Ah, but I don't have to "get over it" - not as long as I do still have these liberties. Those who would take them away need to get over it, or else prepare for a fight.

I'm not sure what you really mean by "you can't expect to be" as "free as you'd like to believe". Expect and believe are almost synonymous in your context, so to me the sentence is an illogical absurdity. Therefore you must have meant something else?

Regarding my rights and liberties (no need to put them in quotes - they are very real and literal), infringing on someone else's: in the first place that came out of left field, and in the second place it's also completely untrue. Competing rights and liberties are a fact of life, a fact of law, and it doesn't mean that one person or another is out of line.

I don't have a problem with agencies gathering data by camera and LP scanners. The question is how they use it and how long they keep the data. If it's stored in raw form, to be searched later as part of an investigation, then keeping it for a week or month seems reasonable, but not any longer. OTOH, if they mine and/or collate the data by license plate or whatever, then I'd insist on a legitimate government purpose, or that all such files are destroyed within 24hours, except if there's a live criminal investigation.

The problem isn't as much that the police will misuse the date, they have enough to do. But the existence of this data means it's open to mining by third parties, or could be obtained by subpoena for use in things like divorce.

In any case, with greater ability to gather and save all manner of data, we've reached (or passed) the point where we need a national dialog to establish policies protecting privacy at all levels.

You are aware that all children born in the USA beginning January 1, 2014 will have RFID chips implanted as part of the new government health care?



Okay, not really. I made that up.

You are aware that all children born in the USA beginning January 1, 2014 will have RFID chips implanted as part of the new government health care?
It's true!

I read it on the Internet!

And I'm supposed to care that you think my thoughts are illogical and absurd? And you are...?

Not from left field, and not completely untrue. Further, in any competition, someone wins and someone loses. The one who loses either modifies his/her exercise of rights/liberties, or IS OUT OF LINE. Currently, there is a movement to establish a 'national religion', despite it being blatantly unconstitutional. During the time between its possible passage and inevitable invalidation by SCOTUS, do you believe that forcing a religious belief on you would not be a violation of your liberties? But it would be LEGAL! So much for competing rights and liberties -- it's an evolution of society, not a constant.

Societies were formed for quite simple reasons, which I shouldn't have to explain; BUT, in order to live peaceably in a group of rugged individualists, compromises must be made, and compromise means "give a little, get a little." Limits on liberties.

Hold your hand one inch on front of your nose; that's where MY rights and liberties stop, as would yours if I held my hand up. That's a truth that's been taught for more years than I've been breathing.

Now, I know I won't convince you of a damned thing, just as you won't convince me; so let's just agree to disagree, and go on about our lives. I'm already bored with this.

Limits on liberties to protect the fabric of society are one thing. Where things like the "national religion" you mention are concerned the state is now effectively trying to define who I am for me. I can choose for myself who and indeed whether I wish to worship because as long as I don't go about my evangelistic efforts using force or violence it makes no difference to anyone else whether I worship God, Allah, Krishna or the lump of cheese I found at the back of the fridge.

Restrictions on my "liberty" to punch you in the nose are reasonable. Restrictions on my liberty to think a certain way, to go about my business peacefully uninterrupted by agents of the state, are not.

Before anyone agrees to disagree maybe we're not disagreeing at all. If you're bored of it already you can always stop posting.

License fees would only wind up paying for the bureaucracy and, in the case of Ontario, the incompetent private contractors who "provide" local DMV services.

seems like another thing to feign outrage over. who cares? overall, it's not doing anything malicious to you on a daily basis. oh no, the camera saw you driving to the grocery store. so what?
if the government wants to see where my car is, or read my emails, or look at my google searches - i really don't care. i've got nothing to hide and they'd quickly discover my life is not that interesting. nor are my driving habits.
people complain about privacy, but their entire lives are on facebook anyway from pictures of their newborn babies, to their houses, to all their contact info.

Two key points here.

Firstly not everyone does post their every movement on twitface for a variety of reasons including a desire for privacy.

Secondly when information is stored forever there is no way of knowing what conclusions might be drawn from it, correct or otherwise. But once a government system has drawn a conclusion about you just try getting it corrected if it proves to be wrong.

To take a simple example, let's say it's on record that you've done some Google searches about cancer. That's no big deal, perhaps you know someone with it, perhaps you have an academic interest in it, there are all sorts of reasons why you might be looking. Now let's say 12 months later your central record shows that you bought a wig. That's no big deal, people buy wigs for all sorts of reasons. But if the two are put together one might conclude that perhaps you have cancer and have lost your hair as a result of the chemotherapy. You might not object to the government knowing you are undergoing chemotherapy but what if your insurance company concludes you're now a high risk patient despite your interest in cancer being academic and your wig purchase being for a fancy dress party? Now the collection and collation of information becomes a whole lot more sinister.

well let's hope they never link together my internet searches for BBQ sauce and cannibalism, then, huh?

