#RADiUSTWC

[medialiterates]

Blog Post #4

Blog Post #4

Debating between whether internet security and internet privacy is good or bad, I would mostly agree that it depends on how it’s used. For example, when surveillance on the internet are used for protection and keeping us safe from “terrorist attacks” as the government says they are for then we’d all agree that its very helpful in today's world. I think it is important to have surveillance on the internet as much as we need it in public places because they ensure online safety. Rarely will anyone attempt to harm you when they know their actions are being recorded on camera. Police can track criminals online as well as hacking their devices for further investigations. Through surveillance internet security, the police can both prevent crimes from happening and can quickly solve criminal cases with material evidence used online. Spying on criminals through the internet and their devices would prevent these corruptions before happening. Now on the other side, we’d only hope that this is what the government is using it for, but unfortunately its not. Yes, it may provide people with the thought of being protected but you really aren't. A person on average is recorded 300 times a day but as well as this, people who operate those cameras, sometimes abuse their power to watch over people, for example, 'zooming into people's houses' and whatnot. We're just turning into a 'Big Brother Society'. Not only does the information that a cell phone can provide enable tracking of your private life, it could conceivably enable prediction of where you’ll be in the future. It has been made to easily let Big Brother has found a home in our very pockets. Nothing is private anymore, nothing is discreet.

According to a last interview with Aaron Swartz done by the film War for the Web (The Internet’s Own Boy 2012), he speaks about whether we should take this as freedom of internet or by this extreme spying tool the government is using on us. Aaron explains how at the end it’s only up to us, the people, the way we use it. He quotes, “They are both true. And it’s up to us to which one we emphasize and which one we take advantage of because they’re both there and they’re both always going to be there.”

I believe the U.S has long been playing these mind games with its people. Making us believe what happened is “conspiracy theories” when really everything is actual real life events that we are blindly folded from seeing. First and for most, American government not only used this system to spy on its people but also on other countries in the world. “Americans’ justification for everything since the September 11 attacks is terrorism”, mentions the Brazillian Senate during the hearing on NSA spying. (Citizen Four). “Everything is in the name of national security, to protect our population. In reality it’s the opposite. A lot of the documents have nothing to do with terrorism or national security, but rather with competition between countries, and with companies’ industrial, financial or economic issues.” I thought that this part of the film was important for us as citizens to know. People like Aaron Swatch and Edward Snowden saw clearly what’s messed up in this system and decided to take action. They made us open up our eyes to all these lies we’ve been fed by our government.

When the government has access to know all the people we are communicating with, and everyone they are communicating with, where, when and how long of the call and the location. Then they can learn a lot about our personalities and personal life, our activities, our communications and our internet search history. This is a major invasion of privacy, and illegal. In reality, that defense is totally false of needing all this access to prevent terrorism. The US government has the ability to get not only metadata, but the actual content of our emails or what we say on the phone, the words we type into google searches, the websites we visit, the documents we send to our colleagues. This system can track nearly everything that every individual is doing online. According to the Encryption, Surveillance, and Citizen Protections in the Digital Age chapter we took in class, all these aspects of spying on citizens and other countries privacy is illegal and completely unconstitutional. No government has any right to be interfering in anyone’s personal life for any reason at all. We have been born with rights and what we call ‘freedom’ that are supposedly protecting us from such violations of privacy but unfortunately the US government has been doing so for years, and continues to get away with violating these rights. Aaron Swartz, Edward Snowden, Guccifer, aka Marcel Lazar Lehel, and Hamza Bendelladj are not criminals, they are heroes that fought the system that destroys us all.

“We’re living behind one way mirrors corporate America and national security state know so much about us and we know so little about them.” (Citezen Four).

Reference:

"The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz : Brian Knappenberger : Free Download & Streaming." Internet Archive. Brian Knappenberger, 27 June 2014. Web. 26 Apr. 2017. <https://archive.org/details/TheInternetsOwnBoyTheStoryOfAaronSwartz>.

RadiusTWC. "Citizenfour." YouTube. Laura Poitras , 03 Mar. 2014. Web. 26 Apr. 2017. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKkF-X4QLB4>.

[radiustwc]

This is your call to action: The Hunting Ground is now playing in NY & LA.

[ayoswim]

Blue Ruin is a new thriller film directed by Jeremy Saulnier that was funded entirely through Kickstarter. It tells the tale of an aimless yet peaceful beach bum named Dwight who is played by actor Macon Blair in an astounding performance. While in the beginning of the film Dwight is busy living his life in a car and eating out of dumpsters, things change drastically for him when he  finds out that his parents' killer has gotten out of jail. This results in Dwight deciding to take his revenge against the killer. What happens next causes the film to go in a direction you'll never expect. 

Blue Ruin has been getting great reviews and even won the Fipresci International Critics Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. As of today, you can now watch Blue Ruin on iTunes, On Demand, or in select theaters. So if you don't have anything to do this weekend or feel like checking out a cool new film, go watch Blue Ruin this weekend. I doubt you'll be disappointed.

For more info about Blue Ruin and its director, check out this article here: http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/news/revenge-success-and-blue-ruin-20140422