2 Opinion Page
2 Opinion Page November 2 2021 | World and Press We all like to snoop just as much as big tech By James Marriott INTERNET The internet has normalised surveillance, and monitoring other people is now part of everyday life. 1 DAVE EGGERS’S novel ‘The Circle’, a prophetic melodrama about the coming horrors of big tech, ends with the most hairraising internet privacy crisis in fiction. One of the protagonists, a despairing technophobe named Mercer, drives his truck over a cliff as he is pursued by a squadron of camera drones. The drones do not want to kill Mercer, merely to transmit footage of his every word and gesture to an appreciative audience of 0 – 1 TO SNOOP(coll) herumschnüffeln — surveillance “s‰…"veIl´ns‘ Überwachung — to monitor beobachten — horrors Schrecken — hair-raising furchterregend — technophobe Technikhasser(in) — to pursue “p´"sju…‘ verfolgen — squadron “"skwÅdr´n‘ Geschwader — to transmit übertragen — footage “"fUtIdZ‘ Filmmaterial — gesture “"dZestS´‘ Geste — appreciative audience “´"pri… S´tIv‘ dankbares Publikum 2 – 4 to track; s.w.u. to keep track of s.th. etw. nachverfolgen — sinister “"---‘ düster und bedrohlich — subsequently “"søbsIkw´ntli‘ daraufhin — to become accustomed to doing “´"køst´md‘ s. daran gewöhnen zu tun — to intrude into eindringen in; s.w.u. intrusion “In"tru…Z´n‘ Eindringen — to judge s.th. etw. bewerten; s.w.u. to be judgmental “dZødZ"ment´l‘ ein (vorschnelles) Urteil fällen 5 fundamental condition Grundvoraussetzung — casual(ly) “"kœZju´li‘; s.w.u. promiscuously “pr´"mIs kju´sli‘ beiläufig — semi-suspicious “Æ--s´"spIS´s‘ halb arg wöhnisch — security guard Wachmann(-frau) — slumped zus.gesunken — bank Reihe — CCTV display screen Überwachungsbildschirm — semi-conscious The Times comment Training | mündl. Prüfung millions. “This,” the spectators agree as Mercer’s car smashes through the concrete barriers guarding the mountain path, “was the greatest viewing experience of their lives.” 2 We are familiar with the idea that the internet is a surveillance state, that as we cross its territory our almost every move is tracked by the algorithms of Facebook or Google. But in his book, Eggers saw something more sinister: that ordinary people would become just as keen to monitor their fellow citizens as tech companies are. And once we – the citizen informants of the internet’s surveillance state – got used to keeping track of one another online, we would start to do the same in real life, too. 3 Take a handful of examples from the last year or so. ... A lawyer at the City firm Hogan Lovells left the company after a rival filmed him watching pornography at his desk. A woman walking her dog in Central Park in New York was filmed shouting at a birdwatcher and subsequently lost her job. “Æ--"kÅnS´s‘ teilweise unbewusst — vigilance “"vIdZIl´ns‘ Wachsamkeit 6 – 7 to augment “O…g"ment‘ verstärken — to engage with s.th. s. an etw. beteiligen — narcissistically “ÆnA… sI"sIstIk´li‘ narzisstisch — spoiled verwöhnt — entitlement Anspruchshaltung — Roman römisch — emperor Kaiser — pernicious “p´"nIS´s‘ schädlich; bösartig — to impose s.th. on s.th. e-e S. auf etw. übertragen 8 performance Leistung — to assign a rating e-e Bewertung abgeben — to connote s.th. für etw. stehen — to be reminiscent of s.th. “ÆremI"nIs´nt‘ an etw. erinnern — invariably “In"ve´ri´bli‘ ausnahmslos — precariously employed “prI"ke´ri´sli‘ prekär beschäftigt 9 – 10 departure Abkehr — to encode einschreiben — proverbial wisdom “pr´"v‰…bi´l‘ Sprichwörter — scepticism “"skeptIsIz´m‘ Skepsis — to assume einnehmen — judge not lest ye be judged (fig) richtet nicht, auf dass ihr nicht gerichtet werdet — walk a mile in someone else’s shoes (fig) s. in jdn. hineinversetzen — sealed environment abgeschlossene Umgebung — arena Bühne — mutual “"mju…tSu´l‘ gegenseitig 4 Whatever you think of the behaviour of those people, the fact they were filmed at all is evidence of a new social norm created by the internet: over the past decade or so we have become accustomed to intruding into other people’s private lives and judging what we see. 5 The fundamental condition of being online is one of casual surveillance, the constant semisuspicious monitoring of other people’s private lives. Scrolling through Facebook and Twitter we are like security guards slumped in front of banks of CCTV display screens, casually accepting our unseen intrusion into other people’s private lives and in a permanent stage of semi-conscious moral vigilance, waiting for the moment our intervention may be required. 6 This attitude is augmented by the basic mechanisms through which we engage with social media: like or don’t like, upvote or downvote. … Over the last decade or so we have become narcissistically accustomed to the idea that our approval matters. We monitor this little world in our pockets with the spoiled entitlement of Roman emperors: all-seeing and all-judging. Thumbs up, thumbs down, thumbs up, thumbs down. 7 Most pernicious, perhaps, are the service apps which explicitly impose the internet habit of surveillance on the real world. Ordering a car on Uber or a meal on Deliveroo, you watch the satellite progress of the driver approaching your house. If he were to stop for a cigarette or a sandwich you would see that and you might quite easily find yourself judging him. 8 When the food or the car arrives, the apps invite you to assess the performance of the driver. On Uber, you can assign a star rating and then press a little cartoon connoting a particular attribute. These images, it has always struck me, are reminiscent of the emojis Facebook offers its users to react to posts with. And it is at this point that the circle closes: we now watch and respond to a class of people (who, it should be said, are almost invariably poorer and more precariously employed than we are) as if they were not human beings but posts. 