Edward Snowden - Freedom fighter or traitor?

When Edward Snowden leaked the NSA documents to the world, it was revealed in details how the government-agencies around the world are spying on us. The leaks led to Edward Snowden being a fugitive in Hong Kong, from where he had to flee to Russia, where he spent almost 5 weeks in the terminal of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport (The Guardian)

By many activists on the internet, Snowden is seen upon as a hero and a freedom fighter, while other parties such a the US government think of Snowden as a traitor and a threat to the national security.

By leaking such extensive information describing the surveillance-systems around the world, Snowden gave potential terrorists useful information, which can cause a threat to the US and the rest of the world. By doing this, Snowden put the public in danger and can be considered as a traitor.

But putting the world in danger was not the intention Snowden had in mind with the leaks of the documents. He did so in the hope, that he could change the way we are monitored.

M.G Michael and Katina Michael says the following about freedom:

First, freedom implies not only being “free of chains” in the practical sense, to be permitted to go about one’s daily business freely and without undue constraint, but nowadays also without your every move being tracked, monitored, and recorded.

(Michael and Michael, 2011, p. 11)

With the leaks, it became clear how far from this definition of freedom we are. Instead of being free we are being monitored 24/7 and even when taking measures like encrypting our communication online, we are in the risk of being monitored. (Gigaom.com: NSA hacked unto encrypted communications)

By allowing our governments to monitor us, so they can “protect” us, we also allow them to limit our freedom and our freedom of speech. An example of this is when the UK newspaper, The Guardian had to delete information it had on the Snowden case.

The leaks of Snowden can harm put people in danger, but it seems like a necessity, to keep dystopias like George Orwell’s “1984” as fiction.

References:

http://gigaom.com/2013/08/25/nsa-hacked-into-un-communications-leaked-documents-show/

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/01/edward-snowden-leaves-moscow-airport-livee

M.G. Michael and Katina Michael, 2011:  "The Fall-Out from Emerging Technologies: on Matters of Surveillance, Social Networks and Suicide", IEEE Technology and Society Magazine 30.3

How music changed the way I see the world..

“Without music life would be a mistake”

– Friedrich Nietzsche

Music is one of the most important things in my life,, and I can not imagine a life without it.
Music has changed my life, and the way I see the world and the people in it.

Living as a teenager in Denmark, the amount of radio-stations playing music was limited. One day my high-school teacher installed Napster on the computers in our classroom and I can still to this day recall the feeling I had when I first opened it, searched for a song and was able to download it within 10 minutes. It was amazing and for me, very addictive. I started to go further in the search of my daily kick of finding new music and started hanging out on IRC-chatrooms (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Relay_Chat), where people would share their passion for new music and share with the others.

The way we shared music with strangers can be described with the way Jan Pieterseen describes one of the factors of globalization:

“Globalization crosses boundaries of government and business, media and social movements, general and academic interest.” (Nederveen Pietersen, 2004, p. 7)

Even though we were pirates and most of the people never bought any music, we shared the same passion, and soon started friendships because of this. Because of this I met a lot of cultures I would never have thought about meeting and shattered a lot of my prejudices I had about various sub-cultures.

An example to this is the heavy –and death metal culture. Before I got to know heavy-metal fanatics, I thought most of them were some form of violent bikers that would hate a ‘regular’ guy like me, who were not dressed from top to toe in black and head banging. As it turned it this was not at all true, and I got to realize that heavy-metal fans are some of the most pleasant people in the world and are very passionate about "non-violence" at the concerts/festivals.

Copenhell Festival 2011, courtesy of bt.dk

I was surprised by the diversity in the heavy-metal culture, where you see people from all over the world, different cultures, age and professions. Through my passion for this genre of music, I got to know people from all over the world, students to lawyers, all connected through their passion for the music.


References

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Relay_Chat

Nederveen Pieterse, J, 2004, Globalization: consensus and controversies, Globalization and culture: global mélange, Rowan & Littlefield, Lanham, Md.

Copenhell 2011 picture: http://a.bimg.dk/node-images/219/4/620x411-c/4219389-copenhell.jpg

Are we all pirates?

“You wouldn’t steal a car?” A lot of people have seen this slogan in a trailer before the start of a movie in the cinemas. A slogan invented by the American organization, MPAA, in the fight against movie-pirates. The trailer is one of many campaigns by big corporations like MPAA, RIAA and various other anti-piracy organizations around the world in the battle against the pirating of intellectual property, that spread like wildfire with applications like Napster and Torrent-sites in the 90s and into the new century.

A lot of these anti-piracy organizations used questionable methods in the fight against piracy, which involved methods such as raiding private homes and suing underage kids. (RIAA attacks 10 year old, Boing Boing).

By running these campaigns and suing people for, the anti-piracy organizations were devaluating the ‘pirates’ (Martin, Moore and Salter, 2010).

This did not only affect the people illegally downloading movies and music, but also the creative artists trying to produce new content to share with the world.

As example of this, is “The Grey Album” by DJ Danger Mouse, aka Brian Burton. (Martin, Moore and Salter, 2010).

The album was banned by the EMI, which caused an uprising, that lead to “Grey Tuesday”, where the album was made online on several websites for the public to download. (Martin, Moore and Salter, 2010).

The Grey Album, courtesy of Mixstream.com

As Mr Burton later on became successful working with other projects including Gorillaz, Gnarls Barkley and The Black Keys, we can say that the whole incident had a happy ending.

The same cannot be said for a lot of other artists still struggling with strict laws to protect the artists and the intellectual property. Artists should be credited for their work, but how can we encourage creativity when the copyright-laws are to strict?


References:


‘RIAA attacks 10 year old”, Boing Boing, March 25, 2007: http://boingboing.net/2007/03/25/riaa-attacks-10yrold.html

Martin, B, Moore, C and Salter, C, 2010, ‘Sharing music files: tactics of a challenge to the industry’, First Monday, vol. 15, no. 12

"The Grey Album", http://static.mixstream.com/mixstream/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/GreyAlbum-1.jpg

Globalization and me

Rantanen defines globalization as follows:

Globalization is a process in which worldwide economic, political, cultural and social relations have become increasingly mediated across time and space.

(Rantanen, 2005, p 8)

This definition, even though it may be a bit broad is what I would consider being one of the most spot-on definitions of what globalization really is and what effects it has on our daily lives. Being in Australia means that I am approximately 16.000 km away from home. This it a huge distance, but does the distance really mean anything in globalized world, where I with a few clicks on a computer a smartphone can get in touch with my friends and family in Denmark within seconds?

For this blog post I decided to do a Skype-interview with my mother, and ask her about how the information flows and the use of digital media has influenced her life in the recent years.

When I asked my mother on how she feels digital media has influenced her life, the first thing that came to her mind was Facebook and Skype. Skype is an essential necessity for my parents to communicate with my brother and me, as I am currently here, in Australia, and my brother lives on Malta.

My mother never really believed Facebook would have any significant impact, and thought of Facebook as a useless gimmick. Her opinion of the site changed, and after using it for more than two years now, she says it has become an essential part of her live. She says that the use of Facebook enables her to communicate with, and follow the lives of former colleagues, friends, and family. For her, the information flows in the recent years has become an integrated part of her life, and even though she lived for more than 60 years without using the internet, she can not imagine a life without it now.

References:

Rantanen, T 2005, The media and globalization, Sage, London