Search Engines Should Become Government Spies Says EU Parliament

by jake Fri Sep 24, 2010 22:55

google have complied with EU regulations,and if people have nothing to hide,declaration 29 shouldn't be such a big deal.

by sharon Fri Sep 24, 2010 23:00

Data retention is held for up to two years then that information is promptly discarded,think of the billions of users data just sitting there, one would have to sift through,hardly anything sinister in that..!

by Computer Engineer. Fri Sep 24, 2010 23:20

They always were, since the beginning of Cyber-Time.
It is not "the government" doing it though.

It was the people who designed the software.

Every time you accessed that site with pretty naked women is forever embedded in cyberspace.

Hopefully your wife is not too curious!

by V for vendetta Sat Sep 25, 2010 01:58

"if people have nothing to hide,declaration 29 shouldn't be such a big deal."

what I want to know is how come the people who always say this end up having lots to hide themselves and get really thick about it when you start looking. Look at all the fuss over wikileaks. Also for all their pushing for more rights over our information, you'll never see them introduce a strong whistleblower charter because THAT would catch THEM out. What you have to understand is that this is never about catching criminals. criminals use encryption, corruption and violence and are not so easily put under surveillance. No, this is about social control for the little people. One rule for governments, another for you and me.

Jake, I'm coming round to your house later. I'll let myself in and rummage among your drawers and papers. If you have nothing to hide then whats your problem?

It's really not that simple is it Jake?.

Your phone texts are kept for several years. a note is made of your location every time you get / receive a text./ call. Your emails are stored for a similar period of time. Any plod can read all that for the asking. And there's a fine line between "searching for criminal behaviour" and "digging for dirt". There were somethng like 10000 such requests in 2008

Combine all that with internet searches, car databases (they now require PSN number to apply for driving test etc) social welfare records, facebook data, clubcard etc etc. Putting all that stuff together intelligently gives a pretty clear picture of how you live your life. Personally I think that is too much power to hand over to people I wouldn't trust as far as I could throw. (not far in cowens / harney's case!)

After WWII, a line that was often quoted to symbolise the sinister nature of the nazi regime was "show me your papers". Well we show our papers all the time now electronically without a thought. In a way we are living in a nazi wet dream.

Educate yourself. And oppose legislation which erodes your civil liberties for no good reason. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. Never more so than in the digital age.

You can start your education here: http://www.digitalrights.ie/

by accountablity? Sat Sep 25, 2010 16:35

Indeed a nazi wet dream for some,those who only use certain sites and p 2 p sharing have a lot to hide..

http://www.rte.ie/news/primetimeinvestigates/

Information google,yahoo and the popular search engines store on you is hardly comparable to that of some NAZI,breaking into your house and searching through documents,they store the information for up to two years,in most cases,employees in google will tell you,that it is really only up to 9 months,as they have too much of this information and they have to simply get rid of it.

by old codger - pensioner Sat Sep 25, 2010 16:43

Once again V for Vendetta has summed it up in an acurate posting. The creative imagination of George Orwell would find it hard to compete with the macinations of the USA Britain and the EU and Ireland is a willing pupil for any scheme to plunder the people for the benifit of the wealthy. We condemn Israel for their murder and cruelty toward the people of Gaza while at the same time give them 14 billion Euros to provide us with armaments. The merde is just starting to appear from the scam of the Lisbon treaty and the people will not know how bad it will be untill we are were we are.

by Computer Engineer. Sat Sep 25, 2010 18:28

"Employees in google will tell you,that it is really only up to 9 months,as they have too much of this information and they have to simply get rid of it."

That is true.

If you steal a billion email conversations (as has happened) you will realise why starlings flock togeter in millions.

You will die of boredom trying to find anything "juicy" in a billion emails.

by Newsmedia - newsmedianews Sat Sep 25, 2010 19:26

The issue here is not whether law abiding citizens have 'nothing to hide' or not. Rather it is the ever increasing inroads being made since 9/11 that undermine individual freedom and privacy.

