We really only have three groups to hold responsible: ourselves (for developing these technologies), our government (for using these technologies to oppress us), and every other citizen (for voting the government into power and playing along when we ask to mine their data).
Oh nonsense. Technologies like Facebook were developed by people who wanted to make money out of them. On a practical level the huge amount of data held by private industry - over which I have no real control in the US - affects me far more on a day-to-day basis. There are huge information asymmetries between consumers and businesses, and many businesses which depend on exploiting those asymmetries.
I've said before that the US needs an explicit Constitutional amendment to create a right to privacy and control over one's data. If I want to know what data the government has on me, I can make an FOIA request - the response may be evasive in the case of some agencies, or redacted, and as such the mechanism is imperfect - but it exists, and is useful enough to be a first resort in many legal cases. Americans in general enjoy no such right with regard to data held by private firms, which they can disclose or not at their whim.
democracy is impossible with such an unworthy populace.
It has always been like this. IT's a consistent theme of the Federalist Papers that men are not, in fact, angels and need to be governed because they do such a poor job of governing themselves.
Oh nonsense. Technologies like Facebook were developed by people who wanted to make money out of them. On a practical level the huge amount of data held by private industry - over which I have no real control in the US - affects me far more on a day-to-day basis. There are huge information asymmetries between consumers and businesses, and many businesses which depend on exploiting those asymmetries.
I've said before that the US needs an explicit Constitutional amendment to create a right to privacy and control over one's data. If I want to know what data the government has on me, I can make an FOIA request - the response may be evasive in the case of some agencies, or redacted, and as such the mechanism is imperfect - but it exists, and is useful enough to be a first resort in many legal cases. Americans in general enjoy no such right with regard to data held by private firms, which they can disclose or not at their whim.
democracy is impossible with such an unworthy populace.
It has always been like this. IT's a consistent theme of the Federalist Papers that men are not, in fact, angels and need to be governed because they do such a poor job of governing themselves.