Robert Scheer - They Know Everything About You: How Data-Collecting Corporations and Snooping Government Agencies Are Destroying Democracy

Also by Robert Scheer

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Edited by Robert Scheer

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The Diary of Che Guevara

Copyright 2015 by Robert Scheer.

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Book design by Linda Mark

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Scheer, Robert.

They know everything about you : how data-collecting corporations and snooping government agencies are destroying democracy / Robert Scheer with Sara Beladi and Joshua Scheer.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-56858-452-2 (ebook) 1. Privacy, Right ofUnited States. 2. DemocracyUnited States. 3. Data protectionUnited States. 4. Electronic surveillanceUnited States. 5. Intelligence serviceUnited States. 6. National securityUnited States. I. Beladi, Sara. II. Scheer, Joshua. III. Title.

JC596.2.U5S24 2015

323.4480973dc23

2014034638

To my sons:

Christopher, a terrific writer whose polishing of my prose makes me look good and is decent enough not to rub it in;

Joshua, who once again did the heavy lifting research; and

Peter, whose editing of Truthdig frees me to write books.

Contents

F OR DEMOCRACY, PRIVACY IS THE BALL GAME. WITHOUT the assurance of a zone of inviolate space, both physical and mental, that a citizen can inhabit without fear of observation by others, there is no guarantee of the essential sovereignty of the individual promised in the First and Fourth Amendments to the US Constitution. That should be clear, as it is to most people who have been oppressed by the tyranny of authoritarian regimes. Indeed, as Aldous Huxley and George Orwell brilliantly established in their classic writing on this subject, the totality of societal observation over the individual is the defining antithesis of freedom, even when that observation is gained through hidden and subtle persuasion.

That much used to be obvious, particularly after the starkly revealing experiences in the last century with overtly totalitarian regimes; Germany under both fascism and communism offers the most startling example. In both instances, the advanced educational level of the population provided no significant barrier to the populations surrender of freedom and its accommodation of total surveillance of individual activity.

Unfortunately, with the sudden dominance of the Internetwhich has come upon us worldwide and with more crushing, and yes, liberating consequenceswe have been overwhelmed with the illusion that surveillance and freedom are compatible. That is because the culture of the Internet, driven by its core economic model, has succeeded in equating privacy with anonymity. In reality, that is not the case. Privacy is a matter of individual choice as to what to reveal about ones behavior to others, whereas anonymity, in the modern commercialized celebrity-driven world, is assumed to represent a harsh societal dismissal of individual worth.

The profit model of targeted advertising has sustained the Internet since its original development as a Cold Warera military project of the Pentagons science and technology research wing DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) meant to ensure military communications in the event of an all-out nuclear war with the Soviet Union. That compelling business application of the Internet, the ability of advertisers to anticipate and manipulate consumer consumption, is what has financed the phenomenal growth of the wired world at a pace of change that dwarfs all such transformations in communications that came before. Broadcast television held that distinction previously, with its ability to deliver content to millions of viewersbut it was only a glimpse into our desires that, by the standards of the Internet, was quite limited.

Previous to the Internet, the number of prospective buyers delivered by any conventional mass medium were inefficiently undifferentiated. Experts, with their surveys and ratings, could only speculate as to the demographics of potential customers attracted by a billboard, radio, or TV commercial. These methods were even more imperfect in the all-important estimate of the end goal: how an advertisement resulted in an actual sale that would prove the ads efficacy. The advertising bonanza of the Internet that fuels this communications revolution is based on a far more precise entry point into the mind of the consumer.

Even now in the early phase of mapping our minds, this access to our thoughts already exceeds the powers of the most invasive Big Brother government that Orwell imagined. At the command of Internet-driven signals, people everywhere in the world have been willing to abandon the concerns and safeguards of privacy, developed painstakingly throughout human history, for the convenience of plucking that perfect item off a virtual shelf and paying for it without looking up from their devices. The publics willingness to voluntarilynay, enthusiasticallysacrifice privacy is fueled by a very modern fear of being ignored in a culture where the most observed are the most valued.