May the source be with you, but remember the KISS principle ;-)
Bigger doesn't imply better. Bigger often is a sign of obesity, of lost control, of overcomplexity, of cancerous
cells
Total Surveillance Regime: Big Uncle is Watching You
Mass surveillance is equal to totalitarism. As Joseph Goebbels professed:
"if you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to fear"
None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.
- Goethe
1984 is supposed to be a warning, not an instruction manual
The troubling aspect about these disclosures is not so much their significance today, but
what surveillance on the nation bodes for the future. Given human nature I am not optimistic.
NSA staff and private contractors have unfettered access to this information. I have a hard
time believing that not one of them has used that access to information for personal or political
gain. This system makes insider trading, industrial espionage, blackmail, and extortion an almost
inevitable outcome. --
The Guardian (from comments).
A new round of debates about the dominance of military industrial complex and the level of control
it exerts over the US civil society was caused by recent revelations about NSA activities in the USA.
It might well be the Rubicon was crossed around JFK assassination time. On August 17, 1975 Senator
Frank Church stated on NBC's Meet the Press without
mentioning the name of the NSA (Church
Committee - Wikipedia ):
In the need to develop a capacity to know what potential enemies are doing, the United States government
has perfected a technological capability that enables us to monitor the messages that go through
the air. Now, that is necessary and important to the United States as we look abroad at enemies or
potential enemies. We must know, at the same time, that capability at any time could be turned
around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left such is the capability
to monitor everything—telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn't matter. There would be no
place to hide.
If this government ever became a tyrant, if a dictator ever took charge in this country, the
technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to
impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back because the most careful effort
to combine together in resistance to the government, no matter how privately it was done, is within
the reach of the government to know. Such is the capability of this technology.
I don't want to see this country ever go across the bridge. I know the capacity that is there
to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess
this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision so that we never cross over that
abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return.[11]
In other words expansionism and mission creep are immanent qualities, the second nature of large bureaucracies, and
unless there is countervailing force. In the absence of countervailing forces they tend to escape from civil control and form a state within a state.
In a way any state with powerful three-letter agencies stand with one leg in a tyranny, even if it
calls
itself a democracy. And that fact was already known to everybody in 1975 (Church
Committee). Actually just after president
Kennedy assassination, which, no matter which version of events you adopt, in all cases indirectly pointed
out that three letter agencies jumped out of control of civil government. As one Guardian reader commented
"The pernicious thing is that it is in the nature of bureaucracies in general and spy agencies in particular
to expand beyond reason unless there is effective oversight."
The nature of bureaucracies in general and spy agencies in particular to expand beyond
reason unless there is effective oversight. In the case of intelligence agencies it has proven
impossible for civil authorities to control them. Recent stories about CIA spying on the US
Senate Intelligence Committee just prove this.
A statement issued Thursday morning by a C.I.A. spokesman said that John O. Brennan, the
agency’s director, had apologized to Ms. Feinstein and the committee’s ranking Republican,
Senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, and would set up an internal accountability board to review
the issue. The statement said that the board, which will be led by a former Democratic senator,
Evan Bayh of Indiana, could recommend “potential disciplinary measures” and “steps to address
systemic issues.”
But anger among lawmakers grew throughout the day. Leaving a nearly three-hour briefing about the
report in a Senate conference room, members of both parties called for the C.I.A. officers to be
held accountable, and some said they had lost confidence in Mr. Brennan’s leadership. “This is a
serious situation and there are serious violations,” said Mr. Chambliss, generally a staunch ally
of the intelligence community. He called for the C.I.A. employees to be “dealt with very
harshly.”
Senator Mark Udall, Democrat of Colorado and another member of the Intelligence Committee,
demanded Mr. Brennan’s resignation. “The C.I.A. unconstitutionally spied on Congress by hacking
into the Senate Intelligence Committee computers,” he said in a written statement. “This grave
misconduct not only is illegal but it violates the U.S. Constitution’s requirement of separation
of powers.
You can't get a more solid proof of total surveillance... Please note that Brennan
continued his tenure as the head of CIA; attempts to depose him after the incident by some Senators
failed. That suggest who was the winner in this skirmish.
That also means that contrary to common perception intelligence agencies are political players
and as such are quite capable to defend their staffing and resource consumption levels, despite inefficient waist of resources
as typical for large bureaucracies. In other words they are no longer technocratic, but tend to
emerge as political bodies, the core of the "deep
state" (see
Bureaucracy as
a Political Coalition). The story of John Brennan the former head of CIA in Obama administration
tell volumes about such tendencies. During and after 2016 Presidential elections he emerged as a
powerful political broker, later aligning with Hillary Clinton in efforts to form a political
coalition capable of deposing President Trump.
We can admire the immortal foresight and moral courage of Secretary of State Henry Stimson's who closed the Cipher
Bureau in 1929. But this highly ethical, moral and courageous act deprived the US of the capacity
to read foreign diplomatic cables as world-wide threats grew. So it was quickly reversed.
In a way technology dictates the level of government surveillance in the society and in "Internet
society" it looks like this level is permanently set on "high". That does not mean that we can't
fight it. Yes, we can and one factor that played into the hands of defenders of personal privacy is
the you can't drink from a fire hose: as soon as you connect too much information it devalues
itself. Also methods of "injecting" false metadata into your profile are reality available. for
example for Internet browsing anybody with programmable keyboard can do that. That means that you
the set of sites you visited no longer can be considered authentic in "Post-Snowden" world. That
dooms effort to assign you a level of "loyalty" based on your browsing history, which is very
temping for three letter agencies to do. Recent failed attempt to create a site that claffies
some sites are "Russian propaganda" sites belong to this category (Washington
Post Disgracefully Promotes a McCarthyite Blacklist From a New, Hidden, and Very Shady Group.)
But such attempts were just shifted to another domain -- "leak prevention" training:
Part of the
“Unauthorized Disclosure” training includes watching a
Fox News clip on the crackdown on leaks and Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ statement
announcing an increase in criminal leak investigations. A
student guide from the Insider Threat Awareness training includes the McCarthyesque request
that employees report on each other for “general suspicious behaviors,” including “Questionable
national loyalty” such as “Displaying questionable loyalty to US government or company” or
“Making anti-U.S. comments.” Never mind that the only oath government employees take is to the US
Constitution, not to any government official or the US government itself and certainly not to a
private company.
This also opens people to browsing blackmail.
In this sense post-snowmen world is inherently more difficult for three-letter agencies to navigate.
Technology changes can really change the society. And not always in a beneficial for the society way.
There is such thing as "blowback" in technologies. We can view recent NSA activities revealed by Snowden
as a classic example of such blowback connected with the spread of Internet and cloud based
technologies. In a way Internet begets surveillance. And you can do nothing about it. As
former Sun CEO Scott McNealy (born November 13, 1954) said "You have zero privacy
anyway. Getoverit." (see also Privacy is
Dead – Get Over It).
I think that the first attempt to create a comprehensive nation-wide intelligence network that monitors
sentiments of the citizens and hunt enemies of the state goes as far back as Napoleon and his famous
minister of police Joseph Fouché.
Or may be it even goes as far back as to
Byzantine Empire with its first in history organized network of spies. As for recording of mail
envelopes, we can even claim that this function for international mail (in a form of "black chambers")
is as old as states are. In the USA it started in full force in August 1919 when
J. Edgar Hoover became head
of the Bureau of Investigation's
new General Intelligence Division—also known as the Radical Division because its explicit
goal was to monitor and disrupt the work of domestic radicals.
Recording of all email envelopes started long before email was
invented and became established practice since the WWII for all regular mail entering or leaving the
country. It just got a new name now -- collection of metadata and the technology that allow
correlation of multiple sets of metadata exposing hidden "networks".
Recording metadata of phone calls and often the calls themselves first started before WWII and technology
was first polished on international calls, which for obvious reasons are of great interest to all governments.
