Is Big Brother really watching?
The long-running Inslaw scandal reawakens >> From Edupage, 1998-02-05: A secret hearing of Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board was told the Canadian government paid $31-million during the early 1980s for state-of-the-art software to track Canadian citizens by interfacing with credit card transactions, banking data, driver’s license information, pension records, taxation information, criminal records and immigration records, according to transcripts. The U.S.-made Promis system could provide details of a person’s health care and even library transactions. Updated versions are reportedly still being used by the RCMP and CSIS, but neither agency could be reached for comment. (Ottawa Sun 2 Feb 98) Promis was developed by the US company Inslaw under government contract in the early 1980s as a tool to assist law enforcement agencies and prosecutors to track caseloads, witnesses, evidence, etc. The Justice Department at that time deployed Promis; but in 1981 it stopped payments to Inslaw,
