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notices and features - Date published:
6:00 pm, April 20th, 2016 - 54 comments
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The current rise of populism challenges the way we think about people’s relationship to the economy.We seem to be entering an era of populism, in which leadership in a democracy is based on preferences of the population which do not seem entirely rational nor serving their longer interests. ...
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Can’t figure out which one will be worse if either win…… The one who doesn’t know what they are doing….or the one who does….. Sad
A Voter’s Guide to Hillary Clinton’s Policies in Latin America
Michael Moore offers some encouragement.
Bernie got 43% of the 1.6M allowed to vote. The 3.2M independents though, couldn’t vote. Bernie usually gets 65 – 70% of them.
Sad comment Nick , sexism still exists.
I have faith that enough good American voters
will vote for an experienced woman to make a contribution.
I composed a thoroughly cynical remark in answer to that. It assumed Clinton is utterly compromised and corrupt. Instead, I’ll be charitable: President Clinton has no chance of reforming a USA with a centre-right congress: they work for money, and you can’t afford it.
+1
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1604/S00278/why-is-the-us-tppa-implementation-team-meddling-in-nz.htm
Abby Martin Exposes What Hillary Clinton Really Represents
Dot I don’t know how to link, but you should look that up on youtube.
Here you go
Apologies. Got to almost halfway and could not stomach that anymore.
So stopped the streaming and will need to step away for a few minutes break.
Cheers Macro
No problem – Just highlight the url (thats the bit at with the web name and all the other stuff at the top of ur browser) copy it and paste in the comment box. 🙂
National want to data share personal and private information between government agencies. To do this they will need to repeal parts of the Privacy Act. Obvious targets are people on benefits. This is another step of protofascism and the creation a pariah class.
NRT’s take http://bit.ly/23YsQRp
“We’re not looking at reducing privacy or confidentiality,” [English] says. “We’re looking at sharing it.”
https://mobile.twitter.com/Carolyn_nth/status/722595437610344448
Unbelievable.
No Anne perfectly believable for this crowd of “panty sniffers”.
Just another way to attack the poor and divert attention away from the shoveling of wealth into his own pocket.
Unbelievable that English believes we will fall for that piece of contradictory tripe.
My SO says someone always knows – nearly every child killed in NZ is unknown to agencies tasked with their protection, but well known to others.
by ‘others’ do you mean other agencies or other people in general?
Agencies.
Is that an argument for data sharing?
To protect vulnerable members of our society, yes.
Do you support the kind of data sharing that English is talking about? Or would you agree that the existing agencies could just be more functional and that would solve the problem?
More functionality won’t solve the problem of agencies tasked with protection losing contact with kids being dragged from pillar to post around the country by supposed carers with several identities. Sometimes kids are handed around like a piece of luggage leaving agencies with absolutely no idea about where they are or who they’re actually with.
In a year some kids will shift a dozen times or more and have interactions with agencies all over the shop, WINZ, the law, schools, Kohanga Reo, hospitals, general practices, and other than chipping them, real and proper data sharing is the only way to keep track of them.
Are you talking about children in care or children at home or both?
Both, I think.
btw: the big fucking elephant – transient adults, often with unmet mental health needs/substance abuse/difficulty looking after themselves, can go wherever they like
Lyndon Hood captures Bill English’s hubris perfectly in his satirical “Information Shearing” on Scoop:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1604/S00062/lyndon-hood-satire-information-shearing.htm
[bold emphasis is mine]
From the article by Isaac Davison in the NZ Herald Finance Minister Bill English promotes data supermarket to help at-risk New Zealanders.
When I read the word “supermarket” I immediately thought what an odd word to use in this context.
The other issue the sharing outside government’s reach, which could (and will) easily include private organisations and companies with or without a profit motive (e.g. charter schools).
The way that I would do it is to make the data that the government has on a person a single file (I’m simplifying for convenience) and then give each government agency access to the parts of the file that they need access to.
The police and other protection agencies would need to have a warrant to get access that isn’t volunteered. All other access would need written permission from the person that the file relates to.
