America wants five years of your social media before you visit. I followed it to Five Eyes, a 1946 alliance kept secret for 64 years.

Five years of your social media just to visit the US on an ESTA, and 50,922 phone searches at the border in a single year with no suspicion needed. Part 1 of my Five Eyes series: who else gets to see it?

  • FishFace@piefed.socialEnglish
    1·
    4 hours ago

    From the first paragraph:

    The panopticon is a design of institutional building with an inbuilt system of control, originated by the English philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham in the 18th century. The concept is to allow all prisoners of an institution to be observed by a single prison officer, without the inmates knowing whether or not they are being watched.

    (emphasis mine)

    Bentham designed the Panopticon as a prison. It sounds like you’re using the word as a metaphor.

    I don’t think such a metaphorical usage is that great in this case. It works OK when you’re talking about big-brother style surveillance that is potentially present in your private life at all times (like the panopticon’s guard can potentially see any one inmate’s private activity at any time) but not when you’re talking about potentially being searched in a specific, limited, avoidable, circumventable circumstance.

    • XLE@piefed.socialEnglish
      1·
      3 hours ago

      Fishface, I linked you to a particular part of the article. Did you miss it by mistake?

      Here is the part you failed to read:

      The Panopticon […] must be understood as a generalizable model of functioning ; a way of defining power relations in terms of the everyday life of men. No doubt Bentham presents it as a particular institution, closed in upon itself. […] But the Panopticon must not be understood as a dream building

      If you are able to scroll down even further and continue reading, you’ll also discover workplace surveillance is considered a Panopticon… Even though it apparently fits into your definition of something that is “circumventable”, wherever you pulled that from.

      • FishFace@piefed.socialEnglish
        1·
        3 hours ago

        I read that quote from a person other than the originator of the idea, yes. It is espousing that metaphorical application of the panopticon. It doesn’t have anything to say about the applicability of the metaphor to searches in an airport.

        I don’t think we’re making any progress here, so see ya.

        • XLE@piefed.socialEnglish
          1·
          1 hour ago

          other than the originator of the idea

          The word does not belong to the person who “originated” (labeled) it. I’m sorry you don’t like the modern usage and have chosen to die on that hill, but the rest of us are here on the internet, not in the 19th century.

          I’m sorry you refuse to make progress.