The US’s Stance on Surveillance Needs a Hard Reset

Without comprehensively putting extreme restrictions on what people can put online, there is only ever going to be an exponentially growing trove of data to mine that reveals implications far removed from whatever whoever made it available intended to communicate.

While it may be possible to significantly cut back the amount of surveillance done on communications intended to be private, I think people need to accept that the automation of surveillance and of inferring likely connections from it are developments which irreversibly change how society functions going forward.

What's more, technology has a very persistent tendency to become accessible to more people over time. I have yet to see any reasons this wouldn't be true specifically in the case of automated surveillance. Remember the story about someone trying facial recognition to tie pictures of strangers on the subway to VKontakte profiles? That's just a small taste of the implications.

I think it's realistically possible to push back a large portion of the surveillance that invades private communications, likely by technological means more often than legal ones. And I think the article highlights that possibility, especially at a time when distrust in government is reaching a peak in America and elsewhere. That said, I'm waiting for the Pandora's box of wide access to powerful surveillance tools using publicly available information to be seen for what it is.

It seems inevitable to me that the same generation that willingly hands over all their personal information to Google and Facebook, and sees government mostly as a positive force for enforcing civil rights and increasing social equality will embrace the expansion of the surveillance state.

The linked site is a PARODY. There is no such thing as the Domestic Surveillance Directorate, that would be the FBI. How the author of this article fell for that, I don't know.

[1] https://nsa.gov1.info/data/

This isn't unique to the generation you talk about.

The only way to make them change their minds is if a lot of them become targets of the control apparatus and in liberal democracies that never happens. Democrats are afraid that Republicans are going to use the apparatus on them and vice versa. No one cares about the rule of law.

In fact privilege has nothing to do with your actions, it has to do with who you are in relation to the government and those in power. Privilege can't really be taken away by new laws. Privilege can't even be given by new laws. Because the laws don't apply to those with privilege. It's possible to get privilege by doing what those in power want you to do and that's mostly act as they want you to act on their terms. Privilege is about power and control. It's nothing to be guilty about, because it's not something you did. It was something that was done for you.