Sunday February 10, 2008
Photojournalist?
It seems I've turned into a bit of a photojournalist. I went to a presentation about Deep Integration, otherwise known as the North American Union, or the Security and Prosperity Partnership, hosted by the NDP and Council of Canadians, to fully describe the problem and attempt to explore what we can do about it.
This event took place at the Florence Filberg Centre in Courtenay, British Columbia earlier today, and I, of course, took my shiny Nikon camera.
And took a lot of photos.
Surprisingly, I wasn't phased when snapping away next to, and more than half the time in front of, such a large crowd. Large enough to be a crowd, not large enough to be an anonymous, faceless crowd, which would make it easier. In fact, I was often asked if I was official press, both by Catherine Bell, our local MP, pictured here, and random people. I'll be writing up a full article about it once I get a transcript or audio recording.
During the question and answer period, there were very few actual questions. The majority of the public speakers spoke on side-related topics from public healthcare, civic responsibility, and job protection, to personal security and identity protection. The last speaker, and I was sad to find they had closed the floor and wanted to wrap up when she finished, spoke about RFID and the new combined drivers licenses / passports being investigated by the government, both Canadian and American. (Amazingly, both BC and Seattle are already rolling out the devices as pilot projects.)
There is a lot of documentation about RFID, its proposed uses, and existing abuses. [Citation needed.] As a quick example, during the last Black Hat and DEFCON conferences, a young adult with less than $100 created a bazooka-like device using embedded Linux that could track people three and a half miles away by the signal given off by their cellular phones and blackberries. Bluetooth is another low-power, short-range RF technology used for connecting wireless keyboards and mice to computers, and headsets to cellular phones.
The cameraman and I had a bit of a rapport. As he was trying to signal for the speakers to look at him and his spiffy tripod-ed video camera, I would move towards the stage to get a shot from a different angle, and the people would turn to follow me instead. It was silly. Occasionally we would exchange glances and we understood exactly what the other was thinking. It was amusing. Despite looking like the gestapo in sandals, and thus the Enemy, I think I managed OK. All I was missing was a card in my fedora that had "PRESS" written in Helvetica on it.
Anyway, feel free to browse the collection of photos on Flickr. The full article is forthcoming.
— Alice.