Sunday 23 June 2013

Sunday Mornings: Coffee, Reflections and Music

Hey, you, who are reading this. Not you, my regular reader/fellow blogger. I am talking to the other one. The person who is actually watching me write this first draft on blogger, whilst I leave behind innocent - but incriminating, in that person's eyes - cyber-footprints.

I am talking to you, Big Brother. Or Big Sister, or Big Voyeur. You, who are watching me write about you.

It is not that I am afraid of you invading my privacy.  I am one of those people who have nothing to hide. So, no fear there, but I am concerned, you see. Concerned that you could make some kind of rash decision based on information you think incriminates me. It is all subjective, I know, but that makes it worse, because, on the one hand, what are the grounds for your surveillance? The words I have just typed? Or the thought that just crossed my mind? You can read the former but you can’t see the latter. On the other hand, are you not supposed to protect me? So, why are you tracking my activities? What kind of protection is that?

The type of protection that, according to you, will stop terrorists from killing me. Under your aegis I am meant to feel safe. You are like a, one-size-fits-all, gigantic blanket that makes all its citizens cozy and warm. Like Pink Floyd’s Mother, but, let us change the eponymous character for the real villain of this story, NSA: NSA's gonna put all its fears into you/ NSA's gonna keep you right here under its wing/ NSA won't let you fly, but it might let you sing. Only the melodies NSA decides, obviously. For NSA, think also GCHQ, but that quite didn't have the same effect with the Floyd tune. It goes without saying that NSA will then build the wall. A circular one, like Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon. Like the one in Cuba’s Isle of Pines, Presidio Modelo. But it is easy to mock the Cuban government for its zealous surveillance of its citizens. After all, I got used to it. I had to, I had no other choice. Yet, the US, the UK? The supposed “land of the free”?

The problem is that we are not free, are we? That is the awful truth. In Cuba I was in the hands of the government and here I am in the hands of powerful corporations. Google, Facebook, Skype, it is like a roll-call of our modern interactive, networking life. The way we communicate. And all the time the CIA is there, behind our backs. Watching us. To the person reading this blog post before I hit the “publish” button: what do you get from this? Do you get a kick out of it like Stasi agents used to do in the former GDR when they spied on unsuspecting folk? Or do you really think that you are fulfilling your patriotic duty by keeping an eye on what I write, what I order from Amazon and what I watch on You Tube? I know that your unintended goal is to make me go gaga. To turn me into paranoid wreck, looking everywhere. I admit that ever since the story about NSA broke out recently I have been checking behind me occasionally, whether I am out running or on the bus, or on my bike. I could become a real-life Will Smith in Enemy of the State in no time and I wouldn’t even be able to get support from a Gene Hackman-like agent. To top it all, our Foreign Secretary William Hague said last week that every intercept had to be authorised by him personally. What is it with this government and centralised power? I thought totalitarianism was a feature of rogue regimes like North Korea, China and Cuba. In a country where we get a new parliament every four or five years we, citizens, should have a vote on whether we want every conversation we have, e-mail we send or clip of cat falling over we see on You Tube, scrutinised. The legality of this process seems also to escape NSA and GCHQ. I cannot be the only person who sees the surveillance of millions of American and British citizens as unlawful.

So, there you have it, Mr Big Brother, or Miss Grand Sister, I now come to the end of my post. I would like to know what you achieved by spying on this draft. Please, take your mask off and join us in the comments section. My cyber-sisters and brothers await you. We have the questions, you owe us the answers.

© 2013

Next Post: “Killer Opening Songs”, to be published on Wednesday 26th June at 11:59pm (GMT)


22 comments:

  1. Yep a public debate is long overdue...currently we all feel like Gene Hackman in that fantastic film The Conversation...Greetins from Nice!

    ReplyDelete
  2. How about all those who lurk around, read your blog and never drop a note? What are they up to? And those who "lift" this and that from your place, pictures, reviews, entire pieces and transfer them down as theirs?
    In public domains, we are all watched, and protected.
    When we were kids and passed notes in class, and got caught, we knew our liberties had been crushed, but we accepted the consequences as a matter of 'these are the rules of the game'.

    So is with being protected from unknown terrorists; we know they lurk everywhere, and we can't go about our business if we don't feel safe.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Don't really care, but yeah we aren't free by any means. Free-er than some, but that is about it. If they watch me and some of the stuff i look for for books, I could be in trouble lol

    ReplyDelete
  4. They say they're protecting us from terrorists by taking away all our freedoms. So what are they protecting? People in "terrorist" nations can't do anything without being watched by everyone either. So what's the difference? Ah yes, the difference is that the people in those "terrorist" nations knew they were being watched. While, until now, we were blissfully ignorant.

    So here another right - our privacy - is sacrificed on the altar of the war on terrorism.

