Beginning of the End of Privacy on the Internet

[pietillidie]

The biggest problem is that no one knows enough to explain what a reasonable line looks like, forcing everyone to reach for cliche or reflexive bias.

I would note that a lot of arguments for increased surveillance seem to combine two propositions: (a) the slimy depths of the internet are obviously repugnant and threatening (true); and (b) as an average Joe, I am of no interest to anyone, and therefore subject to little cost should surveillance powers be increased (false).

The problem with the latter assumption is that while most folks are of no interest to anyone, what about their political representatives? Every serious decision we have a stake in is funneled towards a node of power somewhere, and those nodes of power are most certainly subject to surveillance mischief.

Because of the farce of politics it's easy to dismiss this, but representation is still the only game in town.

Even so, we still don't know where to draw the line because of the intransparency concerned. That fact should surely bother people most.

We accept that the relevant authorities have all kinds of powers, and that these are curbed by law and oversight of the bodies concerned. The argument that powers may be abused are just as valid as regards the vast level of financial data collected on individuals by the ATO, or the very existence of Asio. This sensitive stuff is also potentially highly intrusive, but its use is controlled by a framework of laws and bureaucratic rules and audit. Why does this principle suddenly become intolerable where the internet is concerned ?

But that's more of the same vagueness I'm talking about.

I certainly don't have a strong view on the matter, especially as it's not my area of expertise. But that's even a false syllogism you've put forward: people accept delegated oversight, this is delegated oversight, people must therefore accept whatever oversight.

And you can only get to that syllogism by conflating the ATO, ASIO and "relevant authorities", as if for the purposes of the topic they're all the same. Do you really have as much grasp of, and access to, the activities and determinations of ASIO as you do those of the ATO or ASIC?

Also, accepting something begrudgingly is not the same thing as trusting it. Balance of power arguments are not "principled" arguments; they're used in situations like this when there are competing objectives.

It's eminently justifiable to assume intransparent power will be misused for consequential political ends (like anyone will believe the so-called intelligence in another UK dossier ever again!). That mistrust can't be waved away so easily.

[Tannin]

Red herring warning! Red herring warning! Be alert, not alarmed. Remain in your homes and call 000. Offender may be dangerous and unresponsive to reason or logic.

The fear of a totalitarian government is the same argument the US gun lobby uses to justify retaining the 2nd amendment.

1: The fact that a point is made by evil nutcases does not invalidate the point. Even Pauline Hanson is right some of the time (probably by mistake, granted).

2: The comparison is not remotely valid or helpful. (See warning notice above.)

When the Second Amendment was written, small arms were the primary military weapon. Massed troops carrying small arms could stand off and defeat practically any opponent. Muzzle-loaded artillery firing roundshot was a relatively minor factor in most battles. (Not unimportant, but very much secondary to infantry and cavalry.)

The writers of the US constitution did not know and could not know that the efficacy of individuals carrying small arms would very soon be reduced: first by improvements in the use of artillery (notably by Napoleon, who was himself trained as an artillery officer before his rise to fame), and then by massive changes in the technology of firearms, including machine guns (US Civil War, 1860s); breech loading, rapid fire artillery using explosive shells (Franco-Prussian War, 1871); mass-produced land mines, barbed wire, aircraft, tanks, flamethrowers (1914-18); radar, guided missiles, air-to-ground rockets (1939-45); cluster bombs, helicopters (Vietnam); infra-red vision, drones, satellites, laser-guided weapons, and so on.

The notion that individuals bearing small arms can have the ability to defeat a modern government is, frankly, absurd. All that they can do is carry out terrorist operations.

[Mugwump]

^ a good, and erudite post... but Stui's point stands. Fear of totalitarianism can be used to justify all kinds of dubious policies, from ubiquitous handguns to unfettered internet. In truth, though, the main bulwarks against totalitarianism are institutional and historical, not technical.

[Tannin]

In truth, though, the main bulwarks against totalitarianism are institutional and historical, not technical.

