Big Brother Really is Watching Us

Under Watch?

For the life of me, I can't comprehend why this news item didn't produce big headlines here. According to an e-mail hacked from the Italian cyber-security company named Hacking Team, the United States Drug Enforcement Agency monitors - or intends to - all of Colombia's Internet traffic. All of it.

The U.S. Embassy 'bought another interception tool (something that will receive all the traffic for Colombia's ISPs).'

Presumably, the DEA's interest is limited to catching drug traffickers. But everything you do online here: that dubious website you clicked on, those erotic e-mails, those really stupid, offensive jokes you forwarded, are potentially vulnerable to monitoring. And that's in addition to other Hacking Team software possessed by the embassy "known as Remote Control System or “RCS,” (which) is capable of intercepting phone calls, texts, and social media messages, and can surreptitiously turn on a user’s webcam and microphone as well as collect passwords," according to Vice News. And all of that is in addition to monitoring by the U.S.'s NSA, CIA, as well as whatever monitoring Colombia's own government is doing.

No wonder typewriters are coming back.

Since this monitoring of Colombian residents is being done by the U.S., a foreign nation, there seems to be no oversight or privacy protection here.

Is it just me, or is it really mind-boggling that, in a time of peace, our communications can be read over by strangers? And in the name of the failed War on Drugs? If the government suddenly decided to read whatever letters people still write on paper and stick into envelopes, you can bet there'd be protests. But we seem to be resigned to being monitored on-line.

Meanwhile, over in Venezuela, the state communications company CONATEL is reportedly helping President Maduro's regime identify critical Twitter users so that they can be arrested and imprisoned

Finally, El Tiempo reports that Instagram deleted this tender, innocent photo of three indigenous Wounaan women because their breasts are uncovered.

The deleted photo of three Wounaan women, by photographer Héctor Fabio Zamora.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Colombia's Self-Defeating Battle Against Uber

Which is an Uber car? The government order to 'immobilize' Uber vehicles is impossible to enforce.

It was probably inevitable that the arrival in Colombia of the taxi-type smartphone application Uber would generate protests - principally from traditional taxi drivers, who feel their business getting cut into.

The government responded to the taxi lobby the other day by authorizing police to 'immobilize' Uber

By putting more cars onto clogged roads,
Uber can worsen traffic congestion.

cars - an absurdity unless cops are psychic, since Uber vehicles carry no outside markings.

The cabbies' concerns are understandable, but their fight against technology is futile. If not Uber, then another vehicle sharing system will appear...and then another.

On the other hand, government concerns about vehicle safety, tax payments and driver training, are more legitimate. But distinguishing between Internet-based car-sharing and plain old car pooling will be difficult.

Speaking of car pooling, despite Bogotá's worsening traffic congestion, the city has never seriously promoted ride sharing, either by setting up a peer-to-peer ride-sharing program or by creating car pool lanes for vehicles with multiple passengers.

Bogotá policies to promote car-sharing have accomplished
nothing. But car-sharing apps could be a solution. 

The appearance of ride-sharing applications such as Uber is a great chance for Bogotá and other cities to reduce use of the single-passenger vehicle, which is the least efficient way to use road space.

Uber can worsen traffic congestion by luring more cars onto limited road space and drawing passengers from more efficient public transport. But it can also be positive, by reducing pressure to buy private cars.

By working with Uber-type applications rather than trying futilely to ban them, Colombia might have a chance to reduce traffic congestion.

But it can't do that by blocking change.

The owner of this 'public service vehicle' has a sticker announcing that he's not Uber to avoid police hassles.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours