PRISM: The dangerous agents of authorised institutions
Dan Hind ● Prism is worrying because of its degree of interference in civil society. As Chris Bertram points out, the state and its partners could all too easily use the records of internet use to embarrass troublesome individuals. The state could thereby raise the costs of dissent, and widen its definition, until the "ordinary, decent, hard-working, law-abiding" citizens so beloved of politicians will know to keep their mouth shut about the linked phenomena of steepening inequality, intensifying conflict, environmental crisis and grand corruption. It is this "potential disabling of insubordination" rather than "concerns about "privacy" in and of itself" that should worry us, argues Bertram. ● The News of the World was able to run rampant through British civil society using only very primitive technology. Imagine what the corporate media might do in partnership with an all-knowing state. We already know that the UK military worries about the middle class becoming a revolutionary threat to the established order. At what point does political activism become subversion? At the moment the national security state is more or less free to decide for itself. The "law-abiding" majority that Hague insists have nothing to fear always have something to fear.