So, since PRISM we have confirmation of what I already suspected for a long time: Every citizen is a terrorism suspect, and the US government is forcing US companies to do it’s listening for them. And most governments are doing quite similar stuff.
It doesn’t help either that privacy laws in the US are very lax. You’d say they’re almost non-existant. I’ll get back to the importance of privacy laws, but first I’d like to point out that in the EU the governments aren’t all that nice either. Most governments here operate programs that are similar to PRISM to keep its populace in check under the guise of ‘fighting terrorism’.
A part of the danger that comes from PRISM and programs that work in similar ways is that they’re designed to tap into the databases that power the services we use every day. Add to that the monitoring of traffic, and Orwell’s book ‘1984’ has in effect become real. They are watching our every move, all the time. In effect this has turned every citizen into a suspected terrorist by default. Stories of innocent people being held and having incurred losses because of overactive government agencies are well known. And what for? To prevent about 5 deaths per million inhabitants a year from happening? More people die from unlawful police violence each year than from terrorism. It’s crazy!
Why would you want to prevent this? Because our right to privacy enables our freedom. it is at the heart of the freedom of choice. If you’re held accountable for every website you visit, every step you make, everyone you speak to, you essentially lose your right to free speech, freedom of movement and of ever feeling safe from prying eyes. As Nawal el Saadawi puts it: “The price of freedom is paid in blood”, and she is right. I’d rather have freedom than safety every day. Compared to the many deaths caused through traffic, lifestyle related diseases and workplace accidents, the price for our safety is very high.
Luckily we can fight back by requesting removal of information if the law provides for it. In the EU it is possible to do so, and you should make use of this to delete as much as possible. Let’s hope US law will follow suit and starts protecting the interests of the common man as much as that of big business and spy organizations by providing citizens with more rights to manage data that others have on them. (Yeah I know, isn’t going to happen, but maybe it will happen some day)
Removing data so that prying eyes don’t have much to look at is just the start though. We need a return to a free society. One where you opt in, where participation is voluntary, where you have the right to choose.
[edit] A bit of further clarification why I’m so opposed to this kind of surveillance: I highly doubt that terrorists will use forms of communication that will be that easy to intercept, so I question the effectiveness of using dragnet style interception to combat terrorism. Besides, what prevents terrorists from doing a little war driving combined with temporary identities to prevent exposing their real identities? It’s really a useless measure that only serves to attack a nations own citizens, not those it is targeted at. the only result is that we lose our freedom for a very fake sense of security.