As intelligence agencies were one of the first to deploy computers after WWII it would be naive to
assume that IBM/360 mainframes were not used to analyze collection of metadata of international calls
as early as in
1960th.
Hoover and his chosen assistant, George Ruch monitored a variety of U.S. radicals with the intent
to punish, arrest, or deport them. Targets during this period included Marcus Garvey; Rose Pastor Stokes
and Cyril Briggs; Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman; and future Supreme Court justice Felix Frankfurter,
whom Hoover nicknamed as "the most dangerous man in the United States". So those
radicals served a guinea pigs for polishing methods of collection of communications using electronic
means of surveillance.
So it would be a mistake
to assume that such activities started with 9/11 events and that Bush II was totally responsible
for converting the USA into national-security state. The technology was ready at least 15
years before 9/11 (explosive growth of internet in the USA started in 1996) and new methods of
collection of information that are technically available are always adopted and used by clandestine agencies. They tend to adopt technology
as soon as it is available, being, in a pervert way, classic "early adopters" of any communication
or computer technology.
And this happens not only in the USA, although the USA as the technological leader was
probably most profoundly
affected.
The creation and use of databases of personal information and the systematic records (archives) of
communications of citizens started simultaneously with NSA creation. The first targets were mail and
telegraph. Some of this experience came from specialists of Third Reich who were brought to the
country after the WWII. At the height of the Cold War
in the 1950s, law enforcement and intelligence leaders like J. Edgar Hoover at the FBI. and Allen
Dulles at the CIA. aggressively recruited former Nazis of all ranks as secret, anti-Soviet “assets,”
declassified records show. They believed the ex-Nazis’ intelligence value against the Russians outweighed
what one official called “moral lapses” in their service to the Third Reich. The agency hired one former
SS officer as a spy in the 1950s, for instance, even after concluding he was probably guilty of “minor
war crimes.” And in 1994, a lawyer with the CIA pressured prosecutors to drop an investigation into
an ex-spy outside Boston implicated in the Nazis’ massacre of tens of thousands of Jews in Lithuania,
according to a government official (In Cold War, U.S.
Spy Agencies Used 1,000 Nazis - NYTimes.com).
We don't know when it was extended on domestic calls, but from purely technical perspective this was
a trivial extension of already existing and polished capacity and probably abuse was stated
gradually as soon as power of computers allow that.
But what is true is that after 9/11 and the passage of the USA Patriot Act, the USA government got all the pre-conditions
necessary for installing a regime of aggressive total surveillance. Which actually was a hidden intent
and 9/11 was just a convenient pretext much like Tonkin incident in Vietnam war. And in this respect
Ed Snowden, whatever is his motivation (which might be
not as simple as most people assume), did the right thing, when he with the risk to his life informed
the US public and the world about those activities. You may approve those revelations, you may disapprove
them (and they did damage the USA as a state and devalue many methods which were extremely effective
before the revelations), but keeping them secret from the US public is a crime.
NSA technically is a data collection agency. While it has legitimate function to monitor information
that is crossing the national border as well as intercept communication of the US adversaries (which
is a very flexible category those days ;-), we need to understand that the abuse of this function is
inevitable. That actually the nature of the beast -- like any bureaucratic
organizations they tend to expand their sphere of activities and escape form control -- and in this
sense existence of powerful state intelligence agencies is incompatible with the democracy. In
this sense the appointment of
Allan Dulles (who paradoxically was appointed the director under
Eisenhower administration in 1952; Eisenhower warnings about the danger of military-industrial
complex notwithstanding) was really unfortunate.
But the capacities to do this
type of work had grown dramatically over last four decades. In a way NSA became a victim of growing
power of computers as well inherent tendency of bureaucracies, especially government bureaucracies
to expand and self-justify their expansion. The classic case was the USSR where KGB was a real "state
within the state" and sometimes it was not completely clear whether the Party controls KGB or KGB controls
the Party.
But the capacities to do this
type of work had grown dramatically over last four decades. In a way NSA became a victim of growing
power of computers and as well inherent tendency of bureaucracies, especially government bureaucracies
to expand and self-justify their expansion. The classic case was the USSR where KGB was a real "state
within the state" and sometimes it was not completely clear whether the Party controls KGB or KGB controls
the Party.
There is deep analogy between financial services and intelligence services. Both try to escape
from the control of democratic society. Both try to control the society instead of serve it. As they
operate with large and uncontrolled amount of money soon after their creation inevitably the "the
tail wagging the dog" (Merriam-Webster):
the tail wagging the dog —used to describe
a situation in which an important or powerful person, organization, etc., is being controlled by
someone or something that is much less important or powerful
At some point the permanent
unelected bureaucracy, became the shadow government instead of facilitating the decisions of elected
officials. This process proceeds quicker if a sociopath manage to slip to the role of the head of
such an organization. That's what the term "deep state" is about. Some authors such as
Douglas Horne view JFK assassination as a political coup d'état launched from the highest
levels of US leadership (JFK’s
War with the National Security Establishment Why Kennedy Was Assassinated). Here is a quote from
the foreword by Jacob G. Hornberger:
By the end of November 1961, profoundly dissatisfied with his own national security advisory
apparatus, President Kennedy had firmly pushed back against the national security establishment
(in this case the NSC, the State Department, and the CIA) by purging and/or reshuffling many of
the civilian hawks in his own administration into other positions, and by placing officials more
in line with his own views into key positions. [A change in the top leadership at the Pentagon
was to come later, in 1962.] Throughout 1961, the new President had painfully but quickly learned
to be quite skeptical of the advice he was receiving, pertaining to matters of war and peace,
from his hawkish advisors; and as 1961 progressed, John F. Kennedy repeatedly demonstrated what
the hawks in government (the majority) no doubt considered a disturbingly independent (and
increasingly all-too-predictable) frame of mind in regard to the national security
recommendations he was receiving from the “sacred cows” and “wise men” in Washington, D.C. As I
shall demonstrate in these essays, by the end of 1962, the national security establishment in
Washington D.C., which had quickly come to know JFK as a skeptic during
1961, had come to view him as a heretic; and by November of 1963, the
month he was assassinated, they no doubt considered him an apostate,
for he no longer supported most of the so-called “orthodox” views of the Cold War priesthood.
Increasingly alone in his foreign policy judgments as 1963 progressed, JFK was nevertheless
proceeding boldly to end our “Holy
War” against Communism, instead of trying to win
it. In retrospect it is clear that the national security establishment wanted to
win our own particular “jihad” of the
post-WW II era by turning the Cold War against the USSR into a “hot war,” so that we could
inflict punishing and fatal blows upon our Communist adversaries (and any other forces we equated
with them) on the battlefield. It was this desire for “hot war” by so
many within the establishment — their belief that conventional “proxy wars” with the Soviet Bloc
were an urgent necessity, and that nuclear war with the USSR was probably inevitable — to which
President Kennedy was so adamantly opposed. And it was JFK’s profound determination to avoid
nuclear war by miscalculation, and to eschew combat with conventional arms unless it was truly
necessary, that separated him from almost everyone else in his administration from 1961
throughout 1963, as events have shown us.
Total surveillance is not so much about terrorism. It's also and mainly about the control of
the society by unelected elite. Terrorism is a false pretext
-- a smoke screen, if you like. Let's state clearly -- the main goal of total surveillance was the same
since it was introduced in Nazi Germany: "Let them be afraid". It's the same as in former German Democratic Republic (with
its famous Stasi). In all cases it is to prevent any challenge to the ruling elite or in the
terminology of neoliberal "color revolutions" prevent "regime
change", unless it is initiated by more powerful foreign three letter agencies and
significantly higher level of financial resources (that's why three letter agencies of newly minted
xUSSR state in several cases were unable to prevent color revolutions of their territories).
