Ode to a Whistleblower

The more I de-construct technology and question its true purpose the more I begin to think that George Orwell’s iconic book 1984 was not a work of fiction but a prophecy, a long lens into the world in which we live today.

I recently watched CitizenFour, an award winning documentary which follows former NSA technician Edward Snowden’s story as he reveals in a series of interviews that the US government have access to the movements and activities of every American through covert web operations at NSA . According the Snowden, US citizen’s phones were being intercepted, their e-mails read and their data collected despite not being on any “watch list” as suspects for prospective terrorist attacks.

I began to wonder what Snowden’s motives were behind exposing one of the worlds most guarded secrets. He certainly didn’t come across as someone courting celebrity, recognition or money. In fact, in the documentary he seems like a regular geek who believes in truth, accuracy and transparency.

Would it be so naive to think that perhaps he lifted the lid on this international scandal because he felt that what the NSA and the US administration were doing was inherently wrong on all levels? Perhaps Snowden and many like him take issue with the fact that we have traded our privacy for the ‘free’ world of the web.

We are now paying the price and living in a surveillance state where organisations like the NSA and government security are the ‘thought police’. ‘Big Brother’ is the dominating force of international security that exists through the ‘telescreens’ of our smartphone, ipads, laptops and desktops.

Snowden has been living in exile in Russia since his passport and papers were siezed by US officials and he faces prosecution and probable incarcaration without the opportunity of a fair trial if he returns to the US. What does that tell us about the world we live in? We learn in history books about dictatorships and totalitarian regimes. We read in the papers about dictatorships and regimes in far off lands like the Arab World.

But in our so called sophisticated western society, some one woke up one day and became aware that technology married with governmental corruption is a conduit for a more subtle form of technological totalitarianism to thrive. 

The Guardian newpaper reported good news in Snowden’s case this week. The NSA are set to be legally challenged following a landmark decision by the appeals court that the mass surveillence of phones, as exposed by Snowden is indeed illegal. See the full article here.

Big Brother is watching you and is closer than you think

I have been watching co-founder of WIRED magazine and sometime web prophet Kevin Kelly’s video from 2012 on his observations and predictions for technology into the future.

This is a follow-up from his previous Ted talk video in 2007 where he discussed how we as humans are building a single global machine, the web.

My response was curious one as I urgently searched through the drawers in my kitchen for some form of coloured tape to block out the camera on my laptop or what he describes as ‘the eye’. I do not regard myself as naive. I read Orwell’s “1984” when I was fifteen. Was George Orwell psychic? Why do I suddenly feel so paranoid?

As I listened intently to Kevin Kelly describing the ubiquitous screen that has infiltrated our culture, society and consciousness, the Telescreen in 1984 sprung to mind. Not only that but he goes on to explain how technology can track your eyes as you interact online so that your moods and emotions can be identified. Technological and web innovation will subsequently respond and adapt to our particular wants and needs.

What he calls the ‘eye’, I call ‘the cornea’, i.e. wearable screen technology such as Google glasses or the more recent Microsoft Hololens headsets.This is the convergence of an augmented world with a virtual world in order to create a single reality where devices are used to a much lesser extent. Devices may in fact become extinct. We may look back and reminisce about how ugly, cumbersome and unsophisticated the iPhone 6 was and scoff at the fact that we were once all ‘glued to our iPads’. It seems like we have already begun to give the web a body and its innards are advancing and restructuring at an incredible pace.

We are already co-dependent on technology. I have not memorised a phone number in years. I sometimes have trouble remembering my own number. The single most important thing for me to memorise these days are the multitude of passwords I use to log in to different sites. Google is my ‘go-to’ guy should I need to find out where I can buy the best masking tape to cover the all-seeing ‘eye’ on my laptop.

The invention of the Ekso Bionic suit is co-dependency done well. Irishman Mark Pollock, who as the result of an accident is paralysed has been pioneering the use of this technology to cure paralysis. This illustrates a meeting of the human brain and technological innovation. Unfortunately, the Ekso Bionic wear is not yet available in Ireland and even if it was, it is for now unaffordable for most.

Cybernetic totalist theorists believe that computer technology will become as powerful as the human brain in the not to distant future. Jaron Lanier rejects this notion for a few reasons in his One Half a Manifesto, one being that hardware and software will never match in their advancement for long enough at any given time, particularly computer software. He understands why cybernetic totalists might be inebriated by the very possibility but concludes that they lack humility and scientific skepticism.

This is to be explored again but he sums up with the following statement,

“Treating technology as if it were autonomous is the ultimate self-fulfilling
prophecy. There is no difference between machine autonomy and the abdication
of human responsibility”.

 Image:all seeing eye by Jentapoze