9 This feeling that it is our right to see so much and to judge so promiscuously represents an important psychological departure from the pre-internet society which encoded in its proverbial wisdom a deep scepticism about our right to assume positions of moral authority over other people: “don’t be so judgmental”, “judge not lest ye be judged”, “walk a mile in someone else’s shoes”. … 10 If there is hope, it is that the internet itself has been becoming more private for several years now, as users prefer to communicate in the sealed environments of WhatsApp chats and specialised Facebook groups rather than in the dangerous public arenas of Twitter or on Facebook’s newsfeed. If the end of our present era of mass mutual surveillance is to come at all, it will come, rather ironically, from the internet. © The Times, London/News Licensing This article originally appeared in The Times, London. mit Interpretation impressum ISSN 0509-1632 Britney Spears media coverage. | Cartoon: Dave Granlund, PoliticalCartoons.com World and Press erscheint 2 × monatlich (Juli und Dezember als Doppelausgabe) in der Carl Ed. 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World and Press | November 2 2021 In Focus 3 Does the European Union need its own army? EUROPEAN UNION The Afghanistan withdrawal revives an old debate. By Reis Thebault and Quentin Ariès 1 WHEN President Joe Biden refused to keep U.S. troops in Afghanistan past the Aug. 31 deadline, European leaders argued this forced them to end their evacuation efforts early, despite thousands of citizens and allies still trying to escape the country. The chaotic withdrawal, which has already prompted soulsearching among Western partners, is now reviving a decadesold debate within the European Union: Does the 27-nation club need its own military? 2 The E.U. is in its most idealistic sense a peace project. Economic interdependence was supposed to ward off conflicts between members – and it has created the world’s largest trading bloc. While acknowledging that clout, some of its most prominent politicians have argued for years that to become a true global power, the E.U. needs its own defense force, one that is independent of the U.S.–European NATO alliance and does not rely on the United States. 3 The subject is controversial, and the geopolitics are fraught. Many experts say the prospect of rolling out a free-standing E.U. military anytime soon is unrealistic. But the clamoring, which subsided somewhat after Biden’s election, has intensified in recent days as European countries abruptly ended their evacuations ahead of the final American flight out of the Kabul airport. 4 E.U. foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, asserted that his proposed joint rapid-deployment force of 5,000 troops could have helped to secure the airport, and that a coordinated European security strategy would have allowed the bloc more influence European Union Military Committee Chairman General Claudio Graziano (center, left), NATO Military Committee Chairman Air Chief Marshal Sir Stuart Peach (center, right) and EU Chiefs of Defense in May 2021 in Brussels. | Photo: Picture Alliance over the “timing and nature of the withdrawal.” “The only way forward is to combine our forces and strengthen not only our capacity but also our will to act,” Borrell said following a meeting of E.U. defense ministers in Slovenia on Thursday. 5 Other leaders have argued for “strategic autonomy,” an ill-defined E.U. buzzphrase that refers to the need for the bloc to become more self-sufficient on a range of issues, especially its security. French President Emmanuel Macron is one of the concept’s biggest boosters and has been calling for a “true European army” since he took office – while at one point criticizing NATO as brain dead. 6 Some nations, especially the Baltic states, remain wary of duplicating NATO’s efforts and would be unlikely to support a new joint force. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who once endorsed Macron’s suggestion for an army, has nonetheless been a staunch supporter of NATO, as well as the U.S. military bases in her country. … 7 The renewed debate among European leaders reflects a growing frustration with Biden, who told the world that “America is back” but has pursued foreign policies that echo some of his predecessor’s positions. 8 “What happened in Afghanistan was a defining moment,” said Nathalie Loiseau, who chairs the European Parliament’s subcommittee on security and defense. When the United States decided to pull out, there was scant coordination with allies, she said. Biden dismissed European calls for a “conditions-based withdrawal”, and he refused to extend the deadline for pulling out. “The U.S. does not want to be the world’s policeman,” said Loiseau, a member of Macron’s political party. “Now, Europeans must stop focusing on what the U.S. does or does not do.” 9 Despite the vigorous recent rhetoric, the idea of a European military remains in some corners of the continent a fantasy and in others a punchline. Analysts say, at the very least, there are significant obstacles. 