24 Israeli extremists. Why are they still here? Why were they let in to this country in the first place?

rsynnott

grasshopa wrote:

Ideas like that make me glad that oil is sky-rocketing and the technology age is going down the shítter

Yes, oil is rocketing in cost, and getting rarer; it will be replaced by ideally nuclear fusion, more realistically nuclear fission, or (hopefully not) coal. The "technology age" is not dependant on oil.

Hobbes

tim3115 wrote:

Anyways, I read that the Government is keeping a close eye on 24 Israeli extremists. Why are they still here? Why were they let in to this country in the first place?

Linkage to story please.

Kare Bear

Anyways, I read that the Government is keeping a close eye on 24 Israeli extremists. Why are they still here? Why were they let in to this country in the first place?

What the hell do they want.Should never let Israelis into the country.:mad:

Gurgle

Sparks wrote:

Sean Doherty mean anything to you?

Tapping phones for political gain is and was illegal.

Sparks

Gurgle wrote:

Tapping phones for political gain is and was illegal.

Still happened though, didn't it?
Me, I'd rather not be the dead body on the side of the road whose owner knew that the truck driver was driving illegally when he failed to stop and hit me...

Red Alert

Suppose a private company gets the task of collating all this data, what's to stop them matching it up with your CIE Travelcard, your Superclub/Tesco Card, your Library Card. Looks like the thought police to me.

Hobbes

Somewhat funny flash on it.. http://www.aclu.org/pizza/

Taking it to the extreme though but is getting the general message across.