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More on vote (mis?)counting machines, from Paul Krugman in today’s New York Times. As always with the NYT, hurry.
Opening paragraphs:
Inviting Bush supporters to a fund-raiser, the host wrote, “I am committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year.” No surprise there. But Walden O’Dell – who says that he wasn’t talking about his business operations – happens to be the chief executive of Diebold Inc., whose touch-screen voting machines are in increasingly widespread use across the United States.
For example, Georgia – where Republicans scored spectacular upset victories in the 2002 midterm elections – relies exclusively on Diebold machines. To be clear, though there were many anomalies in that 2002 vote, there is no evidence that the machines miscounted. But there is also no evidence that the machines counted correctly. You see, Diebold machines leave no paper trail.
Representative Rush Holt of New Jersey, who has introduced a bill requiring that digital voting machines leave a paper trail and that their software be available for public inspection, is occasionally told that systems lacking these safeguards haven’t caused problems. “How do you know?” he asks.
What we do know about Diebold does not inspire confidence. The details are technical, but they add up to a picture of a company that was, at the very least, extremely sloppy about security, and may have been trying to cover up product defects.
I think if people are seriously about democracy, they should keep it all on paper. That way, onlookers and overseers can see fair play, and with luck they can spot at least some of the unfair play. Put your vote in a computer system, and who the hell knows where it ends up?
Googling “privacy” took me to this piece about the problem of junk mail sent to dead people.
After this scribe found black humor last year at the ceaseless stream of direct mail advertising directed at my recently deceased partner, an admonition arrived from a reader who lost her husband in 1999.
“Write about this again in a year,” she said. “The junk will just keep arriving, and by then you may have stopped laughing.”
Yes it really isn’t that funny, especially as the failure to find good ways to stop junk mail (and junk email) will mean bad ways, i.e. ways that don’t stop the junk, but stop other things which are good, like, I don’t know, freedom of communication.
News of some White Rose Relevant Modern Art. At one of my other places I expressed some uninformed prejudices (“messing about”, I called it, and a commenter took exception) about an artist called David Cotterrell, prejudices I still believe to be on the button, now that they are slightly better informed by me having browsed through this site.
Here, though, is a description of a David Cotterrell work, which brings together the worlds of art and of surveillance:
‘The Paranoia of a London Attache Case’ consists of seven twenty two minute video recordings playing concurrently. It was produced using the closed-circuit surveillance camera network within Monument/Bank Underground Station in the heart of the City of London.
The Installation tracks the movement of the attashe case as it is carried by an actor through the labyrinth of tunnels, platforms and escalators that make up the public areas of the station. Observed by 81 of the station’s security cameras, the journey begins and ends with the case being exchanged on opposite platforms.
The security cameras were connected to seven monitors, in turn connected to seven video recorders. By pre-mapping the journey then filming and editing it ‘live’, it was possible to create a continuous sequence. This runs from 14:08:30 to 14:31:10 the time coding and location description can be seen at the bottom of each screen. The sound was recorded simultaneously using a recorder concealed within the attache case.
Look out Michelangelo. Still, it shows you something of what the arties are brooding on these days.
And next time you complain about the government spying on you, be ready for them to say: “Oh but it’s art.”
Here (in the better a bit late than a bit never category) is vnunet.com reporting on Wednesday’s Queen’s Speech:
Plans to introduce identity cards have been included in the Queen’s Speech today, marking a significant testing ground for biometric security technology.
Details of the plans were kept to a minimum, with Her Majesty telling parliament that the government “will take forward work on an incremental approach to a national identity cards scheme and will publish a draft bill in the new year”.
It is likely that the cards will incorporate biometric technology. With potentially almost 50 million cards (for UK citizens aged 16 or above) being issued, this would be a major testing ground for the technology.
The technology is controversial, and the cabinet is not united:
Even Cabinet ministers have been sceptical about the plans. When talking about ID cards recently, Trade and Industry secretary Patricia Hewitt acknowledged that the government’s track record indicated that large IT projects had “a horrible habit of going wrong”.
