I've noticed a surprising number of people think that the spooks bugging all phone calls and all internet traffic isn't really worth worrying about. "I'm not doing bad things, so why should I care?" they commonly say. The spooks are merely interested in catching bad guys. We don't have to worry about the spooks because they are the good guys; they are trying to protect us.
There are three basic problems with this:
How do we know that the spooks are working for the good of society? Even if they are a force for good now, how do we know they will remain good? Such surveillance gives this group of people almost unlimited power, and humans have been monumentally, tragically bad at managing even small amounts of power over others. One of the most worrying things about these spooks is that there is no control structure for ensuring they don't go bad or become subverted by those who have no regard for the health of society. They are already out of control in a truly literal sense.
Under J Edgar Hoover the FBI misused its powers to blackmail people, while allowing the Mafia to flourish. In Australia Charles Spry, head of ASIO for many years, became delusional and used his power to destroy the careers of many artists, doctors, writers, and scientists. If the NSA is good why does Edward Snowden fear for his life in exposing its misdeeds? Why, after making corruption known, should Julian Assange fear the spooks of USA?
It seems doubtful that they are good.
There is an innate tendency of big corporations to want undue influence over government. If their interests and those of the general population aligned that might not be such a problem, but as big corporations become more entrenched they see technological change as a threat. They will often do whatever it takes to kill off those changes. In recent years we have many examples of this.
The entertainment industry has spent perhaps billions in a massive campaign to convince people that sharing -- one of the best human motives -- is actually a bad thing. It seemed easier to them to change the laws and criminalise vast numbers of people than to adapt their businesses to the advances in technology that made sharing very easy.
The automobile industry has had decades to adapt to changes in engineering -- lighter, stronger, cheaper composite materials; more fuel-efficient, cleaner systems; electric and hybrid power -- but they've resisted any change, even wanting handouts from the public purse to let them continue their broken ways.
The fossil fuel industry has seen that their cash-cow is running out, yet instead of ramping up production of alternative forms of energy they've worked actively against it. They've funded massive misinformation campaigns against the alternatives and against the science of climate change.
If these people gain total control over society then technological innovation and social change will inevitably be seen as a threat and we will begin a process of stagnation that will be exceedingly difficult (perhaps even impossible) to break out of. China stagnated under the absolute control of its emperors for about 2,000 years, and Europe stagnated for about 1,000 years under the absolute control of the church. It has happened before and can happen again if we are not careful.
Spooks have installed weaknesses in software in order to spy on everybody, such as the three known back doors into Microsoft Windows installed by the NSA, compromised encryption algorithms, the permanent taps on communications cables, and so on. Even if the spooks are the good guys, there are other people out there who are unambiguously bad, who are eager to steal your money, goods, and identity, and they are already exploiting such weaknesses. The weakened defenses make us more vulnerable to these unscrupulous people.
So... we have no idea if these spooks can be trusted, and worryingly, human nature indicates that they can't. Giving complete control over our society to inflexible giant corporations, increasingly cozy with government, will lead to a stagnant society. The spooks have weakened locks and made us all more vulnerable to some very bad people.
But there is a fourth danger that grows out of all three of the above:
There is a great push at the moment to lock down and censor the internet. The corrupt entertainment industry is leading that charge, but the spooks are greatly in favor of it too. If they succeed then our greatest promoter of progress and freedom will be lost. The big corporations will regulate change. And we all saw what they did with television. When introduced, TV was lauded as having almost unlimited potential for education and promotion of social good, but the big corporations who grew fat on it have, over the years, dumbed it down and used it for propaganda and as an opiate. Very recently Rupert Murdoch saw the beginning of a national project to connect all Australian homes with high-speed optical fibre as a threat to his empire. He indulged in an unprecedentedly dirty campaign using his majority control of Australian media to sway the recent election so that the pliable Abbott-led government won office -- they are committed to ensuring the internet doesn't compete with Murdoch's empire. Abbott is even investigating ways to make it illegal to protest about such things.
Censorship of the internet is the first step to gaining complete corporate control over it. At that point the quality will begin to drop. Variety will start to disappear because if you want anything to improve you will be cut off. It will be like commercial television on steroids. We will be fed expensive mind-numbing pap. Independent producers of content will become increasingly scarce as the costs of production will be forced up so that only the corporations will be able to afford it. This is what happened with television and radio, which began as very democratic technologies, but all the small transmitters were either bought up or squeezed out by restrictive laws made in the big players' interests.
As I've noted here before, I'm not completely opposed to spook organisations. They are capable of doing some great good for society. The danger comes from secrecy. As open-source development has shown, removing secrecy actually enhances security. This seems odd only because we are so used to the false notion that secrets keep things secure. If spook organisations opened themselves to public scrutiny they would become worthy of trust because such openness would prevent misuse of their powers. Also their wonderful work of compiling information would suddenly become far more useful to society as we could all benefit from it. At the moment we don't know if criminal organisations have burrowed into spook organisations; there is no way to tell because they are beyond view or control. Openness would make it easy for all to see and would remove any advantage to criminals. There are some covert operations which will not be possible in an open spook organisation, but the value of them must be questionable if they must be be conducted in secret, and they certainly are not worth risking all of society for.
If these organisations are truly patriotic and honestly wish to safeguard society then they will open themselves up to their people.
