Week 4 - Give 'Em Hell!

[streetnights]

Let me paint you a picture, dear reader, of the world as it exists today

Comments

[streetnights]

I think we'll only know in due time. The comparisons are made to Daniel Ellsberg pretty frequently, but the US government doesn't treat whistleblowers then like it does now.

I think it would be a hell of a thing if someone else in the NSA chose to stand up as well, though.

[jem0000000]

Yep. *sigh*

[streetnights]

:(

[jem0000000]

*hugs*

Every post like this raises awareness, as does the amount of news space it's gotten recently -- and that's the most important thing, I think.

[lrig_rorrim]

This was a really well-written top-down look at the surveillance state we have today. I've seen some interesting questions about whether the collection of this data is inevitable - and if it is, what we can do to make the process and the use of the data more transparent and useful to We The People. I don't know what we can do, beyond raise awareness and raise a fuss. Those things are vital, but I fear they're not enough.

[streetnights]

Working in the technology sector, I would say that I don't think it's inevitable. Europe has some good data privacy laws on the books, which require companies to turn over the information they keep on users, and allow users to request that the information be deleted. There could be a similar law that requires internet companies, for example, to only keep identifying information for no more than 90 days, just as a start.

I do think transparency is the biggest thing, though, which is why I think Google's push to reveal more information about NSLs/FISA orders is really commendable and on the right path.

[lrig_rorrim]

I don't know if it's inevitable - I just thought it was an interesting (if slightly doomed and cynical) approach to the problem, to stop trying to stem the tide of information and instead just regulate who gets to see what under what terms.

I'm really happy that Google is at least trying to live up to their "don't be evil" catch phrase by pushing to reveal more information. The more we know, the more we can make informed decisions about what's going on here.

The fact that this is now A Thing and people are becoming more aware of it and actually thinking about the implications of data collection, surveillance, and privacy makes me really happy. I hope that Snowden makes it through all of this in one piece. In my book, he's a hero.

[streetnights]

I think one of the counterarguments is that the government cares about terrorism, not what people do on Tumblr... but the counter to that counterargument is that right now, the paradigm has shifted so that all of your information is stored until someone wants to look at it, at which point they can poke through your entire history to find something they don't like.

So, yeah, not optimal, even for us that only do things like livejournal and tumblr.

[halfshellvenus]

You're really laid out the steps of how disturbing this is, including the areas that many people regard as an "annoyance" rather than "privacy violation", such as one's shopping habits.

They're all privacy violations. And I'm glad Snowden had the guts to speak out about it.

[streetnights]

I think that's the biggest thing, that people are often treated with this false dichotomy security and privacy in the sense of 'Well, don't you want to be secure? If you have nothing to hide, it's all fine!' When it's really, really not. Metadata and shopping habits can be used to identify a wide range of information - liberal or conservative, at the very, very least - and then that information can be used against us.

I hope Snowden's not the only one, and if he is, I hope it will create change instead of die silently.