- The spy agency’s reliance on facial recognition technology has grown significantly over the last four years as the agency has turned to new software to exploit the flood of images included in emails, text messages, social media, videoconferences and other communications, the N.S.A. documents reveal.
The power of the NSA truly is frightening. I have to admit, I never really subscribed to the idea of Snowden being a limited hangout at first, but the more of these revelations I see, the more I realize they don't undermine the security apparatus' power, so much as it illustrates and expands their power in our collective conscious. To think that these powers, when used domestically, can stop protests or prevent political change, it's clear that there will be no change without their implicit approval.
It's a strange feeling to have been taught from a young age of the value of democracy, but then to slowly come to the realization that American democracy has been subject to subverting forces for a long time, and now more than ever. I suppose apathy and a sense of helplessness is the intended social effect of these revelations; they will maintain the illusion of democracy for as long as they're able to, and the point at which it can no long be continued, they only need to pull back the curtain. We're all gradually coming to the realization that a brick wall is behind the theater.
This story reminds me of Watch_Dogs. When you are just walking around you see their faces, automatically get facial recognition, and know something big about their lives. Sometimes it's something like "brother runs a grow op", "frequent purchase: porn", or "lives with 5 cats". For those who haven't played, this is the only video on YouTube that shows the facial recognition but the rest of the game just walking down the street you see these things pop up all the time. The other videos seem to have disabled this feature for the most part for their "cool walk through chicago" videos.
- and expands their power in our collective conscious.
This also plays in the whole digital panopticon concept that Glenn Greenwald talks about, and why I'm not entirely convinced Snowden wasn't acting under direct orders of the NSA to leak those documents. I think the leaks basically just scared everyone into conforming and not into actually fighting back.
https://www.ted.com/talks/glenn_greenwald_why_privacy_matters
And if you think about it, if Snowden is operating under NSA still, he now is basically in the position of being the ultimate spy on whistleblowers. Everyone is going to him/Glenn for advice, Snowden talks to Glenn, Poitras, Assange, Manning, etc. He has a bitcoin donation link set up where they can trace donors from...
That is very interesting, thank you. I had heard of Watch Dogs, but I hadn't played it or seen it yet. As far as Snowden, he was an easy story to swallow at first in that he confirmed some of the conspiracy crowd's claims and brought awareness to an issue that (I felt like) lacked visibility among the wider public. However, now looking back, it doesn't appear that the NSA was at all weakened, instead it was treated as a media circus for normalizing surveillance. Who cooperated with whom to help the NSA come out smelling like a rose is impossible for me to say from what I've seen, but you do make a good point that Glenn or Snowden as a mole would be an invaluable asset. I think it's important to remember that these are espionage organizations and subterfuge is their specialty; no such revelation would shock me.
Assuming Snowden is a limited hangout (or large parts of the Snowden-Op), with their goal to be the normalization of mass-surveillance and to instill helplessness/passivity among people who might otherwise act out, what does revealing this fact achieve? To me, it reaffirms the notion that propaganda is a significant tool they use; to be aware of their tactics, people have to look closely for PR in our everyday lives. As that one great president said, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable," and I think this is just evidence of them tightening that lid just a little more.