[Linux-aus] Seeking feedback - EFA Citizens Not Suspects campaign

[Russell Coker]

On Fri, 14 Jun 2013, David Lyon <david.lyon at hackerpads.com> wrote:
> Metadata tagging won't catch criminals. They already know not to use
> mobile phones.

I think it's best to stick to realistic claims when opposing such things.

It's well documented that people who want to buy drugs would like to use their 
phone to do so, apparently drug orders by SMS aren't that uncommon.  I believe 
that all drugs should be legalised, but that's not going to happen any time 
soon so end user sales of illicit substances will remain an excellent example 
of phone tracking to catch "criminals".

I'm sure that there are some more serious criminals who have good data 
security practices (*).  But then that would be a significant lifestyle 
decision for people who are younger than about 30.  If organised crime 
syndicates were to start banning their members from using mobile phones then 
it would surely impact their recruitment.

I'm not in any way advocating for monitoring everyone.  I believe that law 
enforcement agencies should be able to monitor individuals after getting a 
search warrant and that a warrent should be required for each individual.  It 
should be illegal for anyone involved in implementing such wire tapping to 
fail to take reasonable precautions to avoid tapping the wrong person's data.

(*) Of course they may not implement their practices as well as they wish.  
We've all read the news reports about laptops with classified government data 
being lost ar bars and stations, pre-released mobile phones being lost and 
sold to news organisations, government workers finding hostile USB sticks and 
connecting them to work computers, etc.

-- 
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