Considering most EU nations gladly joined the US surveillance program to spy on their own citizens and each other they never had a moral leg to stand on, if anything they were more hypercritical because they criticized while participating in it.
We need to become less sensitive to disclosures. Everyone has something private they don't want shared online.
Also, we need software to protect us from accidental disclosures, implemented as a browser extension, proxy or filter in the OS (like an antivirus). Privacy should be made simpler.
>Everyone has something private they don't want shared online.
So don't post it online to begin with. There are things that simply shouldn't be posted online under any circumstances.
That doesn't only mean "don't sext", but also, for example, if you're a corporation or a public entity, don't have personal information stored in a server that's online unless it's completely necessary, etc.
By having something connected to the internet, someone can make a copy, and once the copy is made, there's no going back.
Privacy isn't the level of secrecy it's the agency you have on choosing what and with whom to share information.
Reducing the ability to share information is just as much a violation of pricacy as some one "stealing" it and disclosing it them selves.
The problem with Facebook and the likes is that by default anything you post to them is no longer yours hence no longer private and no matter how much security options they give you the potential loss of privacy is the same.
One of the major issues with this debate is that people equate anonymity with privacy and as a positive thing, confuse privacy with secrecy and can't agree if all they want is effective privacy or principle privacy.
Another thing with services like Facebook is that even if you're not on it officially, you're likely in the database as people will tag you in photos and have you in their address book. Then, there's other things like their cookies on web pages around the net.
There is always a systems administrator in the loop WRT to your text messages, somewhere out there, in a server room, in an office park, housing data centers for service providers.
SMS messages cannot be assessed as "not posted online" anymore, due to the nature of the software used by service providers in support of SMS services.
If you send an SMS text message, by default you are likely posting it to an online system, even if your device provides no obvious indication of that fact.
You're assuming that you are the one doing the posting. If my parents and my sister are on Facebook (they are), I'm in their address book and if that got uploaded to Facebook (quite likely), I'm there now despite the fact I don't have an account. Plus, you can be tagged in photos as well. Plus, they have their cookies which allow tracking of you across large parts of the web.
Note that in all of this, I'm not using Facebook at all and not even visiting it. But, I'm in their system with data about me that I didn't put there.
Mass surveillance has always been around, it's just that today it's much easier to do in volume. In the old days the government paid people to collect and deliver random bits of information which were analyzed by lots of people and so was prone to errors. Today you can automate all of this and do it faster.
People should realize that political solutions have failed spectacularly.
Technical solutions are the only possible answer, that and cultural responses.
Vast state surveillance is made possible by technical expertise. We shouldnt laud those who assist the government in this task nor in any tasks. We should shun colleagues who choose to assist the enemies of humanity, those in positions to hire should not hire those with backgrounds in government and make it known through back channels that such people are not desirable, that you will be black balled if choose to assist these heinous entities in their oppression.
Finally those able and willing should consider other methods of raising the cost of state surveillance, but openly recommending such things is potentially a crime in the eyes of the state.
>those in positions to hire should not hire those with backgrounds in government
I find the revolving door between government and private industry troubling but I'm not sure it would be a good idea to employ such a ban.
This is obviously very anecdotal but I have two prior service friends, one an infantry Marine, the other a Navy Cryptologic Technician, and they are the two most anti war, anti mass surveillance people I know. Far more so than most of my other friends who don't have any military experience, and my social circle tends to lean heavily liberal.
I concur. Some of the most talented, guv skeptics I have met began their careers in military roles(eg:education & training). A blanket ban would be no different than a witch hunt in terms of justice and harm to falsely accused.
The surveillance laws are introduced because of increasing terrorism. It is hard to see people as enemies of humanity if what they try to do is prevent mass killings of islamic extremists.
Obviously there are dangers of going towards oppression. But at the same time Europeans are saved by internal division between member states. Most countries are so small that they cannot pay or accomplish spy programs like the Americans can. And collaboration between countries hardly happens, as we saw in terror attacks.
Things only become problematic if European intelligence agencies come into existence.