(Crossposted from http://miriam-e.dreamwidth.org/316801.html at my Dreamwidth account. Number of comments there so far:![comment count unavailable]()
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There are three basic problems with this:
Are they good?
How do we know that the spooks are working for the good of society? Even if they are a force for good now, how do we know they will remain good? Such surveillance gives this group of people almost unlimited power, and humans have been monumentally, tragically bad at managing even small amounts of power over others. One of the most worrying things about these spooks is that there is no control structure for ensuring they don't go bad or become subverted by those who have no regard for the health of society. They are already out of control in a truly literal sense.
Under J Edgar Hoover the FBI misused its powers to blackmail people, while allowing the Mafia to flourish. In Australia Charles Spry, head of ASIO for many years, became delusional and used his power to destroy the careers of many artists, doctors, writers, and scientists. If the NSA is good why does Edward Snowden fear for his life in exposing its misdeeds? Why, after making corruption known, should Julian Assange fear the spooks of USA?
It seems doubtful that they are good.
Change seen as threat
There is an innate tendency of big corporations to want undue influence over government. If their interests and those of the general population aligned that might not be such a problem, but as big corporations become more entrenched they see technological change as a threat. They will often do whatever it takes to kill off those changes. In recent years we have many examples of this.
The entertainment industry has spent perhaps billions in a massive campaign to convince people that sharing -- one of the best human motives -- is actually a bad thing. It seemed easier to them to change the laws and criminalise vast numbers of people than to adapt their businesses to the advances in technology that made sharing very easy.
The automobile industry has had decades to adapt to changes in engineering -- lighter, stronger, cheaper composite materials; more fuel-efficient, cleaner systems; electric and hybrid power -- but they've resisted any change, even wanting handouts from the public purse to let them continue their broken ways.
The fossil fuel industry has seen that their cash-cow is running out, yet instead of ramping up production of alternative forms of energy they've worked actively against it. They've funded massive misinformation campaigns against the alternatives and against the science of climate change.
If these people gain total control over society then technological innovation and social change will inevitably be seen as a threat and we will begin a process of stagnation that will be exceedingly difficult (perhaps even impossible) to break out of. China stagnated under the absolute control of its emperors for about 2,000 years, and Europe stagnated for about 1,000 years under the absolute control of the church. It has happened before and can happen again if we are not careful.
Weak locks are an invitation to bad guys
Spooks have installed weaknesses in software in order to spy on everybody, such as the three known back doors into Microsoft Windows installed by the NSA, compromised encryption algorithms, the permanent taps on communications cables, and so on. Even if the spooks are the good guys, there are other people out there who are unambiguously bad, who are eager to steal your money, goods, and identity, and they are already exploiting such weaknesses. The weakened defenses make us more vulnerable to these unscrupulous people.
So... we have no idea if these spooks can be trusted, and worryingly, human nature indicates that they can't. Giving complete control over our society to inflexible giant corporations, increasingly cozy with government, will lead to a stagnant society. The spooks have weakened locks and made us all more vulnerable to some very bad people.
But there is a fourth danger that grows out of all three of the above:
Censoring the internet
There is a great push at the moment to lock down and censor the internet. The corrupt entertainment industry is leading that charge, but the spooks are greatly in favor of it too. If they succeed then our greatest promoter of progress and freedom will be lost. The big corporations will regulate change. And we all saw what they did with television. When introduced, TV was lauded as having almost unlimited potential for education and promotion of social good, but the big corporations who grew fat on it have, over the years, dumbed it down and used it for propaganda and as an opiate. Very recently Rupert Murdoch saw the beginning of a national project to connect all Australian homes with high-speed optical fibre as a threat to his empire. He indulged in an unprecedentedly dirty campaign using his majority control of Australian media to sway the recent election so that the pliable Abbott-led government won office -- they are committed to ensuring the internet doesn't compete with Murdoch's empire. Abbott is even investigating ways to make it illegal to protest about such things.
Censorship of the internet is the first step to gaining complete corporate control over it. At that point the quality will begin to drop. Variety will start to disappear because if you want anything to improve you will be cut off. It will be like commercial television on steroids. We will be fed expensive mind-numbing pap. Independent producers of content will become increasingly scarce as the costs of production will be forced up so that only the corporations will be able to afford it. This is what happened with television and radio, which began as very democratic technologies, but all the small transmitters were either bought up or squeezed out by restrictive laws made in the big players' interests.
But spooks can work for the good
As I've noted here before, I'm not completely opposed to spook organisations. They are capable of doing some great good for society. The danger comes from secrecy. As open-source development has shown, removing secrecy actually enhances security. This seems odd only because we are so used to the false notion that secrets keep things secure. If spook organisations opened themselves to public scrutiny they would become worthy of trust because such openness would prevent misuse of their powers. Also their wonderful work of compiling information would suddenly become far more useful to society as we could all benefit from it. At the moment we don't know if criminal organisations have burrowed into spook organisations; there is no way to tell because they are beyond view or control. Openness would make it easy for all to see and would remove any advantage to criminals. There are some covert operations which will not be possible in an open spook organisation, but the value of them must be questionable if they must be be conducted in secret, and they certainly are not worth risking all of society for.
If these organisations are truly patriotic and honestly wish to safeguard society then they will open themselves up to their people.
(Crossposted from http://miriam-e.dreamwidth.org/316801.html at my Dreamwidth account. Number of comments there so far: