Privacy news: Oakland Cameras, Levi employee files, FileGate

It's been a busy day for privacy issues in the Oakland Trib.

Surveillance Cameras in Oakland
-------------------------------
Bay Alarm is trying to sell the City Council a $500K-$1.5M closed-circuit
TV system for watching people in public places.  The three picknickers
didn't litter, but the camera mounted on the public library building could
zoom in enough to that the council could tell a ham sandwich from roast beef,
and whether the two joggers were wearing Nikes or Reeboks.
"Anybody who is a law-abiding citizen is not going to be concerned about
this..
"When I'm out in a public place.... I don't have an expectation of privacy"
said Councilcritter Nate Miley (East Oakland/Elmhurst), who wants a test run
in his district, where residents have bars on their windows and are afraid
to go out at night.  Police Chief Joseph Samuels likes it too.
"This is technology spying on our citizens from camera on light poles"
said John Crew of the ACLU police practices project, speaking against it.
Bay Alarm said that some British cities have dealt with privacy fears by
setting up monitoring centers away from city and police offices,
where tapes are kept in case a crime occurs -- crime victims can call up
the police and ask them to play back tapes, said Mark Demier of Bay Alarm.
The camera systems are also capable of taking pictures in the dark.

Personnel Data Theft Plaguing U.S. Firms
---------------------------------------
Levi Strauss & Co. recently had a disk drive stolen from an office computer.
It had background information on over 20,000 current and former employees,
including names, addresses, SSNs, birthdates, and bank account numbers.
It appeared to be just a crude theft of the $500 hardware, rather than 
somebody trying to steal the information itself, and is "not likely" to be 
used fraudulently because it's "written in a language difficult to decode",
but the affected employees have been notified.  Dave Banisar of EPIC is 
one of the various experts quoted.

Insiders Chip In for FileGate Fall Guy Defense
----------------------------------------------
Remember FileGate, with the White House accessing confidential 
background files of hundreds of Republican Administration workers?  
Remember Craig Livingstone, White House staffer who resigned after 
it was revealed that his office was responsible for it?
Well, he was never charged with anything, but he had about $9550 in 
legal expenses to advise him when he talked to Congress,
and apparently 55 of his good friends decided to help him out.
Hillary Clinton's chief of staff gave $50, Bill Clinton's golf partner
Vernon Jordan gave $250, D.C.City Council member Charlene Davis gave $100,
and overall it averaged out to about $200 per insider.
Petty cash, perhaps, but it goes to show you the Clinton Administration's
attitudes toward violation of privacy and abuse of power.
Needless to say, the Associated Press story was a bit more balanced in tone
than my summary here :-)


----
And in other news, San Leandro High School students, mostly the drama club,
led a protest against against a proposed school board policy that would ban
profanity, obscenity, libel, or slanderous speech in school-produced
publications and productions.  (Out, Out, <censored> spot!)
"We want to be able to have the plays we've had in the past", said Sean
Givens.
"We're not doing profanity, we're doing ideas."  Last year the drama 
department canceled a production of "The Breakfast Club", though it was
allowed to go on with modified language.

And Mike Royko died.  The world will be a quieter place without him.
He'll be missed.  


#			Thanks;  Bill
# Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts@ix.netcom.com
# You can get PGP outside the US at ftp.ox.ac.uk/pub/crypto/pgp
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> Bay Alarm said that some British cities have dealt with privacy fears by
> setting up monitoring centers away from city and police offices,
> where tapes are kept in case a crime occurs -- crime victims can call up
> the police and ask them to play back tapes, said Mark Demier of Bay Alarm.
> The camera systems are also capable of taking pictures in the dark.

Not just cities, quite small towns and residential areas have now taken 
to using citizen-units tax money installing systems to spy on the very 
same people. I have now taken to not visiting a town near me (Hastings) 
because of the CCTV systems in place. Not content with spying on citizens 
going about their business in towns a number of state funded colleges and 
universities are now installing CCTV systems. Presumably audio "bugs" 
will also be in order to ensure the student-units do not say anything 
unseemly or hinting at some form of intellectual heresy.

Also, a number of car alarm manufacturers are now producing systems to 
track cars using GPS so if the car is stolen the police can track its 
movements. I can quite easily envisage a situation in a few years time 
when it is mandated that all new cars produced must be fitted with such 
systems so that the government can track the movement of citizens.

One cannot now go out of ones own house without being monitored, and for 
those of us who are known heretics maybe even that is not true. 


Paul "Rapidly becoming a hermit in the name of privacy" Bradley

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----


In <Pine.LNX.3.91.970501182336.502A-100000@fatmans.demon.co.uk>, on
05/01/97 at 12:31 PM,
   Paul Bradley <paul@fatmans.demon.co.uk> said:





>> Bay Alarm said that some British cities have dealt with privacy fears by
>> setting up monitoring centers away from city and police offices,
>> where tapes are kept in case a crime occurs -- crime victims can call up
>> the police and ask them to play back tapes, said Mark Demier of Bay Alarm.
>> The camera systems are also capable of taking pictures in the dark.

>Not just cities, quite small towns and residential areas have now taken 
>to using citizen-units tax money installing systems to spy on the very 
>same people. I have now taken to not visiting a town near me (Hastings) 
>because of the CCTV systems in place. Not content with spying on citizens 
>going about their business in towns a number of state funded colleges and 
>universities are now installing CCTV systems. Presumably audio "bugs" 
>will also be in order to ensure the student-units do not say anything 
>unseemly or hinting at some form of intellectual heresy.

>Also, a number of car alarm manufacturers are now producing systems to 
>track cars using GPS so if the car is stolen the police can track its 
>movements. I can quite easily envisage a situation in a few years time 
>when it is mandated that all new cars produced must be fitted with such 
>systems so that the government can track the movement of citizens.

>One cannot now go out of ones own house without being monitored, and for 
>those of us who are known heretics maybe even that is not true. 

Well I invision that in 20-30 years all TV's will be two-way (ala 1984) and
any LEA will be able to monitor the activities of the serfs a the push of a
button.

The infrastructure for this is currently being built. With the merging of
technologies: cable, INet, TV, Phone, & Computer all that will be needed is
the adding of a mic and video camera which will more then likely be
standard features of the computer/communication/entertainment equipment.

- -- 
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William H. Geiger III  http://www.amaranth.com/~whgiii
Geiger Consulting    Cooking With Warp 4.0

Author of E-Secure - PGP Front End for MR/2 Ice
PGP & MR/2 the only way for secure e-mail.
                          
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