In other words surveillance and intelligence agencies are part and parcel of the totalitarian state.
And Sheldon Volin actually created a term for such "pseudo-democratic" regime --
inverted totalitarism.
Unlike classic totalitarism it generally tend to avoid using violence to crush the
dissidents and opposition to the current elite. More "soft" subversive methods are enough. In this
sense the story of crushing "of "Occupy Wall Street" movement is a testament of their
efficiency.
State actors and well funded terrorist organization are a difficult nut to crack. Any
"custom" encrypted communication is far more difficult for intercepting party to decode, then
"standard" encryption methods. Some encryption methods virtually guarantee that it is
impossible without stealing the key. Even detecting the fact of communication for such parties
nowadays is very difficult as it can be hidden in some "carrier" transmission (steganography)
or split into multiple channels. Those who have access
to technology and to "know how" including the most recent exploits are well armed to
resist attempt to intercept their communication. That includes most powerful foreign states.
That means that NSA has great difficulties intercepting and decoding traffic
that is intended to be hidden from state actors. Modern encryption systems such
One-Time-Pad virtually guarantee
that you get the "insider information" of the pad used (typically from a mole) they are
impenetrable. Even regular encryption methods can be enhanced by additional step of compressing the
files transmitted (which by and large eliminates redundancy if done properly and do not leave "tell"
sign of the method encryption used) . Decoding is easier when standard algorithms with
possible backdoors are used but even in this case I have doubts
(Triple DEC). That's why attempts to compensate this deficiency are being developed and one
obvious path is intercepting regular citizen communication of foreign countries which are
considered to be unfriendly or adversarial to current the US foreign policy goals (which is the
expansion and maintenance of global the Us-led neoliberal empire).
But the situation with "open" traffic is completely different. Million of people
outside the USA use Facebook, Amazon, Gmail and similar platforms. Which makes them a low
hanging fruit and here NSA is the king of the hill. Government officials also sometimes use
regular email and social sites (see
Hillary Clinton email scandal).
So intelligence agencies were provided with an important opening (and it might well be that the
dramatic growth of Webmail has something to do with their interests)
At the same time the abundance of information, as Biney mentioned, creates another problem -- the problem
of "drinking from a fire hose" -- they tend to collect too much information and are swamped with the volume. Of cause correlation of open traffic
of "suspicious persons" can reveal some hidden information, but this is a pretty expensive
undertaking, because by definition (unless this is Hillary Clinton ;-) those persons are aware that they are watched,
typically are
trained to avoid surveillance (including electronic) and behave accordingly. for example
General Petraeus used an interesting method to communicate with his
biographer and mistress (The
Washington Post) :
They wrote their "intimate messages" as
draft e-mails in a shared Gmail account,
according to the AP, allowing them to see one anothers' messages while leaving a
much fainter data trail. When messages are sent and received, both accounts record the
transmission as well as such metadata as the IP addresses on either end, something the
two seemed to be seeking to avoid.
Petraeus and Broadwell apparently used a trick, known to terrorists and teen-agers
alike, to conceal their email traffic, one of the law enforcement officials said.
Rather than transmitting emails to the other's inbox, they composed at least some
messages and instead of transmitting them, left them in a draft folder or in an
electronic "dropbox," the official said. Then the other person could log onto the
same account and read the draft emails there. This avoids creating an email trail
that is easier to trace.
With the power of modern computers,
decoys and steganography offer almost unlimited possibility to obscure the traffic.
Concern about the NSA assault on our privacy is no paranoid fantasy. In the
words of an agency PowerPoint slide released by Snowden, the goal is to "collect it all", "process
it all" and "know it all". The massive surveillance program is a clear violation of the Forth
amendment prohibiting "unreasonable searches" of "persons, houses, papers, and effects" without
"probable cause."
- Gene Epstein. "In defence of Snowden",
review of "No Place to Hide" Barrons, Jan 5, 2015, p 17
According to
UN Human Right Council Report (17 April 2013) innovations in technology not only have increased
the possibilities for communication and protections of free expression and opinion, enabling anonymity,
rapid information-sharing and cross-cultural dialogues. They also simultaneously increased opportunities
for State surveillance and interventions into individuals’ private communications facilitating to transformation
of the state into National Security State, a form of corporatism characterized
by continued and encompassing all forms of electronic communication electronic surveillance of all citizens.
Now every Internet or smartphone users probably understand that since probably 2003 or even earlier that that he/she is watched 24
by 7, or as Soviet dissidents called it "Was placed under the [surveillance] dome". Some question that we need to ask ourselves
are:
When the quantity of collected data turns into quality. At some point the amount of collected
information about the person, no matter how trivial, allows things that are drastically different
then simple monitoring of traffic for suspicious elements. It is essentially step up from STASI-style dossier mechanism on most
adult citizens of the USA (and not only USA). Accidentally STASI was created exactly the same year
as NSA, in 1950 and now some of their activities look more and more like identical twins.
And with the level on Internet communications many people have, such "per person" dossier quickly
reaches to the "critical mass" of facts
In a way
You really already
live in a virtual prison watched 24 by 7 by unknown to you guards. For example, just tracking metadata of all
the calls from your cell phone along with GPS information is almost equivalent hiring a private detective to watch
you. Add to this all your credit card records, Amazon orders and browsing records, your emails and SMS and you can beat capability of
a regular private "gum shoes" watching you, by a wide margin spending just cents of a
dollar.
And this is only a start as I did not mention your own "self-revelation"
activities on social sites like Facebook. And if you add to this your web logs (which, by the way, record every
site you visited and every page you browsed) and your posts at Web forums (if any), photo sharing and
your files at cloud storage sites (if you participate)
along with the ability to store collected information for, say, 20 years or your lifetime electronically, and STASI efforts in
human surveillance looks like an expensive and amateurish overkill. Using Internet and
smartphone surveillance you can get much better
information on an individual for much less money/effort using modern technology alone, without any
gum shoes and/or informers.
Note that in this case there no need to look deep into your personal computer (other to collect
private keys in case you use encryption). You essentially volunteer most of the data by the fact
that you are using cell phone, credit card and email/social sites. In other words as
Scott McNealy noted in
1999 Privacy
is Dead – Get Over It. As Bruce Shneier noted (Metadata
Equals Surveillance - Schneier on Security):
Back in June, when the contents of Edward Snowden's cache of NSA documents were
just starting to be revealed and we learned about the NSA collecting phone
metadata of every American, many people -- including President Obama -- discounted
the seriousness of the NSA's actions by saying that it's just metadata.
Imagine you hired a detective to eavesdrop on someone. He might plant a bug in
their office. He might tap their phone. He might open their mail. The result would
be the details of that person's communications. That's the "data."
Now imagine you hired that same detective to surveil that person. The result
would be details of what he did: where he went, who he talked to, what he looked
at, what he purchased -- how he spent his day. That's all metadata.
When the government collects metadata on people, the government puts them under
surveillance. When the government collects metadata on the entire country, they
put everyone under surveillance. When Google does it, they do the same thing.
Metadata equals surveillance; it's that simple.
Metadata proved to be an extremely powerful way to reveals the person lifestyle and views.
Actually no less clearly then the direct interception
of the content of emails and phone calls. Systematic, total analysis of metadata of cell phone
calls was first used against Iraq insurgents as knowledge of Arabic language is not a strong point
of US military, or three letter agencies. And it proved to be a great success, as it allows to narrow the set of suspects
quickly and cheaply (the USA controlled all cell networks in the country). But later this initial
success was extended and became a universal surveillance tool within the USA, which is more powerful
then in Iraq as you can also analyze the content of messages such as emails or instant messages.
And as you add to phone calls Internet communications logs and metadata such as emails and web logs
and top it with credit card transactions, any person is actually like a bug under extremely powerful
and very cheap microscope.
