Privacy? Forget it.

I was watching the only American news show we get here in Australia, its the News Hour which shows on PBS. Last night there was a huge kerfuffle with a couple of people debating the effects of the new Bill which has been passed by Congress.

In brief: Congress has given permission to the NSA (and I guess to the FBI and CIA) to go merrily wiretapping not only all over the United States, but apparently all over the planet. Initially it was to be only on communications between “foreign” sources and the US. But apparently its more than that. Its domestic and international.

Read at the following links if you haven’t already
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/005390.php
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/08/04/ap3988006.html

There will be a gazillion more, but those are the first I have found whilst looking for something else.

If you want to read the Bill itself go HERE

Privacy? What Privacy…

I have only just learned, thanks to a forum I am involved in, that the US government has access to a truckload of personal information of non-US citizens.

Some of you may be aware of, and may have even used, the SWIFT method of bank transfer. Perhaps you have kids overseas who needed a boost and you sent them some money. The Brussels based SWIFT is one of the ways of getting money from “here” to “there”. It may not go to the US, it could be, for example, between Italy and the UK.

But.. guess what… after 9/11, the SWIFT people agreed to give the US government all information about what money was moving to where. Antiterrorism, they said. But this flow of information has never stopped.

Read more at privacyinternational.org: The article is old, but the information is current.