If I am an organization that is well known to be spying on everyone and anything, that means I can very convincingly fabricate evidence against my enemies. It goes beyond simple spying, they now have the ability to manufacture whatever truth they'd like.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilling_effect#Chilling_effec...
This is one of the fundamental issues that I have with this proliferation of population-scale mass-surveillance (domestically in the US and abroad). It will not lead us into any sort of light, despite the promises about safety or less kiddie pr0n or whatever.
That's ok, responsible people will take care of it while you're busy supporting fascism.
I think the tech community in particular (with both the awareness and the means) has a duty to the public to make clear what is going on to those less tuned in.
So far, it has failed in that to a rather astonishing degree. Probably for exactly the reasons yourself and the OP describe.
Snowden, Assange? They've both talk(ed) at great length about the perils of a Society that will self-censor due to the fear of retribution that follows when everything one has said be it in text/phone/online is constantly held in bulk collection.
Moreover, if anyone has followed what has occurred in China where dissenters are forced into re-education black op sites and are forced into public apologies, or in other cases they're disappeared altogether, you have what then appears like a very forceful form of cohesive group think.
This occurred in HK prior to the passing of the NSL, people were essentially trying to scrub their online presence for fear of retroactive punishment from the CCP [1], who only hours after forcefully passing the bill to great local and international condemnation, started to arrest 'violators.'
Which gives the CCP the appearance of a forceful enforcer of its policy writ large, at least on the surface with low hanging fruit like journalists and physicians speaking out about COVID on the mainland, but in reality China is wrought with seemingly permissible corruption provided you have any connection to the CCP.
In this respect this isn't a East Vs West issue, but rather one of the oppressed and the oppressors, if Government is to exist at all, I think a mandate of constant surveillance and absolute financial transparency should be in order.
I fear Humanity refuses to accept we must create alternatives to the Nation State model, which this pandemic and economic crises has clearly demonstrated to have failed in every conceivable metric. There are outliers, but they tend to be more city-states, which I'm not entirely averse to but can also have the very same entrenched power traps that the nation state model has.
If anyone has the time I highly recommend Snowden s recent talk with Naomi Kilne on Vice [2] discussing the path forward to circumvent the Surveillance State/Economy that has been created by the Tech Industry that has only been incredibly sped up in the aftermath of the COVID pandemic and the protest against police violence/crime.
At the end the people talent, many of whom hang out here, are the one's that build this tech not the corrupt politician(s), nor the VC big wig. Having them re-evaluate their positions is critical moving forward, as both conclude that this much needed detour will simply not occur from the Leadership.
1: https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Hong-Kongers-erase-digital-...
Are you referencing something specific?
> This occurred in HK prior to the passing of the NSL, people were essentially trying to scrub their online presence for fear of retroactive punishment from the CCP
Not saying we should take their word for it but the letter of the law says it's not retroactive. https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3089166.... Do you have primary sources demonstrating otherwise?
Take your pick [1], (Li Zehua is worth noting) but they all stem from the same intimidation factor from the CCP, explicit documented details of the Mainlander examples are harder to track down using basic google searches, but they're out there if you look for it. I recommended a documentary called 'High Tech, Low Life' for first hand accounts of these in citizen journalism as they're being harrased by police, and one even has his passport revoked prior to boarding a plane to speak about censorship in the media in China.
I saw a few of those first hand videos they make re-posted as gifs of mainlander women who denounced the CCP/Xi on social media in the past and are often simply reading from a script lambasting themselves as 'selfish' and an 'unruly, ungrateful child' of China. Are you seriously not aware that something as simple as being a follower of Falun gong was cause to be sent to the supposed 300+ re-education camps [2] for this 'crime.'
The 'education' system in the mainland re-enforces that, as well. Compliance is not a choice, its demanded of you.
> Do you have primary sources demonstrating otherwise?
This specific case: where hired triads were not prosecuted but high profile Hongkongers are is a blatant example that it is in fact retro-active [3]. Lam Cheuk Ting, and 16 others have been arrested for their 'involvement' (which is to say recording others on the train being beaten on by unmasked assailants who went unpunished) in last year's 721 attack.
