Musings on Metadata retention:

The State compels telcos to retain metadata.

Telcos briefly push back until the State wins and telcos capitulate.

The State then gains access to significantly more metadata and therefore becomes more powerful.

The State does this in secrecy so the public are none the wiser.

Telcos then start to freely hand over more metadata because they are beaten down and want to take the path of least resistance.

Because the public are unaware of what’s happening they are unable to organise themselves to use the democratic process to enact change.

The State becomes even more powerful, the private sector becomes complicit and weaker and the public have an exponentially more difficult path to trod to try and enact change.

Government then uses metadata to attack political opponents, whistleblowers and journalists, further weakening attempts to elicit change.

Journalists are less likely to engage in investigatory journalism if they know that every move they make is being watched by the State. This Further limits the public’s ability to gain knowledge on the specifics of metadata retention. No knowledge, no power.

Privacy tools are more focused on obfuscating content, not metadata further speeding up the invasion of privacy flywheel.

We should treat metadata with the same reverence we treat private communications content.