I agree. This is why our ancestors sacrificed their lives to achieve the fundamental individual freedoms on which our entire free and civil society is based. For centuries, men and women fought to establish things like freedom from arbitrary imprisonment, trial by jury, freedom of thought and religion, separation of and balance between legislative, executive, and judicial powers such that each one of them is subject to the checks and balances of the other two, the right to vote, the right to speak and write freely, the right to privacy, and the right to go about one's daily life in peace without interference from the government.

None of these rights is absolute. They cannot be: some (usually rare) circumstances require that these rights be restricted in the interest of the greater good. But the executive government's ability to restrict or infringe upon these civil rights was carefully limited to cases of genuine need, and executive governments were required by law, by mutual consent, by custom, and by written constitutions to justify each and every violation of citizens' individual freedoms in front of an independent, disinterested third party to ensure fair play.

Most commonly, this independent third party is a court of law, and the most common way to request the violation of a citizen's rights is to apply for a warrant.

Entry to your private property, reading your mail, tapping your telephone calls, spying on your private conversations: all of these things require that the executive first apply to a court for permission to violate your normal civil rights, and that the court be satisfied that the application is genuine and reasonable. But the power-mad types running our present government want to throw all those precious and vital lessons of democracy out and go back to the middle ages where the king's whim was all that counted.

You of all people - a self-proclaimed conservative and proud to be so - should be the first person to champion these basic bulwarks of civil, democratic society, these hard-won, time-tested rules of fair play and balance.

[think positive]

What make people think the internet and social media is at all private anyway.

Tell that to Nick reiwoldts dick.

hehe true that! i still have the pic somewhere!!

[Tannin]

^ an I thort there was a law 'gainst child porn

[Mugwump]

In truth, though, the main bulwarks against totalitarianism are institutional and historical, not technical.

I agree. This is why our ancestors sacrificed their lives to achieve the fundamental individual freedoms on which our entire free and civil society is based. For centuries, men and women fought to establish things like freedom from arbitrary imprisonment, trial by jury, freedom of thought and religion, separation of and balance between legislative, executive, and judicial powers such that each one of them is subject to the checks and balances of the other two, the right to vote, the right to speak and write freely, the right to privacy, and the right to go about one's daily life in peace without interference from the government.

None of these rights is absolute. They cannot be: some (usually rare) circumstances require that these rights be restricted in the interest of the greater good. But the executive government's ability to restrict or infringe upon these civil rights was carefully limited to cases of genuine need, and executive governments were required by law, by mutual consent, by custom, and by written constitutions to justify each and every violation of citizens' individual freedoms in front of an independent, disinterested third party to ensure fair play.

Most commonly, this independent third party is a court of law, and the most common way to request the violation of a citizen's rights is to apply for a warrant.

Entry to your private property, reading your mail, tapping your telephone calls, spying on your private conversations: all of these things require that the executive first apply to a court for permission to violate your normal civil rights, and that the court be satisfied that the application is genuine and reasonable. But the power-mad types running our present government want to throw all those precious and vital lessons of democracy out and go back to the middle ages where the king's whim was all that counted.

You of all people - a self-proclaimed conservative and proud to be so - should be the first person to champion these basic bulwarks of civil, democratic society, these hard-won, time-tested rules of fair play and balance.

These are excellent points well-made, and I am deeply attached to the package of rights so carefully arrived at by Locke's Protestant English - from Magna Carta to the petition of right, habeas corpus and the bill of rights 1689. These are Great Britain's greatest gift to the world, and to Australia. I agree that they are not to be dispensed with lightly.

Being a conservative (in the true, Burkean sense) does not mean unswerving adherence to the precise details of historic settlements. These settlements are not stony monoliths that can remain unchanged in all details whatever tides sweep around them. They were designed to balance the rights of the individual with the need to keep the Queen's peace. The global internet is a different kind of technology, in its scale and extraterroriality, and it has changed that balance. So I think the principle of allowing law enforcement to process high level data in the interests of detecting crime, while deeper and more invasive investigations remain subject to a warrant, is justifiable within conservative principles. But I quite accept that it is very debatable, and the specific details of the legislation need to be rigorously tested.

