Earlier this year the UK government announced that it had authorised GCHQ to monitor all communications on social media, Skype calls and emails as well as logging every site visited by internet users in Britain.
Huge amounts of completely stupid and unnecessary chatter and “information” clogs the air waves, the internet and the social media. You hear the sort of thing I am talking about, out loud and boringly, on trains:
“Hi, the train is just leaving Clapham Junction…..it’s just going past Battersea Park.. ….Hello, I was cut orf…….We are crossing the bridge……. Oh, there is Battersea power station…..You still there? Now I can see the platform……..it’s stopped…….Oh, there’s the barrier….I can see you.”
I wish GCHQ well, and suggest listening in accompanied by a good sleeping draft or some strong alcohol.
But seriously, as Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who devised email, is quoted as saying, The idea that we should routinely record information about people is … very dangerous. It means that there is information around which could be stolen, acquired through corrupt officials or corrupt operators, or used to blackmail people in the government or military. We open ourselves out if we store this information to it being abused.
This is the sort of intrusive, illiberal development that drove Epicurus out of the agora and into the garden, with just a few intelligent friends, to talk about the really important things in life. Unfortunately, the British have the most illiberal and casually autocratic government (with a smiling and apparently innocuous face) since the days of bad King John.
GCHQ used to act for the British people, not against them (I was at university with a former senior administrator of GCHQ, and he was/is a good guy. Can’t imagine him going along with this dreadful stuff). So, let the new and sinister GCHQ spot this comment and store it!
Note to snoopers: Hi guys, what are you going to do, arrest me?
(Information reported in The Guardian 27.04.12)
We endure the most intrusive government surveillance and with no accountability or constraints. We may be seeing the glimmerings of a legal push-back, a courageous Federal judge here and there (NY, actually.)
I agree that the chief weakness of this horrible situation — beyond the implications of Kafka or Orwell–is the lack of effective analysis of what any of this detritus means. (Or is it drek?)
I’ve often wondered: how Epicurus survive the Roman legions just outside the Garden gate? The troops didn’t storm the Epicurean walls. I think part of the reason must be that the Roman Establishment knew that Epicurus rejected political involvement His teachings were revolutionary-to-the-core for the Romans but his methods were quietist.