[WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia privacy

Fri Apr 4 17:42:51 UTC 2003

Daniel Ehrenberg writes:

>Actually, for anonymity, I think we shouldn't store
any information 
>potentially linking names and IP addresses to
messages. According to the 
>"patriot" act, the government can search anything
(like servers) with 
>automatic permission from a judge to find evidence
for terrorist 
>suspects. If someone were to write on a talk page "I
love Sadam Hussein and 
Osama bin Laden", then the government would try to
>trace it to someone, 
and if they have DSL, they might find someone and
>"detain" them.  Don't 

Oh, it's not hypothetical at all; they'll even
"detain" (or, more properly, "disappear" [and q.v.
Argentinian history for those not understanding that
term] people for something as innocuous as
contributing to certain charities.  It happened
recently with an Intel employee.)

In fact, one (e.g. this one writing) could go so far
as to argue that the U.S. is sprinting towards a
police state, with terrorism already redefined as
"damaging property" and states proposing legislation
to sentence people to 25 years for protesting (oregon)
and to outlaw hiding the content or source of any
transmission online (FL, TX, others.  and note that
this, if passed, would outlaw PGP, firewalls, and
SSL).

I'd argue that now is the time to be proactive, while
it's still legal.  I think it woul be great to encrypt
*all* IP addresses in the database, and to *chronjob
scrap server logs every 24 hours (this is a policy
Bear Pond Books has taken up with customer info. 
Agents can request the info, even with no suspicion
the customer has committed a crime; booksellers are
under an immediate gag order about the visit.  no
info?  nothing to give.  and, for those worried about
death threats?  Mav's and Zoe's did not go unnoticed;
they were instead immediately noticed).

I sound like a hopeless paranoiac, I know. 
Unbelievers should check out the text of the PATRIOT
Act and the text of the proposed PATRIOT Act II, which
would allow the U.S. government to strip citizenship
from people born in the country, but who at some point
endorse a group the government deems "terrorist" (I'm
assuming they're not yet counting themselves in this
group.)  The hapless Intel employee, under Patriot Act
II would, instead of being disappeared, would be
disappeared and stateless.  Good for prison labor, I
guess.

cheers (or not),

kq

q.v. PATRIOT ACT I
http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=11835&c=206

and the exciting sequel, PATRIOT ACT II 
http://publicintegrity.org/dtaweb/report.asp?ReportID=502&L1=10&L2=10&L3=0&L4=0&L5=0

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