[Tannin]

Excellent! As to the broad principles, we are very much on the same page. The devil will lie in the details. (As so often.)

Would you object to this guideline as a starting point: executive government access to digital communications should be governed by the same rules that apply to the directly equivalent written and oral communications.

If not, why not? If so, lets consider particular cases.

[Mugwump]

^ That is too narrow, I think. Internet is not the same as written and oral communications. In the case of websites, for example, a reasonable analogy is what newspaper or magazine a member of the public buys. This was a public act until quite recently. Email is self-authored, so a little different. Since you asked for practicalities, I'd suggest the following as a starting point.

- Data on website visits can be collected and stored for 2? years.
- This data can only be accessed for websites which show unlawful content, and a regulatory office should validate such a release.
- content within emails and social media can be stored for 2? years. Patterns suggesting criminal conspiracy within these can be scanned using AI.
- A warrant would need to be issued on the basis of evidence beyond electronic scans, before a full dataset of individual data were released to investigating authorities.

None of this is easy, but it seems to me to balance the need for individual privacy with the public interest.

[stui magpie]

^ a good, and erudite post... but Stui's point stands. Fear of totalitarianism can be used to justify all kinds of dubious policies, from ubiquitous handguns to unfettered internet. In truth, though, the main bulwarks against totalitarianism are institutional and historical, not technical.

Thanks for noticing the point.

[stui magpie]

Excellent! As to the broad principles, we are very much on the same page. The devil will lie in the details. (As so often.)

Would you object to this guideline as a starting point: executive government access to digital communications should be governed by the same rules that apply to the directly equivalent written and oral communications.

If not, why not? If so, lets consider particular cases.

Interesting and complicated.

Digital communication is wide and varied, paper just sits there.

Your telecommunications provider can provide details of what number you sent a text to and the time, but I don't believe they can provide the content.

facebook Messenger and Whatsapp allow instant messaging that bypasses the phone company and, in Whatsapp's case i believe it's also encrypted. You can access the facebook messages if you have access to the account, but Whatsapp?

You're dealing with international companies and we've already seen the fun the FBI had in trying to get Apple to crack a phone for them.

My employer can track what URL's i go to, but not the actual content. Copies of images are on the hard drive of my laptop in the tmp files, so they'd need the actual hard drive to make a case for anything.

As a starting premise, it's not without merit, but the practicalities?

[David]

Perhaps the question needs to be reframed: do you have a problem with a government (along with various other agencies) having 24/7 access to your life? More to the point, would you trust them with that responsibility?

Let's start with the absolute extreme end of the scale: CCTV in your home and in every public space, wiretapping in every room and every public space, a complete accessible record of every private conversation you've ever had and everything you've done. Is that a problem, and if so, why?

If we can answer those questions, we can begin to get a good working model of what privacy is, why it matters (if at all) and what mechanisms might be necessary for protecting it. Those groundrules are something that this debate is often sorely lacking.

[stui magpie]

You can start with the extreme at either end, and neither of them are workable as is usual with the extremes.

The truth, as usual, is somewhere in the middle. Where is the sticking point.

[ronrat]

Perhaps the question needs to be reframed: do you have a problem with a government (along with various other agencies) having 24/7 access to your life? More to the point, would you trust them with that responsibility?

Let's start with the absolute extreme end of the scale: CCTV in your home and in every public space, wiretapping in every room and every public space, a complete accessible record of every private conversation you've ever had and everything you've done. Is that a problem, and if so, why?

If we can answer those questions, we can begin to get a good working model of what privacy is, why it matters (if at all) and what mechanisms might be necessary for protecting it. That's something that this debate is often sorely lacking.

The Government doesn't have the desire, need or resources to worry about we do 24/7. It is more find the source and work out who is accessing it. They use I believe algorithms and profiling to narrow down what they want. A 16 year old girl going nuts over a pop band won't cut it.
Prpose the legislation and we can see what devil is in what detail.

[David]