Panopticon Now
And/Or
Radical Transparency and ‘Technopia’
Jeremey Bentham’s design for a prison...panopticon... in which all prisoners are observable while the observer remains invisible... George Orwell’s “1984”, that describes the ubiquitous ‘telescreens,’ and although hackneyed, Admiral Pointdexter’s... former Reagan National Security Advisor... The Total Information Awareness program in DOD which while defunded as such continues to exist at the NSA in another form...Stellar Wind... and under other names…..Prism.... are all apt predecessors of the massive surveillance technologies that exist today, and, in the future, inevitably, will be employed more widely.
So I am offering up mass surveillance...Panopticon-2019... as a topic for our December 2019 meeting. My objective is this paper is to document the state of surveillance in the US today as a baseline from which then we will suggest and discuss solutions if we think this modern Panopticon portends ominously..
As you read the name and subject of this topic, you may well think: ”Jim, this topic is a little dated...we all know about the ubiquitous monitoring that goes on...courtesy primarily of the Internet...what’s new?”
Well, ‘what's new?’, is that:
1. the extent of surveillance ..visual and digital ...may be greater than you think, even if you think it’s already pretty extensive.
2. there is at least a possibility of a ’solution’...even though at first, maybe even after that, most of you will consider it too radical. But remember that 5 Billion people today own cell phones.
I want to ask you after you review the material I have accumulated:
to test your conviction that you have appreciated the full extent of surveillance today
to consider that, rather than a dystopia...the notion of ‘big brother’... a phrase that you might use to describe our present situation... the radical transparency that, I think, exists today in social media and clandestine surveillance could, rather, be a foundation of a form of utopia... maybe...a transparent-opia ...in which the detailed data that alarm us in one sense, is used, instead, to further equality, well being, material comforts, individual dignity ...and privacy.
If this notion of a transparent-opia seems far fetched or techno-optimistic, you will have to read on in order to allow me to develop the idea further.
But to be clear early, my objective for our discussion at the China Club in December, is not to discuss the surveillance technologies ...other than to quickly review them, in order that we all become convinced of their existence and ubiquitousness ...but to discuss whether the societal response to them is to withdraw into some version of the more insular past or to attempt to see how a condition such as radical transparency... or some other approach...that might well be inevitable in any event…. rather could be a source of good.
Can safeguards to inhibit overreach, yet enable the advantages of personalization, but also offer privacy, be designed?
You probably already accept that many, if not most, details of your life are available in digital form and accessible, unfortunately, all too easily, by almost anyone determined to uncover them. Yuval Noah Harari says that automated dossiers contain information on most of us that enable a deeper understanding of us than we ourselves have.
“YNH: I think that we are now facing reality, not just a technological crisis, but a philosophical crisis. Because we have built our society, certainly liberal democracy with elections and the free market and so forth, on philosophical ideas from the 18th century which are simply incompatible not just with the scientific findings of the 21st century but above all with the technology we now have at our disposal. Our society is built on the ideas that the voter knows best, that the customer is always right, that ultimate authority is, as Tristan said, is with the feelings of human beings and this assumes that human feelings and human choices are these sacred arenas which cannot be hacked, which cannot be manipulated. Ultimately, my choices, my desires reflect my free will and nobody can access that or touch that. And this was never true.
Or read Shoshana Zuboff's "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism."
Take a look at a portion of a recent Frontline PBS program on AI. A new window will open and you will have to navigate back to the main text when you have viewed the video.
I just recently returned from a Spring trip to Pakistan and as a ’youtube’ aficionado of all do-it-yourself things, the selection algorithm that chooses what videos ..shown in the sidebar...to recommend to me as to what I should view next... now includes numerous stories of others who have just been to Pakistan.
And, of course, you know how Amazon unerringly shows you things to buy that you may have only briefly viewed elsewhere on the Internet, probably just in passing.
You can’t help but notice, and probably accept as reasonable, the CCTV cameras that appear now on the streets and in businesses, or even think twice about the speed cameras that read your license plate and captures an image of your car as it violates some traffic ordinance, and while you are upset about the divulgement by a credit agency to a hacker of all your financial transactions, you feel helpless to do anything about it.
