I believe it goes much further back and is much more deeper than 911.
In 1975 Senator Frank Church said the following:
"In the need to develop a capacity to know what potential enemies are doing, the United States government has perfected a technological capability that enables us to monitor the messages that go through the air. Now, that is necessary and important to the United States as we look abroad at enemies or potential enemies. We must know, at the same time, that capability at any time could be turned around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left such is the capability to monitor everything—telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn’t matter. There would be no place to hide.
If this government ever became a tyrant, if a dictator ever took charge in this country, the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government, no matter how privately it was done, is within the reach of the government to know. Such is the capability of this technology.
I don’t want to see this country ever go across the bridge. I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return." (For verified sources of this quote visit the Wikipedia page on the Church Committee: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee.)
These words almost exactly cover the situation now as they did nearly 40 years ago!!!
If anyone thinks the conduct of the Government in the next 40 years will be different they are dreaming. The United Surveillance Sates of America is an entrenched practice.
My conclusion is that technologists hold the key to hope in what would otherwise be a hopeless situation. The hackers here can create technology that can subvert the Government's tyranny.
Civilian counterintelligence starts with counter-technology.
Interesting quote, but I have to completely disagree with your conclusion that it's about technology. In fact, even your quote itself from Mr. Church is clearly stating that only our laws can restrain our technology and maintain our freedom. You've missed his point entirely.
There have always been examples of government overreach, whether by technological means or otherwise. But, what we are witnessing today is a near complete rewriting and reinterpretation of the laws that protect us from such overreach. The pace of technological innovation has simply served as the vehicle for implementing this overreach.
Starting with the PATRIOT act and Bush's legal team's loose interpretation of existing protections, we have seen this country veer dangerously into dissolution of fundamental rights, torture, extra-judicial killings, wars of choice, a vastly expanded surveillance state and more. It is not the technology that has enabled this. It is the laws. And only behind the shock of 9/11 could the collective psyche of the American public be rendered so unbalanced and so fearful as to allow such fundamental and drastic change to our country's beliefs, ethos, and laws.
>...technologists hold the key to hope in what would otherwise be a hopeless situation. The hackers here can create technology that can subvert the Government's tyranny"
That is a dangerous fantasy and a technologists' pipe dream. It is completely misguided and follows from the common belief that you have articulated above. As I mentioned, it is the laws, not the technology that pose the foundational threat. From a technology standpoint, we control nothing. Engaging in a game of cat-and-mouse with a government whose resources are effectively limitless and one who is unbounded by any laws would be disastrous. We will lose. We are losing. Again, from Mr. Church's quote above, "the most careful effort to resist...is within the reach of the government to know".
So, as much as we like to dream about freedom-fighting hackers saving the day, it's utter nonsense. If not for whistle-blowers like Snowden, we wouldn't even know where the battlefield was, let alone how to fight.
The laws need to be clear and they need to protect whistleblowers, so there is no doubt that they are heroes. We need to restore our protections and return to our principles. That is what will save us, if anything will.
