EFF: Biometrics in Argentina, Mass Surveillance as a State Policy
eff.org
eff.org
Short version:
No one in Argentina trusts the police
If what the EFF is writing about comes to pass, every single despicable and ill intended individual in this country is going to have all biometrical data about any citizen he wants at his fingertips. This includes banks, drug dealers, telemarketers, and angry ex-husbands/wives.
Long version:
The police in Argentina is usually a completely corrupted institution, at the mercy of whatever drug lord, human trafficking organization, or powerful family that needs its service. This has been a problem since democracy returned to Argentina about 30 years ago, even with governments massively winning elections and having a really tight control of the whole executive and legislative branch of Argentina's federal government. This corrupt structure survived many purges and reforms announced and carried on by the executive branch of the federal government, and also the government of many provinces... even when those purges are continually announced in elections and in the usual political-propaganda-spaces as the end-all crime fighting solution.
This goes to the extent that Cristina is not even relying on the police for the custody of some of the key infrastructure of the country. For example, its common for protected witnesses in criminal investigations about human trafficking to be under custody of the gendarmerie, because of the obvious police involvement in those type of crimes.
Now, pressured by a (measurable but between the norm) increase in violent crimes, that is as usual blown out of proportion by the press, they are going to give the federal police access to huge amounts of biometrical data.
Given our history of mishandling citizen's private information, this data will be in the hands (or at the fingertips, as you coincidentally pointed out) of practically everyone with a slight interest in no time.
That is my biggest fear.
Cristina takes the blame for thwarting our freedom of expression, but she certainly did otherwise. The opposition says that freedom of expression is very low, while it is clear to me that it has never been higher. I have never seen this much freedom to say anything you want to say. This is why it saddens me when I hear people saying that we are heading into another dictatorship. Take an example, if you will, Cristina's derogation of the Calumnias e Injurias (Slander and Injuries) felony. This law has been used by torturers from the Dirty War to avoid and dilate their process.
The amount of confirmation bias is incredibly high nowadays in Argentina.
What do I mean by this? This government has done some really great stuff, and they also screw up other stuff up (I might say that practically every government does, depending on the looking glass). This has brought an enormous scrutiny on the media's role in deciding elections and shunning candidates they deem contrary to their agenda.
Particularly, the situation boils down to Clarín's massive monopoly vs the Kirchnerismo. You may call Clarín our local version of Fox News. Cristina Kirchner and her late husband Néstor are certainly right in that there is a monopoly. They are, on the other hand, criticized by not giving press conferences and having a huge pride and elitism. Perhaps you can relate this to the republicans claiming that the Obama administration is very secretive about their intentions.
I find it hard to sit in a grey area, seeing both sides trying to bring me closer to their particular interpretation of the truth.
I've personally debunked many lies that were presented by either Clarín or media affiliated with the government. I think due to my unhealthy thirst for information. But other people will just close their minds and simply settle for something they've read. Cristina's opposition will stubbornly defend many things that simply aren't true, and they will never concede a point. Sadly, the same happens with Cristina's loyalists.
Having said that, I'm very uneasy about this particular measure. In this country, you can very easily access someones private data such as banking history, every possession they have, even medical history. Adding an extra item to the list sure creeps me out.
You may say: "Why, Hrundi, surely there must be legislation that prevents that sort of data leak, right?". Well, we do have legislation regarding that, just like the US has HIPAA. Unfortunately, this has never stopped information from leaking out.
I guess its time to sand off my fingerprints!
Although comparing a dictatorship with a democratic government is generally no sense, we can find some intersections:
The Kirchner governments are using the state as a personal army against their enemies. Clarin converted in a bigger monopoly with the Kirchner signature and just after some misunderstandings they began to attack them.
> The opposition says that freedom of expression is very low, while it is clear to me that it has never been higher. I have never seen this much freedom to say anything you want to say.
Please don't joke here, if you are a public figure and say something against the government the intelligence services will tamper your phones very quickly. In the Menem era there was more freedom, just look at the research done by Pagina/12 at that time and compare it with the journalists research now.
If Clarin is like Fox News: what would happen if the POTUS decided to close Fox News, just because? The end result wouldn't be more freedom of speech.
I don't think the Kirchner did all wrong, but I do really think our freedom of expression is getting smaller every year with them.
I personally applaud and defend* their right to express themselves like that, but the situation would have been a wee bit different back then. A bit of packet sniffing and moments later you are being thrown off a plane.
My family paid taxes for government media (such as the official channel) for all of the presidents since the return to democracy in 1983. This government suddenly is the first to get the slack. The slack that Clarín has never given to previous governments due to the kisses and cuddles and proven corruption).
The government didn't pick a monopoly, there's only one! All other so called monopolies (not even close to Clarín's shadow) are also bound by law, and access to documentation from judiciary and administrative branches can offer a lot of insight into the enforcement of the law. The government passed a "Media law" against monopolies. It was certainly proven that Clarín is one. Clarín then manages to have the law stopped by a friendly judge, a friendship going all the way back to the military process!
It is not true that they tried to close Clarín. They don't want to control the paper. They want to make the single, biggest source of paper in Argentina (Papel Prensa) equally price their paper, and not have an unfair advantage to their owners. Cristina doesn't run an enterprise. The government is every one of us, and I'd like to be able to print 10.000 papers by paying the same competitive price that Clarín.
