Comments on: Thinking Positive about Mass Surveillance

By: ZZTech

ZZTech — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 23:04:54 +0000

Is business as usual for Nokia-Siemens the sale of death, torture, and rape, with a little investor fraud on the side?

Nokia deserve all the backlash they get for their big-brother leanings. Ben Roome, their PR supremo, has been doing a ‘stella’ job at muddying the water – but then he was the one that passed off the CEO ‘with cause’ firing as business as usual.

Here is an example of Ben Roome’s ‘positioning’, describing Frank Dunn’s firing from Nortel as ‘business as usual’:

http://www.businessgreen.com/crn/news/2008888/change-command-nortel

Perhaps business as usual, but Frank Dunn’s business activities were so outrageous that they attracted the attention U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and, I believe, the ever alert Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Dunn

By: Officer Down

Officer Down — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 21:33:49 +0000

Nokia moved their brochure that you linked to — check your links, and/or post a local copy of what they may have taken down. It’s only two weeks since you posted this — presumably they are very sensitive about “the wrong people” finding out what they’re selling.

By: sherri

sherri — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 18:01:10 +0000

Yeah, I was trying really hard to think of something good about the whole situation. Perhaps that was unrealistic.

The whole thing scares me. Unless there’s an appropriate, well-defined feedback loop in the system, mass surveillance will be used for the purposes of control. As you point out, even technology used for the purposes of “democracy” can facilitate stupid decisions.

>Look at the public’s reaction to 9/11. A week after we would’ve been fine

Don’t forget, the media did a lot to fuel the panic. More panic, more papers sold.

Thanks for the rant

By: Nathan

Nathan — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 12:00:17 +0000

The idea of the government making immediate policy decisions based on the reactions of the people terrifies me. The very reason we have a representative democracy rather than a true democracy is that our founding fathers believed (correctly I feel) that the average person was either too ignorant of current issues, or didn’t care enough to really invest in making wise decisions. Obviously a true democracy wasn’t practical back then, but it was discussed with strong disfavor during the constitutional conventions.

The Clinton administration set new records for the amount of polling that was done, and I think a lot of its inefficiencies (or defficiencies?) can be blamed on too much waffling over what the public really wanted. Going further in that direction is both dangerous and stupid. Look at the public’s reaction to 9/11. A week after we would’ve been fine with strip searches and Army personnel on every flight, but three months later and we couldn’t handle minor security impedance. The problem is that people in mass make poor decisions based on immediate gratification. Individuals can be intelligent, but groups are always idiots.

With that said, I believe this trend is unavoidable and has played a large part in the downfall of several other great civilizations throughout history.

Sorry for the political rant…