Surveillance capitalists control the science and the scientists, the secrets and the truth.

The debate on privacy and law at the Federal Trade Commission was unusually heated that day. Tech industry executives “argued that they were capable of regulating themselves and that government intervention would be costly and counterproductive.” Civil libertarians warned that the companies’ data capabilities posed “an unprecedented threat to individual freedom.” One observed, “We have to decide what human beings are in the electronic age. Are we just going to be chattel for commerce?” A commissioner asked, ‘‘Where should we draw the line?” The year was 1997.

The line was never drawn, and the executives got their way. Twenty-three years later…

See original article from The New York Times HERE.

Photo by Immo Wegmann on Unsplash