Our cozy surveillance state

The other day, our policy head watched a German public TV documentary about  "Surveillance" in Germany.

For the most part, the German documentary presented nothing new (to us), but there was a long segment reminiscent of what Mr. Kafka might write if he were around.

It was about a German sociologist, a teacher at a Berlin university, who found himself the target of a terrorism investigation, complete with being arrested in the wee hours of the morning, then kept under locks for a while before being released, eventually charged and finally let go.

The eye opener in this case was how he was caught in a dragnet of profiling, and how persistent the investigators were. 

The really disconcerting aspect of surveillance like this in not that it takes place but that the agencies won't let go in the absence of evidence.

Shortly after watching the documentary, there was an interview in a paper with Bruce Schneier, noted security expert and blogger, who said, yes, we live in a surveillance state.

Mere days afterwards, a study showed how only a few location points can compromise your anonymity when you are out and about with a mobile device.

Our contributor phrased it this way: I don't give a fuck if you waste money on watching me. Be my guest and collate everything that indicates my political beliefs. Short of sticking a rigged voting machines under my nose, you won't know who I vote for. Right, that would make me a swing voter, an unaffiliated. If you have lived in several different countries, someone obviously has looked at you. Two things do worry me: profiling, which is nothing else but guilt by association. Second, they they cling to data for decades, and the longer some garbage exists, there is a danger that it is treated as a fact, as real..

As Schneier says, you should not give up but try your best and be vigilant.