The United States has emerged as the largest investor in commercial spyware—a global industry that has enabled the covert surveillance of journalists, human rights defenders, politicians, diplomats, and others, posing grave threats to human rights and national security.
I just want to ask on behalf of people who don’t care about this, “why should I care about this”?
Because every time I bring up how much we’re being spied one by the government or Amazon or Google, et al, people just shrug it off. At best, they’ll admit it’s a problem - for people who should be worried about it. Meaning, “I’ve got nothing to hide”. If nothing else, Americans lack (or chose to reject) the basic concept of a shared society. If there’s a threat that the government is spying on people, we believe it’s the “other” people, not “us”.
Threats to our privacy is largely hypothetical for the majority of people. I’d even argue that the whole premise of privacy is no longer what it was just 15-20 years ago. I’ve even had people argue with me that they ‘want’ to be tracked so the ads they see are relevant to them.
So, I could see some Americans read this story and be in full support of this. They believe in a spy state as a means of protection. Ironically, these are also often the same people flying “Don’t Tread On Me” flags.