Here’s a map with icons indicating the location of surveillance devices in Washington, DC. The data is taken from DC government published sources, yet I have no means of verifying its accuracy nor does DC have any legal obligation to demonstrate its accuracy. But even this data indicates pervasive surveillance. The map identifies ~ 500 devices. There are probably many more than that. The map is at a medium resolution...the icons indicate the number of devices each represents. If you click the map, you will open an interactive version that will allow you to deepen the resolution down to individual devices and locations. (You may have to ’sign-in to Google before access in and you must return to this screen when you have completed viewing by clicking the ‘back’ button.)
Let me take you on a brief trip that I personally make often...a drive from my house in Georgetown to Union Station on Mass Ave to take a bus or Amtrak to NYC.
1. I pick up my phone as I head out the door to take L’eau...our new Golden Retriever puppy...for a walk. My cell phone pings the cellphone tower, located on Wisconsin Ave. It has the strongest signal. As I walk my phone continues to detect the strongest signal from cell towers so that any incoming call can be completed. These interactions are recorded by the carrier.
2. I notice a DC traffic enforcement vehicle passing. Its license plate reader cameras on the hood record each license plate as it passes along the street, and communicates to the appropriate law enforcement agency if the number appears on a ’hit’ list. Even if there is no hit, the time, location, and license plate number are retained in an electronic file somewhere, stored for an unknown period of time.
3. As I turn on Q street, if a Stingray device...also known as a cell tower simulator... is being employed by any number of potential law enforcement agencies...or even foreign countries, my cell phone will identify the strongest cell phone tower signal, ping it, and connect to it. The id of my phone and my subscriber information will be recorded, plus the time, and approximate GPS coordinates of my phone, before my call is passed to a real cell tower...The contents of my call may also be recorded. I do not know whether these simulators are being deployed at this moment. There is no public information about them. But the likelihood is fairly great that one is operational. As Trump would phrase it: ‘someone told me' that a ‘stingray’ operated by a foreign government intercepts Trump’s personal cell phone calls from the White House. I am pretty sure that NSA does also.
4. My vehicle on Q street as it approaches Dupont Circle may be a focus of interest from a wide-area motion imagery (WAMI) device typically via a gigapixel camera installed in a light plane. The multi-headed camera creates a composite ‘stitched’ image of the entire city of Washington, drawing a box around any moving object, and having the capability of tracking that individual object at the command of the software. that manages autonomously its use. Take a look at a gigapixel image below. Zoom in on the details. Then view the video of a WAMI motion image. I do not know whether any law enforcement agency utilizes WAMI in the DC area, but Baltimore is considering it. Its city councilor and has a bill before to enable WAMI at this moment. Baltimore has used WAMI in the past. If you have never viewed a gigapixel image or seen the details of a stitched video gigapixel image of a city with every moving object identified and boxed don’t skip by these links...rather take a look.. Paris in gigapixels...and then The Argus Gorgon Stare. I urge: don’t skip these images. (The images or video will open in another window so you must navigate back to this main text.
5. I stop at Starbucks on Dupont Circle, dutifully, pay for a brief parking time using the ParkMobile app, which registers my phone’s position and the date and time in its records. My phone automatically connects to the free Starbucks wifi network which registers my phone's location. I pay for my coffee with my debit card. Starbucks and my bank register the transactions...date, time, location, merchant, and other details.
6. On Mass ave, a license plate reader at 16th street images my license plate. Near 13th street, a Metro police dept CCTV camera captures the image of my car including me at the wheel. In the parking garage at Union Station, I am picked up by the CCTV camera there. My Megabus ticket is scanned by the driver. My phone connects to the bus WIFI.
For a detailed look at the ease by which individuals can be tracked today just using cell phone data readily available from commercial vendors read this New York Times article. It’s scary. But back to official national security and law enforcement initiatives.
Another more recent study of the practices of law enforcement agencies around the country documents the p;ervasive use of software to invade the privacy of an individual by accessing information on their cell phones. Read this material. It will shock you.
All these transactions, recordings are accessible by law enforcement using one legal procedure or another.
Subpoena, search warrant, reasonable suspicion, connection with a criminal investigation, probable cause create various ‘standards’ which if law enforcement agencies meet in their requests will enable ‘authorities’ to grant access to your personal information. I think it is fair to characterize these standards as not being terribly difficult for law enforcement or national security agencies to meet.
