Theory Another Student Talked About

     I know a little bit about a lot of the theories each of the groups talked about, and all of them are worth talking about.  They're kinda scary, in a way, how they all work together to shape our minds, especially because they spread so far now.  But the one I want to talk about is "Total Information Awareness."

    Total Information Awareness is a concept based on predictive policing.  The idea is that the government can gather information about a person and predict whether they are likely to commit a crime.  They wouldn't just gather bits of information, either; they'd get minute details about every aspect of your life.  That's a pretty scary thought.  The idea came after the events of 9/11, so the government could scout for potential terrorists.  It was defunded by Congress after heavy backlash.

    I completely agree with this backlash.  It invades more than just our privacy.  It also invades our other rights, like free will and the promise of a free and fair trial.  If government decides you are likely to commit a crime, and if they can punish you before you've even committed a crime, then you aren't being given the right to your free will.  Free will rests upon the idea that all actions have consequences.  If I choose to do something that's good, the consequences will be good.  Conversely, if I choose to do something bad, the consequences will be bad.  But consequences can only happen after the action.  Otherwise, it's a perversion of justice.  It's also illegal in the United States to be punished for a crime you haven't committed, even if you were going to commit the crime but haven't done so yet.

    Another reason I wanted to talk about this theory is because it reminded me of a movie.  This idea is the exact plot of Captain America: Winter Soldier.  The premise is that the government agency S.H.I.E.L.D. is setting up a program that tracks everyone all the time and predicts who is likely to commit a crime.  Then, based on that information, S.H.I.E.L.D. can intervene before the crime is committed.  Captain America is against this because it takes away people's freedom and turns America into an authoritarian regime.

    It's good that the United States ended this program, but many aspects of it still exist.  Now, we willingly put ourselves on the internet for the world to see.  World governments have ways to extract that data, and social media platforms sometimes give it to people for a price.  It's really corrupt, and we've become so dependent on the internet that we've fallen into an inescapable trap.

Here's one of the sources they used:

https://www.aclu.org/other/qa-pentagons-total-information-awareness-program