Posts Tagged ‘surveillance’

Surveillance State Protects the Status Quo

Tuesday, August 30th, 2011

Monday’s analysis of Glenn Greenwald’s poignant think piece noted how the money-wasting domestic spying and security system we’ve been creating is used not to prevent terrorism, but rather, to stifle dissent and keep protesters under wraps.

Following on that note, today Sarah Jaffe added her voice to the growing list of names – many of whom she quotes in her article – who feel the surveillance state is being used to protect the interests of the ultra-rich.

“As a global protest movement rises and spreads within the US,” writes Jaffe, “expect surveillance tactics honed in the ‘war on terror’ to be used in the defense of wealth.”

Have no doubt – the powers that be are trying to set up some sort of big brother network. Many of the people involved don’t see the real threat it poses. But some of them do, because they plan to use this growing police state to try and stop the great social revolution which has already begun.

But humanity WILL NOT be so easily enslaved. Resourceful and clever, humans will always find ways to beat the system. The more the ruling powers try to crack down, the more people will be drawn together.

Things might get scary as this global struggle comes to a head. But when all is said and done, a democratic and prosperous world of peace will be in our hands.

Pulling Back the Patriot Act

Thursday, May 26th, 2011

Is the US Government spying on its own population? Yes. Absolutely.

The question is not longer “Does the US spy on its citizenry”, but rather “To what depths can America’s surveillance system reach into the daily lives of the people?”

And the chilling answer, says Senator Ron Wyden, is way more than most people think.

“We’re getting to a gap between what the public thinks the law says and what the American government secretly thinks the law says,” describes Wyden “When you’ve got that kind of a gap, you’re going to have a problem on your hands.”

Not enough American’s are aware of how integrated their surveillance state has become, and fewer still even perceive government spying as a threat. The end result of this is that too much power concentrates into too few hands, leading to a political system that runs more like a dictatorship than a democracy.

So what does the US government do already, using different interpretations of information gathering bills like the Patriot Act?

  • They can grab a cellphone company’s phone records, giving access to driver’s license records, hotel records, car-rental records, apartment-leasing records, credit card records, and the like.
  • They can perform a “bulk collection” operation, pulling in massive amounts of information on private citizens, including implementing an internet dragnet.
  • They can even use geolocation data from cellphones to collect information on the whereabouts of Americans.

Of course, some have postulated they’ve been doing this for years. The Patriot Act only sought to make legal what the US Gov’t was doing anyway.

This begs the question, if America has long been spying on its own population without legal authority, then why even bother repealing the Patriot Act?

Well, it’s about swinging the pendulum back towards the side of freedom. If Americans can at least make it unlawful for their government to invade such depths of personal privacy, they will have some recourse to hold the violators accountable.

Otherwise, the more-surveillance-is-always-better mindset will keep pushing the envelope, eroding more civil liberties until the only thing left to protect is the surveillance state itself.

 

Little Brother – Mandatory Police Surveillance

Sunday, April 25th, 2010

“Big Brother” is the name given to the totalitarian regime’s control network in George Orwell’s brilliant book 1984. Now, we tend to use the term Big Brother whenever the government spies on civilians, be it via camera’s on every corner, illegal wire-taps, or monitoring every single online activity.

The shift towards a police state – a surveillance state – has been a trend with no signs of slowing down. More restrictions on our freedoms, countless invasions of our privacy, and an ever present erosion of our civil liberties.

What we need, to help counter-balance Big Brother, is a way to police the police… a way to hold the members of law enforcement accountable for their actions. What we need is a way to monitor the police, and in effect, ‘tattle’ on them if the need be. Yes, we need a Little Brother.

Imagine if any police officer who is on duty and interacting with the public had to wear mandatory surveillance equipment to record and monitor their actions. A camera and microphone to capture the video and audio from their entire day’s work, with the results being put on a public web-site, unedited, available for all to see.

Take a look at this video, showing riot police beating an unarmed student.

If we had access to what these officers were able to see and hear, perhaps their actions may have been justified. Probably not, since two of them were suspended for this incident. Which brings forth the point… what if there wasn’t a bystander with a camera? These officers would have got away with their abuse of power.

By enabling an effective way for the public to police the police, the actions of the individual officers will change because they know they are no longer above scrutiny, no longer able to abuse their positions of power. They will, because Little Brother is watching, effectively police themselves.

Of course, an idea like this would be met with considerable opposition. Who would want to be monitored all day long by the public… no one, really. But the members of law enforcement are civil servants. Their actions should be representative of what we expect them to be. They are employees of the state, hired to serve and protect the public. We are their bosses, and they should, ultimately, report to the public. It is time to take back the power which is rightfully ours.

Now, the cost of something like this is probably not quite feasible, but technology is continuing to come down in price, and pretty soon it will be entirely possible to monitor all of the police. It is really just a matter of generating enough public will to make it happen. It is time to get the wheels of motion now, so that when the technology is cheap enough, we can put the plan into action.

Extenuating circumstances will need be considered, for cases when police are working undercover, or when revealing their actions or location could put their lives at risk. But for the most part, as undesirable as it may seem to those in law enforcement, we need a monitoring system like this in place to keep their power in check.

Ultimately, it would be nice to see a higher level of transparency permeate throughout all of our government bodies. The government should be afraid of the people… not the other way around, and Little Brother might just be the way in which we make this dream a reality.