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The Revelations Of Mass Surveillance Brought To Light By Edward Snowden

472 Words2 Pages

Ludovic Bouan
PTSI 2

Side Effects of Mass Surveillance

The revelations of mass surveillance, brought to light by Edward Snowden in 2013, initiated a heated global debate regarding our online privacy. Many people feel that mass surveillance poses no real threat to them, because they aren't doing anything wrong and have nothing to hide. Google CEO Eric Schmidt famously said: "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place." After all, only bad people need to hide what they are doing. By building upon proven observations of human nature, and then analysing the implications this point of view imposes, I will explain why this argument is perverse and why we must protect our society from mass surveillance. …show more content…

We need the opportunity to escape the judgmental view of others; the reason being that we do have things to hide: feelings, opinions, beliefs, judgments, interests, etc. If not we wouldn’t have locks on our doors and we wouldn’t mind expressing our deepest feelings or eccentric opinions in public. When we are being watched we make decisions that conform to social norms and we are therefore not expressing our true identity. The Internet is intended to be a tool of liberation, where everyone is free to speak their mind and share with the entire world anonymously sans judgement, but mass surveillance is changing that. Because we act in a socially acceptable manner when being watched, mass surveillance is encaging our minds, crushing the freedom we used to exert, and coercing us into

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