Full Version: The Surveillance-Industrial Complex
The ACLU just started a major surveillance campaign based on the research and conclusions of this 38 page report: The Surveillance-Industrial Complex: How the American Government is Conscripting Businesses and Individuals in the Construction of a Surveillance Society
According to the ACLU:
In summary the report covers the following topics:
The report is a long read but fascinating and I would recommend reading it.
This Pizza Ad while certainly fiction, is definitely not out of the realm of possibility if we don't put a stop to this kind of thing. The various ACLU pages I linked provide several examples of companies that have provided information about their customers to the government in violation of their own privacy policies.
Questions for debate:
1. Are federal authorities violating our civil rights by collecting consumer information from various companies to get a complete picture of an individual?
2. Should we tighten regulations on corporations about what data they can collect about us and especially what kind of information they can sell / give out?
3. Is mass surveillance the correct way to fight terrorism and crime or will this approach ultimately create a world similar to the one depicted in Orwell's 1984?
According to the ACLU:
QUOTE
The government is rapidly increasing its ability to monitor average Americans by tapping into the growing amount of consumer data being collected by the private sector, according to a major report released today by the American Civil Liberties Union.
In summary the report covers the following topics:
QUOTE
The report makes the case that, across a broad variety of areas, the same dynamic of the "privatization of surveillance" is underway. Different dimensions of this trend are examined in-depth in four separate sections of the report:
* Recruiting Individuals. Documents how individuals are being recruited to serve as "eyes and ears" for the authorities even after Congress rejected the infamous TIPS (Terrorism Information and Prevention System) program that would have recruited workers like cable repairmen to spy on their customers.
* Recruiting Companies. Examines how companies are pressured to voluntarily provide consumer information to the government; the many ways security agencies can force companies to turn over sensitive information under federal laws such as the Patriot Act; how the government is forcing companies to participate in watchlist programs and in systems for the automatic scrutiny of individuals’ financial transactions.
* Mass Data Use, Public and Private. Focuses on the government’s use of private data on a mass scale, either through data mining programs like the MATRIX state information-sharing program, or the purchase of information from private-sector data aggregators.
* Pro-Surveillance Lobbying. Looks at the flip side of the issue: how some companies are pushing the government to adopt surveillance technologies and programs based on private-sector data.
* Recruiting Individuals. Documents how individuals are being recruited to serve as "eyes and ears" for the authorities even after Congress rejected the infamous TIPS (Terrorism Information and Prevention System) program that would have recruited workers like cable repairmen to spy on their customers.
* Recruiting Companies. Examines how companies are pressured to voluntarily provide consumer information to the government; the many ways security agencies can force companies to turn over sensitive information under federal laws such as the Patriot Act; how the government is forcing companies to participate in watchlist programs and in systems for the automatic scrutiny of individuals’ financial transactions.
* Mass Data Use, Public and Private. Focuses on the government’s use of private data on a mass scale, either through data mining programs like the MATRIX state information-sharing program, or the purchase of information from private-sector data aggregators.
* Pro-Surveillance Lobbying. Looks at the flip side of the issue: how some companies are pushing the government to adopt surveillance technologies and programs based on private-sector data.
The report is a long read but fascinating and I would recommend reading it.
This Pizza Ad while certainly fiction, is definitely not out of the realm of possibility if we don't put a stop to this kind of thing. The various ACLU pages I linked provide several examples of companies that have provided information about their customers to the government in violation of their own privacy policies.
Questions for debate:
1. Are federal authorities violating our civil rights by collecting consumer information from various companies to get a complete picture of an individual?
2. Should we tighten regulations on corporations about what data they can collect about us and especially what kind of information they can sell / give out?
3. Is mass surveillance the correct way to fight terrorism and crime or will this approach ultimately create a world similar to the one depicted in Orwell's 1984?
All the horrors of Soviet Russia: spying, a file, neighbors watching me, possible secret detainment...and I don't even get a pension and free healthcare? I feel ripped off.
QUOTE(ralou @ Aug 20 2004, 08:54 PM)
All the horrors of Soviet Russia: spying, a file, neighbors watching me, possible secret detainment...and I don't even get a pension and free healthcare? I feel ripped off.
Welcome ralou - you're new so you likely didn't realize one-liners are against the Rules because they are not constructive. Please remember to bring some substance to the debates. 
Terribly sorry. I like to be pithy at the expense of expansion sometimes. Okay, let me try this:
All of my life, I heard that the USSR and China were bad because they were communist, and that communism was bad because it meant that you would have a file, that people would be encouraged to spy on you, and that you might be 'vanished' and never seen again if you said or did something the government didn't like. Of course I was never exposed to pure Marxist philosophy at home or in school. The prevailing attitude was and still is: Communism leads to totalitarian worker-slave regimes, so there is no sense in even studying it, while capitalism and democracy (such as it is in America, which is a republic, but nevermind) are good and lead to freedom and the opposite of the bad things that happen in communist countries. So don't question the problems brought about by little or no socialism in America because if you do, all of the bad things that happen to Chinese and Soviets will happen to you.
Now the bad things that happen under communist dictatorships are happening in our so-called free society. So perhaps Americans should stop these things from happening, or at least we should study how to get the good things that came out of communism (health care, comparatively more rights for women, better job security, and that's not even looking at socialist countries in Europe with a higher standard of living than Americans have). Because after all, if we're going to have the downside, we should get the good side, too!
All of my life, I heard that the USSR and China were bad because they were communist, and that communism was bad because it meant that you would have a file, that people would be encouraged to spy on you, and that you might be 'vanished' and never seen again if you said or did something the government didn't like. Of course I was never exposed to pure Marxist philosophy at home or in school. The prevailing attitude was and still is: Communism leads to totalitarian worker-slave regimes, so there is no sense in even studying it, while capitalism and democracy (such as it is in America, which is a republic, but nevermind) are good and lead to freedom and the opposite of the bad things that happen in communist countries. So don't question the problems brought about by little or no socialism in America because if you do, all of the bad things that happen to Chinese and Soviets will happen to you.
Now the bad things that happen under communist dictatorships are happening in our so-called free society. So perhaps Americans should stop these things from happening, or at least we should study how to get the good things that came out of communism (health care, comparatively more rights for women, better job security, and that's not even looking at socialist countries in Europe with a higher standard of living than Americans have). Because after all, if we're going to have the downside, we should get the good side, too!
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