Should you think twice about what are you sharing with others via your Web communications?
to some extent you should. Pointless relevation of information about yourself but also about your family and friends
is dangerious. The sad truth is that just by
the fact of using all those modern gargets and social networks you already is sharing a lot more personal
information than you intend to share... This self-exposure is actually a build-in feature
of sites such as Facebook. And taken as a whole for a considerable period of time your online activities
create a personal cloud of information about you. Which can along with the state be used by
criminals or other parties. It is not that NSA knows about you more then your
spouse, but it knows enough. And as you can see from the picture below is not a good thing. Look at the picture attentively,
it really deserves your uninterrupted attention:
Even if we assume that data collection is passive and never used, it is like a ticking
bomb or "skeleton in the closet" and as such is a powerful method of control of population. Not
the different from what was used by KGB in the USSR or STASI in East Germany. And probably
more effective as quick dissipation of Occupy Wall Street crowds had shown us.
So it does not really matter much what the data are collected for and what is the official justification
of such a collection. The mere fact of collection changes the situation to the worse, making the opposition
to the system practically impossible and personally costly. The net result is what is matter. And the net result definitely
resembles a move in the direction of a tyranny of the top 1%. As Senator Frank Church said in 1975:
"I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to
it that this agency [the National Security Agency] and all agencies that possess this technology
operate within the law and under proper supervision, so that we never cross over that abyss. That
is the abyss from which there is no return.".
Today his words sound even more true then in 1975 when computers were still in their infancy and
mainframes dominated the computer landscape. With the proliferation of cheap electronic devices such
as PCs and laptops, tablets and cell phones this really became "the abyss from which there is
no return".
So the real, the key goal is not what is officially declared (Orwell style permanent war on terrorism).
It is control of population like in was in the USSR and Eastern Germany. In a way we are all Eastern
Germans now, but in a completely different sense then Kennedy meant when he proposed his famous
phrase
(Ich bin ein Berliner)
Convenience of access to information has a side effect that it makes collection of information about
you trivial and at the same time comprehensive. It is to keep the elite safe from common folks, not
all those lies about national security. It is all about the security of the elite.
The story of J. Edgar
Hoover suggests that "knowledge is power" and the top brass of intelligence agencies routinely
and consistently develops a pathological addiction to collecting "skeletons in the closet" for the
people in power. This is a part of more complex trend due to which intelligence agencies often
are called as "shadow government". Often such people actually derive pleasure from having power over
nation politicians due to knowing some secret and embarrassing information on them.It is
in this sense (and also die to capability to conduct clandestine operations) troika of NSA, CIA and
FBI represent real, although shadow government of the country. This is the danger Senator Church
warned us, but the horse probably left the barn at the time of assignation of President Kennedy.
Please note that none of presidents was able to fire
J. Edgar Hoover He died
in his position of the head of FBI. The ability to manipulate other, even very powerful people is
very tempting. As Kissinger used to say "Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac." A related questions
are:
Whether NSA spied and "collected dirt" on members of Congress? Some information suggests
that they did:
Is executive branch interested in continuation of this practice? The answer is yes.
As Conor Friedersdorf noted on Feb 5, 2014 in
The Atlantic magazine "The phone dragnet gives the executive branch all the information
it needs to blackmail or discredit multiple legislators. It's a temptation to abuse."
Does NSA directly or indirectly has ties to the financial sector especially related to
the providing them with the information on the flow of funds of the foreign competitors ?
(see
Asia
Times, Dec 18, 2013). As
Henry A.
Wallace noted:
"Still another danger is represented by those who, paying lip service to democracy and the
common welfare, in their insatiable greed for money and the power which money gives, do
not hesitate surreptitiously to evade the laws designed to safeguard the public from monopolistic
extortion.
Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political
power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they
may keep the common man in eternal subjection.
They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the
Constitution.
They are patriotic in time of war because it is to their interest to be so, but in time
of peace they follow power and the dollar wherever they may lead. "
..."If we define an American fascist as one who in case of conflict puts money and power
ahead of human beings, then there are undoubtedly several million fascists in the United States.”
It the situation irreversible? In other words did 1984 dystopia materialized in slightly
different, slightly more gentle form? Probably yes. Cutting funds to three letter agencies would
be a small step in right direction. But the main value of 9/11 for the US establishment was that
it made such moves impossible. Also the elite as a whole is not interesting in dismantling the tool
that serve its interests so well even if it has some side effects on the elite members themselves
(looks at the discussion of surveillance over Trump and members of his team).
A related question is:
Is transformation of USA into USSA (United Secret Services of America) compete or just
started. The answer is that it is almost complete. This is just another confirmation of
The Iron Law of Oligarchy
All-in-all it's a good time to smell the coffee and talk about the rise of a new mutation of totalitarism
(or may be even neofascism -- as it is, essentially, the merger of corporate and state interests) in the
US after 9/11. That's exactly what this "Internet-inspired" flavor of total surveillance due to modern
technical capabilities means. There is also distinct shadow of STASI in all those activities. And some
countries got into similar trap before, so nothing is new under the sun. As Reinhold Niebuhr noted:
"Communism is a vivid object lesson in the monstrous consequences of moral complacency about
the relation of dubious means to supposedly good ends."
There is actually little difference between total surveillance as practiced by NSA and what was practiced
by three letters agencies of Eastern block dictatorships such as STASI and KGB. The key goal in both
cases is protection and preservation of power of existing elite against the will of common people. So
this is more about oppression of 99.9% from top 0.1% then surveillance per see.
We should view Snowden revelations in a larger context. Much of what he revealed about militarization
of cyberspace was already known at the time when
Flame and
Stuxnet worms were discovered in 2011. He just dot the i's and cross the t's , so speak. As a result
of his revelations, as
The
National Interest noted:
An increasing number of adversaries and even allies are coming to believe that the United
States is militarizing cyberspace — and that impression of hubris and irresponsibility is beginning
to have a real-world impact.
...The Snowden leaks have brought Stuxnet, the U.S.-Israeli program allegedly used to attack Iranian
computer systems, back into public debate — and reminded us that the real damage of the Snowden
revelations will be international.
...the perception that the United States has become a danger to the global internet is a cause
for concern. In their understandable anger at the considerable damage Snowden has done (in the
near term at the very least) to the operations of NSA and their allies, U.S. security officials should
not lose sight of this fact.
Snowden’s claims build on the Stuxnet revelations. In doing so, they reinforce an impression
of overbearing U.S. cyberpower (military and commercial) being used irresponsibly. That is strikingly
at odds with the U.S. self-image as a standard bearer of internet freedom and “borderless” exchange,
but it is a view that resonates around the world.
In fact the USA policies are stimulating economic and political rivals around the globe to organize
and present unified front against this new and dangerous form of total surveillance. As well as
implement similar domestic systems. In other words a new arm race started.
As methods and infrastructure of those activities are now revealed, the genie is out of the bottle
and can't be put back -- the US now should expect the same or worse treatment from other nations.
Which can be no less inventive, or even more inventive the USA specialists in this area. And in
this new arm race economically weaker nations actually has some leverage. Blowback, a CIA term for
unintended consequences of foreign, military, or clandestine policies, can be similar to the blowback
of politically organizing Islamic radicals to fight Soviets in Afghanistan in the past.
Nemesis, the goddess of retribution and vengeance, the punisher of pride and hubris, probably already
waits patiently for her meeting with the NSA brass.
Blowback can irreparably damage the ability of the United States to obtain crucial information
in foreign environments that are poorly understood in Washington. The cultural divide that exists
when operating away from home means that CIA and NSA frequently work overseas through a network of
liaison contacts. This in theory limits their activity, but it broadens their ability to collect
information that can only be plausibly obtained by a local organization with local capabilities.
