Somebody's WATCHING YOU

... Never before have government agencies and private companies so closely monitored and recorded the behavior of American citizens.

Never before has the technology existed to track so precisely where people go, what they're doing and who they're with.

And just because you can't see them doesn't mean they're not watching you ...

http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20060604/1039193.asp

<long, not very technical discussion of the myriad ways personal data is collected today>

Made in the late 90's, it's pretty concise today.

http://www.davidbrin.com/tschp1.html

I think he may be right, but I'm not ready to go there yet. Of course, people have it in their own hands to, if not ensure their privacy, at least make the job of the spymasters a little to a lot harder. Since obviously we can't depend on our government to protect our 4th Amendment rights.

But --

(1) The technology is not neutral. It is always controlled by some class of people, and whoever controls it will control it for their own interests: they may be unwilling or unable to admit to themselves the selfish motives that drive their control, so their propaganda about their altruism and neutrality may not be deliberately deceitful, but it will still be deceitful. Every conceivable abuse, that one may imagine, from such a technological society, will occur and recur; the scale of the abuse depends on how well-organized, well-informed, and empowered the population is. And when I say every conceivable abuse will occur, I mean that corrupt officials will use this technology to stalk people sexually and to harrass their personal or political enemies; I mean that the technology will enable all manner of fraud; and so on.

(2) In discussing such matters, there is the paradox of prophecy to consider. In Greek mythology, Cassandra was a prophetess whose prophecies always came true, though she suffered from the humiliation that no one ever heeded her; in Hebraic mythology, Jonah was a prophet whose prophecy was heeded, with the humiliating result (for Jonah) that his prophecy did not come true. In forecasting bad things for the future, one hopes to be Jonah rather than Cassandra: that people will listen and take action, in order to forestall the problem, rather than ignoring it until it is too late. Either way it is no fun.

(3) Ordinary Americans have largely forgotten how to organize for specific class interests. And the collection of progressive ideas that broke up the great trusts and limited the power of the oligarchy seems to have been forgotten as well. Integration of credit records, purchasing histories, bank data, phone records, browsing habits, drivers license photos, satellite data showing your home in its neighborhood, all under the control of a small number people allows those people to very selectively and at whim to wreak havoc in individual lives. The historical American approach to the threats of power has been division: limitation of government power, by carving the powers into different branches; limitation of military power by separating the services, so that they could not easily unite and by distributing some power to the President and some (the National Guard state militias) to the governors; limitation of corporate power, by breaking up monopolies and providing other effective checks, such as the possibilities of lawsuits. All of these have been under increasing attack by the corporate rightwing since the Reagan era, and in recent years the attack has intensified. Without an effective counter-attack against these tendencies, the country will be in very grave condition.

(4) Much of what passes for "analysis" in today's media is not analysis -- it is, instead, mystification: it does not help people see the world clearly enough to act effectively in it, but it rather presents a number of buzz-word categories that produce an emotional reaction and clouded thinking.

(5) Transparency is actually a very important issue. But the first transparency that must be required is transparency of power centers. For corporations, that has meant the sort of SEC filings that Cheney is now classifying, for example. In criminal justice, it has meant public (rather than secret) trials and access to the prisons (unlike the situation atr Guantanamo). For the Executive branch, it has meant the requirement to respond to FOIA requests and to Congressional investigations, all of which are disappearing behind a wall of "state secrets" claims. In short, there are power struggle issues that require immediate attention; more abstract transparency issues can wait.