Big Brother: What it really means in Britain today (OMG)

[Gloria]

From the new World Media Watch up tomorrow at Buzzflash.com

This is the latest twist in the really scarey stuff in Blair's Britain....

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article2154844.ece

Big Brother: What it really means in Britain today
By Nigel Morris, Home Affairs Correspondent
Published: 15 January 2007

Moves to share people's personal details across Whitehall have provoked a civil liberties uproar and accusations that the Government has taken another step towards "a Big Brother state".

Ministers say the scheme - which will be endorsed by Tony Blair today - is aimed at improving public service delivery. But it faced protests that it was dealing another blow to personal privacy by creating a "snooper's charter" and enabling thousands of civil servants to access sensitive information with ease.

Two months ago Richard Thomas, the Information Commissioner, warned that Britain was "waking up to a surveillance society that is already all around us". But ministers dismiss such fears and are pressing ahead with the world's most ambitious identity scheme, as well as a rapid expansion of the DNA database. Details of all children will be held in a single register to be launched next year, medical records are being transferred to a central NHS database and plans are being examined to track motorists' movements by satellite.

The idea of sharing personal details between departments follows a review of public services designed to make them more efficient. Ministers reached the conclusion that data protection rules limiting access to information about adults were too tight.

MORE

[Miss Chybil]

1. I wonder who will be the first groups of people to be rounded up

when the next Hitler comes in charge?

[snot]

2. First good argument I've seen against national healthcare. nt

[krispos42]

6. Depends on how you do it.

With socialized medicine, yeah, it could happen.

With universal single-payer, you can go to any doctor you want and the government pays for it. It's the same amount of money for each billable item, regardless of who you go to. And we all pay into it, and all draw from it.

But the doctor does not work for the government. If he wants to just take non-govermental money, he can. Like if he was really good at his job and felt he was worth more than the standard government rate.

And of course the government won't cover anything, so there will be a pool of doctors that do uncovered procedures for cash or private insurance.

If a doctor was an ass, nobody would go back to him because doctor choices would be based on the criteria of sucess, skill, trust, and personality. If your doc's an ass, you can pick a new one.

But the records have to be kept private, with the doctor you go to. Nowadays they can easily be transferred to anyplace in the country.

The other possibility is some sort of public/private key encryption system, where data can encrypted by anybody but only you can decode it.

In this case, the government medical system has the public key. Your doctor can take your files and chart that are on his computer and encrypt them using your public key to a national database. He would be able to look it up the public key and use it. Now, if you needed to see a doctor while on vacation, you would simply give him your name and address (or an ID number), the new doc downloads your files, and you use your private key to decode it in his office. After the visit, he encrypts the visit's new information and uploads it to the national database again.

If you were in an accident, the hospital ER could contact your current doctor on an emergency basis for the unencrypted data stored on your doctor's secure office network, and it could be emailed or faxed immediately.

The national database could act a as a secure 3rd party for verification purposes, to make sure that the public/private key is corrupted or replaced. And it would be stored in a secure facility, encrypted, so that a hacker would first have to hack into the database to get the information, then crack the information he downloaded.

Keeping the information encrypted by your private key in a government database means that the government can't simply browse through your information at will. Aside from the legalities of a court order, they would also need some heavy-duty encryption from the NSA or FBI to crack your files.

[Canuckistanian]

8. What's that supposed to mean?

We have national healthcare here in Canada and we don't have to put up with this shit.

National healthcare and intrusive snooping into private lives don't necessarily go together.

And as an American, you should talk. You're the most probed, spied upon, watched and analyzed people in the world, as a citizenry.

And you don't even HAVE nationalized health care.

[rman]

9. Sure, the problem isn't so much Big Brother Police State,

but rather the problem is nationalized healthcare.

Or alternatively, the problem of the Big Brother Police State can be solved by not having nationalized healthcare.

:crazy:

[Gormy Cuss]

10. Or income taxes or Social Security or Census etc.

The U.S. government had severe restrictions on the use of government data from one agency by any other agency or entity. Such restrictions are intended in part to thwart efforts to build Big Brother like data profiles on ordinary citizens and residents. It's one of the reasons that the Bush league is exploiting the data maintained by private entities like credit bureaus because it doesn't violate government data restrictions.