And as civil libertarians predicted long ago, the Data Protection Act will only apply to the citizenry, not to the Government itself:
The legislation to be unveiled next year will also aim to iron out potential problems with existing laws, such as the Data Protection Act (DPA), to give the government greater flexibility on how it can use personal information.
Those pesky “existing laws”.
The DPA imposes conditions on how stored personal information can be used.
The government intends to combine information currently stored by the Passport Agency and the Driving and Vehicle Licensing Agency to form a national identity database. This procedure could face problems without the clarification.
Ah yes. Clarification.
The era of Joined Up Government approaches inexorably.
ASIO stands for Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, and the ASIO is in the news, here, and here:
An international law expert believes the Federal Government’s proposed changes to its ASIO laws to extend the questioning time allowed for non-English speakers would be a “clear contravention” of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Associate Professor Donald Rothwell, from the University of Sydney, said amendments expected to be introduced today into Parliament, which would extend the period ASIO could question people who needed interpreters from 24 hours to 48 over a week, would breach Article 26 of the covenant.
… and here:
Labor is expected to agree to key legislative amendments that will provide stiff penalties for unauthorised disclosure of information relating to ASIO’s new special questioning and detention powers.
Attorney-General Philip Ruddock will introduce the amendments today, with an expectation they will be passed by both chambers before the parliament rises next week for Christmas.
The most contentious aspect of the legislation relates to the disclosure provisions by which the subject of an ASIO warrant or his lawyer or other persons convey information about the course of ASIO’s investigations.
Wired reports that Congress delayed the planned takeoff of a controversial new airline passenger-profiling system until an independent study of its privacy implications and effectiveness at stopping terrorism can be completed.
A congressional conference committee, which was reconciling the Senate and House versions of the Department of Homeland Security’s budget for next year, opted to keep the Senate’s stronger language that prohibits deployment of the Transportation Security Administration’s CAPPS II program until the General Accounting Office certifies to Congress that the system will not finger too many innocent passengers.
The study will also check whether the system will effectively pinpoint terrorists, and whether an appeals system is in place for those delayed or prohibited from flying. CAPPS II is intended as a high-tech replacement for the current system, which simply checks passenger names against a list of suspected terrorists.
The new system will require passengers to provide airlines with additional information, which the agency will check against commercial databases and a watch list of suspected terrorists and people wanted for violent crimes. The system will then color-code each passenger, according to decisions made by the system’s pattern-matching algorithms.
An ideologically diverse coalition of civil-liberty advocates oppose the project, saying the system would be Big Brotheresque and ineffective.
This is far from won but at least it is a step in the right direction. Most likely the GAO study will be done, the boxes ticked and the next terrorist attack will result in yet another series of knee-jerk reactions from governments. But I would like to be proven wrong.
Sunday Herald reports that UK wants similar powers to controversial US Patriot Act.
Sweeping new emergency legal powers to deal with the aftermath of a large terrorist attack in Britain are being considered by the government.
The measures could potentially outlaw participation in a protest march, such as last week’s demonstrations during President Bush’s state visit, making it, in effect, a criminal offence to criticise government policy.
In an attempt to give the UK government similar powers to those rushed through in the US after the 9/11 attack on New York in 2001, it is understood that a beefed-up version of current civil contingencies law is being considered. It will allow the government to bypass or suspend key parts of the UK’s human rights laws without the authority of parliament.
…
Aware of the current level of scare-mongering following the Istanbul bombing and the threats made by al-Qaeda-linked groups that further suicide attacks were being planned on targets both in the UK and abroad, a source close to the Home Secretary, David Blunkett, last night denied his department were seeking a massive and immediate injection of cash from the Treasury. This would be needed to foot the bill if Britain’s streets were to be flooded with armed police in an almost constant level of red alert.
Despite Blunkett saying he was “sick and tired” of people pretending there was not a threat from terrorists and insisting only “very, very good intelligence would save us”, the Home Office seems to have no plan to boost security spending this or next year.
