“I'd like to apologize to the schizophrenic rambling
half naked homeless guy outside Wendy’s. Turns out you were right about the
government.” –
An observant man from
Twitter named, Ben,
commenting very
effectively on the events of June 6th, 2013.
(SPOILERS)
Do
you remember the end of “The Dark Knight” when Lucius Fox tells Bruce Wayne
when he taps into everyone’s cell phone in Gotham so that Batman and that Bat-Sonar-Computer of his can see
everything that is going on in the city and he tells Bruce, “No one should have
that much power.” – When Batman saves the day he gives Lucius the choice to
keep the tech or to blow it all up – trusting Lucius to do the right thing
whatever that may be?
“No one should have that much power.”
Lucius
does the right thing and after the Joker is vanquished he destroys the
computer. Within the scope of the story
he saves Bruce by doing so, as well.
Bruce knows that he would use
the technology for what he would truly believe is a good cause but he also
knows his own heart and, even with the best of intentions, how corruptible a
human heart can be. Bruce, in the end,
does the very best he can do by handing the decision over to the only man he
knew he could trust – the true hero of
the story, Lucius Fox. In the world
of fiction it all made sense the good guys won, the bad lost and the credits
rolled. The specter of absolute power
corrupting absolutely is averted and Bruce can keep fighting bad guys without
becoming one in the sequel.
(END SPOILERS – by the way, see “The
Dark Knight” already, will ya?)
In
reality we find that proactive security and governmental monitoring just a bit
too tempting. On June 6th,
2013, the story broke that the United States government is collecting vast
amounts of information from private communications. It appears that it may be too idealistic to
simply expect the government – ANY government to do the right thing on the
issue of rights, security, & decency online is simply an idyllic model. So why would Bruce Wayne, the Batman, build such a machine in the
first place? Alfred sums it up best when
he says that, “Some men just want to watch the world burn.”
Who knew that The Dark Knight would be so prophetic? Maybe Christopher Nolan?
That
is why. The world is a dangerous place
filled with people who only want to lie, kill & destroy and with a healthy
combination of vigilance and fear we boldly step into a brave new era. A world where surveillance on citizens of the
United States is done in the name of safety and of security – power and
control; a surveillance society. Yes it is a, “different world” but the roots
of our surveillance society go back further than we think. In the article, “Privacy in Retreat, a
Timeline”, NPR’s, Charles Mahtesian traces privacy’s decline back to the
invention of, “the cookie” back in 1994.
It includes other greatest hits to personal freedoms and writes such as
2002’s, “Total Information Awareness” and 2005’s, “Warrantless Surveillance”. You can watch the forward motion of this
right here: http://www.npr.org/2013/06/11/190721205/privacy-in-retreat-a-timeline?sc=tw&cc=share. In another article from NPR, “Privacy Past
& Present: A Saga of American Ambivalence”, the writers under the
subheading Privacy Past & Present have this quote from, “…Neil
Richards, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis.
‘If you want to talk about privacy, what would be less
private than having a platoon of Redcoats living in your house, eating your
food, listening to your conversations?" Richards asks. "... In the
Constitution itself — the quartering of soldiers, the execution of general
warrants — all have to do with the privacy of the home, the privacy of papers.
"And though
the Constitution doesn't use the word 'privacy,' the separation of individuals
and their information and their homes and their persons from the state is a
theme that runs throughout the Bill of Rights.’”
I
have discussed privacy issues before – on this very blog on various occasions
and have had people tell me in no uncertain terms, “To think the government is
looking at YOU is the height of narcissism.
You’re not that important.” While
I may have a few healthy narcissistic tendencies, however, it is now a very
well established fact that the NSA and the FBI think differently on the
subject. We are being monitored and that is a fact. All of the sudden, my tinfoil collection
doesn’t look so strange. This “brave new
world” which we find ourselves in did not just materialize out of thin air. This is a systemic condition; it does not
start or end with the executive branch.
None of this happens without the Legislative or the Judiciary branches
of the United States government being aware of the widespread surveillance of
the general populous in some capacity.
I’ve
heard the argument from several people, “Well, if you’re not doing anything
wrong, so what?” My concern is who
is determining what is right and what is wrong? As one administration bleeds into another
what happens when the opinions of those in power shift – when our overlords are
not so benevolent anymore? I may have a
differing opinion than the regime who has say over these nebulous / flexible
terms of use that are NOT SUBJECT TO ANY
LAWS. What happens when my views on
politics or religion are deemed a danger to the state and are now part of
several data bases in the desert of Utah or in Langley Virginia? Is there any ownership of my information or does
it belong to a third party data aggregator who sells it to Lord knows who?
In
the Reuters article, “Reports on Surveillance of Americans Fuel Debate Over
Privacy, Security”, Diane Feinstein (Democratic Senator from California who
heads the Senate Intelligence committee) is quoted as saying, “It’s called
protecting America.” Benjamin Franklin
(Founding Father) is quoted as saying, “Those who would give up essential
liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor
safety.” Mark Hosenball & John
Whitesides article can be found here: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/07/us-usa-wiretaps-verizon-idUSBRE95502920130607.
