[liberationtech] Query on implications of dragnet eavesdropping

[Louis Suárez-Potts]

On 2013-06-21, at 14:05 , Griffin Boyce <griffinboyce at gmail.com> wrote:

> Louis Suárez-Potts <luispo at gmail.com> wrote:
> Every day, one learns a new thing… or at least has one's guesses confirmed—and then does the same old. I think all of us (undefined set of persons but including those on this public list) have simply assumed that all information is kept for always, and that the nature of the always bureaucracy is that it eliminates boundaries of time, so that what you did long ago is what you will do today and tomorrow—this is what makes you "you"--and all can be used to frame you as a penal subject. But then, I'v read too much Kafka and Foucault.
> 
> cheers,
> Louis
> 
>   Louis, I think that Foucault would be genuinely pissed to see how things have progressed in his absence.  We started as a disciplinary society, progressed into a society of control, and then regressed entirely into a panoptic society.  I'm not sure what that says about us or how we deal with tragedy.  


Of course, since the Patriot Act, there's been a retrogression of the boundaries limiting government agencies, and the theoretical consequences of that have probably not been as well articulated as I would like. See below.

 Our new now, however….I don't think formally there's been much of a difference from earlier times, prior to the widespread use of digital media or even the telephone.Yes, there's a lot more communication going on and the character of watchfulness is much more subtle: you never have to see the watchers and most of us are not aware of them to begin with. But this says nothing about our society or how we deal with tragedy or any grand moral dynamic; at least it says nothing new. It does, however, suggest that efforts to determine domains of privacy should be redoubled. I would also probably prefer that any such domains be predicated on grounds other than property. Limiting arcs of power legally and in such a way that such limitations cannot be ignored is one way.
> 

Cheers,
Louis

PS, Foucault is more regarded now by scholars and activists of sexuality and conformity than by others. But given the recent revelations, perhaps it would be of interest to have a conference on his works' relevance to the present, and to reexamine tactics of power, pro/contra.

> ~Griffin
> 
> -- 
> Just another hacker in the City of Spies.
> #Foucault / PGP: 0xAE792C97 / OTR: saint at jabber.ccc.de
> 
> My posts, while frequently amusing, are not representative of the thoughts of my employer. --
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