Big Brother State: Yes, Exactly
An interesting little film. It has some very valid points to be made.
I would like to make one additional one. There are people who want to kill us. And as one Holocaust survivor said, paraphrased, when somebody says they want to kill you…believe them. So I'm not against taking steps to prevent getting killed. I don't think anyone I know would disagree with this.
But as I've mentioned before, a lot of the laws and regulations that are being enacted will do nothing to keep us safe. They are instead grandstanding by politicians who want to make you feel better about what they're doing–much as in the film they're "dressing up" all of this surveillance as a positive thing. And yes, in the wrong hands, they can be used in damaging ways.
And here's the thing: I don't believe anyone in government right now is competent enough to be actively pushing us towards a police state. A true sign that you don't have a handle on things is to just throw everything into a state of lockdown. I think we'll get to a police state by the sheer stupidity of the government, if nothing else. And I, for the most part, agree with the Bullshit episode which talked about the inability of government to really effectively use all the data that they get in thus far.
Really, the most disturbing portion of this is the surveillance of e-mails and communications. It's true–we all do stuff online at some point, and to varying degrees, that we wouldn't necessarily want people knowing about. I'm reminded of a bit in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged (and I'll paraphrase, since the idea of flipping back through that tome to find the actual line is daunting) where it's explained that governments control criminals and so if they want to control everyone they simply make it impossible for you to exist without criminalizing yourself. Anything in that sound familiar?
Thanks to ScottC for sending over the link. Direct link here for the feedreaders.
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It's a fun film, but I think the famous quote hinges around the term 'temporary'. If our freedoms are being given up (debateable – if an NSA search algorithm checks my email for keywords, have I really been violated?) – aren't they being given up for a lasting security rather than a temporary one? Or is that a cynical judgement regarding how long any security lasts?
Jones: Thanks for the comment. I would think that if your e-mail is being searched for keywords, your first question should be: what are the keywords? Is there any oversight to what keywords are used? Answer: probably not. So yeah, IMO, your right to privacy has been violated. And if you don't mind them checking your e-mail and you think that's not a violation, well, I'll ask you this: where's the line? Is it checking your snailmail? How about running all your credit card purchases through an NSA search algorithm? What about your landline or cell phone conversations? What about your ATM withdrawals? Where do you draw the line?
Can we agree first that there is a line? If we can then I think it's just a matter of negotiation in finding out where that line is, in that we can find a level of privacy that we can accept, in exchange for a level of lasting security.
Of course we can. Whether or not thee and me can agree that the government will agree with us or keep any line where we want it is another matter entirely…
It seems like when the White House and other talk about this stuff, there is this assumption that the ones running this are the reincarnations of Elliot Ness. They never talk about what's in place to make sure that can't listen in on your phone sex sessions or find out everything about that hot chick in the Jag. Or at least make it easy to discover who is abusing the system and punish them.