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The New War On Privacy And How We Win

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Overview

Naomi Brockwell argues that the “war on privacy” is rapidly intensifying, and that most people don’t realize how far surveillance has progressed. She frames privacy as foundational to a free society: without it, individuals lose the ability to resist power, accountability mechanisms weaken, and society becomes more self-censoring and less democratic.

Why the privacy “war” is being lost (escalation points)

  1. AI + data explosion

    • Surveillance increasingly relies on massive data collection, then “AI on top of that,” accelerating profiling and inference.
    • The central issue is not only AI, but the underlying growth of data being harvested from everyday apps and services.

  2. Third-party SDK and app-data leakage

    • Brockwell cites research (Byron Tau) to illustrate an “SDK era,” where popular apps embed analytics/collection code paid for by third parties—including government shell entities.
    • She emphasizes a knowledge imbalance: developers and users often don’t understand what data is collected, enabling targeting of specific demographics.

  3. Legal loopholes enabling government access

    • She focuses on how the third-party doctrine undermines Fourth Amendment protections in the digital age: data shared with third parties is treated as lacking “reasonable expectation of privacy,” even when contracts say otherwise.
    • She highlights laws like FISA 702, arguing it is marketed as foreign-intelligence collection but produces large numbers of queries unrelated to foreign surveillance (including domestic criminal investigations).

  4. Public-private surveillance convergence

    • She argues the government is not monolithic: different agencies buy and integrate data from private vendors.
    • Examples include:
      • ICE and Palantir contracts, including claims of use of Medicaid-related data for locating targets.
      • Flock (camera networks sold as searchable databases), including how police departments share data into a larger national system that can track individuals and their movements, infer relationships and interests.
    • She warns that this can chill activism and ordinary life (e.g., protest attendance, visiting clinics, places of worship).

  5. Identity verification and regulation spreading globally

    • Brockwell describes an international trend toward requiring IDs for digital access (including browser use), which she argues effectively creates permanent, centralized records of behavior.
    • She particularly criticizes age verification mandates (for children, but with infrastructure consequences for everyone).
    • She discusses U.S. state efforts (e.g., App Store accountability, OS-level age checks) and federal-level “digital safety” proposals creating enforceable standards through appointed bodies.
    • She points to European “chat control” efforts as an example of politicians pursuing backdoor access for encrypted messaging—even when votes fail—describing it as push-and-revote until adoption.

What’s at stake

  • Privacy loss undermines the self-correcting mechanisms of democratic society: investigative journalism, whistleblowers, independent media, opposition, and protest.
  • If surveillance becomes total and persistent, people self-censor, opposition shrinks, and accountability becomes harder because actors fear exposure.
  • Once digital records become permanent, society becomes harder to reform: opinions and contexts can be reconstructed from the past.

How to “win” (a hacker-culture playbook)

Brockwell argues the privacy movement can win despite vastly unequal resources by learning from historical cases where “unwinnable” fights succeeded.

  1. Phil Zimmermann / PGP

    • Moved fast to release strong encryption before anti-encryption laws could take hold.
    • Decentralized development and distribution so it couldn’t be easily shut down.
    • Went loud—bringing the issue into public narrative rather than leaving it in obscurity.

  2. Cult of the Dead Cow / security demos

    • Technical demonstrations can cut through spin:
      • Use working demos to show the true risk and deny claims that problems are due to user misuse.
    • Caution: message-building should be done carefully to avoid real-world harm.

  3. Clipper chip / Matt Blaze

    • A public technical proof/demo showed the government’s proposed backdoor was breakable on its own terms.
    • This helped generate coalition pressure across groups that may disagree on other issues.

Core strategic lessons she repeats

  • Make tech demos that demonstrate reality clearly.
  • Go public and loud to shape public understanding and narrative.
  • Decentralize efforts so many actors push from many angles.
  • Move fast because legal/technical capture can happen quickly.
  • Control the narrative around dignity, autonomy, and basic human rights.
  • Know the double-edged sword: understand consequences and avoid becoming destructive while advocating for privacy.

Her closing call to action is for technically capable people (especially those like the audience at a hacker-oriented event) to help spread decentralized privacy tools and amplify the work, because she believes otherwise the “future is already written.”

Presenters / contributors

  • Naomi (Naomi Brockwell) — President, Lello Institute; creator of “MBTV”; lead drafter of HR 8470 (Surveillance Accountability Act)
  • David — (unidentified by last name) emcee/speaker who introduced Brockwell
  • Mentioned figures / organizations
    • Byron Tau
    • Phil Zimmermann
    • Matt Blaze
    • Cult of the Dead Cow
    • EFF
    • EPIC
    • Forbidden Stories
    • Flock (EFF/Flock reference)
    • Microsoft (as the opponent in a Cold Dead Cow story)
    • Palantir
    • ICE
    • Flock
    • Google
    • Facebook
    • Netflix
    • DTIA/NTIA/Secretary of Commerce (as institutions in policy discussion)

Original video