Wiretapping, objective is influence our behavior

by Alessandro Nardone

Since I published The Predestined, who also is a novel, I receive daily messages from people who, after reading it, I wonder if the supervision to which we undergo stringent NSA is really so, or if I was to emphasize it in operation the plot. They are incredulous. On the other hand, that emerged from the revelations of Edward Snowden, a truth is extreme to the point to be confused with the fiction. Indeed, I would say there goes hand in hand, not surprisingly, the combinations with what he wrote – in ’48 – George Orwell in his 1984 we literally lost count.

One thing is certain: all persons engaged in potentially be under control, is unconsciously filled with emotion that is revealed as a weapon perhaps even more powerful interceptions same: fear. Being bugged, punished, jeopardizing its reputation.

When people know they are being monitored, they tend to change their behavior, in most cases to the point to avoid even express their opinion in public. In fact, limit the privacy equivalent to a restriction of freedom of choice, becoming, as a result, a real multiplier of anxiety and stress, with the result of a significant deterioration in the quality of life.

In the end, the reality is that if the NSA decides to spy one of us could safely do so, but it is said that it is doing because even they, with the means at their disposal, they could intercept the conversations of all simultaneously. The power tool is to create the awareness that what we say or do could be intercepted pushing us, so, to behave as uniform dictates that are dropped from above.

As reported by Glenn Greenwald in his “No place to hide” in “Discipline and Punish”, the French philosopher Michel Foucault explains that ubiquitous surveillance leads people to internalize their overseers, pushing them to follow the path laid out in an almost automatic. Also according to Foucault, this principle (see under panopticism) is among the fundamental of any modern state.

It is certainly not a case, in fact, if in the vocabulary of politics and the economy entered a gallop terms like nudging (literal meaning “gentle push”) and anticipatory computing; but more about that another time; Now I had the wish to turn off the computer and go get me a walk outdoors, in the “real world.” I wonder why …