UC Davis CS professor says it's cryptographers' moral duty to take on the surveillance state, like scientists in the 1950s confronting the threat of nuclear war
The Moral Failure of Computer Scientists … Computer scientists and cryptographers occupy some of the ivory tower's highest floors. Tweets: @jayrosen_nyu , @jayrosen_nyu , @jacksmithiv , @vermicelli , @dangillmor and @thomas_drake1 Tweets: Jay Rosen / @jayrosen_nyu : The moral failure of computer science: http://www.theatlantic.com/... After 2008, I expected such articles about professors of finance. None came. Jay Rosen / @jayrosen_nyu : The moral failure of computer science: http://www.theatlantic.com/... My uncle was a metallurgist who worked on the Manhattan project. But... 1/3 Jack Smith IV / @jacksmithiv : When computer scientists are complicit in creating the surveillance state, computer scientists must speak out. http://www.theatlantic.com/... @vermicelli : “When ¾ of the faculty of an ostensibly apolitical department are funded by the DoD, well, that's not apolitical.” http://www.theatlantic.com/... Dan Gillmor / @dangillmor : Cryptographers who don't challenge the surveillance state are culpable in the destruction of liberty: http://www.theatlantic.com/... Thomas Drake / @thomas_drake1 : “With the transition to a state of total surveillance, what we have is a slow forfeiture of democracy.” and privacy http://www.theatlantic.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
This Atlantic essay is the opening shot in a public reckoning over computer science's political neutrality: a UC Davis professor argues cryptographers have the same obligation the 1950s nuclear scientists had to confront the consequences of their own work, and media figures like Jay Rosen and Thomas Drake amplify the charge of complicity with the surveillance state.
The call landed inside the academy it targeted. Within weeks, [[a:864306|UC Berkeley professors were organizing against surveillance software installed across the University of California system]], and by 2018 Harvard, MIT, and NYU had folded the debate into formal computer science ethics courses covering AI, privacy, and civil rights — turning a moral exhortation into curriculum.
First-order effects
- Cryptographers and computer scientists lose their assumed neutrality: journalists including Rosen and Dan Gillmor now frame the discipline itself — not just individual tools — as morally accountable for surveillance infrastructure.
Second-order effects
- Universities become the battleground: Berkeley faculty push back against systemwide surveillance deployments, while schools like Syracuse adopt student phone-tracking that critics say normalizes constant monitoring — putting academic governance of surveillance technology on institutional agendas.
Third-order effects
- If the ethics-course pattern holds, surveillance literacy becomes standard in CS training rather than an optional seminar, changing who enters government and industry security work — even as agencies like those preparing for post-quantum cryptography keep the field financially dependent on state patrons whose surveillance practices the discipline is being asked to oppose.
The trend: Computer science is being pushed from value-neutral engineering toward an explicitly politicized profession, with universities converting external moral criticism into formal ethics requirements and faculty-led resistance to surveillance systems.