SPECIAL REPORT from The F Word! PEN America liked me so much on Tuesday that they invited me to cover another event last night. So all you Law Street readers get to listen to the melodious sound of my voice an extra time this week. Lucky you.

Anyway! Together with independent researchers at the FDR Group, PEN published a report this week titled Chilling Effects, which found that writers in the U.S. are self-censoring in response to reports of widespread NSA surveillance. Thanks for scaring the crap out of all of us, Edward Snowden!

According to the report, 85% of surveyed writers are actively worrying about government surveillance, and are watching what they say as a result. Twenty-eight percent have reigned in or eliminated their use of social media, 24% have purposely avoided discussing certain topics via phone or email, and 16% have avoided writing or speaking about sensitive subjects. PEN writers report taking surveillance for granted—they simply assume they’re being monitored—and they’re choosing their words wisely so as to avoid harm.

Thanks PEN America!

Folks, this is what censorship looks like.

And it’s real. As a follow-up to Chilling Effects’ publication, PEN hosted a panel discussion last night in conjunction with the ACLU and the Fordham University School of Law. It was, to put it mildly, chilling.

The panel consisted of four men, all of whom had varying levels of expertise on the NSA and government surveillance. They each addressed the audience with separate, 15-minute presentations. If you want to hear them speak for themselves, you can view the live feed here.

Join us live! http://t.co/6fuvleyjLc #WTHarm pic.twitter.com/ATjoqF3uhg

— PENamerican (@PENamerican) November 15, 2013

But really, who needs to watch an hour and a half video when you’ve got me to recap it for you?

The panelists gave us an incredible look into the world of surveillance, from a historical overview of the NSA’s beginnings, right down to their personal experiences with harassment and persecution. According to James Bamford—the only guy who wore a business suit—the NSA got its start in a Manhattan townhouse back in the 1920s. As a top-secret government agency created to assist the World War I effort, this pre-NSA got a copy of every telegram that went in or out of the country.

That’s a lot of paper.

Fast forward to present day and the NSA isn’t just courting the phone or telegram companies—they’ve got software providers in their back pocket. Not to mention, the technological realities of cloud computing and social media mean the NSA doesn’t really have to ask. As fellow panelist and tech-guru Bruce Schneier remarked last night, “We are all leaving digital footprints throughout our lives,” and they’re anyone’s to follow.

Bruce Schneier – aging hippie extraordinaire. Courtesy of Terry Robinson via Flickr.

So what really happens when the NSA follows our tracks? Ariel Dorfman, a Chilean-American playwright and novelist, knows firsthand—he lived in Chile during Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship. Dorfman went into exile abroad shortly after Pinochet took office, but was allowed to return in 1983, before the regime’s fall. His poignant description of the Chile he came back to illustrated the fears he had for the future of the U.S.

“People had learned to suspect everyone and everything,” he said, describing friends who had once been open and outspoken as having transformed into guarded strangers. “Chile had become synonymous with silence.”

Indeed, when Dorfman had to dictate a dissenting op-ed over the phone, he was plagued with fear. He described experiencing a panic attack, worrying that the Chilean secret police would arrest and harm his family after eavesdropping on his conversation.

Ariel Dorfman — total bad ass. Courtesy of Robin Kirk via Flickr.

Thankfully, those fears never came true, but American journalist Glenn Greenwald hasn’t been so lucky.  Greenwald is the (in)famous reporter who broke the Edward Snowden leaks, and he spoke on the panel via Skype—an irony he made note of, as the video-calling software is owned by Microsoft, one of the NSA’s most loyal information suppliers.

But there were no other options. A resident of Rio de Janeiro, Greenwald can’t return to the U.S. for fear of being arrested for his NSA coverage. In fact, he’s not travelling at all—and for good reason. This past August, Greenwald’s partner, David Miranda, was detained for nine hours by officials at Heathrow Airport in London. They ultimately let him go, but confiscated his electronics first, claiming to be concerned that he was involved in terrorism and espionage.

Essentially, Greenwald and Dorfman are living proof of the fact that government surveillance is scary as shit. And that’s not just because of dystopian what-if scenarios, where all of us paranoiacs predict a turn towards the terror of Pinochet’s Chile.

It’s because, as Greenwald put it, if you want to challenge the powers that be, “the ability to communicate in private is an absolute prerequisite of that.” Without it, we’re incapable of engaging in dissent.

“The minute you know you’re being watched, the less free you become,” Greenwald said.

He’s right, and the crowd agreed. One audience member, J.L. White, stood up to suggest that we seriously consider impeaching President Obama. And after exacerbating the war in Afghanistan, using drones to kill American citizens, and pumping up the NSA’s surveillance efforts, no one in the room disagreed with her.

“What Bush did, Obama put on steroids,” said Bamford, validating White’s point.

But it’s not a hopeless situation. Dorfman expressed optimism, even as he sees alarming parallels between the Obama administration and Pinochet’s.

“They’re going to screw it up,” he said, reminding us that despite all of the surveillance, the government has still been wrong about important events. No one saw the Arab Spring coming, or the Boston Marathon bombing. At the end of the day, our wardens are laughably incompetent.

And while they blunder about, trying to consolidate all the minutiae of our digital lives into something useful, there are tons of people fighting back.

