Check nearby libraries
Buy this book
From the Introduction...
The bargain you make, again and again, with various companies is surveillance in exchange for free service. Google’s chairman Eric Schmidt and its director of ideas Jared Cohen laid it out in their 2013 book, The New Digital Age. Here I’m paraphrasing their message: if you let us have all your data, we will show you advertisements you want to see and we’ll throw in free web search, e-mail, and all sorts of other services. It’s convenience, basically. We are social animals, and there’s nothing more powerful or rewarding than communicating with other people. Digital means have become the easiest and quickest way to communicate. And why do we allow governments access? Because we fear the terrorists, fear the strangers abducting our children, fear the drug dealers, fear whatever bad guy is in vogue at the moment. That’s the NSA’s justification for its mass-surveillance programs; if you let us have all of your data, we’ll relieve your fear.
The problem is that these aren’t good or fair bargains, at least as they’re structured today. We’ve been accepting them too easily, and without really understanding the terms.
Here is what’s true. Today’s technology gives governments and corporations robust capabilities for mass surveillance. Mass surveillance is dangerous. It enables discrimination based on almost any criteria: race, religion, class, political beliefs. It is being used to control what we see, what we can do, and, ultimately, what we say. It is being done without offering citizens recourse or any real ability to opt out, and without any meaningful checks and balances. It makes us less safe. It makes us less free. The rules we had established to protect us from these dangers under earlier technological regimes are now woefully insufficient; they are not working. We need to fix that, and we need to do it very soon.
Check nearby libraries
Buy this book
Showing 1 featured edition. View all 1 editions?
Edition | Availability |
---|---|
1
Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World
2015, W. W. Norton & Company
ebook
in English
0393244822 9780393244823
|
aaaa
Libraries near you:
WorldCat
|
Book Details
Published in
New York, USA, London, UK
Table of Contents
Contributors
The Physical Object
ID Numbers
Community Reviews (0)
Feedback?August 30, 2020 | Edited by ImportBot | import existing book |
May 15, 2016 | Edited by Alex Herrera | Added book, cover, toc, etc |
May 15, 2016 | Created by Alex Herrera | Added new book. |