Don't forget Clarín's role on the Dictadura, let's make a toast for expropriation! http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ea/Brindis_N...
Please, don't try to put all Kirchneristas in the same bag. The same goes for the opposition. The extremists from both sides will fling personal attacks all around, but there are a lot of people that enjoy having a discussion and trying to find the logic behind this whole clusterfuck of information crossfire. This discussion about the media is occurring all around the world (Brazil, Mexico are immense examples, I don't know much about the US). It's not that Cristina is Satan and woke up one day feeling bipolar (another stupid attack) and tried to destroy media concentration.
*: I also applaud and defend their right to consume a single source of information and blindly defend points that were heard in the background noise from a TV while they are having dinner. I understand the pain though. Trying to consume information and different takes on a story can be exhausting. "A man with a watch knows what time it is. A man with two watches is never sure."
I got a bit carried away, sorry for the wall of text!
I don't try to put all Kirchneristas in the same bag. I didn't even mention Kirchneristas.
And there are other monopolies (outside of the media), and Fibertel isn't the only internet company with issues. All of that was an excuse to single out Clarin. And the Kirchner didn't make too much of an effort to hide that really, they almost spelled that out clear in public speeches.
Any saber-rattling you hear comes from UK's own media. The Falklands issue is not as current here as you might think.
Even the most patriotic proponents of having the Falklands back are constantly dismissed. The thought of anything resembling to a military action was never brought on the table here.
The press in the UK certainly does put this fear mongering in the spotlight.
As for myself, I wish Falklands belonged to neither country. The Falklands belong to the kelpers. Any discussion about it won't pay our monthly rent. We've got quite enough issues as it is.
I do take issue when you broadly generalize: "it seems most Argentines are just annoyed they didn't win"
Most argentines are trying to mind their own business. The Falklands fall right in the lowest priority bucket, and I doubt it was even in the minds of the 54% of registered voters that chose Cristina. If anything, I feel most argentines won't give a flying fsck about the issue. To me, Gorilla-style patriotism is quickly becoming a thing of the past.
I think we're going a bit off-topic though.
This is about the right of a free people not to be bullied by large neighbours: those who would seek, and have sought, to dispossess the islanders of their land and livelihood. It's most certainly freedom at issue here, and there are those of us on this side that think the behavior of your government is shameful in the extreme. We payed a lot more than rent over the matter last time, and will do so again if necessary. Considering how clear cut the issue is, and the hundreds of deaths that were involved, it's telling how trite you are regarding this despicable campaign against the Falklands by your bully government. The British papers wouldn't be writing anything about it at all if the farcical claim over the Falklands wasn't being pushed all the time by the Argentine government in domestic speeches, regionally (Mercosur bans) and in international fora. All this from a region in receipt of foreign aid from the British government: grow up. It's relevant to the discussion because the tinpot government of "Cristina" (first name basis? or just a supporter?) is betraying totalitarian tendencies in other areas too. Democracy is pretty corrupt in the West, but take a good look in the mirror because you aren't even in the upper half http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index
Your police can't be trusted with witnesses, politicians are assassinated and short decades after an unprovoked war you are banging the drums again; I don't see why you expect anyone to be friendly or not to get angry about it. You are right though, we are a bit off topic, because the Falklands already belong to the "kelpers" as you put it, and they say they are British.
Americans seem to enjoy making a fuss over it - I guess when you can be arrested for basically any reason you really need the option to hide. It's not the IDs you should worry about...
The law is currently in a two-year "trial" period (despite the fact that nobody bothered defining metrics and requirements for gauging the success or failure of the trial), following which it will become mandatory for every citizen under punishment of [possible] incarceration.
Let's just say I'm going to jail in two years...
Mentioning (briefly) Eli Biham's opinion on the database: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4069922,00.html
Mentioning Adi Shamir's security suggestions: http://innovya.com/2011/09/information-technology-israel-new...
I've been unable to find an English source detailing the specifics of Shamir's suggestion to the Knesset. I'll add it here if I'm able to find one.
The lack of personal information privacy in Argentina is astonishing. Having lived in other countries, I find it really scary that every retail store asks you for your DNI number the first time you make a purchase, and that public databases exist in the web with your address, phone number, date of birth, upper billing limit (with the CUIT number), etc.
What's also funny, a lot of software here use the DNI number as the primary key for their associates / customer / people tables.
Any other country would find this unnacceptable.
The current tendency towards a police state sucks, but I find it very hard to compare it with what happened between '76 an '83.
Not only because the number of people who died is smaller, but because there there's a huge difference between a person that is killed by a gunshot during a protest(violent or not, there were cases of both) and a person who just vanishes in the middle of the night and isn't heard of again.
The problem with that type of reasoning is that when going 30 years into the past and trying to discuss about a very specific fact, in this case being mass surveillance by state of the art technology, things get really blurry and arguments get bizarre.
While one could argue a modern dictatorship could use current technology to silence its enemies in a more brutal and effective way, another position to take would be that electronic surveillance is easier to evade than actual spies following you or infiltrating your political organization. One could also explore the possibilities that arise by technology being used by the enemies of the dictators. For example, maybe Astiz cover would have been blown by someone in Madres de Plaza de Mayo when discovering his real Facebook profile/online identity.