Disabled woman denied entry to U.S. after agent cites supposedly private medical details. Ellen Richardson went to Pearson airport on Monday full of joy about flying to New York City and from there going on a 10-day Caribbean cruise for which she’d paid about $6,000. But a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent with the Department of Homeland Security killed that dream when he denied her entry.
“I was turned away, I was told, because I had a hospitalization in the summer of 2012 for clinical depression,’’ said Richardson, who is a paraplegic and set up her cruise in collaboration with a March of Dimes group of about 12 others. The Weston woman was told by the U.S. agent she would have to get “medical clearance’’ and be examined by one of only three doctors in Toronto whose assessments are accepted by Homeland Security. She was given their names and told a call to her psychiatrist “would not suffice.’’
“I was so aghast. Richardson said she’d had no discussion whatsoever with the agent at the airport about her medical history or background. He cited the U.S. U.S. Google Glass: Orwellian surveillance with fluffier branding. Google Glass: is it a threat to our privacy? | Technology. If you haven't heard about the excitement around Google Glass – the head-mounted glasses that can shoot video, take pictures, and broadcast what you're seeing to the world – then here's an idea of the interest in them. Last week, someone claiming to be testing Glass for Google auctioned their $1,500 (£995) device on eBay.
Bidding had reached $16,000 before eBay stopped it on the basis that the person couldn't prove they had the glasses. (They weren't due to get them until last Friday.) Google Glass is the most hotly anticipated new arrival in "wearable computing" – which experts predict will become pervasive. In the past 50 years we have moved from "mainframe" computers that needed their own rooms to ones that fit in a pocket; any smartphone nowadays has as much raw computing power as a top-of-the-line laptop from 10 years ago. The next stage is computers that fit on to your body, and Google's idea is that you need only speak to operate it. Still, you might think, where's the harm? I Have Nothing to Hide? As a rule, I am a humble person. There has never been sufficient enough reason for me to believe myself inherently superior in anyway whatsoever to anybody else.
I have always, for the sake of privacy and, indeed, fear, kept my thoughts from others. I just never thought that my most intimate ruminations were important, at least to the degree that would encourage me to risk revealing notions foreign to the palate of commercialized, commoditized society. This, however, has been a mistake. I have questioned the legitimacy of status quo since grade school, though only in an inward fashion, always accepting that others, because they had made the decisions, knew better somehow. But the inquiries never stopped and, in fact, the predilection towards political nihilism progressively abated. I graduated not long ago with a degree in marketing. It is now time to end this one-time, personal vignette. Illegal Surveillance The subject of illegal surveillance is an important one today. Okay. Why Privacy Matters Even if You Have 'Nothing to Hide'
By Daniel J. Solove When the government gathers or analyzes personal information, many people say they're not worried. "I've got nothing to hide," they declare. "Only if you're doing something wrong should you worry, and then you don't deserve to keep it private. " The nothing-to-hide argument pervades discussions about privacy. The data-security expert Bruce Schneier calls it the "most common retort against privacy advocates. " The legal scholar Geoffrey Stone refers to it as an "all-too-common refrain. " The nothing-to-hide argument is everywhere. The argument is not of recent vintage. I encountered the nothing-to-hide argument so frequently in news interviews, discussions, and the like that I decided to probe the issue. My response is "So do you have curtains? " On the surface, it seems easy to dismiss the nothing-to-hide argument.
One can usually think of something that even the most open person would want to hide. Another metaphor better captures the problems: Franz Kafka's The Trial. 'I've Got Nothing to Hide' and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy by Daniel Solove. Abstract In this short essay, written for a symposium in the San Diego Law Review, Professor Daniel Solove examines the nothing to hide argument.
When asked about government surveillance and data mining, many people respond by declaring: "I've got nothing to hide. " According to the nothing to hide argument, there is no threat to privacy unless the government uncovers unlawful activity, in which case a person has no legitimate justification to claim that it remain private. The nothing to hide argument and its variants are quite prevalent, and thus are worth addressing. Solove, Daniel J., 'I've Got Nothing to Hide' and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy.