FRIDAYEXTRA !
The Daily Astorian
Friday, May 13, 2016
Weekend Edition
SECURITY/
PRIVACY
Author questions how much
government surveillance is enough
Erick Bengel/The Daily Astorian
Kristian Williams, an author and freelance writer, led a group of locals through a discussion of government
surveillance, security and privacy at the Astoria Public Library last week as part of the Oregon Humanities
Conversation Project.
By ERICK BENGEL
The Daily Astorian
G
overnment surveillance, carried out under the banner of security, has
advanced so rapidly that society’s customs, expectations and laws
regarding privacy have not kept up with the sea change. ¶ The issue
is often framed as a zero-sum contest between security and privacy: How much
surveillance is enough, and how much is too much? Who decides?
Kristian Williams — an author and freelance writer
Prevention
whose work has focused on how policing, counterinsur-
Astoria City Councilor Drew Herzig, echoing writ-
gency and government use of torture impacts human rights ers on the topic, pointed out that as citizens have become
and civil liberties — posed these questions to a group gath- more transparent to the government, the government has
ered at the Astoria Public Library last week.
become less transparent to citizens.
“I think, unless our understanding — both
What do they get in return? Is blan-
collectively and individually — starts to
ket
surveillance effective at preventing
‘What is
advance very rapidly, we’re not going to
crime? Doesn’t seem to be, according to
it about
get to make choices, even as a society,
Williams.
about whether privacy exists. It will just
For example, in the time since Lon-
this idea
be gone, because of our inattention and
don installed tens of thousands of secu-
sort of cultural lag,” he warned.
rity cameras, crime hasn’t decreased at
of having
The event, “Keeping Tabs on America,”
all, he said. (But there has been a rise in
part of the ongoing Oregon Humanities
unobserved criminals wearing masks while commit-
Conversation Project, drew locals concerned
ting crimes.)
space, or
about the scope of government surveillance,
And since there aren’t employees
and who questioned whether screening every
watching all of the security footage in real
cellphone call and peering into every private unobserved time, oftentimes the best law enforce-
life was an effective, or socially desirable,
ment can do is identify and catch crim-
time, that
way to keep Americans safe.
inals after the fact by retracing their
Though some attendees stood up for
movements.
we find
surveillance, casting it as a “necessary
In other words, the surveillance
valuable?’
evil,” they were the outliers in the crowd.
information is often more useful for
Almost everyone agreed that the
forensic rather than preventative
post-9/11 surveillance apparatus is not
purposes.
Kristian Williams
author and
going away anytime soon, and that the
The same is true at the U.S.
freelance writer
loss of privacy — from corporations
National Security Agency (whose
tracking customers’ purchasing habits,
unoficial motto is “Collect it all”). The
to living under the expanding gaze of security cameras and agency gathers and stores such an overwhelming amount
smartphones — is something younger generations aren’t of electronic info that it is impossible to analyze every data
as worried about; in the social media age, they grow up point. But when the NSA knows what it’s looking for, it
acclimated to lives of full disclosure.
can sift through its storage and nose it out.
“They tend to be on the side of, ‘I don’t understand
what the big deal is. I live my life online,’” Williams said.
See SURVEILLANCE, Page 3C