I think the main problem with Eric Schmidt's statement is that he probably won't follow it himself. I personally have no problem with the idea of total surveillance, provided I can watch the people watching me. So, Google can give authorities every last thing I ever search for, as long as I can watch Eric Schmidt jacking off to diaper-clown-groucho-mustache porn and then watch the authorities jacking off to me jacking off to Eric Schmidt jacking off to diaper-clown-grouch-mustache porn.
With that said, maybe there's a way to give this whole debacle a happy ending. If we collectively give up privacy all at once, instead of letting it be taken from us selectively over time, it could be a weird sort of DDOS attack on the surveillance powers of authorities. The main reason that authorities are able to crack down upon "undesirables" so effectively is that they do it at such a slow pace and without raising a fuss. By doing it this way they're also able to control the information released about who they've arrested to an extent, thus allowing the narrative of the arrest to be portrayed in a way that's more congruous to their agenda.
While all of that second paragraph was sort of conspiracy theory mumbo jumbo, I feel the idea is sound and worth looking into.
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I think the main problem with Eric Schmidt's statement is that he probably won't follow it himself. I personally have no problem with the idea of total surveillance, provided I can watch the people watching me. So, Google can give authorities every last thing I ever search for, as long as I can watch Eric Schmidt jacking off to diaper-clown-groucho-mustache porn and then watch the authorities jacking off to me jacking off to Eric Schmidt jacking off to diaper-clown-grouch-mustache porn.
With that said, maybe there's a way to give this whole debacle a happy ending. If we collectively give up privacy all at once, instead of letting it be taken from us selectively over time, it could be a weird sort of DDOS attack on the surveillance powers of authorities. The main reason that authorities are able to crack down upon "undesirables" so effectively is that they do it at such a slow pace and without raising a fuss. By doing it this way they're also able to control the information released about who they've arrested to an extent, thus allowing the narrative of the arrest to be portrayed in a way that's more congruous to their agenda.
While all of that second paragraph was sort of conspiracy theory mumbo jumbo, I feel the idea is sound and worth looking into.