Re: Rotenberg as the Uber Enemy

[Asgaard <asgaard@cor.sos.sll.se>]

Marc Rotenberg wrote:

>Similarly, Anitha Bondestam, director general of the Data Inspection
>Board of Sweden, writes in a recent report, "It is more important
>than ever to bring back anonymity and make more room for personal
>space." She urges her colleagues to sharply limit the collection of
>personal data.

A Swedish free-lance journalist and author of well researched books
on the information society, Anders Olsson, have some interesting
things to say on the likes of Anita Bondestam, from sort of a 'leftish'
democratic viewpoint. He sees the achievements of the 'establishment
privacy mafia' as mainly preventing 'the people' from keeping track of
the wheelings and dealings of the nomenclatura for it's own benifit,
and he doesn't think that this is unintentional.

Data privacy laws are certainly an obstacle for sociologic research,
among other things, and research results can be threatening to
bureaucrats, plutocrats and monopolists.

Laws against matching various 'public' registers for multiple entries
are also making life easier for tax evaders (who might be libertarian
heroes of course, but remember that for most salary-dependent people
of lesser income it works like this: the more the entrepreneurs evade
taxes, the more they have to pay to support the nomenclatura) but
also for welfare cheaters and the like (not libertarian heroes!).


Asgaard