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Will The Mighty American Surveillance State Eliminate Snowden?
by Monica Davis
It takes a lot to get Americans all fired up over something–and when they get fired up, it doesn’t take long for them to fizzle out. Everybody’s all fired up over the latest government excursion into privacy violation and censorship, but the government hasn’t a candle on private industry.
And it doesn’t have the marketing power to make us want to give up our freedom in exchange for gadgets, free stuff and “free” services either.
Now a 29 year old “leaker” has blown the whistle on what the National Security Administration (NSA) is doing with all of its tech tots–and we go bonkers. Big Deal: we’ve been giving away information to the big boys–and girls, in on-line businesses for 30 years.
Look at the terms of service (TOS) of all of those “free” email, social media and internet provider services and what do you see: they track your browser history, aggregate data, have the right to use your pictures and video in their advertising, and so much more.
People are treating these rapacious marketers and their spy tools as their friends. Get real. You are only a number, a piece of meat, money on the hoof for them. Are you a human being, or are you meat?
Why do you give up all of your rights and privacy to talk to people you don’t know, will never see, or wouldn’t know if the kicked you in the butt?
Edward Snowden has raised questions about our surveillance society. He has done it in such a public way that we can’t help but think about our society and what it means to be “free”.
Late last week, we found out that the source of the major NSA leak was a 29-year-old, Ron Paul–supporting defense contractor named Edward Snowden. Both John Boehner and Dianne Feinsteinhave labeled Snowden a traitor. The Times editorial board has come to his defense. What do you make of him?
Isn’t it something of a commentary on the might of the American surveillance state that a 29-year-old high-school dropout could elude an international law-enforcement dragnet for as long as Snowden has? As Seth Lipsky wrote in the New York Post this morning, it’s a plot out of Catch Me If You Can. That said, it’s preposterous to label this 29-year-old IT guy a traitor at this point. As far as we can tell now, he hasn’t handed over state secrets to an enemy. The revelation that the government is using data mining in itself does not seem to have damaged our security; surely terrorists aren’t total idiots and have figured this out too. Nor is Snowden a hero. His leak is unlikely to rescue America from the Orwellian excesses of the Patriot Act that have haunted us for more than a decade. What Snowden has done instead is far more prosaic: He has revealed a post-9/11 security regimen that few sentient Americans seem to find surprising and that many seem to want. Snowden’s flair for self-dramatization, and that of his fans in the news media and politics, should not be confused with the somewhat more mundane reality of this whole incident. His main civic contribution thus far is – in the words of President Obama and countless others – to open up a debate about the state of privacy in America. I fear that debate will not survive August.
The tech industry is currently both wildly popular and widely trusted. Do you think that a scandal that involves such giants as Google, Apple, Facebook, and Microsoft will do serious damage to their clout and their bottom lines?
In a word, no. Americans love these companies – well, maybe not Microsoft – and spend much of their day handing over money and personal information to them. MOREHERE
