Because the subtleties of privacy legislation are a popular topic on your IP list, readers might be interested in a paragraph buried in today's AP report on the bombing of the US embassy in Athens (I found it in my local paper): http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2007/01/13/ greek_militants_blamed_in_rocket_attack/ The paragraph with the privacy implications reads: The government said it was seeking permission from the courts to view video from traffic cameras, which under Greek privacy laws is officially excluded from the police investigation. Although I'd like to see the bombers caught, I'm leary of the tendency to stretch information systems beyond their intended uses. There's also an important imbalance of power involved. If the police and US embassy get their way, it will show that powerful forces can bend privacy laws--but other people can't. If I come to my parked car and find a dent in it, will I pursuade the courts to let me look at traffic photos? And even if information is open to all (if anyone could go on the Web and view footage from traffic cameras) this would benefit governments and large companies over individuals--whoever has the power to act on information. I've written about this before: http://www.praxagora.com/andyo/professional/p3p_promises.html in the section "Technology Is Not the Problem--Power Is." Andy ------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- You are subscribed as eugen@leitl.org To manage your subscription, go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip Archives at: Archives: http://archives.listbox.com/247/ Modify Your Subscription: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=125019&user_secret=59fc1126 Unsubscribe: http://v2.listbox.com/unsubscribe/?id=125019-59fc1126-jl8dphw9 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature which had a name of signature.asc]