No Place to Hide

Behind closed doors and among friends, are your opinions and behaviors different to those you might reveal in public, in particular to certain people such as your pastor, a policeman, your parents or employer? Most of us would answer, “Yes.”

Privacy is crucial to our sense of freedom. When it is compromised, our individuality suffers and we tend to instead behave in a way that is expected of us.

When we know we are being observed, we alter our behavior and become more fearful. We can see this, for example, in a 1975 Stanford University experiment. This study revealed that 77 percent of participants were in favor of legalizing marijuana. However, when they were told their statements were to be viewed by police for “training purposes,” the figure in favor plummeted to 44 percent.

This shows that surveillance significantly affects how we think, especially when it comes to political standpoints.

It is important to have political dissent to maintain a healthy democracy. However, governments have throughout history spied on citizens who dare to go against the status quo.

In recent years, the internet has provided a platform for people to share knowledge and protest authority. It has enabled movements, such as Occupy Wall Street, to stand against gross abuses of power.

Unfortunately, that a government spies on political dissenters is no new discovery. As far back as 1971, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) monitored various political groups, such as those who were anti-war and those involved in the civil rights movement. Shockingly, the FBI even infiltrated some of these groups, posing as members, and tried to influence others to commit crimes.

The resulting paranoia from this covert behavior was sufficient to curb political dissent and subsequently the growth of political movements.

As we’ll see in the following blinks, spying by intelligence agencies impacts our lives, diminishing our privacy and our freedom.