I have to admit that, when it comes to Edward Snowden and the NSA revelations, my feelings are decidedly mixed.
Do I think he’s a hero? No.
Do I think he’s a traitor? No.
Do I think he’s a crappy employee? Yep. (And do I think that his employer Booz Allen Hamilton has some explaining to do? Hell, yes.)
I think Edward Snowden’s idealistic. I think he’s naïve. And I’d have a lot more respect for him if he hadn’t high-tailed it out of the country, but had held his ground here. (If, as I’ve heard, he could out our entire security apparatus if he’d wanted to, I would think he’s at plenty of risk floating around out there – and mostly not from the FBI getting their hands on him. Yikes!)
As for other notorious info-outers:
My opinion of Julian Assange is almost entirely negative. I think he’s narcissistic putz.
And Bradley Manning? I think he was used, and I think he was dead wrong in putting people at risk.
Not everything needs to be transparent.
When it comes to national security, we could do with a little opaque.
But I do think we’re long overdue for some conversations about privacy and security. And if Snowden’s action is the opening conversational gambit, good.
In my opinion?
Personally, if the government wants to sift through phone records looking for patterns that might reveal terrorist activity, have at it. If they want to listen in on phone calls without a warrant, well, get thee to the warrant-granter.
If the government wants to keep track of who’s searching for “pressure cooker bombs”, be my guest. If they want the records of everyone who buys a Mirro pressure cooker at Sears? Get out of here.
If they keep an eye on everyone who trades in kiddie-porn and build the case that puts them away: good. If a cop’s out there trolling for predators, and traps some guy with an otherwise clean record into meeting up, thinking that the cop is a 13 year old girl, well, here’s where I start thinking “thought police” and entrapment.
The Internet. Big data. The cloud. When it comes to preventing or solving crime, all just big tools of the trade.
So the government is going to use them the same way that G-Men used Most Wanted posters and fingerprints.
And let’s face it, there’s so much out there that nips at our privacy that we out there voluntarily, every time we google, order online, swipe an awards card.
Privacy? What’s that?
We already surrender so much, day in day out, without giving it a thought. And it’s just plain creepy, whether it’s the NSA or Amazon with the potential to know my every heart’s desire.
But at the end of the day, when we start making tradeoffs, I’d rather have cyber-snooping than cops with assault rifles and attack dog in every subway station. Or have to undergo a strip-search to get into Fenway Park for a ball game.
Yes, I know all this data collecting could turn out to be a really terrible thing.
Suppose that the powers that be decide they want to ferret out everyone who reads Paul Krugman and thrown them in jail. Or everyone who’s a member of the ACLU. Or follows Glenn Beck on Twitter. (Do I really think that last one is going to happen? Nah… I just threw that one in there to even things up a bit.)
If we get one of those wack oppressive/repressive governments in there – the kind that will have us all breaking out our V for Vendetta masks – then, guess what? They’re going to be keeping track and tracking us down whether we like it or not, and they won’t give a hoot whether the slope they’re on is already slippery.
But that’s not the government that we have at present (or past).
Certainly, we have a less than glorious history of propping up some fairly rancid dictators. And, at the more micro level, plenty of folks have been the victim of gross miscarriage of justice. They’ve been railroaded by cops and prosecutors who wanted to “solve” a crime and had a jones for them. (And just think how much easier these frame-ups will be when someone can create an entirely bogus cyber-record against you.)
Still, on balance, I’ll take our society over one in which women get beaten over the head if they go out in public without their burqua.
While we’re at our conversation about privacy and security, how about revisiting just how secure our security apparatus is.
If one 29 year old geek could get access to all this info, imagine if evil-doers, bad guys, rotters, thieves can get at it.
So while we’re having the conversation about privacy and security, let’s save some time to talk about checks and balances, and who watches the watchers.
I said earlier that I though Edward Snowden is naïve.
I read that he was hoping to find safe harbor in Iceland because the society is more open, more Internet friendly, more “free the information”, more whatever.
Believe me, I have on occasion thought about where I’d go if things got really bad here. Canada’s the obvious choice – it seems like the U.S. without the baggage. Then there’s Ireland. Or Denmark.
Iceland? Sure. Why not?
But it’s a lot easier being an ideal society – or whatever it is that Iceland appears to be – if you’re small and out of the way and monochrome.
The U.S. – sometimes for better, sometimes for worse – is The Player. We’re richer. More powerful. Bigger. Bolder. More diverse. More complex. Better at everything. Worse at everything else.
Let’s face it, it’s easier being Iceland than it is being us.
But most of us do, of course, want to form a more perfect union.
Which means we really should have the conversation that Edward Snowden has kicked off.
To quote one of our recent presidents, bring it on.
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