EU copies bad principles of the American model

[Skybird]

Profiling completely failed regarding the murderers in Madrid and London. We had two attempted serious terror bombing in germany in the past 12 months, and in both cases - the attackers completely failed to comply with imagined terrorist profiles, they were caught for other reasons. If terrorists know that profiles get established - they also know how to avoid themselves behaving in lines with such profiles. Police both in Spain and in England explicitly expressed their surprise and shock to realize how easily their profiles had been evaded. The attackers in London were totally inconspicious regarding assumed profiles of what terrorists look like, even more: they were representative for what was considered to be unharmful normality.

But I disgress, this thread is not about the Patriot Act, no matter how idiotic and dangerous it may be - and there are enough prominet voices inside theUS criticising it for having done serious damages to some very vital parts of the constitutional rights and the rights resulting form the amandements. This thread is about how the war on terror is used as a cheap excuse to raise more or less uncontrolled data volumes of ordinary citizens of Westerns states, and that almost nobody seem to care although the sheer example of the watchlist growing into the hundreds of thousands and now millions of names. If there are so many suspects, then everybody is a suspect a slong as his innocence is not proven, which is the total and complete reversal of one of the most important and major principles of Western legal systems: that you are pressumed innocent as long as your guilt is not proven. Police states make excessive use of these reversals. Also, if there is a list of names now starting to count in millions, the names on it means nothing the more names there are. It is a variant of what in science is known as the classical reliability-validity dilemma. You should have an interest to filter the names as much as possible, and keep the list as short a spossible - only then the probability that a name on it actually has any meaning, is rising into the realms of usefulness.

Also, there is no countercontrol by the public or the citizens concerning what happens with the data. you may asume this or that, you may believe that whoever deals with them, will do it with a sense of at least minimal responsebility - but you simply do not know if they get abused, given to third parties, will be used by insurances in the future, will land in the virtual maze from where everybody interested in them could access them. Considering job search. Insurrances. Minor law cases you find yourself in, about wrong parking, and suddenly you get smashed by hints popping up from nowhere that maybe there is more suspicious about you than just wrong parking, for this or that minstry has your name on their list. Or think aboiut customer trustworthiness that is checked by bank before they decide on your request for a new credit, or a credit card. Handy contracts. Confidentiality and protection of private sphere and pesonal data is what it is about - and this protection is heavily breached and compromised.

And since I do not assume all politicians are so totally stupid, I assume that many of them know all what I just said. Nevertheless it has become policy in recent years to push for these developements. So my conclusion, that the real intention for these databases is something different, and has little to do with fighting terror. It is about control, and securing power of lobbies and politcal-economical groups over the people. You cannot evcen say that these things are only pushed by the rightwinged, and all liberal and lefties are against it. Spain in England for example shows that the left can join the chorus as well.

This roots much deeper than in superficial labelling of parties as left or right, and political orientation. It is to establish an order that is beyond such stage sets.

Also creitical is that the separation between civil use and security-relevant use are fading, and the separation between well meant intention and possible abuse become transparent. This prject for example could work for the good and the bad at the same time:

http://ai.arizona.edu/research/terror/index.htm

Two weeks ago there was a complete longer docu on it on TV. Scientifically, it is interesting, but concerning the variety of possible abuses by governmental services and offices as well as the private business, it raises my neck's hairs.

We have measured and mapped all the globe. Now we map all mankind. If this does not frighten you, then nothing ever will.