If “Fortress Britain” were to be achieved, with countrywide security checks, increased police surveillance and widespread detention of any suspect group or individual, the Home Office’s annual budget would rocket.
Hm.
From an unlikely source comes this analysis of the US Patriot Act in the editorial column:
Explaining the reasons why the USA Patriot Act runs counter to the traditional American concept of liberty is a daunting task. Most people – including the members of Congress who voted for it – haven’t even read the Act in its entirety, if at all. Those are the uninformed. Then there are the misguided – those who are somewhat familiar with the legislation, but who accept it under the notion that some loss of freedom is inevitable if we’re to protect ourselves from the scourge of terrorists.
The article ends with a famous quote attributed to Rev. Martin Neimoller:
First, they came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up, because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me.
Read the whole thing. Simple and effective.
From dc.internet.com:
U.S. Rep. Ed Markey (D.-MA) introduced legislation Thursday to allow cell phone customers to choose at no cost to not have their numbers listed in a national wireless directory. Although there is currently no such service, the wireless industry hopes to roll out directories next year similar to the landline 411 call assistance service.
The bill, known as the Wireless 411 Privacy Act, would require wireless carriers to have “clear pre-authorization” before listing an existing customer’s name and number in a directory. New customers would have to be given a “clear conspicuous mechanism” to decline to participate in any wireless directory assistance database.
The legisation further requires that no fee be charged for opting out of a national wireless directory.
Clearly this is White Rose Relevant, but taht last bit bothers me. “Choosing at no cost” sounds to me like loading costs onto other people.
RFID coverage from ZDNet UK:
A global alliance of opponents to the rollout of radio frequency identification tagging systems are demanding that companies stop deploying them until crucial issues such as privacy are addressed.
Over 30 civil liberties and privacy groups have demanded a suspension to the deployment of radio frequency identification (RFID) tagging systems until a number of issues surrounding the controversial technology have been addressed.
These organisations, including Britain’s Foundation for Information Policy Reseach and Privacy International, have backed a position statement on the use of RFID on consumer products that was issued on Thursday.
It claims that RFID, if used improperly, represents a major threat to consumer privacy and civil liberties. This follows earlier protests against RFID by campaigners, and is thought to be the first formal global alliance against the technology.
New Scientist has learned that the proposed system to introduce identity cards in the UK will do nothing to prevent fraudsters acquiring multiple identity cards.
Unveiling the proposals last week, the home secretary, David Blunkett, said they are necessary to prevent identity fraud. Every resident would have to carry an ID card containing biometric information, such as an iris scan. Cards could then be checked against a central database to confirm the holder’s identity.
But Simon Davies, an expert in information systems at the London School of Economics and director of Privacy International, says the system would not stop people getting extra cards under different names. If he is correct, it could have far-reaching implications.
The problem, says Davies, is the limited accuracy of biometric systems combined with the sheer number of people to be identified. The most optimistic claims for iris recognition systems are around 99 per cent accuracy – so for every 100 scans, there will be at least one false match.
Bill Perry, of the UK’s Association for Biometrics, agrees that there is an upper limit to the reliability of iris scans.
It’s not an exact science. People look at biometrics as being a total solution to all their problems, but it’s only part of the solution.
He added that using more than one biometric identifier – for example, iris scans and fingerprints together will also be considered. This would solve the accuracy problem, but vastly increase the cost.
Oh, jolly good. So scanned and finger-printed is the way to go…
Thanks to Groc’s Bloggette for the link.
Despite Michael Howard’s reported U-turn, peers have once again thrown out Big Blunkett’s discredited Criminal “Justice” Bill. They were particularly concerned by Blunkett’s plans to restrict the right to trial by jury, to allow people to be tried twice for the same crime and to allow evidence of “bad character” (i.e. gossip) to be used in trials.
Today is the last day of the parliamentary session, so if the Lords continue to stand up for civil liberties the whole Bill could be lost. The only way for it now to pass would appear to be significant concessions by the Government, a move that would further undermine Blunkett’s position.
Cross-posted from The Chestnut Tree Cafe
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