Mistaking Omniscience for Omnipotence
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/11/12-1The Eye of Sauron could "see all" but it was not, as it turned out, all powerful. "If we live in an era of no privacy," writes Engelhardt, "there are no exemptions; if, that is, its an age of no-privacy for us, then its an age of no-privacy for them, too."
Mistaking Omniscience for Omnipotence
by Tom Engelhardt
Published on Tuesday, November 12, 2013 by TomDispatch.com
Given how similar they sound and how easy it is to imagine one leading to the other, confusing omniscience (having total knowledge) with omnipotence (having total power) is easy enough. Its a reasonable supposition that, before the Snowden revelations hit, Americas spymasters had made just that mistake. If the drip-drip-drip of Snowdens mother of all leaks -- which began in May and clearly wont stop for months to come -- has taught us anything, however, it should be this: omniscience is not omnipotence. At least on the global political scene today, they may bear remarkably little relation to each other. In fact, at the moment Washington seems to be operating in a world in which the more you know about the secret lives of others, the less powerful you turn out to be.
Lets begin by positing this: Theres never been anything quite like it. The slow-tease pulling back of the National Security Agency curtain to reveal the skeletal surveillance structure embedded in our planet (what cheekbones!) has been an epochal event. Its minimally the political spectacle of 2013, and maybe 2014, too. Its made a mockery of the 24/7 news cycle and the urge of the media to leave the last big deal for the next big deal as quickly as possible.
Its visibly changed attitudes around the world toward the U.S. -- strikingly for the worse, even if this hasnt fully sunk in here yet. Domestically, the inability to put the issue to sleep or tuck it away somewhere or even outlast it has left the Obama administration, Congress, and the intelligence community increasingly at one anothers throats. And somewhere in a system made for leaks, there are young techies inside a surveillance machine so viscerally appalling, so like the worst sci-fi scenarios they read while growing up, that -- no matter the penalties -- one of them, two of them, many of them are likely to become the next Edward Snowden(s).
So where to start, almost half a year into an unfolding crisis of surveillance that shows no signs of ending? If you think of this as a scorecard, then the place to begin is, of course, with the line-up, which means starting with omniscience. After all, thats the NSAs genuine success story -- and what kid doesnt enjoy hearing about the (not so) little engine that could?
bemildred
(90,061 posts)Collecting a big pile of data is easy, and useless. I've lost count of the times I've tried to explain to the products of our business schools that when it comes to data, more is not better. Just what you need just the way you need it is better. But that is a much harder problem.
They never get it, and they are always "stunned" when their acquisitive fantasy collapses around their ears. They think you can just buy anything, and quantity is the measure of success.
As Englehardt says, all you have to do is look at US History since WWII and it becomes clear that our national security "leaders" have been quite unsuccessful, unless one defines success as spending boatloads of money to accomplish one of the shortest imperial declines in recent memory, 50 years flat (1963-2013).