[LINK] Uncrewed submarines as ocean becomes ‘transparent’

[Roger Clarke]

> On 13/4/23 00:35, Stephen Loosley wrote:
>> ... How seriously does any country respect our Australian
>> sovereignty if they open-up secret police stations here? ...

On 16/4/23 12:41 pm, Tom Worthington wrote:
> This is not a matter of respect. When it comes to international 
> relations, there is only self interest: if you can get away with it, you 
> do it. Countries routinely carry out espionage on, and operations in, 
> both their allies and enemies. If Australia is not happy with what 
> another country is doing on its territory, then it can close down the 
> operation. But it may be that they choose to allow something they can 
> easily monitor.
> 
> For me, the interesting part of this is how much the Internet can be 
> used for keeping track of citizens abroad. You might not even need a 
> local secret police station.

A benefit of a local footprint is visibility to the targeted population.

A great deal of repression of undesired behaviour is achieved through 
the chilling effect - i.e. self-repression based on the assumption that 
you are subject to at least surveillance and possibly also actions 
against you.  It's much more believable if you see an instrument of 
repression, or have vicarious experience of it as a result of someone 
telling you about it.

Another benefit is the multiplier effect / network effect.  A local 
footprint encourages more locals to do more on your behalf, whether 
through genuine loyalty to the cause, desire to appear to be loyal, 
embarrassment, guilty conscience, pressure from peers, etc.

(Not that I'm disputing the substantial amount that can be and is 
achieved by using the potentials of information infrastructure).


Discussion of surveillance is too often conducted without consideration 
of the use of information gained from it:  warnings, interference, 
interdiction, threats, violence, kidnap, elimination.  Even in Oz, 
although many 'missing persons' contrive their own disappearance, or are 
the subject of 'random acts of violence' or of retribution by family or 
associates, some are doubtless the result of elimination activities by 
organisations with a local footprint.



http://www.rogerclarke.com/EC/DSE.html#TI

... The term 'chilling effect' appears to have originated in comments by 
a US judge in a freedom of expression case, Dombrowski v. Pfister, 380 
U.S. 479 (1965). The essence of the concept is that intentional acts by 
one party have a strong deterrent effect on important, positive 
behaviours of some other party/ies (Schauer 1978). Since Foucault's 
'virtual panopticon' notion (1975/77), the term 'chilling effect' has 
become widely used in the context of surveillance (Gandy 1993, Lyon 
1994). Intensive surveillance chills behaviour, undermines personal 
sovereignty, and greatly reduces the scope for self-determination. The 
digital surveillance economy accordingly has impacts on the individual, 
in psychological, social and political terms.

An alternative formulation that has been proposed in the specific 
context of the digital surveillance economy uses the term 'psychic 
numbing'. This "inures people to the realities of being tracked, parsed, 
mined, and modified - or disposes them to rationalize the situation in 
resigned cynicism" (Hoofnagle et al., 2010). Google is confident that 
psychic numbing facilitates the new business model: " ... these digital 
assistants [that acquire data from consumers] will be so useful that 
everyone will want one, and the statements you read today about them 
will just seem quaint and old fashioned" (Varian 2014, p. 29, quoted in 
Zuboff 2015, p.84).

Much of the discussion to date on the risks of chilling and psychic 
numbing, and the resulting repression of behaviour, has related to 
actions by government agencies, particularly national security and law 
enforcement agencies, but also social welfare agencies in respect of 
their clients, and agencies generally in respect of their employees and 
contractors. However, the incidence of corporate oppression of 
employees, public interest advocates and individual shareholders appears 
to have been rising. It is open to speculation that increased social 
distance between corporations and the public, combined with the capacity 
of large corporations to ignore oversight agencies and even civil and 
criminal laws, may lead to much greater interference by organisations 
with the behaviour of individuals in the future.


-- 
Roger Clarke                            mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au
T: +61 2 6288 6916   http://www.xamax.com.au  http://www.rogerclarke.com

Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd      78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA 

Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Law            University of N.S.W.
Visiting Professor in Computer Science    Australian National University