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Government Information Awareness
Posted by
michael
on Fri Jul 04, 2003 03:12 PM
from the sauce-for-the-gander dept.
from the sauce-for-the-gander dept.
gbjbaanb writes "Wired News is reporting about the GIA, software inspired by the TIA program. 'Researchers at the MIT Media Lab unveiled the Government Information Awareness, or GIA, website Friday. Using applications developed at the Media Lab, GIA collects and collates information about government programs, plans and politicians from the general public and numerous online sources. Currently the database contains information on more than 3,000 public figures. The premise of GIA is that if the government has a right to know personal details about citizens, then citizens have a right to similar information about the government.'"
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Coincidence? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Coincidence? (Score:5, Insightful)
This project has the potential to show the big players the dangers and possible consequences of the Total Awareness Act (or whatever is named).
Anyways, a great idea nontheless, and here's hopes for it to live long enough to make a difference. Projects like this, the EFF and the few others make you hopeful.
Parent
Re:Coincidence? (Score:5, Interesting)
Also of interest is the fact that the MIT Media Lab receives vast amounts of funding from government and corporate donors. While I can't think of any legal means this site could be shut down, it could practically be accomplished by financial pressure either directly from these donors or indirectly from the Media Lab/MIT if it feels the squeeze of the purse strings. Let's hope that if this comes to pass the creators of this project stand strong.
Parent
Will it include the same information they collect? (Score:5, Insightful)
Awfully curious... (Score:3, Insightful)
It was pretty straighfaced, if it was sarcastic. But if it was serious, it was just plain scary.
-fred
Re:Awfully curious... (Score:5, Interesting)
So are the programs that many of these people are pushing for. TIPS, TIA, Magic Lantern, roving wiretaps, constant surveillance, and more and more and more. If these people want to do it to us, why is it you have a problem with the people of this country doing it right back to them?
Parent
Re:Awfully curious... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Awfully curious... (Score:4, Insightful)
1) Government declares they`ll starts keeping info on citizens in databases.
2) Citizens say they'll do the same about the government
3) You find b scary. Where were you when a was announced?
Parent
Re:Will it include the same information they colle (Score:5, Insightful)
I think individuals pushing for massive data collection should be the most heavily looked-at people on there. People like John Poindexter, John Ashcroft, and any Congresscritter who shows support for anything like the TIA needs to be followed, reported on, have their every purchase logged, their every movement cataloged, their every affair made public, and have every habit at the fingertips of the world. Let's show these people just what it is we don't like about programs like the TIA. Let's show them what it's like to have strangers turning your life into a database entry. Something like GIA could very easily turn into a platform for opposing programs like the TIA with actions instead of words. I'm not saying we should be in-you-face harassing these people; I'm saying we should simply find out every bit of possible information about them on a continuing basis until they drop support for 1984-inspired programs. If anyone who lives near these people would like to help out, then all the better.
Parent
Re:Will it include the same information they colle (Score:4, Insightful)
OR "If they plan on stalking us, and argue there's no reason we should mind, then how about we show them what it's like?"
Parent
Re:um.. They already are under a microscope. (Score:4, Interesting)
Because "dangerous" can mean a lot of different things. Would George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and others have been considered "dangerous" to Brittain in, say, 1770? Dangerous can mean a lot of things. Dangerous can mean someone with a revolutionary idea that could wipe out a major industry. Dangerous can be someone with information that would destroy a major political figure. What a person or group in power considers dangerous often has nothing at all to do with physical injury. George Bush considers the idea of gay marriage to be "dangerous", which is why he's considering pushing for a Constitutional amendment banning it.
The other problem is with this "patterns in the behavior" approach. What you're suggesting is that once we identify something that many terrorists have done, anyone who does those things (even if they're perfectly legal) is probably a terrorist. What this logic fails to take into account is that patterns of behavior are easily changed by those wishing to conceal who and what they are. The moment you lock onto certain habits and such, those trying to conceal themselves begin altering how they do things. You may catch a few real terrorists, but most simply fade away once again. Caught up in the middle of all this are dozens or hundreds of people who have done nothing wrong, but yet are still sitting in a holding cell being interrogated by MPs for days on end. Or maybe the MPs decide that the ones who aren't telling them all about their terrorist buddies were simply trained in how to defeat interrogation techniques, so they simply declare them "enemy combatants" and lock them away for life. Looking for a pattern of behavior assumes guilt by those fitting it. When you look down a long checklist of things to look for and you're sitting there going, "check, check, check, yep check, does that too, check..." and on and on, the only thing on your mind is, "we've got to get this terrorist bastard now."
