Have you ever wondered what was happening on DailyKos back on August 1st, 2002? Or how about the very humble beginnings of Google, on November 11th, 1998?
In case you haven’t heard of it already, there’s a useful tool on the interwebz called the “wayback machine”, and it does, just as the name implies. It scours constantly, just about every website while taking a snapshot, locking it forever in time.
Do a search of your own. But you may notice, the wayback machine isn’t perfect.
It doesn’t record perfectly or completely every single thing that’s ever happened on the internet, or anywhere else on Earth.
But what if it did? If Snowden’s claims are accurate, this is and has been our reality since at least as far back as 2001.
What if every financial transaction, e-mail, prescription refill, doctor’s visit, GPS data, telephone record, Library book were recorded perfectly and in perpetuity. All there, held in aggregate (we’re told), until data fields are queried to reanimate the digital bits of your life into the perfect snapshot. Machines that record everything electronic and save it indefinitely.
That’s quite a bit of power, whether or not, you think you have anything to worry about. Please trust me, you do.
I question how this might affect our future but also wonder about damage already inflicted. Past events, especially those just prior to the financial crisis of 2008, raise alarming concerns for me today. Here’s just a few examples, of what I most remember in the years leading up to the meltdown:
1.) Reading (for the first time) that economic inequality had reached levels not seen since 1928.
2.) I’d never before heard the name of Bernie Madoff.
3.) Elliot Spitzer had been actively prosecuting Wall Street corruption.
Today, economic inequality has grown worse since 2008.
Madoff? He stole $12 Billion dollars during a ten year crime spree and gets to turn himself in (when he runs out of money). And that wasn’t for a lack of trying on the behalf of others to stop him either. An aptly titled book was written about that very subject, titled “No One Would Listen”. The book chronicles the failed effort of motivating regulators to act.
As for Spitzer? As New York’s Attorney General and Governor, his record reads like a wish list for those who’d like to see Wall Street accountability in the post meltdown era. I’ll concede readily, that he was no Choirboy. But, he did aggressively prosecute the financial services industry while taking a pugnacious stance against what was to become the poster child of the financial crisis- AIG. Remember, he did all this in the years before the crash
It all ended for Spitzer on March 12th 2008 when he stepped down as Governor. The investigation, we’re told, initiated by a SAR or suspicious activity report. And what was it, in the SAR, that had aroused the ire and suspicion of the Federal justice system? I’ll encourage speculation on the former, but in regard to the latter? About $6000. Perhaps details of the Spitzer $6K “Bitch Fund” would remain anonymous today, had they not been first stored in the aggregate, of the NSA Wayback Machine.
News of the Spitzer scandal, rang the opening bell of the financial crisis. It was the shot across the bow. The clear signal to all of those in authority of holding financial criminals accountable. I strongly encourage those among the 56% polled claiming to be, “not bothered” about warrantless domestic spying, to re-evaluate their position, and do so light of the aforementioned scenario.
Do the officials charged with the responsibility of regulatory enforcements and the prosecutions of financial crimes, operate under a scenario of looming retaliatory disincentives?
You may be perfectly entitled to operate under the notion, that the malaise of a disinterested Government will hold secure, the arbitrary and fragmented details of your mundane digital life. But try, to imagine the prosecutor, the regulator, the bureaucrat, the candidate. All facing potentially complex decisions fraught with moral hazard and rule of law. And all of it, on our behalf.