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Tag Archives: surveillance
One Way That Pollution Might Actually Increase Freedom
I love the smell of freedom in the morning. Smells like…..my lungs are burning……
The Chinese government has recently begun to come to grips with the fact that rampant pollution is making the country very foggy, and therefore making it nearly impossible to spy on the populace with the 20 million-odd surveillance cameras they’ve placed here and there. Apparently part of the difficulty with addressing the pollution problem is that years of referring to it as “fog,” not “smog,” has led to measures that deal with the former but not the latter. (Pro tip for repressive governments: don’t internalize your own propaganda.)
It’s not just the surveillance cameras on the ground that are having trouble, though. China’s air pollution “fog” has gotten so thick at times that it obscures the view of entire cities from earth orbit. That has got to be frustrating to anyone with spy satellites in the area. China has such an interesting array of giant things that show up in satellite photos, even if the Great Wall of China is not actually visible from space. It would be a shame for all that stuff to be obscured, but I also understand the importance of not being spied upon. If lung-clogging smfog is the price of liberty, then—no, wait, I’m not going there.
Photo credit: click from morguefile.com.
How to Fight the Surveillance State by Cooperating With It
This is not the first time we have encountered the government’s desire to compile data on all of us, although people seem to have forgotten about the omniously-titled Total Information Awareness program. Once it started under Bush, it never really went away. Cue that Lord Acton quote about “absolute power,” ya-ta ya-ta ya-ta.
Way back in the early days of TIA, i.e. 2002, my friend Todd conceived of a patriotic means of helping the government keep tabs on all of us law-abiding folk. See, sifting through peta-, exa-, or even yottabytes of data takes a substantial investment of resources, and is likely to yield quite a few false leads. Besides that, they might miss a few emails in the process. In order to ensure that the government knows we are on the level, Todd proposed this:
I recently sent the following e-mail to President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and Attorney General Ashcroft to inform them of my plan to do my part as a patriotic American in these fearful times: Continue reading
This Whole Surveillance State Thing Is a BFD, But It Is Not News (UPDATED)
Things could be much, much creepier. Also, why would a top secret surveillance program need a logo?
Of course, I think I know the answer to that last question, and it is similar to the newfound outrage people had over the TSA’s groping practices: now the “war on terror” is affecting us (and by “us” I mean affluent white people, mostly.)
Daniel Ellsberg, of the Pentagon Papers fame, is warning about the “United Stasi of America,” as if that is something that could happen tomorrow if we don’t do………something, I’m not sure what. The story has also given Glenn Greenwald, a writer I used to respect greatly, more opportunities at self-aggrandizement.
The simple fact is that most legislators have unclean hands in all of this, save a few. The revelation of this program’s existence gives us an opportunity to have a national dialogue about how much surveillance we are willing to accept in the name of “national security,” but I have my doubts that we’ll actually get to that discussion amid all the hysteria. Everything the White House has done was arguably authorized by the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA PATRIOT) Act, so the first thing Congress could do would be to repeal, or at least limit, that law. <crickets>
Here are a few relevant quotes from an update on the surveillance program offered by the Guardian, with my commentary:
The Sarcasm of the Internet Will Never Bow to the Surveillance State
As long as Tumblr blogs like Obama is Checking Your Email exist, we can at least know that the internet will meet government efforts at surveillance with a hefty dose of snark.
Dang, at least W. tried to be subtle about it.
If Paul Revere were alive today, Redditors would have turned him into a meme before his horse had even gotten up to a trot.
The revolution will be at least partly in lolspeak.