Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!wuarchive!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!newstop!exodus!randolph From: randolph@cognito.Eng.Sun.COM (Randolph Fritz) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk Subject: Re: Information Control Summary: Freedom & Privacy Message-ID: <10583@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM> Date: 27 Mar 91 22:29:55 GMT References: <1991Mar27.183256.8047@unx2.ucc.okstate.edu> Sender: news@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM Organization: St. Dismas Infirmary for the Incurably Informed Lines: 25 Freedom and privacy are intimately related; surveillance is one of the big techniques of power in our time -- think of prisons, workplace supervisors (and yes, supervision as we understand it is only a few centuries old), and all those intelligence agencies. Surveillance is cheap power, you see -- it multiplies direct control by at least a hundred-fold. In a prison, instead of constantly supervising everyone, you supervise infrequently -- and only sometimes let the prisoners know when they're being watched. So the prisoners have to supervise themselves. This is how a small group of guards controls a large group of prisoners. The positive converse of this power, of course, is the strength comes from free sharing; community. That's the hopeful side of the electronic frontier. To suggest that people should buy privacy is to suggest that people should buy freedom. If that's the new order, then viva la revolution! (Spell checkers? We don't need no stinkin' . . .) nd t ou ui R Press T __Randolph Fritz sun!cognito.eng!randolph || randolph@eng.sun.com ou ui Mountain View, California, North America, Earth nd t