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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?
In an open society, the only solution to protecting oneself against mass surveillance is to permit anyone who has been surveilled by the system to enter the system, on demand, and ask when , why, for how long, and for reasons one has been surveilled. The Key problem yet tobe solved (it may be unsolvable) is how to limit access to the open system by those persons who are truly a danger to society.
Mass surveillance WILL become universal, because just a few people can cause havoc -especially as those persons become more able to access deadly weapons of mass destruction. If we don't solve this problem, mass surveillance WILL be abused and used as a means of control, rather than a means of protection.
Wide spread, end to end encryption would need to be implemented. In order to do that, you need one or two major providers to start advertising that they are completely encrypted, and that the competition is just handing your data to the government. That's one hell of a marketing 2x4 that the NSA is giving away for free to the first company to wants to step up and claim it.
"The Banana Computer Corporation is proud to announce that our platform is completely encrypted from end to end, and will protect you and your loved ones from digital threats such as Eastern European Identity thieves, illegal government spying, and other data theft. And what about the other companies? They can't be bothered to protect your loved ones (shows cute little child playing ABC game on smart phone, with a superimposed image of what looks like a leering pedophile hacker Nazi rapist frantically typing to steal your data) so why give them your business? Switch to Banana Computer to protect your family today.
Its like ten million new free subscribers to the first company to encrypt and give the NSA the finger, I am puzzled why nobody is pursuing this...
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
FALSE!!! The answer is not encryption because they will simply ban encryption. The TRUE answer is YOU engaging in direct POLITICAL action to bring the laws and candidates YOU want into place. Then you can encrypt all you want forever. You can even outlaw wiretaps.
This is coming. I don't want it to come, and neither do you.
But one day, there will be such a security breach that regular people for whom monitoring happens to other people will find every phone call they've made, every email/text/IM they've sent, every street camera picture that's been taken of them, every URL they've visited, and every nude airport scan available for searching, downloading, and scrutinizing going back at least a decade.
Some will find surprisingly more.
This will hurt you, me, the super-paranoid dude with the encrypted hard drive, the boring grandma, and the powerful politician.
After the dust settles from the several million ruined marriages, the inevitable political scandals, and the rampant identity theft, things will change. For a while.
New politicians will get elected. Privacy laws will be enacted. Watchers will be appointed to watch the other watchers. Whatever government surveillance exists will go further underground. Everyone will encrypt everything.
And then people will relax and thighs will go back to some version of what we have now.