NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] Why Governments Are Terrified of Social Media
Why Governments Are Terrified of Social Media
http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000891.html
In Missouri, teachers and others are up in arms over a law that would
ban most contacts between teachers and students through social media, not
only via systems like Facebook, but even apparently mechanisms such as
Google Docs ( http://j.mp/pSqX11 [ABC News] ).
In the UK, Prime Minister David Cameron has proposed censoring or
cutting off BlackBerry and other social media systems based on the
misguided and false assumption that this would prevent planning and
communications by potential rioters or other "undesirable" persons.
And back here in the U.S., BART shut down parts of the cell phone
network, in an attempt to block communications in advance of a legal
protest that never took place, though we know full well from history
that protests -- even of enormous scope -- do not require high
technology to be organized and deployed ( http://j.mp/rq7SO9 [Lauren's Blog] ).
Around the world, including here in the U.S., governments are
demanding unencrypted access to supposedly "secure" communications
systems.
The common thread is very clear. Governments are increasingly
terrified of the communications abilities that Internet and other
technologies have provided their citizenry and other residents.
While usually careful to express their concerns in the context of
seemingly laudable motives like fighting crime or terrorism, in
reality these governments have revealed the distrust and contempt with
which they view their populations at large.
This is by no means a new phenomenon.
Throughout human history, governments and many leaders have cast a
jaundiced eye on virtually every new technological development that
enabled communications, particularly if that technology made it easier
for direct person-to-person messages to be exchanged outside the view
of government services and minders.
These government efforts to suppress and control communications have
virtually all failed in the end, though a great deal of damage has
been done to individuals and groups in the process.
At one time, even the ability to read and write was considered too
dangerous a skill set for the commoners. The invention of the
printing press threw government and churches alike into convulsions of
apprehension.
And now "social media" is the new scapegoat, the whipping boy, the
technological designated evil that short-sighted politicians of both
major parties, and their various administrative minions and
supporters, are demanding be monitored, leashed, and controlled.
In reality of course, it's not the technology that these persons wish
to leash -- it's ordinary people. It's you and me and the vastness of
other law-abiding persons who have become the targets of the 21st
century law enforcement mantra: "Screw the Bill of Rights -- treat
everybody like a suspect, all the time."
The broad implications of this "guilty until proven innocent" mindset
are all around us now. They're at the heart of the newly revealed
alliance between CIA and the New York Police Department to monitor the
activities of innocent citizens, using surveillance techniques that
would have seemed comfortably familiar to the old East German Stasi
secret police.
They're seen in the massive government-mandated Internet data
retention demanded by "The Protecting Children from Internet
Pornographers Act of 2011" -- now moving rapidly through Congress, and
disingenuously titled to suggest it only applies to child abuse, when
in reality its true reach would broadly encompass all manner of
Internet access activities ( http://j.mp/o13jMO [Atlantic] ).
Governments seem to increasingly no longer feel that it's necessary or
desirable to have "probable cause" or court orders before spying on
individuals, tracking their movements via hidden GPS units, building
dossiers, or even disrupting communications. Constitutional
guarantees are more and more viewed by our leaders as quaint artifacts
of the past, to be ignored today merely as annoying inconveniences.
The innocent are now being treated largely as potential "future
criminals" -- and so subject to many of the same sorts of surveillance
and other law enforcement techniques that in the past were generally
limited to specific suspects of specific crimes.
To the extent that these activities for now appear to be mostly aimed
at persons with skin colors or religions different from us, it becomes
easier to "go with the flow" of this new law enforcement mentality, to
not make waves, to be quiet, to be sheep.
But the same techniques used today against one group can be easily
repurposed for others. Government ordered records of users' Internet
activities will affect us all, and the infrastructures created to
support these surveillance-related systems may be be extremely
long-lived.
When governments no longer trust the people, when officials make the
mental and physical leaps to targeting vast numbers of innocent
persons in the manner of criminal suspects of yesteryear, we have
embarked on a road that leads to a very dark place indeed.
Today, social media is the crosshairs. Governments certainly are
enthusiastic about using social media for their own investigatory and
enforcement purposes, but they appear to be desperately seeking ways
to control and limit the ability of ordinary persons to communicate
privately and securely on these systems, or to use them at all in some
cases.
This is hypocrisy of the highest order. It is a serious risk to
innocent individuals being targeted by its adherents today.
Unchallenged, tomorrow it will be a serious risk to us all.
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein (lauren@vortex.com): http://www.vortex.com/lauren
Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility: http://www.pfir.org
Founder:
- Network Neutrality Squad: http://www.nnsquad.org
- Global Coalition for Transparent Internet Performance: http://www.gctip.org
- PRIVACY Forum: http://www.vortex.com
Member: ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
Google+: http://vortex.com/g+lauren
Twitter: https://twitter.com/laurenweinstein
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 / Skype: vortex.com