many govts beginning to find blackberry, social media a nuisance. cozy govt-media nexus breaking down, NDTV pls note

aug 12th, 2011 CE

it started with the saudis and the gulf emirates, then india, indonesia etc. now it is the uk. basically governments like to eavesdrop and are not happy with citizens using encrypted means of communication that they cannot peer into.

i guess it's good news and bad news. bad news, this technology can be used for good or bad (creating mobs of feral kids for example). good news, the mind-control achieved by government-influenced media is under threat.

from good morning silicon valley (san jose mercury news):

“When people are using social media for violence we need to stop them. So we are working with the police, the intelligence services and industry to look at whether it would be right to stop people communicating via these Web sites and services when we know they are plotting violence, disorder and criminality.”

— David Cameron, British prime minister, opening up a can of worms, attempting to put the genie back in the bottle, and [insert your own cliche here]. Parliament held a special debate Thursday about the rioting in London, adding to the wealth of hand-wringing over the reporteduse of BlackBerry smartphones, plus Twitter andFacebook, as tools of unrest. Meanwhile, police arenaming and shaming, or broadcasting the names and addresses of those who have been convicted in the rioting, on Twitter. It’s all public record, of course, just more accessible. Dan Gillmor, writing for the Guardian, points out that “governments are terrified of the idea of unbreakable communications.” But he also says “no one can place absolute trust in the companies currently supplying the hardware and networking,” because they will most likely and most often cooperate with government. Governments that will, it turns out, do whatever they can to maintain control — in some cases stifling the free flow of information for which they might have previously professed support.