November 29, 2010
Stuck in the panopticon
If you've done nothing wrong, you've got nothing to fear: Wikileaks and RIPA (Practical Ethics) - I blog about whether the "if you have done nothing wrong, you got nothing to fear" maxim applies to governments railing against Wikileaks. My overall conclusion is roughly that since the maxim is wrong, the answer is of course no. But there are interesting similarities between what Wikileaks have done and what data retention projects are doing.
I am more and more becoming convinced that we need to figure out how to achieve a socially sustainable form of transparent societies before it is too late. Governments are historically dangerous, surveillance is getting easier, and right now people don't seem to be seeing holding their governments accountable as a high priority. It is better to be stuck in the panopticon if there are no one-way-mirrors, but right now people are more interested in their mirror images.