[Chester LUG] Privacy and liberty

[Roger Gibson]

David makes some very valid points.  Jean Charles de Menezes had no 
opportunity to prove he was innocent when faulty surveillance left him 
with 8 dum-dum bullets in his head on a tube train at Stockwell 
station.  Nobody waited for a Judge to say it was OK to kill him.

We must all have received emails 'for the wrong Roger Gibson'.  There 
are frequent news items about mistaken identity at US immigration 
causing innocent people to be locked up or deported.  Joe Public 
believes computers never lie.  We know that faulty software and 
erroneous data sets abound.  Much surveillance software will be 
Microsoft based.  Data on paper locked up (or even not locked up) in 
filing cabinets is one thing.  Poorly secured data bases used as part of 
a wide computer trawl will inevitably throw up mismatched data.

When I know I am innocent, I don't want to have to undergo much trauma 
and expense to prove it.  I would rather that the alleged case against 
me had been properly investigated, and was not based solely on dodgy 
data sets.  Roger.