Chapter 20 — Law, Paragraph 9.2 (§20.00.09.02)

This is, ultimately, the difference between a controlled and an uncontrolled processing environment. The information platforms that are states provide their citizens with a suitable information processing environment in which to live a meaningful life and, by so doing, have a way of knowing all of the processing operations (actions) carried out by their citizens (see §16.00.02). The key here is that this is just a way of knowing. States can know, but they do not actually know unless they (meaning, the government) actively try to know (see §16.00.04). The analogue world is basically an uncontrolled environment. By contrast, the digital world is a controlled environment, in which states or whoever is controlling it have real-time knowledge (see also §01.00.17). Concepts such as accountability or liberty, with which humanity has been struggling for centuries (and which still largely remain undefined) will need to be rethought and revisited. The same is true of pragmatic considerations, such as power: should the ability to ignore a processing prohibition be embedded in the digital world’s system, because it is practiced in the analogue world?

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