The internet, from its inception, was created to be a tool of mass surveillance. It was developed first as a counterinsurgency tool for the Vietnam War and the rest of the Global South, but like many devices of foreign policy naturally it made its way back to U.S. soil. Yasha Levine, in his book “Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet“, chronicles the linear history of the internet’s birth at the Pentagon to its now ubiquitous use in all aspects of modern life. Its evolution spawned the massive private surveillance industry that lies behind tech giants like Google, Facebook and Amazon, which not only mine our private information for profit but share it with the government.

The military, intelligence agencies and Silicon Valley, he argues, have now become indistinguishable. Everything we do online leaves a trail of data. Google pioneered this collection of our data for profit, but it was soon copied by a host of other digital platforms including Facebook, Apple, eBay, Netflix, Uber, Tinder, Four Square, Twitter or X, Instagram, Angry Birds and Pandora. We are the most watched, photographed, monitored, tracked, profiled and surveilled population in human history. Nothing is private – not our personal and business correspondence, financial documents and bank statements, arrest records, medical history, vacation photos, love letters, sexual habits, marital status, ethnicity, age, gender, incomes, political positions, shopping receipts, locations, text messages, school records, nor anything sent and received by email.