I'm no conspiracy buff. But I have been wondering about that talking point, the one repeated over and over again that immunity and protection must be granted so that telecom companies will be shielded from lawsuits for having helped the government in the fight against terrorism.
One the one hand, it is obvious that this talking point serves well as a (false) argument to grant further powers to the government in bypassing FISA and getting any and all information it wants on any citizen from any company. We've all been seeing through this one - except for all those fear-gripped idiots who haven't, of course.
No, what is nagging at me is the question as to what is the real agenda of companies/corporations behind this "need" to be granted such immunity in the first place.
Could it really be about avoiding lawsuits from outraged citizens whose privacy was violated without their knowledge or consent, considering the collective wealth at the disposal of these companies and corporations to either fight such lawsuits or simply settle them?
Ask yourself this: what is the single most descriptive characteristic of any company or corporation, with regards to their employees?
Authoritarianism, of course.
History shows us all too well how company/corporate "elites" behave towards their "lower" employees when kept unchecked - instances of exploitation, quasi-slavery, bullying, outright ruling by force and intimidation, the ever-present threat of being fired, and so on and so forth.
That is why unions became a necessity at one point, along with labor laws and other such "regulations", in order to keep in check the authoritarian/tyrannical default behavior of company/corporate "elites" vis à vis their workers and employees.
Yet, here we are today ... and what have companies/corporations been up to lately?
Whenever you apply for a job, you must submit yourself to all sorts of intrusions in your privacy, regardless what kind of job you apply for - from giving urine and/or blood samples, to granting permission for "security checks" on you (including credit reports), to submitting to wide-ranging questionnaires to assess your personality, including your psychological/cognitive/emotional state of being (not counting having to actually go through the ludicrous exercise of submitting yourself to a lie detector).
And when you are employed, you are under constant scrutiny - electronic or otherwise - in order to continually assess your performance during your "day at work". In addition, how many companies/corporations nowadays have "proper employee conduct" codes to which all employees must adhere to - including outside of the work place?
But company/corporate "elites" crave total control over their employees and there are large periods of time in a day, a week, a month and a year, when their employees escape their ever-watching, scrutinizing and controlling gaze: off-work hours, week-ends, holidays and vacation time.
Companies/corporations have kept increasing their requirements of what they consider "appropriate performance" on the part of their employees, while freezing (or reducing) wages at the same time.
In short: they ask you to do more and more and more, while they pay less.
Now imagine a day when company/corporate elites can actually know what you do in your "off-work" time - surfing the internet? Watching TV? Renting/buying movies? Reading books? Going to shows? Cheering your favorite team? Just spending time with your family in the backyard?
Imagine also if your employers became intimately aware of every facet of your private life, including whether you are having an affair (or your partner/spouse does), you or a member of your family has been diagnosed with a grave illness, your sexual practices (with or without your partner/spouse), which political party you adhere to, etc.
What kind of power, then, would your employers hold over you, your job and your career?
As example, how many people have so far been fired for "moral conduct incompatible with moral values/proper employee conduct" of a company/corporation outside of work, based only on rumors? Now imagine what can and will happen when actual facts are known.
For facts will be known indeed because your employers now have free reign in gathering any and all private data about you, their employees. And thanks to the immunity capitulation on FISA, companies/corporations will literally spy on their employees, if only in order to "ensure proper checks on performance", which will always be their excuse and their self-proclaimed "right".
That is the other grave problem I fear lurks behind all of this - what we have here is a bright, green light for companies/corporations to let loose their craven authoritarian need to fully and completely control their employees.
Granted - I could be wrong about this. But history, if only that of the last 25 years or so, shows us that companies/corporations will do anything to keep a firm, if not tyrannical, grip over their little "empires" and the "subjects" they lord over.
Still, I will go one step further: thanks to this immunity capitulation, companies/corporations now have free reign in investigating anyone - not just their employees, but politicians, competitors and, especially, anyone who speaks out against suspicious practices (accounting, environmental, fraud, etc.) - all in the name of "security" (i.e. their own).
Funny, but I keep thinking of movies about dystopic corporate world-states like Rollerball (1975), or books dealing with a background of corporate hegemony in lieu of governments, such as Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy.
Or maybe I just happen to have woken up this morning with a tinfoil hat on my head.
Nonetheless, here are some hypothetical examples of what I suspect we'll be hearing about in the years to come (if these are not happening already):
Newly hired employees, as well as all those already employed, will have to sign new "disclosure consent" agreements in order to allow their employers to use all necessary and "legal" means to monitor employee performance (fine print: even when they are off work);
Thanks to such new monitoring measures, pay reductions will be enacted to employees who fail to do sufficient "additional" work on the week-ends - however "voluntary" such extra work may be;
Family crises (of any kind - illness, affair, falling out, kid doing drugs, etc.) occurring will swiftly lead to an employee having a "sit down" with a director/VP of human resources in order to assess the gravity of said crisis and how it may impact on job performance - possibly leading to either suspension or dismissal;
Employees buying products from competitors (because products are better and cheaper) will be known and dealt with swiftly;
"At home" moral behavior of employees will become an integral part of performance assessments and reviews for raises and/or promotions;
Reading/viewing/listening habits of employees (and family members) will be subject to evaluation as indicators of "proper employee conduct" and other such nonsense.
As any company/corporation would say: "We want the best for our loyal employees" ...
While we were busying ourselves at keeping watch on the government and its drive in gathering authoritarian powers, we forgot about the true authoritarian that was standing in the room all along:
The companies and corporations - whom now have been given the green light to spy as they well please.
Then again, maybe I'm being a tad too much paranoid today.
Maybe.
On the other hand, who would've thought that a law would be passed to excuse illegal violations of the privacy of citizens by a government in a democracy-based society?
Who would've thought indeed ...
(Cross-posted from APOV)
