The solution to Internet crime and an end to cyber terrorism: Transparency

World Tech Tribune.com (Copyright 2002) ^ | May 31, 2002 | Scott McCollum

[Scott McCollum]

A clip from the column found at World Tech Tribune.com.

Enough about the hypocrisies of the EFF and the ACLU: What is transparency and how can it empower citizens, end cyber crime/terrorism and keep the EFF from crying foul? I’ve been a big believer in citizens’ accountability for their own actions, actively self-governing themselves and form their own citizen “government oversight” committees for my whole life. The use of cheap, readily-available communication technology immensely aids both of these actions. Having portable video cameras phones allowed Chinese students to show the Communist Party’s abuses at Tiananmen Square to a horrified world via satellite TV. Cell phones are often used to report hit-and-run drivers’ license plates by good Samaritans at the scene of the crime. Such self-governing and community responsibility – transparency of a citizen’s intention – is one reason our brand of democracy is so wonderful. Unfortunately, an almost religious adherence by cyber libertarians to anonymity on the Internet at all costs empowers the thieves, terrorists and other evil people to easily hide.

[weikel]

Did you forget the barf alert?

[northernwilson]

transparency of a citizen’s intention

Hmmm...A big brother Orwellian police state to keep the miscreants under control...what a good idea....NOT!!!

[Scott McCollum]

Read the column. It's not a squishy leftist love letter for the police state, folks.

Here's another clip:

“Author David Brin outlined how this system would work in his The Transparent Society and that makes him the second smartest guy in the world next to me. Mr. Brin had a brilliant observation in February when he told an interviewer: 'Can we have both safety and freedom? The evidence can be seen all around us. We are - even after 9/11 - toweringly safer and freer than any other people in history. The two go together. All it takes is breaking the stupid notion of dichotomies and trade-offs.'”

[dheretic]

I'm sick of the comparisons to other countries. Look at what we have to compare ourselves to? Oh yeah, it's not like we have to do a whole lot to be better than them. Let's stop caring about other nations and get the cajones about our people to admit that we aren't even trying anymore to live up to the ideals in the constitution.