11a/30 Follow up on the NSA data collection issue

[darkemeralds]

The Atlantic today published a very good short essay on the NSA data collection issue: Why Should We Even Care If the Government Is Collecting Our Data?.

There is a comparison of metaphors: the Orwellian 1984 image of constant surveillance inhibiting behavior, and the Kafkaesque The Trial concept of an inscrutable government doing inscrutable things for hidden reasons. The author argues that the latter is far more appropriate for the current disclosures about the NSA.

Her conclusion, which I think is excellent:

...we should ease off the privacy hand-wringing and turn our attention to something much more fundamental: how we relate as citizens to our government and how much power we have in that relationship.

Comments

[writerscramp]

I have two trains of thought on this topic that are sort of in agreement, sort of in disagreement with you. :)

Train #1: For me, specifically, here in the right now, I am not personally concerned about my data being in the hands of the NSA simply because the amount of data they have altogether is very, very large, far outpacing whatever sophistication, mechanism, and technology currently exists to process and swallow it in a useful manner. Slacktivist does a great job of encapsulating my thought on it, so I won't rewrite his article and instead, I'll just direct you to read it:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2013/06/10/big-corporations-collect-a-lot-of-data-dont-know-how-to-use-it/

Train #2: I could also basically be a cosigner of Digby's post and reblog of Chris Hayes' segment on his show last night and I implore you to read it:
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2013/06/chris-hayes-its-not-some-orwellian.html.

During the 4 year labor strike my family went through (1988 to 1992), we had our phones bugged, were followed by both the police and hired thugs (Pinkerton's, the infamous union-busting firm), had our house "searched" repeatedly by the police -- which amounts to a bunch of armed men tossing your stuff on the floor and breaking shit, then shrugging their shoulders all "whoops!" -- had our bank accounts frozen AT LEAST a half dozen times, tires slashed, vehicle windows broken, had our mail intercepted (and probably read, but could never prove it), school records "lost", college applications "lost", scholarship applications "lost". My stepdad looked for mining jobs in 9 states and couldn't get a single one, despite 20+ years of experience (blacklist? never heard of it).

They knew where we shopped, where our families lived, what doctors we went to and when. My stepdad was even charged with a crime he couldn't have committed, since he was 3 states away at the time looking for a job. Which didn't mean we didn't have to still go through all the steps of being guilty before proven innocent, but I digress....

The FBI has a file not just on my stepdad, not just on my mom. The FBI has a file on me. I was 15. My brother was 13 and he has one, too. A lawyer advised me once that they don't purge those files, they just look for more stuff to put in them.

The point is, that was before the Information Age we live in now. That was a small town in Backwater USA involving a mid-level corporation, Reagan-era union busting through bureaucracy at the federal level, and the collusion and corruption of a small town anxious to please some corporate masters because they believed in the Trickle Down Fairy. In the scheme of things, small potatoes, yet look at the lengths they went to with the data they had, legally and otherwise, and even as clumsy and uncoordinated as they were, how much damage they did. We were one of 435 families in that strike, and our experience wasn't even the worst of the bunch.

I know my experience is comparatively unusual. But I also know as well as some and better than most just how easily and quickly personal information can be used against you, how little it takes to get on "their" radar, and how completely and entirely they will beat you down.

I agree with you -- I don't see us turning back the technological clock, either. And I think "turn[ing] our attention to...how we relate as citizens to our government and how much power we have in that relationship" is absolutely spot on. But even so, we need to understand something just as fundamental: "When you construct a massive surveillance apparatus, history tells us that it will be brought to bear not just on, quote, 'the enemy' but on the people who threaten society's power structure." As the Russian proverb goes, trust in god, but keep rowing to shore.

[darkemeralds]

I was hoping one of my more politically-aware readers would weigh in on this subject, because I am very far from a settled position on it myself. So thank you for three powerful perspectives to help me move in my thinking.

First, I can say with certainty that in my view, "catching terrorists" is a bullshit justification for general citizen surveillance, and forms no part of any pro-data-collection feelings I may have. It seems reasonable, though, to think that police work overall could be aided by more data and better metadata.

