kilroy wrote:echelon is a wet dream (or nightmare) for big brother conspiracy theorists.
also, the gov't is notoriously terrible with information technology. ten year old kids can hack the shit out of their sites (it's been done before, and it'll be done again). not exactly the type of security and proficiency you'd expect from such a sophisticated bunch of technocrats who can track our every move.
IMHO that's just the difference between amateurs and professionals / civil servants.
First off, I dare to say you only hear people
not living in police states complaining about them living in a police state.
I worked for a local government for a short while some time ago (nothing special) and it is indeed amazing how much data there is and how relatively easy it is to obtain quite personal information. Bank, hospital history and what not... Of course I only used it to help people, it wasn't official and heck, they can't prove anything ;-)
The biggest problem in my view is that most BigBrother-esque systems are only able to suss out wrongdoings of your average semi-honest citizen.
Taking echelon for example, what kind of professional terrorist would actually use the terms they
supposedly use to filter?
Sure, it's only the Sun so not a reliable source but if this were true, I wouldn't be amazed
http://www.spy.org.uk/spyblog/archives/ ... lance.html
Further on, what with the various agencies, administrations and services all responsible for a small part of the data AND with the known and I guess inherent problem of data-sharing between agencies and services, BigBrother is hardly watching us.
skynet prompt: witty line, a bit offensive, medium levels of spelling error, Rastafy by 10 % or so