In 2019, the FBI released a document telling people how they can identify violent extremists. It’s actually a pretty good list. If I were someone who needed the government to tell me what to look for, I’d probably use the list. But, since I have an abundance of common sense, I don’t need it.
But it’s not news. There are right-leaning media sources that are trying to make a big deal out of this list. The time to make it a big deal was two years ago when it was first published. Not now. The list is simply a longer version of “see something, say something” that helps people know what to see so that they know when to say.
It’s pretty easy to come up with an example of why someone should report if they see something hinky. Back in 2001, a handful of middle eastern men were taking flying lessons in Florida. But they weren’t interested in learning how to land the plane. If someone had reported that odd behavior, perhaps 9/11 never would have happened.
Talking about the list is a distraction. The problem we should be concerned about isn’t being narced on by someone else. The real problem is when we narc on ourselves.
A couple of years ago, I had enabled location tracking on my phone. A month or so later, I received an email from Google showing me everywhere my phone had been in the past month. That was a little unnerving. I have since disabled the feature. But I don’t really believe Google has stopped tracking me, I believe they just stopped telling me that they’re tracking me.
When I ordered something from Amazon, and it came with a free Echo Dot (Alexa), I gave it a try. I noticed that occasionally the light would come on indicating that it was listening without me first trying to get its attention. Weird.
Here’s the thing…Alexa is always listening to me. It’s always paying attention. It only turns on the light when it wants me to know it’s paying attention. And everything it hears goes straight to Amazon. Other than helping me manage my grocery list, it wasn’t doing anything useful, so I unplugged it. Now it can’t listen.
If we’ve learned anything from the past year, it’s that Big Tech has too much power. We’ve also learned that they’re sneaky. Big Tech has the ability to listen to your conversations, look at every uploaded video or image, everything you buy, everything you type and track wherever you go. What would make you believe that they’re not? Because they said so? Fox, henhouse…you know the thing.
Have you ever had a conversation with someone about something a bit weird, only to start to see ads for that very same weird item showing up everywhere? Coincidence? Maybe, maybe not.
Just because Google, or Apple, or Amazon tells me that they’re not listening to my conversations doesn’t mean that Google Home, Siri, Alexa or my phone aren’t listening. They’re always listening. And just because Google or Apple tells me that they’re not tracking where my phone goes, it doesn’t mean they’ve stopped tracking. It only means they’ve stopped telling me they’re tracking it.
We’ve all heard about Big Tech “algorithms”. That’s a fancy term that means they built some software to decide what you can see and who can hear what you said. It’s how they censor people.
It’s also how they’ll tell the difference between “mostly peaceful protesters” and “violent insurrectionists”.
It’s not hard to imagine a not-too-distant future where I buy some lawn fertilizer in the morning, fill up my diesel truck in the afternoon and get a visit from the FBI in the evening because the algorithm decided that buying fertilizer and diesel fuel, and listening to Tucker Carlson, looks suspiciously like the activities of a violent insurrectionist.
And that’s the real danger. Big Tech will soon start using the data that you’ve freely given them by using their gadgets to decide if you are danger to society. They’ll decide if you’re a mostly peaceful protestor or a violent insurrectionist. It’s foolish to think they won’t.
They’re already deciding if your thoughts are dangerous. The next step will be to decide if you are dangerous.
