… home of the brave.
(1) After serious and longlasting privacy discussion regarding data of passengers flying from Europe to the United States, there is a new agreement now. The US is provided with data like name, address and credit card number by default. However, “sensitive data” like religion or sexual orientation underlie “very severe restrictions”, the restrictions being: they can only be saved up to 15 years, and can be given to other countries. The German minister of interior says the new agreement is a success. And I agree: if handing over very personal data to the US which then stores the data for up to 15 years and is allowed to hand it over to other countries isn’t “severely restricted”, I don’t know what is (German source).
(2) The US police is using unmanned drones. Probably that isn’t new, but it fits together with the today’s news. What this means for you is: no matter who you are and what you do, you are automatically accused of being a criminal. There is very little privacy left, at home or outside. You are a suspect, from the day you are born. Many people listed convincing evidence that general surveillance does not decrease crime rates, so did I. Look for it, the Swedish and English police publish reports regularly in which they have to admit that all the surveillance really doesn’t help, is a massive waste of tax-payers money, and infringes upon basic human rights.
Stand up for your privacy. Not because you want to hide something. Because you have the right for privacy.
“For decades, U.S. courts have allowed law enforcement to conduct aerial surveillance without a warrant. They have ruled that what a person does in the open, even behind a backyard fence, can be seen from a passing airplane and is not protected by privacy laws.”
(Sidenote: Russian bloggers are using unmanned drones in Moscow at the moment to stream the protests live on the internet, because Russian media do not report about the demonstrations of up to 80.000 people in Russia’s capital)
(3) The FBI seems to be using information from the App CarrierIQ that is installed on “millions of phones” (second source).