'Everyone in US under virtual surveillance' - NSA whistleblower
The FBI records the emails of nearly all US citizens, including members of congress, according to NSA whistleblower William Binney. In an interview with RT, he warned that the government can use this information against anyone.
Transcript at rt.com
Under the Eye of the FBI: Kiss Your Privacy Goodbye
Moderator: Super Moderators
Yeah, that is the important thing, good catch. Who cares about your constitutional rights and the death of your country.kbot wrote: So, Obama's made it worse than Bush43/ Cheney?????? I'm sure that, to his supporters, it doesn't matter. But I bet these same people screamed like hell about Bush.......
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Bobbi Snow
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We have all been given the knowledge to see this coming - since 1949 when Orwell published 1984. I believe George Orwell saw the future of electronics, technology to come, and did his best to warn us all that this would happen...
But while some of us realized it could happen, we were hoping that the people we were electing would be bright enough to not just herald the book, but also to work towards keeping it from becoming a reality.
Look at England. When the Brits began putting cameras on virtually every corner, a couple of decades ago, a few people tried spray-painting the camera lenses, or disabling all the cameras within their reach; they were unsuccessful.
For all the great things technologies afford for us, it's always been and will continue to be a two-edged sword. The things which help us to do more things faster, and the same things which can, are, and will continue to be used against us.
I think most of us won't need to worry about this. However, the home-grown militias who hate everyone who doesn't believe the ways they do, the people who are the most out-spoken about changes they feel need to be made in our country, and the idiots who post with no shame or common sense on sites like Twitter and FaceBook (especially the young ones!) could have their erroneous decisions made public to the WORLD, one day in the future. Potential colleges and employers are already seeking student & potential-hire information on applicants, via such sites. It's the 12 to 35 age group who needs to be most concerned; we have had instant communication for them, nearly all their lives. They are reckless in their communications with others. They tend to flaw FIRST... and then have to worry about it later. People who are older than 50 who have been more seasoned in reasoning, and less likely to run their mouths with their fingertips, are low on the radar.
What disturbs me right now is that the television cable boxes are being made available with cameras and sound so that families' conversations and actions while viewing TV can be heard, seen, and then commercials will be automatically inserted to those specific households - commercials which will target what the box and the computer deems is appropriate.
Let's say a couple is arguing over an affair by one or both; the information allows the commercials sent to their TV to be about everything from divorce attorneys in their area, to books and psychoanalysts. If someone says, "I love her shoes!" a commercial can be arbitrarily inserted to that TV as to where the shoes can be purchased. If someone looks at a certain kind of food and says, "Gee, that looks good!" expect them then to see advertising for restaurants in their locality where that food can be found, plus coupons coming in their mail or their e-mail for the next 10 years.
And, also consider along the way, that if your neighbor hates you, and sees a scene in a movie or a program that's violent, and your neighbor says, "I'd like to do that to so-and-so..." he might be arrested before he actually tries to commit the crime, and if he really wouldn't have done it, himself, your neighbor will have the Bejeezuss scared out of him, anyway. Perception will be at the discretion of whomever is forwarded the conversation.
And, occasionally, terrorists and murderers will actually be caught.
This is all part of the Ying and the Yang... of life in the ever-advancing technology age.
But while some of us realized it could happen, we were hoping that the people we were electing would be bright enough to not just herald the book, but also to work towards keeping it from becoming a reality.
Look at England. When the Brits began putting cameras on virtually every corner, a couple of decades ago, a few people tried spray-painting the camera lenses, or disabling all the cameras within their reach; they were unsuccessful.
For all the great things technologies afford for us, it's always been and will continue to be a two-edged sword. The things which help us to do more things faster, and the same things which can, are, and will continue to be used against us.
