Domestic Spying @ MindSay 
bush
BIG BROTHER is in the building
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Date Line April 17, 2008
Date Line April 17, 2008
Today, Jim Hightower (Free Speech News) commented on American supplied surveillance equipment being installed by China for the Olympics. Seems there will be a camera in every nook and corner, every house of worship and public, or private, spot.
Our best and biggest firms are tripping over themselves in an effort to develop hi-tech computer analysis systems which can spot individuals, or individual actions. The analysis software will ensure that anyone who does something the State does not like – from chewing gum and dropping paper on the sidewalk, to the more anti-social behavior most people would abhor, even if tolerated as consistent with freedom and personal rights.
Yep! Going to the Olympics in China will result in a database of facts on everyone, of every nation foolish enough to want to see athletes do their thing.
That Americans are setting up the Orwellian Big Brother spy network for China is going to slip under the wire. But think “Homeland Security” and the domestic spying the GOP has promoted to date.
Think about the problems associated with testing new software and equipment. Think about the cost. Now imagine there is someone – a government. Shall we say – who is willing to foot the bill and provide a military to investigate anything flagged by the software. Not only investigate, but give detailed reports and background data on the people identified as “problem makers”.
Hum. Do you think that would make development of a spy system harder or easier, or ...?
What is developed in China will be applicable at home. Cameras will appear in corporate offices – in the ladies WC and someplace near the water cooler. Bosses will be able to tell when an employee is planning to leave the firm, or when the are stealing paper clips. OR ... well they will know everything. The government offices will, quite naturally, see these newly perfected devices installed. Then they will go into the streets – replacing, upgrading, traffic cameras to the point where nobody can speak, or move, freely.
Big Brother has arrived. China is footing the initial, and probably subsequent, development costs – the GOP is waiting to utilize what China has bought. FREEDOM? Wave goodbye.
Our best and biggest firms are tripping over themselves in an effort to develop hi-tech computer analysis systems which can spot individuals, or individual actions. The analysis software will ensure that anyone who does something the State does not like – from chewing gum and dropping paper on the sidewalk, to the more anti-social behavior most people would abhor, even if tolerated as consistent with freedom and personal rights.
Yep! Going to the Olympics in China will result in a database of facts on everyone, of every nation foolish enough to want to see athletes do their thing.
That Americans are setting up the Orwellian Big Brother spy network for China is going to slip under the wire. But think “Homeland Security” and the domestic spying the GOP has promoted to date.
Think about the problems associated with testing new software and equipment. Think about the cost. Now imagine there is someone – a government. Shall we say – who is willing to foot the bill and provide a military to investigate anything flagged by the software. Not only investigate, but give detailed reports and background data on the people identified as “problem makers”.
Hum. Do you think that would make development of a spy system harder or easier, or ...?
What is developed in China will be applicable at home. Cameras will appear in corporate offices – in the ladies WC and someplace near the water cooler. Bosses will be able to tell when an employee is planning to leave the firm, or when the are stealing paper clips. OR ... well they will know everything. The government offices will, quite naturally, see these newly perfected devices installed. Then they will go into the streets – replacing, upgrading, traffic cameras to the point where nobody can speak, or move, freely.
Big Brother has arrived. China is footing the initial, and probably subsequent, development costs – the GOP is waiting to utilize what China has bought. FREEDOM? Wave goodbye.
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America is Screwed!
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WATCH and LEARN.
Further lessons on religious reality can be found at "Out From Under"
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Date Line August 6, 2007
Congress has authorized Data-Mining, the wholesale gathering of information via all electronic media. More important, that information is private communications of private citizens; you would have heard this on media reports.
The media talks about private communications, privacy issues, specific violation of human rights as defined within American culture. Did you ever think that data-mining is a broad net which gathers corporate communications?
The Congress has given Bush and his Corporate bosses a free hand in the gathering of information about competitors. Insider trading, or a range of market manipulations, is now possible.
The Democratic Party has officially, and for the legal record, declared itself sold out to corporate special interests. Worse, the Democrats have authorized, by law, that which had been a felony until now.
We are, as a nation, moving toward self destruction. More important, it is becoming clear that Hillary Clinton will be the final author of our decline and destruction.
That’s right! Hillary Clinton, not Bush, not Cheney, will prove to be the architect of American defeat. The Unitary Executive, absolute power under the President, shall pass to a woman who will be political when the nation requires leadership.
Will Barack Obama win the Presidency? Could Barack Obama win the Presidency? Not while the black community exalts the anti-black racism inherent in the concept that Obama is “not black enough”.
Curiously, the unknown, off the radar, Dr Ron Paul might well emerge as a viable possibility.
OK, we are talking a Texas Congressman and flight surgeon. Clearly NOT a sterling recommendation, given our President is from Texas.
