[acqq]

One commenter there wrote and I'd like to read some reasonable answer to that:

This is old news, obviously no one watched 4 Corners years ago – I think 15 – 20 yrs ago. I think it was about a program called Echelon. Remember the time a New Zealander broke into one of those unmanned “Pine Gap” sites (in NZ) and found mainframe computers downloading telecommunications data. Did we care then?

[halviti]

Nobody cared then because they didn't understand it.

If all you show someone is a building with some equipment and say that they're monitoring you, it doesn't take much hand-waving to convince someone that these complex systems are only targeting certain people, etc.

Now, rather than just knowledge of a room with blinking lights, we have dumbed-down presentation slides that definitively show even the most computer-illterate person that their own personal data, not just the data of specific people, is being targeted, collected, stored, data-mined, etc.

It goes from a feeling of "it's probably legal, and targeting criminals" to "that's MY data they're stealing"

That's why people care. Moreover, it's just important that people DO care. If everyone adopted the same "why should we care now" attitude, then the powers that be have already won.

[tnuc]

Nobody cared then and nobody cares now, except for a few IT geeks.

In a 15 - 20 years from now the whole lot will have been mostly forgotten and accepted as normal.

There and more important things in the politics such as gay marriage and immigration. Try watching CNN or Fox News and ignoring technical sites. The politicians want votes, they couldn't give a shit about your privacy.

Australia and the US have been keeping call records (number called and time) for well over 20 years. I don't see how any of this is new(s).

Pine Gap is in Australia not New Zealand, not that anyone really cares. :)

And for the tedious people that want sources; Look up how General Patreus got busted with his gmail. Look up the Tampa incident and see how Australia listened into the telephone calls between the boat and Norway(or some such country). There are loads of incidents that spell this shit out but I need sleep and most people would rather watch a speech from Obama/Bush/Palin/Trump than learn what their government is really doing.

[contingencies]

Having discussed such issues with people internationally for 15 years, my experience paints a different picture. This is becoming an issue within many societies around the world, from China to north Africa to Europe to the Americas. While youth are certainly more aware of the challenges, the issues cross a generation gap and I have seen evidence of significant growth in concern even in the older parts of populations. Years ago, the number of people I could have a discussion with on these matters with was miniscule, these days absolute strangers broach the subject themselves.

[mtgx]

Is there any reason why privacy couldn't become an issue as big as gay marriage?

I don't think so. People just have to want it as badly and fight for it.

[chii]

> Is there any reason why privacy couldn't become an issue as big as gay marriage?

many more laymen can understand gay marriage (whichever side of the fence they are on) than privacy implications of massive surveilence.

[swombat]

I don't think so. We just need a compelling human story to make the average person understand.

For example, "police militarisation" is a bit of an abstract idea, but once you start telling stories of how the police broke in and shot the 8-year old labrador who was sleeping on the couch, everyone gets it.

[ihsw]

There's already been a compelling story: the Stasi[1].

> By the 1970s, the Stasi had decided that methods of overt persecution which had been employed up to that time, such as arrest and torture, were too crude and obvious. It was realised that psychological harassment was far less likely to be recognised for what it was, so its victims, and their supporters, were less likely to be provoked into active resistance, given that they would often not be aware of the source of their problems, or even its exact nature. Zersetzung was designed to side-track and "switch off" perceived enemies so that they would lose the will to continue any "inappropriate" activities.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi#Operations

[swombat]

The problem with that story is two-fold:

1) It's too abstract and distant. It feels like it screwed around with people in weird ways in a different world to ours. Communist Germany does not seem like a reasonable parallel to our society for most people. "It wouldn't happen here" is a natural reaction.

2) Even though it's not that far off the reality of what could happen, it sounds like an exaggeration, a bit like a Godwin Law condition. The fact that it sounds like "Nazi" (and that probably some sizeable percentage of americans have never heard of the Stasi and so will hear "Nazi" and repeat that) really doesn't help.

What we need is a more immediate and tangible human story, something that arouses sympathy and at the same time a clear realisation that "this could happen to me".

[dcfindlay]

Maybe nobody cared because nobody figured they'd be able to retain the data they captured forever, or that eventually governments would acquire enough processing bandwidth to use the captured data in near realtime.

In the age of social media, we do the public outrage thing a lot better these days, too.

[coldtea]

Not to mention that we haven't seen so much blatant abuse of power then.

[tvwonline]

Link to radio transcript from 2000 about Echelon.

http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/stories/s103059.htm

Edit: pulled out a quote:

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: The existence of the Echelon network was only confirmed a few weeks ago when US National Security Agency documents were declassified. Essentially it's a surveillance network capable of intercepting any telephone call, fax or e-mail made on earth. Echelon is run by the US National Security Agency using satellites and ground bases in Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. It can sift through a million electronic messages every half hour.