By: Dega Gebre
The amount of government interest in our everyday lives is alarming. The methods of which are in use to monitor one’s every move is even more astonishing, especially when one takes into account the rate at which they do it. Unfortunately, you cannot take a restraining order out on the government as you could a stalker, and this lack of restraint exercised by the government is utterly despicable in my view. In this recent article I read, the FBI is urging companies such as Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo, and Google to not oppose a law that would require them to “build in back doors for government surveillance.” The legislative bill would require the firms to ensure that “their products are wiretap-friendly.” So, not only is the government already an extremely intrusive entity, bypassing the U.S. Constitution on a regular basis and infringing on our right to privacy in clandestine ways not known to the majority of the population, but they are now trying to make it U.S. law for large information corporations to make their systems wiretap-friendly; all to perpetuate this illegal accumulation of our private information.
To find this appalling would be an understatement, for not only are they illegally gathering our information, but they are now trying to make it a law for corporations to make it easier for them to conduct their illegal business. I usually don’t look at the government as a criminal entity, but I wouldn’t say it would be a stretch to label them as a group that engages in criminal activity, as defined by law.
The overarching umbrella for this class, up to this point so far, seems to be the government’s use of technology to monitor people’s every move. The world around us today is filled with cameras and various recording devices to monitor every move made by every person. This conglomeration of information is vast, ranging from internet surveillance to cameras in stores and to the swipe of your credit cards. All this information get’s recorded, stored, analyzed and dated. Super computer algorithms are currently being used to pretty much predict what you’ll do before you even do it. In a second article I read, I picked up on the fact that there is now a company that utilizes information from all surveillance cameras all around the U.S. This company is comprised of former officials from the C.I.A, NSA, FBI and other government surveillance agencies who all work together to analyze information available from surveillance cameras. By using facial recognition software, these officials tap into all cameras and monitor your every move. So whether you’re at a community park watching your child play, or shopping at a mall, or sitting on your laptop, just know that you are being watched.
Surveillance, as we know, has its pros and cons. 20 years ago, you could go about your day and perform your normal routine, without having to worry about your every move. Nowadays, you must watch your every move, for in the next 20 years, the proliferation of garnering data to monitor people is going to reach levels we never would have imagined. These two articles introduced me to a whole new perspective on surveillance. Not so much that surveillance is happening on an enormous scale, but rather the injustices that are being committed on an even larger scale. Why is it when the founder of Wikileaks releases information pertinent to our everyday lives for free, he gets thrown in jail, but Mark Zuckerberg collects our information, sometimes illegally, on a massive scale and sells it for profit, and wins Time’s Person of the Year award? Why has society allowed such and evolution to occur? This dichotomy that exists is eventually going to be the downfall of our nation. The destruction of the Constitution is so blatant, so obvious, that eventually we will be living in a police state
Interesting overview focusing on state surveillance and its interface with social media. When you say the government is involved in this process "illegally" I am not sure what you mean? Get the ethical side, but not the claim of its illegality. Professor Musheno
ReplyDelete"Unfortunately, you cannot take a restraining order out on the government as you could a stalker, and this lack of restraint exercised by the government is utterly despicable in my view."
ReplyDeleteI also find it incredibly ironic and despicable that the government can do legitimately what they would punish a private individual for doing.
"20 years ago, you could go about your day and perform your normal routine, without having to worry about your every move. Nowadays, you must watch your every move, for in the next 20 years, the proliferation of garnering data to monitor people is going to reach levels we never would have imagined."
Election muckraking is going to get exponentially easier in the coming years. Anyone interested in a career in politics is going to have to have the cleanest, most inculpable record imaginable. Even then, that tactic will probably raise suspicions. Perhaps, with more surveillance on such individuals, people will be forced into a position of acceptance of candidate's own humanity and not freak out over the trivial yet socially taboo occurrences in their past (that we're all probably guilty of), like whether or not they smoked weed in college.
I would have to agree with your overall stance on the double standard that is used between "despicable" actions by private individuals and the government. I think that it will definitely be interesting to see how surveillance progresses as technology continues to advance. I wonder if gangs/criminals might start purchasing surveillance equipment as well to gather info on police activities, etc. The bottom line is that the average person will have to be much more aware of the consequences of their actions.
ReplyDeleteGreat piece Dega. It is disconcerting to discover what the government is capable of doing with the unlimited power it possesses. In an article I read about government surveillance, it requested over 21,000 requests for data from Google for over 33,000 users. It is scary to even ponder what they are going to use this information for and at what lengths they will go to get what they want. We just have to be more careful now with what we do online and in the streets.
ReplyDelete- Andres Diaz
Interesting blog post and good job relating it back to key concepts we've discussed in class. I would have to disagree with your stance that what many government entities are doing are completely illegal. I think it's more of a gray area, and can be related to what the FBI and other entities are saying about a gap between law and advances in technology. I also don't believe that making these websites more compatible for state entities to extract information is necessarily a bad thing; it can be used to the benefit of public safety. However, I do recognize the potential infringements on personal privacy.
ReplyDeleteI think this leads us back to keeping the law updated and compatible with the current state of technology. Can lawmakers reach a compromise that updates law-enforcement's ability to be more efficient with their investigations, while ensuring the practice is regulated and rights are not infringed?
Very interesting post. I also found the statement that you can get a restraining order against a stalker but not from the government to be very compelling. I am just wondering if Facebook or the other corporations opposed the privacy law and allowed the government that type of access, would tell their users of this change? If so, I think this will have a large impact on the amount of users as the number would decrease to avoid getting into any trouble. I know I myself would question using these social networks knowing that my privacy was being that intruded upon.
ReplyDeleteInteresting topic Dega. I agree with your thoughts of the government finding ways to “secretly” pass laws to make large information corporations “make their systems wire-tap friendly. “ This is disturbing. What makes it more disturbing is that the government is doing this secretly and if it wasn’t for your blog post, I would know nothing about this. “Why is it when the founder of Wikileaks releases information pertinent to our everyday lives for free, he gets thrown in jail, but Mark Zuckerberg collects our information, sometimes illegally, on a massive scale and sells it for profit, and wins Time’s Person of the Year award?” I too question this and feel that the government plays a role on why this is show and with the media’s help the truth gets distorted.
ReplyDelete-Maria T. Perez
This is interesting... I had thought the government could already have access to facebook and emails though? Maybe this is just if somebody is committing a terrorist act or a murder? It is scary to think that even if something like a message or email is claimed to be private or between two people, in reality it can be government information and used against us
ReplyDeleteJessica Crume
I wish I could say that this is something new...its not. I like your take an applaud your passion but the govt has always found a back door. I guess I don't find it anymore alarming than google, Yahoo, etc doing it themselves. I would also go a little further to say that the overarching themes also include how big corporations are the biggest things to fear. At least with government surveillance we have the right to challenge it with private corporations we have learned that many of our constitutional rights have no purpose in the privacy arena. I am most curious to find out what a partnership would mean for its users and if a partnership may be a better way to go. don't get me wrong I don't like the government being able to track our movements over the internet but then again who isn't? Should we focus on "big government" and there overly shared secrets of tapping or concentrate on building some accountability into these corporations we know very little about.
ReplyDeleteThis is honestly not too surprising to me. Maybe this attitude of acceptance is why not many things are being done to inhibit these moves by the government. As mentioned by someone above, I have also believed that the government has already had this power for some time. We might not know about it, but there might be much more advanced systems already functioning or being developed.
ReplyDeleteWhile there are certain issues at hand, this system also has the potential to do a lot of good. It is a great power and, to be a bit cliche, with great power comes a great responsibility to use it well.