I think most of us won't need to worry about this. However, the home-grown militias who hate everyone who doesn't believe the ways they do, the people who are the most out-spoken about changes they feel need to be made in our country, and the idiots who post with no shame or common sense on sites like Twitter and FaceBook (especially the young ones!) could have their erroneous decisions made public to the WORLD, one day in the future. Potential colleges and employers are already seeking student & potential-hire information on applicants, via such sites. It's the 12 to 35 age group who needs to be most concerned; we have had instant communication for them, nearly all their lives. They are reckless in their communications with others. They tend to flaw FIRST... and then have to worry about it later. People who are older than 50 who have been more seasoned in reasoning, and less likely to run their mouths with their fingertips, are low on the radar.
What disturbs me right now is that the television cable boxes are being made available with cameras and sound so that families' conversations and actions while viewing TV can be heard, seen, and then commercials will be automatically inserted to those specific households - commercials which will target what the box and the computer deems is appropriate.
Let's say a couple is arguing over an affair by one or both; the information allows the commercials sent to their TV to be about everything from divorce attorneys in their area, to books and psychoanalysts. If someone says, "I love her shoes!" a commercial can be arbitrarily inserted to that TV as to where the shoes can be purchased. If someone looks at a certain kind of food and says, "Gee, that looks good!" expect them then to see advertising for restaurants in their locality where that food can be found, plus coupons coming in their mail or their e-mail for the next 10 years.
And, also consider along the way, that if your neighbor hates you, and sees a scene in a movie or a program that's violent, and your neighbor says, "I'd like to do that to so-and-so..." he might be arrested before he actually tries to commit the crime, and if he really wouldn't have done it, himself, your neighbor will have the Bejeezuss scared out of him, anyway. Perception will be at the discretion of whomever is forwarded the conversation.
And, occasionally, terrorists and murderers will actually be caught.
This is all part of the Ying and the Yang... of life in the ever-advancing technology age.
If you're still breathing, it's not too late!Oh rilly? I dunno about that. I suppose that's true, if folks don't care if they have a say any more, unless it's to say "Two-four-six-eight, who do we appreciate? The State, the State, THE STATE!"Bobbi Snow wrote: I think most of us won't need to worry about this.
In a world where the government can do no wrong, anyone suggesting otherwise is its enemy... Have a beef or bone to pick? Be aware criticism and complaints are NOT welcome. Be safe and keep it to yourself. Don't worry, be happy - From the interview:
RT: It seems that the public is divided between those, who think that the government surveillance program violates their civil liberties, and those who say, 'I’ve nothing to hide. So, why should I care?' What do you say to those who think that it shouldn't concern them.
WB: The problem is if they think they are not doing anything that’s wrong, they don’t get to define that. The central government does, the central government defines what is right and wrong and whether or not they target you. So, it’s not up to the individuals. Even if they think they aren't doing something wrong, if their position on something is against what the administration has, then they could easily become a target.
You betcha! And I'd say aside of when it actually DOES directly benefit the public at large, all the rest of the time surveillance technology's getting shoved straight up the collective ying-yang...Bobbi Snow wrote: This is all part of the Ying and the Yang... of life in the ever-advancing technology age.
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Bobbi Snow
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Riddick, I understand your angst. But to slow down or actually STOP this, can be achieved in only ONE way... Everyone stops buying gasoline, oil, coal, and live within the means of the power with which we can cleanse the earth and stop further technology advancements: Wind & solar - until the chemtrails completely blot out the sun from charging the solar panels, and the jet streams fail to create the winds we need for the windmills.
I have thought for several years about this subject. The only way we can stop it is by taking down the grid. Morally, I believe that's the correct thing to do; selfishly, I am not going to live much longer, and neither is Rod. Truly, I'd hate to die in a cold house with no running water, no flush toilets, and no way to get to a store to buy cat food. I was raised in those kinds of circumstances, and I'd hate to have been spoiled for the past 50 years, only to go out in the same way I came in...
