

EFF: Biometrics in Argentina, Mass Surveillance as a State Policy - riledhel
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/01/biometrics-argentina-mass-surveillance-state-policy

======
pvarangot
To put the seriousness of this into perspective for the average HN reader:

Short version:

 _No one in Argentina trusts the police_

If what the EFF is writing about comes to pass, every single despicable and
ill intended individual in this country is going to have all biometrical data
about any citizen he wants at his fingertips. This includes banks, drug
dealers, telemarketers, and angry ex-husbands/wives.

Long version:

The police in Argentina is usually a completely corrupted institution, at the
mercy of whatever drug lord, human trafficking organization, or powerful
family that needs its service. This has been a problem since democracy
returned to Argentina about 30 years ago, even with governments massively
winning elections and having a really tight control of the whole executive and
legislative branch of Argentina's federal government. This corrupt structure
survived many purges and reforms announced and carried on by the executive
branch of the federal government, and also the government of many provinces...
even when those purges are continually announced in elections and in the usual
political-propaganda-spaces as the end-all crime fighting solution.

This goes to the extent that Cristina is not even relying on the police for
the custody of some of the key infrastructure of the country. For example, its
common for protected witnesses in criminal investigations about human
trafficking to be under custody of the gendarmerie, because of the obvious
police involvement in those type of crimes.

Now, pressured by a (measurable but between the norm) increase in violent
crimes, that is as usual blown out of proportion by the press, they are going
to give the federal police access to huge amounts of biometrical data.

~~~
wslh
I would add that nobody trusts the intelligence service here. For example if
you are a journalist, or just a public figure, and say something against the
government they can tamper your phone as if you were a possible terrorist.

------
Hrundi
I can't believe people here in Argentina when they compare Cristina's actions
with the military coup from 76'. Many will go as far as to compare Cristina
with Hitler and insulting her with gender slurs.

Cristina takes the blame for thwarting our freedom of expression, but she
certainly did otherwise. The opposition says that freedom of expression is
very low, while it is clear to me that it has never been higher. I have never
seen this much freedom to say anything you want to say. This is why it saddens
me when I hear people saying that we are heading into another dictatorship.
Take an example, if you will, Cristina's derogation of the Calumnias e
Injurias (Slander and Injuries) felony. This law has been used by torturers
from the Dirty War to avoid and dilate their process.

The amount of confirmation bias is incredibly high nowadays in Argentina.

What do I mean by this? This government has done some really great stuff, and
they also screw up other stuff up (I might say that practically every
government does, depending on the looking glass). This has brought an enormous
scrutiny on the media's role in deciding elections and shunning candidates
they deem contrary to their agenda.

Particularly, the situation boils down to Clarín's massive monopoly vs the
Kirchnerismo. You may call Clarín our local version of Fox News. Cristina
Kirchner and her late husband Néstor are certainly right in that there is a
monopoly. They are, on the other hand, criticized by not giving press
conferences and having a huge pride and elitism. Perhaps you can relate this
to the republicans claiming that the Obama administration is very secretive
about their intentions.

I find it hard to sit in a grey area, seeing both sides trying to bring me
closer to their particular interpretation of the truth.

I've personally debunked many lies that were presented by either Clarín or
media affiliated with the government. I think due to my unhealthy thirst for
information. But other people will just close their minds and simply settle
for something they've read. Cristina's opposition will stubbornly defend many
things that simply aren't true, and they will never concede a point. Sadly,
the same happens with Cristina's loyalists.

Having said that, I'm very uneasy about this particular measure. In this
country, you can very easily access someones private data such as banking
history, every possession they have, _even medical history._ Adding an extra
item to the list sure creeps me out.

You may say: "Why, Hrundi, surely there must be legislation that prevents that
sort of data leak, right?". Well, we do have legislation regarding that, just
like the US has HIPAA. Unfortunately, this has never stopped information from
leaking out.

I guess its time to sand off my fingerprints!

~~~
loboman
We already had freedom of expression before, you could say whatever you wanted
about previous presidents in public. But now the government has higher control
of the press, by controlling the paper, it has also publicly attacked and
tried to close some of our biggest media (regardless of their quality, that's
a bad sign... the government arbitrarily choose to attack one monopoly very
openly, while allowing other monopolies to continue as always), while it has
funded their own partidist media -with our taxes-. Meanwhile we have seen
violent, even physical attacks against people who talk openly against the
Kirchnerismo, like Lanata (I'm not saying the government did these attacks,
but they weren't as common before the Kirchnerismo).

If Clarin is like Fox News: what would happen if the POTUS decided to close
Fox News, just because? The end result wouldn't be more freedom of speech.