OK, so he is a doctor. Maybe that will shape improvement in medical care; but he is also a Constitutionalist and Libertarian; that bodes poorly for rational universal health coverage. Still, he did oppose Iraq, and the various domestic spy programs. SIGH ... no chance.
So where else can things be headed?
Very simply put, at this point in the 2008 process, the Democrats are doing all the can to appear to be Republicans, and the Republicans are doing all they can to maintain a low profile.
There are no viable leaders, though several viable candidates. Make it clear, the budget of the United States has been busted; the privacy of citizens has be compromised beyond that of any fascist dictatorship, and our sovereignty is being sold to China, or the Saudis.
All-in-all, ours is a rather depressing state of affairs. Of course, since 2000 we have been in a depressing state of affairs; and those who play the stock market have been in one since the fall of 1999. Now the markets are being primed for another dive.
Bin Laden is free, and there is no force which would go against him in his own refuge. Pakistan will protect him, while obtaining offensive weaponry from the Bush Administration. Said weapons to be directed against American forces within the coming decade.
Reports now show that a third of the weapons sent to Iraq have been lost; or, more accurately, turned over to insurgents to utilize against any and all non-Islamist forces and their Islamist supporters.
The mandate of Islam, which I warned we would be facing long before this nonsense began, is to evict any who occupy and Islamic nation.
It is helpful to have us torturing those in our custody, raping their children, and murdering their citizens; we need all the enemies we can make; especially if, having nothing to live for, they practice suicide bombing.
America can enjoy the rhetoric pronouncing the forces of victory are on our side. We can also be certain, given that our side also has the Evangelicals, that “God” will be on any side but ours.
The media talks about private communications, privacy issues, specific violation of human rights as defined within American culture. Did you ever think that data-mining is a broad net which gathers corporate communications?
The Congress has given Bush and his Corporate bosses a free hand in the gathering of information about competitors. Insider trading, or a range of market manipulations, is now possible.
The Democratic Party has officially, and for the legal record, declared itself sold out to corporate special interests. Worse, the Democrats have authorized, by law, that which had been a felony until now.
We are, as a nation, moving toward self destruction. More important, it is becoming clear that Hillary Clinton will be the final author of our decline and destruction.
That’s right! Hillary Clinton, not Bush, not Cheney, will prove to be the architect of American defeat. The Unitary Executive, absolute power under the President, shall pass to a woman who will be political when the nation requires leadership.
Will Barack Obama win the Presidency? Could Barack Obama win the Presidency? Not while the black community exalts the anti-black racism inherent in the concept that Obama is “not black enough”.
Curiously, the unknown, off the radar, Dr Ron Paul might well emerge as a viable possibility.
OK, we are talking a Texas Congressman and flight surgeon. Clearly NOT a sterling recommendation, given our President is from Texas.
OK, so he is a doctor. Maybe that will shape improvement in medical care; but he is also a Constitutionalist and Libertarian; that bodes poorly for rational universal health coverage. Still, he did oppose Iraq, and the various domestic spy programs. SIGH ... no chance.
So where else can things be headed?
Very simply put, at this point in the 2008 process, the Democrats are doing all the can to appear to be Republicans, and the Republicans are doing all they can to maintain a low profile.
There are no viable leaders, though several viable candidates. Make it clear, the budget of the United States has been busted; the privacy of citizens has be compromised beyond that of any fascist dictatorship, and our sovereignty is being sold to China, or the Saudis.
All-in-all, ours is a rather depressing state of affairs. Of course, since 2000 we have been in a depressing state of affairs; and those who play the stock market have been in one since the fall of 1999. Now the markets are being primed for another dive.
Bin Laden is free, and there is no force which would go against him in his own refuge. Pakistan will protect him, while obtaining offensive weaponry from the Bush Administration. Said weapons to be directed against American forces within the coming decade.
Reports now show that a third of the weapons sent to Iraq have been lost; or, more accurately, turned over to insurgents to utilize against any and all non-Islamist forces and their Islamist supporters.
The mandate of Islam, which I warned we would be facing long before this nonsense began, is to evict any who occupy and Islamic nation.
It is helpful to have us torturing those in our custody, raping their children, and murdering their citizens; we need all the enemies we can make; especially if, having nothing to live for, they practice suicide bombing.
America can enjoy the rhetoric pronouncing the forces of victory are on our side. We can also be certain, given that our side also has the Evangelicals, that “God” will be on any side but ours.
WATCH and LEARN.
Further lessons on religious reality can be found at "Out From Under"
_____________________________________________________
The ends justify the means
I admit to everyone that I've been trying to tune out the news the past two months. Somewhere along the way I just had enough of it all. No, not the petty criminal stories and filler feel-good stuff my local market serves--I'm talking about national news. The President. It isn't that I don't care; it's that I care too much.
My general opinion on the state of this nation is that we're in serious trouble. Not from some louse-ridden terrorists stuck in an oil-rich desert halfway around the planet, no. We're in trouble because like many cultures before us, we've let a charismatic group of people with a sweetened, poisonous ideology lead us in the wrong direction.