The meat's too tough, you need a top quality smoker to slow cook it so it'll be tender and fall off the bones.

BTW- big brother also tracks forum posts.

This is the most sensible post I have read here. We need to update privacy rules in order to prevent abuses, not act like crazy people with lasers on our bike helmets to foil shoplifting prevention cameras.

The public is clearly demanding closer surveillance in response to isolated terrorist attacks on our soil. Everybody who attended the Boston Marathon was under intense scrutiny, whether aware of it or not. The spying technology on an ordinary city street was impressive. The bombing was not prevented, but the alleged bombers were apprehended very quickly. I haven't heard much protest against the use of unauthorized surveillance in that case.

Also, public opinion seems to be running 100 to one against Snowden. Most people seem to regard him as a traitor rather than a hero, and this is certainly encouraging to national security agents who are massively spying on us.

I agree with you that we need a national dialog on the pros and cons of universal surveillance. Unfortunately, the consensus seems to be that we already had that conversation, and it ended on September 12, 2001.

Your nonchalance indicates that you are probably white, native born, non-Muslim, and largely apolitical.

I'm fine to agree to disagree, as long as you don't tell me to "get over" losing my rights and freedoms. That isn't just an opinion - it is an attack.

As for who I am, that you should care at all that I disagreed: I am the man who you know nothing about, yet about whom you proclaim, unbidden, in a public place, is a man who doesn't even understand his own liberties. I am the man who you basically told to settle down and shut up about it. It does behoove you to take my reaction into consideration.

In fact, let me go into "why", since you seem to me to be a man who values integrity. I probably shouldn't have chimed in at all on this thread, but I have the right to and it looked amusing, so I did. I don't think you attacked my knowledge as a deliberate choice, but just a random post to reply to. The only reason I responded at all is that in my position I literally cannot afford to have my knowledge of or my regard for data privacy denigrated that way in public. You have no idea what I do professionally, and I literally did not inject myself into the debate you engaged here. Let's leave it at that.

Wait, people use IE? I thought that was just something Microsoft shipped with PCs to use to download a real browser. That's all it gets used for on any of my machines anyway.

I have to cede that point. It's the default for many corporations though.

Is privacy an actual RIGHT? I am fairly familiar with the US Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. I don't recall having a right to privacy in general. I would love to be corrected and wrong about that. Anyone with better capability deciphering those documents want to chime in PLEASE prove me wrong.

I am under the impression that my rights to privacy stop at the walls of my dwelling. A judge must get involved before someone is legally allowed to jack-boot my front door and look around INSIDE my dwelling (except for people living in WeAintComingOut, TX of course). Once I am outside my walls and in the public domain, privacy is non-existent.

Under the Constitution privacy is only a "penumbra" right derived from (implied by) mostly the ninth amendment. The right to be left alone basically. It's been criticized as poor legal reasoning but the criticism doesn't prevent its recognition.

In public it all revolves around your reasonable expectation of privacy. And the way various state laws regard that expectation. (I'm not a lawyer btw, but maybe one of the BF members who are attorneys will chime in now that there's a serious question).

I was bored with wphamilton. Surprised you picked up and ran with the comment; it so happens that WE, you and I, DO agree.

What if at some point I do strongly disagree with the government's position on one thing or another? Or maybe just someone I communicate with periodically does? Lot's of people lost work and had their careers ruined in the 50's because of lose associations with "communists".

When the country feels threatened, lots of things we would have thought outrageous become acceptable out of fear.

I don't think there's anybody sitting in a room someplace monitoring my phone calls or my forum posts. The problem is that if data is being retained it's becoming increasingly easy to scan it for whatever you want. Even if you are squeaky clean software can misinterpret your online activities. Haven't you ever found yourself targeted by advertisements that were clearly off the mark because of one uncharacteristic purchase you made?

I wasn't sure what it was about wphamilton that troubled you, but it's a few posts back so don't suppose it matters anymore.

Good to know I'm not disagreeing with someone who I thought had the same outlook as me :)

no i use the adblock and flashblock extensions for chrome/safari/firefox so i haven't seen an ad on a website in about 8 years.

as for the rest of it, i strongly disagree with most of the things the government does. we're beyond the red scare and i can voice my opinion without fear of being locked up.

You should not admit that here. The user agreement that you signed electronically to gain access to Bike Forums makes a promise that you will not block the ads here. Just a head's up. Might want to delete your post.