Ben Doernberg is one of them. Another Brooklyn resident, Ben quit his full-time job to organize for Restore the Fourth, a national coalition of grassroots activists agitating against government surveillance. I approached him after the panel, as he stood near the exit, recruiting people to join him in the good fight.

“I just want people to not fall into the trap of just learning more is all you have to do,” he said of the night’s event. “You have to actually do something.”

Will we? It’s hard to tell. With writers self-censoring, journalists and whistleblowers living in exile, and civilians cowering under the fear of terrorism, it’s easy to see how the surveillance state could continue growing.

But Ariel Dorfman, always looking on the bright side, sees hope.

“Fear is contagious, but so is courage,” he said, urging everyone in the room to take a stand.

So what will you do? Tell us in the comments! (Just remember, the government’s watching.)

—

Featured image courtesy of [Truthout.org via Flickr]

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post YOU’RE BEING WATCHED RIGHT NOW: Here’s What To Do About It appeared first on Law Street.

Last night, my lovely editors here at Law Street sent me to cover PEN America’s “Talking Transitions” event. Go, they said. It will be interesting, they said.

Fuck yeah it was!

Basically, a whole bunch of writers gathered in a super-fancy tent at the intersection of Sixth Avenue and Canal Street, and addressed Mayor-Elect de Blasio town hall style. One by one, they got up on stage, and read approximately three-minute speeches about how they’d like to see him differentiate his administration from Bloomberg’s.

Yes, every single person read their speech. Writers, am I right? We could all use a serious public speaking class.

Anyway! There were about 20 or so speakers, addressing an audience of maybe a hundred. And there were tons of professional photographers trolling about, not to mention an incredibly expensive looking video camera set up in the back. Very official. I’m hoping the videotape will ultimately be sent to Mayor de Blasio, since he—shocker!—was not in attendance last night.

No show. Courtesy of Jon Mannion via Flickr.

So why should all you legal junkies care about a bunch of writers gathering to bitch about Bloomberg? Like, don’t we all do that in our apartments every night, sans fancy cameras?

Yes. Yes, we do. But here’s why you should care.

PEN America is a surprisingly influential group of people. Its member list is huge, and includes people like Toni Morrison, David Sedaris, and (really?) Molly Ringwald. This is an organization with clout, and it’s got a little army of writers whose words literally have power to influence public policy.

Also, most of the speakers were politically focused and highly self-aware. Last night wasn’t about flowers and poetry, it was about policy.

Let’s get into that, shall we?

First of all—a quick note about the speakers. Being who I am, I took a little tally as they each graced the stage, and discovered that, while the majority were women (represent!), all but two of them were white. Only four people of color spoke in total last night. We can do better than that, can’t we? Also, every single speaker was normatively gendered. No queerness anywhere in sight.

PEN, you’re fabulous, but please step up your diversity efforts, mmkay?

Moving right along! Issues of affordable housing, gentrification, and unethical (actually racist, let’s just be real here) policing were all major themes throughout the night.

Sergio de la Pava, a public defender by day and an award-winning novelist by night, made the excellent point that, while actual crime rates have never been lower, New York City’s arrest rate has gone up by 20 percent.

Which is a fact that makes absolutely no sense. Except for the fact that different zip codes are policed differently— unjustly funneling poor people, queer people, and people of color into poverty, substance abuse, and the prison industrial complex, regardless of whether or not they’re actually criminals.

So really, while de la Pava was up there talking about crime rates, he was really talking about racism.

“It’s of little use if New York City is the most diverse city in the world,” he said, “if its prison population is monochromatic.”

Got it, de Blasio? End the racism of the Bloomberg era. End it now.

Affordable housing and gentrification were big talking points last night as well, introduced by none other than super-rich philanthropist George Soros. He claimed, accurately, that New York is a city “where decent housing can’t be found for less than two thousand dollars,” and that’s not the kind of environment that breeds creativity, innovation, or community.

Or really, anything other than a gated community of asinine gazillionaires who are in love with the status-quo.

George Soros, philanthropist extraordinaire. Courtesy of Niccolo Caranti via Flickr.

But last night’s speakers didn’t stop at telling de Blasio what needed to change. They also told him how to do it.

Masha Hamilton, a novelist who just came back from spending the last 16 months as the Director of Communications and Public Diplomacy for the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, told de Blasio exactly what to do.

Put a poet on his communications team. A street artist on the Housing Authority.

“Let's get a poet on the mayor's communications team…a street artist on the Housing Authority…”-Masha Hamilton #PENspeakout @TalkNYC2013

— PEN Membership (@PENmembership) November 12, 2013

Why? Because according to Hamilton, artists are innovators. “It’s part of their job description to help us dream up new solutions,” she said.

It’s the creative community—that is currently getting crowded out of this overpriced, over-policed city—that can save New York City from itself. Or, more specifically, from corrupt, elitist assholes like lame duck Mayor Bloomberg.

So, what do you think de Blasio should do to improve New York City? Do you want a street artist on the Housing Authority?

Blow it up in the comments!

—

Featured image courtesy of [Tom Roeleveld via Flickr]

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post How Creatives Can Save New York appeared first on Law Street.