Though nearly everyone also operates clandestinely outside the parameters of the established relationships
insofar as it is possible or expedient to do so, there is an awareness that being caught can
cause grave damage to the liaison relationship. Because being exposed is nearly always very
painful, such operations are normally limited to collection of critical information that the liaison
partner would be unwilling to reveal.
So while it might be comforting to claim that “everyone does it” at least some of the time,
and it may even be true that local spy agencies sometimes collaborated with NSA, the United States
has a great deal to lose by spying on its friends. This is particularly true as Washington,
uniquely, spies on everyone, all the time, even when there is no good reason for doing so.
Centralization of user activities on sites like Facebook, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, LinkedIn,
with email account mainly at Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo mail along with many positive aspects has tremendous
negative side effects. The most significant is that it created a way too easy opportunity both for those
organizations as well as government agencies and large corporations to data mine email and Web communications
of millions of Americans critical about government (see
Total control:
keywords in your posts that might trigger surveillance) and all foreigners who use those
services (and that includes a significant part of European population and Russia, who have Gmail, Facebook
or Yahoo accounts). The history of "total surveillance" suggests that it tends to be abused. It is also
huge, irreparable breach on trust in relation to allies. Closely resembles the situation in family when
wife or husband learn that the other hired detective to snoop on you.
The analogy with KGB surveillance of dissidents (the Soviet term for total surveillance was "to be
under the 'dome' ") and, especially, Stasi
(viewing the film "The Lives of Others" might help to understand the phenomenon of "total surveillance")
are way too close. At the same time there is an important difference: while such regime does mean indirect
(and pretty effective) intimidation of dissidents, cases of prosecution on the base of the those data
are either few or non existent, which is a big difference with KGB or
Stasi practice. The latter aggressively
pursued those who got in their net trying either to convert them into informers or charge them with
the some suitable article of Criminal Code. In some cases that practice lead to suicides. So here we
can talk more properly talk about total surveillance an instrument of
Inverted Totalitarism, or totalitarism in velvet
gloves.
We are talking about "passive total surveillance" and temporary (which might be several years or
your lifetime) storage of all intercepted data. But in a way, Senator McCartney was probably right about
"Communists sympathizers" and communist infiltration, he just was completely wrong about who they are
;-).
The famous The Police hit Every
Breath You Take should probably be the theme song for the NSA. As Dwight D. Eisenhower warned us
in his famous speech:
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence,
whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous
rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
Snowden revelations are not something new. The only real revelation was how much of it was going
on domestically and gory details of such activities. Before 9/11 the NSA was basically prohibited from
operating domestically. Of course it violates those prohibitions, but there were no systematic internal,
all encompassing technical surveillance infrastructure in place. Now it is build and is deployed nation-wide.
And that's a big change, big difference. Due to "novel" interpretation of a few provisions in the Patriot
Act they created domestic dragnet which encompass most types of Internet communications. In addition
to intercepting more then 70% of Internet traffic they also enjoy direct access to major cloud providers.
Total continued surveillance even without taking any action on collected data is totalitarian by
its nature as it put severe restrictions of the freedom of expression. And like in the USSR, it does
change people behavior on the Web. People start thinking about consequences and this page is one of
attempts to collect information that might help you to see "bigger picture".
The key mechanism here, well known to those who used to live in the USSR before its dissolution is
that people do react on the fact that everything they email, visit, buy on Amazon, etc is registered
in giant database outside of their control. Internet will never be the same for most people after Snowden
revelations...
The key mechanism here, well known to those who used to live in the USSR before its dissolution
is that people do react on the fact that everything they email, visit, buy on Amazon, etc is registered
in giant database outside of their control. Internet will never be the same for most people after
Snowden revelations...
For example, no one in sound mind can now trust "cloud services" provided by Facebook, Google, Yahoo,
Microsoft, etc. So attractiveness of Gmail, Hotmail and such are now different, then it was before.
And separation of mail accounts between "junk mail" account and important mail account is something
to think about. With the latter never in the cloud. In a way excessive using cloud services from a fashionable
trend now became kind of indication of a person stupidity.
In a way excessive using of cloud services from a fashionable trend now became an indication
of a person stupidity. There is no real justification of providing all your emails and address
book to strangers who can abuse this information without your knowledge.
At the same time it is stupid to dramatize the situation. Still, what is really striking is the grotesque
disproportionally of all this NSA surveillance "superdome" to the task of keeping the country safe from
foreign enemies (NSA statute is about watching foreign communications), begging obvious questions of
institutional sanity and competence. They turned all their super powerful collection mechanisms inside
the country and now they drink from a firehouse. That means that the results and possibilities of abuse
are pretty much predictable. Too many false positives create real danger of not to picking up weak signal.
So the other question is "Who the hell made these decisions?" That's a lot of taxpayers money and I
am not sure that they are well spend.
As for breach of privacy anyone with connected to Internet PC, the first thing to understand
that if somebody stores data in the cloud they should not expect any privacy, unless they encrypt them.
Expecting that your unencrypted data are private is a sign of personal stupidity, no more no less. If
somebody, who is keeping his address book in Google assumes that it remains private, that his own illusion.
That has nothing to do with the reality.
And it not that only NSA threatens our privacy. After all there are millions of PC users that have
computer(s) infected by spyware, which turns them into zombies, externally controlled monitoring devices.
And such software BTW can pick up and offload, or
encrypt for ransom all your data. I do not see much protest over this situation iether. Microsoft
greed and stupidity is one reason for this dismal situation, but essentially any OS is vulnerable if
enough money is invested in finding exploits. And NSA actually created a market for such exploits.
Now there are multiple "security firms" that do nothing then find "zero day" exploits and sell them
to the highest bidder (which is of course government agencies). Does not this reminds you 'war
on drugs"?
In a way, any networked computer is an unsecure computer and should be treated as such.
See Privacy is
Dead – Get Over It. The same thing can be mentioned about a cell phone that is outside some metal
box. That's two basic "laws of security" in the current environment.
But more important problem here is not snooping per se, but its interaction with self-profiling that
you provide via social sites. If you are too enthusiastic about Facebook or Google++ or any similar
site and engage regularly and indiscriminately in this "vanity fair" activity that simply means Privacy is Dead
– Get Over It. You killed it yourself. The essence of the situation was exposed well in a humorous
form in the following
Amazon review of Orwell's
novel 1984
Note to US Congress and house of representatives: This is a fictional book, not an
instruction manual...
Now we know what would a perfect prototype of Bid Brother ;-). The song (Every
Breath You Take ) should probably be the theme song for the NSA. And not only NSA, but its counterparts
in other parts of the globe; I think, other things equal, citizens of some other countries would greatly
prefer NSA to their domestic counterparts.
Cell phones, laptops, Facebook, Skype, chat-rooms: all allow the NSA and other similar agencies to
build a dossier, a detailed profile of a target and anyone associated with him/her. And the number of
people caught up in this dragnet can be huge. The NSA say it needs all this data to help prevent another
terrorist attack like 9/11. They lie. In order to find the needle in the haystack, they argue, they
need access to the whole haystack. But one interesting side effect is that now they are drinking from
the fire hose, so to speak.
Another interesting side-effect of the Snowden disclosures that the term ‘metadata’ became a common
word in English language. With the growing understanding that metadata includes enough personal information
to built a detailed profile of a person without even listening into content of communications. This
technology was invented in Iraq war for fighting insurgents (were phone companies were controlled by
US) and now is applied at home. In fact, by just using electronic communications, you are sharing a
lot more personal information than you think. It's a reflection of a fact that it is very cheap to collect
and analyses information about your electronic communications. The digital revolution which led to an
explosion in cell phone and internet use, also led to an explosion of snooping after you by the governments.