    Jai

    ReplyDelete
  5. Are they protecting us from terrorists...or is there something more sinister going on here?
    Do we have to censor our every thought, word and action? If so, where is the liberty we believe is ours? Where is our individuality?
    I am quite spooked! Haha:D

    ReplyDelete
  6. Many thanks for your comments on what it's obvious a delicate topic. But I don't think I would be the responsible citizen I believe to be in my adopted country if I weren't voicing my concerns about this breach of my liberties.

    There are many aspects I enjoy of Britain. In fact when I travel to Cuba and come to the UK I always say that I "go home from home", both ways. But it's not a secret that the biggest terrorist threat we face nowadays doesn't just come from Al Quaida, but also from the US and UK governments. That's neither controversial nor radical-thinking, it's reality. The US and UK have sponsored terrorist for decades. In fact Washington has a solid record of arming terrorists and desestabilising democratic countries.

    Am I guilty of any crime for having typed the above? No. On the contrary, opinions like mine are necessary in a democracy. They are the metaphorical mirror against which the government checks its development and progress, or lack of it thereof.

    I don't want to lose my basic civil liberties just because there might be terrorists out there who are out to hurt me and my fellow citizens. I want to live in the kind of society where it's OK to protest, to raise your voice against injustice and to have a good, solid, facts-based argument about topics that matter to people and that affect us all. With no fear of retribution. I didn't have that Cuba and still it's non-existent. We have more rights in the UK but this government keeps trying to curtail our civil liberties. That's not right, either here or in the US or anywhere else in the world.

    Have a good week you all.

    Greetings from London.

    ReplyDelete
  7. free? Freedom? Don´t think there is any such thing.

    ReplyDelete
  8. haha...what shocks me most is that people think this is something new...its been going on forever...and its been talked about before as well...power protects until power corrupts...it all depends on how they use the intel...

    ReplyDelete
  9. Lots of applause from here. Thank you. Scary times - made scarier from within.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Like Brian I dont think.is something new and dont especially care me and maybe for these we have now all is happening in Beirut abd Brazil; and here to with all students maybe all we are tired someone think.by us I dont know Cil but I. Think many people is tired.
    Times ago in Dictadura times the people live afraid here but now is the oppositive all the persons have something to say always...

    ReplyDelete
  11. centralized power is dangerous, always was - it's good if the power is divided on many shoulders that are kind of independent of each other - but then - who really is...

    ReplyDelete
  12. When we speak of these agencies--such as the NSA, CIA, etc.--it strikes me that what we are talking about is just people. People, other than those at the very top, who are "just following orders" (where have we heard that before?) and doing the bidding of the most powerful, who have their agendas to implement.

    If anything is ever going to change, it has to change on the personal, individual level. Like the song "Universal Soldier" by Buffy Saint Marie, it is a personal choice whether to blindly follow orders or to follow one's own conscience. So much easier (and fewer consequences, unless you happened to be a Nazi) to just follow those orders than to stand up and say, NO--THIS IS WRONG!

    ReplyDelete
  13. So true - we only think we're free but we're not.

    ReplyDelete
  14. I honestly think this has went on for a long long time. I have mixed emotions on it. I see it as a slippery slope.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Excellent article by George Monbiot on this subject today in The Guardian.

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/24/how-trust-state-spies-citizens

    Greetings from London.

    ReplyDelete
  16. It is truly a crazy world! Scary...but yet, not surprised at all!

    ReplyDelete
  17. Good way to get em talking! I often think this when I speak with my husband on the phone or email him. We were both in Iraq and I wonder if when we discuss our experiences if someone is listening? One never knows but like you I have nothing to hide!

    ReplyDelete
  18. Hi Cuban, you are echoing my thoughts since this NSA issue broke--feeling very Matrix-ish. Thank you very much for your comment on my recent poem. I know the ending needed some work, but I'm pretty thin-skinned, so even well intended suggestions trouble me. I know I have to have the "can't please all the people all the time" attitude, just doesn't come easily...:-) your comment made me laugh and smile--And not take the other comments so seriously.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Yeah we're well protected - out of our freedoms and basic rights.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Don't get schizophrenics started on this ;o.

    A few might bear the scrutiny, but I more than get your point. Sometimes impenetrable anonymity seems great(in theory). I startle on occasion as if caught at something illicit, when nothing could be further from the truth. My illness lends itself toward these feelings rather compellingly, so I try to play devil's advocate with myself, but all of this is valid(& well-written). ~Mary

    ReplyDelete
  21. Le pones emociòn a tu publicaciòn. Enhorabuena.

    un abrazo

    fus

    ReplyDelete
  22. Many thanks for your comments. I really appreciate them.

    Greetings from London.

    ReplyDelete

LinkWithin

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...