Is it that they know how they work or what they can do for you? The usually astute and not really diatribal Robert over at A Dime A Dozen Political Blog posted about the use of Google ads by the NDP as if the NDP learned who you were through the process. Fear of Google ads is pretty 2002 or so. Having dipped my toe in this topic academically and professionally, I am comfortable with knowing that fear of any sort of information gathering is, to a certain extent, somewhat misplaced as it's been going on for so long and because what is kept under strict protection, such as financial or medical information held by large institutions, is such a small part of what is out there. And be honest: most of the sources of information on you - especially the information held by you yourself - is kept in a very leeky boat.
It's the data mining you need to ask yourself about. There is a great article in the Globe and Mail this morning showing how the Tories are using the available and manufactured personal information data bases laying around to great effect:
The Conservatives have enlisted neighbourhood leaders – sports team coaches, community activists – to report information on voters to the party's data collectors and introduce potential supporters to party campaigners, a technique known by its acronym of FRAN: Friends, Relatives, Acquaintances and Neighbours...They have assembled their voter data through geo-demographic and psycho-demographic surveys, huge-sample polling and personal contacts made with voters through direct mail, e-mail, telephone calls and FRAN contacts.
Spreadsheets. It's all about plunking all this information on spreadsheets and churning the information. Through cross-referencing bits and pieces of public, requested and simply plucked information, it is quite easy to create huge and accurate new data bases - derivative products which may even be under the copyright of the Conservative party. Are these data bases constantly monitored by independent inspectors checking up on their use? Nope. No more than are the data bases gathered by Lord Goog or the credit card companies or telemarketers. The oversight of privacy depends mainly on complaints and they also depend on complainants who feel wronged. Do you feel wronged by what the Conservative Party of Canada is doing? I am not sure I do - even though I would expect that somewhere somehow I am on lists, if only because of this blog among other things...not to mention this.
This far into the normalcy of the information age - well into its third decade as a fact with the general public, let alone large institutions like political parties - it's not news that the Tories are doing this. It's really news that the others aren't.
Other News on Day 7:
- Gimme a break. It's Saturday. Nothing yet.
- OK, here is one: Earth to Dion - speak about something other than green, wouldja? You are taking the natural governing party and making it into a single issue advocacy lobbyist.
Comments
Alan - September 13, 2008 10:15 am
I just posted this over at Jay's as a comment in response to this post of his. But his comments may be going wonky (again) and I think it is so so very clever that I am reporting it here:
"The comfort in discrediting the press, that vital bastion of free democracies, is a curious thing and, as you point out, usually based on one's own vanity as being smarter than others. Having that happy vocation where one gets to test the quality of information like a person's actual understanding of, say, physics or show business, one is continuously impressed how little people actually know, how much blief rather than knowledge is relied upon and how those who are quite comfortable with their own self-respect as self-appointed gurus are often the biggest voids.
So, extrapolating from that state of affairs to use such self-appointments as then the measure of all things, including the news media, is quite funny and alarming. Not appreciating the role of generalist information found in news and specialist information found in professions and filing cabinets will always lead to unhappiness. Or, in some cases, just that great and useful depth of scoffery that is the hallmark of the blogging era.
Sure, there are errors but they are often the errors inherent in the necessary abstraction of news reporting. There are also errors of speculating on inconclusive information and just plain being wrong. So it has ever been and so it shall ever be. So ever shall be the worthless wise who think they are the first to discover this human trait and point the boring index finger of GOTCHA at it without realizing they are pointing directly in the mirror."
Ben (The Tiger) - September 13, 2008 11:36 am
The NDP's been clever in this election, but the question is, can they get past the Liberals?
If not... well, they're probably helping out my guy.
Time to unite the left?
Alan - September 13, 2008 11:51 am
It was time to unite the left around 2003. I am, after all, Canada's voice for a coalition government.
Ben (The Tiger) - September 13, 2008 12:36 pm
Fair enough.
So if Harper gets a majority this time out and the left is well and truly split down the middle (or in thirds), how many more years/election cycles do you think it'll take for them to stop letting him play Jean Chretien to their Joe Clark/Stock Day?
Alan - September 13, 2008 1:13 pm
I don't know but as there is no "reform" movement - remember that - out of the left, I am not sure if it will happen at all. There was fifteen to twenty years of right wing division plus the Liberals will wake up and reclaim the centre.
Alan - September 13, 2008 1:29 pm
Honest order of who I vote for as of today?
a. going by leader: Layton, Harper, May, Dion.
b. going by local member or principals: NDP/Liberal tie, Green, Tory.
c. going by policies: Tory/NDP tie, Green, Grit
That's messy. You?
Ben (The Tiger) - September 13, 2008 1:40 pm
Alan --
My vote's a foregone conclusion.
But if you want me to rank my preferences:
a. by leader: Harper, Layton, Dion, May.
b. by local member: know none of them except my MP, Carolyn Bennett, who isn't bad, as Liberals go. No ranking yet. (I liked the NDP candidate last time -- Paul Summerville. But I think he jumped ship and went Liberal.)
c. by policies: Tory, Liberal, Green, NDP.
***
Re the left, doesn't the NDP qualify as its Reform movement? It's just that they've been more successful as a third/fourth party, and the Canadian left could afford some deadweight vote loss till recently.
Renee - September 13, 2008 1:43 pm
Hey, Alan, there is some local news: we nominated a candidate last night; it's Rick Downes for NDP MP 2008.
Alan - September 13, 2008 1:50 pm
VP Rick! Excellent. VP, of course, in this case means Vice-Principal.
Alan - September 13, 2008 1:52 pm
Paul Summerville! Isn't he the great-nephew of former Mayor of Toronto Donald Dean Summerville?
Sean - September 13, 2008 4:31 pm
I hate it when I read the news and Steve-o makes sound bites that make me say "hey, he's right" then I remember he's a power monger and will say such things to gain more power etc.
a. going by leader: Harper, May, Dion, Layton.
b. going by local member or principals: NDP/Liberal tie, Green, Tory.
c. going by policies: LIberal/Green tie, NDP, Tories
That all being said, whilst travlling home from ye olde comic book store today with my kidlings, I drove past the Green HQ. They had a pair of street musicians playing weird street musician instruments out front like it was the Buring Man festival on downers. When will the Greens realize that if they for one frakking election stick to their policies but stop running freakazoids and giving forth the public persona of weirdos that they might attract a few normal people to believe they aren't nutbars.. ugh