It is a pity that I did not attend the panel physically on March 25th. By watching the entire 2 hours video recording online, I have to say that it is such a meaningful and eye-open debate. The diversity of the panelists helps me to look at the privacy and mass surveillance from different perspectives. To combine my background and experience, I do have couple thoughts related with privacy and mass surveillance.
First, they talk about the definition of privacy. I love the explanation of Glenn. His experiment shows that everyone actually value personal privacy. No one wants to share all his/her passwords and secrets with even the closet friend or family member. However, I do think that people value the importance of privacy differently. My two roommates can prove this point of view. One of my roommate I have does not allow anyone enter her room and touch her staff without her permission. The other roommate does not care so much if we enter her room without knocking the door.
As an international students who was born and lived in China, I also studied in United States for almost 6 years already. I noticed that there are similarities and differences between America and Chinese people. Both countries value their privacy but from different angles. In common, America people pay more attentions to personal privacy. Chinese people care about privacy of family and community, including their personal privacy.
I believe that government surveillance exist in both countries. However, because of the higher development level of United States, the surveillance on its citizen matters more than in China. On the other hand, the Chinese government decides to control the right of free speech. In some popular social median platform in China, such as Weibo (similar as Twitter), users cannot type and publish some words and commons in the website. Certain sensitive words are banned and blocked. I cannot say which one is worse, mass government surveillance or controlling the right of free speech.
Like you Vera, I was also intrigued by Glenn’s comment, as I used to have a “nothing to hide” attitude myself too, not realizing at that time that privacy means much more than it used to. In the past, what I meant to say with “nothing to hide” is that I’m convinced that revelations about my past or current life will not reveal any ethical, moral or legal issues. While I still don’t doubt this for a second, I think Glenn is spot on saying that privacy is more than that. In order to make it through our lives, we have to keep certain things to ourselves as it is virtually impossible to have a life with outsiders having the ability to lookup all your information (think about accounts/passwords etc).
ReplyDeleteBut what about the government, should be trustworthy right? Well, this 2 hour Frontline documentary, unfortunately reveals that this is not always the case. Perhaps well intended with the best interest of the public in mind, Presidents from both parties deliberately misinformed the public or didn’t act on this issue. Lying politicians are nothing new as we are constantly reminded of these days but it does make the point that we shouldn’t need to share everything they want us to.
Is it so disconcerting that the government collects information? The collection of data itself is not so much concerning to me as I always realize that, I as a person, leave a trail of data behind me that can potentially be gathered. We absolutely have to give the government room to analyze data in order to fight terrorism. However, what is concerning to me is that “The Project” is analyzing all sorts of data essentially gathering evidence without a warrant. Also, legally I think this will lead to a lot of “chicken and egg” discussions as the government will want to prosecute and will make sure to get a warrant for information.
Like you Vera, I also have a foreign perspective. I noticed from the documentary that the public outrage over this project in this country didn’t start until the ThinThread program was modified to spy on US citizens. Apparently anyone who knew about this program was okay with collecting information on anyone but Americans. Perhaps, it is my foreign part that made me think of this, but I don’t see why it is totally okay to gather random data from people who have nothing to do with you but not okay to gather this from your own people. Double standard?
Hi Manfred. Thank you for your comments. I agree with you that this issue lead to "chicken and egg" discussions again. However, I do not think to protect the homeland security should be the reason of mass government surveillance". There are definitely other better alternatives can keep a eye on terrorism.
DeleteI just looked up the ThinThread program and it is a new knowledge for me. I do think it is double standard. I know that spy on other countries is common in today's society. But if I think about it, when I was in China, I may not only be watched by Chinese government, but also can be monitored by American government. This possibility really scares me.
Vera, you say at the end of your blog post that you don't know what's worse, "mass government surveillance or controlling the right of free speech." The point of the talk, is that if you do one, have mass surveillance of everyone, you essentially ARE curtailing free speech. As Greenwald pointed out, if you KNOW you are watched, or THINK you might be watched (as in his 1984 analogy), you are essentially limiting your speech. Democracy means being able to speak against the government without fear. The First Amendment of the Bill of Rights states, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances [my emphasis]. You can't do that if the government prevents you from doing it.
ReplyDeleteAs presented in Frontline, "The Project," I do not think it is a "chicken and egg" discussion. If you collect information illegally, without a warrant AND without anyone knowing that you are doing so, AND with telecoms, ISPs, and large tech companies giving you that information, then there is no freedom and democracy. At this point, finding terrorists is only an excuse to collect everything. Why? Because you can. Other thoughts?
I'll try to stay out of the discussion, but wanted to at least point out that there is no freedom with mass government surveillance.
DeleteAbsolutely true but equally disturbing is the Big Brother effect of social media. In this society, you almost can't share anything anymore without your boss to know. Unfriending people has even become an awkward, sometimes even political thing.
ReplyDeleteAgree with that, too. It is an example of not worrying about privacy because you didn't do anything wrong, but if it requires that you limit your speech (because you don't know who is watching), it means we are limiting our speech, which isn't free, which affects our democratic form of government. I'll post what Noam Chomsky says about that later.
DeleteI also watched that 2 hours debate and also the movie CitizenFour. I would like to say that "mass government surveillance" indeed curtailing the freedom of speak, and it does, just like Edward Snowden said in the movie, "It tries to control how people think". We both are from China, avoid the surveillance from U.S government may be one of the reason why Chinese government block Google, Facebook and YouTube in China. Namely, there may be a way for Chinese government to monitor their citizens, and who knows the answer?
ReplyDelete