Scanlyze

Knowledge is power, and absolute knowledge is absolute power

Big Brother in the form of an increasingly powerful government and in an increasingly powerful private sector will pile the records high with reasons why privacy should give way to national security, to law and order […] and the like.

― William O. Douglas, Points of Rebellion , 1970

Each person knows something they don’t want other people to know about. That they will give almost anything to conceal.

Be they a saint, be they a libertine or someone who lives a very public life, still there will be something.

It might not be a secret sin. It might be a memory of a lost love. Or knowledge of a crime for which the wrong person went to jail. Or a family issue of incest or abuse. Or any of a long litany of small horribles.

This is the danger represented by the US Other Government Agencies (and there are a lot, not just the familiar three letter ones). By compiling transactional and source data a profile can be built for a person by which their secrets can be revealed. Even the fear that this *might* happen will be a a strong motivator for most.

The data being gathered by these agencies and their civilian counterparts like Choicepoint, Palantir, Berico, ManTech, Stratfor, Booz Allen, Equifax, and Lockheed Martin when made available through a single conspectus view, means that essentially there are no secrets. At least no assurance of secrecy.

A democracy, or any political system but a tyranny, cannot survive the existence of an elite which arrogates to itself the power to know everything about everyone all the time, and the means to keep that knowledge secret from everyone else.

Copyright © 2013 Henry Edward Hardy

22 October, 2013 - Posted by scanlyze | capitalism, censorship, Central Intelligence Agency, ChoicePoint, CIA, commander-in-chief, covert operations, Equifax, knowledge, media, politics, power, privacy, quotations, scanlyze, surveillance, William O. Douglas | Berico, Big Brother, Booze Allen, censorship, Choicepoint, dictatorship, Equifax, espionage, knowledge, Lockheed-Martin, ManTech, Other Government Agencies, Palantir, power, quotations, scanlyze, Stratfor, surveillance, USA, William O. Douglas