the fear of losing privacy
For the people of Germany the memory of two surveillance states in their younger history is still alive. It was the NS-Regime and the DDR, where the government didn’t respected the privacy of many people and monitored them. The Stasi was collecting tons of private data; therewith personal privacy was attacked strongly. No one could feel safe in his own home. No one could be sure that there is no microphone, recording intimate details of their life. The movie "The Life of Others" shows the methods of spying during that time. People where monitored in their own home, so that they could never be sure about their spatial privacy. #StoryBehindTheKeyword
The people were always afraid of being permanently kept under surveillance and a life without privacy. During the existence of the DDR George Orwell published the dystopic novel of 1984. The Book 1984, also makes a subject out of this fear. “Big Brother is watching you”.People were afraid of the development in the future, they were afraid that the new technology could attack their privacy. But in all this scenarios, in 1984 as well as in the history of DDR and the Nazi-Regime it was always about
destroying passion and demand. They were all built on the basis of a surveillance state.
The whole surveillance tactic in our society is different as in the past. It is not about destroying passion and demand anymore, because this way we are able to revolt on it. This surveillance is different. Almost nothing is forbidden, our actions are not highly restricted. The author of NEON, Michael Moorstedt, says that the internet companies acting contrary. They do everything to stir up our demand and to make sure that we can fully enjoy our passions, so that we don’t want put away our cell phones at all. Through our passion and demand they create a dependency. And this is what makes it so difficult to resist. Fighting against the surveillance would mean to renounce our demand. “Our own behaviour produces the conditions for the control.” We all participate in this. This is the paradox, which makes the whole discussion about data protection so ridiculous. Being permanently watched also is a kind of imprisonment and doesn’t allow privacy. But what we now have doesn’t fit with this term. The American jurist Bernard E. Harcourt calls the blending of commercial surveillance and governmental surveillance” Tentakel-Oligarchie”, which is the standard of today.
Through the NSA revelations it turned out that large-scale surveillance is still relevant. Since Snowden we know that the modern digital surveillance is based on the principle of tacitly Outsourcing. The data, in which the NSA and others are interested, are collected by private companies. Thereupon the data gets demanded or stolen by government services. Most of the time physical intrusion into rooms is not necessary anymore. The data is already digitized, this makes access easier. The Surveillance happens more subtle than in the past and the sense of menace is not as strong. Maybe this is related to the feeling that we are disclosing our data knowingly by digitizing them. We lost control of the distribution of our data. Transparency of this whole process of data access is missing. If we are publishing a picture on facebook, it is addressed to our friends. But this doesn’t mean that no one else has access to it.
Privacy and surveillance are not always connected. If we are on a public place we are watched by the people around us. This way our behaviour is monitored, but we know about it and we choose to be around people. There is a dynamic about who gets to look at me and how transparent this looking process is. Not every violation of our privacy is connected with surveillance.
The people were always afraid of being permanently kept under surveillance and a life without privacy. During the existence of the DDR George Orwell published the dystopic novel of 1984. The Book 1984, also makes a subject out of this fear. “Big Brother is watching you”.People were afraid of the development in the future, they were afraid that the new technology could attack their privacy. But in all this scenarios, in 1984 as well as in the history of DDR and the Nazi-Regime it was always about
destroying passion and demand. They were all built on the basis of a surveillance state.
The whole surveillance tactic in our society is different as in the past. It is not about destroying passion and demand anymore, because this way we are able to revolt on it. This surveillance is different. Almost nothing is forbidden, our actions are not highly restricted. The author of NEON, Michael Moorstedt, says that the internet companies acting contrary. They do everything to stir up our demand and to make sure that we can fully enjoy our passions, so that we don’t want put away our cell phones at all. Through our passion and demand they create a dependency. And this is what makes it so difficult to resist. Fighting against the surveillance would mean to renounce our demand. “Our own behaviour produces the conditions for the control.” We all participate in this. This is the paradox, which makes the whole discussion about data protection so ridiculous. Being permanently watched also is a kind of imprisonment and doesn’t allow privacy. But what we now have doesn’t fit with this term. The American jurist Bernard E. Harcourt calls the blending of commercial surveillance and governmental surveillance” Tentakel-Oligarchie”, which is the standard of today.
Through the NSA revelations it turned out that large-scale surveillance is still relevant. Since Snowden we know that the modern digital surveillance is based on the principle of tacitly Outsourcing. The data, in which the NSA and others are interested, are collected by private companies. Thereupon the data gets demanded or stolen by government services. Most of the time physical intrusion into rooms is not necessary anymore. The data is already digitized, this makes access easier. The Surveillance happens more subtle than in the past and the sense of menace is not as strong. Maybe this is related to the feeling that we are disclosing our data knowingly by digitizing them. We lost control of the distribution of our data. Transparency of this whole process of data access is missing. If we are publishing a picture on facebook, it is addressed to our friends. But this doesn’t mean that no one else has access to it.
Privacy and surveillance are not always connected. If we are on a public place we are watched by the people around us. This way our behaviour is monitored, but we know about it and we choose to be around people. There is a dynamic about who gets to look at me and how transparent this looking process is. Not every violation of our privacy is connected with surveillance.
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