High-Tech Surveillance's First Target: Suffragettes

The BBC has an article, funny because the time that has passed but extremely serious at the time, about the efforts of the British government to keep an eye on women's suffrage advocates.

Funny? Ohh... I get it....

[pwagland]

How about we change that blurb to:

The blahblah chronicle has an article, funny because [of] the time that has passed, but extremely serious at the time, about the efforts of the South African government to keep an eye on black rights advocates.

What?!?

How could that possibly be not funny?!?

Oh I get it... we're still meant to laugh at women and their attempts to get equal rights. Doh! I should of guessed earlier!!!

I'm sorry, but this is just as serious now, as it was back then... and a timely reminder that the government cannot be trusted to respect the privacy of the citizens that make their constituency. Think about it...

Re:Funny? Ohh... I get it....

[pwagland]

No... I think you're being a bit overly serious here.

Perhaps I am being overly serious, however I think that there is a serious danger in the tendency to trivialise that which we currently take for granted. In trivialising these things we make them less valuable.

It's funny (as in odd or strange to ponder) that at the time this was a huge issue, yet now we take it for granted. It is strange for the current generation to ponder that there ever was a time where women's right to vote could have ever been questioned.

You say that we take it for granted, yet check out these statistics:

• Women's Salaries in Life Sciences One-Third Less [womensenews.org]
• A Comparison of the Career Attainments of Men and Women Healthcare Executives [ache.org]
• Comparison of society attitudes to homosexual men and women. (sorry can't find a link for this one, but lesbian women are by far more discriminated against than gay men)

Admittedly the situation is 1000% better than it used to be. They do have the right to vote, but Suffrage was about more than just the vote. It was about equal rights in all aspects of society. You are right that many people just take the current situation for granted, that is why I compared it to the aprtheid regime... many people still find that outrageous.

It is a subject worth examining. It wasn't that long ago, really. Looking at the parallels between surveillance then and surveillance now should make us question why we are still watching dissidents today, and are today's dissidents tomorrow's heroes? And if that's so, why aren't they today's heroes?

As another poster wrote, todays terrorists are tomorrows heroes. Yes, the women in the Suffrage movement were considered to be terrorists... and indeed many of their actions would get them labelled as terrorists today.

now they are considered pioneers...

[kipple]

but then they were treated as we treat "terrorists" now.
the scary part is that if such a movement were to take place in this days, I fear that it would not work - because all the draconian laws that are passing in the US would prevent it and eradicate it at the very beginning.

those in power forgot that history and people's opinion changes, and using technology to freeze progress only results in delaying a country's development.

imho, of course.

Re:This is something to really ponder.

[mellon]

Not at all! The ACLU frequently rights against civil rights. In California, they led the opposition against racist university admissions (arguing that it is OK to punish individuals for their skin color in the name of "diversity"). They have an entire division devoted to punishing people for having the wrong skin color. (shows how the ACLU opposes due process)

Overt racial quotas to fight covert racism. A case can be made either way. If you don't like it, join the EFF or something. I said "organizations." I happen to think that the ACLU is a great example. If you don't, vote with your feet.

Elsewhere, the ACLU fights to censor the speech of individuals who happen to use religious terminology in their speech. (shows how the ACLU opposes the first amendment).

Here you get no sympathy from me. The ACLU fights to prevent government-sponsored religious speech, particularly when it favors a particular religion. If you are serious about your religion, you should be all in favor of this.

Chances are that 300 years ago, it was illegal in most parts of Europe for you to practice whatever religion you practice. It's still probably illegal to talk about it in many countries around the world, or if not, it'll get you on surveillance lists here in the states.

For example, I know of several countries, some of which you might even otherwise enjoy visiting, where merely discussing Christianity in a positive light with a citizen of that country can land you in jail for five years.

When municipalities here in the U.S. use government facilities to promote religion, they are stepping to the edge of the slippery slope that leads to just that sort of law. If you enjoy the freedom to practice your religion, you might want to think twice about getting upset about people who fight to prevent that.

Re:This is something to really ponder.

[styrotech]

It seems completely outrageous from my child-of-the-seventies perspective that there was a time when the government would have considered someone who wanted women to have the right to vote to be a terrorist.

This is why organizations like the ACLU that fight for the civil rights of anybody whose civil rights have been trampled are so important - who knows when the next Susan B. Anthony, Martin Luther King, or, heaven forfend, Richard Stallman, will rely on the precedents established by the ACLU to allow them to continue to try to make the world a better place, despite the resistance of the powers that be.


Warning: blatant oversimplication and devils advocacy coming up....

To the best of my knowledge Martin Luther King Jr and Richard Stallman didn't go around smashing windows etc*. Maybe there was a (misguided perhaps) fear the vandalism could escalate to what anarchists were doing back then eg bombings etc.

Note I'm not trying to devalue the cause**. Although I wouldn't put RMS in the quite the same class as suffragettes or the civil rights movement, all three did/do pose some threat to the 'establishments' power base. Stability of the status quo isn't always a good thing. And it would be good for governments today to recognise when that is the case.

* Although RMS probably wants to smash Windows(tm) ;)

** I'm proud that my country was the first to give women the vote, and that there was no segregation in it's history. We've done kinda ok with personal privacy issues as well.

Not Old News Yet

[Omega037]

In some places in the world, women are still seen as property or lesser individuals. While most of these places are in the Middle East and Africa, even in more developed countries it can be found. In America, there are still very few female politicians, business executives, and military leaders. In the Far East, women are often seen as second class citizens and treated as such. They believe that a womans place is to take care her husband, raise her husbands children, and obey any command of her husband.

We look at an article like this we laugh and think back at how foolish we were to think women shouldn't have the right to vote. But when we do we should also remember that this isn't just some issue long resolved, but a continuing struggle. We should look at this article and think about how truly serious this issue is. It should be apparent in the fact that the police and intelligence organizations in what are considered the great democracies of freedom did things such as this not even a century ago.