Or alternatively, leave the existing systems in place – with stringent requirements for access, and create an index for NZers that links all relevant identifiers.
ie. birth certificate number, citizenship number, with National Health number, IRD number/s, associated trusts, companies, driver’s licences etc.
This ensures that each set of data remains separate, and cannot be accessed by internal security failures from one department, and privacy rights and restrictions remain intact.
That works but isn’t the most efficient method or the most secure as the added complexity would likely leave holes in the security.
That’s what you’d like to believe but what we’d have is massive data duplication requiring an increase in hardware required and a probable increase in security vulnerabilities.
One system is great, right up until you lose 15 million personal files, sony emails, credit card numbers, whatever.
And that’s before you get into the problems (expensive, expensive problems) of integrating the different information systems into one behemoth.
My approach would be to have one organisation to manage access privileges and maintain a distinct tool that can expand to interrogate the different databases as they’re added incrementally. It will also audit the access protocols regularly, actively asking X number of users a day why they accessed a particular file – particularly anomalous access.
This distributes load across different organisations and minimises disruption to those organisations, because the tool is built to fit the data and not the other way around. Then each organisation has levels of data classification, so that not just court orders but also things like getting manual signoff from the department concerned that the user is authorised to have and needs the information.
Why would you have it connected to the internet?
Far better to have it on it’s own WAN. Sure, somewhat more expensive but worth it for the increased security. The actual internet portals which give out information to the public would be seriously fire-walled.
That’s going to have to happen anyway. Might as well get it over and done with.
I’ve been advocating for a government IT department that did all of governments IT for some time.
No, I didn’t mean that the organisation does all the government’s IT. Just one unit to manage the access and sharing between systems.
And of course you’ll need some manner of internet access, otherwise all your plunket nurses, cops, and social workers will have to come into the office during their rounds, rather than working largely from their cars during the day.
But if the people overseeing Novopay and winz/justice kiosks ensure it’s all “seriously firewalled”, that’s alright then…
Waste of time. Bring it all inhouse so that the fuckups such as Novapay and the
I pointed out that there would be internet but not of the main server/systems. They would be on their own network with only limited portals to the internet. Each government office would be on that WAN so the information is securely available.
That was the private enterprise hired to do the job. The problem was a) the people in the office not knowing anything and b) outsourcing to people who would only do as they’re told. A government department dedicated to to government IT would ensure that that type of bollocks wouldn’t happen again.
Yeah Nah.
Separation of functions is never a waste of time. And departments work to spec rather than need just as much as the private sector.
“and then give each government agency access to the parts of the file that they need access to.”
The way privacy laws work at the moment is that any individual has the right to control who gets to see information about them. It’s not about what information a govt agency needs access to, it’s about whether they have permission. The kind of data sharing that English is talking about will remove those rights, especially for vulnerable groups like beneficiaries.
I haven’t seen a list yet of the ten departments English is planning this for, but am betting a bit part of the underlying ethos is targetting the underclass.
This is incorrect. There’s two aspects to it, not just one.
1. The government needs to have information about you so that they can provide services to you
2. They need to be able to detect and prosecute crime
The first they get your permission to look, the second they get the judges permission to look. In both of these they also get limits to what they can look at. I’m looking to strengthen peoples rights in regards to government access to data.
I’m not supportive of the data sharing model. It’s inefficient and susceptible to poor programming which in turn makes it more insecure.
Of course. Leaving aside the rights of the govt to access anything they want if it’s an issue of crime or safety, the rest of the rights aren’t govt rights, they’re citizen rights.
Yes the govt needs information to provide services, but historically they don’t have automatic access (that’s why we have the Privacy Act), and service provisions is not what English is talking about at all. We were quite capable of providing all the things covered by those depts before the advent of computers. What he is doing is removing privacy rights in order to give more power the govt to control what people do. This is nothing to do with service. It’s a very direct and bold move whereby the rights of people are subsumed under the government’s need to exist. It shifts use further away from the core principle that the govt serves the people, and positions the govt as an end to itself and the people are there as a subset of that. Very very dangerous.
