[PeDAGoG] [vikalp-sangam-list] A new article on RED website - "We thought it was fiction"

Wed Sep 22 00:15:49 CEST 2021

I think you might find some answers to your questions in this article, 
Hari -

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/04/surveillance-state-september-11-panic-made-us-vulnerable

It gives a very detailed account of how biased, excessive and either 
damaging or ineffective the state and corporate spying in the USA has 
been post 9/11. Also phenomenally expensive.

More information on how the spying potential of IT is abused by states 
is available from the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab 
(https://citizenlab.ca/). Last year it exposed the hacking of 
journalists' phones by an Israeli spy agency. This has literally put 
lives in danger, and may have contributed to the murder of the 
journalist  Jamal Kashoggi in the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul in 
2018.

One of the few clever and positive uses of technology to keep people 
safe recently is the international anti-drug smuggling initiative 
reported on here - 
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/sep/11/inside-story-most-daring-surveillance-sting-in-history 
     In this instance, however, only those people who were known bad 
actors or in close contact with bad actors were targetted for 
surveillance - and this is how any legitimate surveillance operation 
should work.

Sadly, it is far more common for 'good actors' - like those protesting 
racism, or reporting on state misdemeanours, for example - to be 
targetted and harassed, which is just a giant form of state 'phishing' - 
completely illegitimate and it should stop immediately.

But as I don't see any chance that the military-industrial complex (now 
including Big Tech) is about to stop working for and with the 
Market-State any where any time soon, and as demands for ethical 
behaviour don't cut any ice on this issue as with climate change and so 
many others, I think the only realistic position for good actors, be 
they activists or journalists, is to assume that their digital 
communication devices can and will be hacked at any time, and to take 
every precaution accordingly. Including not using a 'smart' phone at 
all, as in the preference of one investigative journalist I know.

Hope this helps!

Christine

On 20/09/21 1:17 am, Hari DK wrote:
> I'm genuinely interested and curious in this, since part of my 
> interest is in making data- and AI-based platforms 'safe' enough to 
> enable applications of various sorts.
>
> Please entertain these questions/challenges from someone who neither 
> pretends to be an activist nor an expert on the topic. Hopefully the 
> discussion won't get 'acrimonious'!
>
> 1) "But to be effective, it must be blanket: no more spying software. 
> Abolition. Period."
>
> We live in a path-dependent world. A lot of the acceleration of spying 
> technologies has been in the aftermath of 9/11 and we should factor 
> that into the explanation of its presence. Would you still support the 
> abolition of spying software if it meant a 9/11 this year? This week? 
> Tomorrow? Every day?
>
> 2) Keeping the above in mind, surely surveillance to a /reasonable 
> extent /is the price we have to pay in order to secure ourselves from 
> ourselves. "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty".
> Could I suggest that, if this is so, instead of a blanket abolition of 
> spying, we should push for better and more oversight through proper 
> governance and process?
>
> 3) If you say that better process on when and how to engage spying 
> technology is not possible, then may I say to you - your agenda of 
> "revolution" to achieve this seems to be much more impossible! What 
> are you going to do - force every spying node on the Internet to 
> decommission its tech? How? By pointing a gun to their head?
>
> I'm just the messenger, with a curiosity to learn. Interested in the 
> responses!
> Thanks.
>
>
>
>
> On Sun, 19 Sept 2021 at 00:22, Pallav Das <dpallav at gmail.com 
> <mailto:dpallav at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     *
>     *
>     *"Among the most glaring omissions in our arsenal as a movement is
>     the absence of a simple statement: we oppose government and
>     corporate surveillance of all kinds, we will never support it, and
>     we will not work with anyone who does. "*
>
>
>     Friends,
>
>     A new article, "We thought it was fiction", has been uploaded to
>     the Radical Ecological Democracy website. Alfredo Lopez, Melanie
>     Bush, Hamid Khan and Ken Montenegro, our colleagues from "May
>     First Movement Technology", discuss the threat posed by Pegasus,
>     the malicious hacking software, and how the progressive and
>     “alternatives” communities should organize to push back against
>     this steady erosion of people’s rights, and work to end tech
>     dominance and intrusion into our lives. Please share the article
>     with your networks and join the discussion on REDlistserv. The
>     authors are copied here in case you would like to contact them
>     directly.
>
>     https://www.radicalecologicaldemocracy.org/we-thought-it-was-fiction/
>     <https://www.radicalecologicaldemocracy.org/we-thought-it-was-fiction/>
>
>     Best,
>
>     Pallav
>
>
>     Read more
>     <https://www.radicalecologicaldemocracy.org/we-thought-it-was-fiction/>
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>
>
> -- 
> Hari Dilip Kumar
>
> *The Sustainability Problemsolver <http://www.haridk.me> | Initiative 
> for Climate Action <https://actionclimate.org/>*
> *LinkedIn <https://www.linkedin.com/in/hari-dilip-kumar-4b566621/>* | 
> *Skype *haridk.skype
>
>
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