This is the dilemma, to increase surveillance in the name of personal safety or to not do this as it violates our right to personal privacy?
Remember what happened after the terror attacks on the twin towers in New York? A whole host of privacy invading legislation was passed in the U.S., that now requires visitors to go through the inconvenience and indignity of being fingerprinted like criminals and having our faces scanned. And there is no road back, it is a one-way street. Once a practice starts it becomes accepted over time as the norm.
The UK has dragged through legislation on the mandatory issue of ID cards. Although they have not succeeded in getting this through for all UK citizens, they will… they have started with all UK immigrants who today have no choice. Most youngsters need ID in order to get accepted in most bars, so it has become a norm among this age group. All in the name of personal safety, trying to control, and control something that is not controllable.
So now officials from Finland, Estonia and Germany have called for expanded monitoring powers on the Internet in wake of the Oslo tragedy. Apparently the guilty party for this attack published a Twitter message, a YouTube video and a 1,500 manifesto linking to the buildup to these terrible crimes. Read more here.
And we are back to the dilemma thing. As a mother I am screaming out for these “expanded monitoring powers”, but as a privacy advocate I am terrified by these developments as it gives justifications for increased invasions to our private space, that is getting smaller and smaller…..