Under the Microscope

The latest surveillance scandal brings to mind an old joke: “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you.” It turns out that the most technologically advanced world power has been engaging in wiretapping, or more accurately, the monitoring of Internet activity. There’s nothing out-of-the-ordinary here — apart from the fact that the former CIA and National Security Agency employee who blew the whistle is on the run and that President Putin’s press secretary announced that “authorities of the Russian Federation will consider granting him political asylum, if such a request is received.” Even that doesn’t necessarily mean very much — just because the Russian authorities are prepared to consider granting him asylum doesn’t mean that they will do so. It’s not yet certain that the American Edward Snowden will spend the rest of his days fishing at the Klyazma River.

But here is what’s interesting: The American spy — after all, why bend the truth, he is a spy — was not put up to the task of blowing the whistle by anyone. At least, as of yet there are no indications that this was the case. He is a seemingly well-meaning person who cried out, like the barber in the Greek myth, “I can no longer be silent: King Midas has the ears of a mule!” and divulged his classified information to the public.

In the past such secrets would only be revealed to a potential adversary nation. At the climax of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s ”In the First Circle,” a young, successful Soviet diplomat calls into the American embassy and reveals that his compatriots are in America attempting to steal the blueprints for the atomic bomb. The novel’s message, to be frank, is somewhat contrived: Just because you don’t support your government doesn’t necessarily mean that its enemies will be any better. That’s not to mention that, in the novel, Soviet spies are trying to steal the secrets of the A-bomb at the end of 1949, despite the fact that the USSR had already successfully tested such a bomb almost half a year earlier in Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan.

In any case, today you can broadcast a secret to all of mankind without having to make secret calls from freezing-cold telephone booths. Although if you do so, your own nation will view you as a traitor.

We have already witnessed a similar story with the foreigner that brought to light a whole treasure trove of secrets. Julian Assange, who today lives in exile, hidden away in the Ecuadorean embassy in London, was sent to “save” us. His website served as his “telephone booth,” only instead of communicating with an enemy, he was communicating with the entire planet. There is a subtle but important ethical difference between sharing secrets with everyone and confiding solely in a foreign intelligence agency.

That being said, the average person understands that everyone lies and that unfairness lurks around every corner. With a court order, the government can conduct surveillance on you. Society accepts this. It isn’t news to anyone in any country. But here’s the rub in this Internet surveillance case: Now the American government has admitted that it can keep tabs on practically anyone, and it has sparked some heated arguments. Some protest that it is unnecessary for the government to monitor everyday citizens, others argue that any method designed to thwart terrorist attacks is permissible and some maintain that it’s one thing to spy on Americans, but another to spy on foreigners.

The arguments are endless, but there is little merit to any of them.

There is a second element to this debate: People do talk an awful lot. They blurt out their secrets for all to see on social networks. Most people’s secrets involve trivial subjects such as marital infidelity or unpaid taxes. On social networks, people let off steam about their bosses and poke fun at their customers.

It is all too common to hear of shortsighted stewardesses and absent-minded secretaries getting the pink slip for grumbling about their customers or making fun of their coworkers on their blogs. Their mistake is that they make these remarks without making sure that they’re private.

But now, people are being told that their privacy settings and passwords are simply ways to ward off the prying eyes of children and other casual Internet users. Everything that you write on social networks remains there for eternity. It can always be seen by someone. All of your purchases are itemized on a single list; all of your search engine queries are saved. You, in short, are under the microscope.

It’s surprising that the public has gotten so worked up over this, despite having watched films for the last 20 years where this exact scenario played out.

Having made peace with the fact that your personal life is under the microscope, you can proceed in a number of ways. You can continue to use these methods of communication, nervously ranting on the aforementioned social networks, tugging on the sleeve of the stranger next to you on the bus, talking, talking, talking. Or, on the other hand, you can find solace in silence. There is a tendency to assume that when people aren’t talking, they’re thinking. Experience dictates that this isn’t always the case, but there really is a lot of sense in keeping mum.

You don’t have to act like the barber, who, upon discovering that King Midas had been cursed with mule ears, dug a hole in a bed of reeds and screamed his secret into the ground. After some time, the barber decided to make a flute out of one of the reeds, and against his will, the flute sang the words of the barber’s secret in King Midas’ presence.

You don’t have to go screaming into the “hole” of social media. You can hold your tongue. Or you can go ahead and scream, keeping in mind that a flute lies in your future.

And from that point on, whatever will be, will be.