[105242] in Cypherpunks
IP: Privacy Int'l Big Brother Awards Doled Out
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Vladimir Z. Nuri)
Mon Nov 9 00:49:25 1998
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
Date: Sun, 08 Nov 98 21:35:18 -0800
From: "Vladimir Z. Nuri" <vznuri@netcom.com>
Reply-To: "Vladimir Z. Nuri" <vznuri@netcom.com>
From: Richard Sampson <rjsa@sprintmail.com>
Subject: IP: Privacy Int'l Big Brother Awards Doled Out
Date: Sun, 08 Nov 1998 09:16:13 -0500
To: "ignition-point@majordomo.pobox.com" <ignition-point@majordomo.pobox.com>
****Privacy Int'l Big Brother Awards Doled Out
LONDON, ENGLAND, 1998 NOV 6 (Newsbytes) -- By Steve Gold, Newsbytes.
The World's first privacy awards have been given out London.
Coordinated by Privacy International (PI), the London-based civil
rights organization, the event saw five British government agencies and
companies receive recognition for their relentless attack on personal
privacy. Next year the awards are expected to expand to entities in
other countries.
As the title suggests, the awards are loosely based on the state
monolith theme that George Orwell created in his novel, "1984," in
which, when he wrote the story in 1934, 1984 seemed a long way off, and
the future portrayed in the book was a totalitarian state with Big
Brother in charge of almost everything.
In its own way, like the US Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), PI
has been fighting a steady battle against the monolithic state, large
corporations, and other entities that threaten individual privacy,
Newsbytes notes.
Newsbytes can report that the gold awards -- with an award in the
shape of a boot stamping on a human head -- were given in five
categories:
Corporation -- The British firm Procurement Services International
received an award for exporting surveillance equipment to Nigeria,
Turkey and Indonesia, three countries whose human rights records have
been severely criticized.
Local Government -- Newham Council in London won in this category for
equipping its 140 street cameras with automated facial-recognition
software intended to pick out criminals in crowds.
National Government -- The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) was
named a Big Brother over its plans for the police to have access
through a third party to the keys to encrypted data.
Product -- The WatCall software produced by Harlequin Ltd., can
analyze telephone records and is able to compare numbers dialed and
received in order to group users into "friendship networks." The
software, PI noted, avoids the normal legal requirements needed for
phone tapping.
Lifetime Achievement Award -- The Menwith Hill listening station in
Yorkshire, operated by the National Security Agency (NSA), won this
coveted award for its 40-year involvement in the routine interception
of private communications.
According to PI officials, unfortunately, none of the winners were
present to accept their awards. But a PI activist attempted earlier in
the day to present the awards to some of the recipients.
The 250 guests at the award ceremony at the London School of
Economics were shown a video of several police dragging him out of the
DTI's headquarters after he had tried to present the award to
officials.
The academics, writers, activists and lawyers who make up Privacy
International concentrated their first awards on the UK, but plan to
extend them to other countries over the next two years. According to
Simon Davies, PI's director, the plan now is for PI members in the US,
France, Austria and Germany to shortly announce dates for their own
national awards. Davies said that the time is now right for the awards.
"Surveillance has now become an inbuilt component of every piece of
information technology on the planet, we've got a long way to go to
wind the clock back. I think these awards are the beginning of a
movement," he explained.
PI also presented a series of awards for the defenders of privacy.
These "Winstons" (after Winston Smith, the hero of Orwell's 1984) were
given to five people and organizations:
Schnews -- is a Brighton-based weekly newsletter which for the past
three years has done a great deal to raise awareness of privacy and
surveillance issues, particularly those which the mainstream media
refuse to touch. Its small team works on a voluntary basis, and the
publication (which is free) is seen as one of the most influential
civil liberties organs in Britain.
Lindis Percy -- has for many years fought to raise awareness of the
activities of the US National Security Agency, particularly relating to
Menwith Hill, the agency's key spy base, located in Yorkshire. She has
been arrested more than 150 times, and has recently been jailed for her
actions. She received the Lifetime Achievement Winston.
Alan Lodge -- is a Leeds photographer who has spent more than a
decade raising awareness of front-line police surveillance activities,
particularly the endemic practice of photographing demonstrators and
activists.
Esther Bull -- is a 19-year-old student who last year discovered that
her landlord had placed a video camera behind a two-way mirror in her
bathroom. Esther said she had been filmed secretly for nearly two
years, but the lack of a privacy law meant that the perpetrator could
only be prosecuted under the "bad landlord" laws. She has helped form
the "Operation Peeping Tom" campaign to encourage other victims to tell
their story.
Harry Cohen -- is a Labour MP who has consistently worked to
strengthen data protection by introducing private members bills. He has
frequently been a lone voice in the British Parliament on this issue.
As a result of the success of the first awards, Davies has announced
a future schedule for further awards. Plans now call for the 1999 US
Big Brother Awards ceremony to be held at the 1999 Computers Freedom
and Privacy Conference on 6-8 April next year -- see
http://www.cfp99.org for further details.
The 1999 UK Big Brother Awards will take place in London on 18
October 1999. Further details can be found on PI's Web pages at
http://www.privacy.org/pi .
Further details of the awards can be found on the PI-organized Big
Brother Web page at http://www.privacy.org/pi/bigbrother .
PI was formed in 1990 as a non-government watchdog on surveillance
and privacy invasion. The organization has campaigned throughout the
world on dozens of issues ranging from ID cards and encryption policy,
to workplace surveillance and military intelligence.
Reported by Newsbytes News Network, http://www.newsbytes.com .
-0-
(19981106/Press Contact: Simon Davies, PI +44-1273-239216; E-mail:
davies@privacy.org/WIRES LEGAL, BUSINESS, NETWORK/BIGBROTHER/PHOTO)
News provided by COMTEX.
[!ASIA_PACIFIC] [!BUSINESS] [!EMERGING+MARKETS] [!EUROPEAN+COMMUNITY]
[!FOREIGN+BUSINESS] [!GLOBAL+NEWS] [!HIGHTECH] [!INFOTECH]
[!INTERNATIONAL] [!WALL+STREET] [!WESTERN+EUROPE] [ACTIVIST] [AUSTRIA]
[BOOK] [BRITAIN] [CIVIL+RIGHTS] [CONFERENCE] [ENGLAND] [FRANCE]
[GERMANY] [GOLD] [GOVERNMENT] [HUMAN+RIGHTS] [INDONESIA] [LONDON]
[MEDIA] [MILITARY] [NBY] [NEWS] [NEWSGRID] [NIGERIA] [PARLIAMENT]
[POLICE] [SOFTWARE] [TECHNOLOGY] [TRADE] [TURKEY] [VIDEO]
--
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