I don't think the Kirchner did all wrong, but I do really think our freedom of
expression is getting smaller every year with them.

~~~
Hrundi
Imagine, if you will, that Twitter existed during the Dictadura. Now, imagine
all of the immense slurring and derogatory flaming that Cristina received in
the weeks prior to the recent presidential election, but now switch Cristina
for 1976' first de facto leader Jorge Rafael Videla.

I personally applaud and defend* their right to express themselves like that,
but the situation would have been a wee bit different back then. A bit of
packet sniffing and moments later you are being thrown off a plane.

My family paid taxes for government media (such as the official channel) for
all of the presidents since the return to democracy in 1983. This government
suddenly is the first to get the slack. The slack that Clarín has never given
to previous governments due to the kisses and cuddles and proven corruption).

The government didn't pick a monopoly, there's only one! All other so called
monopolies (not even close to Clarín's shadow) are also bound by law, and
access to documentation from judiciary and administrative branches can offer a
lot of insight into the enforcement of the law. The government passed a "Media
law" against monopolies. It was certainly proven that Clarín is one. Clarín
then manages to have the law stopped by a friendly judge, a friendship going
all the way back to the military process!

It is not true that they tried to close Clarín. They don't want to control the
paper. They want to make the single, biggest source of paper in Argentina
(Papel Prensa) equally price their paper, and not have an unfair advantage to
their owners. Cristina doesn't run an enterprise. The government is every one
of us, and I'd like to be able to print 10.000 papers by paying the same
competitive price that Clarín.

Don't forget Clarín's role on the Dictadura, let's make a toast for
expropriation!
[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ea/Brindis_N...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ea/Brindis_Noble_Videla.jpg)

Please, don't try to put all Kirchneristas in the same bag. The same goes for
the opposition. The extremists from both sides will fling personal attacks all
around, but there are a lot of people that enjoy having a discussion and
trying to find the logic behind this whole clusterfuck of information
crossfire. This discussion about the media is occurring all around the world
(Brazil, Mexico are immense examples, I don't know much about the US). It's
not that Cristina is Satan and woke up one day feeling bipolar (another stupid
attack) and tried to destroy media concentration.

*: I also applaud and defend their right to consume a single source of information and blindly defend points that were heard in the background noise from a TV while they are having dinner. I understand the pain though. Trying to consume information and different takes on a story can be exhausting. "A man with a watch knows what time it is. A man with two watches is never sure."

I got a bit carried away, sorry for the wall of text!

~~~
loboman
I didn't compare current freedom of press to freedom during the Dictadura, I
compared it to the years between Dicatura and the Kirchner.

I don't try to put all Kirchneristas in the same bag. I didn't even mention
Kirchneristas.

And there are other monopolies (outside of the media), and Fibertel isn't the
only internet company with issues. All of that was an excuse to single out
Clarin. And the Kirchner didn't make too much of an effort to hide that
really, they almost spelled that out clear in public speeches.

------
ricardobeat
Where I live IDs are a fact of life. The government has got your picture,
fingerprint, address, whatever. What's the big deal? Lying about your identity
is a crime either way. Even if you don't have a national ID register, there is
plenty of data to be gathered from your SSN, driver's license, business
documents and countless other sources. It's unfeasible to run a civilized
society without some kind of record. People expose much more dangerous
information by themselves on facebook.

Americans seem to enjoy making a fuss over it - I guess when you can be
arrested for basically any reason you really need the option to hide. It's not
the IDs you should worry about...

------
slavak
Pretty much the same kind of database is going to be created in Israel, pushed
forward by a single Member of Knesset, while ignoring advice from leading
security experts. (see for example Adi Shamir, aka The "S" in "RSA.")

The law is currently in a two-year "trial" period (despite the fact that
nobody bothered defining metrics and requirements for gauging the success or
failure of the trial), following which it will become mandatory for every
citizen under punishment of [possible] incarceration.

Let's just say I'm going to jail in two years...

~~~
metachris
I'd like to know more... Could you add some references?

~~~
slavak
A good starting point:
<http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3816629,00.html>

Mentioning (briefly) Eli Biham's opinion on the database:
<http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4069922,00.html>

Mentioning Adi Shamir's security suggestions:
[http://innovya.com/2011/09/information-technology-israel-
new...](http://innovya.com/2011/09/information-technology-israel-new-
biometric-id-database-raises-significant-privacy-concerns/)

I've been unable to find an English source detailing the specifics of Shamir's
suggestion to the Knesset. I'll add it here if I'm able to find one.

------
janus
In my opinion, biometrics won't yield much more data about the average citizen
than what is currently available in the wild.

The lack of personal information privacy in Argentina is astonishing. Having
lived in other countries, I find it really scary that every retail store asks
you for your DNI number the first time you make a purchase, and that public
databases exist in the web with your address, phone number, date of birth,
upper billing limit (with the CUIT number), etc.

What's also funny, a lot of software here use the DNI number as the primary
key for their associates / customer / people tables.

Any other country would find this unnacceptable.

------
Cieplak
This reminds me of Argentina's recent history:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_War>

~~~
Fargren
I've lived in Argentina for twenty years, and I have to say there's a huge
qualitative difference between this and la guerra sucia.During those years,
there was actual fear that if you fought against the dictatorship, your your
family or our friends could disappear without a trace any day. Nothing like
that is going on today. There's certainly repression and police brutality, and
signs of a police state, but on a completely different level. A few days back
I saw a list of people who allegedly where every single person that has died
because of state mandated police action since the end of the dictatorship. The
list is 66 people long. While this makes sick to my stomach, I have only to go
to my college and look at the wall to see a list of people from that college
that died during the dictatorship. That list has close to one hundred and
fifty people on it. Just from one college. There's just no point of
comparison. Most of this people simply banished, there corpses were never
found, the women were probably raped, some of their kids taken and raised by
the people who tortured them to death.

The current tendency towards a police state sucks, but I find it very hard to
compare it with what happened between '76 an '83.

~~~
smokeyj
If you accept the police state now, you can expect that list to grow much
larger than 66.

~~~
Fargren
I don't accept anything, I just think the comparison between what is happening
now and what happened in the '70s is flawed. The difference is humongous.

Not only because the number of people who died is smaller, but because there
there's a huge difference between a person that is killed by a gunshot during
a protest(violent or not, there were cases of both) and a person who just
vanishes in the middle of the night and isn't heard of again.

