David Brin: The Half Life of Secrets

Ethics, Government
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David Brin
David Brin

Surveillance: A Golden Age or Dark Days?

My friend and info-perceptive wiseman Peter Swire, who helped to formulate the post-Snowden NSA reforms issued by the Obama Administration, has a series of articles and white papers of interest to anyone who is serious about the core topic of our era.

Peter dials in even closer when he writes about “the declining half lives of secrets.”  Swire maintains that this time metric “is declining sharply for many intelligence activities as secrets that in the past may have been kept successfully for 25 years or more, are now exposed well before.” 

Cogently, he argues: “(that) means that “the front-page” test will become far more important to decision-makers. Even if a secret operation is initially successful, the expected costs of disclosure become higher as the average time to disclosure decreases.” 

Read full article with more links.

Phi Beta Iota: Much of what has become fashionable in the present was discussed by the vanguard in the 1980's and 1990's — the difference is that now people are more inclined to listen — this has not, however, changed how the institutions work. To achieve deep sustainable change we require an autonomous Internet that places anonymity, identity, right, security, and transparency in the hands of the end-user (the individual citizen).

See Especially:

BOOK: The Open Source Everything Manifesto – Transparency, Truth, & Trust

WIKI: Peer to Peer Foundation Category: Open Source Everything

See Also:

1992 Information Concepts & Doctrine for the Future

Autonomous Internet @ Phi Beta Iota

Books by Robert Steele

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