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Noam Chomsky: A Surveillance State Beyond Imagination Is Being Created

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Re: Noam Chomsky: A Surveillance State Beyond Imagination Is Being Created

#41

Post by rayiner »

alexeisadeski3 wrote: post #22
rayiner wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can agree with the precepts of the Constitution and justify certain kinds of surveillance. Even if you think the NSA surveillance is unconstitutional, you have to concede that "privacy" is not a well-defined constitutional value. The framers spent many pages in the Federalist talking about the ins and outs of various voting systems, but never articulated a broader concept of privacy. The 4th amendment is based fu…

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

Key word: "their." The lynchpin or a lot of the surveillance efforts is accessing information that doesn't belong to the target of the surveillance. Phone call metadata is generated by the phone company, stored in the phone company's computers, and is used for the phone company's business purposes. Its the phone company's data, not yours. Same thing with the data Google and Facebook collect about where you go on the internet. You didn't generate it and you can't even access it. How can you say its "yours?" Its "about you" but that's totally different. If your neighbor keeps a diary tracking your comings and goings, you can't assert 4th amendment protection over that data.

Privacy advocates talk about "metadata is data" as if the government's lawyers don't understand that bits are just bits. What privacy advocates don't understand is that the "metadata" distinction is about generation, ownership, and control, which are implicated in the 4th amendment by the word "their."

Re: Noam Chomsky: A Surveillance State Beyond Imagination Is Being Created

#42

Post by rayiner »

e40 wrote: post #19
netcan wrote: post #9

It's interesting to me how my perspective is changing on these issues as years go by and I have time to think about it. One troublesome point is the role democracy is playing in all this. This harks back to some earlier Chomsky ideas about "Manufacturing Consent." From my (removed, I am not American) perspective, it seems ridiculously obvious that terrorism is not anywhere near a big enough threat to justify the coun…

terrorism is not anywhere near a big enough threat to justify the counter measures, loss of privacy , freedom and the threat of a scary totalitarian future To put it into perspective, more people die walking across roads in the US every year than died from terrorism in 2001. Most years other than 2001, the difference between them is staggering. Yet, you would be hard pressed to find anyone that we should take drastic…

Comparing death tolls is a facetious argument. DC ground to a halt during the sniper's shootings even though he killed just a handful of people. The whole point of terrorism is the psychological impact.

Also, cars kill twice as many people as murderers each year. If we ignore the difference between accidents and malicious acts, and the deterrent effect involved, you can probably make a case that its not worthwhile to enforce criminal laws at all.

Re: Noam Chomsky: A Surveillance State Beyond Imagination Is Being Created

#43

Post by e3pi »

hga wrote: post #25
ianstallings wrote: post #16

I wouldn't say it's beyond imagination. Science-fiction authors have been predicting this for years.

Decades. The first pervasive surveillance state story I can remember reading, of the sort that's nominally free, we're not talking Nineteen Eighty Four , was "The Hunting Lodge", a 1954 short story by Randall Garrett (collected in the great 1968 Men and Machines , edited by Robert Silverberg).

"The Hunting Lodge", a 1954 short story by Randall Garrett:

http://bookre.org/reader?file=230833

Re: Noam Chomsky: A Surveillance State Beyond Imagination Is Being Created

#45

Post by vidarh »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #20

I'm not a Chomsky fan, but I agree with at least the premise and the beginning of this essay. As usual, he wanders far afield in trying to find the roots of the problem, digging up what probably was a huge moment for him personally -- the academic opposition to Reagan -- but wasn't really that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. (It worries me that people seem to understand why the surveillance state is bad,…

> The NSA is the good guys

Really. From my perspective they are criminal scum. Then again, I'm not American.

> So kudos to Chomsky for jumping on the badwagon.

Chomsky has been "on the bandwagon" for decades.

