Catfish
01-26-14, 12:48 PM
John W. Whitehead, President of the Rutherford Institute :
The new America (https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/kafkas_america_secret_courts_secret_laws_and_total _surveillance)
Found this paragraph very fitting:
About Kafka's book:
"One of Kafka’s most famous novels, The Trial, tells the story of Josef K., an ordinary middle manager who one morning awakes to find himself accused of a terrible crime – a crime which is too awful for his accusers to speak of."
Whitehead:
"Josef K’s plight, one of bureaucratic lunacy and an inability to discover the identity of his accusers, is increasingly an American reality. We now live in a society in which a person can be accused of any number of crimes without knowing what exactly he has done. He might be apprehended in the middle of the night by a roving band of SWAT police. He might find himself on a no-fly list, unable to travel for reasons undisclosed. He might have his phones or internet tapped based upon a secret order handed down by a secret court, with no recourse to discover why he was targeted. Indeed, this is Kafka’s nightmare, and it is slowly becoming America’s reality."
Of course, total surveillance is not possible to a 100 percent, and there are also - of course - advantages when it comes looking for criminals. However, who will be a "criminal", and who decides who qualifies ?
You can now be accused of anything, and they do not even have to prove it. You are suspicious for whatever reason, a combination of having bought the "wrong" car, few money on your bank account and not have been in a pub for more than four weeks. You being suspicious is the product of some automatic number-crunching algorithms connecting the dots they have about you.
It is the same with gun control, if only the secret service and the government has those means of surveillance, you are virtually helpless. Others and your (former) friends will think if he is being accused, there must be something (no smoke without fire blahblah)
Also very precise, and from 2003:
Society, Ethics, and Technology
By Morton Winston, Ralph Edelbach
"[...] we will find ourselves being tracked, analyzed, profiled, and flagged in our daily lives to a degree we can scarcely imagine today.
We will be forced into an impossible struggle to conform to the letter of every rule, law, and guideline, lest we create ammunition for enemies in the government or elsewhere. Our transgressions will become permanent Scarlet Letters that follow us throughout our lives, visible to all and used by the government, landlords, employers, insurance companies and other powerful parties to increase their leverage over average people.
Americans will not be able to engage in political protest or go about their daily lives without the constant awareness that we are - or could be - under surveillance. We will be forced to constantly ask of even the smallest action taken in public, "Will this make me look suspicious?
Will this hurt my chances for future employment? Will this reduce my ability to get insurance?" The exercise of free speech will be chilled as Americans become conscious that their every word may be reported to the government by FBI infiltrators, suspicious fellow citizens or an Internet Service Provider. [...]
This is about the NSA, but it is certainly true for all nations now, or in the near future.
Ok, a problem that cannot be solved stops being a problem.
But are we really going to take this, and do nothing about it.
This living in fear of doing anything suspicious that might trigger getting you in trouble in any respect, from employment to getting a credit to a no-fly situation to whatever imaginable, is not what i would like for my kids to see, or live under.
Greetings,
Catfish
The new America (https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/kafkas_america_secret_courts_secret_laws_and_total _surveillance)
Found this paragraph very fitting:
About Kafka's book:
"One of Kafka’s most famous novels, The Trial, tells the story of Josef K., an ordinary middle manager who one morning awakes to find himself accused of a terrible crime – a crime which is too awful for his accusers to speak of."
Whitehead:
"Josef K’s plight, one of bureaucratic lunacy and an inability to discover the identity of his accusers, is increasingly an American reality. We now live in a society in which a person can be accused of any number of crimes without knowing what exactly he has done. He might be apprehended in the middle of the night by a roving band of SWAT police. He might find himself on a no-fly list, unable to travel for reasons undisclosed. He might have his phones or internet tapped based upon a secret order handed down by a secret court, with no recourse to discover why he was targeted. Indeed, this is Kafka’s nightmare, and it is slowly becoming America’s reality."
Of course, total surveillance is not possible to a 100 percent, and there are also - of course - advantages when it comes looking for criminals. However, who will be a "criminal", and who decides who qualifies ?
You can now be accused of anything, and they do not even have to prove it. You are suspicious for whatever reason, a combination of having bought the "wrong" car, few money on your bank account and not have been in a pub for more than four weeks. You being suspicious is the product of some automatic number-crunching algorithms connecting the dots they have about you.
It is the same with gun control, if only the secret service and the government has those means of surveillance, you are virtually helpless. Others and your (former) friends will think if he is being accused, there must be something (no smoke without fire blahblah)
Also very precise, and from 2003:
Society, Ethics, and Technology
By Morton Winston, Ralph Edelbach
"[...] we will find ourselves being tracked, analyzed, profiled, and flagged in our daily lives to a degree we can scarcely imagine today.
We will be forced into an impossible struggle to conform to the letter of every rule, law, and guideline, lest we create ammunition for enemies in the government or elsewhere. Our transgressions will become permanent Scarlet Letters that follow us throughout our lives, visible to all and used by the government, landlords, employers, insurance companies and other powerful parties to increase their leverage over average people.
Americans will not be able to engage in political protest or go about their daily lives without the constant awareness that we are - or could be - under surveillance. We will be forced to constantly ask of even the smallest action taken in public, "Will this make me look suspicious?
Will this hurt my chances for future employment? Will this reduce my ability to get insurance?" The exercise of free speech will be chilled as Americans become conscious that their every word may be reported to the government by FBI infiltrators, suspicious fellow citizens or an Internet Service Provider. [...]
This is about the NSA, but it is certainly true for all nations now, or in the near future.
Ok, a problem that cannot be solved stops being a problem.
But are we really going to take this, and do nothing about it.
This living in fear of doing anything suspicious that might trigger getting you in trouble in any respect, from employment to getting a credit to a no-fly situation to whatever imaginable, is not what i would like for my kids to see, or live under.
Greetings,
Catfish