Greenwald Advises Market-Based Solution to Mass Surveillance

Nicola Hahn writes: In his latest Intercept piece Glenn Greenwald considers the recent defeat of the Senate's USA Freedom Act. He remarks that governments "don’t walk around trying to figure out how to limit their own power." Instead of appealing to an allegedly irrelevant Congress Greenwald advocates utilizing the power of consumer demand to address the failings of cyber security. Specifically he argues that companies care about their bottom line and that the trend of customers refusing to tolerate insecure products will force companies to protect user privacy, implement encryption, etc.

All told Greenwald’s argument is very telling: that society can rely on corporate interests for protection. Is it true that representative government is a lost cause and that lawmakers would never knowingly yield authority? Looking back at the past couple of decades have Silicon Valley companies demonstrated that they view security as anything other than a marketing scheme? Noise for rubes. After all of the lies can we trust hi-tech vendors to be honest? There are people who think that advising citizens to devolve into consumers is a dubious proposition.