Spying – for the masses or, rather, on the masses.

And those are just the very latest. We could add Bradley Manning, Undercover British Cops having affairs and babies under false names to find information and then “disappearing”, those same cops planting bombs and writing leaflets, and so on and so on.

It’s nothing new and nothing entirely unexpected.

But, for God’s sake, don’t buy into this “If you’re innocent, you have nothing to fear” crap. You have everything to fear. You don’t know when, at some point in the future, for some reason you can’t now foresee, that information about you will be twisted and turned against you. No one is safe.

And we aren’t really in a democracy unless, by that you mean that everyone gets a vote. They used to get a vote in the USSR too, you know?

What makes me laugh is the discreditation of Snowden. Apparently, people are castigating him for going to a country with less “freedom” than the USA. Whereas, of course, if he were to go to a country that was “friendly” and as “democratic” as the USA, he would, undoubtedly be sent back to the USA and suffer much the same fate as Manning or the others.

So, when Hilary Clinton said:

“countries that restrict free access to information or violate the basic rights of internet users risk walling themselves off from the progress of the next century”.

Maybe she didn’t quite mean what she said. This was back in 2010 which I wrote up in this post.

I guess it’s OK if you’re letting them do what they want but just recording everything they do. Eh, Hilary?

6 thoughts on “Spying – for the masses or, rather, on the masses.”

“Nothing to hide, nothing to fear” is an old argument. People bought it, despite the fact that it is simplistic and stupid.
Of course this is nothing new.
I’ve investigated surveillance-related issues for a long time now and -more often than not- people have told me that I embraced dystopian visions. These visions are just the reality of things.
I don’t believe in the big brother BUT I do believe that we have rights on our own data and it doesn’t matter if you have or don’t have something to hide.

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Andy on 24 June, 2013 at 10:42 am said:

Quite so.

However, the undercover surveillance carried out against the family and friends of Stephen Lawrence to find some dirt on them takes this whole thing to a new low. I know you probably won’t have heard of the case but it’s worth a read when (and if) you have the time.

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