On Thu, 2013-06-13 at 09:37 +0200, Jochen Fromm wrote: > Is the problem of surveillance to find the right tradeoff between > privacy and security, as president Obama says? What do you think?
No. That's a false dichotomy. I think what's really happening is the ongoing negotiation between distributed versus centralized control. e.g. In my city, most of the citizens are in favor of the photo radar van. I am not. Despite my objections, however, I have to admit that I know the Chief of Police, personally. I know the Sheriff. I know some of the city councilors and sporadically meet the mayor for pints. This access gives me a sense of "locality" to the surveillance. It feels much less like a passel of morlocks spying on us eloi and more like me spying on myself, or us spying on ourselves. The problem of the surveillance state (or any accusations against "the state") lies in the otherness of the state. If you trust the representative democracy to be what it claims to be, then that mitigates against the feeling that _they_ are spying on _us_. It makes it feel more like _we_ are spying on _us_ ... And proprioception is a healthy part of any organism. -- ⇒⇐ glen e. p. ropella The moon crashed into the desert ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