So for example, if you think that most access...a la the 4th amendment... requires a warrant...look at this list of exceptions to the rules on property or personal search:
Consent. Police may conduct a search without a search warrant if they obtain consent. Consent must be freely and voluntarily given by a person with a reasonable expectation of privacy in the area or property to be searched.
Plain View. An officer may seize evidence without a warrant if an officer is on the premises lawfully and the evidence is found in plain view.
Search incident to arrest. While conducting a lawful arrest, an officer may search an individual's person and their immediate surroundings for weapons or other items that may harm the officer. If a person is arrested in or near a vehicle, the officer has the right to search the passenger compartment of that vehicle.
Exigent Circumstances. Police are not required to obtain a search warrant if they reasonably believe that evidence may be destroyed or others may be placed in danger in the time it would take to secure the warrant.
Automobile Exception. An officer may search a vehicle if they have a reasonable belief that contraband is contained inside the vehicle.
Hot Pursuit. Police may enter a private dwelling if they are in "hot pursuit" of a fleeing criminal. Once inside a dwelling, the police may search the entire area without first obtaining a search warrant.
The rules on access to digital information are much more flexible ...and more important... undeveloped ...the status of images from drones, for example, is unsettled.
Now consider all the various ways that you are inventoried today: Social Security, IRS, DMV, County/city property taxes, passports, land records, bank, credit card accts, credit bureau, E-ZPass accounts, web sites, Facebook, Google searches, library book accounts, NetFlix, insurance records, and not least Amazon.
It has been written that while the Soviet attempt at a planned economy failed, among several reasons, because it did not enable the ‘signals’ generated by all the transactions by individuals based on free choice...the free market. And that had the computer, Internet, and AI technologies, plus maybe Amazon ..or Alibaba...existed then in the advanced form they do today, it would be possible to simulate ...on a supercomputer in-the-cloud... the signals of a market economy. And achieve the same efficiencies of a market economy in a planned economy without the inequalities of the distribution of wealth of capitalism.
...but maybe this is just more techno-optimism from a closet socialist.
If you are interested in an energetic and diverse...maybe even chaotic...exchange of ideas on this subject...view this ‘thread’ on the subject on Quora…
OK so it's clear that everyone has small electronic dossiers distributed among the entities that collect information...but is this information ever gathered together…’fused’...into a virtually detailed dossier?
Well we already know that Facebook, Google, sell ads targeted to us on the basis of our ‘profiles’...we don’t know the extent of these profiles, but it’s fair to believe that they are detailed and that these profiles are built on the basis of our usage of the free functions ...search...sharing…these services offer. We know that these profiles can be augmented by other information: here’s an article describing how the State of California DMV generates $50M a year in ‘revenue’ from selling data from its files...your image, your name and address, your auto details, your title, your insurance, your tickets.
So there’s good evidence that almost everything about you is available in digital form and much of it included in your personal profile on Facebook or Google, but does law enforcement or the intelligence community ever ‘put it all together’ into its virtual dossier? WelI, I think ‘they’ very well could be doing so.
After 911, the Dept of Homeland Security funded so-called fusion centers...and assigned them the responsibility to connect-the-dots after the intelligence community failed to anticipate the 911 attack.
You will want to know that one such fusion center is located in Southwest DC and that it shares a portion of the overall $345 Million dollar budget devoted to the nationwide system of ‘fusion’ centers. There is a high degree of likelihood that the DC fusion centers employ Palantir software that was illustrated in the opening image created by Bloomberg News. I don’t know because the fusion centers are not especially forthcoming about the details of their operations. Palantir was ‘started’ partially with CIA funds through its venture investment company In-Q-Tel. Palantir is principally owned by Peter Thiel...he and Elon Musk of PayPal fame ...and its software is used extensively by the US intelligence community. A primary use of the software is to fuse diverse sources of information about individuals into virtual dossiers. Palantir’s Washington office is located on Prospect Place in Georgetown. (Thiel argues that surveillance using techniques such as Palantir are better than the oppressive police state which has been introduced in the US since 911. I don’t agree with Thieil on much but on this, he’s right, I think.)
Now maybe you are convinced that there’s a potential problem with mass surveillance and the secrecy that surrounds its collection and use.