I get the attraction of efficent and competent ICT services. But at this stage of the game I think information should be firewalled until we are sufficiently ethical and respectful to design systems that don’t entrench power in the hands of the few. We are a very long way from being that ethical or competent around rights and information sharing.
I just noticed the bit saying that they want to be sharing with NGOs by the end of the year… that sort of timeline is a recipe for failure, IMO.
Yep. But even sharing between departments is hugely problematic. NRT,
English says this is about helping people by “sharing” their confidential, private data – but we all know that it will really be about shitting on them, cutting their benefits, throwing them out of state houses, making it more difficult to access government services. Because National sees everything as a way of cutting costs and reducing government services. So, they’ll give ACC access to your medical records, WINZ access to your police file, Housing NZ access to your kid’s school reports, your kid’s school teacher access to your sexual history, and the SIS and their foreign “allies” access to everything, all in the hope that someone, somewhere, will find a reason to cut your funding or jail you (or, in the SIS’s case, finally find the “terrorists” their budget is predicated on).
I’m not talking about giving them automatic access.
No we weren’t.
Possibly. If he was truly about doing it right then there would be no way that rich people would continue to avoid paying the taxes that they should. But there’s no way he’s going to touch that rort.
“I’m not talking about giving them automatic access.”
But Bill English and this thread are.
“No we weren’t.”
Yes we were.
“If he was truly about doing it right”
Just to clarify, are you saying that you support removal of citizen’s privacy rights so long as it’s done properly from a tech perspective?
there are quite a few that would.
QFT.
Bill English maybe but I’m not. That was fairly obvious from my first comment – the one that you responded to that made this thread.
No we weren’t. Much information was missed due to not having the capability of processing it.
No. If Blinglish did it right the IRD would easily pick up the tax avoidance. That’s not a citizens right but a crime and a crime would necessitate a warrant.
“Much information was missed due to not having the capability of processing it.”
Can you give some examples?
“No. If Blinglish did it right the IRD would easily pick up the tax avoidance. That’s not a citizens right but a crime and a crime would necessitate a warrant.”
Sorry, I don’t know what you are talking about. This conversation is about privacy rights and how English is wanting to introduce data sharing in a way that will remove those rights. If you want to make a case for the kind of data sharing that English is talking about in order to catch tax dodgers, please do, I’d be interested to see what you would sacrifice.
Taxes. Did you know the reason why the IRD stopped asking for tax returns from everyone every year? It’s because they couldn’t process them all. So now we’re in the position of thousands of people, usually poor people, paying too much tax.
Really? Amazing, I’ve been very clear about my position all along.
No, this conversation is about how I would set up government servers to consolidate the information that the government needs while giving limited access to different government departments according to what they needed of the information.
I already have and the sacrifice was nothing.
Try reading LPrent’s Secrecy Uprising again.
“Taxes. Did you know the reason why the IRD stopped asking for tax returns from everyone every year? It’s because they couldn’t process them all. So now we’re in the position of thousands of people, usually poor people, paying too much tax.”
How does that relate to English’s data sharing plan?
Protest outside Dunedin hospital on 29th regarding the ongoing problems with the meals contract,
http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/380399/food-worries-prompt-protest#pq=ylodH9
TPP Jane Kelsey
Why is the US TPPA ‘Implementation Team’ Meddling in NZ?
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1604/S00278/why-is-the-us-tppa-implementation-team-meddling-in-nz.htm
Hui told govt ignored NZers on TPP
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/te-manu-korihi/301970/hui-told-govt-ignored-nzers-on-tpp
I am so sick of the BS excreted by this Government! Having sovereignty means having the “right to regulate” without the threat of being sued by a foreign investor.
A threat to sue would impinge on our sovereignty Mr Finlayson, because we would have to check our pockets to see if we had the $5.5million to cover the average legal costs for the respondent in front of an unaccountable, extrajudicial tribunal!
impinge :Have an effect, especially a negative one:
No of corporations that have lodged ISDS cases
United States of America 138
Canada 39
No risk for NZ??????
If you are suggesting that Mr Finlayson is just another lying prick you will get no argument from me.
This is the US government taking full control of our laws – just as Jane Kelsey said they would. We are no longer an independent state but a subject state of the US.