Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: What Will It Take To End Mass Surveillance?
Nicola Hahn writes: Both the White House and the U.S. Intelligence Community have recently announced reforms to surveillance programs sanctioned under Section 215 of the Patriot Act and Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. But do these reforms represent significant restructuring or are they just bureaucratic gestures intended to create the perception that officials are responding to public pressure?
The Executive's own Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board has written up an assessment (PDF) of reform measures implemented by the government. For those who want a quick summary the Board published a fact sheet (PDF) which includes a table listing recommendations made by the board almost a year ago and corresponding reforms. The fact sheet reveals that the Board's mandate to "end the NSA's bulk telephone records program" has not been implemented.
In other words, the physical infrastructure of the NSA's global panopticon is still in place. In fact, it's growing larger (PDF). So despite all of the press statements and associated media buzz very little has changed. There are people who view this as an unsettling indication of where society is headed. Ed Snowden claimed that he wanted to "trigger" a debate, but is that really enough? What will it take to tear down Big Brother?
The Executive's own Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board has written up an assessment (PDF) of reform measures implemented by the government. For those who want a quick summary the Board published a fact sheet (PDF) which includes a table listing recommendations made by the board almost a year ago and corresponding reforms. The fact sheet reveals that the Board's mandate to "end the NSA's bulk telephone records program" has not been implemented.
In other words, the physical infrastructure of the NSA's global panopticon is still in place. In fact, it's growing larger (PDF). So despite all of the press statements and associated media buzz very little has changed. There are people who view this as an unsettling indication of where society is headed. Ed Snowden claimed that he wanted to "trigger" a debate, but is that really enough? What will it take to tear down Big Brother?
An all out revolt is probably the only way this will change at this point. Society has been on a downward spiral for a while now. Historically the only way to recover was lots of bloodshed. People in power never want to relinquish power or money, which is essence is what the mass surveillance is all about. Squashing descent, getting a leg up on any one selling things you want to sell, putting competition out of business, etc..
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
It would take a swing in public opinion such that the people overwhelmingly demand that it be dismantled (and vote accordingly).
Of course, that would require that the public is willing to accept that some acts of terrorism will probably occur that might (at least theoretically) have been prevented via mass surveillance.
Given that, I'm guessing it isn't too likely. (and even if it was dismantled, it would all be brought back by popular demand shortly after the next Very Bad Thing happened)
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
The ONE think they fear is effective encryption.
It is a sad situation, because that will also get in the way of legitimate (and yes, it can exist) investigation, however that is the arms race they are forcing you in to.
NOT encryption-when-you-have-something-to-hide, but encryption of EVERYTHING, as standard operating principle.
Right now exception is a nice bold flag to them that you should be monitored, however if even 20% of the population are regularly using it, that no longer works.
We are starting to see some very small movements in the encryption systems to escape from the over-complex not interoperable situation they let themselves
be pushed in to, and THAT is a big part of the problem, but some people now get it, and in a few years we may well have a much better choice in the area of
easy to use, interoperable, and open enough to be trustable encryption systems... and then the monitoring will work much less.
They will of course still see who is 'communicating' with who for some forms of link, that will be the next step.. protect the content first.
Like many things, the governments stupidity is going to make sensible law enforcement more difficult.
Go USA! and all that.. sigh.
Eh, surveillance is a problem only because it creates an imbalance of power between the people who have information and those who do not. There are a few approaches that could create some sort of balance.
1. Full transparency. With enough technological progress, eventually everyone will have universal access to essentially a God's eye view of everything that ever happens. Anyone would be able to reconstruct and playback a 3D model of any past event, perhaps even including the neural impulses in your brain and interpret your thoughts. This makes it impossible to lie or conceal things, and you can see everyone's actions and decisions simply as manifestations of their life's experiences.
2. Legislated opacity. Everyone is guaranteed the right to privacy. But no one knows if anyone is secretly spying. Unless we secretly spy on them. If we openly spy on those in power, they'll just figure out how to hide their spying better. So maybe we need two competing government agencies always spying on each other, ready to go to the press if they find some misconduct on the other side. Oh wait, that sorta sounds like what we have.
