In 1971, however, a keyboard with a vestigial @ symbol inherited from its typewriter ancestors found itself hooked up to an ARPANET terminal manned by Ray Tomlinson, who was working on a little program he’d come up with in his goofing-off time to send messages from computer to computer. Tomlinson ended up using the @ symbol as the fulcrum of the lever that ultimately ended up lifting the world into the digital age: email.“It’s difficult to imagine anyone in Tomlinson’s situation choosing anything other than the ’@’ symbol, but his decision to do so at the time was inspired,” explains Houston on his blog. “Firstly, it was extremely unlikely to occur in any computer or user names; secondly, it had no other significant meaning for the operating system on which it would run, and lastly, it read intuitively–user ‘at’ host.”
It was as simple as that, but through this one serendipitous accident of typography, @ became the navel of the digital body we now call the Internet. It stopped being a sign for how much something cost and became a symbol of an infinite number of end points on a digital umbilicus: an origin, a destination, or some point–terminating in a human–in the system in-between.
Commentators often attempt to refute the nothing-to-hide argument by pointing to things people want to hide. But the problem with the nothing-to-hide argument is the underlying assumption that privacy is about hiding bad things. By accepting this assumption, we concede far too much ground and invite an unproductive discussion about information that people would very likely want to hide. As the computer-security specialist Schneier aptly notes, the nothing-to-hide argument stems from a faulty “premise that privacy is about hiding a wrong.” Surveillance, for example, can inhibit such lawful activities as free speech, free association, and other First Amendment rights essential for democracy.The deeper problem with the nothing-to-hide argument is that it myopically views privacy as a form of secrecy. In contrast, understanding privacy as a plurality of related issues demonstrates that the disclosure of bad things is just one among many difficulties caused by government security measures. To return to my discussion of literary metaphors, the problems are not just Orwellian but Kafkaesque. Government information-gathering programs are problematic even if no information that people want to hide is uncovered. In The Trial, the problem is not inhibited behavior but rather a suffocating powerlessness and vulnerability created by the court system’s use of personal data and its denial to the protagonist of any knowledge of or participation in the process. The harms are bureaucratic ones—indifference, error, abuse, frustration, and lack of transparency and accountability.
How can we distinguish between better and worse surveillance states? Balkin identifies and contrasts two. The first is an authoritarian surveillance state, while the second is a democratic surveillance state. And the recent scandals clearly reveal that we live in an authoritarian one.What do authoritarian surveillance states do? They act as “information gluttons and information misers.” As gluttons, they take in as much information as possible. More is always better, indiscriminate access is better than targeted responses, and there’s a general presumption that they’ll have access to whatever they want, at any time.
But authoritarian surveillance states also act as misers, preventing any information about themselves from being released. Their actions and the information they gather are kept secret from both the public and the rest of government.
Even though the paper is from 2008, this description of an authoritarian surveillance state fits perfectly with recent revelations about the Obama administration. The information that the National Security Agency has been seeking, from phone metadata to server access, is about as expansive as one could imagine. Meanwhile, the administration’s war on whistleblowers, which received public attention after revelations about the surveillance of AP reporters, shows a lack of interest in measures of transparency and accountability.
He’s a grown man. He doesn’t need any of you to tell him anything. He knows more than all of you put together. He understands the game. If he makes a pass and you all think he should have shot it, or he shoots it and you think he should have made a pass, your opinions mean nothing to him, as they should not mean anything to him.
Not everyone agreed that gout was a malady, or a bad thing. Some saw it as Nature’s warning, or as a deliverance from worse afflictions (it was better than haemorrhoids, for instance), and had no desire to be cured of it. As this book says, it was often regarded as a life assurance, not a death sentence. Gilbert Sheldon, Archbishop of Canterbury under Charles II, ‘supposedly offered £1000 to any person who would “help him to the gout”, looking upon it as the only remedy for the distemper in his head, which he feared might in time prove an apoplexy; as in fine it did and killed him’. William Cowper congratulated a friend on contracting the disorder, ‘because it seems to promise us that we shall keep you long’. Hester Piozzi’s husband grew worried and alarmed if his gout did not return regularly.Besides, gout was very much a mark of status. Lord Chesterfield said it was ‘the distemper of a gentleman, whereas the rheumatism is the distemper of a hackney coachman’. It attacked not only the wealthy but the creative, which meant that no man of letters could afford to be without it. Some thought it was the hallmark of genius, a view obstinately perpetuated by Havelock Ellis. In short, it was an honour to have gout and the phrase ‘the honour of the gout’ was in free use. The authors quote Earl Nugent’s apology to the Duke of Newcastle for failing to wait on him: ‘He received the Honor of His Grace’s card here, where he has been detained by the Honor of the Gout.’ For a person of the lower orders to aspire to the honour of the gout was unthinkable. Artisans and crofters did not know their luck; hard work every day kept uric acid at bay. ‘Live upon sixpence a day – and earn it’ was the cure for gout advocated by the surgeon John Abernethy.
Aaron Siskind (American, 1903-1991) Terrors and Pleasures of Levitation, No. 37, 1953 gelatin silver print, © Aaron Siskind Foundation, George Eastman House
At any rate, after one of my early columns had curtsied and left the stage, an indignant letter to the editor appeared, written by, as I recall, a gent named Terry Lawhead. It ran thus, and after all these years I believe I can still quote it verbatim. “Editor, Doug Wilson is a complete idiot. Terry Lawhead, Moscow.” My dear wife read this penetrating analysis before I got home, and of course this kind of thing was a complete novelty … our very first encounter with liberal tolerance. She said reading that was like getting punched in the stomach. When I got home, we talked it through and adopted the official demeanor toward hostile criticism that we have sought to maintain in our home ever since that time. I suggested that Nancy reply with her own letter to the editor. It should run, “Editor, Terry Lawhead doesn’t know the half of it. Nancy Wilson, Moscow.” She thought that might come across a tad disrespectful, but she did clip out Terry’s letter for a place of honor on our fridge.But this does create another problem. Does not a breezy and cavalier dismissal of criticism like this create a macho mentality that considers itself above correction no matter what? And who wants to be that guy? We all need correction, and we all should be open to the kind that would help us — even if it is from people who don’t know us, or even from people who are hostile.
The key here, for anybody in the midst of the fray, is to have family and friends who have open access to you, and who have the liberty to say that a particular criticism strikes them as valid, or to offer criticisms of their own. It might be an editor, it could be a friend, it might be your elders, it could be your wife or kids — or if you are a blessed writer, it could be all of them. If you are blessed with this kind of vertebrate companionship, you know that their views are not being driven by the fear of man — what a death trap that is! They will tell you when they believe you should grant a particular point, and you can trust them. You know how open to correction they are in face-to-face life, and they know how open to it you are. You know their commitment to principle, and they know yours. If a critic is right, they will tell you, and you should say so. If he isn’t, be deaf to expediency.
May there be many a day spent reading in front of a fireplace this winter for our Australian and New Zealand bookshelf lovers.