10 Nathalie Tocci, who pushed for the inclusion of strategic autonomy in a 2016 document laying out the E.U.’s defense doctrine, said the political will to create and deploy such a force no longer exists. “There is not enough oomph behind all this politically to translate it into something practical,” said Tocci, the director of the Istituto Affari Internazionali, a global-affairs think tank. “We are just not prepared to see body bags coming home, and Afghanistan is not going to change that. It’s a political question that Europeans keep on ducking.” … 11 One major roadblock to a joint force – or even a coordinated security strategy – is the E.U. requirement that member states make foreign policy decisions unanimously, said Azeem Ibrahim, a director at the Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy. The unanimity rule has long stalled the bloc’s decision-making process. “European foreign policy is completely dysfunctional,” Ibrahim said. “The European Union does not sing with the same voice in the fashion that it used to. Even if you could physically create it, the probability of all the countries unanimously agreeing on a particular course of action is practically impossible.” 12 Some countries have asked the E.U. to invoke an obscure law that would allow member states to move forward with a “coalition of the willing” after a simple majority vote. Borrell backs this plan, but the provision has never been used. 13 Another thorny question about a joint force: Who would pay for it? The E.U. has earmarked more than billion for the European Defense Fund through 2027, but experts say individual countries would also need to boost their own spending. This could be a challenge, considering that only nine European countries are on track to spend at least 2% of their GDP on defense this year, fulfilling a NATO agreement. … 14 Advocates of [an E.U. force] have been careful to stress that a stronger Europe would improve the transatlantic alliance not fray it further. “If you want to go all the way to strategic autonomy, you do have to have a European command – you can’t keep pretending you can follow the NATO command structure,” said Fabrice Pothier, a former NATO policy chief. “That will indeed create some friction with NATO and possibly with the U.S. and the U.K. But on the other hand, it’s up to the European Union to explain, ‘This is for us to use when you don’t want to step in and do something.’” … © 2021 The Washington Post 0 – 2 WITHDRAWAL“wID"drO…´l‘ Rückzug; Abzug — to revive wieder aufleben lassen — evacuation efforts “IÆvœkju"eIS´n‘ Evakuierungsaktionen — allies “"œlaIz‘ Verbündete — to prompt auslösen — soul-searching Gewissensprüfung — interdependence gegenseitige Abhängigkeit — to ward off “wO…d‘ verhindern — to acknowledge “´k"nÅlIdZ‘ anerkennen — clout “klaUt‘ (coll) Einfluss — defense force Streitkraft 3 geopolitics h.: geopolit. Verhältnisse — fraught “frO…t‘ angespannt — to roll out einführen — free-standing; s.w.u. self-sufficient “Æ-s´"fIS´nt‘ unabhängig — clamoring “"klœm´rIN‘ lautstarke Forderungen — to subside nachlassen 4 – 5 E.U. foreign policy chief EU-Außenbeauftragte(r) — to assert “´"s‰…t‘ behaupten — rapid-deployment force schnelle Eingreiftruppe; s.w.u. to deploy einsetzen — to combine bündeln — ill-defined nicht näher definiert — buzzphrase (coll) Modeausdruck — booster (AE) Befürworter(in) — to take office ein Amt antreten 6 – 7 wary skeptisch — to duplicate kopieren — chancellor Kanzler(in) — to endorse; s.w.u. to back befürworten — nonetheless dennoch — staunch “stO…nS‘ entschieden — to pursue “p´"sju…‘ verfolgen — to echo s.th. “"ek´U‘ an etw. erinnern — predecessor “"pri…dIÆses´‘ Vorgänger(in) 8 – 9 defining entscheidend — to chair den Vorsitz haben — subcommittee Unterausschuss — to pull out abziehen — scant wenig — to dismiss ablehnen — conditions-based s. an den Bedingungen orientierend — vigorous “"vIg´r´s‘ energisch — punchline Witz — obstacle “"Åbst´k´l‘ Hindernis 10 inclusion “In"klu…Z´n‘ Aufnahme — to lay s.th out etw. darlegen — oomph (coll) Schwung — to translate s.th. into s.th. practical etw. in die Praxis umsetzen — body bag Leichensack — to duck s.th. etw. ausweichen 11 – 12 roadblock (fig) Hindernis — unanimously “ju…"nœnIm´sli‘ einstimmig; s.w.u. unanimity “Æju…n´"nIm´ti‘ Einstimmigkeit — to stall ins Stocken bringen — to sing with the same voice (fig) s. einig sein — fashion Weise — course of action Vorgehen — to invoke s.th. s. auf etw. berufen — coalition of the willing Koalition der Willigen — simple majority vote “m´"dZÅr´ti‘ einfacher Mehrheitsbeschluss — provision Regelung 13 thorny question heikle Frage — to earmark vorsehen — billion Milliarde — European Defense Fund Europ. Verteidigungsfonds — spending Ausgaben — to be on track to do auf dem Weg sein zu tun — GDP = gross domestic product Bruttoinlandsprodukt — to fulfill an agreement s. an e-e Vereinbarung halten 14 advocate “"œdv´k´t‘ Befürworter(in) — to be careful to stress immer wieder betonen — to fray anspannen — command Kommando — command structure Befehlsstruktur — friction Reibereien — to step in eingreifen
