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rfmcdonaldWhenever I go to YouTube, I tend to call up one of the videos that the creator calls the Cyberman anthem, mashing up footage of the Tenth Doctor's encounter with the parallel-Earth cybermen with the Pet Shop Boys' "Integral". It's rather a good mashup, I have to say, with the video demonstrating (among other things) the well-known fact that you can determine whether or not you're on an alternate Earth by checking for zeppelins and the real possibility that cellphones and mp3 players will assimilate you into the collective.
But then, there's also the political content, of the episode and of the song.
While I was listening to this video I was rather astonished to learn--via Charlie Stross--that the British government plans to track and store every electronic communication in the United Kingdom. Everything: E-mail, phone call, text message, et cetera. This sort of thoroughtness, as Jenni Russell writes at Comment is Free, scares me.
Isn't there something, a European data protection convention, say, or the possibility of court appeals, that could interrupt this privilege. Canada, I think, ia relatively safe from this sort of top-down approach to secrecy, although the government's slow expanding in scope of the Communications Security Establishment, hidden for the first 34 years of its existence and part of the ECHELON network, concerns me. A three-part report from CTV television station in Montréal (1, 2, 3) suggests that there is a possibility for such abuse in Canada, but no one really knows. Best to assume the worst, I suppose, and to hope that the United States doesn't adopt a system similar to the British because then we're certain to create one of our own.
I wonder how much we've been collaborating with these schemes. Because of the congeniality of USENET in the late 1990s, for the whole of my first decade on the Internet I've acted in a fairly transparent manner. Someone sufficiently committed could discover my address and phone number, find out about my sexual orientation, discover my various literary (Atwood), musical (New Wave), urban (The Annex) and historical (Second French Empire) preferences, discover some of my networks of friends and their own identities, and, finally, find a photo of me, somewhere. I may be an extreme case. Maybe. Or, maybe not: Most people have plenty of personal information online, particularly but not only people in my generation regardless the potential consequences. Big Brother might be looking down at us, but we're enthusiastically making offerings to it.
Thoughts? I'm more-or-less fine with the above scenario--I don't think I've done very much that could be seen as discrediting on the Internet, I think and hope--but what about you? Is this sort of society one we should accept, or one we should at least try to destroy?
But then, there's also the political content, of the episode and of the song.
If you've done nothing wrong
You've got nothing to fear
If you've something to hide
You shouldn't even be here
You've had your chance
Now we've got the mandate
If you've changed your mind
I'm afraid it's too late
We're concerned
You're a threat
You're not integral
To the project
While I was listening to this video I was rather astonished to learn--via Charlie Stross--that the British government plans to track and store every electronic communication in the United Kingdom. Everything: E-mail, phone call, text message, et cetera. This sort of thoroughtness, as Jenni Russell writes at Comment is Free, scares me.
The state's latest plan to watch us makes every other imminent intrusion seem limited. Next month's Queen's speech will contain a brief reference to an innocuous-sounding communications data bill. But what this means is the development of a centralised database that will track, in real time, every call we make, every website we visit, and every text and email we send. That information will then be stored and analysed - perhaps for decades. It will mean the end of privacy as we know it.
In the name of the fight against crime, and the fight against terror, we are all to be monitored as if we could be suspects. Computers will analyse our behaviour for signs of deviance. The minute we become of interest to anyone in authority - perhaps because we take part in a demonstration, have an argument with a security guard at an airport, spend too long on a website, or are witness to a crime - the police or the security services will be able to dip into our records and construct a near-complete pattern of our lives.
The shocking element to the new plan is that the authorities want their own database only because they find the current limitations frustrating. Under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act rules, the 700 or so bodies already licensed to watch us must make a certified request to phone or internet firms for individual records. More than 500,000 such requests were made last year. But the companies are reluctant to hang on to the data, and the security services would find a single, accessible database so much more convenient.
Stop and consider this for a moment. Think about how happy any of us would be to have our lives laid out to official view. All our weaknesses, our private fears and interests, would be exposed. Our web searches are guides to what is going on in our minds. A married man might spend a lot of time on porn websites; a successful manager might be researching depression; a businessman might be looking up bankruptcy law.
We all have a gulf between who we really are and the face we present to the world. Suddenly that barrier will be taken away. Would a protester at the Kingsnorth power station feel quite so confident in facing the police if she knew that the minute she was arrested, the police could find out that she'd just spent a week looking at abortion on the web? Would a rebel politician stand up against the prime minister if he knew security services had access to the 100 text messages a week he exchanged with a woman who wasn't his wife? It isn't just the certainty that such data would be used against people that is a deterrent, it's the fear. As the realisation of this power grew, we would gradually start living in the prison of our minds.
Isn't there something, a European data protection convention, say, or the possibility of court appeals, that could interrupt this privilege. Canada, I think, ia relatively safe from this sort of top-down approach to secrecy, although the government's slow expanding in scope of the Communications Security Establishment, hidden for the first 34 years of its existence and part of the ECHELON network, concerns me. A three-part report from CTV television station in Montréal (1, 2, 3) suggests that there is a possibility for such abuse in Canada, but no one really knows. Best to assume the worst, I suppose, and to hope that the United States doesn't adopt a system similar to the British because then we're certain to create one of our own.
I wonder how much we've been collaborating with these schemes. Because of the congeniality of USENET in the late 1990s, for the whole of my first decade on the Internet I've acted in a fairly transparent manner. Someone sufficiently committed could discover my address and phone number, find out about my sexual orientation, discover my various literary (Atwood), musical (New Wave), urban (The Annex) and historical (Second French Empire) preferences, discover some of my networks of friends and their own identities, and, finally, find a photo of me, somewhere. I may be an extreme case. Maybe. Or, maybe not: Most people have plenty of personal information online, particularly but not only people in my generation regardless the potential consequences. Big Brother might be looking down at us, but we're enthusiastically making offerings to it.
Thoughts? I'm more-or-less fine with the above scenario--I don't think I've done very much that could be seen as discrediting on the Internet, I think and hope--but what about you? Is this sort of society one we should accept, or one we should at least try to destroy?
