[sudo-discuss] Recording Everything: Digital Storage as an Enabler of Authoritarian Governments (fwd)

[Jake]

wow prescient, look at the date:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sat, 24 Dec 2011 11:42:41 -0600
From: Roger Baker
Subject: Recording Everything: Digital Storage as an Enabler of Authoritarian Governments

http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/rc/papers/2011/1214_digital_storage_villasenor/1214_digital_storage_villasenor.pdf

Conclusions

Declining storage costs will soon make it practical for authoritarian governments 
to create permanent digital archives of the data gathered from pervasive 
surveillance systems. In countries where there is no meaningful public debate on 
privacy, there is no reason to expect governments not to fully exploit the ability to 
build databases containing every phone conversation, location data for almost 
every person and vehicle, and video from every public space in an entire country. 
This will greatly expand the ability of repressive regimes to perform surveillance 
of opponents and to anticipate and react to unrest. In addition, the awareness 
among the populace of pervasive surveillance will reduce the willingness of people 
to engage in dissent. 

The coming era of ubiquitous surveillance in authoritarian countries has 
important implications for American foreign policy. Strategies for engaging with 
these countries will benefit from specific consideration of the presence, growth and 
increasing impact of these enormous digital databases. This will impact human 
rights, trade, export control, intellectual property security, and the operation of 
multinational businesses with in-country facilities, subsidiaries, or subcontractors.
Finally, the use by authoritarian governments of systems that record 
everything in the complete absence of privacy considerations will lead to a long list 
of other unforeseen and generally negative consequences. Unfortunately, the 
residents of those countries, as well as the rest of us, will soon start to find out just 
what those consequences are