[Chapter-delegates] Argument against mass surveillance

[Elver Loho]

Hi all.

I've discovered a great argument against the erosion of privacy and
the rise of mass surveillance in the digital age. And what inspired me
was this story:

http://gawker.com/american-diplomat-caught-on-tape-saying-fuck-the-eu-1517871534

Basically my argument is that in the pre-Snowden world spying was
something that happened in secret and the fruits of spying were used
and abused in secret. Getting caught spying was an international
embarrassment and would sometimes bring about sanctions of varying
degrees. While spies knew about the private lives of foreign diplomats
and heads of state, they used that information for leverage in
private, if at all.

In the post-Snowden world we've discovered ourselves in a situation,
where spying is something we know happens globally all the time to
everyone and with little scrutiny or oversight. Even democratic
countries admit to global spying and to spying on their own citizens
to a degree, which is appalling in its totality. Some attempts have
been made to describe this novel lack of privacy by blaming the
citizens, who themselves use unecrypted communications and overshare
on social media. (Notably and shamefully such arguments have been made
by the president of Estonia.)

In a post-Snowden world the mock outrage over getting caught spying
doesn't have any power anymore. Everyone spies on everyone, even on
the average citizen, and everyone admits doing so. It's like a bunch
of Victorian-era prudes suddenly turning into weed-smoking
free-love-promoting hippies overnight.

We can expect to see more unashamed leaks by Russian spies to social
media. And by other nations' spies. We can expect more secret phone
calls, secret conversations leaked to the public. We can expect the
private lives of politicians torn open to the world. Who goes to a
psychiatrist, who sniffs coke, who can't keep their pants on. Global
mass surveillance by competing nation-states will become the
supercharged tabloid media of tomorrow.

Since the private details of anyone's life can be spindoctored to harm
the person, then this might turn into an all-out bloodbath as
competing superpowers clean house in another country by eliminating
those working for the other side one-by-one.

And the only reason we've ended up in this situation is because we
allowed mass surveillance to become a normal, everyday part of all our
lives.

If a politician or a journalist asks you why privacy matters, tell
them this. Tell them that we all can and will be harmed by selective
and doctored leaks. Tell them that the normalization of mass
surveillance has created a situation where nobody is safe and where
multiple competing nation-states have all of our private info and
there is no more stigma attached to leaking it to the public.

This is the world we've created, a world of beyond-radical
transparency, and it sucks.


Best,
Elver

elver.loho at gmail.com
+372 5661 6933
skype: elver.loho