First an announcement looking ahead.. Stephen W. Potts and I have just handed in to
Tor Books 140,000 words of short stories – plus some insightful essays – that
explore our near and far futures, in the coming era when cameras are so cheap
they'll be almost everywhere. Chasing Shadows will take you on a ride
with thirty of todays finest SF authors, like Cat Rambo, Nancy Fulda, Bruce
Sterling, Ramez Naam, Kathleen Goonan… plus a few classics by Robert Silverberg and Damon Knight
etc. Watch for it in early 2017!
And following along that theme…
Growing use of body cameras by police has led to a dramatic fall in brutality, a top U.N. rights expert said in June 2015. Surprise.
Surprise. When police know they are on camera they behave differently and
police brutality drops sharply. (Nicely summarized in this cartoon by R.J. Matson.) Here is a report on what has happened since
body cameras were introduced. Oh, but progress is in fits and starts. Why do you think I had to go to a television network in India to find this story?
The lesson here: a watchdog without a leash becomes a wolf. “Town Where U.S. Marshal Smashed Citizen’s Camera Rakes in Millions from Federal Forfeiture Rules.” The lesson here is clear. We are winning this fight for freedom and accountability and professionalism on our streets. But victory won’t come cheap or easy. We must all be video warriors. Better yet, video citizens.
Are we done with the transition to full police accountability? Not at all. The process is just underway. Here's a disturbing (and of course one-sided) anecdote:
“Take, for instance, the individual who filmed the choking of Eric Garner, Ramsey Orta. Orta has been in and out of Rikers since that tragic day. Speaking with VICE, Orta, who was friendly with Garner, decided to start documenting police misconduct in the summer of 2014 around his heavily-policed neighborhood of Staten Island. But since Garner’s death, Orta and his family allege that police have zeroed in on him, following close family members as well as his girlfriend. Police charged Orta with gun and drug possession as well as armed robbery. On April 6, the Free Thought Project wrote about Orta’s imprisonment. His case went viral, and soon a GoFundMe campaign had collected over $54,000 to free him. Orta was released on April 10.”
Let’s bear in mind that Orta was already very much operating in shady-side activities. The balance in all of this can only come out when juries are exposed to all facts, vigorously and adversarially investigated. But news reports - even tendentiously slanted like this one - are part of that back and forth tug. And police supervisors are going to have to think carefully. As will we all.
But police will also use cameras to increase their own safety: the Explorer is a softball-like camera that can spot danger, sending photos back to a smartphone -- before emergency workers enter a potentially hazardous zone.
== And light will flow ==
Are we done with the transition to full police accountability? Not at all. The process is just underway. Here's a disturbing (and of course one-sided) anecdote: “Take, for instance, the individual who filmed the choking of Eric Garner, Ramsey Orta. Orta has been in and out of Rikers since that tragic day. Speaking with VICE, Orta, who was friendly with Garner, decided to start documenting police misconduct in the summer of 2014 around his heavily-policed neighborhood of Staten Island. But since Garner’s death, Orta and his family allege that police have zeroed in on him, following close family members as well as his girlfriend. Police charged Orta with gun and drug possession as well as armed robbery. On April 6, the Free Thought Project wrote about Orta’s imprisonment. His case went viral, and soon a GoFundMe campaign had collected over $54,000 to free him. Orta was released on April 10.”
Let’s bear in mind that Orta was already very much operating in shady-side activities. The balance in all of this can only come out when juries are exposed to all facts, vigorously and adversarially investigated. But news reports - even tendentiously slanted like this one - are part of that back and forth tug. And police supervisors are going to have to think carefully. As will we all.
And let me reiterate. Sousveillance is something about which we must be utterly militant... while remaining calmly moderate. Citizens must demand the right and power to supervise our public servants! But we do not have to get into their faces, screaming "pig!" A majority are skilled, dedicated folks doing a very hard job. Our aim is to make that a vast majority. An overwhelming majority. And that will happen sooner if we make it clear that we want the good cops as allies.
Leak after leak after leak after leak... when will you get the hint, and learn to surf this wave, instead of futilely trying to conceal?
The resumes of over 27,000 people working in the U.S. intelligence community were revealed on Thursday in a searchable database created by mining LinkedIn. Transparency Toolkit said the database, called ICWatch, includes the public resumes of people working for intelligence contractors, the military, and intelligence agencies. The group said the resumes frequently mention secret codewords and surveillance programs.” Our civil servants will have to adapt to such times and supervision is called for. This is not my preferred method, by far.
Only consider. We learn of so many of these events. How many have we never found out about?