1: https://www.google.com/search?q=Chinese+citizens+forced+publ...
2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Re-education_through_labor
3: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/25/world/asia/hongkong-arres...
Sidenote: I may be arguing with a wumao, but I wrote this mainly for the benefit of anyone doubting this occurs at the hands of the CCP, as this poster has clearly tried to argue his pro CCP stance in his post history, in the hope that some of you FAANG workers come to realize what the implications of what you're building can look like in the hands of tyrannical governments. The US is far from innocent on the abuses of power throughout domestically and areound the World, but at least redress is a possible, albeit mainly from a lengthy and costly process that entails a significant and risky undertaking.
It is possible that power does not corrupt. If you generally agree with the forbes most powerful people list [0], it has people like the Pope, Bill Gates and Antonio Guterres as well.
>> If anything, history proves that, on average, those with more money are _less_ethical_
This would also include a lot of HNers who work in FAANGs of the world since they are the people with more money than at least 80% of the world. The giving pledge[1] is also evidence to the contrary. Can you cite some sources to support your claims?
This removes the asymmetry and it also makes surveillance less attractive in the first place, because those responsible for the surveillance would be forced to expose surveillance records about themselves.
I would agree that a person ought to be able to see whatever surveillance records exist on themselves.
However, allowing any member of the public to see all surveillance records, on anyone, strikes me as just compounding the problem--now my private information isn't just seen by the government, it's seen by everybody.
Right, but that's why no reasonable congressman would want your information, because that would also make his/hers available just like yours. The result would be that sensitive personal information would be very unlikely to be collected.
I don't think so; I think the result would be that people who had the power would simply bend the rules behind the scenes to make sure any information they didn't want revealed wasn't revealed, much as they do now.
You're welcome to let all of your private information out for everyone to see if that's what you believe. But people like me who do not want to do that should not be forced to.
> The sooner we adapt with the life where all surveillance records is public the better.
I strongly disagree.
I don't necessarily want to, I'm just being realistic and pragmatic.
>But people like me who do not want to do that should not be forced to.
No one is forced to but the inconvenience and the cost of keeping thing private will go up and up.
Being realistic and pragmatic doesn't need to mean being defeatist.
> the inconvenience and the cost of keeping thing private will go up and up
Only if citizens let governments continue to increase their surveillance activities with no oversight and no pushback.
Whether its done through less privacy or more privacy doesn't really matter.
>Only if citizens let governments continue to increase their surveillance activities with no oversight and no pushback
I would rather push for more openness and transparency, open up the surveillance for everyone to reduce the information asymmetries.
Or pushing for technology that enable citizen to survilance the government.
Does it though? I mean, I feel that trite little saying misses the point. Even in normal society we have obfuscation, camouflage, deception, data dumping, signalling.
Plus data isn't just something one generates and consumes ad infinitum. It takes resources, those resources generate additional layers of data, and then the reciever/ interpreter requires both different levels of sophistication, sensitivity and mutually exclusive risk/reward trade offs in how to access, use and interpret said data.
Already there is more information available on most people than any individual can access or consume. I don't think having "even more" is going to solve any problem...
perhaps it's more accurate to say information is like water. Its generally leaky and gets everywhere, but that doesn't mean that lakes and rivers don't form. And while it's notionally plentiful, that doesn't mean it's equally accessible or utilised by everyone or that different players don't have equal levels of ability to exploit it.
I'm fairly sure they already are. Any records of interest get some sort of classified label preventing their release until long past when they matter.
There are many uses of intelligence and not all of it benefits the rich and powerful. To pretend that the intelligence world exists solely to provide tips to the well connected is ridiculous. It's not that it doesn't, it's just not that black and white.
The world is far more nuanced compared to your abstracted sweeping examples.
The asymmetry of the information gives those in power great advantage over public. The rich and powerful claim, we monitor you to protect you, and to better serve you. The scope and the characteristics of the surveillance, the incentives and the historical evidence don’t support this claim. The harm is far more than potential benefits. The public should reread David Hume and stand up against this threat.