On Sat, 5 Mar 2016 15:41:04 -0500
Steve Kinney
Universal surveillance enables abuses of State power only when access to collected data is restricted to State sanctioned actors.
Yeah well. The obvious assumption(fact) is that surveillance is carried by the state and its proxies and only they have access to the data. Which is exactly what's happening now. Oh, and not only they have access to the data, they also have access to the guns. So the more data they have, the more damage they can cause.
When everything becomes searchable by anybody, the inability of State sanctioned actors to conceal their activities or effectively lie about their history and motives will inhibit their potential for destructive action.
Sorry, I'm not buying that. First, the idea that joe-six-pack is going to have access to the pentagon's satellites is sheer nonsense. And even if he somehow did he wouldn't have access to the the guns. So what good would the information be?
"Power over others" depends in large part on secrecy,
Power over others depends on guns.
while "powers of self determination" depend largely on free and open access to information.
Information is required but information alone will get you nowhere. Or more likely it would get you in jail.
In the long run, the secrecy problem will take care of itself, because the abuses of power it enables have already killed the State: At least, in the sense that a trans-national State hard wired for self destruction, defending that program by any means necessary, is "already dead."
Well, the only thing missing to prove that claim is...evidence.
:o)