The other problem with looking at patterns of behavior is that people will begin to figure out what government is looking for, and avoid doing those things, even if they're perfectly legal. What you end up with is a chilling effect on a number of different things, like the freedom to simply live your life the way you want to, so long as you're within the law. To have unwritten and secretive laws, which is what you're basically advocating, sounds the death knell in any Democracy. Democracy assumes an informed public, and in turn assumes a public capable of informing itself. What you, and others, are asking for is that we remove as much information as possible from the public sight, making the public less and less informed, while telling them that everything will be ok because it's being done for their own protection. From a government that has berided governments on almost every continent about not being open and transparent, to begin to close things off here simply goes to show that we're moving in the wrong direction.
"It will be very hard to do properly, but it is just plain dumb not to try."
It's impossible to do, without simply annihilating the Constitutionally-guaranteed rights of so many people that you end up giving up the very thing you're fighting to protect. Pearl Harbor, September 11th, none of it makes me feel any differently about the ideas and the ideals of our Constitution. It wasn't ever written to be something that's easy to follow. It's hard because it's right. It's hard to look at someone you just know did some horrible crime and not simply beat him to death. It's hard to not want to have the police come and arrest the guy who's on the street corner saying thing to you that go against every single thing you hold dear. It's hard to respect the right of
Parent
Re:Will it include the same information they colle (Score:5, Insightful)
"Oh Look, he checked out an article by Locke, or Marx, or Lenin, Or an Islamic Text.....he MUST be doing something illegal. Kill him". While this is extreme, the government knowing what people are doing, seeing, reading, and learning allows them to find and target those with different political beliefs than they. The whole point of a free democracy is to prevent such things.
The MIT cause hopes to prevent the government from having all the info and all the power, and returns some power to the people. The simple fact is, that behind every bad decision in government, there is a person responsible. The MIT site helps us to pinpoint who, so we (the PEOPLE, the CITIZENS) to not elect next time, or to ask our reps to fire.
Parent
Excellent. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Excellent. (Score:5, Funny)
1. Leave their flag out at night(without a light).
2. Leave their flag out during rainy weather and storms.
3. Don't properly dispose of flags that prematurely age because the above abuses.
Parent
Re:Excellent. (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Not so) Excellent. (Score:4, Interesting)
Holy Shit! Have you read all that? Unless Little League, BSA, GSA and hundreds of others have been designated a "patriotic organization", they are all in violation for wearing flag patches.
God help all those people in D.C. who put flag decals on their cars, then later sell them. $100 fine and/or 30 days in jail. (This may only relate to any vehicle used in business, I'm still in too much shock to re-read it all.) [Title 4, Chapter 1, Paragraph 3]
Want to make & sell a flag or lapel button flag? Get a license from the Sec. of Defense for face $1,000 max. fine.
However...
"...no federal agency has the authority to issue 'official' rulings legally binding on civilians or civilian groups."
Thus they are customs, not law. Except for the D.C. thing.
Parent
Re:Excellent. (Score:4, Informative)
It's a dignified end. The boys all take it very seriously. If you want to dispose of it yourself, a campfire works well. Respect is the key.
A Molotov cocktail on national TV is not considered an appropriate end; many otherwise rational people will react most unfavorably towards you if you try. Personally I consider it free speech to burn a flag in protest; but I also am free to consider that sort of speech to be hateful and I will hold someone who does it in contempt.
Parent
Re:Excellent. (Score:4, Insightful)
However, I do consider it bad to blindly follow a flag like Roman soldiers following a Roman standard. You really need to look at who is waving that flag before you run off and lynch someone, or kill someone, or help ship them off to Cuba, or invade someone else's country.
Read Stephen King's "Through the Eyes of the Dragon" and "The Stand" if you want to know what he thinks of the Grand Ol' (Randall) Flag (Flagg)
Parent
Finally.... (Score:5, Interesting)
There's a town in Oregon.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Both should lose their jobs.
http://www.wweek.com/flatfiles/News3485.lasso
Parent
People tend to forget something (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:People tend to forget something (Score:5, Insightful)
The rest of us just have our one vote.
Parent
there's more than just voting (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the wrong attitude to have; keeping silent until election day out of cynicism of the system because the wealthy have better access than you.
Join a political organization, the ACLU and NORML could always use more members. *two organization I'm part of.
