From: Charlie Stross (charlie@antipope.org)
Date: Tue Dec 07 1999 - 05:16:38 MST
On Mon, Dec 06, 1999 at 02:30:35PM -0800, john grigg wrote:
>
> I agree with you that most likely the most terrible totalitarian governments
> have yet to be. As an American citizen my deepest hope is that my own
> nation will not fall prey to this.
>
> Also a U.S. president could declare martial law in a time of severe crisis,
> thereby suspending the constitution and becoming a dictator over the
> military. In a time of fear and violence(repeated terrorist strikes or an
> epidemic) things could really get out of control but I would hope the checks
> and balances of the other branches of government and public opinion would
> take hold. A common scenario is shown in the film "The Siege" but I see a
> much more likely and less explosive and incremental loss of American
> liberties done for "our own good."
Ahem: the real threat isn't some guy in jackboots and a toothbrush
moustache taking over the Oval Office. It isn't even some greedy
politician in an expensive suit taking over the Oval Office. The _real_
threat is creeping totalitarianism through the automation of legislative
constraints on everyday life.
For example, take the War on Drugs. The illegality of some drugs is taken
as an acceptable justification for almost _any_ measure to prevent the
use of such drugs, regardless of the damage such measures inflict on
society at large. As if having to piss into a bottle to satisfy your
employers that you're not using illegal substances isn't bad enough,
imagine what it's going to be like when the availability of cheap
microtechnology HPLC and mass spectroscopy equipment gives every cop the
equivalent of a forensic laboratory. They won't simply be checking you
for heroin or cocaine; they'll be able to verify that you're not using
any prescription medicines you weren't prescribed by your own doctor
(clue: at least in the UK, it's illegal to consume prescription-only
medicines without having been prescribed them). They'll be able to verify
whether or not you've been drinking, or smoking. Maybe they'll be able
to verify whether or not you're exhalations contain hormonal indicators
of anger or stress, suggesting you might have been (heaven forbid!)
_angry_ and in charge of an automobile. And they'll certainly be able
to quickly cross-match your genotype against markers found at every
crime scene for the past few years.
Basically, they'll be using this technology, and the excuse that Drugs are
Illegal, to police your state of mind. (With handy mandatory sentencing
in court if you're found guilty. And please bear in mind that as the
middle classes have become less secure, they've consistently voted
for politicians who promise a more draconian answer to crime -- brutal
punishment, not reform.)
Simply put, it's easier to pass new bad laws than repeal old bad laws.
And once we have the technology to police bad laws, those bad laws will
be enforced. Just think about all those jurisdictions that still have
sodomy laws (or laws mandating that the only permissable sexual activity
is in the missionary position between husband and wife) on the books.
What's it going to be like once ubiquitous micro-UAV's with neural
network image recognition are available for a dollar a pop, and someone
like Pat Robertson ends up as a state governor by promising to make
everything like it used to be?
> It looks like parts of Europe may be heading down this road now. What do
> the Europeans on this list have to say?? Or do you feel what the English
> are doing is not so threatening?
In some ways Europe is better off than the USA; in others, less so. I
suspect the War on Drugs will crack in Europe first -- and there's also
an explicit right to privacy in the European Declaration of Human Rights,
which is being impelemented at the level of constitutional law throughout
all the member states. Here in Scotland we have a different legal system
from England, so to some extent we're firewalled from the most egregious
infringements going on there.
There's also a lot of misreporting in the US media of events in Europe.
For example, it was widely reported a year or so ago that France banned
encryption entirely, making it a criminal offense to use encryption. What
these reports -- which were true -- ignored was the fact that France
has draconian privacy laws; it's a serious felony to read someone else's
email! (If your employer reads your mail in France you can put them in
prison for it.) Against that background, encryption was seen as a criminal
tool -- the ordinary right to privacy was already covered. Once the French
government woke up to the implications of the internet, they repealled
the law banning encryption almost completely; the point is, reporting that
"encryption is illegal in France" doesn't give you the whole picture.
I'd say probably the biggest and most important defense against this
sort of cybernetic tyranny is an emphasis on privacy as being as much
of a fundamental human right as free speech -- and measures to extend
the enforcement of privacy rights internationally, so that individuals
or groups such as governments can't weasel around local restrictions
by exporting personal data to jurisdictions with no privacy protection
(such as the USA).
I suspect we're going to see the worst problems with automated tyranny
in precisely those places that pay most lip-service to freedom while
ignoring privacy concerns. And instead of the "anchorman" style of
dictatorship (guy on a white horse, ranting in front of a crowd of
uniformed supporters) we're going to see something different; expect
a committee of smiling friendly faces telling us they're going to do
something really outrageous for our comfort and safety.
-- Charlie
PS: A week ago, my local city council sponsorted an event titled
"Sixteen days of action against violence against women". Nothing wrong
with that, you might think -- non-consensual violence is just plain Wrong,
right? What most people missed was that an anti-porn pressure group
(with some barking mad fundamentalist connections) was piggy-backing a
book-burning on top of this consciousness-raising event. Their excuse
is that pornography causes violence against women -- an assertion on
which the jury is most definitely out, as anyone who remembers the Meese
Commission might be aware. Moreover, they weren't targeting the
demon du jour of child pornography; they were going after material on
sale in just about any newsstand. Can you spell "censorship"?
Luckily my other half spotted this before it happened, and the net
effect was to (a) trigger lots of running around getting signatures on
a letter, (b) generate some favourable _anti-censorship_ press coverage
(which in itself is unusual), and (c) bootstrap a mailing list for
monitoring and responding to attacks on free speech. To say nothing
of (d) really pissing off the anti-porn protestors (who didn't seem to
realise that a torchlit procession accompanied by drummers followed by
a book and magazine burning might _just_ push the wrong buttons in the
public consciousness).
The point of all this? There've been any number of "pornography causes
violence" scares in the media, but relatively little research that's
shown even a tenuous link, much less a causal one, between use of porn
and violence against women. This, however, isn't enough to prevent
people who are defensive and feel threatened from trying to get something
they think is threatening them banned. If you spot such a witch-hunt
forming early enough you can defuse it efficiently with relatively
little work; but if not, the consequences can be disastrous because
sooner or later some public event (say, a rapist trying to excuse their
actions by saying "pornography made me do it") will make good headlines,
and indirectly rally public opinion behind the pressure group, who will
then get their own way (and in this instance get local laws passed that
drive an 18-wheeler through the right to freedom of expression).
Now stop and think about what other angry little pressure groups of
insecure people are forming in your vicinity. GM crops? Check. Religion?
Check. Abortion? Check. Contraceptive advice for teenagers? Check.
Food safety? Check. Car safety? Check. Gun safety? Check. Violence
against (women|gays|blacks|pensioners|the disabled|the enabled|anyone)?
Check. Burglary? Check.
_Anything_ can serve as a nucleus for a pressure group to form around.
And the real danger is that in the era of automated surveillance and
mandated legal response that lies ahead, these will give rise to a
headless dictatorship.
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