Ken Macleod writes, “Over two hundred years ago, reformer Jeremy Bentham tried to design a prison he called the Panopticon – where wardens could at all times observe prisoners, while unobserved themselves. He failed. But everyone reading this is already in a virtual Panopticon, where states and corporations track all online activity, and where CCTV cameras and tiny surveillance drones can watch us from above. 1 – 2.30 pm this Saturday, as part of the PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature, an ACLU-sponsored panel at the Cooper Union in New York asks what this means for our liberty and privacy. Chaired by Julian Sanchez, the panel includes Catherine Crump (ACLU), Gabriela Ademsestanu (Romania), Ludmila Ulitskaya (Russia), and Ken MacLeod (UK).”
Tiny surveillance drones that hover and stare. An Internet where every keystroke is recorded. The automated government inspection of hundreds of millions of e-mails for suspicious characteristics. The technological advancements spurred by the computing revolution have improved our lives, but have also diminished our privacy and enhanced the government’s power to monitor us. Writers and directors who have grappled with technology’s mixed blessings join civil liberties advocates to discuss ways of preserving our freedom in an era in which we all dwell in Bentham’s Panopticon—a prison that allows our wardens to observe us at all times without being seen themselves.
Life in the Panopticon: Thoughts on Freedom in an Era of Pervasive Surveillance
(Thanks, Ken!)