It's the use and abuse of corporate data that is worrisome in this country. We have weak protections as consumers in terms of privacy.

[OneBlueSky]

3. coming soon to a country near you . . . in fact, it's almost here . . . n/t

[krispos42]

4. Sounds like a nice place to live

SUPER-COMPUTER

Tony Blair is expected to announce today that sensitive personal data could be swapped by Whitehall departments. Ministers believe restrictions on data-sharing between civil servants are too strict. A 'super-database' or 'super-computer' holding everyone's records would be similar to a planned children's database.

DNA DATABASE

The Prime Minister has suggested that the DNA of every British adult should be stored by the state. The national database already holds 3.7 million samples, 6 per cent of the population, far higher than any other country. More than one million have been taken from people never convicted of an offence.

CCTV

The British are among the world's most observed people. Some 4.2 million closed-circuit television cameras record our every move - one for every 14 people and more per head than any other country in Europe or North America. The average Londoner can be caught on camera 300 times a day.

MEDICAL RECORDS

Millions of medical records are to be transferred to a central NHS database, allowing staff anywhere to access patients' information. People who object will not be able to opt out. The most personal information will be available to hospital managers, IT departments, high street pharmacists and civil servants.

IDENTITY CARDS

The first identity cards will be issued next year to foreign nationals and from 2009 to UK citizens. Anyone who renews a passport will be forced to register and the Government aims to make ID cards compulsory within six years. Fifty-two pieces of information, including fingerprints and iris scans, will be held.

SPY IN THE SKY

Motorists are already monitored through the soaring number of road cameras. In an effort to cut congestion, the Department of Transport is examining plans to use satellite technology to keep tabs on every vehicle's exact movements. Motorists, forced to have a black box fitted in their cars, would be billedfor every journey they make.

Oh, and don't forget that there is a complete ban on handguns, semi-automatic rifles, and semi-automatic shotguns, and mandatory gun registration.

The population is essentially disarmed by the government, and now the government wants to track your movements on foot and in the car, keep your DNA, fingerprints, and complete medical history on file? Oh, and of course we can't forget this as well:

The Government has repeatedly argued that the public is prepared to sacrifice small measures of personal liberty in return for improving safeguards against terrorism, crime and identity theft.

How much longer before they keep all of your phone calls and internet traffic in a database as well? How much longer before there's a Ministry of Censorship?

How much longer before "V for Vendetta" looks libertarian?

[rodeodance]

5. we really DO live in a new world, post 9/11

[The2ndWheel]

7. Just the continuation

of our need for control. The more control we attempt to impose, the more control we end up needing. We will never get to that perfect state where humans are completely cut off from everything, but we will try.

[NorthernSpy]

11. what would happen if we turned the cameras on the watchers?

What would happen if citizens started collecting and posting pictures and information about the persons involved in this surveillance apparatus?

A nice, big collection of video and stats on all involved -- from the people who make policy to the guy who wires the cameras. Why not?

[The2ndWheel]

12. It would increase the need for more watchers

Which would increase the watched watchers, which would increase the watching watchers, which would increase watched watching watchers, etc, etc.

It would also give citizens a false sense of security(then again, what doesn't?), which would then allow an increase in watchers, since citizens would have the same power. Now obviously we wouldn't, as governments and corporations have far more resources. However, since we think we could hold them accountable, or at the very least, regulate the situation, it would slowly snowball into something that we couldn't actually stop.

[lovuian]

13. England has gone over the deep end

it has 5 million cameras soon to have audio also

[superconnected]

14. Ya gotta expect this is going to happen in all modern countries

Computers/networks and the abuse that follows as corporations and the gov connect, should have been seen an inevitable.

I'm a network admin, as I'm sure many here are. The govs been doing it without public knowlege since the data was available. Now they'll just do it with public knowlege. And I mean all countries on earth that have electricity.

The worlds alway has been governed by a very few, who also happen to abuse their power.