

Students Against Mass Surveillance on Campus - thedg
http://studentsagainstsurveillance.com/

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flashman
Campus IT surveillance is a much more immediate invasion of privacy. It's not
just being able to see what websites you visit and when. Many enterprise
networking products allow you to stalk a user around campus in real time by
which wifi access point she's connected to.

For instance, if you use a student ID as a wifi login, that ties your MAC
address to your identity. Then the wifi access points report which MACs
they've seen, and some (thanks Cisco) let you query historical data by MAC.
This has legitimate uses for tracking stolen items but frequently no privacy
controls or oversight.

Add a little machine learning and you can also identify people's associates
with decent accuracy.

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webaholic
Well, it is hard to sell this to a friend of mine who got mugged in broad day
light on a weekend on campus. If it was not for a surveillance camera, the
thugs would still be roaming free.

Not only did the surveillance help in nabbing the criminals in a short time,
it also helped prevent the same happen to other students as the thieves were
caught looking for other scapegoats near by.

What is needed is oversight on this technology. Not outright banning. There is
good and bad for any technology, surveillance is no different.

~~~
tommycollison
We're not against any form of surveillance ever, we just think that over-broad
NSA/GCHQ spying as it currently exists violates the Constitution.

Maybe we'll agree some day that this level of surveillance is a price we're
willing to pay, but that needs a rigorous and well-informed public debate.

Our letter ends by calling on the U.S. government to "bring the NSA back
within the bounds of the constitution," not to scrap the NSA entirely.

Hope this clarifies. :-)

~~~
XorNot
So why on campus then? "on campus" implies this is a campus specific issue,
hence the aforementioned security cameras.

The NSA/GCHQ is a nation-state level issue, effecting populaces on the same
scale.

~~~
tommycollison
Well, headline aside, we feel the NSA/GCHQ overreach is a problem that
particularly affects students, since college is a time for exploration,
creativity, and freedom. The private realm is the only place any of these
things reside, and we're concerned about the erosion of online anonymity.

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fown9
Bad premises

"In societies where there is mass surveillance, it’s harder for people to
think, learn, and explore. "

US, England, France, Germany, Sweden have mass surveillance. All leaders in
progress, innovations, and exploration.

Cuba, Venezuela, Vietnam, Brazil, Argentina, Greece, Iraq, .....you get the
idea. They don't.

"Privacy is important not only for students and academics, but also for
journalists, lawyers, activists, doctors, entrepreneurs -- anyone who wants to
think and act freely without worrying about who is watching them and why."

In this country, we have freedom of press. Much more important than privacy.
Surveillance doesn't prevent you from acting freely. Living in an
authoritorian country does. So you can't curse out the president and hold
protests.

"Additionally, privacy helps ensure that everyone in our society is treated
fairly, no matter their religion, sexuality, race, or other traits."

What? Huh?

~~~
littletimmy
I'd like to take issue with your "freedom of press" statement. The press is
certainly Not free in the US. We have a propagandist press that serves to
deceive (Fox News), serve special interests (CNBC) or generally toes the
establishment line (NYT, CNN).

More importantly, the US government actively takes steps to stop a free press.
Take for example the recent attempts to stop Glenn Greenwald, punish Snowden,
etc. The US govt also takes active steps to push the "free" press in
particular directions, such as hiring retired commanders to pose as
independent analysts to bolster the Iraq war, or by infiltrating online news
networks to post via shills.

How exactly is the press "free"?

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geographomics
> The ability of students to learn and grow is severely hampered when
> governments monitor our communications and social media activity.

Is there any evidence of this? Why would monitoring students' social media
activity and emails negatively affect their ability to learn?

~~~
tommycollison
We feel this because we think that surveillance leads you to self-censor.

In “The Chilling Effects of Surveillance," a study done by Stanford University
psychologists Gregory White and Philip Zimbardo, participants were placed
under varying levels of surveillance as they were asked their opinions on the
severity of marijuana penalties. Those who were under surveillance (told that
their answers would be shared with the police for training purposes) were more
likely to denounce pot use.

This happens with writers too:
[https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/01/how_surveilla...](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/01/how_surveillanc.html)

~~~
geographomics
I don't think you've made a strong case for mass surveillance having a
significant effect of self-censorship.

The study you cited [1] is an interesting read, but its applicability to mass
surveillance is questionable. Being informed that your opinions on a specific
topic - of which you are acutely aware are being immediately recorded - will
definitely be reported to the police, is not the same as the more vague notion
of some unknown entity recording and possibly analysing your everyday words.
There may be a perceptual difference between personal surveillance and mass
surveillance, which is not addressed in that study. As an analogy, consider
the ubiquitous, largely unnoticed CCTV coverage in urban areas, versus the
acutely uncomfortable feeling of being followed down the street - the two
perceptions are quite different.

That survey of writers linked by Schneier [2] describes its limitations -
namely, that it is not really representative of all writers, only those that
self-selected (from an email sent to them on the topic of government
surveillance) to answer the survey, and that the sample sizes are relatively
small. Also, the writers surveyed are all affiliated with the organisation
conducting the survey, an advocacy group for freedom of expression. This may
well bias the results towards that group rather than writers in general.
Indeed, the report authors explicitly state: "the findings cannot be
generalized to represent all writers in any given region or level of freedom."

Another point specific to students is that, if they choose to pursue an
academic career, it necessitates publishing research to a wide audience (wider
than their professional colleagues, at least). Surveillance involves the
intrusion of privacy, but publication is essentially the opposite of privacy,
so how can it be negatively affected by surveillance, and mass surveillance in
particular?

[1] [http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-
bin/GetTRDoc?Location=U2&doc=GetTRDo...](http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-
bin/GetTRDoc?Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf&AD=ADA013230)

[2]
[http://www.pen.org/sites/default/files/Global%20Chilling_01-...](http://www.pen.org/sites/default/files/Global%20Chilling_01-05-15_FINAL.pdf)