Ben was like a Yoda that you would actually want to spend time with.
A
CNET article by Declan McCullagh, “NSA spying flap extends to contents of U.S.
phone calls”, states that, “National Security Agency discloses in secret
Capitol Hill briefing that thousands of analysts can listen to domestic phone
calls. That authorization appears to extend to e-mail and text messages too.” The article quotes Mr. Kurt Opsahl. “’…There are serious ‘constitutional
problems’’ with this approach, said Kurt Opsahl, a senior staff attorney at the
Electronic Frontier Foundation who
has litigated warrantless wiretapping cases. ‘It epitomizes the problem of
secret laws.’” Mr. McCullagh touches on
the “NUCLEON” program where the NSA can take the spoken words from a phone
call, convert it to text, and stores it all in a database. The article can be found right here: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57589495-38/nsa-spying-flap-extends-to-contents-of-u.s-phone-calls/?ttag=fbwc.
Due
to recent events there has been a spike in sales of a precautionary tale from
George Orwell, entitled, “1984”. “As literary political fiction and dystopian
science-fiction, Nineteen Eighty-Four
is a classic novel in content, plot, and style. Many of its terms and concepts,
such as Big Brother, doublethink, thoughtcrime, Newspeak,
and memory hole, have entered
everyday use since its publication in 1949. Moreover, Nineteen Eighty-Four popularized the adjective Orwellian, which describes official
deception, secret surveillance, and manipulation of the past by a totalitarian
or authoritarian state.” – Oxford Companion to
English Literature, Sixth Edition. University of Oxford Press: 2000. p. 726. It is enjoying a resurgence in sales and is
more relevant now than it ever has been.
See: “Orwell’s 1984 flying up the Amazon charts” right here: http://cir.ca/story/sales-of-1984-surge.
As the meme says, “It’s not supposed to be an
instruction manual.”
The
Guardian’s, Eric Limer wrote, “Meet Boundless Informant: the NSA Tool That
Watches the Entire Planet”. The Guardian
published in the United Kingdom. As the
opening paragraph states, “First there
was PRISM—the network that’s collecting real-time data on people everywhere—and
now The Guardian has turned up “Boundless Informant” which is indexing
surveillance and espionage metadata from the ENTIRE WORLD.” You can read all about it right here: http://htl.li/lR9sz.
So
who is watching you? Information has
been used as currency for quite some time now.
Governments & corporations use it to sell ideologies, as well as,
manufactured items to us all the time. Slate’s Amy Webb published an article
entitled, “Who’s Watching You? Not Just the NSA”. In the article Ms. Webb explores the price
that we pay when we choose to use new emerging technologies and participate in
Social Media. “The reality is that we all live in clouds of deeply personal data, and
we carry that information everywhere we go and in nearly everything we do. Stop
for a moment, and think about all of the services you use and the conveniences
you enjoy. Do you really think that Verizon is the only company divulging your
information? Or that the NSA is the only organization doing the monitoring?”
This article underlines an important factor that so many people ignore
on a routine basis – actions & words mean things. We pay the price for using our tech with
information and when it’s out there – it’s out there. “…There are serious social and legal
repercussions when we allow a government or any organization unfettered,
ubiquitous access to personal information. There are also serious repercussions
when citizens don’t stop to think about the personal data they’re sharing, with
whom and for what purpose. You may not be able to stop sharing that data, but
you certainly can know what it is that you’re broadcasting.
” You can find Amy Webb’s full article right
here: http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2013/06/nsa_verizon_surveillance_you_re_sharing_your_private_data_all_the_time.html. Click on the newly discovered Verizon
commercial at the bottom of the article too.
Unfortunately, there is a lot of truth in humor.
Micah
Lee’s article on the Electronic Frontier Foundation website
goes into further depth as to how we are being followed. Who picks up our electronic breadcrumbs when
are on the web? Or, more to the point,
what happens when our information is farmed out to a third party data
aggregator to anyone guess where? “…by loading third party resources from
servers controlled by major providers like Facebook, Google, and others, are
sending information about their visitors to companies subject to US government
data requests. While these news companies themselves could directly receive
requests for this data, the fact that they voluntarily send this data to the
same small, centralized group of third parties makes these third parties
convenient and attractive targets to collect visitor information from vast
swaths of the web. Once a website sends data to a third party, it no longer has
the power to stand up for its users against unconstitutional government
requests for that data.” How it
happens and why it matters can be found right here: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/06/third-party-resources-nsa-leaks. Again, this is nothing new – it is the price
for participation and has been since the invention of the cookie in 2004. Pay and play, it’s as simple as that. If you want to reap the benefits of Social
Media or using directions on your cell phone you must exchange information.
What
of Social Media of Facebook,
Google, &
Microsoft – how do
they stand on this issue?
