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

[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!