The Snowden Revelations and the NSA
[this is work done by Emily, Heather, Siyi, and Alper for the 12/3 discussion of Molly Wright Steenson’s Information Landscapes class]
How does the Foucault Panopticon relate to these revelations?
How does this physical definition of surveillance translate to the current data and information landscapes we have around us?
Does it currently occur in our lives?
How do you see it becoming more or less present in the future?
“The United States of Secrets” talked about the government potentially capturing content in the scope of its monitoring. This would mean emails, instant messages, Facebook, etc.
How does this make you feel about your online activity? Will you change your habits because of this?
Monday, we talked about the Fourth Amendment and two major cases and their rulings. If you were on the Supreme Court, based on your own opinion, and not the way the amendment was interpreted, how would you have judged them?
The constitution is 229 years old, and technology keeps changing at an ever increasing rate. Does the constitution need to be updated to include today’s technological abilities and plan for the future?
Going back to Snowden and the NSA: Last December, Snowden said his mission was already accomplished.
“I already won. As soon as the journalists were able to work, everything that I had been trying to do was validated. Because, remember, I didn’t want to change society. I wanted to give society a chance to determine if it should change itself.”
How would you evaluate Snowden’s victory?
Do you think the society has changed because of the NSA revelations? (What about your personal way of life?)
NSA is undergoing reform, but its former director Michael Hayden describes this as “a reform that only ISIS could love.” Considering the growing need to combat terrorism and violent groups, do you think the surveillance state needs to change at all?
The great debate: PRIVACY vs. SECURITY and Daniel J. Solove
Argument #1: “If you’ve got nothing to hide, you’ve got nothing to fear. If you do something wrong, you don’t deserve to keep it private.”
(Game available at www.nothingtohide.cc)
(Does the relationship between you and who is watching you make a difference?)
Any good responses?
….
- “So do you have curtains?” / “Can I see your credit-card bills for the last year?”
- “Show me yours and I’ll show you mine.”
- “I don’t have anything to hide. But I don’t have anything I feel like showing you, either.”
- “It’s not about having anything to hide, it’s about things not being anyone else’s business.”
- Privacy is too complex a concept to be reduced to a singular essence.
Another metaphor about privacy being offended, besides Orwell’s 1984:
Kafka’s The Trial
“Kafka’s novel centers around a man who is arrested but not informed why. He finds out that a mysterious court system has a dossier on him and is investigating him, but he’s unable to learn much more. The Trial depicts a bureaucracy with inscrutable purposes that uses people’s information to make important decisions about them, yet denies the people the ability to participate in how their information is used.” (Solove)
Is privacy only about hiding (bad) things? What are the possible threats to privacy beyond surveillance? Which would you worry more — information collection, or information processing (the storage/use/analysis of your data)?
(further reading: http://chronicle.com/article/Why-Privacy-Matters-Even-if/127461/)
Argument #2: “In times of crisis, we must trade privacy and liberty for greater security.”
Is this really a zero-sum game? Does protecting privacy necessarily mean no government surveillance?
Argument #3: “Privacy is about individuals, but security is for the whole society. The well-being of the many outweighs the interests of one person.”
Do you agree that privacy is just an individual right? Could it have societal values as well?
Cookies are a convenient tool to store information on your browser about your currently logged in accounts and perferences, so you don’t have to re-authenticate to Google or Facebook everytime when you open the browser. They are also used by advertising companies to target ads, calculate unique views, and track products purchased online. Advertisers can track an individual via the id cookie set by DoubleClick (now owned by Google):
This ID is stored on every computer EXCEPT when you explicitly opt out.
How do cookies work? The United States of Secrets documentary briefly touched on this near the end. Here’s a snippet of video to get back on board:
Google says that the cookie (mostly!!) provides no personally-identifiable information.
Do you agree?
Does the claim check analogy hold up?
In whose interest is preserving users’ privacy? The United States of Secrets documentary insinuated that the NSA is using advertising technology to help them uniquely track people through multiple platforms. Google’s DoubleClick privacy policy has this to say about protecting privacy:
Is this sufficient?
What would you like to see added?
Do you care?
Does your answer change when you realize how long this information is stored ‘in the cloud’?
