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

[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.