Sorry for the couple of days non-posting. This may make no sense, but it’s been a combination of having nothing to say and having too much to say.
I’ve wanted to go back to that Memorial Day post to explain myself better and maybe answer a few commentors.
But I didn’t think I should poke a stick in that hornet’s nest again. So I’ll just say thanks to those who commented thoughtfully (whether agreeing or disagreeing), thanks to those who offered new insights, thanks to those who defended me, and a much more ironic thanks to people who proved my point by flipping into a swivet.
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I’m still in that state of having too much yet too little to say. I’ve been thinking a lot this week about privacy. Obviously, it’s still a huge (and ever-more huge) concern, but in this era of tracking devices in our pockets and terrifyingly targeted advertising, it seems that millions have chosen to be their very own personal Big Brother. And it appears that people may soon choose to make things much more dangerous for themselves.
Since Orwell, writers have warned of the power of Big Brother. More recently, of corporate Little Brothers. But whoever would have guessed that when the surveillance state arrived in full, we’d embrace it as the latest cool-and-groovy thing and become our own Evil Twins, happily paying to spy on ourselves for the benefit of those other siblings?
So I’ve wrestled this week with writing about privacy, too. Because it desperately needs doing but seems increasingly futile.
I wish I knew how this was going to play out. There’s no putting the genie back in the bottle…and the sort of societal shift that would include protecting privacy of any sort seems increasingly unlikely.
I used to think it was just the early-adopter-eloi who were crazy, and the still-human majority would eventually rein ’em in. No sign of iit so far, though.
I think I’ll go watch Jacob Applebaum on YouTube. Always makes me feel better.
Btw I’ve been hiding from non-work blogs…but I’m back. Yay.
Talk about DUMB…. It seems to me the majority of people today are unable to see/think beyond their own noses. For that matter. people seem th have lost the ability to think. Watch tv…you are told what to buy, what is “safe”, how you should live, etc. Dammit. when are these idiots ever going to learn. Oh! Ok….I get it….the damm schools no longer teach kids to think….they do teach them how to use their thumbs….great for video games. Bah!
“the majority of people today are unable to see/think beyond their own noses.”
Is that another way of saying, they are lovers of themselves?
Privacy, such a thing cannot exist in a society that is not free, or in a society that does not value freedom.
How You Are Inside an Electronic Concentration Camp:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKPg9U7VkQw&feature=player_embedded
Brother am I out of touch with reality! I haven’t had a TV since 1971. I don’t have a cell phone (mostly because there is no cell service where I live). I use several layers of anonymity software, encrypt my data, avoid using the cloud and social media and generally keep a low profile. I wonder what made most people think privacy isn’t necessary or in some cases even criminal? There is no large scale fix possible. Those of us who care just do what we need to do. The rest can do what they want.
Agreed, Woody. Privacy by its nature is individual – and mass-man could never understand it anyway.
Writing about privacy is never futile. It will support those who would remain private, suggest ways that privacy can be maintained in the face of tyrant governments (redundant, I know) – and may even pick up a few converts.
I’ve been doing a lot of eye-rolling this week at the dumb things statists say. It keeps me out of trouble (as long as they don’t see me) and frees up a LOT of time that I don’t have to use responding to morons. 😉
A friend of mine has encouraged me to avoid the news and fruitless internet pursuits, like arguing about certain things. I’m very proud of myself for looking at that Memorial Day Post, not bothering to finish it, and definitely staying away from the comments. This is a very important personal moment. I usually seek train wrecks and liberal women (Yes, I know. They’re kinda the same thing), like a moth to the flame. Reading the second and third paragraphs gave me an odd sense of personal accomplishment, very close what a reasonable man must feel after bilking silly investors, and the government, out of billions on a “solar wind farm”.
Woody wrote, “I use several layers of anonymity software, encrypt my data”
The spook referenced in the video I posted said they record ALL electronic communications.
It could be you’re excluded.
It could be they can do things we don’t know about and you’re not excluded. …Who knows?
Woody asked, “I wonder what made most people think privacy isn’t necessary or in some cases even criminal?”
I think part of the answer is in here:
“Those of us who care just do what we need to do. The rest can do what they want.”
People paid no mind,
The rest, did what they wanted to. Snoop, etc…
Of course, there’s this too: The individual vs. the collective in the Matrix
“… “What’s important is the group, the family, peers. Conform. Give in. Bathe in the great belonging…” …”
http://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2013/05/24/the-individual-vs-the-collective-in-the-matrix/
The attempt to destroy the individual
“… I’ve laid out the enormous psyop designed to submerge the individual in unconscious goo. This psyop depends on the repetition of words like: unity, love, caring, community, family. And phrases like “we’re all in this together.” [Memorial Day comes to mind here.]
The individual is characterized as: lone, outsider, selfish,greedy, inhumane, petty. Turn him into an exile, excommunicated from the great body of humanity.
Here, in the usual prose, is a familiar formulation of the grand psyop: “We can no longer afford the luxury of thinking of ourselves as individuals. The stakes are too high. Finally, we must all come together and realize our presence on this planet is a shared experience. The decimation of our resources, through hatred and divisive behavior, the denial of love and community, the cold greed and excessive profit-making, the whole range of social and political injustices—all this can ultimately be laid at the door of the individual who refuses to join the rest of humanity…”
Is this manifesto valid? It’s a deception, BECAUSE it’s aimed at making the individual extinct. …”
http://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2013/05/27/the-attempt-to-destroy-the-individual/
With the individual goes privacy completely.