So if there's any mass surveillance that goes on, we ought to make sure it applies to those holding power in public office first. But if we really manage to achieve that, we'll see them legislating surveillance out immediately.
An all out revolt is probably the only way this will change at this point. Society has been on a downward spiral for a while now. Historically the only way to recover was lots of bloodshed. People in power never want to relinquish power or money, which is essence is what the mass surveillance is all about. Squashing descent, getting a leg up on any one selling things you want to sell, putting competition out of business, etc..
Its easy to paint the situation as the masses being dominated by the people in power but the truth is that a revolt is unlikely to work for the simple reason that the average person really isn't just a passive observer; they really want much of what they claim they don't want. In terms of the specifics, its easy to claim that one doesn't want mass surveillance but that's just a symptom of a more fundamental truth. The truth is that given the choice presented to the people in power, most people would choose the same thing: namely given a choice between using every means at one's disposal to stop terrorism or not, most people would in fact choose to use every means at one's disposal, even if it infringed on personal freedom.
And the reason why a revolt is unlikely is the same reason why the Occupy Movement didn't generate lasting results in the same way many other movements did. Revolutions require people willing to do whatever it takes to achieve a result, often without the kinds of compromise that people normally engage in. A revolution to stop people from doing whatever it takes to achieve a goal is difficult to achieve when backed only by people unwilling to do whatever it takes to achieve that goal.
George Washington famously assumed enormous military, and thus political power when he became the leader of the Continental Army, and his hands were not entirely clean when wielding it. But without him, there probably is no revolution that survives. When the war was over he surrendered that power by resigning his commission. The number of people both willing and able to exercise such vast power to achieve an end which results in surrendering that power entirely (even if only temporarily) is exceedingly small. Most people willing to do the latter have no capacity to do the former and vice versa.
To put it another way, what you need is a leader willing to say "I would rather see Americans die than surrender their freedom" that is also so popular he isn't immediately driven out of the country by pitchforks the next day, and can convince the average American (or for that matter any other citizen of any other country) to accept those values. Until such a person arrives, all revolutions to change the situation will fail, because none will genuinely have the support of the people.
Someone will probably come along and say that's a false choice, but that's missing the point. The point is that is the general perception: you either have the values that say "do everything you possibly can, pushing the envelope as far as you can" or you don't. If you don't, someone will always come along and say they would do more, and they would be correct, and because there's no way to prove it with certainty you'd always take the blame for the next person killed. That's just reality. You did everything possible, or you didn't. Leaders don't want to say they didn't, and citizens don't want excuses for why they didn't. That needs to change somehow, but most people I think don't really want that to change, deep down.
As I read it, things usually get better during long periods of difficult reform, but worse after a revolution. Sometimes when the balance between big powers changes there are opportunities for small nations to reassert their independence from an external tyrant, but that isn't a revolution in the same sense.
The 1917 Russian revolution would be an example of things getting worse after a revolution. The French revolution results were more mixed, but some things got a lot worse for a while, and its debatable how much the revolution itself really helped. The 1989 Polish revolution would be an example of escaping from an external oppressor, where things got better because the society was already capable of supporting a much better order than had been imposed from without.
The problem with revolutions, is that the a corrupt society is usually corrupt at more than just the top level - the people who abuse power at the top are able to do that in large part because of the corruption of those below them. When they are overthrown violently, even worse elements are commonly able to take advantage of the breakdown in civil institutions.
I'm not defending the people at the top - I hate the 1%. And I'm not against violence where it makes sense. But if people had what it takes to make things better after overthrowing their moneyed overlords violently, in most places they have what it takes to do it better without the violence. We have a lot of power already. If we don't use it because we're lazy or busy or brainwashed, a revolution isn't going to help with that.
Nice in theory. Not so much in practice. With crypto, the devil's in the details. Here are just a few of the hard problems:
If it were easy to do it properly, end-to-end crypto would be ubiquitous.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.