[LINK] Snowden, Inteligence Gathering, Indonesia and Embarrassment

[Bernard Robertson-Dunn]

On 21/11/2013 3:35 PM, Frank O'Connor wrote:
> And the 'Australian Council of Security Professionals' is obviously gonna be unbiased, economically disinterested and completely fair and honest about the need to exercise their services, and the results that they attain, on a client/citizen/state basis cost-benefit analysis, when the annual budget comes up?

Right on - what he said.

These guys have a vested interest in keeping going, gathering all the 
data and making it more accessible, just in case someone wants to do 
some sort of analysis or tracking later on.

So, having made access to all this data so much easier, what happens? - 
someone who shouldn't access it does. And not only accesses it, but 
gives it to the world.

So the solution to the supposed problem: "how can we gather and store 
lots of data on everyone in case we need it?" creates a new problem: 
"how do we stop people who shouldn't get at the data, get at the data?"

Considering that Snowden was a person allowed to get at the data and 
only became a person who shouldn't get at the data until after he had 
leaked it, that's a pretty difficult one to solve.

The only really trustworthy answer is, don't collect all that data. If 
you miss out because you weren't proactive - Tough. Get over it, that's 
life and that's democracy.

And the people charged with collecting and storing all that data? 
They've just become part of the problem.

So, referring back to Frank's original posting, I think the answers to 
most of his questions are quite clear if you start from the premise that 
it ain't worth the risk.

-- 

Regards
brd

Bernard Robertson-Dunn
Sydney Australia
email: brd at iimetro.com.au
web:   www.drbrd.com
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