Spying vs. snooping vs. monitoring in the new world

Part 1 of 2Someone said a few weeks ago that the best thing about being over 40 is that we did most of our stupid stuff before the Internet was around. What they mean is before the computer era, really. But then again, I’m old enough to remember the 1960s when AT&T got the trans-Atlantic cable hook up and it had to be routed through a national security facility. And I am old enough to remember the satellite treaties at the UN when the USA demanded that all satellite communication to the U.S. had to be routed through a national facility before it went “up to the bird” or “came down from the bird.”People have short memories. Most kids remember the rumor that went like this: “If you say I wanna kill the president on the phone, the Secret Service will hear you and arrest you.” Why? Because it is against the law to make any threat against the president, rightly so. But on the phone, in a private phone conversation? Well, it was always denied by the Feds, but if someone reports that you made such a threat, you would be investigated. For decades the Secret Service has had to investigate tons of these threats, most of them idle (and stupid) use of inappropriate words often said in anger.• • •Anyone who actually thinks that the speed-of-light communications in this country are not routinely listened to, monitored, computer-algorithm scrubbed and otherwise monitored is living in a fool’s paradise. Electricity moves so fast, you would never know. These myopic people remind me of politicians and celebrities who cannot seem to remember that every phone now has a camera and recording device built in. Gee, let us say things off the record at a fundraiser about the 47 percent. That showed a level of stupidity that beggared the imagination. Or let us take sexual images of private parts and send them only to one’s mistress. Gee, I wonder if they will be leaked to the press?The point here is that everyone’s privacy is public to some extent. You go to the supermarket and their cameras observe you buying milk. They are not spying on you, but they are monitoring you, just in case something happens. You go through a red light and a camera takes your picture and you get sent a fine in the mail. You were monitored and assessed as breaking the law. This is called passive monitoring. It is not targeted against you alone, but it can catch you out if you break the rules of society.So when does monitoring become snooping or, worse, spying? Snooping begins when a computer system, phone monitor, surveillance camera, iPhone recording or other device is set up to focus more closely on activities in a certain category — not directed solely at you. Often snooping is all about stopping trends, preventing crime. For example, “portions of this call may be recorded for quality training” is all about snooping as a means to improving service, making sure you as a customer know to be on your best behavior and, never least, telling the employee to observe company policy. Most corporate investigations based on these recorded customer calls result in re-training or firing of employees. Snooping is also effective within schools to check for bullying as part of behavior re-education.Monitoring and snooping are not designed to target the individual except when the individual steps out of the limits of acceptable behavior. This is exactly what George Orwell wrote about in “1984.” If you monitor, snoop in general, on the population all the time, you have the facility of redefining — sometimes in hindsight — what is acceptable, what is within the law. So, no, snooping and monitoring are not, currently, a threat to civil liberties. They can be a comfort late at night at the ATM knowing someone is watching to make sure you are safe. They can be a comfort in court when the freeway video shows you did not cause an accident. They can be a comfort when you can snoop on your office computer on your child safely taking a nap in kindergarten.But when they turn to target you, snooping and monitoring become spying with a purpose — uncovering what someone wants to believe you know, did or are guilty of. Innocence, in spying, is in the eyes of the spy, not the spied upon.Peter Riva, a former resident of Amenia Union, now lives in New Mexico.CorrectionLast week, Peter Riva’s column had the sentence: Iran, Malaysia, Indonesia and large parts of the Arabic world are all Sunni. This was incorrect, in that Iran is primarily Shiite. The author regrets the mistake. It should have correctly read: Malaysia, Indonesia and large parts of Africa and the Arabic world are all Sunni.