We need to distinguish "total collection" of data from "total analysis" (or creation of dossiers
on everybody as was practiced by STASI and friends). Raw data contain both "signal" and "noise". Analysis
or data mining of those raw data is the process of extraction of useful signal from the noise. Of course
we should be so naive that to assume that "signal" is related to purely terrorist activities. As recently
published documents had shown, the NSA interests are much wider ;-). In bald terms, it sets out its
mission:
“Leverage unique key corporate partnerships to gain access to high-capacity international fiber-optic
cables, switches and/or routes throughout the world.”
Along with major fiber-optic cables in the US, the NSA has access to data gathered by close intelligence
partners such as Britain’s GCHQ.
Sometimes it appear to me that like Uncle Sam got "red disease" and now is trying to imitate "total
surveillance" mantra of KGB, STASI and similar agencies on a new technological level. And the key lesson
from Soviet experience is fully applicable to the current situation in the USA: when government consider
everybody as a potential enemy you better watch your back. And having a cyberstooge following your every
step more closely that it was possible for STASI spooks and informers is something you need to react
to. Reading your address book, mail, list of books that you bought or borrowed from the library, analyzing
your circuit of friends is what STASI was really good at. And it might well be that some unemployed
specialists have found a new territory to apply their substantial talents.
The Snowden documents show that the NSA runs these surveillance programs through “partnerships” with
major US telecom and internet companies. That means that if you are customer of those major telecom
and Internet companies you are like a bug under the microscope.
It is important to understand that metadata of your communications will always be exposed (it other
words you are always walking "naked" on the Internet) because those new surveillance capabilities are
immanent properties of Internet protocols, as we known it. There is no way to encrypt connection metadata:
this is technically impossible unless you owns a vast private VPN network (some large corporations do),
but even in this case I have doubts. Even snail-mail metadata are collected (and from 50th to 80th letters
were opened and selectively copied by CIA). Diplomatic mail might still be secure, but that's about
it.
Like with any new development there are countervailing trends that after Snowden revelation went
in overdrive and can seriously affect NSA capabilities.
One is switching to encrypting communication with most websites such as YouTube. That prevent simple
harvesting of video that you watched from HTTP logs (but does not prevent harvesting -- it can be done
using other methods)
The second is usage of software like Tor, although I think all connection to Tor sites are closely
monitored by NSA.
The third is usage of your own cashing DNS proxy to limit number of DNS requests you make.
I also think that all those development might give steganography a huge boost.
The other areas of technology that might get huge boost due to Snowden revelations is "Browsing imitating
internet robots" technology which permit to drown NSA collection devices in spam -- fake accesses to
web sites that is very difficult to distinguish from real browsing, but that make all statistical metrics
applied to your Web traffic useless. For example top visited pages became completely bogus.
"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely".
Lord Acton(1834–1902)
As Lord Acton(1834–1902) noted long before NSA started collecting all Internet communications
"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely". The history of "total surveillance"
suggests that this is unavoidable side effect on the very institution that conducts: such an institution
tends to escape the control of civil society and became a shadow power, the element of "deep state".
The first grave consequence of total surveillance is that it tends to be abused. The history
of "total surveillance" suggests that this is unavoidable side effect on the very institution
that conducts: such an institution tends to escape the control of civil society and became a shadow
power, the element of "deep state".
And the ability to intercept electronic communications gives those who are in charge of such collection
tremendous political power. Please remember that
J. Edgar Hoover was director
of FBI very long time partially because he dug a lot of dirt on politicians of his time including both
Kennedys. According to President
Harry S Truman, Hoover
transformed the FBI into his private secret police force. He used the FBI to harass political dissenters
and activists, to amass secret files on political leaders, and to collect evidence using illegal methods.
Essentially for half of the century he and his organization were out of control "state within the state"
and nobody could do anything about it. Only after his death some measures were taken.
It's not that expanding bureaucracy per se is a problem. I doubt that those in the bureaucracy of
those agencies do not think about larger consequences for societies of their attempts to expand their
sphere of influence. It is much worse: they definitely knew about possible consequences, but go "full
forward' anyway preferring job promotions and expansion of their influence. Like bureaucrats often do,
they betrayed their nations like nomenklatura betrayed the people of the USSR (with a similar
fig leaf of nice slogans about freedom as a smoke screen for pretty nefarious activities).
In case of NSA, this data on you, or particular political or social movement (for example "Occupy
Wall Street") can be mined at any time, and what is even worse can be used to destroy any new political
movement. And please remember that NSA is a just part of military-industrial complex, an entity that
has some interesting political characteristics related to the term "the acquisition of unwarranted
influence" . As Dwight D. Eisenhower warned us in his famous farewell speech (which introduced
the term "military-industrial complex"):
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence,
whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous
rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
People seldom understand that all three letter agencies are not just part of military industrial complex,
but are the key parts. While ability of weapon manufactures to buy or just simply control Congress members
matters, three-letter agencies is where "unwarranted influence" fully materialize. By definition they
are out of control and as any bureaucracy they want to grow. That was clear to Senator Frank Church
who stated on August 17, 1975 NBC's
Meet the Press:
In the need to develop a capacity to know what potential enemies are doing, the United States
government has perfected a technological capability that enables us to monitor the messages that
go through the air. Now, that is necessary and important to the United States as we look abroad at
enemies or potential enemies. We must know, at the same time, that capability at any time could be
turned around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left such is the
capability to monitor everything—telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn’t matter. There would
be no place to hide.
If this government ever became a tyrant, if a dictator ever took charge in this country, the
technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to
impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back because the most careful effort to
combine together in resistance to the government, no matter how privately it was done, is within
the reach of the government to know. Such is the capability of this technology.
I don’t want to see this country ever go across the bridge. I know the capacity that is there
to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess
this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision so that we never cross over that
abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return.[11]
...let us be realistic and not fall for the usual story of this being a discrete event (all the
latest surveillance, that is).
This dates back to the founding of the Financial-Intelligence-Complex during and in the aftermath
of World War II, by the Wall Streeters for their super-rich bosses, the Rockefellers, Morgans, du
Ponts, Mellons, Harrimans (now Mortimers), etc.
The most important factor that needs to be taken into account is the total surveillance make organized
opposition to the regime impossible. So welcome to nicer, gentler, but no less totalitarian world of
1984 (aka "Back in USSR"). The key equation is very simple:
total surveillance = total control
That simple fact was well understood by various dictators and totalitarian regimes long ago, but
none of them has had even a tiny fraction of technical capabilities NSA has now. I think one
of the reason that Occupy movement completely dissipated so fast was that they were like
a bug under microscope of the government. And government want them to stop harassing Wall Street sharks
for their 2008 crisis misdeeds.
Another important effect of "total surveillance" is instilling fear in the citizenry; fear that our
thoughts, words and relationships are subject of interception and analysis; fear that all the content
we access on the internet will be exposed. This fear can cause us to withdraw from public spaces like
producing this website, censor our communications, refrain from accessing certain sites, buying certain
books, etc.
An important effect of "total surveillance" is instilling fear in the citizenry; fear
that our thoughts, words and relationships are subject of interception and analysis; fear that
all the content we access on the internet will be exposed. This fear can cause us to withdraw
from public spaces like producing this website, censor our communications, refrain from accessing
certain sites, buying certain books, etc.
In other words understanding that you are watched on 24 x 7 basis modifies behavior and makes self-censorship
your second nature exactly the same way as in any totalitarian state, but without any physical coercion.
Here is one telling comment from
Secret to Prism program Even bigger data seizure
wtpayne
Indeed: The intentions and motivations of the agencies in question; the degree of oversight
and so on; is almost irrelevant. To a certain extent, I am content to believe that the intentions
of the perpetrators is good; and that the oversight and abuse prevention systems that they have
in place are strong.
However, none of that matters if people self-censor; if people worry, not about what the
government of today will find objectionable, but what the government of tomorrow will not like.
In effect, we end up censoring ourselves from a hypothetical worst-case future government.
