[Chapter-delegates] Argument against mass surveillance

[Halbersztadt Jozef (jothal)]

Hi Elver

You didn’t mention two important issues.

1. Nature of spaying has changed but it has no legitimacy because has
not been subject to any prior public debate or democratic
decision-making. There is any meaningful oversight mechanism which is
in line with the standards of rule of law and human rights obligations
as regards data protection, privacy, presumption of innocence, the
necessity and proportionality of surveillance activities.

2. It is allied countries intelligence services joint enterprise, with
big number of "5-eyes", "9-eyes", "14-eyes" and "focused cooperation"
programs which were not authorized or evaluated by any national
political bodies with mandate gained in a democratic process.

Best regards
Jozef Halbersztadt
-- 
'JotHal' jozef [dot] halbersztadt [at] gmail [dot] com
Internet Society Poland http://www.isoc.org.pl

2014-02-12 5:25 GMT+01:00 Elver Loho <elver.loho at gmail.com>:
> 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
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-- 
'JotHal' jozef [dot] halbersztadt [at] gmail [dot] com
Internet Society Poland http://www.isoc.org.pl