Your own story (which is deeply shocking) serves as a near-perfect argument on both sides of the question, in a way. It certainly proves that unfettered use of personal information is catastrophic in the hands of corrupt(ible) powers with an agenda. At the same time, as you imply, it argues that mass digital data isn't a prerequisite for that kind of nefariousness.

On the proverbial third hand, nobody in their right mind could disagree with Digby's conclusion that "When you construct a massive surveillance apparatus, history tells us that it will be brought to bear not just on, quote, "the enemy" but on the people who threaten society's power structure." But I'm less sure about the implied corollary, that still more massive surveillance will simply create a still more massive problem. Information has no master, and I have a certain amount of faith in Technology (as a sort of entity) to develop solutions to the problems it creates.

I have no clear idea of what these solutions might be: my vision is hampered by lack of education and knowledge. But I'm reasonably sure that this vague counter-force I'm thinking about is analogous to "keep rowing to shore."

I guess, in the end, I'm a bit of a fatalist--kind of an optimistic fatalist. Or a dualist. Or a Manichean, I don't even know. It just seems to me that the forces we might define as "evil" are operating in the same evolutionary stream as those we'd call "good," more or less neck-and-neck (how's that for changing horses in midstream?), and the fact that we're here, unequivocally the result of four billion years of evolution, suggests to me that life keeps winning the battle--but only by a narrow margin.

Yes, it's kind of a uselessly-big-picture point of view, but that's how the old brain works. I think my contribution to the issues, assuming I have one to make, is to keep listening to people with more specific ideas than mine, and thereby hone my own views.

[tehomet]

I think The Atlantic article's author might be misguided if she seeks to or thinks one can separate the issue of lack of privacy from the issue of the power individual citizens have (or don't have) in relation to their government. Surely the NSA revelations show that individual citizens have zero power in relation to the government if they lack privacy in their communications? Isn't violation of privacy a fundamental violation? I mean, there's a freaking reason interfering with the mail in the US is a felony, not a misdemeanour. I don't think the Kafkaesque model is necessarily more comforting than the Orwellian.

[darkemeralds]

I didn't feel like it was intended to be more comforting so much as more accurate, like, as long as people are freaked out about being watched in their private moments, they're going to spend more energy putting pieces of tape over the webcam than in seriously considering what's wrong with their government.

The "right to privacy," from what I understand in my limited reading, is implied but not specifically guaranteed in the US constitution--mostly because nobody really knows how to define privacy. It comes up over and over again in cases ranging child-rearing and abortion to language instruction, to sexual practices. It's a huge issue but, kind of like pornography, has that "I can't define it but I know it when I see it" quality which, not incidentally, is ever-changing.

On this issue--which I don't want to make light of because I'm really struggling to find a rational landing-place for it in my own thoughts and actions--my thinking has been influenced a lot by Jeff Jarvis's Public Parts. The book's subtitle discloses its bias clearly: How Sharing in the Digital Age Improves the Way We Work and Live.

However, Jarvis does delve into the history of the concept of privacy, challenging many of my unexamined beliefs, particularly the one labeled "creepy." In interviews, Jarvis found that people's objections to things like Google's collection of cookie data boil down to "it's creepy." When asked to define "creepy," most people can't. It's just a feeling. Whether the feeling arises from some evolutionary impulse or from cultural training is anyone's guess, really, but Jarvis advocates for examining it.

Mind you, he is talking about net neutrality and freedom of the internet, and not so much about government spying. His book came out in the wake of CISPA, and, because he has strong ties with Germany, in response to German legislation restricting things like Google Street View pictures of houses.

Along with other journalists and privacy commentators, he now seems to be trying to define a rational position in response to the NSA disclosures. I'm following the conversation pretty closely, because it's not an issue I feel qualified to decide on without a lot of additional information.

Meanwhile, here's a darkly humorous look at the issue that you might enjoy.

[tehomet]

Meanwhile, here's a darkly humorous look at the issue that you might enjoy.

I did enjoy that. Thank you!