So what is to be done about it? The choices:
Restrict it, regulate it, minimize it, wring hands about it.
Acknowledge its inevitable because it is very useful and turn it to advantage.
I will leave it to the discussion to raise additional arguments about how to address the issue of mass surveillance.
But I have one solution I would offer to start a discussion off. It is likely to be rejected by most as impractical, illogical, impossible, and bad policy. Those objections have been applied to other ideas that I have advanced to this group.
It's an idea that has been given the name ’radical transparency’...
By radical transparency, I mean making all information, except personal, readily available to the public and making personal information the ‘property’ of the individual, cryptographically locked up at capture, and doled out at the owner’s discretion for fee or for free. There is an important nuance in the concept of data as a property right, however. Data that does not identify the individual is also an important public good. It is information...and information ought to be available, transparently. Here is a discussion, if you wish to read further.
This idea of complete transparency is often dismissed immediately as impractical and unworkable because:
it would expose ‘sources and methods’ of our intelligence and law enforcement agencies and
the ‘horse is out of the barn’ in the sense that all our personal data is already in the hands of third parties, and
the process of making sausage ought not to be observed...that is the trade offs and compromises that practical democracy demands can be misinterpreted as sleazy.
But I would say...wait...let’s look at examples of efforts to introduce transparency...the idea is not new...it has been held up as an ideal for some time..
Patents and Copyrights in the constitution...the idea of a bargain...limited monopoly status for an instantiation of an idea in return for public disclosure of the idea.
Security and Exchange Commission requirement for disclosure of data of publicly traded companies
Freedom of Information Acts
Sunshine laws...ultraviolet light is a disinfectant...Read here about Taiwan.
Media...CSpan...OpenSecrets.org
Whistleblower statutes
Campaign Finance
Lobbying registration
Direct Democracy ...representative government is a source of secrecy...actions by our representatives are not fully disclosed as a practical matter...trade-offs made by representatives...necessary in a democracy...are thought best-kept secret..the same idea contained in the adage that ‘let’s not get bogged down in sausage-making’ means let’s focus on the result rather than the process. Even the National Democratic Institute (NDI) supports a form of radical transparency.
Trump’s recent rule requiring transparency in hospital pricing
I am sure you can think of better examples...The idea of transparency is old. But in all these examples, there are many exceptions to a demand for transparency...so many that often even ‘modest’ let alone ‘radical’ transparency is not realized.
I think the ‘sources and methods’ argument is perhaps the most difficult to rebut. This is the argument used to condemn Chelsa Manning and Edward Snowden even though what was revealed, US citizens were entitled to know in any case but didn’t.
Even if the specific information revealed did not result in identifiable damage to American interests, the divulging of ’sources’...who US intelligence or law enforcement got the information from and ‘methods’...how US intelligence et al got the information...technical means...satellites...communications intercepts is harmful.. The argument is: the US has enemies...we must make an effort to anticipate aggressive acts by our ‘enemies’...that effort is made difficult...some would argue impossible...without secrecy...so radical transparency is simply unworkable...certainly naive.
One story that illustrates the ambiguity in the issue, however, appeals to me and it involves a former China Club member...Burton Gerber. His famous ‘Gerber Rules’ were formulated as a member of the CIA as a reaction, to some extent, because of James Angelton who had sowed suspicion of any information on adversaries obtained that was not coerced.
According to the ‘Billion Dollar Spy’, Burton urged treating walk-ins seriously…”not every volunteer is a ‘dangle’”... in fact, many of the most valuable Soviet sources during the Cold War were volunteers ...Popov, Penkosky as was Tolkachev...the billion dollar spy. The Gerber Rules were much more comprehensive than just an attitude toward walks-in...and I hesitate to even refer to them... much less characterize them...but, although I would not expect Burton to agree with my notions of radical transparency, I think he might acknowledge that all clandestine information is always ‘tainted’ with some doubt about its authenticity...even the billion-dollar spy Tolkachev’s. The Air Force, as related in the Billion Dollar Spy, always remained hesitant about Tolkachev’s revelations.