We will concentrate on technical side of the this operation, trying to understand how much information
can be stored about a regular "Joe Doer" based on technical capabilities that are available. Let's assume
that we deal with mostly "passive surveillance": collection and storage of vast amount of Internet traffic
on special computers using either mirrored ports on the key routers or special access to key providers
of cloud services.
We can probably assume that several layers of storage of those data exist:
Running buffer (contains all data for all users, probably just for a couple of weeks or
a month). By definition it contains "everything". All you activity, be it email, web browsing, instant
messaging of ftp transfers.
Temporary storage (which might be several years, but probably is between five and ten
years). Some of this permanent storage cloud provider users create themselves. A good example is
the Send folder they maintain on cloud email provider. This temporary storage might also include
all your Web logs and Web searches. Temporary storage of Weblogs are probably limited to metadata (proxy logs) because of large volume.
Permanent, which is invoked if you got under active surveillance or belong to some kind
of group, which is classified as treat to the state and as such is monitored. We can only guess what it involves and how much information is
stored in this case, but installation of some malware on your computer is not out of question. This
permanent storage includes but is not limited to
Your address book (several generations)
All you searches on major search engines
All your text email (not sure about graphic files)
Twits and SMS messages.
Phone conversations metadata.
Skype conversations
Technology development creates new types of communications as well as new types of government surveillance
mechanisms (you can call them "externalities" of new methods of communication). Those externalities,
especially low cost of mass
surveillance (Wikipedia), unfortunately, bring us closer to the
Electronic police state
(Wikipedia) or National Security State whether we want it or not. A
crucial element of such a state is that its data gathering, sorting and correlation on individual
citizens are continuous,
cover a large number of citizens and all foreigners, and those activities are seldom exposed.
Cloud computing as a technology that presuppose storing the data "offsite" have several security
problems, and one of them is that it is way too much "surveillance friendly" (Misunderstanding
of issues of security and trust). With cloud computing powers that be do not need
to do complex job of recreating TCP/IP conversations on router level to capture, say, all the emails.
You can access Web-based email mailbox directly with all mails in appropriate mailboxes and spam filtered.
This is a huge saving of computational efforts ;-).
It means two things:
In first thing to understand that government is profiling you even if you did nothing wrong
(see
The Government is Profiling You MIT Video). Creation of Internet just put those processes into
overdrive mode.
The modern capability of storage of data provide the capability of storing the following information
about you for several years (five years minimum), if not for a lifetime:
Metadata for your phone calls. This metadata is extremely revealing; investigators
mining it might be able to infer whether we have an illness or an addiction, what our religious
affiliations and political activities are, and so on.
Actual content (mp3 file or similar format) of all your Skype phone calls (the saying
is that "there is no free lunch" has now a new meaning here ). This is less important as getting
those calls transcribed is a difficult undertaking.
Metadata of pages that you assessed (visited websites). For a considerable period of
time (over a year) those data in a standard
HTTP log format are extremely revealing as for your political and social views, as well as
well as general interests. Sophisticated log analysis programs are available (so called proxy
log analyzers). This reveals all your downloads, software that you are using and many, many other
things. Essentially now you like a bug under the microscope.
Your purchases on major Internet sites (Amazon, eBay) and all purchases using major credit
cards. This is even more revealing then you web activity, as you put money were your interests
are. Buy books that interest you, and so on. Also extremely revealing as for your political and
social views, as well as well as general interests.
All the content you put on social sites such as Facebook. Here people usually reveal quite
a bit about themselves. As many people have presence simultaneously in Google, Facebook and
LinkedIn, total information includes your education, current qualification and possibly resume.
Address book and calendar on sides such Gmail, Hotmail or
Yahoo mail.
It puts you essentially in a situation of a bug under microscope on Big Brother. And please understand
that modern storage capabilities are such that it is easy to store several years of at least some of
your communications, especially emails.
The same is true about your
phone calls metadata,
credit card transactions and your activities on major shopping sites such as Amazon, and eBay. But here
you can do almost nothing. Still I think our support of "brick" merchants is long overdue. Phones are
traditional target of government three letter agencies (WSJ)
since the WWII. Smartphones with GPS in addition to land line metadata also provide your current geo
location. Some point out that using basic phone slightly preferable to smartphone (both in a sense
of absence of geodata and the possibility to install spyware on it -- there is simply no RAM to do
anything sophisticated). But I do not think you can do much here
I think our support of "brick" merchants is long overdue. And paying cash in the store
in not something that you should try to avoid because credit card returns you 1% of the cost of
the purchase. This 1% is actually a privacy tax ;-)
Total continued surveillance even without taking any action on collected data is totalitarian by
its nature as it put severe restrictions of the freedom of expression and it changes people behavior
on the Web. In this sense, Senator McCartney was probably right about "Communists sympathizers" and
"KGB infiltration", he just was completely wrong about who they are ;-).
The centralization of searches on Google (and to a lesser extent on Bing -- the latter is
standard with new Windows installation) are also serious threats
to your privacy. Here diversification between three or more search engines might help a bit.
But limited your time behind the computer is probably more efficient. Generally here I do not think much can be done. Growth of
popularity of Duckduckgo suggests that people are
vary of Google monopolizing the search, but it is unclear how big are the advantages. You can also save
searches as many searches are recurrent and generally you can benefit from using your personal Web proxy
with private cashing DNS server. This way to can "shrink" your radar picture, but that's about it.
If you are conserved with you "search" profile, you can replay some searches to distort it. In any
case, search
engines are now an integral part of our civilization, whether we want it or not.
Collection of your searches for the last several years can pretty precisely outline sphere of your
interests. And again technical constrains on storage of data no longer exists: how we can talk about
privacy at the age of 3 TB harddrives for $99. There are approximately
314 million
of the US citizens and residents, so storing one gigabyte of information for each citizen requires just
400 petabytes. Which is clearly within the current capabilities of storage technology. For comparison
In July 2012 it was revealed that
CERN amassed about 200 petabytes
of data from the more than 800 trillion collisions
In August 2012, Facebook's
Hadoop clusters include the largest single
HDFS cluster known, with more than
100 PB physical disk space in a single HDFS filesystem
By some estimates, storage capabilities of the US government are around 5 zeta bytes.
The analogy with KGB surveillance of dissidents (the term was "to be under the "kolpak" (dome) ")
and, especially, Stasi (viewing the
film "The Lives of Others" might help to understand the phenomenon of "total surveillance") are way
too close. And psychological effects of anticipating that you are under total surveillance are well
depicted in the final of the film The Conversation (1974)
directed by famous Francis Ford Coppola
At the same time there is an important difference: while both regimes creates implicit intimidation
and squash dissent, cases of prosecution on the base of the those data are either few or non existent.
Which is a big difference with KGB or
Stasi practice, which aggressively pursued those dissidents who got in their net, trying either
to convert them into informers, or prosecute them using the existing articles of Criminal Code. In some
cases that led to suicides. So here we can talk more about
Inverted Totalitarism, a velvet gloves mode
of suppressing of dissent.
Still it is now dramatically more clear then before that centralization of email accounts and user
activities on sites like Facebook, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, LinkedIn, with email accounts mainly
at Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo mail is far from being a positive development. Along with many positive
aspects has tremendous negative side effects. Essentially it turns users into spies on themselves in
a way that would be a dream by Stasi. The most significant is that it created an easy opportunities
to data mine email databases both for those organizations as well as various government agencies and,
possibly (in a limited way for special payment) by large corporations.
Those tendencies probably should be at least resisted, but we do not have means to reverse them.
Attempts to data mine email and Web communications of millions of Americans critical about government
(see Total
control: keywords in your posts that might trigger surveillance) and all foreigners who use
those services (and that includes a significant part of European population and xUSSR area, who often
use Gmail, Facebook or Yahoo accounts) means that the country became a National Security State. With
all relevant consequences of such a transformation.
