Just Because You're Paranoid...

I've been thinking a lot about the whole NSA - Edward Snowden dustup. And what it and the responses mean for privacy. Then I had a chat with Dad where he stunned me by supporting PRISM, and things like speed and red-light cameras.

OK, without going too screed-y, here's what I think about some types of surveillance. Please note that I completely support pretty much any technique so long as it's used for a specific target and their connections and there's some kind of oversight into the info collected. I know full well information is extremely valuable and time is of the essence in tracking and stopping ne'er-do-wells. But there have to be limits too. The Constitution and all...

* PRISM, as described by Snowden (pretty much all major email/social networks providing data (not just meta) to some sort of massive data warehouse/analytics beast):

  Not cool, if it's going to build full electronic profiles on pretty much every net-connected citizen dating to whenever it got turned on. That kind of time machine and "into the diary" access is too much. The same system working in real-time aggregating full data on selected targets and then ceasing once the job's done is awesome tho'.

  PRISM-the-time-machine could too easily be used at a point in the future to prosecute and perscute past actions: "retro-crime" if you will. Or actions against a group that was once accepted but falls out of favor or makes enemies...

* PRISM and Echelon, automated keyword/connection detectors which alert human analysts when something triggers a threat alarm:

  Cool - these make sense, don't seem to have massive privacy implications and should restrict deeper dives to those who actually do something in the present.  Of course, this could still be misused, but as stated above, I'm expecting real oversight.

* Widespread public CCTV networks (think London):

  Cool - these really seem to work when tied to human enforcement on the ground ready to respond when something bad happens. It's a bit oppressive and could certainly be used to suppress public demonstrations and the like, but on the balance of public safety, right to movement and public security, I find them satisfactory.

* Drone-based surveillance:

  For me, it depends on whether these drones are automated or human-piloted. I'm generally accepting if there's a human operator making decisions on events unfolding. I can also accept automated droning if they try their best to keep the recordings/live feeds restricted to public spaces. But if they start collecting data on private places without warrants and oversight, especially collected in bulk and stored, then I don't like it,

* Red light and speed cameras:

  I'm torn - on the one hand, assuming everything is functioning properly, if you get popped by one of these it's because you actually violated a law. My problem is that these two types of tech-based law enforcement have really lent themselves to third parties selling towns on the safety and revenue opportunities, and then pocketing a lot of cash.

  That in itself isn't a problem, but far too many cases [citation needed] of unfair manipulating of the yellow light timing, or placement of speed limit changes just before the cams and so on have been documented. Florida in particular has raised a stink over yellow-light tweaks out of compliance with FDOT recommended timings. There was no reason or impetus to change the timings until the cams went in.

  This irritates me for the same reason many speed traps with human officers do. The police and city council types gas on about public safety but it's easy to believe it's really about revenue. Especially because resistance to things like speed traps and red light cameras seems to fade or be ignored when the town budget shows up in the red.

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So anyway, given that we're already well down the path of omnipresent electronic surveillance, here's hoping and praying those with the keys use it responsibly!