
What It’s Like to Live in a Surveillance State - deadcoder0904
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/03/opinion/sunday/china-surveillance-state-uighurs.html
======
graeme
As a side note to the article, I used to wonder why China tried so hold to
keep possession of Xinjiang and Tibet. Surely the regions might be more
trouble than they were worth?

I eventually found a map of China showing state borders. Xinjiang and Tibet
are a _massive_ portion of China, and also give China border access to many
countries. Normal state imperatives to keep territory aside, these are
comparatively important territories for China's global influence.

~~~
Stanleyc23
Taiwan, being a small island, seems counter to that pattern.

I think it's simply that the chinese gov't relies on maintaining a brand of
virtually absolute control. Even publicly entertaining the idea of letting
territories go would be a strong signal for weakness.

edit: maybe that's what you already implied by "Normal state imperatives"

~~~
graeme
I think Taiwan goes beyond normal imperatives actually. In China they are
viewed as an unsinkable aircraft carrier for the US.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsinkable_aircraft_carrier](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsinkable_aircraft_carrier)

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_Chain_Strategy](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_Chain_Strategy)

For a paralle, look at how vexed the US was by Cuba's changing sides in the
cold war. And in that scenario the US enjoyed regional naval dominance, the
inverse of today's situation in the pacific.

Beyond US rivalry, it is better to have such an island under state control for
regional naval advantages as well.

And to answer your edit by such imperatives I meant states normally won't give
up so much as an inch of territory if they can help it.

~~~
crdoconnor
It's different to Cuba. Taiwan shares a culture, history, lineage and language
with the mainland. Sun Yat Sen is equally revered it both, for example. And,
mainlanders often have a romantic view of it. Cuba doesn't have that kind of
relationship with the US - it was basically a client state where Americans
partied and owned farms until Batista was overthrown.

Interestingly I think Taiwan (which also sees itself it be at heart still part
of China) actually lays claim to Tibet too.

~~~
graeme
I meant ananlogous in the sense that Cuba was a Soviet base, and that it was
previously a sphere of influence. Having Soviet missiles off the coast of
Florida made the US uncomfortable in the same way that Taiwan as an unsinkable
aircraft carrier makes the Chinese uncomfortable.

I didn't mean that was the _only_ reason that China is interested in Taiwan. I
was trying to contextualize it for American readers.

------
outside1234
We know what it’s like - the question is, how do we, as hackers, stop it?

~~~
alphonsegaston
Labor organization with the express aim of putting an end to Surveillance
Capitalism.

Google and Facebook can’t withstand a sustained disruption of their workforce,
which is why they spend so much time paying lip service to social issues. They
have to create a constant illusion of concern for rights and justice to
prevent their employees from actually demanding them.

~~~
HumanDrivenDev
> Labor organization with the express aim of putting an end to Surveillance
> Capitalism.

The article is talking about the extensive surveillance of an authoritarian
government that heads a planned economy. What does it have to do with
capitalism?

~~~
hedora
Regulatory capture is a dominant force in western capitalism. To the extent
that is “planning” the economy, the article could be talking about the US. We
certainly have a more extensive surveillance apparatus.

From what I can tell China keeps most of its oppression inside its borders, at
least compared to the US.

Look up forced labor in immigrant prisons, or the 1,000,000 current cholera
cases in Yemen / estimated 7,000,000 victims of famine coming soon — the US is
actively working to expand that humanitarian disaster as you read this.

Also there are 100,000’s of legal immigrants we’re planning to send back to
failed economies and war zones. All of that is happening today. If you go back
a decade for more context, you can add torturing civilians to death,
establishing narco states, etc, etc.

I was going to add “funding terrorism” to my list of past events, but I just
remembered we’re actually in the middle of active military strikes that are
meant to help Al Qaeda ground forces.

All of these violations of basic human rights were very profitable to campaign
donors.

To make it worse, from what I can tell, some members of our congress think it
is appropriate to let the president replace the head of the FBI with a yes-man
specifically to block an investigation into the president’s ties with
organized crime and foreign powers. That will give him some degree of legal
impunity, and also control of a massive domestic surveillance apparatus (much
of which consists of commercial entities).

How did this happen? Trump hired a foreign-owned company (Cambridge Analytica)
to use the tools of surveillance capitalism to squeak through the electoral
college with a record-low percentage of the popular vote.

Sorry for the long-winded answer, but that roughly summarizes the state of
survelliance capitalism in 2018, and what it has to do with the article.

~~~
alphonsegaston
Thank you.

------
newscracker
One or two governments practicing these techniques only serves to inspire many
more to do it covertly or overtly.

Looking at the entire world, I feel it's shameful that more time and effort is
spent on building better surveillance and control systems than decentralized
and privacy protecting (to the extent possible) systems. It's as if all our
freedoms are slipping by, leaving either an illusion of having freedoms with
no practical use or freedoms curbed by governments with no concern about the
well being of people or the government's reputation.

We've known about China and North Korea for a long time. Then we came to know
about Five Eyes and Fourteen Eyes. It worries me that we may have One Hundred
and Fifty Eyes in the next few decades (just a rough count of all countries
minus a small percentage).

