(Global) - '..a tremendous increase in the level of surveillance..'

'Digital technology has brought about a tremendous increase in the level of surveillance of our’ movements, actions, and communications. It is far more than we experienced in the 1990s, and far more than people behind the Iron Curtain experienced in the 1980s..'

<blockquote>'We Must Design Every System for Privacy

If we don’t want a total surveillance society, we must consider surveillance a kind of social pollution, and limit the surveillance impact of each new digital system just as we limit the environmental impact of physical construction.

For example: “Smart” meters for electricity are touted for sending the power company moment-by-moment data about each customer’s electric usage, including how usage compares with users in general. This is implemented based on general surveillance, but does not require any surveillance. It would be easy for the power company to calculate the average usage in a residential neighborhood by dividing the total usage by the number of subscribers, and send that to the meters. Each customer’s meter could compare her usage, over any desired period of time, with the average usage pattern for that period. The same benefit, with no surveillance!

We need to design such privacy into all our digital systems.

..

Digital technology has brought about a tremendous increase in the level of surveillance of our’ movements, actions, and communications. It is far more than we experienced in the 1990s, and far more than people behind the Iron Curtain experienced in the 1980s, and would still be far more even with additional legal limits on state use of the accumulated data.

Unless we believe that our free countries previously suffered from a grave surveillance deficit, and ought to be surveilled more than the Soviet Union and East Germany were, we must reverse this increase. That requires stopping the accumulation of big data about people.'

- Stallman: How Much Surveillance Can Democracy Withstand? October 14, 2013</blockquote>


Context

<blockquote>'..a statement of "how not to dehumanize people" might read..'

'There is a war against journalism around the world.'

GCHQ and European spy agencies worked together on mass surveillance, November 1, 2013