Cav's Place

Even if these news pieces are about a week old now, I just noticed them yesterday, when I checked my e-mail and saw them linked to in the Access newsletter, and they’re definitely worth drawing more attention to. If such things are allowed to slip past, we’re not even talking about trading privacy for security anymore, but about giving both of them away, with the authorities clearly having the potential to become a much greater direct and immediate threat than the criminals they claim to want to stop through these measures.

The first piece has to do with the United Nations calling for an international framework for Internet surveillance, requiring ISPs and also messaging and VoIP providers everywhere to store information in case the authorities want to review it later, but also calling for mandatory registration in order to use any public Wi-Fi networks and more cell phone tracking… Plus, of course, some mention about acts of terrorism depicted in video games, which includes video games that may be created by terrorist organizations for the purposes of attracting or training members, but extends to any depiction of a violent terrorist act in a game, particularly if the player is allowed to play the part of the terrorist as well.
Of course, the European Union already passed, and required all member states to adopt, a data retention law that requires information regarding on-line and phone communications, though not also their actual content, to be kept for a certain amount of time, while in the United States most providers seem quite happy to voluntarily practice such surveillance, whether they claim to do it in order to look for possible terrorism or for copyright infringement, even before the laws making such practices mandatory are properly adopted. Yet even in these parts of the world, which certain individuals in positions of authority still try to convince us are “free” despite all the evidence that says otherwise, the measures are obviously not enough for the United Nations, which wants everybody treated as a criminal almost from the moment they enter this world.

But the worse part is actually in this second piece of news, which is coming from the Netherlands. Apparently a proposed law would give the Dutch police the right to conduct remote searches, install malware and delete “illegal” files on computers, regardless of location. If the target computer is in another country, it is “preferred” to request assistance from that country’s authorities, but if the computer’s location can’t be determined or if the local authorities refuse to comply with a request for assistance, it will be perfectly acceptable to break into it directly.
As that article points out, such a law gives Dutch police the right to enforce their laws on any computer user in the world, and also to attack cloud storage services or infrastructure meant to protect privacy. It’s an absolutely appalling proposal, obviously made worse by the fact that it comes from yet another supposedly “free” country, and it therefore must be struck down by any means necessary. If they’ll be allowed to get away with this, imagine what they or others like them will think of next!