Who is victimized by hyper-surveillance governance?

by Alex Steed

Published October 31, 2008 @ 12:40AM PT

In an entry posted earlier today, I touched upon a question regarding Millennial activism and perceptions of / reactions to action in hyper-surveillance culture:

The brief conversation [...] was a reminder of what I perceive to be an extreme lack of caution with regard to law enforcement and government surveillance when it comes to online activism. There is, of course, a dialog regarding political rallying around candidates who support / fight against legislation that revolves around domestic spying, but what conversation, if any, revolves around a real, measured caution integrated into online advocacy and activism?

After posting the entry, I had remembered that Asher Platts, a former classmate and Maine-based activist that I respect very much, has been on the short end of side of the surveillance stick that many so-called Millennial activists might otherwise find unbelievable. Here – while offering the disclaimer that his political opinions don't necessarily represent those of Millennials Changing America, our sponsors, or me – I present Asher's take on his position as an activist in hyper-surveillance culture:

I would agree with Caitlin that in regards to personal information, people of our generation think of the internet as being a much safer place than it actually is, and are often too loose and free with personal information.  My Facebook page contains very little accurate information, and I add friends that I don’t know regularly to try to use a “firehose” effect on anybody real or imagined who might be monitoring my social circle.

On that note — I’m not sure if you know about Facebook’s own checkered past and how it crosses paths with the Total Information Awareness Office and DARPA front groups who engage in venture investments in military intelligence technology.  It’s interesting stuff.  It also sounds pretty fringe/conspiracy theorist, so I’ll let you check into it yourself.  It’s really neither here nor there in answering the question.

I’m an Eagle Scout, and as such, I had to take a series of citizenship merit badges.  Citizenship in the community, state, and nation.  Through these, I learned a lot about what it means to be an American, what our founding values are.   Even if the ideals of America aren’t being put into practice, I take them very seriosuly, and live AS IF that America were real.  Reality isn’t static, it’s a contant dialogue between the individual and society, and we have a far greater impact on the world and it’s abstract structures than we realize (abstractions such as Government, the Media, Public Opinion, etc)

I don’t know Caitlin’s full story, but I think that silence on things that matter ultimately lets those who seek to subdue and subvert us gain even more power by creating a climate of fear and mistrust.  Frankly, the more people who express their dissident views, the more those who are supposedly monitoring us have to do to keep up with everyone.

This has two analogues.  First more closely in 1960s era Soviet Occupied Czechoslovakia, and second, and maybe more readers will find it relevant, on the internet recently with the RIAA.

Vaclav Havel, dissident playwright in Soviet Czechoslovakia took note of this happening in his own country during his own time.  He saw, as the Soviets cracked down, how the citizens were equally at fault for creating the political and cultural climate of despair — because if everybody expressed themselves and did so without fear, the government would have an impossible task of silencing the many.  So in cracking down on a few, the rest fell into compliance and made the job of keeping dissidents in line easier.  Ultimately, the Velvet Revolution changed that, and the citizens came out by the thousands in protest all at once.  The government had no choice but to resign.  Even with guns and tanks, it would have been impossible to put down a crowd that size.

Likewise, It was impossible for the RIAA to go after everyone using Napster or KaZaa, but the fear of being caught was enough to reduce p2p filesharing to a dribble. What the RIAA did was create a climate of fear, and they reduced the amount of online traffic to a manageable size where they could more easily start going after individuals, who, ignorant of copyright law, didn’t know that they werent’ actually doing anything illegal, and would offer to settle out of court for exorbinant amounts of money rather than face the empty threat of jail time.

I feel that the same goes for online activism, and activism in general.  This culture of fear reduces the amount of traffic, reduces the amount of people freely expressing their opinions.  And society closes on it’s own.  It’s not that they are censoring us — no government has the ability to deny us our free will and individuality unless we let them — it’s that we censor ourselves.   I don’t think it’s something anybody actively thinks of doing, or talks about with their friends.  We just slowly change our behaviour to “get along” with as little trouble as possible.

In regards to my being wiretapped/monitored or whatever by Verizon.  That was a very surreal experience.  I’ve written about it on my blog which you can read here.

The sequence of events for me in regards to the Telecom Immunity bill was very very surreal.  I ended up caucusing for Obama in the Democratic Primary in an effort to deny Hillary a fraction of a point enough to get her to lose a delegate.  But after this, he voted for the Telecom Immunity bill, which he had said he would Filibuster (surprise, he didn’t.)

Up till then, I was hesitently supporting Obama.  After that, my mind was made up, there was no way I could support a candidate who would vote for a bill that so blantantly violates the bill of rights, even expanding Executive Powers to the point of being criminal on their face.  Especially with the foreknowlege that he may be the one in the executive office USING those new powers.  It was too important an issue for me.  But it was still abstract.

Then a while later, a friend of mine sent me a link to a list hosted on a leaked document storage website, which listed the people that Verizon had wiretapped or monitored phone calls for in the State of Maine.  And I was on it.  I couldn’t beleive my eyes.  There were other people I knew on there as well, and people freinds of mine knew.

I contacted the Maine Civil Liberties Union, and they said that the Telecom immunity bill prevented me from sueing Verizon for violating my privacy.  Now the issue was very real for me. You can not understand the injustice I feel was perpetrated on me by those spineless people in government.  This was not just the Democrats having no spine, and being upset over that.  I have been violated, and they voted for me to have no recourse.  If rights were people, the Democrats and Republicans alike would all guilty of murder in my eyes.

I made up my mind that I would actively campaign against both Obama and McCain (both of whom voted for it) from there on out, and began actively advocating and promoting Nader and McKinney as alternatives to Obama, and Baldwin and Barr as alternatives to McCain.

More upsetting than political posturing in Washington having drastic effects on daily life of realy people, I’m upset with my friends who know that I was wiretapped, know that Obama voted for the bill, but still plan on voting for Obama.  It feels like I was raped, my freinds know I was raped, but they’re voting for the rapist anyways, because he didn’t rape them, and the other rapist scares them more.  It’s completely unconcionable to me.

As far as my being wiretapped, I think it’s more likely that I was wiretapped either randomly, or that it was as a result of being very active online with the Dennis Kucinich for President campaign.  I had been in a lot of international press, including storming a Hillary Clinton event and locking arms with Ron Paul supporters and shouting her down for being a war monger while she was trying to make a media appearance in New Hampshire.

As I said earlier, I have very little accurate personal information listed online, especially not my telephone number, so I don’t know how Verizon would have been tapping my phone (especially since my carrier is Cingular/AT&T).  It’s most likely that it was random, and certainly not related to any activities on myspace, youtube, or facebook.