Politics Personal · 12 January 2009 ·
All hope's not lost...
…yet. But there isn’t much left.
2008 has passed. A year that saw the abuse of anti-terror laws. With regard to that I want to refer to Anne Roth’s talk at the 25C3 last year, which is also available as video. New laws were introduced, in Germany we got the telecommunication interception and data retention law and our beloved secretary of the interior also got his Christmas present—extended rights for the federal prosecution service (BKA), including the right to spy out use remote forensic software to spy out computer hard drives without the knowledge of the suspect. Initially I hoped the Social Democrats hadn’t lost their mind, but I was mistaken. The arbitration commission worked out a few minor ammandments, most noteworthy the requirement of a judicial decree in order to carry out a remote forensic search. However, judges already lack time to work through applications for house searches, according to the 25C3 talk by Constanze Kurz and Ulf Buermeyer: They have about 20 minutes to consider each case.
On the other hand, according to the German IT newspaper C’T, the Swedish interception laws have been drastically down-sized and partially its effects have been reversed, with civil liberties now being strengthened. I have to add that the Scandinavian countries always amaze me. Whilst being far from perfect, they still seem to be politically much more sensible than their southern neighbours.
But then, this faint hope is torn apart by new plans in the UK: The plans for the new Interception Modernisation Programme become more and more disturbing: Albeit only retaining information on who called or emailed whom and when, this information can reveal a lot about a person. Bringing on the example of Andrej Holm again, who was accused of being a member of a suspected “terrorist organization” (the whole construct is hideous, a military car was set on fire. That might be bad, but doesn’t make a terrorist organization). One of the reasons he was drawn into the case was that he knew people who were suspected to be involved in the incident. This means that simply knowing someone who is suspected to be involved in some sort of terrorist activity could make you one of the suspects. Terrorist activity as become a very broad term, apparently including the destruction of GM crops. The threat of such false connections is beatifully illustrated by The Sainsbury’s Lesson, where Sainsbury’s used their Nectar Card to data mine and profile their customers. The data was then used to send promotions to customers, based on their buying habits. If your buying habits would o with a pregnant couple, you might get lucky enough and they would sent you baby clothes. Uuups, wrong connection. Thus the false positive rate is potentially dangerous and due to humans being humans, will remain high. And I don’t even want to imagine what would happen if this information gets into the wrong hands.
Apart from that there are more great things about the Interception Modernisation Programme. The estimated costs are £ 12bn and a private companies will be assigned to collect and process the data, according to The Register.
It is specifically this what drives me nuts: It’s not just that we are fighting shadows, no, because of that we’re loosing balance. Unlike in Sweden, there are no attempts to strengthen civil liberties. There are only calls to “remove obstacles”. But often these “obstacles” are barriers that protect civil liberties and privacy. Are we willing to pay that price? Shouldn’t we at least say, that if it is necessary to take a right away, that we gain a new one? What about a wee bit of bargaining? Are we that cheap? Is this the day of the big sell out?
All this has left me in a state of despair. I tell myself, hey, it can’t be as bad as you think. Time will pass, and just like the UK survived the IRA terror and Germany the RAF’s, this phase of international terrorism will pass, and with it all these exaggerated security measures. But then, will we ever make any progress? Is one enemy replaced by another one, just as an excuse to justify extremist policies. In the beginning I used to belittle the international terrorism scare. I am far from denying that there is a threat. But I want policies that work. I want to tackle the roots of the evil, and I don’t want to pay with our freedom and get a placebo, like CCTV surveillance, which is “A total fiasco”, according to Scotland Yard. In a book on psycho-therapy, Paul Watzlawick gives the example of a man who sits on a bench and constantly claps his hands. He is asked why and answers that he does it to chase away elephants, as you can clearly see there are no elephants around, therefore he is very successful in what he is doing. I see Mr Schäuble clapping his hands against terrorism, too. Though… he’s not clapping his hands, he’s playing with the fundamentals of the German constitution. I don’t feel like digging out Radio Yerevan Jokes yet, but I do not see much that would make it stop. Yes, our federal court seems like our slow but mighty protector. But theoretically it’s time for a political change. But it seems that change is slower than a federal court. In Germany, the Christian Democrats are currently the leading party and I fear the Free Democrats—their likely coalition partner—will loose their regained conscience as soon as they are part of the government. The Pirate Party is still negligible.
The same story in Britain: Nu Labour has increasingly become like the Tories under Thatcher. I remember Labour volunteers distributing badges saying “I still hate Thatcher”. Well, Ms Thatcher seems to be back in Office. The recent policies seem to be her reincarnation. And what’s the alternative? The Tories?! Let me get this straight: We should turn to the Tories to save us?! There is a fundamental flaw there! And I see no hope of it getting resolved, unless the LibDems can get hold of power. But until that happens… hell froze over.
Politics is no fun. I should focus on Psychology in my studies, and drop Politics, because there is at least some form of progress in Science. I don’t see that much of it in politics. All this can be summed up in a snippet from a conversation with one of my flatmates, albeit being about something else:
She: “Is it that bad?”
Me: “Nae, it’s much worse!”
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Other comments
Joby wrote on 11 March 2009, 23:34
I cannot believe several things here good sir, so I’ll be organised and put them in numerical order….
1. You have jumped on the twitter band wagon!!! Shame on you and your followers.
2. You are such a pessimist. I’m sure 2008 can’t have been that bad.
3. I can’t believe I’m doing this. And I know that’s not something I don’t believe about this but in a round a bout way it is because it is against my stringent internet beliefs.
Maybe not as insightful as other comments but hey, someone has to write things that other people try to read more into than is actually there…..