Episode 097 - Public Privacy

Recorded: 26 August, 2013

Participants: Steve Harlow, Emory Holmes II, Jim "Jimmy The Peach" Aaron, Ruth Parson, Allan Ludwig, Anneke van de Kassteele, Ferrie Differentieel.

Ferrie introduces the subject of government surveillance. By saying he has been very dissapointed in US President Obama. He has allowed the NSA to collect data on citizens. It seems the NSA is more powerful than the President. Ferris would like to discuss the moral aspects of the recently reveiled data collection of civilian internet activities. Are we, as artists ready to make a statement against this development?

Steve says he is not concerned.

Ferrie says government spying on citizens is happening in the Netherlands also and he is concerned.

Steve says Telegraph, telephone, and Internet are all public communication technology with no presumption of privacy.

We were mislead into thinking that we had privacy on telephones, except for extraordinary circumstances when law enforcement got court orders to breach it. We are attempting to apply a simular model to internet use. But it's a sham, all data to and from your internet connected computer is public, it may be intercepted and analyzed by anyone who wants to do it.

Mary says while it may have always been possible to eavesdrop, there was an agreement that the government would not unless dire circumstances required it.

She says she is a private person, but is writing publicly on the web feeling her statements will be lost in all the traffic anyway. She doesn't like the idea of people thinking they have a right to eavesdrop just because it's possible.

Anneke says it is not the collection of data that concerns her, but the labels that may be put on her by those who are analysing. She has a friend in Iran she corresponds with through email. Does that make her linked to terrorists in some misanalysis?. Her concern is over what drawer they put me in. "Can I trust my own government?" she asks. "No," others laugh.

Emory says he's new to this baffling world of internet and has been dissapointed in President Obama. He wonders if the government is entrenched in certain ways of doing things that it doesn't matter who is head of state, it keeps doing the same things in the same way.

He says he's old enough to remember telephone party lines, where you were expected to hang up the phone when your neighbors were talking. A system of trust. He also recalls a friend of his from Zaire, who wore flashy clothes. Deciding to return to his home country after being away for many years, he talked on the phone to a relative there who joked with him about being a king when he got back. He was arrested upon arrival by agents of an eavesdropping government who didn't get the joke and thought he was coming to Zaire to overthrow the government.

That's the dread we are all experiencing regarding surveillance, Emory says.

He writes posts on Facebook which are read by people he'll probably never meet. What pretense of privacy does he have, he wonders.

Allan says he's new to the 21st Century communications we have. He is sure that any government who has access to technology for spying on their citizens or others, will use it. Governments always say they are doing it for "our" protection, but always it is used for their protection, the government's protection. Allan is terrified of the potential, while seeing, at the same time, the potential for communication benifical for the individual.

In his own work, he is in communication with people all over the world, including in countries his government does not approve of. Does that mean he's "linked" to those people or countries? "Linked" is a word his government likes to use when describing individuals targeted by drone attacks, "this individual was linked to Al Qaeda." He always wonders what is meant by "linked?" Very ambiguous, very scary. We are entering a very precarious situation because of the surveillance and the action coming from the surveillance. The drones are being made smaller and now are distr...