From: KPJ (kpj@sics.se)
Date: Mon May 15 2000 - 06:27:08 MDT
|
|With that view of the government its no wonder you are afraid of
|transparency. You seem to believe that the US is little more than a thinly
|disguised full-blown Orwellian dystopia. Perhaps it really is, and perhaps
|I'm just naive. But if I thought for one minute that your view of the
|country that I live in was anything close to reality, I'd be on the first
|boat to Sweden.
You are sadly mistaken if you believe that Sweden, a quasi-socialist country
for more than 50 years, would hve better privacy than the U.S. The main
difference, as I perceive it, is that the government in Sweden has better
control over the people: everyone has a ``personal number'' which you have
to give away all the time. It's on the driver's license, your bank ID, etc.,
and if you know somebody's personal number you can find out _lots_ of
"interesting" stuff about the person. Standard comment when you gripe about
this is ``Only those who have something to hide need to worry about this.''.
I say Orwell was an optimist.
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