For those who speak of people having nothing to hide - how would you feel if everything you did was recorded and noted 'in case' you 'might' have done something 'wrong'?

by Albrite Orwell . Sat Sep 25, 2010 22:20

I , being the cynic would go one better , Why didn't ' The Guvorment ' lock us all in a prison , brand us as potential crims
& make us earn our way out of our cells by our good deeds ? it would have saved an awful lot of muny bur at least we then
cud walk around wirout a stain on our caracter , maybe its the way to go in the future and we, the cleansed ones wud make
model citizens ?

by public electronic system Sun Sep 26, 2010 14:59

The very nature of connecting to a public electronic system is not a private affair,it is a public electronic system,anybody working with computers will tell you that,so as for protecting civil liberties in the digital age,that for one,is neither here nor there..

As the very nature of connecting to the internet in any setting is not private,the issue is gathering all that information and utilising it where needed.

by CheckpointCharlie Mon Sep 27, 2010 08:46

you cannot do anything without using the internet these days.

Government documents and correspondence iare distributed and undertaken over the internet
Purchases are made
Friends are correspomded with.
Doctors are corresponded with.

Some of those interactions reveal a lot of sensitive personal information about us which could easily be misused.

I don't think we'd be happy if our letters were all opened. Why should it be ok for large vested interests to snoop on our private emails?

The internet makes it much easier to spy on us but that does not make it right.

The internet should not be policed "for our benefit" because of a few paedophiles or nazis. Same as our post should not be opened just because a few paedophiles or nazis might use the post. Or for that matter the phone. I'm sure they use those too. These specious arguments are just rhetorical excuses for the real fascists among us to move imperceptibly and inexorably towards a police state. A frog will jump out of a boiling pan of water. But if you raise the temperature slowly he will let himself be cooked. We are frogs in the information pan. and they are raising the temperature all the time. In a constant erosion of our civil liberties

until one day it's "show me your papers frog!". Plus ca change

by teresa Mon Sep 27, 2010 13:20

if you are worried about your correspondance on the internet then - simply do not correspond on the internet, it is a public place ..

As said previously the internet is a public electronic system PUBLIC YES PUBLIC,this information can be seen the minute you connect to the internet,regardless of what software you have or what search engine you choose..

Thie issue is gathering this information that is already there,in it's billions,and utilising it,correctly.

This is not about civil liberties on the internet or privacy on the internet..as there is none.!

by eu watcher Sat Oct 02, 2010 17:38

statewatch have exposed the eu mania for secrecy and lack of openess. They need to control hundreds of millions of their citizens from many nationalities and this will be even more the case when they expand further into asia in future.

by vicious hippie Thu Oct 07, 2010 12:49

the police state has already arrived; that seems obvious by the force and violence used on and against most protests. look at no borders camp recently. and i'm belgian; i can see how apathetic and useless our populace had become in standing up for their rights. the only thing we must decide on is how far we're going to go down the rabbit hole, before we try and struggle back.

and i have plenty to hide from the government as long as they have plenty to hide from me. if our governments were perfectly open, i would have no problem for the same rule to apply to me. but the fact of the matter is that you or i or anyone else hasn't the faintest about most of their business. how many lies must we hear before we realise we're not getting the full truth? how many times must i hear of another politician racking in thousands of taxpayer money for personal expenditure? how often must i hear of another freedom of information request being rejected before i come to terms with the reality that we're being manipulated to hand over all control while the government is allowed to keep secrets for ''security reasons''?

it's time to wake up. freedom isn't free. it costs blood, sweat and tears to keep it.

by NoseyBastards Thu Oct 07, 2010 18:11

do you want all your bank transactions handed over to the US government in the name of the fake war on terror?? How's that for invasion of privacy?

http://www.neurope.eu/articles/99925.php

http://info-wars.org/2010/09/30/us-wants-database-for-a...1000/