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I agree to a point, that it's an issue of balance of power, but I think the arms race solution could cause a lot more damage to our society than the current arr
by ZenoArrow 10y ago
I agree to a point, that it's an issue of balance of power, but I think the arms race solution could cause a lot more damage to our society than the current arrangements.
Surveillance of government could open the floodgates to much broader interpersonal surveillance. For example, imagine a company that offered 'surveillance as a service'. We've been here before with private investigators, but that tended to be a niche market, just imagine if it was mainstream. The mechanisms we'd need to enable ad-hoc surveillance of government officials could also enable the general public to spy on each other to a much greater extent. At what point does that start to impact on our personal relationships and our business relationships? I'd suggest it could cause a much less forgiving society to emerge.
- visarga 10y agoOur current arrangements fill the data coffers of FaceBook, Google, Apple and mobile operators with troves of personal data. It's already a multi-way surveillance society. We need to expand this even more, to surveil the surveillers or have access to their data.
- ZenoArrow 10y agoPerhaps you've misunderstood what I said. I'm suggesting that promoting much more widespread surveillance will seep into civic life, e.g. people spying on employees/employers, neighbours, acquaintances, etc... and at a much greater level than sites like Facebook allow. In other words, I'm suggesting an arms race in the field of surveillance available to the general public is likely to have unwelcome effects on society at large.