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I am not in defense of the NSA's mass surveillance program. However it would be an interesting thought experiment to imagine what would happen if, instead of c

by dev1n 13y ago

I am not in defense of the NSA's mass surveillance program. However it would be an interesting thought experiment to imagine what would happen if, instead of caching metadata, the NSA required people to submit reports of suspicious behavior on their neighbors. What would happen then? Is it possible people would become so suspicious of their neighbors that they would be reporting even the slightest oddity? We already have a deep trust issue in America as it is between citizens and the government. Imagine no trust at all between citizens?

alecdbrooks 13y ago
East Germany already tried that — you are basically describing the Stasi program of "unofficial collaborators." From The Legacy of Surveillance[0]: "For every 1,000 GDR citizens there were approximately 5.5 state security personnel and another 11 unofficial informers. About 1 in 50 of the country’s adults were working for the Stasi and enabled the ministry to conduct an almost blanket surveillance of society." The movie The Lives of Others is an acclaimed look at living under such ubiquitous surveillance. Without spoiling the plot, agents bugged apartments, blackmailed family members and tapped phones. Not every citizen was looked at intensely as the characters in the film, but millions of East Germans made it into the agency's files. Wired reported in 2008 that the Stasi had indexed their records by 5.6 million names. [1] Even people who hadn't been overtly persecuted by the Stasi are often concerned their friends were spying on them. There's concrete evidence of grossly undermined trust, too: The paper I cite above suggests that East Germany's economic problems are partly due to distrust caused by the unofficial collaborators. [0]: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1554604 http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1554604 [1] http://www.wired.com/politics/security/magazine/16-02/ff_stasi http://www.wired.com/politics/security/magazine/16-02/ff_sta...
mikeash 13y ago
It's neither "required" nor "neighbors", but consider the ubiquitous command: "If you see something, say something."

by dev1n 13y ago

alecdbrooks 13y ago

East Germany already tried that — you are basically describing the Stasi program of "unofficial collaborators." From The Legacy of Surveillance[0]: "For every 1,000 GDR citizens there were approximately 5.5 state security personnel and another 11 unofficial informers. About 1 in 50 of the country’s adults were working for the Stasi and enabled the ministry to conduct an almost blanket surveillance of society." The movie The Lives of Others is an acclaimed look at living under such ubiquitous surveillance. Without spoiling the plot, agents bugged apartments, blackmailed family members and tapped phones. Not every citizen was looked at intensely as the characters in the film, but millions of East Germans made it into the agency's files. Wired reported in 2008 that the Stasi had indexed their records by 5.6 million names. [1] Even people who hadn't been overtly persecuted by the Stasi are often concerned their friends were spying on them. There's concrete evidence of grossly undermined trust, too: The paper I cite above suggests that East Germany's economic problems are partly due to distrust caused by the unofficial collaborators. [0]: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1554604 http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1554604 [1] http://www.wired.com/politics/security/magazine/16-02/ff_stasi http://www.wired.com/politics/security/magazine/16-02/ff_sta...

mikeash 13y ago

It's neither "required" nor "neighbors", but consider the ubiquitous command: "If you see something, say something."