It seems that there must be a major disaster of wiretaps for the public to wake up to the fact that freedom of expression and privacy are basically gone. Seeing how people tend to be busy with their daily life, this model - inaction until the disaster - has many historical precedent. Yet I can not feel sorry that it seems that someone needs to suffer for the change to occur, when the writing on the wall is so obvious.
One of my most frustrating episodes as an advocate for privacy and activist was during the summer of 08, when Sweden introduced its equivalent of the Patriot Act, giving the NSA Swedish equivalent - the FRA - the legal right to wiretap warrantly everyone at will and in bulk. After an intense battle that nearly toppled the government, the law passed, and people in the streets still did not understand what had happened. The Swedish government now has everyone wiretap whenever they wanted.
"It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time, but in any case, they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted You had to live -.. Made live from habit that became instinct - in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized "
It frustrates me that people generally aren. 'T outraged by what is happening. It is not going well for the government to read our letters, listen to our phone calls, and spy on our online activities. Not by a long shot. Yet this is exactly what happens, but nobody seems to read -. Far too little, anyway
The Swedish Foreign Minister, Carl Bildt, had a famous quote where he said mass surveillance not threaten freedom of speech at all, "because it is secret ". As absurd as the statement is, there is a point to it :. People are not upset that they do not notice receive and wiretapping authorities have been very, very good at keeping their activities hidden
When Snowden broke the news of the monitoring NSA even us activists were swept away by the scope of what is already happening, and tried to explain to our friends, family and colleagues. It was difficult - it is hard. He does not just sink into.
People usually complain that "it is not exactly Stasi ongoing," and they are right, that in the complete opposite of what they hear. An interesting exercise compared the size of the archives Stasi - the total volume of data collected, stored in files in two buildings in the center of Berlin. - the equivalent number of buildings if the NSA had used the same technology How many buildings data from the NSA, it would
to answer this question, it is useless to speak in terms of number of buildings - must start thinking in terms of area instead and the equivalent file storage area for mass surveillance. NSA is almost all of Europe and part of North Africa. This is in comparison where the Stasi had an area of two buildings.
I think we have a very woe public, caused by surveillance and wiretapping, for the public to wake up to what is happening. And I'm sad that it seems that someone has to suffer under oppression for the public to stand up against it when it was there all the time.
Moreover, it would follow a typical pattern.
When Titanic sank on its maiden voyage, which created outrage and caused tough new regulations that a ship was required to have enough lifeboats and all passengers crew members. It's not rocket exactly, is it? Why do people have to die for someone to realize that was a good idea?
There are not too long, the medicine was mixed and sold more or less freely. It took a very public and unnecessary poisoning for government applications , documented clinical trials before anything was allowed to be sold as a drug. Again, not rocket science.
In 09, people did not care about free speech versus monopoly copyright issues at all, until the miscarriage of justice that was the case against two operators of the Pirate Bay (and his media spokesman and a fourth unrelated person) arrived. After that, it was impossible to keep people in the streets.
It makes me very sad that people in general do not seem to care about their basic rights being stripped away from them, until someone is pained much about it. It feels so unnecessary.
While I understand that people are busy with their daily lives and will not act unless personally affected by something, I think it's sad that everyone takes his rights as for granted, even when they are not even there.
In the meantime, he is not only privacy for ourselves is our own responsibility. It is also the fight for privacy for everyone.
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