[fallinditch]

Governments will always seek more surveillance of citizens - it's like crack to them. If we don't push back and work hard to protect our freedoms and privacy then we will end up in something like Orwell's 1984.

See what's happening in China. The surveillance and oppression are particularly severe in the Xinjiang region, where authorities have implemented a multi-layered system of monitoring and control. This includes facial recognition cameras, mobile police checkpoints, and the collection of biometric data. See also [1]

We must demand transparency and accountability from those in power, whilst supporting organizations that work to protect our privacy.

Similarly, private sector business will always seek more of our personal data in order to make more money, and the tech industry is enabling more intrusive government surveillance.

It requires activism to protect our freedom.

[1] https://theconversation.com/digital-surveillance-is-omnipres...

[tptacek]

I just got my local government to drastically ratchet back surveillance powers they already had, through patient organizing and advocacy. It wasn't even all that difficult. This "governments will always seek more surveillance" thing isn't axiomatic; in a lot of cases, it's probably just lazy cynicism.

[causal]

Curious to learn more about how you did this.

But I agree with your sentiment- we often surrender to the idea that ruthless evil has taken control without even trying to engage civically.

[tptacek]

Background here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40227280

We got the cameras rolled back even further; we now, by municipal policy, don't trust the Illinois LEADS stolen vehicle hotlist, so cameras can no longer be used to stop "stolen" cars (too many of the stops we were doing were mis-listed), only cars with stolen license plates (for which there is no innocent explanation). We're also the only muni in Illinois that won't automatically share camera data with out-of-state LEOs.

[JumpCrisscross]

> Governments will always seek more surveillance of citizens

Plenty of governments have ceded powers, including surveillance. The Stasi was peacefully disassembled; Pinochet lost in a referendum.

[CTDOCodebases]

They will seek more surveillance because the majority of the citizenry desires safety and a competent and efficient government over personal freedom.

We continue to have societies because the average person realizes that their life would be better on average if they outsourced their personal security to the strongest third party available. Until this third party becomes inconveniently corrupt.

[trod123]

The money part of the issue is based from preferential money printing which gets spread around, without this there's a finite amount of money that can be made. The market in this area would collapse.

Surveillance capitalism would disappear overnight the moment the Primary Dealers and Options Market (perpetuity) stop funding it with preferential treatment and funny money.

I hate to be the one to break it to you, but we already live in 1984. The system's described are turnkey, so its just a matter of time before they turn it on all at once.

The elites behind the decisions made in the backroom of the Fed are 'the party'.

Successful activism was always based on the inherent underlying threat of violence. Even with Ghandi, it was the British officials at the time being responsive which allowed change to occur. If they were unresponsive no change would have occurred until abuses became so abhorrent that violence forced them as a matter of rational self-preservation.

This threat is largely ignored today, leaders then are unresponsive to activism instead seeking to undermine through covert channels.

Of course, it also doesn't help the fact that many activist movements are funded by dubious origins (such as communism, and global elites [effectively the same cohort]), and often don't follow rational principles, and/or are sabotaged from the outset.

People have demanded these things for awhile, peacefully, nothing came of it. If nothing happens in a generation (20 years), it won't happen until someone forces it to.

A quarter of that time is generally sufficient to indicate a trend in the run-up.