From:	Dave Sherohman <esper@*****.IMA.UMN.EDU>
Subject:	Re: More on Big Brother in Shadowrun
Date:	Mon, 21 Mar 1994 19:30:11 CST

From: Matt <mosbun%EXPERT.CC.PURDUE.EDU@***.spcs.umn.edu>
> >The writer apparently had to agree with Evans not to raise privacy and
> >security issues in the article, it says, since first they have to show
>the
> >technology works. But even it raised questions:
> >- The technology could be a powerful weapon in a "big brother"
arsenal,
> > with cameras in front of many stores and street corners, scanning for
> > criminals or anyone on the government's watch list?
>You don't honestly think they would be able to do that, do you? Right or
>wrong, no one would stand for it.

Don't be too sure about that. I doubt that it would be too hard to generate
sufficient anti-crime hysteria to push it through. Just look at how paranoid
people already are. Just tell them that, as law-abiding citizens they have
nothing to fear, but (literally) any known criminal (or suspect, but no need
to mention that part) who dares to show his face in public can be brought in
instantly... *shudder*

> >- Does the government have the right to randomly photograph people for
> > matching them against a criminal database?
>Criminals would certainly think not. After all, they might get caught.

So... if you don't want to be scanned for thermo-id, you must be afraid of
getting caught and, therefore, are a criminal, right? (Wrong, but that sort
of reasoning comes all too easily to some people... Witch hunt, anyone?)

>long as the system works, and all activities of non-criminals are kept
>private, I don't mind.

And how do you propose to insure that privacy? (I know! Put Clipper chips
in all the cameras to encode the data! :p )

> >- While this can be used to protect nuclear power plants against
> > infiltration by terrorists (as one example it gives), what is to stop
> it,
> > for example, to be used to find (and silence or eliminate) critics an
> > dissidents? I wouldn't give China 30 seconds before it would use
> > something like this to capture critics such as the victims of Tianame
> > Square.
>Are we debating its legality in the USA or in China? Anyone have any proof of
>the same type of critic supression tactics used in China being used here?
>If the government killed off critics like that, Rush Limbaugh would have been
>long silenced... :)

It's a lot closer in the US than a lot of people think (or maybe I'm just
paranoid)... However, while I can't provide proof of anything that extreme
going on today, does the name 'Senator Joe McCarthy' ring a bell? (As for Rush
Limbaugh, he's pretty safe just by virtue of having a very high profile... ;)

> > That's why people who defend themselves with guns against armed
> > criminals in places where gun controls are in effect, can expect to
> > be treated harsher than the criminal would have been. Existence of
> > criminals supports the need for more police and more police-state law
> > defending oneself against criminals shows the ineffectiveness of thos
> > laws.
> More police-state laws? Like being able to moniter and instantly ID people
>in sensitive areas?

Exactly.

esper@***.umn.edu