Uwe Hermann | A slightly paranoid Debian developer

This demo is initiated and backed by a number of organizations in Germany, among others the Arbeitskreis Vorratsdatenspeicherung, Chaos Computer Club e.V., FoeBuD e.V., STOP1984, Attac AG Wissensallmende, Indymedia Germany, and the German Pirate Party.

Place: Bielefeld, Germany (exact meeting place)
Time: 15:00 o'clock on Friday, October 20, 2006
Motto: Freiheit statt Angst (Freedom instead of fear)

Goals and Demands

• Reduce the pervasive surveillance in Germany!
  No public video surveillance, no automatical face-recognition, no data retention, no RFID and biometry in passports, no "Lauschangriff" etc.
• In-depth investigations of current surveillance laws by independant organizations/experts!
  Find out how effective (or rather not!) currently implemented surveillance laws have been, and what their downsides, problems, and dangers are for democracy in Germany.
• Stop all plans for further surveillance laws!
  Any further surveillance laws, "anti-terror"- or "security"-laws must be halted immediately! Their implications are extremely dangerous for privacy and democracy in Germany!

Materials: Banners, flyers, mottos for transparents and more are available in the wiki of the site. Donations are possible and welcome, too.

Demo participants can visit the Big Brother Awards 2006 right after the demo (for free).

If you value your privacy and democracy in this country, now is the time to speak up and let the whole world (and especially the German politicians) know! This surveillance-madness has to stop!

Voilà! In                                                       view, a humble
 vaudevillian                                                  veteran, cast 
  vicariously as both                                         victim and
   villain by the                                            vicissitudes of Fate. This 
    visage, no mere                                         veneer of
     vanity, is a                                          vestige of the
      vox populi, now                                     vacant,
       vanished, as the once                             vital
        voice of the                                    verisimilitude now
         venerates what they once                      vilified. However, this 
          valorous                                    visitation of a bygone
           vexation stands                           vivified, and has
            vowed to                                vanquish these 
             venal and                             virulent                   Remember, remember the 5th of November
              vermin                              vanguarding
               vice and                          vouchsafing the
                violently                       vicious and
                 voracious                     violation of
                  volition. The only          verdict is 
                   vengeance; a              vendetta held as a 
                    votive, not in          vain, for the
                     value and             veracity of such shall one day
                      vindicate the       vigilant and the
                       virtuous.         Verily, this 
                        vichyssoise of  verbiage 
                         veers most    verbose
                          vis-à-vis an introduction,
                           and so it is my
                            very good honor
                             to meet you
                              and you may
                               call me
                                  V.

Yes, I've seen V for Vendetta today. Very impressing movie, highly recommended! Makes you start to think...

Scary, funny, and old, but this ACLU pizza ordering video makes you start to think. For example, it makes you start to make an educated guess at how much of this is already possible today. I'm not liking the results of my guess...

(via 37signals)

Nothing really new for most of you, but still some good food for thought:

Cell tower records can pinpoint a phone owner's location for police, whether the phone is used or not.

Cell phone trails snare criminals, call or no — a nice article which tells us that several murderers were convicted using (among other things, I guess) cell tower records. Police could often pinpoint the location of the accused within a few blocks and thus "prove" they were lying in court about their location at a given time (i.e., their alibi was smashed).

Of course, this is not a reliable method in all cases. A murderer could give someone else his cell phone to create an alibi in the first place. I can easily imagine lots of other ways to abuse this.

While probably useful in some cases, this is pretty scary stuff. Authorities can track where you are at a given time, and where you are going in realtime. Combine this with Google Earth and you've got some pretty Big Brother style surveillance. This is inacceptable in general, but even more so if performed without probable cause (as has happened already). The EFF has some more information.

Issues like this always make me wonder whether I'm too paranoid or not paranoid enough...

(via Bruce Schneier)