I have thought for several years about this subject. The only way we can stop it is by taking down the grid. Morally, I believe that's the correct thing to do; selfishly, I am not going to live much longer, and neither is Rod. Truly, I'd hate to die in a cold house with no running water, no flush toilets, and no way to get to a store to buy cat food. I was raised in those kinds of circumstances, and I'd hate to have been spoiled for the past 50 years, only to go out in the same way I came in...
If you're still breathing, it's not too late!So, use of fossil fuels is at the heart of it all eh? Well, Bobbi, I definitely can see so much as that IS indeed the case, how ending technology's advance is one majorly head-on sure-fire way to avoid any of its drawbacks (that is, provided it's ever implemented) - simply switching to wind and solar only most certainly will put the kibosh on any new tech, not to mention bring plenty of old tech to a screeching halt, as well as cleanse the earth of a lot of its present human population.
Well, that's progress for you.... Kinda ironic, ainit - Who'da thought humanity'd reach a point where going forward meant going backward?!?
Well, that's progress for you.... Kinda ironic, ainit - Who'da thought humanity'd reach a point where going forward meant going backward?!?
Whaddya know! Pro-privacy citizens against surveillance strike a blow...
- Alameda County puts the brakes on purchasing drone
By Angela Woodall
Oakland Tribune
Outcry from privacy advocates prompted Alameda County Board of Supervisors to postpone or possibly scrap plans to purchase a surveillance drone for the Sheriff's Office.
Last minute intervention Tuesday morning by the American Civil Liberties Union prompted supervisors to require explicit authorization to use grant money the Sheriff's Office received to purchase the drone. Now the proposal will have to go to the public protection committee for approval then back to the full board of supervisors. That is likely to happen early next year.
Concern has been mounting among privacy groups for months that Sheriff Greg Ahern was forging ahead without rules for deploying a drone in the skies above Alameda County.
The ACLU and Electronic Frontier Foundation are concerned about the lack of privacy protections. They were dismayed to find that the Sheriff's Office was asking the supervisors on Tuesday to approve a $31,646 grant to help pay for a drone, indicating that the department was far closer to acquisition than they had led the public to believe.
The Sheriff's Office has consistently downplayed concern, insisting that the department has yet to receive authorization from the Federal Aviation Administration and would use a drone for search and rescue missions, such as finding missing children and responding to wildfires.
But a July 20 internal memo from the Sheriff's Office shows the department identified uses other than search and rescue, including barricaded suspects, investigative and tactical surveillance, intelligence gathering, suspicious persons and large crowd control disturbances.
Surveillance and intelligence gathering amount to "spying," ACLU attorney Linda Lye said Tuesday morning shortly before supervisors were to vote on accepting the money during their regular board meeting.
Y'know what I was saying here about sin taxes and government surveillance? That ain't the half of it. "Ve haf vays to make things VERY taxing for you eh!"
Making a list, checking it twice, gonna find out who's naughty or nice... Big Brother is bringing you down
Excerpted from
Sexual privacy under threat in a surveillance society
By Naomi Wolf at cnn.com
Making a list, checking it twice, gonna find out who's naughty or nice... Big Brother is bringing you down
Excerpted from
Sexual privacy under threat in a surveillance society
By Naomi Wolf at cnn.com
- Once again we see the scenario unfold: A powerful man, with tremendous responsibilities, apparently "caught" in a compromising sexual situation with a woman who is not his wife.
There is the now-familiar ritual of the threats of embarrassing revelations of intimate conversations, the hunted-down "other woman" who either decides to tell more or not, the nationwide harrumphing and moralizing, and the schadenfreude-stoking musings over the humiliations of the loyal wife. And of course, there is the spectacle of another career -- in David Petraeus' case, one that distinguished him in his service to our country -- in tatters.
But while the media tell a familiar narrative of misjudgment and temptation, to me this story is about the terrifying power of the Patriot Act, married to the terrifying power of the resurrected Espionage Act... We should understand that the surveillance that keeps tripping up these powerful men is not something about which only heads of state, whistle-blower publishers or generals have to worry. It also includes others in which the allegations of what initiated their downfall are more complex and serious, such as Nicolas Sarkozy and Julian Assange.
