PRIVACY: Private traces in public places

[Alan Horowitz]

Governments or whoever, can do all they want to make their collection of 
dossiers bulge even bigger than they are. But, these dossiers are only 
data sets. Data isn't quite the same os information. Information isn't 
quite the same as knowledge. Knowledge isn't quite the same as 
understanding. And understanding the situation has not been, 
historically, enough to ensure that government (or whoever) decision 
makers make the "right" decision.

Let the internal security apparatchiks spin the bottle all they want. 
They couldn't keep Rome from falling, nor the Byzantine Empire, nor the 
Ottoman Sultanate. They couldn't keep the Third Reich in place for a 
thousand years. They couldn't keep the Soviet Union glued together by 
force nor dirty persuasion nor extortionate non-economics.

The FBI can run, but it can't hide.

Alan Horowitz
alanh at infi.net