The resumes of over 27,000 people working in the U.S. intelligence community were revealed on Thursday in a searchable database created by mining LinkedIn. Transparency Toolkit said the database, called ICWatch, includes the public resumes of people working for intelligence contractors, the military, and intelligence agencies. The group said the resumes frequently mention secret codewords and surveillance programs.” Our civil servants will have to adapt to such times and supervision is called for. This is not my preferred method, by far. Only consider. We learn of so many of these events. How many have we never found out about?
Fact-checking In Nepal: “To weed out false rumors that can waste precious time, (aid workers) elnist local volunteers to use an experimental Web tool to crowdsource rumor verification as quickly as possible.” Rumor control can be a huge thing in our era, a new Web platform called Verily . “Users can go to Verily’s website and read short tutorials on simple, established ways to verify things like the source of an image or the date and location of a report on a social network. They can answer yes-or-no verification questions about reports, provided they supply a piece of evidence supporting their answer—a corroborating photo, for example. Users can also share verification requests with their own social networks.”
This is more important than it sounds, folks! It is a key ingredient for the kinds of Smart Mobs I describe in Existence.
This is more important than it sounds, folks! It is a key ingredient for the kinds of Smart Mobs I describe in Existence.
== Reasonable Expectations ==
Why do intelligent pundits always, always do this? In
the Christian Science Monitor, Dan Geer addresses “The reasonable expectation fallacy…” making some excellent points — then collapsing into the very same
error that he criticizes. Greer writes:
“In the Supreme Court case Kyllo v. US, defendant Danny Lee Kyllo, a marijuana grower, argued that police use of a thermal imager to discover the high-intensity lights growing marijuana in his garage constituted a search for which a warrant was necessary. The Court held: "Where, as here, the Government uses a device that is not in general public use, to explore details of a private home that would previously have been unknowable without physical intrusion, the surveillance is a Fourth Amendment 'search,' and is presumptively unreasonable without a warrant."
Greer notes, “Read that carefully – the requirement for a warrant
exists solely where the device to be used to gather photons is "not
in general public use." As anyone knows, what the government and only
the government has today, the rich will have tomorrow. What the rich have
tomorrow the lumpen proletariat will have it the day after tomorrow – it
is general public use that removes any prohibitions on use by
government or other institutions....“Now consider the thermal imager. Fifteen years ago when
Kyllo was decided, the devices were not in general use," continuing, “This is the point: No society, no people need rules
against things that are impossible. If your personal "expectation of
privacy" is based on the impossibility of observability or even the
impossibility of identifiability, then your logic, like that of the
Supreme Court, is temporary and weak. A long view in the face of rapid
technologic change is far harder.”
“In the Supreme Court case Kyllo v. US, defendant Danny Lee Kyllo, a marijuana grower, argued that police use of a thermal imager to discover the high-intensity lights growing marijuana in his garage constituted a search for which a warrant was necessary. The Court held: "Where, as here, the Government uses a device that is not in general public use, to explore details of a private home that would previously have been unknowable without physical intrusion, the surveillance is a Fourth Amendment 'search,' and is presumptively unreasonable without a warrant."
Greer notes, “Read that carefully – the requirement for a warrant
exists solely where the device to be used to gather photons is "not
in general public use." As anyone knows, what the government and only
the government has today, the rich will have tomorrow. What the rich have
tomorrow the lumpen proletariat will have it the day after tomorrow – it
is general public use that removes any prohibitions on use by
government or other institutions....“Now consider the thermal imager. Fifteen years ago when
Kyllo was decided, the devices were not in general use," continuing, “This is the point: No society, no people need rules
against things that are impossible. If your personal "expectation of
privacy" is based on the impossibility of observability or even the
impossibility of identifiability, then your logic, like that of the
Supreme Court, is temporary and weak. A long view in the face of rapid
technologic change is far harder.”Yes, indeed, technology will advance far beyond the foresight of today’s pundits. The real choice we face is whether to let this fact panic us into attempts to ban the new methods — which will only guarantee their use in secret, by elites…
...or to embrace them and use
them to do “sousveillance”… looking boldly back at elites. The latter approach,
explored in my book The Transparent Society, is precisely the one that got us
our narrow, recent renaissance of freedom — one that is always under threat.Alas, Mr.Geer then veers away from sense into nonsense: “The ability to delete yourself from the Web doesn't really matter. What really matters in the age of advanced surveillance is the right to not be correlated. Technology is always watching and capturing you, but the correlation is where the danger lies. Laws can change that, but only if enacted soon.”
Whaaa? Laws… against… correlation? Against a mental process? One that is accelerating faster than Moore’s Law? Pray, tell us what law will stymie elites from doing all their looking and correlating, in secret? Can you name one time, in the entire history of our species or planet, when such a law actually worked?
This is fundamental:
It is impossible to police what others think and know, because you can never
verify that someone else does NOT know something.
