SURVEILLANCE AND THE PANOPTICON 499
Accordingly, we accept the various encroachments upon civil liberties because they are critical to equip our governments with the tools and the data to eliminate the risk of terror and other violent criminality. Yet, these are the same tools and data that can be used against us, and we are complicit and cheer the overt, unashamed construction of a police state, differentiated from a democratic regime by the sheer scale of surveillance. One is not free to express their opinions and engage in demonstration because of the modern surveillance systems that facilitate a global, virtually inescapable panopticon that “logically seem[s] to intensify the possibilities of the disciplinary society described by Foucault …show more content…
It is apparent, through the Snowden disclosures, that an individual no longer has privacy, and their government, through the operation of the Five Eyes alliance, can evade regulations that offer protection. A society living under a panopticon, with no control over to whom their information is shared and their freedom of expression restricted, is “a society that breeds conformity and obedience and submission”. Under the panopticon, governments no longer need to wield olden day weapons of tyranny to force compliance of the population, because mass surveillance “creates a prison in the mind that is a much more subtle though much more effective means of fostering compliance with social norms or with social orthodoxy, much more effective than brute force could ever be” . As Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff said to the U.N. general assembly, “absence of the right to privacy, there can be no true freedom of expression and opinion, and therefore no effective democracy.”
FREE PRESS AND FREEDOM OF INFORMATION 477
There must be a reasonable balance …show more content…
Ubiquitous surveillance, and data collection and sharing has successfully facilitated a global panopticon, justified by the foremost goal of risk elimination in a world occupied by the global terror threat. We are no longer at liberty to exercise our right to privacy and expression, knowing that our governments can access this information at will. Our right to information is equally muted, because it is the same anti-terror rhetoric and legislation that equips governments with both the justification and tools that are used to spy on, prosecute, and imprison journalists and whistleblowers, further diminishing the freedom of the press and restricting the right to information and transparent administration. Our privacy and democratic freedoms are traded in the hopes for security, yet it is done so at the cost of a frighteningly powerful state, just as John Lock asserted: “This is to think, that Men are so foolish, that they take care to avoid what Mischiefs may be done them by Pole-Cats, or Foxes, but are content, nay think it Safety, to be devoured by
Accordingly, we accept the various encroachments upon civil liberties because they are critical to equip our governments with the tools and the data to eliminate the risk of terror and other violent criminality. Yet, these are the same tools and data that can be used against us, and we are complicit and cheer the overt, unashamed construction of a police state, differentiated from a democratic regime by the sheer scale of surveillance. One is not free to express their opinions and engage in demonstration because of the modern surveillance systems that facilitate a global, virtually inescapable panopticon that “logically seem[s] to intensify the possibilities of the disciplinary society described by Foucault …show more content…
It is apparent, through the Snowden disclosures, that an individual no longer has privacy, and their government, through the operation of the Five Eyes alliance, can evade regulations that offer protection. A society living under a panopticon, with no control over to whom their information is shared and their freedom of expression restricted, is “a society that breeds conformity and obedience and submission”. Under the panopticon, governments no longer need to wield olden day weapons of tyranny to force compliance of the population, because mass surveillance “creates a prison in the mind that is a much more subtle though much more effective means of fostering compliance with social norms or with social orthodoxy, much more effective than brute force could ever be” . As Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff said to the U.N. general assembly, “absence of the right to privacy, there can be no true freedom of expression and opinion, and therefore no effective democracy.”
FREE PRESS AND FREEDOM OF INFORMATION 477
There must be a reasonable balance …show more content…
Ubiquitous surveillance, and data collection and sharing has successfully facilitated a global panopticon, justified by the foremost goal of risk elimination in a world occupied by the global terror threat. We are no longer at liberty to exercise our right to privacy and expression, knowing that our governments can access this information at will. Our right to information is equally muted, because it is the same anti-terror rhetoric and legislation that equips governments with both the justification and tools that are used to spy on, prosecute, and imprison journalists and whistleblowers, further diminishing the freedom of the press and restricting the right to information and transparent administration. Our privacy and democratic freedoms are traded in the hopes for security, yet it is done so at the cost of a frighteningly powerful state, just as John Lock asserted: “This is to think, that Men are so foolish, that they take care to avoid what Mischiefs may be done them by Pole-Cats, or Foxes, but are content, nay think it Safety, to be devoured by