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

Thu Sep 23 14:37:31 CEST 2021

Thanks, Christine!

Here are also some more thoughts on

"Why Abolition Is The Response To Surveillance"
https://gitlab.com/-/snippets/2179387

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Christine Dann <christine at horomaka.org>
Date: Tue, Sep 21, 2021 at 6:54 PM
Subject: Re: [PeDAGoG] [vikalp-sangam-list] A new article on RED website -
"We thought it was fiction"
To: <gta-pedagog at lists.ourproject.org>

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> 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/
>
> Best,
>
> Pallav
>
>
> Read more
> <https://www.radicalecologicaldemocracy.org/we-thought-it-was-fiction/>
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>

-- 
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