Data Disquiet! - Proposed Powerful Information Commissioner Sparks Concerns

The proposals surrounding the creation of an office of an Information Commissioner have raised the first red flag in the Data Protection Act now being considered by a Joint Select Committee (JSC) of Parliament.

The legislation provides for a commissioner who will monitor compliance with the act, give the minister advice and promote the observance of the requirements of the act.

"The commissioner shall act independently in the discharge of the functions of the commissioner and shall not be subject to the direction or control of any other persons or entity," reads the proposed legislation.

The Information Commissioner will also have sole responsibility for all data of individuals collected under the National Identification System, which includes all accessible records such as health and educational records, biometric data in relation to an individual to include photograph, signature and fingerprint.

The proposed legislation says the tenure of the Information Commissioner should not exceed five years, and is subject to reappointment on the expiration of that term.

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a : a person granted absolute emergency power; especially, history : one appointed by the senate (see senate 1a) of ancient Rome
b : one holding complete autocratic control : a person with unlimited governmental power
c : one ruling in an absolute (see absolute 2) and often oppressive way

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: the office of dictator
2 : autocratic rule, control, or leadership people suffering under his dictatorship
3 a : a form of government in which absolute power is concentrated in a dictator or a small clique Communism and dictatorship
b : a government organization or group in which absolute power is so concentrated rising up against a military dictatorship
c : a despotic state establishing a dictatorship

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Dictatorships are often unexpected. They have arisen among prosperous, educated and cultured people who seemed safe from a dictatorship – in Europe, Asia and South America.

Consider Germany, one of the most paradoxical and dramatic cases.

During the late 19th century, it was widely considered to have the best educational system in the world. If any educational system could inoculate people from barbarism, surely Germany would have led the way. It had early childhood education -- kindergarten. Secondary schools emphasized cultural training. Germans developed modern research universities. Germans were especially distinguished for their achievements in science – just think of Karl Benz who invented the gasoline-powered automobile, Rudolf Diesel who invented the compression-ignition engine, Heinrich Hertz who proved the existence of electromagnetic waves, Wilhelm Conrad Rőntgen who invented x-rays, Friedrich August Kekulé who developed the theory of chemical structure, Paul Ehrlich who produced the first medicinal treatment for syphilis and, of course, theoretical physicist Albert Einstein. It’s no wonder so many American scholars went to German universities for their degrees during the 19th century.

After World War I, German university enrollment soared. By 1931, it reached 120,000 versus a maximum of 73,000 before the war. Government provided full scholarships for poor students with ability. As one chronicler reported, a scholarship student “pays no fees at the university, his textbooks are free, and on most purchases which he makes, for clothing, medical treatment, transportation and tickets to theaters and concerts, he receives substantial reductions in price, and a student may get wholesome food sufficient to keep body and soul together.”


While there was some German anti-Semitic agitation during the late 19th century, Germany didn’t seem the most likely place for it to flourish. Russia, after all, had pogroms – anti-Jewish rioting and persecution – for decades. Russia’s Bolshevik regime dedicated itself to hatred – Karl Marx’s hatred for the “bourgeoisie” whom he blamed for society’s ills. Lenin and his successor Stalin pushed that philosophy farther, exterminating the so-called “rich” who came to include peasants with one cow.

Why, then, did the highly educated Germans embrace a lunatic like Adolf Hitler? The short answer is that bad policies caused economic, military and political crises – chow time for tyrants. German circumstances changed for the worse, and when people become angry enough or desperate enough, sometimes they’ll support crazies who would never attract a crowd in normal circumstances.

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Due to the controversial, often violent and long-lasting nature of their regimes, dictators make the news. But recently it seems that they've been in the news more often. Fidel Castro resigned on Feb. 24, 2008, after ruling Cuba for nearly 50 years. Saddam Hussein led Iraq from 1979 to 2003 and was executed in 2006. Kim Jong-il of North Korea ordered his country's first nuclear weapons test in 2006, then pledged to shut down the program entirely the following year. In March 2008, Vladimir Putin, president of Russia, stepped down to the office of prime minister. A decade ago, political commentator Fareed Zacharia stated that dictatorships were "anachronisms in a world of global markets, information and media" [source: Foreign Affairs].

And yet, dictators still rule dozens of countries in the world. But you'll notice that Vladimir Putin's title was president, not dictator. Fidel Castro and Saddam Hussein were presidents of their respective countries. Kim Jong-il holds three official titles -- Chairman of the Defense Commission of North Korea, Supreme Commander of the Korean People's Army and General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea -- but none include the term dictator.

