The revelation that the NSA records the phone numbers, dates, and locations of our phone calls is a hot topic.
What does it matter if the NSA (or your next door neighbor) observes you? If nothing is ever done with the information, is there any harm done by the observation per se?
I say a definite “Yes!” Analogously to the way in which a quantum particle (really, any object) is disturbed by the act of observation, our private mental lives are deflected, disturbed, jolted by the act of observation. The quality of my life is lessened if I am being (benignly or maliciously) observed/tracked. My free, solitary thoughts stop being free or solitary. My social interactions become tainted with second thoughts and suspicions.
We need to make it clear that a monitored society is not what we want.
I think snooping on everyone has the potential for abuse of power.
For just one example, the Obama administration could snoop on Fox News, and all related parties, to work against them preemptively, interfering with freedom of the press.
Its too bad you can’t give the snoopers a mooning. Perhaps an international fuck with your government week could be set up on the net? Throw alot of information out there that leads nowhere but, gives them a headache or do something like that.
Add to that the propensity of homosapian to presume based on very sketchy information and judge and condemn accordingly, “act first, investigate later… it saves time and energy”.
Yeah, but people are stupid about privacy. You can’t realistically expect that your emails and cell phone conversations are secret and known only to you. That information exists whether you like it or not, it’s just a question of who looks at it and why. I’d rather the government use it to prevent terrorist attacks than some corporation using it to sell me shit i don’t want, but i know it probably gets used for both purposes (and more). That’s just the price of convenience.
You shouldn’t pay a terrorist to prevent a terrorist attack… unless you merely want and endless string of them. It is easy to ignore a corporate sales job, not so easy to ignore a government sales job.
True, I don’t understand how people can realistically beleive that their privacy is ever guranteed.
Especially on the new technological mediums, i mean hell people tend to have a habit of revealing too much information about themselves on the internet anyway.
Does this mean i like being spied on? No.
But I assume i am anyhow and just rely on the vast amount of other people being spied on to give me a kind of crowd to blend in with.
my natural right allows me to observe anyone as it allows you to do the same
you are a walking signal
i am a walking signal
i am observed frequently, sometimes by people, sometimes by machines - most of these observations have little meaning…
you are observed frequently …
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but don’t underestimate the power of a small piece of information.
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the ability to organize others to help you observe is potentially beneficial to one’s self
if i had thousands watching others on my behalf, i’m sure i could find a good use
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the world is aware of technology meeting reality. are you surprised a government figured it out first?
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one should think of a computer as an extension of the self - once you make an electronic communication of any sort, (as simple as viewing a web page), you should assume that you have given away control of that information. a computer without internet, on the other hand, (in my mind) should be the line in the sand - anything that is not a request to an external resource
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the sad part is the lack of technical understanding most people have
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and the moral dilemma/problem… is thinking technically instead of morally or vice versa