Ramblings on Privacy, Security, and the Current U.S. Political Landscape
With the recent reporting by 404 Media leaking the list of sites and services that ICE and the military at large monitors, it is clearer than ever how vital it is that we the people protect our digital footprints. Too often do I offer alternative tools or habits to friends and family to help them protect from surveillance, but get shot down with "I have nothing to hide" or "privacy is dead, so who cares?". This video from Shannon Morse covers this topic quite nicely, and I highly recommend giving her a watch.
The billionaires, politicians, and tech corps at the top have done an exceptional job at whittling away social privacy norms without any backlash. It's impressive really. I don't know that people in the 70s or 80s, even the 90s, would have put up with any of this. Nowadays though, it's completely normalized and even expected that our phones are spying on us. The apps and tools we use are watching every single thing we do - who we talk to, where we go, what we buy, what we look at and for how long - and siphoning that data off to shadowy data brokers with zero public awareness, and zero government regulation.
To make matters worse, a lot of smaller app developers may not even realize they are contributing to this shadow market. Data brokers will create legitimately useful SDKs for free that do other things, like make location or contact data easier for developers to work with. However, hidden in the ToS and the SDK's code, it is revealed that the SDK is phoning home to the data broker, sharing users' location, contacts, app usage habits, and more.
And that's arguably not even the scariest part. To make matters even worse, anyone can buy this collected information. This data - your data - is not just for ad agencies, or governments. It is for everyone from religious organizations trying to publicly oust gay priests to stalkers and rapists trying to keep tabs on their victims. And this is just what private entities have access to. If companies in the private sector are already this sophisticated, then what does that about the tools the NSA and CIA are likely to have? It's a Jungle out there!
None of this even mentions big tech and their harms. Amazon promotes its own brands without appropriate labels, doesn't mind its workers , and rips off products to compete unfairly. Facebook, is complicit in genocide because it is profitable for them, and employs countless to keep people angry, ignorant, and scrolling. Google, Apple, Netflix, OpenAI, Reddit, Twitter (fuck you, Elon. I'm not calling it X until you stop deadnaming your own daughter), and everyone else are all extremely problematic in their own unique ways. And as revealed by Edward Snowden, via the PRISM program, every single one of these companies is in bed with the government.
As Meredith Whittaker, the president of Signal, said in her (an incredible interview, it's definitely worth the watch), the current Silicon Valley model relies on more and more data and intrusion, with no end in sight. The only thing that matters to them is shareholder value - the line must go up. It does not matter how many ethical lines must be crossed, or people trampled over, or lives lost.
Given all of this, it's easy to feel defeated. After all, you're just one person. So what if you install Signal, or switch away from Gmail? That won't stop them. These data brokers and government entities will still get information on you, and they'll still sell it and use it to manipulate you.
However, that is simply not the case. Privacy is a spectrum, not a binary switch. Especially in the current political climate, it is our duty to make surveillance as tedious, annoying, or even impossible as we can. Much like the U.S. during the Revolutionary War, we are up against an enemy with significantly more resources, money, human power, and coordination than we are. Therefore, we must do as Hamilton did:
Provoke outrage, outright
Don't engage, strike by night
Remain relentless 'til their troops take flight
Make it impossible to justify the cost of the fight
It may not feel like much switching from Gmail to an alternative like Fastmail or Tuta, but it deprives these tech giants and governments of their precious money, and arguably more importantly, their power. Switching away from conventional, algorithmic social media like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter means that they can no longer control the narrative around current events. Switching away from Amazon or Instagram shopping means that your money will be spent at a local small business instead. Not blindly clicking "accept" on cookie popups and privacy policies may save you from entering into a forced arbitration agreement, or your intellectual property rights being waived.
We are all familiar with the idea of a boycott; voting with your wallet. In the current day and age though, your wallet is not really what these companies care about. It is your attention. So many of their services and tools rely on ads and easy compliance. Don't give into them.
But still, the complacency and ignorance continue. To me, this privacy defeatism is indicative of a larger societal issues, at least in the U.S.: we have allowed ourselves to go soft. Modern life has become so easy and convenient, that there is no longer any real, concrete reason to leave your house, except in the case of a medical emergency. We are able to work from home, order food right to our doorstep, buy anything we could ever want and have it show up at our homes as soon as that very same day - hell, we can even talk to a doctor online, then order prescription medication and get it delivered.
Don't get me wrong, these are all great advancements in convenience and accessibility. There are those who truly cannot leave their homes for whatever reason, and for those people, these tools and services are life-changing. However, these services do not come at scale without significant cost.
It is also important to clarify that, while we as a people have absolutely failed to fight back and stay educated and aware, it is not strictly, or even primarily, our fault. How could it be, when these massive corporations have teams of people whose job it is to work in the shadows, determining how best to keep their evil actions out of the public eye, and to keep us all as ignorant as possible?
It has been said countless times, but it bears repeating: there is no such thing as a free lunch. There is always a cost. And because we are fickle Americans, a financial cost is unacceptable. Thus, the hyper-capitalists have found ways to rearrange these costs to be more acceptable to the American people. Be they the cost of our privacy to show us targeted ads and sell access to our private information, or slave labor overseas to artificially drop prices.
We are fickle Americans. Our only barometer for success is the price of eggs. Our priest is an orange buffoon, our chapel is the economy, and our god is the stock market. Meanwhile, corporate greed masked as inflation is driving more and more people into poverty, and stupid culture wars are keeping us from setting our sights on the real, shared enemy. The future is as uncertain as it has ever been in my lifetime, and I don't see an easy way out. The only thing I do know is that whatever happens next, responsible, ethical technology will be more vital than it ever has been. Do not underestimate your power. Do the right thing, and spread the word.