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We live at a time in which our government is vastly over-classifying subjects in the name of public interest or that might embarrass the state. Heaven forbid if anyone provides "material support" for the enemy, which is so vague a term that President Barack Obama's own lawyers confirmed to Judge Katherine Forrest, in my presence during the New York hearing on the National Defense Authorization Act this past spring, that it can be used to include basic journalism about, for instance, the Taliban, or other information the government simply does not wish exposed.
Any of us can be threatened with possessing classified information. This is why Bradley Manning has spent months in solitary confinement in prison.
We can be threatened with the Espionage Act. This is why Assange is hiding in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. If Assange were convicted of receiving classified information, and extradited under the Espionage Act, he could theoretically be shipped to Guantanamo -- for which some congressional voices have called. But that precedent casts a shadow over everyone who might have ever heard about or discussed classified information -- something that is routine in Washington.
There are still many unknowns to the Petraeus story. Maybe it really is just about the CIA and the FBI being very, very worried about Petraeus sleeping with his biographer. But we don't need to buy into this theater. If there is a national security breach -- which would be a real issue if one took place -- that can be investigated and addressed without spectacle or bullying.
In working with these two appalling laws, we need to understand what loss of privacy means: Any of us can be brought down, intimidated, silenced, threatened, by exposure of our personal lives, for any reason.
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It is hard to imagine fully what the loss of sexual privacy means to private life -- and to the human condition.
In the film "The Lives of Others," set in East Germany before the Berlin Wall came down, the state listened in on lovers doing what lovers do: quarrelling, engaging in highly intimate acts of desire and passion, and sometimes, yes, betraying their spouses. But what is clear from the depiction is that whatever private pain such betrayal as infidelity causes, the general pain and the deadening quality for everyone, of living in a society in which there is no privacy -- and no sexual privacy -- is far, far more destructive and more distorting of the human condition.
Sexual privacy is absolutely necessary for human beings to have basic dignity, and that includes the space to make mistakes or do things one may regret. A third of couples, husbands and wives, report that they have committed infidelity. What if all of those marriages were subject to surveillance and exposure?
What if the power regarding who tells you that your spouse has betrayed you, becomes not a private struggle in private life, but a matter for the state to decide? And how many people in marriages that might have survived an infidelity, might have their lives and relationships further shattered by the state, as it can do now, from knowing the details of every single e-mail or credit card record or gift?
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It is not our place to judge and condemn, or to cast the first stone. A new understanding of the dangers of the Patriot and Espionage acts should show us why it is more important than ever for couples to be permitted to experience the pain and betrayal of a possible infidelity in private, without the power of the state breathing down the necks of all involved.
Of course, there is no way ever to justify an infidelity -- betrayal is always wrong. One cannot know from the outside what kind of sexual or emotional loneliness may have been part of any given marriage, what kinds of demons any one of us might struggle with.
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Unless there was a serious state security issue in relation to this infidelity, what happened between Petraeus and Paula Broadwell should be, personally speaking, the equivalent of classified information: in other words, absolutely none of our business.
kbot wrote: So, Obama's made it worse than Bush43/ Cheney?????? I'm sure that, to his supporters, it doesn't matter. But I bet these same people screamed like hell about Bush.......
For those who hated President Bush and cited blah blah blah and he was imperialistic and blah blah blah - they don't mind that this President has doubled down on that which they feigned was the reason they hated President Bush.
It's all about the D and the R. The R's are evil, wealthy crooks and the D's are just common hard working folk who really and truly care about all people and in particular the under served.
YUP and I'm 25 and a dead ringer for Annette in Beach Blanket Bingo.
A man's character is his fate
And I'm Frankie Avalon!Diogenes wrote: For those who hated President Bush and cited blah blah blah and he was imperialistic and blah blah blah - they don't mind that this President has doubled down on that which they feigned was the reason they hated President Bush.
