Pretty much all of the current discussion I see around surveillance and the pandemic is framed like this: "to what extent can we balance new state surveillance with privacy", often citing post-9/11 spying powers as a cautionary example, and it's driving me a little bit bonkers.
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While it is true that the post 9-11 period in the United States saw the birth of a surveillance society of unimaginable breadth and intrusiveness, that society was built out by the private sector, which continues to operate it and has deftly resisted all attempts at regulation
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The barrier between state and private surveillance is an entirely notional one, as we've seen play out in countless ways. They use the same technology, same infrastructure, and the oligopoly tech companies behave in many ways like state actors themselves.
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In the United States, an especially odd situation exists where the only entities subject to data privacy regulation are hospitals, government, and the financial system. So any sleazeball data broker can collect and sell any bit of data they want about you, whatsoever.
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If a government wants any of that unregulated, permanently stored information, it has a lot of options. It can just hack in and take it (like China has often done) or it can ask nicely (like the U.S. government has done) and the private sector just hands it over.
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I would like to see this surveillance *architecture* partially dismantled and then closely regulated, as I believe it poses a mortal threat to democracy in the long term, particularly since most of it is run by a tech oligopoly already deeply embedded in our political system.
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Replying to @Pinboard
By surveillance architecture, are you talking about the pragmatic problems of the creation of pools of data, secured to varying extents, as opposed to (in your 1st tweet) the politics of the social contract between the govt & citizens re: their data? I agree both are v important
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Yes, the technical and economic apparatus of the surveillance economy as deployed.
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