| Discussions about the surveillance state are too abstract for most people. I think it's important to point out the obvious; the surveillance state is not all it's cracked up to be. As I've said before, the implicit lie Hollywood has sold is that these weapons will be used with the gravity and seriousness they deserve by consummate professionals. NSA employees have used multi-billion dollar American surveillance assets to spy on women they're infatuated with. It's called "LOVEINT." https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/loveint-nsa-letter-disclo... https://www.yahoo.com/news/nsa-staff-used-spy-tools-spouses-... In another instance, a foreign woman who was employed by the U.S. government suspected that her lover, an NSA civilian employee, was listening to her phone calls. She shared her suspicion with another government employee, who reported it. An investigation found the man abused NSA databases from 1998 to 2003 to snoop on nine phone numbers of foreign women and twice collected communications of an American, according to the inspector general's report.
And it's going to get stupider. Pettier. Meaner. Dubai and the richer gulf states have been arresting people for photos sent in private Whatsapp chats,https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/03/31/expats-fle... https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-15693741/Paranoid-Dub... https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-15739739/airline-work... They've arrested hundreds of ordinary people for messages that they've sent privately to their friends and family, including Americans, According to official figures released alongside the announcement, the 109 arrests form part of a broader enforcement campaign that has seen 189 individuals detained since the beginning of the conflict on February 28. Of those arrested, 67 are UAE nationals, while 122 are foreign residents or visitors representing 23 different nationalities. The largest groups among the foreign detainees include Indian nationals (31), Pakistani nationals (22), Filipino nationals (18), Egyptian nationals (14), and British nationals (9). The remaining 28 detainees come from a mix of other nationalities including Americans, Canadians, Australians, and various European and Asian passport holders.
I think this is the first example of mass persecution by Large Language Model. Gulf states have admitted to having access to Whatsapp messaging data, https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/insight/dubai-police-use-what... – and there are just too many ordinary people talking to too many different sets of friends and families in private DMs and groups for it to be anything but a multi-modal model searching through the data and flagging photos and conversations.They're doing it for these photos today. Sooner or later one of these states will expand this to lèse majesté laws and then eventually defamation in the west; when it (inevitably) gets imported back home. We all get to have the Stasi in our pockets now. |