“Our choice isn’t between a digital world where the agency can eavesdrop and one where it cannot; our choice is between a digital world that is vulnerable to any attacker and one that is secure for all users.” Bruce Schneier regards ubiquitous surveillance as a quixotic undertaking that does nothing to keep us safe and does everything to undermine the very societies we seek to protect.
Tag: fear
The psychology of evil
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“Paradoxically, it was God who created Hell as a place to store evil. He didn’t do a good job of keeping it there, though.”
Philip Zimbardo
This structure of surveillance will stop us doing things which are right
“We now face the greatest threat to our liberties since the second world war. We are sleepwalking into despotism. Because of the amount of material that is being collected, because these databases, which are not about tiny items of information, will be used and not just by governments. Snowden was working for a corporation. They will be accessed by others in government and because, that’s most important of all, people will start to self-censor. We will find that the very fact of the total surveillance of our activities means that we are going to sort of … it’s not a question, as the foreign minister said, of ‘if you haven’t done anything wrong you have nothing to fear’. [sic] This structure of surveillance will stop us doing things which are right, that we know we should be doing.” Anthony Barnett appearing on yesterday’s BBC Newsnight programme.
The special dread of terrorism for Muslims in the West
“Contrary to some hyperbolic depictions of Muslim minorities as a nefarious fifth column within society, the average Muslim has about as much control of, or connection to, the vile actions of terrorists as the average white American does to school shootings or movie theater massacres”, contends Murtaza Hussain.
Hope against hope
“So the suggestion is that we don’t need hope at all. All we need is a purpose for our action, a purpose that need not be conceived of as a hope.” Julian Baggini only sees limited scope for rational hope. But that should not make you despair.
The austerity agenda
“So the austerity drive in Britain isn’t really about debt and deficits at all; it’s about using deficit panic as an excuse to dismantle social programs.” Paul Krugman is convinced that ulterior motives determine current policies in the UK and elsewhere.
Seeing terror risk, US asks journals to cut flu study facts
“Ever since the tightening of security after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, scientists have worried that a scientific development would pit the need for safety against the need to share information. Now, it seems, that day has come.” Denise Grady and William Broad report on moves by the US government to effectively censor influenza research.
How doctors die
“Doctors die, too. And they don’t die like the rest of us. What’s unusual about them is not how much treatment they get compared to most Americans, but how little.” Meanwhile, Ken Murray is determined to go gently into that good night.