…and around it goes

We’ve had to get strict on credit card acceptance. This is because of the amount of fraud on the net. Nobody gets hurt by this fraud but the merchant. This is because the bank takes the money back and then charges the merchant an additional $25 for doing so. The consumer isn’t responsible for the charge, the bank isn’t hurt, the bank actually makes money on fraud with that $25 fee, only the merchant is hurt, they lose not only the money but an additional $25.

Because of this we can’t just accept whatever cards the bank approves. If we did that we’d go bankrupt in chargeback fees. So we developed our own process. We have a number of ways we verify charges before submitting them. One of the most effective has been placing required information into a page and making that page required reading. If the page isn’t read, the person doesn’t know that the information is required and omits it. Most of the carders don’t read it, so it’s a quick first level weed out when the required information detailed on that page is missing.

But it also catches some legit. This I can’t quite comprehend. This means that there are people who think enough about privacy to sign up with a privacy service, yet not enough about their privacy to read the page where they are entering their credit card details. They are entering their personal information into some page they didn’t even read, yet they “care” about their privacy? This makes no sense to me.

I’ve always felt that there is no security without privacy. They go hand in hand. Freedom also goes with them. Every society in history that has lost privacy has turned into a police state. In every case it is the people who suffered for it. It is ignorant to think that this time it will be different. I was very distressed by the way things appeared to be moving after September 11th.

The US government has a long history of abusing powers granted. The US people don’t learn from history, they keep repeating it. Six years later we are seeing that the powers granted were misused. That’s a hell of a shocker. Only a blind sheep could not have seen that wolf coming. Unfortunately there were a lot of blind sheep.

I’m very glad to see the PATRIOT Act being chipped away. The powers it granted were too much. You can not let any agency run both the project and the oversight to ensure things are not abused. Oversight must be independent or abuse is guaranteed to occur.

Add to this one key fact, most arrests, interceptions, and convictions stem from good old fashioned police work. In fact few, if any, terrorist cells were broken up due to the new surveillance powers. Most reported stemmed from under cover activities and informants.

When you grant surveillance powers at will it also has the adverse effect of making investigators lazy. They tend to rely too much on fishing expeditions and the easy way of electronic mining. Look at it this way, besides terrorists, police want additional powers to catch pedophiles. That is the number two rallying cry for pursuading people to give up privacy.

Gonzales was harping on this before his attention got absorbed by the investigation into the firings (a slick, if not slightly shady, political move that put a cap on him). I don’t understand that attitude of they can’t do it without these powers, not when I can watch Dateline’s “To Catch A Predator” number two hundred and something and see them still pulling them in one right after another.

So many it swamps them. Dateline doesn’t have the ability to get logs from ISPs. It doesn’t have access to the databases the police do. Yet they can catch them without these powers. Why can’t police? Because it’s work, good old fashioned police work. Under cover work and setting up the sting. It’s much easier just to go fishing electronically.

What is gained from granting these powers is a very poor return. We have given up privacy. Privacy is paramount to freedom. We have granted them the ability to abuse at will. Oversight must be independent. And we have made them more reliant on fishing. It’s an easy way to look for criminals.

Instead we should be increasing budgets. Increasing manpower. Putting more emphasis on the good old fashioned police work. And ensuring that oversight remains independent. Legislative, Judicial, and Executive are separate for a reason. That is the only way to keep a choke on abuse. Giving up privacy is giving up freedom. You don’t give up something that valuable.

The pendulum seems to be swinging back towards the positive. Lets hope that nobody blows up a building and sends the blind sheep scurrying again.