When I was in Catholic school, I remember one lesson that was pounded into my young skull over and over: The ends never justify the means.
So when I hear the Bush administration explaining why it sidestepped the FISA court to conduct domestic surveillance and that they're doing it because, boiled down, "it works", I cringe. This is the gist of their argument: It's okay to conduct warrantless wiretaps on Americans in America because it helps us get terrorists. And polls are showing that roughly half the country agrees. Half of the adults polled said they believe that the ends justify the means. Spy on us.
Does our personal security justify the removal of our civil liberties? Half of us here in the US say "yes".
You might be asking yourself if things can get any worse. You might mistakenly believe that the government could only carry something like that so far before the people rise up out of their stupor and change the leadership. But then, you might want to check out the fight between Google and the US Government.
The Bush administration wants access to what Google knows and they're testing the waters with a legal discovery request (Google is not a party to any crime or lawsuit relating to this request) to get an entire weeks worth of Google's "link database"--the stuff you search for--and the keywords people are using to search for it with. You see, Google knows who you are, what you like to search for in private, and what ads you respond to. Heck, they may even hold all your email neatly searchable and if you blog, like me, you might even have your political views exposed as well. All in one tightly searchable package. Imagine all the domestic information you could mine out of that. That's a huge, red apple just dangling there in front of the government. They'd have to listen to hours and hours and hours of your banal phone calls to aunt Beatrice in South Hampton England to get the same information a few seconds of data mining on Google's data would give them.
And remember, this is the same government that held an American citizen in custody for 3 years without access to a lawyer or without being charged with a crime.
So what's next? Heck if I know. But there's one thing I've got my ear to the ground for--a one-if-by-land-two-if-by-sea sorta signal. I think the biggest threat to a government looking to root out undesireables in their midst is encryption technology of sufficient complexity to stymy their searches. In the past our government has classified encryption technology as a "weapon" and forbid it's transferal beyond our borders. Anyone on the internet back in the early to mid-90s probably saw all the browser encryption issues related to this. I believe the government will need to crack down on encryption again if they want to keep the Googles and MSN's and other collectors of our personal data nice and fat and searchable. The more talk you hear about the government restricting or prohibiting encryption, the more you ought to consider buying a little place outside our borders--you know, just to summer in.
My general opinion on the state of this nation is that we're in serious trouble. Not from some louse-ridden terrorists stuck in an oil-rich desert halfway around the planet, no. We're in trouble because like many cultures before us, we've let a charismatic group of people with a sweetened, poisonous ideology lead us in the wrong direction.
When I was in Catholic school, I remember one lesson that was pounded into my young skull over and over: The ends never justify the means.
So when I hear the Bush administration explaining why it sidestepped the FISA court to conduct domestic surveillance and that they're doing it because, boiled down, "it works", I cringe. This is the gist of their argument: It's okay to conduct warrantless wiretaps on Americans in America because it helps us get terrorists. And polls are showing that roughly half the country agrees. Half of the adults polled said they believe that the ends justify the means. Spy on us.
Does our personal security justify the removal of our civil liberties? Half of us here in the US say "yes".
You might be asking yourself if things can get any worse. You might mistakenly believe that the government could only carry something like that so far before the people rise up out of their stupor and change the leadership. But then, you might want to check out the fight between Google and the US Government.
The Bush administration wants access to what Google knows and they're testing the waters with a legal discovery request (Google is not a party to any crime or lawsuit relating to this request) to get an entire weeks worth of Google's "link database"--the stuff you search for--and the keywords people are using to search for it with. You see, Google knows who you are, what you like to search for in private, and what ads you respond to. Heck, they may even hold all your email neatly searchable and if you blog, like me, you might even have your political views exposed as well. All in one tightly searchable package. Imagine all the domestic information you could mine out of that. That's a huge, red apple just dangling there in front of the government. They'd have to listen to hours and hours and hours of your banal phone calls to aunt Beatrice in South Hampton England to get the same information a few seconds of data mining on Google's data would give them.
And remember, this is the same government that held an American citizen in custody for 3 years without access to a lawyer or without being charged with a crime.
So what's next? Heck if I know. But there's one thing I've got my ear to the ground for--a one-if-by-land-two-if-by-sea sorta signal. I think the biggest threat to a government looking to root out undesireables in their midst is encryption technology of sufficient complexity to stymy their searches. In the past our government has classified encryption technology as a "weapon" and forbid it's transferal beyond our borders. Anyone on the internet back in the early to mid-90s probably saw all the browser encryption issues related to this. I believe the government will need to crack down on encryption again if they want to keep the Googles and MSN's and other collectors of our personal data nice and fat and searchable. The more talk you hear about the government restricting or prohibiting encryption, the more you ought to consider buying a little place outside our borders--you know, just to summer in.
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