🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1cjrskINNd2@gap.caltech.edu>, hal@cco (Hal Finney) writes:
>If the principle being espoused is that the government needs to have
>the ability to discover the content of all private communication, then
>what about face-to-face conversations?  Should they be required to be
>recorded, with the tapes then "escrowed" pending a court order allowing
>them to be revealed?  If not, then exactly which communications does the
>government have the right to force users to reveal?  And where did those
>rights come from?

At least here, many public and "semi-public" places like metro
stations, supermarkets, streets, banks, bank ATMs, lobbies and public
places at Helsinki U of Technology and so on are monitored by video
cameras.  At metro stations I have also seen micropohones.  I'm not
sure how the data from the cameras and microphones is used, but there
was a case of the video tape from a bank ATK camera used by the police
in a crime unconnected with the ATM - the bank had given them the
whole tape and due to an error they had then looked for the wrong
person.

Telephone exchanges also routinely record when calls are made and from
which number to which number.  I have heard claims that information
from the Helsinki (or Helsinki area) cab data network (thru which I
think all cab orders are placed) has been used by the police.
Supermarkets, banks and the VISA companies all have great amounts of
information of anything you buy with bank or credit cards.  I'd guess
much over 50 % of Finnish shops, gas stations and so on have equipment
with capability to record purchaces along with the credit card number
(ID).  In many telephone networks and telephones, it is possible to listen to
the happenings inside the apartment via just the phone line.

While Finland has a "personal information protection act"
(henkil|rekisterilaki) and thus there are legal limits on what anyone
(except if the spooks and other "state security" people want to) can
record, laws don't prevent the things from happening.

I don't know if the police / law enforcement has any right to demand
information from the private commercial organizations.  If it doesn't
have the right, that's one difference to Orwell's 1984.  I hear that
warrants in USA are very wide and the police / law enforcement does
have the right to demand the information, so this difference doesn't
exist in USA.  Don't know about Finland.

Just about only other difference that I can think of is that it is not
mandatory to record everything - removing this difference is what the
U.S. "digital telephony" proposal, Dorothy Denning's proposal and Ron
Rivest's proposal seem to be aiming for.  The rest is just "We're the
government.  Trust us." - quite similar to "Big Brother knows what's
best for you".

//Jyrki