A Chill On The Internet

I recently learned of a blog posting from someone in Germany named Florian Sander who was commenting on a recent survey in Germany. Unfortunately the original survey report is in German.

But the blog post is in English and the author makes a point that I've long believed:

The problem with surveillance is not primarily that some bored officer might learn about some embarrassing private detail (although this is a problem as well). The fundamental problem with surveillance is that it changes people. People under surveillance behave differently than people who are not monitored - differently than free people.

I've long kept my eye open for scientifically credible studies that back up this point, but have never run into one.

The author however has posted information about a law tht was recently put into effect in Germany. From the author's blog:

Unfortunately, this fundamental problem has just been proven in Germany. Since the beginning of this year, communication providers are required to record who communicated with whom and when (but not the content of the communication). This data is stored for six months and available to law enforcement in cases related to certain forms of crime.

The author goes on to reference a survey done recently be a research firm in German, which discovered:

• 73% know about the data retention
• 11% said that they had already abstained from using phone, cell phone or e-mail in certain occasions
• 6% believe to receive less communication since the beginning of the data retention
• 52% said they probably would not use telecommunication for contacts like drug counselors, psychotherapists or marriage counselors because of data retention

In addition to the German law, more and more countries are invading their citizens privacy on a massive scale. Sweden is in the process of giving law enforcement officials the right to monitor all forms of electronic communication that cross Swedish borders with no court oversight whatsoever.

In India, the government is pressuring Blackberry to give it the keys to it's encryption mechanism so that the Indain government can monitor all traffic on the blackberry network in India.

It goes on and on. No one seems to care about how these laws are going to be affecting society as a whole.