The myth of freedom

As promised last time, I'm going to turn to the other half of Ben Franklin's equation: liberty, or freedom, as we most commonly call it. No, I'm not going to go into a discussion of the details of differentiation between the two. We all have a general understanding of the word, and we all profess with certainty that we are, in fact, free, but just short of an outright, apparent dictatorship, we couldn't be more wrong.

Another wise man, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, once remarked that "None are so hopelessly enslaved as those who falsely believe they are free." I would maintain that this statement applies to some degree to just about all of us, but it hits the proverbial nail on the head as far as Americans are concerned. Going back even further, no one less than Aristotle noted, that whoever prefers security to freedom is rightfully a slave. That pretty much describe post-9/11 America.

You can't voluntarily gut your own Bill of Rights, limiting or suspending your rights to freedom of expression, speech, and assembly, eliminating of the right of habeus corpus, allowing yourself to be arrested on mere suspicion of terrorism only to be potentially turned over to the military and suspension of all legal rights, gutting the 4th and 14th Amendments to the Constitution, allowing your elected representatives to gerrymander you out of the value of your vote, standing by while certain segments of the population are denied even their right to vote, and introducing so much money into politics that only those who have have a say and think you are living in a free country. You can't see one video (since you don't often see it on the news) of the dispersal of an Occupy demonstration or almost any demonstration for that matter and think that you live in a free country. And, especially if you are a person of color, you cannot begin to imagine how tenuous your own existence is should the State decide to clamp down on you, as was the case in the wake of the Ferguson demonstrations, for example.

None of that, my dear friends and readers, speaks of freedom. None of it. Each and every one of these is evidence of how severely your rights, and hence your freedoms, have been restricted. The worst of it all, of course, is that Americans, at any rate, demanded that it be done to them. They voluntarily gave these rights and freedoms up, in the name of -- quite ironically -- national security. Mr. Franklin was right all the way around.

One important point to keep in mind, however, is that none of these rights is ever coming back. Oh, we were all told that these were temporary steps necessary to get the situation under control, but I'm going to let you in on a little secret: power never relents; once you give up anything, especially your rights and your freedom, you never, ever get it back. Mr. Franklin said you don't deserve them anyway, and I happen to think he is right.

Enter Mr. Goethe. Yes, those who took all that away from you have not tired since telling you, impressing upon you, suggesting to you, convincing you that nothing has really changed. But it has. Those who took all that away from you lied to get it, just like they lied to start the wars that would increase your fear which would demand more action and more restriction and more control. Enter good old Aristotle: keep me safe and I'll do your bidding.

Americans, for the most part, have never really been all that free, but they are less free now than they have ever been. Depending on where you live, you know which sports teams to root for, which church to attend (and you'd better attend one of them), which religion to believe in, which party to vote for, and whom to associate with. Peer pressure has never been writ larger than in America, and, I have to admit, America is really good at it. But whether you're pressured by your peers or by the police or by the legal system, it doesn't really matter. In the end, you adjust, adapt, and submit. You like to think you're free. You love to tell yourself you are, but in reality, you're just grist for the mill.

The myth of security

Since I left off with Ben Franklin last time, it seems fitting to, in a way, pick up where I left off, with Ben again. Among the many other notable things he said, he pointed out that "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." Let's just deal with the latter of these notions; I'll come back to the other one next time.

What Franklin described as "safety" in his day is what we call "security" nowadays. A little less than a decade-and-a-half ago, my fellow Americans fell for this one in a big way. The events of 9/11 drove the stake of fear into their isolationist hearts and they were confronted with a dose of reality that made them more than willing victims. Total data collection, unwarranted wiretapping and evesdropping, computer-analysis of all email communication, the rise of unchecked police power, the suppression of rights unseen since the founding of the country, and for what?

Nothing, really. Oh sure, go to the airport and you'll be inconvenienced, but are we safer? Are we more secure? Are we better protected? Not in the least.

In spite of all the invasions of privacy, the intrusions into our personal lives, the repression in public spaces, and other inconveniences we've been made to suffer, not a single terrorist act, in the US or anywhere else in the world, including the most recent attack on Charlie Hebdo in Paris, was prevented. We've even toppled governments (elsewhere of course), carried out physical assassinations (e.g., Bin Laden) or have murdered countless innocent civilians (the drone program), and we've still got an Islamic State and Boko Haram and a vast number of wannabe organizations that are threatening all of us in ways that we couldn't imagine not all that long ago.

Of course, it's not only national security that is at issue. Though the rates of violent crimes is declining throughout the Western world, America in its gun fanaticism is seeing an increase in the number of accidental homicides. The more guns, the more people are going to be killed. Anyone can be shot, given the flimsy nature of house construction or the thinness of the walls in apartment dwellings. Without a system of health insurance, anyone and everyone is exposed to health dangers that can't be addressed, and the recent outbreaks of previously eliminated contagious diseases are cause for concern. And then we have the lack of labeling of food products, the machinations of the processed food industry, the secrecy surrounding fracking company chemicals, the multitude of accidental poisonous spills, the decline of environmental protection worker health and safety regulations and, well, you've got the perfect combination for a high probability of death by just about anything other than old age.

