At 9:12 AM -0700 5/26/01, Morlock Elloi wrote: >Dutch discover that once you give bits to someone, you don't own/control them: > >http://www.heise.de/tp/english/inhalt/te/7691/1.html >... >Dutch police can get easier access to personal information of clients >stored in company's databases. All the information stored by companies >will be available to the police, proposes the commission Mevis in a >report launched at Monday last week. The minister of Justice said he >would adopt the proposals in new legislation. But...but....but...but they have the best privacy laws in the world! How can this happen? The answer, of course, is that most so-called "privacy laws" in European nations (and, increasingly, in Canada, and spreading southward) are in fact just statist interference in private business operations while also compiling national dossiers which, as we see above, are accessible to the cops, social engineers, insurance companies, etc. Trusting the State to maintain privacy is ludicrous. And giving the State the power to interfere with what Alice "remembers" (*) about Bob is perniciously evil. (Most "data privacy laws" are essentially laws that say Alice is not free to record her memories of information she obtained about Bob, from Bob, or of her dealings with Bob. She is required to submit her proposal to remember information to the Staatsprivatiereninformationgebluck for permission to record her memories. I exaggerate slightly, in that private citizens like Alice are not (yet) bothered by the fascists if they wish to write down their memories. But laws about data bases are in fact laws about what a person may remember on his computer or in his filing cabinets.) >Companies don't know what their obligations are. In many cases companies >cooperate voluntary in providing confidential client information. But >according to the commission Mevis, this situation is not acceptable for >both parties. So much for true privacy. At least in the U.S. we still have people who will demand a search warrant before opening their files to cops. (All of this is changing, though, as AOL sets up special liaison offices to make the jobs of cops seeking information easier. And hospitals and doctors are not required to report all sorts of medical and psychiatric conditions to the Alphas in Washington. A psychiatrist friend of mine was planning to get out of the field because of all the new laws requiring him to report on his patients.) > >A whole range of companies will be forced to work with the police: >telephone companies, Internet providers, lease companies, car rental >companies, travelling agencies, flying companies, garages, real estate >agencies, credit card companies, insurance companies, mortgagors, >transport companies, banks, accountants, chemical industry, chambers of >commerce, educational institutes, art houses, hospitals, hotels and >jewellers. Ah, yes, the Netherlands has the best privacy laws in the world. --Tim May -- Timothy C. May [EMAIL PROTECTED] Corralitos, California Political: Co-founder Cypherpunks/crypto anarchy/Cyphernomicon Technical: physics/soft errors/Smalltalk/Squeak/agents/games/Go Personal: b.1951/UCSB/Intel '74-'86/retired/investor/motorcycles/guns
