Akkam’s Razor

Two Interesting little stories…

First, a consortium of wealthy individuals and groups, spearheaded by Reporters without Borders, will be monitoring tech firms for their committments towards freedom of speech and human rights (think Yahoo and Google participating in government sponsored censorship in China). Via Information Week:

Microsoft Corp. and Google Inc. have been accused of helping the government there censor news sites and blogs. And in a recent case, Reporters Without Borders criticized Yahoo Inc. for allegedly helping the Chinese government trace the private e-mail account of a Chinese journalist who was later imprisoned for providing state secrets to foreigners. Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Yahoo has defended its move, saying it is obliged to comply with Chinese regulations.

In other news, our own Government appears to be sidestepping their own mandate for privacy and free speech by using that paragon of privacy, Choicepoint, to keep tabs on all of us using consumer databases.   Now, companies have used such information for years, but the important aspect here is why the government uses a private company, via Free Government Information:

Because [the FBI's Foreign Terrorist Tracking Task Force ] can’t maintain records on U.S. persons without opening an official investigation, it relies on ChoicePoint to augment the intelligence that the government collects through legal channels….

Secondly, has the scope of what is being done exceeded the powers granted to the government?

[T]he documents indicate that ChoicePoint may have gone beyond simply offering its commercially available products to the government. In 2003, ChoicePoint agreed to provide access to an "exclusive" system used to help identify terrorism suspects. Although much of the description of the system has been redacted from the documents — on the grounds that it would reveal law enforcement tactics and operations — the portions that were released indicate that ChoicePoint’s work involves continuously tracking a "subject of interest" and notifying the government when new information has surfaced on that person….

Given our track record with intelligence, I, for one, do not feel more secure.