Week 4 - Give 'Em Hell!

[talonkarrde]

Let me paint you a picture, dear reader, of the world as it exists today.

You're sitting there in your comfortable office chair, or maybe curled up wtih your laptop in bed, or maybe reading this from a phone while waiting for a bus. You opened up a browser and browsed around before getting to ljidol, you looked at the poll, you started clicking through to the posts, and here you are.

Someone out there — yes, maybe the NSA — knows everything you just did.

Welcome to the world of tomorrow, ladies and gentlemen, the world of a big-data surveillance state.

What happened, exactly?

Well, most recently, you clicked on this link and it wasn't encrypted. All the information is sent in the clear and available for anyone to access, including someone sitting on your wifi, some hacker with a keylogger, or some government agent who doesn't even need to have probable cause anymore. And it's not just because some NSA closet exists somewhere and is reading all traffic, though that's possible — this is just how data is stored today.

Here are the links in the chain:

Your ISP is the first step, for they are the ones that assign you your IP address are the first ones to be subpoenaed. They identify you at your home address, all the sites you've ever gone to, and how long you spent at those websites.

Going mobile? No problem; we've seen how eager Verizon, AT&T, and the others are willing to give over subscriber information. You're not any safer using your cell phone or tethering than you are with good old cable internet.

And after all that information on your browsing is revealed, the site itself can be served with a subpoena, search warrant, order, (or national security letter or FISA order) revealing what data you store there, what your emails are, what private messages you've sent, which files you store, what's in thsoe.

Oh, and for the sake of completeness, there are also third-party cookies and trackers, and entire companies and industries dedicated around the use of them to figure out which sites you like and loiter at and which you 'bounce' off of.

It would've been unthinkable ten years ago, wouldn't it — an entire industry that works around the idea of figuring out where you shop and what you buy? Can you imagine the outrage if snail mail coupons had small beacons which told some mysterious company (that you never had any contact with) when you opened up an envelope and read a letter?

And yet, that's the world of today, and no one blinks an eye.

-

...Well, I guess that's not strictly true.

No one blinks an eye until someone comes forward and tells the world what the United States government has the capaibilty of doing, even as damage control immediately starts.

No one blinks an eye until a whistleblower stands up and says, this is wrong, and releases a powerpoint slide showing just how deep government access goes, just how closely you are being watched.

No one blinks an eye until someone, at great personal risk to themselves, points out how much the world has changed from ten years ago, and what the rules are now.

I know something of surveillance, and technology, and the fourth amendment. It's a large part of what I do at work, on a day to day basis, and all I want to say is this:

Liberty and security are not incompatible, and anyone who says otherwise has a vested interest in depriving you of one or the other. It is difficult, yes, but there has been a balance through history that has only been upset recently, in the last decade.

So I raise a glass tonight to Edward Snowden, the man who has spoken out against the incredible lengths that our government goes to today to watch us. And I remind you that if a surveillance state is not one you want to live in, we all must fight it, whether it's supporting the EFF, writing our lawmakers, or simply staying aware and spreading awareness to those around us.

Good night, and good luck.

Comments

[x-disturbed-x.livejournal.com]

This just made me even more paranoid then I already am. :P

I wish more people would stand up like Edward Snowden did. I just wonder what till happen to him.

[jem0000000.livejournal.com]

Yep. *sigh*

[lrig-rorrim.livejournal.com]

This was a really well-written top-down look at the surveillance state we have today. I've seen some interesting questions about whether the collection of this data is inevitable - and if it is, what we can do to make the process and the use of the data more transparent and useful to We The People. I don't know what we can do, beyond raise awareness and raise a fuss. Those things are vital, but I fear they're not enough.

[halfshellvenus.livejournal.com]

You're really laid out the steps of how disturbing this is, including the areas that many people regard as an "annoyance" rather than "privacy violation", such as one's shopping habits.

They're all privacy violations. And I'm glad Snowden had the guts to speak out about it.

[tatdatcm.livejournal.com]

It's pretty frightening that this is going on, more frightening when I hear people ask what the big deal is.

I like the progression of this too. It flowed really well.

[alycewilson.livejournal.com]

I guess "Person of Interest" got it right.

[porn-this-way.livejournal.com]

Yes. Just, yes. (To the last few paragraphs I mean. A big fat hell no to the rest of it!)

[majesticarky.livejournal.com]

Excellently stated and you put it into perspective well for us laymen. I applaud Snowden too and I hope he will get amnesty and at least not go to jail. He risked everything telling us how the government was spying on us.