Privacy is another aspect of liberty, like responsibility and private property, that are unappreciated until they are gone. We like “free” stuff, so we have email providers that routinely read their clients email. We like to be popular so we volunteer everything about our lives to all our “friends” on Facebook.
I’ve finally started to take back some semblance of privacy. I will cancel my Yahoo account I’ve had since 1989 later this summer. Perhaps going to Katherine Albrecht’s new Startmail.
https://www.startpage.com/eng/press/yahoo-reads-your-mails.html
I’ve tried some other things:
https://secure.cryptohippie.com/pubs/CH-OnlinePrivacyGuide.pdf
but many options are expensive, slow or wildly inconvenient
Any more ideas how we can regain what is lost?
Yes, “an odd sense of personal accomplishment”, for sure. And I see that, however.
EN, your comment and current state (and that of your ‘friend’) caused me to wonder how they relate to the last two paragraphs in, The attempt to destroy the individual, especially this part:
“… Why bother with any of this? …”
Perhaps you’re “conflicted,” Claire. “Writing about privacy” seems almost an oxymoron. 😉
IAM, “the second and third paragraphs”. Dealing with Memorial Day. I knew it was going to get passionate… if you know what I mean? And there would be no clear resolution. These are the kinds of arguments I find almost impossible to avoid. Make sense?
Claire wrote:
“I’ve wanted to go back to that Memorial Day post to explain myself better and maybe answer a few commentors.
But I didn’t think I should poke a stick in that hornet’s nest again. So I’ll just say thanks to those who commented thoughtfully (whether agreeing or disagreeing), thanks to those who offered new insights, thanks to those who defended me, and a much more ironic thanks to people who proved my point by flipping into a swivet.”
Yep, EN. I do, and it does.
Since we know everything is being monitored, I considered that before deciding to become a contributor to this blog, as it surely means it will place me higher up on the watch list. As we also know about any right, the expression “use it or lose it” applies, so I decided to take my chances. Avoiding the “Problematic Phrases” noted in The Electronic Concentration Camp referenced by IAM is worth trying to do, but still one can’t avoid being noticed. BTW, that link led me to another one on how our veterans are being treated, https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/operation_vigilant_eagle_is_this_really_how_we_honor_our_nations_veterans
It’s pretty well documented, I think, that the multitasking which is now epidemic among young people is an obstruction to reflective thought. That seems to me to make them much more susceptible to sophisticated manipulation than, for example, an uneducated person with common sense.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation https://www.eff.org/ does what it can to preserve electronic freedom. One link they have on their site is to “Install HTTPS Everywhere.”
Thanks, Alan for the Cryptohippie site; it’s great.
Another option for security is the Tor Project https://www.torproject.org/ One has to wonder, though, if using such measures doesn’t simply make one appear more suspicious. That’s not necessarily a good way to do things, to appear to have something to hide. Caroming off on a tangent, I have to mention Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Purloined Letter” as a treatise on hiding a valuable object http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/poe/purloine.html
N.B. to EN: Liberal women? OMG! Just don’t talk to them about firearms; they will take great pleasure in exposing your privacy on that one if they get a chance.
In my own mind privacy is confusing. Having cameras on my property to guard against violent entry is good; having cameras on light poles to watch the crowd is bad. Yet, they could be used for the same purpose — guard against violent behavior.
Of interest is that the information the law used to figure out who they wanted to accuse of the Boston Bombing was camera footage from stores, which are private property cameras. In fact, it was a citizen who alerted the police that one of the suspects was in his vintage Chris Craft boat, which the cops stupidly destroyed.
As a store owner would I offer my camera video to the cops or would I not? If the cops figured out that I might have footage and asked for it, what would I do? I could have no recorder the cameras were hooked to. I could destroy the footage. I could have the recorder off premise; say, at home or at another store if I owned one. If I had footage and did not give the footage to them, the cops would probably enter and destroy my place looking, like they did the Chris Craft guy, and I’d probably be forced to give them the footage and be arrested for obstructing something.
What about before there were surveillance cameras? Crime was under control, and there was little threat of Brat Brother watching your every move. Why everyone is getting cameras now bothers me. What does a person or a store need them for?
I suppose I would consider cameras inside the store to reduce shop lifting, but who will sit in front of the monitor all day watching customers scratch their buts and argue with each other? Wal-Mart has a good security system at the door. I don’t know if they have cameras all over the store, (they probably do), but I do know they detain a lot of people who later show up in the local tabloid as possible shoplifters.
But I would also feel like I was a contributor to the police state. I would not feel good about myself.
Count me out of this surveillance crap. Life has risks, and I’d rather face the risk of individual assault than face a camera watching my every move, then some power monger using the video against me for his own gain.
Outlaw the dam things except on private property.
Addendum.
What about camera footage as private property? Doesn’t the law have to show cause for confiscating a store owner’s footage?
If I take a picture in a crowd, and some of the crowd is in my picture, would I not have to get permission from each of the people in the crowd for me to use the picture for other than private use if that picture contains them? It used to be that way.