Re: Noam Chomsky: A Surveillance State Beyond Imagination Is Being Created

#46

Post by Joeri »

netcan wrote: post #9

It's interesting to me how my perspective is changing on these issues as years go by and I have time to think about it. One troublesome point is the role democracy is playing in all this. This harks back to some earlier Chomsky ideas about "Manufacturing Consent." From my (removed, I am not American) perspective, it seems ridiculously obvious that terrorism is not anywhere near a big enough threat to justify the coun…

Technology enlarges the consequences of moral choices, but it does not carry an inherent morality. Whatever values you carry into the technology landscape are what you get out of it. Digitisation is not the cause of the surveillance state, it's the enabler.

The problem is that we're trying to use 18th century values and moral systems to deal with 21st century technology. We need to develop a system of morality adequate for the job, because unless society tears itself apart technology is only going to expand, and the gap between our moral toolbox and the job we need it for is only going to grow.

Re: Noam Chomsky: A Surveillance State Beyond Imagination Is Being Created

#47

Post by vidarh »

mpyne wrote: post #40
mikeash wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I strongly disagree that the NSA is a good guy. Yes, foreign intelligence organizations no doubt get up to the same stuff. But they're basically supposed to. The NSA, however, is supposed to defend this country, and to me an inherent part of that is preserving freedom. Instead they are doing the opposite, destroying American freedom in the name of American national security, essentially the national equivalent of sma…

> I strongly disagree that the NSA is a good guy. Somewhat ironically IMO, Snowden himself seems to hold the NSA in higher esteem than HN does. You guys all try to find ways to vilify the lowest-level tech working at Ft. Meade while Snowden complains in his interview that those same techs just trying to do the right thing "have been given a bad rap".

They may be "trying to do the right thing". But they are still working for the NSA. You'll find plenty of people in almost every organization - no matter how vile - that are just "trying to do the right thing".

Re: Noam Chomsky: A Surveillance State Beyond Imagination Is Being Created

#48

Post by foobarqux »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #20

I'm not a Chomsky fan, but I agree with at least the premise and the beginning of this essay. As usual, he wanders far afield in trying to find the roots of the problem, digging up what probably was a huge moment for him personally -- the academic opposition to Reagan -- but wasn't really that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. (It worries me that people seem to understand why the surveillance state is bad,…

I look pretty hard for good criticism of Chomsky. What's yours?

Re: Noam Chomsky: A Surveillance State Beyond Imagination Is Being Created

#49

Post by tritium »

BugBrother wrote: post #31
mikeash wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I strongly disagree that the NSA is a good guy. Yes, foreign intelligence organizations no doubt get up to the same stuff. But they're basically supposed to. The NSA, however, is supposed to defend this country, and to me an inherent part of that is preserving freedom. Instead they are doing the opposite, destroying American freedom in the name of American national security, essentially the national equivalent of sma…

This is a minor problem now, but it will get much worse if you consider technical development. Every individual gets more and more power and capabilities with time. In not too many decades, hackers will be able to design bacteria for hobby at home, even if they probably will send for a lab to synthesize the DNA etc. Now, it is still quite expensive to make artificial life. Consider North Korea and the possibility of…

How can we be sure that someone on the other side of the apparatus won't use their position as a means towards necessary training and equipment, and as an opportunity to act with authority above suspicion, to engineer this supposed killer virus that destroys us all?

What if they become the problem we tasked them with preventing?

Re: Noam Chomsky: A Surveillance State Beyond Imagination Is Being Created

#50

Post by netcan »

Joeri wrote: post #46
netcan wrote: post #9

It's interesting to me how my perspective is changing on these issues as years go by and I have time to think about it. One troublesome point is the role democracy is playing in all this. This harks back to some earlier Chomsky ideas about "Manufacturing Consent." From my (removed, I am not American) perspective, it seems ridiculously obvious that terrorism is not anywhere near a big enough threat to justify the coun…

Technology enlarges the consequences of moral choices, but it does not carry an inherent morality. Whatever values you carry into the technology landscape are what you get out of it. Digitisation is not the cause of the surveillance state, it's the enabler. The problem is that we're trying to use 18th century values and moral systems to deal with 21st century technology. We need to develop a system of morality adequa…

I don't think you're right. I think digitisation is not the cause of the surveillance state, at least by default. That is, regardless of who are the prime ministers, presidents and such of the era, the surveillance state was coming.

It's not unstoppable, but I think it will need to become the no. 1 issue for a long time.

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