I’ve said it several times, but it is still astonishing to watch Americans use social media to air their fears about agencies like the NSA while ignoring the fact that it’s the social media company itself watching us more intimately than any government agency ever will. In a recent editorial for Newsweek, Senator Whitehouse (D-RI) calls attention to the fact that not only do Americans seem paradoxically to distrust government agencies more than private companies with a profit motive for domestic surveillance, but that this contradiction also skews rational debate in Congress with regard to the still-relevant national security role of the intelligence community. Writes Senator Whitehouse:“
I contend that a corporate-backed, ideology-fueled effort to deride and diminish the government of the United States exists and has gotten out of hand. I contend that the consequences of that corporate-backed effort of derision and diminution play out in the way America views the service of NSA personnel, and in the way Congress debates NSA programs.”
On the other hand, as reported in The New York Times, a recent study by the Annenberg School of Communications at the University of Pennsylvania, indicates that Americans are uncomfortable with the amount of data they increasingly recognize as the hidden cost of “free” Internet services. But the study also indicates that we are not entirely sure what to do about it. Writes Josesph Turow, professor at the Annenberg School:
Source: Reconciling the New Surveillance State – The Illusion of MoreThe Illusion of More