Local government: There are many opportunities to make your voice heard. *I've done a little regarding the local school system, but I hope to exploit this more
Keep in touch with your congress person: fax and phone them over issues and pending legislation. *A little ackward at first, but now I feel very comfortable calling up and saying "Yes I'm a constituent and I would like my congressman to vote against
Cyber-politics: web-based form letters, forwarding emails/links, mature discourse on poltics on web forums, etc *this is probably the most accessible way to get involved and will probably change government/citizen interaction in considerable ways in the next couple years.
I do all of the above, and yes it has its downsides, but en masse getting involved in politics is very healthy for a democracy and when real results come out of it (and they do) then it hard to justify the complete apathetic stance of 'all we get is a vote, they're in charge.' Why not become "them?"
Regardless of all the examples of cronyism and corruption you can think of, X amount of government will be little people making their voices heard. The question is do you want to be part of that X amount, thus influencing it with your views, or not?
Lastly, all of the above really doesn't take much time. I think at one time the apathetic stance could have been defended a bit more easily, but with advances in politics on the web its almost a crime not to do something as simple as point-and-click donate or point-and-click fax.
Parent
The government (Score:4, Troll)
However, personal information should be kept secret. Displaying the data of as many government officials as possible just as "proper compensation" for the data they collect about us is not only unfair to the politicians but unfair to us (how dare them think we would be so stupid). Thousands of politicians vs. millions of people with their data harvested. It's arrogance on the government's part to think such a thing.
1984? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:1984? (Score:3, Funny)
You mean 4891?
Re:1984? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:1984? (Score:4, Funny)
I wouldn't go that far. It only seems to be there to allow people to have fairly easy access to information that they can already get from other sources. They'd just need to try harder to get it from those other sources. From the article: GIA allows people to explore data, track events, find patterns and build profiles related to specific government officials or political issues. Information about campaign finance, corporate ties and even religion and schooling can be accessed easily. Real-time alerts can be generated when news of interest is breaking.
So calling it "1984 in reverse" would be too much of an exaggeration. If it actually, were 1984 in reverse, then wouldn't that be funny? Seeing politicians on telescreens, commanding them to do whatever you want to tell them to do.
"Bush! Number 437859! I don't see you touching your toes!" We could've gotten Clinton into shape that way. And I suppose I could make a joke about how Clinton's telescreen would've sometimes been a pornographic broadcast.
Parent
Yeah, but do they have Em on there? (Score:5, Funny)
Then I realized NO THEY AREN'T.
So, this should be fun. Wonder how long before this site quietly goes away.
Just remember folks, this is the government you are talking about. If they want, they can make you disapp...
The Name (Score:3, Informative)
Re:The Name (Score:5, Interesting)
Whhaaa?
It was called Total Information Awareness until recently, and this [thememoryhole.org] is what their website used to look like. When did they rename it?
Bah, just more newspeak...
Parent
Re:The Name (Score:4, Informative)
story about it [washingtonpost.com]
Parent
Great idea.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Unfortunately, I can't search on anything cuz the site just got
A Few Thoughts (Score:5, Insightful)
Here, on the 4th of July, Americans have been presented with something that many of them would certainly like to have. Information on the individuals that have power over them. But is it not true that much of the information is available to the general public? The information in the database, which now contains information on more than 3,000 public figures, seems to be accessible enough. It would include information about campaign finance, corporate ties, etc. I suppose that this website would facilitate finding such information, which certainly is good. But it is all information that already seems to be avilable to us, as it can be submitted by people like you and I (and anonymously: good news for those who like to post as ACs here.)
But what I'm sure many people would want is a more open government. One that does not keep as many secrets. One that does not do as much behind our backs. One in which there is less "classified information" although that may be a pipe dream. I understand that much information was removed from sites with the .mil TLD as a cetain terrorist organization was allegedly getting much useful information from it.
But this stil seems to be a good idea. It'll make much information accessible to U.S. citizens, and, perhaps, if nothing else, hold up a mirror to those in power who want as much information on us as possible.
I like it... (Score:5, Interesting)
Keep this in mind in 2004 and vote.
Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
If people start using the GIA as a standard for truth, if they say "It's in the GIA, it must be true," then the government will have an incredibly convenient way to encourage the belief in whatever information or misinformation it feels like. This would certainly have more clout than mass media outlets, which obviously have their own credibility issues.
No government tells its citizens everything, and of what it does tell them, it's never the whole truth. What I do hope for from the GIA is at least apparent accountability that, while not touching upon all the madman's deeds that go on in secret subterranean complexes, will at least raise the public consciousness with regard to elected officials and get them (both the public and the officials) to act a little more responsible.