[kandigurl.livejournal.com]

I know I'm totally in the minority here, but this doesn't bother me at all. Companies have always tried to get as much market research as possible, and I'm not interesting enough for the government to care about researching me, nor would they find anything worth caring about if they did.

What would worry me is if they start monitoring the web and arresting people for visiting websites or being part of certain online groups/etc. Then it would be invasive to me. Until then, I say let them look, and give them an entertaining (and hopefully confusing) show. ;)

[streetnights.livejournal.com]

I think we'll only know in due time. The comparisons are made to Daniel Ellsberg pretty frequently, but the US government doesn't treat whistleblowers then like it does now.

I think it would be a hell of a thing if someone else in the NSA chose to stand up as well, though.

[streetnights.livejournal.com]

:(

[streetnights.livejournal.com]

Working in the technology sector, I would say that I don't think it's inevitable. Europe has some good data privacy laws on the books, which require companies to turn over the information they keep on users, and allow users to request that the information be deleted. There could be a similar law that requires internet companies, for example, to only keep identifying information for no more than 90 days, just as a start.

I do think transparency is the biggest thing, though, which is why I think Google's push to reveal more information about NSLs/FISA orders is really commendable and on the right path.

[streetnights.livejournal.com]

I think one of the counterarguments is that the government cares about terrorism, not what people do on Tumblr... but the counter to that counterargument is that right now, the paradigm has shifted so that all of your information is stored until someone wants to look at it, at which point they can poke through your entire history to find something they don't like.

So, yeah, not optimal, even for us that only do things like livejournal and tumblr.

[streetnights.livejournal.com]

I think that's the biggest thing, that people are often treated with this false dichotomy security and privacy in the sense of 'Well, don't you want to be secure? If you have nothing to hide, it's all fine!' When it's really, really not. Metadata and shopping habits can be used to identify a wide range of information - liberal or conservative, at the very, very least - and then that information can be used against us.

I hope Snowden's not the only one, and if he is, I hope it will create change instead of die silently.

[streetnights.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I think the most frightening thing is absolutely the 'who cares' argument, because everyone should care! The majority of people not caring is what leads to these rights slowly disappearing. :(

[streetnights.livejournal.com]

We are living with The Machine.

[streetnights.livejournal.com]

Yes! And now we see if the people will simply let this blow by, or whether there will be actual change.

[streetnights.livejournal.com]

I think amnesty is going to be a stretch, politically. There would have to be a large, large amount of change for that, and while I'm hopeful, I'm rather cynical about the government, these days.

[streetnights.livejournal.com]

I think the 'I'm not interesting' argument is a dangerous one. Market research is skeevy enough as it is, but at least they can't put you in jail.

I don't know if we know when we might start caring about a hot-button issue, and when we might want to start exercising our right to speech, but I do know that I wouldn't want my words to be watched and possibly silenced because I, say, started participating actively in wikileaks, or because I wrote this entry and it popped up on a filter somewhere.

I think the inherent danger isn't necessarily that we are all terrorist lawbreakers, but rather that this system allows for data collection to be stored until some prosecutor wants evidence at some point in time that we have broken the law - whether it's something like copyright infringement, or admitting to trespassing, or anything like that - they'll have that evidence at some point in the future.

[jem0000000.livejournal.com]

*hugs*

Every post like this raises awareness, as does the amount of news space it's gotten recently -- and that's the most important thing, I think.

[sweeny-todd.livejournal.com]

*raises a glass with you*

all well stated.. so scary :-/

[michikatinski.livejournal.com]

Love the way you write about this. With the new baby I have a really short attention span, but you had me all the way through. *high-fives*

[streetnights.livejournal.com]

Wishing you and the new baby well :)

[streetnights.livejournal.com]

Scarier still, I think, if we as a people don't do anything about it, and let it continue.

[lrig-rorrim.livejournal.com]

I don't know if it's inevitable - I just thought it was an interesting (if slightly doomed and cynical) approach to the problem, to stop trying to stem the tide of information and instead just regulate who gets to see what under what terms.

I'm really happy that Google is at least trying to live up to their "don't be evil" catch phrase by pushing to reveal more information. The more we know, the more we can make informed decisions about what's going on here.

The fact that this is now A Thing and people are becoming more aware of it and actually thinking about the implications of data collection, surveillance, and privacy makes me really happy. I hope that Snowden makes it through all of this in one piece. In my book, he's a hero.

[roina-arwen.livejournal.com]

Go Team Edward!

(Oh wait... nevermind.) ;)

[cheshire23.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the Murrow reminder.