Waiting For Prometheus
10th June 2013
Read it.
What is the real issue brought up by this whole PRISM debacle? It’s not that the government is willing to overstep its role using national security as an excuse. That’s been going on for thousands of years. It’s not that companies in a position of power are willing to throw those that rely on them under the bus in order to get ahead. Again, that’s nothing new. And it’s not that the institution of journalism has crumbled into a dismal wreckage of its former glory. Possibly true, but beside the point.
The issue central to all of these is that the fundamental balance of power when it comes to control of information has been allowed to shift unthinkably far away from the individual and towards a set of institutions with motives that are at best mercenary. It’s about time we fixed that, don’t you think?
To address the PRISM scandal itself briefly, I think we will be less surprised at the existence of such a program than, as I think will inevitably transpire, the incompetence and inefficiency that almost certainly define its methods and usage. Allegations of a massive conspiracy that goes so deep that the most powerful tech companies in the world are muzzling themselves and spitting lies out of fear and legal obligation assume, as other theories often do, that this shadow government pulling the strings is both massively effective and operates totally in secret, two things that are highly incongruous with the likely reality of incompetent civil servants, out-of-date methods, and bureaucracy choking everything in sight like the inextinguishable weed it is.
Don’t hold back — tell us how you really feel.