You might be, and not know it, and not know why.
Last week, the US Congress passed the new FISA legislation. This new law gives the government expanded powers to listen in on anyone they consider a terror suspect, inside or outside the US. While this new law aroused privacy and civil liberties questions, the law's supporters were quick to defend it, and brush off any criticism.
There is nothing to fear in the bill, said Senator Christopher S. Bond, the Missouri Republican who was a lead negotiator, “unless you have Al Qaeda on your speed dial.”
The Senator is very wrong.
You may not have AQ on speed dial, nor be following them in Twitter, nor have their hate sites in your bookmarks, nor have accepted them as a friend/contact on Facebook/LinkedIn, nor be living in the same building as them, but you may still be in their extended social network neighborhood!
See the simple social network map below. Suppose you are the green node at the center, your friends and family are the blue nodes and their friends and family are the grey nodes. This is everyone in your social network within 2 degrees of you. Most people would have dozens of blue nodes and hundreds or thousands of grey nodes in their network neighborhood.
Of all of the people in your extended network, do you know...
- them all?
- what they believe?
- what they do in their spare time?
- what organizations they belong to?
- who is in their network neighborhood?
You may end up being a "person of interest" if any of the blue or grey nodes in your network have any connection to a terrorist, or to someone suspected of being a terrorist. It is easy to end up in a "bad" network neighborhood — maybe your kid's soccer coach and one of your co-workers each has family back home with the same last name as a well know terrorist? And it could get worse, the watchers could easily expand their field of view and look at everyone within 3 degrees/steps of a suspect. At 3 degrees, we are probably looking at a million node network neighborhood -- easier to be in the same neighborhood as a terrorist then!
By following daily communication, and using current social network analysis methods, the watchers should eventually figure out where the covert clusters of corruption are [if any]. Yet, your life can be negatively affected by the wide net that is being cast. Who wants to be the next Richard Jewell, be falsely accused, have law suits filed against you, and have a "trial by media"?
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2 comments:
Wouldn't surprise me if generating paranoia about this isn't a bonus for the government.
All the better for them if you start to *cut* your relationships with anyone from a different culture or political viewpoint ... anyone you fear might get you into trouble.
You'll be far easier to scare and manipulate if you've never let yourself be friends with a muslim, never even subscribed to a blog written by one.
Yes, exactly!
Small unconnected clusters are easier to control.
See the Connected Customers post. Now, citizens are the green nodes, while the government is the big blue hub.
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