Monday, June 17, 2013
Woz: This is not my America
As the passions and justifications swirl around the revelations concerning the NSA, the rest of the world sits and wonders.
Is only the U.S. involved? Or might, perhaps, every government on Earth be rather keen to use all technological methods to protect its interests?
What do ordinary Americans think (apparently, we don’t mind too much)?
But, more importantly, what does Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak think?
It so happens that Spanish language tech site FayerWayer happened upon Woz as he sat at an airport.
So often known to be obliging and spontaneous, Woz offered his thoughts. Essentially, he seemed to be reassessing his whole view of America.
He explained that he was brought up believing that other countries tortured prisoners, but America “didn’t torture them. We gave them good clothing and everything.”
“I was so proud of my country and now I find out it’s just the opposite,” Woz sighed.
Woz believes a certain decline started a few years ago.
“All these things that talk about the Constitution that made us so good as people, they’re kind of nothing. They all dissolved with the Patriot Act,” he said.
“There’s not even a free open court anymore,” he added.
He is clearly distraught about what he sees is the erosion of the America he believed in, one whose people had clear rights. Everything, in his eyes, was overturned.
Warming to his theme, he explained: “That’s what a king does. A king just goes out, has anyone rounded up, killed, puts them in prison.”
He began to compare America to Russia. It was Russia, when Woz was growing up, that followed people around and made them disappear.
“We’re getting more and more like that,” he offered, gloomily.
This trend away from the Constitution has infected ownership in the technological world, he thinks.
“Nowadays in the digital world you can hardly own anything anymore,” he said. If you put things in the cloud, someone, somewhere might disappear it and it’s gone forever.
“When we grew up, ownership was what made America different than Russia,” he explained.
Full article: http://news.cnet.com … s-is-not-my-america/
|
|
Tweet |
|
|