Potential (Score:5, Funny)
Hmmm (Score:3, Funny)
In all seriousness though, this actually seems like a good thing, but it needs more meat to fill up the information pages.
anonymous contributions - how well will it work? (Score:5, Insightful)
There is system to rank the credability of the contributors to keep things in check, similar to epinions' trustworthiness ranking system.
However, this could still be open to widespread abuse with a coordinated effort. A person posting a comment could be backed up by hundreds of people vouching for his or her integrity, and even if the politician replies denying the claim, the damage is already done, which is the whole point behind a smear campaign.
The lesson is, be weary of all information you receive from anywhere. Everything is suspect and most of the details of information you receive about things you did not witness in first person is probably 90% incorrect. Did you ever do that experiment in school where you whisper a phrase around in a circle of people and by the time it comes back to you it's completely different?
It will be interesting to see how this page plays out, to see if it is compromised by hundreds or thousands of people with an ajenda. It's hard to pick up on subtle slanting of information until it's too late.
"In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies." -- Winston Churchill
---Mike
Re:anonymous contributions - how well will it work (Score:4, Insightful)
That's why the ACLU is opposed to TIA and the infamous TIPS program.
Parent
The system makes it more difficult: (Score:5, Informative)
If you look at the flowchart they have, it actually takes quite a bit of effort to get information onto the system, as two of the possible four results of the system lead to the information being discarded. Check out the flowchart, and read the page - It covers a lot of important stuff.
Parent
Proofreaders? (Score:5, Funny)
Good. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is an excellent idea, and one which deserves to do well. The delicate system of checks-and-balances has been become skewed of late, and our privacy has been steadily eroded.
The balance needs correcting, and this is a good way to set about it, by affecting the decision-makers personally.
Not Very Deep (Score:4, Informative)
If TIA does nothing more than this, then we have very little to worry about.
Open secrets (Score:5, Interesting)
One thing I did find interesting was looking at campaign contributions. The amount of money behind Liddy Dole and Hillary Clinton is fucking astounding. More then Ed Kennedy, more than Fritz Hollings - more than anyone else I looked at (and I looked at many).
aside from campaign money there's just not that much there. No corporate holdings (which would be a helluva lot more interesting than donations), no special interest alliances - not much of nothing.
That's Nice, Except For One Thing (Score:4, Insightful)
This is all fine and dandy except for one small thing: the government does not have a right to know personal details about citizens with the force of Big Brother's dream come true: TIA. I think it would be more beneficial to channel the energy that goes into GIA into making sure we elect leaders who will kill TIA before it really gets rolling. And un-electing those who permitted it to be born in the first place. Besides, if Big Brother has anything to say about it, this MIT Media Lab project will last only until the first time MIT is unexpectedly denied a government research grant or contract.
Blog with delusions of grandeur (Score:4, Interesting)
Ted Nelson's Xanadu, which was sort of like an overcentralized World Wide Web with revision control and micropayments, was the first attempt in this direction. The "Wiki" crowd has the same idea.
This works well for popular culture and badly for almost everything else. To work, it needs a fan base. Slashdot is about as good as this idea gets.
Building a transparent society (Score:5, Interesting)
I believe this is actually an extremely positive step, for I am in agreement with David Brian and the arguments he makes in The Transparent Society [kithrup.com], saying that we should realize that there is no privacy, and that we should focus on building transparency in our society.
When we struggle to preserve annonimity and privacy, we are actually playing into the hands of those that would be despots, by building a system where they don't have to be accountable for their actions. For a small example of this one, think of how many times you have heard a government official state, when speaking of some action that is being challenged, "We can't discuss this matter do to privacy issues." Whose privacy are they protecting? The person that is challenging a wrongful firing or the child that claims they were abused in the local youth facility? No, they are protecting themselves, but they are using (and abusing) our focus on privacy at all costs to protect themselves and their positions.
Bring on the transparent society. Let's work to end this situation!
The Ivory Tower Effect? (Score:5, Interesting)
For a long time, politicians have wanted to and usually succedded in trying to control the people because they were the only ones who had the means of distribution available to them. Now here comes the internet and turns that around and kicks it soundly out the door. Now anyone can make their opinions available to millions in a matter of minutes or seconds.
I suppose what I'm getting at is that GIA is backlash, to remind our politicians that they no longer control information or it's distribution. And you can bet they'll be screaming and kicking like spoiled little brats from hell. However, try all you want to put this magnesium-and-sodium candle out. It'll always come back, and if you douse it with water it'll only burn hotter.
Interestingly, most current politicians haven't played with this kind of fire yet, and they haven't learned that you'll get burned.
The only way out is in (Score:5, Interesting)