There’s one thing that keeps on running in my head. It’s the fact that we all know or should know that our life’s every moment is being recorded in someone’s computer voluntarily by us and most of the time without our knowledge of what's going on behind the scenes. To feed my curiosity, I found a man who lost everything to say something. He’s Edward Snowden.
Edward Snowden is the most famous whistleblower in the world who is a former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor gained international notoriety in 2013 after he leaked classified information about the agency's mass surveillance programs to the press. In fact he also says that he has even more data that the US government has no idea about.
By working as a contractor the thing that pushed him to leave everything to tell the truth is when people like you and me including him are being tracked all across our digital footprints. Once he noticed that his computer camera is actually facing his bed and then found that his private moments are also recorded by the government. So your government may also have your nudes but didn't leak them till now.
This may sound like a lot of unimportant information about him. But the point is we are monitored and manipulated for the people in power with algorithms developed by people who went there from here.
Not only governments but companies like Apple, Facebook, Google and you name it, they do collect a lot of information about who you are and what you do. What line separates governments and companies doing these things? A company like this can only know about you with your consent (That’s where that check box you never care about comes in. Yeah! The Terms and Conditions may apply). Because they have to comply with the laws of their respective countries. They do it for a simple reason and that is to fill their pockets. But governments take a different path here. Governments are the only monopoly in a country. You like it or not but they’re there because of some political situations being favorable to them. But irrespective of who’s in the top, this mass surveillance is going to happen in the name of security concerns.
People tend to believe that the government and its agencies are their friends and they too pretend it to be that way. But when it comes to them, we actually don't know what experiment they’re doing on us. We expect a private company to provide transparency but we never ask a government company to do so or even think of that. It’s because they control the laws. Again, if companies do this for money then why does the government have to do it?
Digging deep from the glimpse of some information that I've given, big brains can easily tell that this will lead to another important thing that is freedom of speech.
“You don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say.”
- Snowden
Yes we need security, we need better education, we need better society etc. but at what cost? Are we really moving towards a better society? Or just they’re manipulating us in the direction where they think we should go? Freedom of speech and privacy both are actually correlated. Both have to be balanced in a way that damage can be minimized. But how? Still I didn't answer to the question because it’s not a one line answer that explains all. So let’s try to figure it out more in the next Hackurday. Until then bubye….
Best content so far champ!! Awaiting for the next content! Good to see you grow and make us grow in knowledge too! Thank you