Students Against Mass Surveillance on Campus

Campus IT surveillance is a much more immediate invasion of privacy. It&#x27;s not just being able to see what websites you visit and when. Many enterprise networking products allow you to stalk a user around campus in real time by which wifi access point she&#x27;s connected to.<p>For instance, if you use a student ID as a wifi login, that ties your MAC address to your identity. Then the wifi access points report which MACs they&#x27;ve seen, and some (thanks Cisco) let you query historical data by MAC. This has legitimate uses for tracking stolen items but frequently no privacy controls or oversight.<p>Add a little machine learning and you can also identify people&#x27;s associates with decent accuracy.

Well, it is hard to sell this to a friend of mine who got mugged in broad day light on a weekend on campus. If it was not for a surveillance camera, the thugs would still be roaming free.<p>Not only did the surveillance help in nabbing the criminals in a short time, it also helped prevent the same happen to other students as the thieves were caught looking for other scapegoats near by.<p>What is needed is oversight on this technology. Not outright banning. There is good and bad for any technology, surveillance is no different.

Bad premises<p>&quot;In societies where there is mass surveillance, it’s harder for people to think, learn, and explore. &quot;<p>US, England, France, Germany, Sweden have mass surveillance. All leaders in progress, innovations, and exploration.<p>Cuba, Venezuela, Vietnam, Brazil, Argentina, Greece, Iraq, .....you get the idea. They don&#x27;t.<p>&quot;Privacy is important not only for students and academics, but also for journalists, lawyers, activists, doctors, entrepreneurs -- anyone who wants to think and act freely without worrying about who is watching them and why.&quot;<p>In this country, we have freedom of press. Much more important than privacy. Surveillance doesn&#x27;t prevent you from acting freely. Living in an authoritorian country does. So you can&#x27;t curse out the president and hold protests.<p>&quot;Additionally, privacy helps ensure that everyone in our society is treated fairly, no matter their religion, sexuality, race, or other traits.&quot;<p>What? Huh?

&gt; The ability of students to learn and grow is severely hampered when governments monitor our communications and social media activity.<p>Is there any evidence of this? Why would monitoring students&#x27; social media activity and emails negatively affect their ability to learn?