------
imhelpingu
Can somebody explain to me what racial profiling necessarily has to do with
"what it's like to live in a surveillance state," or am I correct in my
evaluation that this article is doing PR for our own surveillance state by
conflating two forms of oppression?

~~~
mirimir
It does seem that China has implemented some impressive surveillance in
Xinjiang. And it does seem that Uighurs are being targeted. And the methods
were developed in Tibet. But racial profiling isn't the focus of the article.
It focuses on the methods.

Also, although there may be some China bashing in the background, I don't see
anything about the US being better. And it doesn't take much imagination to
see how such total surveillance is becoming normalized here.

~~~
woodandsteel
> I don't see anything about the US being better.

There is a lot bad going on in the US, but China is ten or a hundred times
worse. For instance, the web is massively censored, and political dissidents
get sent to jail by the hundreds or thousands.

Furthermore, in the US we still have enough freedom of speech that we can
criticize surveillance at places like HN, and even organize efforts to resist
it, even political campaigns, but in China that is completely impossible.

It seems to me that if people were to come to believe that things are as
hopeless in the US as in China, then they would give up all efforts at
resistance. I think that would be a terrible mistake.

~~~
mirimir
I agree. Surveillance in the US is by no means as bad as it is in China.
However, consider that the NSA intercepts all Internet traffic, excerpts and
indexes the data, and makes it available through a Google-like interface.

But they claim that there's no substantive surveillance until some human
queries that data. Arguably, even AI processing would not be considered to be
surveillance.

And sure, they claim that they're not looking at traffic between US citizens.
However, there's the SOD program:[0]

> The unit of the DEA that distributes the information is called the Special
> Operations Division, or SOD. Two dozen partner agencies comprise the unit,
> including the FBI, CIA, NSA, Internal Revenue Service and the Department of
> Homeland Security. It was created in 1994 to combat Latin American drug
> cartels and has grown from several dozen employees to several hundred.

> Today, much of the SOD's work is classified, and officials asked that its
> precise location in Virginia not be revealed. The documents reviewed by
> Reuters are marked "Law Enforcement Sensitive," a government categorization
> that is meant to keep them confidential.

> "Remember that the utilization of SOD cannot be revealed or discussed in any
> investigative function," a document presented to agents reads. The document
> specifically directs agents to omit the SOD's involvement from investigative
> reports, affidavits, discussions with prosecutors and courtroom testimony.
> Agents are instructed to then use "normal investigative techniques to
> recreate the information provided by SOD." DEA even has a history of SOD
> online.[1]

That is, parallel construction. And given the secrecy about SOD-based
evidence, we have _no_ idea how widely it's used. Potentially, the full power
of the NSA could be turned against anything that federal investigators
consider as legitimate targets.

I could go on at length. And I won't. But consider the situation at the
Mexican border. Consider surveillance around presidential conventions, WTO
meetings, etc. Consider reports about Stingray units cited near USCIS offices.
And those surveillance aircraft circling over areas of interest.

Sure, things aren't "as hopeless in the US as in China", but they're getting
there in some ways. And all it would take is some serious crisis and drama,
real or manufactured.

0) [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-dea-sod/exclusive-u-s-
dir...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-dea-sod/exclusive-u-s-directs-
agents-to-cover-up-program-used-to-investigate-americans-
idUSBRE97409R20130805)

1) [https://www.deamuseum.org/wp-
content/uploads/2015/08/042215-...](https://www.deamuseum.org/wp-
content/uploads/2015/08/042215-DEAMuseum-LectureSeries-MLS-SOD-transcript.pdf)

~~~
mirimir
Belated edit: "DEA even has ..." doesn't belong in the quoted text. And
"sited", not "cited".

------
tabeth
Personally I don't see the problem with surveillance. I have a problem with
_people_ who abuse powers they may have.

I mean honestly:

\- Use Android? Chances are you're being watched by Google.

\- Facebook tracks literally hundreds of millions.

\- Post on HN? Guess what, you can't delete your posts after a while. Advances
in stylometry in addition to more and more data being on the internet will
mean your identity on here will be compromised eventually.

\---

However, using Android allows Google to have literally minute-by-minute
traffic updates which allows our cars to move more efficiently.

Facebook's tracking of millions may aid in allowing smaller organizations to
connect in a more programmatic way.

HN well, obviously is allowing you to read this now.

Things like privacy were forfeit the minute we gained the technology. If
people have problems with these technologies being used in bad ways, we should
punish the people using the technologies in such a bad way. The spooky
"surveillance state" is a red herring imo.

~~~
blub
Isn't it blindingly obvious that the abusers usually have power and money and
can't be punished?

The googlefaces hire all sorts of behavioural scientists, paychologists,
statisticians to get people more addicted to their ecosystem, spend millions
on lobbying to bend the laws and generally do whatever they want.

People caring about this topic waste their time explaining for the millionth
time why surveillance is bad to every innocent soul who bent their mind into a
pretzel coming up with excuses for surveillance and spyware.

~~~
tabeth
So what exactly do you suggest?

1) Ban surveillance. Not going to happen, if what you just stated is to be
believed.

2) Complain about it.

3) Try to enact means to punish abusers.

