Originally Posted by secretbunnyboy
Originally Posted by daw617
in many European countries, for a long time the phone bill did not report the phone numbers you had called. Do you know why?
Because there wasn't the storage capacity to record them? Because networks were analog? Because people rarely made long-distance or international calls and no-one was that interested in reading pages of local numbers? Because there was no competition so even if you knew what your rates were you still couldn't find a cheaper service? To stop people finding out about their extra-marital affairs (the French myth)?
I think you're gonna have to be a bit more explicit - maybe everyone else gets it but I have to confess I am still in the dark!
Ahh, my apologies -- I didn't mean to be so obscure.
Hitler used records from many businesses to round up subversives. This was possible since businesses kept many records (were there phone records at the time? beats me).
For a long time after the fall of Nazi Germany, there was a lot of sensitivity about these kind of data retention issues. As I understand it, many phone companies refrained from keeping any logs on who their customers called, to prevent their records from being abused in that way every again. One of the consequences of this policy was that, for many decades, their customers didn't get itemized bills showing who they had called that month (unlike in the US, where phone companies keep these records freely, and each month you receive a bill showing all the phone numbers you have called).
These data protection sensitivities may have subsided somewhat. I don't know whether many Europeans still receive unitemized phone bills -- but for many decades, phone bills in many countries were not itemized for exactly this reason. It was considered good civic hygiene to avoid unnecessarily establishing systems of records that could be used to facilitate the rise of a police state.
The analogy to airline travel is this: If I have to show my ID, I have to tell the airline my real name; if I have to tell the airline my real name, the airline will have it in its databases; if airlines are like other businesses in the US, they might keep these records forever; and these records would be a treasure trove for any future "police state" government that wanted to track down dissidents, subversives, and anyone they viewed as a threat. Am I suggesting our current government is doing this, or would do this? No. But once you've given up privacy rights, it's usually very hard to get them back.
For example: Did you know that the FAA's requirements for checking ID were originally justified as a response to the TWA 800 "bombing"? What bombing, you say? Exactly! You may remember that one of the early theories about the TWA 800 crash was that it was the result of a terrorist bombing. This was used as a justification for creating federal photo ID requirements for all aviation passengers. After the ID check was imposed, it was subsequently discovered that the TWA 800 crash was probably not a terrorist incident after all (but instead was likely due to a spark in a fuel tank). Was the photo ID requirement eliminated after that was discovered? Not a chance!
It's a lot easier to lose privacy than to regain it.