What we have proved possible is to regulate what people DO with knowledge. Actions can be observed, deterred, even prevented by law, sometimes.
What we have proved possible is to regulate what people DO with knowledge. Actions can be observed, deterred, even prevented by law, sometimes.
If your dread is that elites or neighbors will
know stuff about you, then welcome to permanent hell. A hell of your own
fantasy.
On the
other hand, if your aim is to be left alone and not physically interfered-with…
to be empowered with tools of knowledge and correlation to catch anyone who’d
abuse you... and to potently shout “MYOB!” (Mind Your Own Business) knowing that what they know
about your non-harm-doing activities cannot be used to limit you in any way,
because you can look-back and hold others accountable?
Then welcome to a world of enhanced and ever-growing freedom.
Then welcome to a world of enhanced and ever-growing freedom.
== Info Monopolies and Competition ==
We still have time, before flat-open-fair competition is ruined
by its own fruits..
A fascinating and well-written explanation of how info-monopolies combine with better analytics to put the squeeze on both modern consumers and producers. Welcome to the new capitalism… and these are the GOOD guys, compared to old-style, parasitical monopolists. Blatantly, there need to be serious discussions about the next set of reforms to the social contract. Not socialist radicalisms! But tweaks that maintain healthy, flat-open-fair competition.
The irony? Folks on the left demonize “competition” even though it is the engine of the wealth they use to make a better world.
Meanwhile the right (insanely) thinks you get flat-open-fair competition by “reducing regulation.” When, in fact, the only competitive arenas that ever worked well — democracy, science, recent markets, courts and sports — only work when very much regulated! Indeed, careful regulation enhances flat-open-fair competition.
== Art as a Weapon? ==
“For decades in art circles it was either a rumour or a joke, but now it is confirmed as a fact. The Central Intelligence Agency used American modern art - including the works of such artists as Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko - as a weapon in the Cold War."
== And finally ... Zero Sum Games ==
Meanwhile the right (insanely) thinks you get flat-open-fair competition by “reducing regulation.” When, in fact, the only competitive arenas that ever worked well — democracy, science, recent markets, courts and sports — only work when very much regulated! Indeed, careful regulation enhances flat-open-fair competition.
== Art as a Weapon? ==
Ooookaaay. Though the rationalization and the effects are hardly what one would call Orwellian: “…this new artistic movement could be held up as proof of the creativity, the intellectual freedom, and the cultural power of the U.S. Russian art, strapped into the communist ideological straitjacket, could not compete.”
A case where – ironically – the symbolism and the thing itself amount to the same outcome, offering little grist for paranoia.
What? Will we find out that the 1950s golden age of science fiction was also CIA supported? Filled with memes of tolerance, diversity, innovation and individualism? Yes, scifi bolstered the western zeitgeist! Whereas, in the USSR it was tightly controlled, with the few stars of Soviet SF having to express their social thoughts between the lines.
A case where – ironically – the symbolism and the thing itself amount to the same outcome, offering little grist for paranoia.
What? Will we find out that the 1950s golden age of science fiction was also CIA supported? Filled with memes of tolerance, diversity, innovation and individualism? Yes, scifi bolstered the western zeitgeist! Whereas, in the USSR it was tightly controlled, with the few stars of Soviet SF having to express their social thoughts between the lines.
Oh, but art will always be impudent. Activists have had a hard time sending their message to the G-7 leaders, who were tucked away in a secluded Alpine valley guarded by thousands of police. So Greenpeace decided to project its demands onto a nearby mountain. The environmental group used green lasers to beam the words "G-7: Go for 100 percent renewables" onto the side of the Zugspitze, Germany's highest peak.
Still, is government always bad? Over heavy Republican opposition… the FCC will continue subsidizing the expansion of broadband into under-served communities.
Still, is government always bad? Over heavy Republican opposition… the FCC will continue subsidizing the expansion of broadband into under-served communities.
== And finally ... Zero Sum Games ==
My
reaction? Well, I start with irritation at the zero-sum notion of a tradeoff
between two things we absolutely need, both security and freedom. I have been
battling this dismal (and disproved) notion for a quarter of a century. It is simply false. See The Transparent Society.
On the
other hand, I can see its utility in game-play mode… at least at the lower
levels of play. I’d hope that more
positive sum subtlety builds, as the designers pull you in…
But the
overall goal? Using play — outdoors and
active and location based — to create a crowd-sourced database of info for
citizens? This is the heart and soul of
the “smart mob” methods I described in both EARTH and EXISTENCE! Sure, this particular database will be
rendered moot, as cameras keep getting smaller.
But we can keep up, if we develop habits of a Sousveillance
Society. And although I know almost
nothing about CCTV Nation, I have to admit I find the concept and plan way
above average.
