Degrees of Freedom
I found this weeks readings very interesting and relevant. I find the topic of privacy and freedom of great concern, especially today. On any given day, it seems that I either hear or read something about privacy. First there was the concern about what information people were making available on their Facebook pages. More recently I have read a lot about location based services and crimes being committed as a result. It seems that today there is a lot of discussion about technology and privacy.
Earlier this week I read an article that mentioned The Technology Society a book by Jacques Ellul, a sociologist and philosopher. The article was about what Ellul saw as a technology society. Basically a society in which technology is used as the answer for everything. Ellul discusses the effects of technology on social, economic, and political usage.
The article showed how those that do not understand technology will become powerless to it. This will create a shift in which the technicians, those who understand technology, will become the ones with power. In Wendy Chun’s publication Control and Freedom, she mentions the paranoia people face when it comes to information on the Internet. Chun writes about control-freedom and the ascribed power of a control system. A system in which failures are erased and power is given to the system creating paranoia.
This creates a system in which those with power look to the experts for answers. They look to those who understand the system to guide them or exploit them. This seems to me oddly familiar to the recent technology improvement the TSA has been using. The TSA has been implementing policies, from what I have read, have not been authorized by Congress. However because in this case the TSA are the technicians, Congress has been placed in the role of the powerless.
The larger question is who will our elected officials follow? Will they side with the public whom elected them or the technicians?
Very interesting! I liked the TSA correlation because that hadn’t even occurred to me, since I was mainly thinking of Internet security/privacy. I think our hope is that officials will side with who elected them, but as we can see more and more, this not the case because they are led astray by other officials or get buried in technicalities that make them unable to side with the public. How can we change this though? How do we not let these technicians have all the power? How do we restrict their influence? Or can we?
I like the TSA correlation too. I think all too often public officials don’t neccssarily side with the constituents who elected them but the special interests that funded their campaigns. This TSA debacle is a great example because the citizens have been compelled, not asked but compelled, to sacrifice personal privacy in the interest of personal safety. However privacy and safety are not mutually exclusive interests. It will be interesting to see what happens with these new TSA regulations. If I had to hazard a guess it would be that once the airlines start losing money as passengers opt out of flying to avoid being publicly groped by TSA agents then safety will magically re-appear regardless of whether passengers have been scanned or patted down prior to boarding. Excellent and thought provoking post!
I agree it was really good, I am kind of happy I did my presentation on this. Or will do…err. I am happy you enjoyed it as well. It really hits the nail on the head in this day and time with locational privacy and privacy in general.
You mentioned the increased correlation we’re seeing between location based applications and crime. This is a very interesting point. It almost seems like we need education classes on what security/privacy is and how to maintain it. We all have such varying views of the concept, no wonder it is easily intruded.
Nice synthesis of the readings, Nick. The question of who will influence the legislators is an important one. Since the technicians can afford the lobbyists…well, you can connect the dots…
Brianni – I’m fairly certain there is a thriving marketplace of security experts who take advantage of people by offering these types of classes.