Americans, for sure, but increasingly we in Europe, are facing a noticeable lack of both safety and security, both generally and in Mr. Franklin's sense of the word. The world has always been something of a dangerous place, but the illusion of safety and security we have created for ourselves is probably the greatest danger of all. Our surest thing is a blatant false sense of security.

Boring and uninteresting

You don't have to be paranoid to know everyone's after you. Paranoia, at least this side of a formally diagnosed illness, is simply a feeling. I say "simply" knowing full well that it's much more than that. Truth be told, I tend to think that what we feel is often more significant and important than what we know.

I know that there are lots of folks who "feel" that they can't live without their personal technology (laptop, smartphone, tablet, etc.) and there are a whole lot more who feel that they have nothing to hide. After all, most of us lead such boring and uninteresting lives that ... well, who really cares whether I was at the movies or the mall last night, or whether I stopped in this fast-food joint as opposed to that one? In general, I agree. Who cares? More specifically, I would say that eventually, the wrong people.

Information can be a powerful tool, or a powerful weapon. As my friend Julius used to say, abusus non tollit usus; that is, just because something is abused or misused doesn't make the thing itself bad. In this regard, information are like guns. They can be very helpful and provide a lot of "feeling safe". But, in the wrong hands at the wrong place at the wrong time, they can be deadly. You just have to know that about guns, and the same holds true for information. What is more, if you have a gun, chances are very high that you are going to use it at some point, willingly or unwillingly, consciously or unconsciously, seriously or frivolously. And the same thing holds for information.

Personally, I'm not all that comfortable with third parties -- be it the government or the shop around the corner -- having, storing, and what's even worse, manipulating my personal data. I'm not paranoid. I know they have it and I know they use it, but I'm not convinced they need it. It's at this point that too many people say, "Well, I've got nothing to hide, what does it matter?" or "Who could possibly be interested in my boring life, so who cares?", but I'm a firm believer that if you don't need it, you needn't have it.

My point is that it is data about me. All the little bits and pieces than everyone is collecting is being shared with everyone else who is interesting in collecting, and the next thing you know, others know more about me than I do, and they're not willing to tell me what they know. At that point, I say it's time to rethink this data or information-collection thing. If it is information about me, why shouldn't I have a right to know what it is and what's being done with it? If they are using this information, say as a corporation, to generate profits, why am I not receiving royalties? If it's the government, why shouldn't I know what they have and who has it and what it's being used for? In other words, when do the rest of us find out what apparently so many others already know?

Like I said last time: I'm not saying we need to opt out of society or go into seclusion. I'm not saying that we need to fear either corporations or government, but we do need to be aware, and since we are involved, I believe we have every right to know. What I'm making a pitch for is more personal involvement and awareness. It is personal, so let me be personally involved.

At least you should know

While most of us like to think we're hard-boiled enough to know what's happening, the real fact of the matter is that most of us are still quite naive. I'm not saying naivité is a bad thing, but too much of anything can be less than good in the end. By the same token, knowing a whole lot of little things and not putting them all together can be just as bad. Technology, though not bad in and of itself, can be used to do lots of things that aren't in our best interest. Quite often, little "perks" are included to distract us from the bigger issues.

For example, collecting bonus or payback points or whatever they're called just tell retailers more and more about our purchasing decisions. The "old" system of figuring out what you bought and offering you discounts on name-brand products is really old. Since you voluntarily give them your information, they can link you to what you buy. The next new twist will come, I believe, when they've refined face-recognition. Anyone who has been tagged in a Facebook picture has their face charted and plotted, but this is perhaps the harmless side of the passport photos that are required these days. Frontal shots without smiles are required now not only for passports but also for driver's licenses and other identification documents. Why, because it makes it easier for the face-recognition software to work and refine.

There are two aspects of this I find interesting. On the one hand, they (whoever "they" are, it doesn't matter) know what we look like. They don't have to know our name, that's secondary. Anytime you are "seen" by a video surveillance camera ... and these are popping up everywhere, though in some countries (e.g., the UK) more than others (e.g., Germany). It is becoming ever easier to recognize you. On the other hand, a number of retailers have installed cameras to monitor what customers actually look at. Do you scan the top shelf in a grocery store before taking something off the bottom? Do you tend to pick from the middle? In neutral terms, "they" are merely trying to determine you search behavior ... or whatever. It won't be long till retailers know who you are and what you generally look at as well as buy. We're all going to be receiving more offers than we might like.

Smartphones have taken on new dimensions as well. In addition to GPS tracking and signal triangulation, newer models register how many steps you take, in which direction, how often you take it out of your pocket or purse and more. This is all getting transmitted to "someone". Some have incorporated face recognition so that they not only know how often you look at it, but soon they will also know to whom you are showing it as well.

Now think about it all for a moment. Think about the different pieces of the puzzle, and you quickly realize "they" know a lot more about us and what we do than we like to think.

Am I trying to instill fear or get you to stop using your phone? No. We can't live without our devices and they can be very useful too. What we need to think about, however, is what kinds of information do they need to know about me, individually. How much of this should "they" be allowed to collect? How long should "they" be allowed to store it? At what point is my privacy (and security) being violated? These are more relevant and important issues than you might think, and if you are interested at all in either your privacy or security, you may want to give it all just a bit more thought.