“Person of Interest”: The TV Show That Predicted Edward Snowden (2014)
newyorker.com
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After you get past the first season, (if you accept the premise of an omniscient, digitally omnipotent artificial superintelligence that oversees the world), there are really very few technical errors.
In the first season, your standard crime-drama tech mistakes apply (malformed IP addresses, someone invading a computer system with a DDoS, randomly placed PCB overlays, etc.)
As the show progressed in to its second and third seasons, I was surprised to see the protagonists' computers sporting GNOME taskbars.
EDIT: There are its fair share of minor discrepancies in various things like shell syntax and code formatting (like using Greek symbols in C code), but the point I was trying to make is that PoI's accuracy was overall very impressive. This impressiveness is amplified when compared with a series like CSI: Cyber, a show which does a far worse job of writing believable technobabble and designing realistic UIs, despite such things being arguably more critical to CSI: Cyber.
Another show that did some awesome science fiction in the last few years was Continuum. A lot of it was heavily based on the concept of corporations (particularly tech corporations) gaining a strong influence in or control over our government. To the extent of having a 'corporate congress'.
In was also amazing that it was a CBS show, given their typical fare.
It's definitely grown into a more story-arc driven show, and the Numbers have become more often than not relevant to the ongoing plot.
Does Keith Alexander speak in the voice of bumblebee from transformers? Is it safe to answer the payphones in Bryant Park? Did Ed Snowden also rescue Jesus from the NYPD? And if he didn't, who will.
Isn't that more a description of cyberpunk than scifi?
What is the problem is that given this mountain of data and a dollop of selective enforcement could mean the end of democracy as we currently know it. It doesn't have to happen overnight, it doesn't have to happen everywhere. But it might be enough to tip the balance in favor of a world that we'd all recognize as something to avoid. And how to illustrate this without pointing to horrors past and without seeming to be undue alarmist is becoming harder and harder.
Having 'nothing to hide' is the mantra by which many people make their decisions and cast their support, and programs like 'earnest voice' are seeding the crowds with distracting talking points.
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-ope...
as for your second point -- i'm not sure it's not happening right now.
That's both the curse and the beauty of it. As the perpetrators of such a scheme you could totally get away with it and we'd all be as oblivious about it as could be.
Johnny has ambitions to go and make some real and unfortunate changes, let's give him a really well paying job and shower him with toys until he's distracted to the point of giving up his ambitions. Manipulation works better the more subtle it is and the longer before a certain course of action the smaller the deviation from the path to avoid the course of action entirely.
I got much the same feeling from later eps as I did watching Ex Machina : "Yes, this is fiction and highly speculative fiction at that but holy fuck, for once someone has actually bothered to do some research on the technology and the philosophical implications"
So if like me you dropped this, be sure to pick it back up, you won't be disappointed.
[0] And thus we can be sure that real life is not like TV because if it were nearly everyone in the US would be part of an unlikely and seemingly mismatched but somehow highly successful crime (including monsters) fighting team.
He did plan, and took considerable risks to get the access that he needed. That is what's so bloody impressive.
A generally impressive human, in many ways.
And that's precisely why all that data collection is so scary, such individuals will be shunted onto dead-end tracks long before they even realize they are such individuals in the future.
Edit: spelling
Did he ever give an answer to that?
They're actually the only countries that he could have escaped safely to and only countries where he could lead a relatively safe life due to their security apparatus. There isn't a single other country in the world that could have resisted the full pressure of US government. Not a single one! Yes, I know that Ecuador offered him asylum but they cooled down on it [0] and backtracked when US State Department started bearing down on them. Venezuela is also not a great option due to their instability (US friendly gov is only one coup away) and due to the fact that it's crawling with mercenaries.
>It feels like maybe he could've chosen one of the extradition free countries he eventually wanted asylum in as his first destination... since nobody knew what he had done before he left the country.
Extradition-free doesn't mean that he'd be safe from pressure of the US legal/espionage/economic power, spies, assassins, mercenaries and so on. [1] Which country do you think would shelter him if it risked economic sanctions from US, NATO and EU?
>Did he ever give an answer to that?
No, but Assange said that getting him to Russia was their priority because it was the only safe option for him and they'd be able to withstand the pressure of US diplomacy and law enforcement. He owes his life to Sarah Harrison and Julian Assange. [2] Without them he'd probably be dead or in prison or in some black site being tortured. He is also incredibly lucky that US started sanctioning Russia before he decided to seek asylum there so a threat of sanctions didn't phase Putin in the slightest.
[0] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/28/edward-snowden-...
[1] http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/aug/29/julian-assange-...
[2] https://www.rt.com/news/313829-assange-advise-snowden-russia...
My opinion is that Cuba didn't want him either because Raul Castro wanted to normalize relations with the US and not antagonize Obama's administration. I think Obama is due to visit Cuba soon as well. All that would not have been possible with Snowden there.
Snowden would also have a really hard time getting to Cuba from Hong Kong. Maybe on a ship through Panama? But ships can be easily intercepted and boarded by the US Navy in international waters.
And living in Cuba, which is economically depressed, would have been really hard for him. He wouldn't even have a stable internet connection to pilot his presence robot or give talks.
Another possible option was North Korea, and while he would have been safe there from the long arm of the US law, his life would have been horrible and he probably would have ended up brainwashed and would have become some kind of a propaganda puppet for Kim.
All in all, he picked the best option and a lot of it is due to sheer luck.