I recall a second story...while I worked for IBM in the Soviet Union, IBM was required to monitor the use of its 20 odd 360 era computers installed under Commerce Department export licenses. Annually, I would return to the US and among other calls in Washington spend a few minutes with the Secretary of Commerce...at that time...Malcolm Baldridge...He asked me about the possibility of the diversion of the computer technology and I related to him how I didn't think he need worry...that it was my distinct belief that the last thing the Soviets would do is employ western technology in a sensitive military or intelligence setting because they were convinced the computers were ‘bugged.’ I can reveal that they were not, but the Soviet paranoia and distrust were overwhelming. And I can assure you that the cell phone you are carrying with you is ’bugged’...not clandestinely, but openly sending back information to its manufacturer or service provider information from each of its many sensors...all of which is added to your digital dossier.
Admiral Turner, a CIA Director, leaned very much toward obtaining information by technical means... satellites and communications intercepts... and open sources, rather than spies. He placed Bob Gates in charge of the CIA’s analysis division. Many think that policy was discredited when the CIA overestimated the strength and failed to anticipate the fall of the Soviet Union.
But the argument that radical transparency would catastrophically compromise intelligence gathering is, at least, subject to rebuttal.
The best rebuttal may be simply the availability today of machine learning technologies applied to intelligence gathering. Many macro investment houses...e.g., Ray Dalio at Bridgewater... now employ machine learning as the best means of anticipating the financial future. And machine learning requires a lot of data...open data, if possible...so the more transparency the better. I would argue that even the most secretive of societies must communicate among themselves...these communications in these modern times leave digital trails and machine learning can follow those trails and memorize the patterns and recognize them in new data and therefore predict future events.
The Chinese, while most likely employing traditional espionage, also mine open sources...they send students to US universities, encourage engineers to join US companies and university labs, entice US firms to set up labs and factories in China. And they extract... through the portal of this 'western openness'... information to refine and develop their own new technologies. Yet this openness between countries has benefited the US dramatically. Curtailing it will almost certainly reduce US innovation and harm US interests. Technology exploiting open sources may well offer a better solution to identifying threats than the secrecy and clandestine activities that are integral parts of our defense, intelligence,and law enforcement communities today.
Radical transparency offers many other potential benefits in my opinion.
It can be argued that it already exists for individuals who use Facebook and Google and Amazon. I would suspect we are all ‘users’ of some of these services. I think most of us might not really object to the disclosure of data held by others but rather to not having said so about its use. I would suggest that if we each owned our personal data and could disclose it on our own terms, we might very well make sufficient information available for individualizing our interactions with the Internet and all the technology-based services it makes available to us. It’s spooky but convenient, so I think radical transparency is inevitable.
And the data that is most valuable to Facebook and Google is current data...so the data that already exists about us has a very short half-life. New data can be anonymized.
And the technology exists to enable our ownership of personal data and to make it available to others to the degree we wish.
Radical Transparency could facilitate this outcome consistent with our personal morality.
Radical Transparency could facilitate the introduction of direct democracy...direct participation by individual voters on every aspect of governance...the possibility
We organized ourselves as a representational government initially because of geography and the belief that only limited members of the nation were sufficiently ‘responsible’ to be put into a position of making decisions....women and slaves and poor people omitted...and that we didn't want a monarchy.
We justify the continuation of a representational government by arguing to ourselves that the ‘mental bandwidth’ and ‘attention span’ of most voters is not great enough to form considered opinions on complicated issues of public policy....we need intermediaries to offset imperfections among voters. And that the reconciliation of sincerely held, opposing opinions among voters requires face to face negotiation and compromise... an activity not possible efficiently and amicably among the population at large. My guess is that we all reject the idea of 100% voter participation...in that we all have a notion of the degree to which a voter should be informed in order to participate wisely...and our definition of ‘informed’ probably includes the acquisition of information and development of attitudes about public policy in a similar fashion as we ourselves do....this seems reasonable, but how different is it to the attitudes in the past about the properness of women, minorities, non-land owners, and the poor participating in the democratic process.
But technology, in my opinion, makes it possible to try to live with massive data collection, use it efficaciously, and preserve individual privacy. (I don’t want to pretend that it will be easy to separate information about who we are collectively from who we are individually.)
Nevertheless, my solution to the ‘reality’ of mass surveillance...a modern Panopticon... is radical transparency.
What’s yours?
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