Mass Surveillannce

Beyond Privacy: The Costs and Consequences of Mass Surveillance

Thus far, the debates surrounding mass communications surveillance have tended to focus on the importance of preserving privacy rights. Yet, as Esther Kersley reminds us today, the global shift to security by ‘remote control’ also comes with other costs and consequences.

Esther Kersley [in Sustainable Security] | September 14, 2015

This article is part of the Remote Control Warfare series, a collaboration with Remote Control, a project of the Network for Social Change hosted by Oxford Research Group.
Following a recent Remote Control Project briefing paper, Mass surveillance: security by ‘remote control’ – consequences and effectiveness, this piece explores the hidden costs of government mass surveillance programmes.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/11/rally-against-mass-surveillance-inspiring-pics-historic-demonstration

Last week the new UN privacy chief said UK surveillance was “worse than [George Orwell’s novel] 1984”. In the two years since the Snowden leaks revealed the existence of bulk internet and phone surveillance by US intelligence services and their partners, including the UK, the British government continues to engage in the mass collection of citizens’ communications data.

<more at http://www.isn.ethz.ch/Digital-Library/Articles/Detail/?id=193542&lng=en; related links: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2015/may/07/nsa-bulk-data-collection-surveillance-document (NSA bulk data collection ruled illegal – read the court document. Court of appeals says NSA surveillance program is unlawful, as judges say: ‘The text of section 215 cannot bear the weight the government asks us to assign to it’, May 7, 2015) and http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/nov/05/tor-beginners-guide-nsa-browser (What is Tor? A beginner's guide to the privacy tool
The anonymity software has sparked controversy but who built it, what is it used for, what browser does it use – and why is the NSA so worried by it?. November 5, 2013)>