It's all about the D and the R. The R's are evil, wealthy crooks and the D's are just common hard working folk who really and truly care about all people and in particular the under served.
YUP and I'm 25 and a dead ringer for Annette in Beach Blanket Bingo.
Still, maybe it's not about the D's and R's after all (that is, unless one does tend to look at things through a partisan prism)? If Obama's doubled down on surveillance, it's not his fault. WHOEVER's President at any given time is only the front man for Big Brother, so blame HIM... or better yet, to remove personal responsibility completely, blame the technology.
Yeah, that's the ticket! How technology is exploited has nothing at all to do with character flaws of the people involved. Its perversion is inherent. By nature, technology can't help but BE misused - Still, how is it Ma Nature gave humans the intelligence to develop technology, but neglected to provide them with the ability to overcome its shortcomings?
Obviously, such things are beyond human ken, and as such for mankind to eschew technology altogether is the only way to go: that way, the bad goes away. Any good from it is irrelevant. Resistance is futile.
We are the Luddite Borg. You will be dis-assimilated.
Diogenes wrote: For those who hated President Bush and cited blah blah blah and he was imperialistic and blah blah blah - they don't mind that this President has doubled down on that which they feigned was the reason they hated President Bush.
It's all about the D and the R. The R's are evil, wealthy crooks and the D's are just common hard working folk who really and truly care about all people and in particular the under served.
YUP and I'm 25 and a dead ringer for Annette in Beach Blanket Bingo.
I don't think it really maters who's in charge - they're told what to do, and they do it. It's that simple.
That being said, I'm amazed (pun intended) that the Obama supporters who railed against Bush/ Cheney have been silent on Obama's actions. They are running as far from this as fast as they can and keeping their mouths clamped shut. I've tried to speak to rabid Obamites at work, and they just don't want to know about.
I'd say at this point it's pretty obvious the job description of Big Brother's foremost figurehead has its list of "dos" and "don'ts" - Like, "do expand the surveillance state," "do push the envelope of the cheif executive's authority", and "don't worry about the Constitutionality of anything you do."kbot wrote: I don't think it really maters who's in charge - they're told what to do, and they do it. It's that simple.
Less and less freedom, more and more movement to mock democracy... But hey, why the hell not? It's not like the public in general appears to care about political thuggery all too much. Seems to me if they did, the electorate would do like Jesse Ventura says and stop voting Democrips and Rebloodlicans into office.
It's the "deaf and dumb" protocol. Megaphones go out, ear plugs go in. In discussions, you have the right to remain silent. DO dislike pernicious pursuit of police state polices, yet don't concern yourself with Obama's; don't let on to anything that reflects badly on his administration, but DO continue claiming the moral high ground. Don't let critics score any points, do distract them by changing the subject (to Dubya as much as possible).kbot wrote: That being said, I'm amazed (pun intended) that the Obama supporters who railed against Bush/ Cheney have been silent on Obama's actions. They are running as far from this as fast as they can and keeping their mouths clamped shut. I've tried to speak to rabid Obamites at work, and they just don't want to know about.
'Course, such is natural for political partisans; seeing only vice on the other side, and virtue on their own, with the prevailing two-party mindset might ever a majority of voters come to consider the possibility at the end of the day ALL AROUND, there may be more evil than good to be found...? Nah.
And so it goes - Each side chooses their candidates. The country conducts a general election. However it ends, Big Brother and his front men win. The nation at large loses - though roughly half the public thinks they won. Yeah folks, just keep thinkin' that, see what it gets you...
Still, who's to say we've haven't already reached a point where most Americans know exactly what they're getting, and are perfectly OK with it? - As Number 6 said to Number 2 in The Prisoner episode Free for All, "Everyone votes for a dictator": Maybe despotic Demockracy IS precisely 'what the people want'.