Digital Privacy

I was just reading in Wolfgang Ernst’ book “Das Gesetz des Gedächtnisses” (“The law of memory”), published in the year 2000. It is basically about media and media theory in our digital age. But I found one passage that made me think about the current situation, with revelations that NSA and other governments spying on us. It stated, as one of the consequences of our digital age, that governments are afraid of losing control. And that made me think that maybe the fact that our governments want to spy on us is not just a bad sign. It is not just a sign that we all become more transparent and predictable and that everybody knows much more about each one of us than ever before. It is also a sign that we are becoming freer than before. Never before in the history of the world was it harder for governments to control how information is distributed. Never before was it harder for governments to control who is communicating with whom. No wonder they want to store and analyse everything we say. Because they are losing control! I believe this is also a good sign! We should defend this freedom and fight against any attempts to limit it!

If you failed to get enough information about all the NSA and Snowden stuff, I recommend the following sources:

• Any article by the Guardian
• Whistleblower.org
• Wikileaks Twitter account
• A nice summary by the Young Turks
• Even though implementation is mostly unrealistic, here are some measures you can take against government spying