As per CBS
news, “
General Counsel Ted Ullyot said in
a statement Friday
that Facebook is only allowed to talk about total numbers, but is lobbying to
reveal more, and the permission received is still unprecedented.
Following the guidelines, Ullyot says
Facebook received between 9,000 and 10,000 requests from government entities in
the last six months of 2012, on subjects from missing children to terrorist
threats.
"With more than 1.1 billion
monthly active users worldwide," said Ullyot, "this means that a tiny
fraction of one percent of our user accounts were the subject of any kind of
U.S. state, local, or federal U.S. government request (including criminal and
national security-related requests) in the past six months. We hope this helps
put into perspective the numbers involved, and lays to rest some of the
hyperbolic and false assertions in some recent press accounts about the
frequency and scope of the data requests that we receive."
In a rare alliance, Facebook, Google
and Microsoft Corp. are pressuring the Obama administration to loosen their
legal gag on government surveillance orders.”
See:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-205_162-57589463/facebook-around-10k-requests-for-info-from-govt-in-last-6-months/
for full story.
Information is Social
Media’s bread and butter.
These
companies had to come forward in hopes that they would be viewed as being more
transparent and that, as it says in the article, hoping that the Obama
administration, “loosens their legal gag on government surveillance
orders.”
They cannot afford to be lumped
into any surveillance plot.
It’s just
bad for business.
So, whatever happened to doing the right thing?
A
whistleblower as defined by Wikipedia (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whistleblower)
is, “…a person who exposes misconduct,
alleged dishonest or illegal activity occurring in an organization. The alleged
misconduct may be classified in many ways; for example, a violation of a law,
rule, regulation and/or a direct threat to public interest, such as fraud,
health and safety violations, and corruption. Whistleblowers may make their
allegations internally (for example, to other people within the accused
organization) or externally (to regulators, law enforcement agencies, to the
media or to groups concerned with the issues).” What of the whistleblower – the often lone
voice in the wilderness who stands up and does something? The individual who is brave enough to do the
right thing?
Before
the election are the promises to, “strengthen whistleblower laws” and are cited
as, “Often the best source of information about waste, fraud, and abuse in
government”.
After
the election and the advent of Julian Assange & WikiLeaks, of Bradley
Manning, and now Edward Snowden one can only conclude that we are being lied to
on a sweeping - epic scale and on a routine basis. The truth gets lost in the struggle to
maintain power. It is with profound
sadness that I write those words. “Obama
will ensure that federal agencies expedite the process for reviewing
whistleblower claims and whistleblowers have full access to courts and due
process.” How quaint. The shame of it is I bought it – hook, line,
& sinker. I had “HOPE”. It turns out truth and transparency are only
words used to placate voters like me and things are not the same as it always was but with the endless march forward of
technology and our innate ability to serve the darker angels of our own
natures, things are much worse and
there is no end in sight. Our technology
has outpaced our ethics. We need to do
better. It’s that simple.
Where
is Lucius Fox when we need him?
Let
that sink in a bit.
We are
not in the top ten.
I
firmly believe that this the issue that will define the Obama Administration in
the history books. It cuts to the core
of American ideology and speaks to our rights and our liberties. The surveillance state which we live in did
not just materialize into existence overnight; it was only brought into the
light under this administration. It is
systemic and it could never have happened without all three branches of our
government being aware or it to some degree.
Now we are aware of it too. As twenty-first century American citizens do
we remain ambivalent and distracted waiting for the next wave of surveillance tools
to be implemented (I’m looking at you, Drone fleet)? What can we do? I think it is a healthy practice to encourage
transparency. Further, I believe it
sends the wrong message to United States citizens and to the rest of the world
when we persecute a whistleblower. I
think it essential that we stand up for those who stood up for us - those who
say, “This is wrong & it bad for others”.
Whistleblower protection is not only something that should put into
policy but it should be lauded as a high watermark of a civilized society. Doing the right thing to those who are trying
to do the right thing speaks volumes about our ethics as a people and as a
nation.
Now
that the inconvenient truth of the surveillance program is public knowledge
politicians are starting to speak about it.
They must. It cannot be
avoided. These are dangerous times (in several ways) and there must be a
“balance” between defense & dystopia.
In the Politico, article
entitled, “Nancy Pelosi Booed, Heckled at Netroots Nation 2013”, by Emily
Schultheis (Emily Schultheis’ article is here: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/nancy-pelosi-booed-netroots-nation-2013-93193.html#.UcZ48iyO_Oo.twitter)
we find Nancy Pelosi being booed and heckled when she used the word, “balance” trying
to justify the warrantless surveillance of millions of American citizens during
a speech. One man yelled, “It’s not a
balance. It’s not constitutional! No secret laws!” As this man was ushered out of the hall by
security a voice in the crowd said, “And that is what a police state looks
like.”
My
fear is that the voice in the crowd may be onto something.
We
can do better.
We
must.
