In the blog post below, you can see a video from the 31c3 conference with Caspar Bowden. In the second part of his speech, he describes how he warned about specific mass surveillance issues long before Edward Snowden came along.
The Snowden files do, in essence, confirm everything Bowden warned us about.
The thing is–at the time, nobody cared.
The European Commission and the European Parliament was informed. But people didn’t take in the information. The information lay open for the media. But no journalists bothered. Bowden explained his findings for various net activist and civil rights groups–but nothing happened.
And I must admit that prior to the Snowden revelations, I my self had no idea that this information existed–even though I used to work in the European Parliament. I’m very interested in these issues, but I didn’t know what I didn’t know.
This points to an information and communication problem. Most of what’s going on is out there. You just have to know what to look for. And whom to listen to.
An important component in internet and civil rights activism is to simply take what’s already out there and make it understandable, to serve it up in digestible pieces. And to listen to the real experts, to find the golden nuggets in their extensive research material.
To hack politics to win, you must know. And you must be right. That is within reach–because politicians and bureaucrats often doesn’t care enough to do their homework.
/ HAX
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