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No, Mass Surveillance Won't Stop Terrorist Attacks
- api 12y agoAmong many other factors I get the feeling there's a huge pork dimension behind all this mass surveillance stuff -- it's big money for government IT contractors, data mining companies, etc. Any thoughts on what the other motivating factors are? The common refrain we here is that governments want all this surveillance to stifle dissent, but there's a minor issue with that idea: if it doesn't work to stop terrorism, why would it work to stop dissent? I mean I suppose in a totalitarian state you can stifle dissent by identifying dissenters and beating them up or killing them, in a liberal Western democracy dissent isn't a crime. So even if they know you're a dissenter, what does that accomplish? I suppose they can soft harass -- no-fly lists and IRS audits and the like -- but that's just as likely to breed more dissent. The "mountains of big dumb data" problem also shows up here -- trying to bulk-identify dissenters is going to generate massive lists that are full of false positives. Your dragnet might even catch a fair number of the opposite -- extreme jingoist patriots -- as they'd also appear outside the norm politically. What are these programs really for?