Many dictators don't usually call themselves dictators (although a few have). They can be presidents, prime ministers, chancellors or even monarchs. These rulers come to be known as dictators by the way that they wield their power. Although their regimes vary widely, most dictators have at least a few things in common. They don't usually come to power through free constitutional elections; they often take control during coups d'etats, revolutions or states of emergency; and they have absolute, sole power over their state.

When it was first used, however, the word "dictator" didn't have such negative connotations. We'll look at the basics of dictators through the ages, starting with ancient Rome.

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Augusto Pinochet

Adolf Hitler

Joseph Stalin

Julius Caesar

Saddam Hussein

Benito Mussolini

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Latin America has traditionally been home to dictators: charismatic men who have seized almost complete control over their nations and held it for years, even decades. Some have been fairly benign, some cruel and violent, and others merely peculiar. Here are some of the more noteworthy men who have held dictatorial powers in their home nations.

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Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Spanish Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo,international organization founded in 1959 by 20 governments in North and South America to financeeconomic and social development in the Western Hemisphere. The largest charter subscribers were Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Venezuela, and the United States. Subscribers now include nearly 30 countries in North and South America and more than 15 countries in Europe, as well as Japan and Israel. During its first 40 years the bank distributed more than $85 billion in loans, and by the beginning of the 21st century its annual loan disbursement had exceeded $10 billion.

Headquartered in Washington, D.C., each member has representation on the Board of Governors, the bank’s chief policy-making organ, which meets at least once each year. Voting is weighted, based on a member’s subscription share. The United States exercises about 30 percent of the votes—nearly triple that of the next largest subscribers, Argentina and Brazil. The voting share of countries outside the Americas is about 15 percent, with nearly one-third of that exercised by Japan.

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Tyranny is an important phenomenon that operates by principles by which it can be recognized in its early emerging stages, and, if the people are vigilant, prepared, and committed to liberty, countered before it becomes entrenched. The methods used to overthrow a constitutional order and establish a tyranny are well-known. However, despite this awareness, it is surprising how those who have no intention of perpetrating a tyranny can slip into these methods and bring about a tyranny despite their best intentions. Tyranny does not have to be deliberate. Tyrants can fool themselves as thoroughly as they fool everyone else. Here are the top 16 signs that you are living in a tyranny or heading that way. Many thanks to Jon Roland for submitting this list (the original of which is here).


1. Control of public information and opinion: It begins with withholding information, and leads to putting out false or misleading information. A government can develop ministries of propaganda under many guises. They typically call it “public information” or “marketing”.

3. Undue official influence on trials and juries: Nonrandom selection of jury panels, exclusion of those opposed to the law, exclusion of the jury from hearing argument on the law, exclusion of private prosecutors from access to the grand jury, and prevention of parties and their counsels from making effective arguments or challenging the government.

4. Usurpation of undelegated powers: This is usually done with popular support for solving some problem, or to redistribute wealth to the advantage of the supporters of the dominant faction, but it soon leads to the deprivation of rights of minorities and individuals.

6. Militarization of law enforcement: Declaring a “war on crime” that becomes a war on civil liberties. Preparation of military forces for internal policing duties.

7. Infiltration and subversion of citizen groups that could be forces for reform: Internal spying and surveillance is the beginning. A sign is false prosecutions of their leaders.

8. Suppression of investigators and whistleblowers: When people who try to uncover high level wrongdoing are threatened, that is a sign the system is not only riddled with corruption, but that the corruption has passed the threshold into active tyranny.

9. Use of the law for competition suppression: It begins with the dominant faction winning support by paying off their supporters and suppressing their supporters’ competitors, but leads to public officials themselves engaging in illegal activities and using the law to suppress independent competitors. A good example of this is narcotics trafficking.

10. Subversion of internal checks and balances: This involves the appointment to key positions of persons who can be controlled by their sponsors, and who are then induced to do illegal things. The worst way in which this occurs is in the appointment of judges that will go along with unconstitutional acts by the other branches.

11. Creation of a class of officials who are above the law: This is indicated by dismissal of charges for wrongdoing against persons who are “following orders”.

12. Increasing dependency of the people on government: The classic approach to domination of the people is to first take everything they have away from them, then make them compliant with the demands of the rulers to get anything back again.

15. Conversion of rights into privileges: Requiring licenses and permits for doing things that the government does not have the delegated power to restrict, except by due process in which the burden of proof is on the petitioner.

16. Political correctness: Many if not most people are susceptible to being recruited to engage in repressive actions against disfavored views or behaviors, and led to pave the way for the dominance of tyrannical government.

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