Laura Poitras Reveals Her Own Life Under Surveillance

Re:Laura Poitras Reveals Her Own Life Under Surveillance by ptha on Friday February 05, 2016 @04:05AM (#11040376)

She sleeps badly, plagued with nightmares about the American government. She reads Cory Doctorow’s Homeland and re-reads 1984, finding too many parallels with her own life., the psychological aspect is very troubling. A government state doesn't actually have to put you under constant surveillance, they just have to make you think you're under constant surveillance.

The unintended consequence of the surveillance may have hardened her resolve to be a privacy advocate, but it certainly didn't do her mental health much good.

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Re:Laura Poitras Reveals Her Own Life Under Surveillance by Kristine1975 on Friday February 05, 2016 @07:54AM (#11041048)

A government state doesn't actually have to put you under constant surveillance, they just have to make you think you're under constant surveillance.

It's the old idea of the Panopticon as envisioned by Jeremy Bentham: Achieve compliance not by watching everybody all the time, but by creating a system where everybody could be watched at any time.

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Re:Laura Poitras Reveals Her Own Life Under Surveillance by lucastx on Friday February 05, 2016 @11:23AM (#11042431)

I like how the Panopticon concept is complemented by the Synopticon one, as in "many watches few". It's close to the "sousveillance" concept.

What may save us from a dystopic totalitarism is the freedom and agency we get through our devices and networks. Certainly software freedom, use of cryptography and uncensored, inclusive basic communications infrastructures are needed.

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