And interest in content of your "cloud based" email is not limited to the government:
A sweeping Wall Street Journal investigation in 2010 found that the biggest U.S.
websites have technologies tracking people who visit their pages, sometimes upwards of 100 tools
per site. One intrusive string of code even recorded users’ keystrokes and transmitted them
to a data-gathering firm for analysis.
“A digital dossier over time is built up about you by that site or third-party service or
data brokers,” says Adam Thierer, senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center’s Technology
Policy Program at George Mason University. “They collect these data profiles and utilize them to
sell you or market you better services or goods.”
This is what powers the free Internet we know and love; users pay nothing or next to nothing
for services — and give up pieces of personal information for advertisers in exchange. If you search
for a Mini Cooper on one website, you’re likely to see ads elsewhere for lightweight, fuel-efficient
cars. Companies robotically categorize users with descriptions such as “urban upscale” to “rural
NASCAR” to tailor the advertising experience, says Jim Harper of the libertarian Cato Institute.
“They’ll use ZIP codes and census data to figure out what their lifestyle profile is.”
Most of the site you visit those days was found via search engine, often Google. But Google is interested
in more then search terms you use and sometimes plays with you a nasty trick: "Google may choose
to exhibit its search results in the form of a 'URL redirector,'" reads Google's main privacy policy.
That means that any time it wishes Google can spy on your Web activity:
"When Google uses a URL redirector, if you click on a URL from a search result, information
about the click is sent to Google."
Few people check the URL before clicking on Google search results, so in a way this is perfect spying
tool.
But there is another powerful spying tool in Google arsenal -- Google toolbar, and I am not sure
that all those trick were not reused in Google browser. Google Toolbar sends all user clicks to
Google, if advanced mode is enabled (and many people do enable it because they want to have spelling
correction available which, conveniently for Google, belongs to the set of advanced features).
This way you voluntarily subscribe to a 24x7 monitoring of your web activity using spyware that is installed
on your computer with your consent. For the same reason recent smartphones fashion looks greatly misguided.
It is better to use regular phone, then smartphone, and the last thing you probably want on your smartphone
is Android OS or iOS, or windows 8 OS. In some deep way unlocked Nokia 1280 looks now much more attractive
(and is way cheaper ;-).
Google Toolbar in advanced mode is another common snooping tool about your activities. It
send each URL you visit to Google and you can be sure that from Google several three letter agencies
get this information as well. After all Google has links to them from the very beginning:
As soon as they realize that they are watched, people start thinking about consequences and this
article is a pretty telling (albeit slightly paranoid ;-) illustration of the effect. The key mechanism
here, well known to those who used to live in the USSR before its dissolution is that people preemptively
change their behavior, if they know or suspect that they got "under the dome" of government surveillance,
that all their emails are intercepted, all web site visits recorded, anything they buy on Amazon, etc
is registered in giant database outside of their control.
The angle under which will we try to cover the story is: the situation is such and such, now
what? What are the most appropriate actions and strategy of behavior of people who are concerned
about their privacy and no longer trust "cloud services" provided by Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft,
etc ( and those who trust those providers should probably stop reading at this point). It is impossible
to close all those accounts. But some can and should be closed; for example POP3 mail can replace web
mail for all "important" mail; this way you avoid "cloud storage" of all your important correspondence.
It is impossible not to use search engines, but you can chose which search language to use. It is impractical
not to use smartphone and for Android phone you can't avoid registration -- that's the only way to get
updates from Google, but you can root the phone, remove some snooping components and use Firefox instead
of Chrome. But not it is clear that if mobile web browsing and checking email on your phone is not your
thing you are better off with a very simple phone such as Nokia 1280.
The first and the most obvious "change we can believe in" is that we need to change our attitude
toward cloud services and especially cloud services from large providers. Now the most reasonable assumption
is that most national cloud providers including major retailers are in bed with the government three
letter agencies. So you need to be careful what you browse for on Amazon, similarly to what you write
from Gmail and Hotmail.
In a way, excessive usage of cloud services from a fashionable trend now became kind of indication
of a person stupidity. It is important to understand that for anybody more or less competent with
computers (or willing to learn), anything Facebook or Gmail or Hotmail can offer, regular
small ISP account with Cpanel can offer with less risk for your privacy for, say, $5 a month or less.
And your privacy definitely cost more then $60 a year.
In a way excessive using of cloud services from a fashionable trend now became an indication
of a person stupidity. For anybody more or less competent with computers (or willing to learn),
anything Facebook or Gmail can offer, regular ISP account with Cpanel can offer too with less
risk for your privacy.
At the same time it is also stupid to over-dramatize the situation and isolate yourself by abandoning
Internet communications and restricting usage of cell-phone. The reasonable hypothesis is that today’s
surveillance is a side effect of new technological developments and it is a new fact of life. It is
just a new level of information gathering, which has been going on since the Byzantine Empire. And it
is still limited by technological capabilities of sifting through mass of communications. But at the
same time, quantity does at one point turns into quality, so the danger is real and as such could providers
are suspect by definition. In no way they are new level of technological development. In sense they
are one step forward, two sets back.
Also being engages in foreign wars has an interesting side effect that technologies invented come
home and used against citizens (naked
capitalism). That's actually the origin of indiscriminant collection of metadata used now.
But at the same time we need to understand that there are millions of PC users that have computer(s)
infected by spyware, which can make your computer a zombie. And world did not perished due to that.
Still the key lesson is unmistakable: from now on, any networked computer is an unsecure computer
that can't be trusted really confidential information, unless it is isolated by firewall and proxy.
And if we assume that it is unsecured computer, them it should be treated it as such. The first step
is that all confidential data should be deleted and moved to removable storage. In case you need to
work with it as much as possible should be done on non-networked computers, limiting the exposure of
your data to bare minimum. And the less powerful computer you use for processing you confidential data,
the best; the less powerful OS you use, the best (what about using Windows 98 or DOS for those who can
still remember it ? ;-). From now on "retro-computing" movement now is inherently linked with the issues
of security and privacy and might get a new life.
This retro-computing idea might create a new life for abandoned computers that are in excess in almost
every family ;-) See
Privacy is Dead
– Get Over It. The same thing can be mentioned about a cell phone, which should be as simple as
possible. Not all people really benefit from browsing the Web from their smartphones. If you are really
paranoid you can think storing you cell phone at home in a metal box ;-).
In other words there are two new "laws of computer security":
secure computer is non-networked computer
secure cell-phone is a cell-hone in a metal box or without a battery.
But more important problem here is not snooping per se, but voluntarily self-profiling that you provide
via social sites. If you are way too enthusiastic about Facebook or Google++ or any similar site and
engage regularly and indiscriminately in this "vanity fair" activity you put yourselves voluntarily
under surveillance. So not only
Privacy is Dead
– Get Over It. You killed it yourself. The essence of the situation was exposed well
in a humorous form in the following
Amazon review of Orwell's
novel 1984
Note to US Congress and house of representatives: This is a fictional book, not an
instruction manual...
BTW just after Prism program was revealed in June 2013,
Nineteen Eighty-Four became a bestseller on Amazon. As of June 15, 2013 it was #87 in Fiction. If
you never have a chance to read it, please do it now. and again, if you think that this revelation of
Prism program is a big news, you probably are mistaken. Many people understood that as soon new technical
capabilities of surveillance are available they are instantly put to use. As John H. Summers noted in
his review (The
Deciders - New York Times) of John Mill "Power
elite":
...official secrecy steadily expanded its reach.
"For the first time in American history, men in authority are talking about an 'emergency'
without a foreseeable end,"
Mills wrote in a sentence that remains as powerful and unsettling as it was 50 years ago.
"Such men as these are crackpot realists: in the name of realism they have constructed
a paranoid reality all their own."
Facebook has nothing without people
silly enough to exchange privacy for photosharing
The key problem with social sites is that many people voluntarily post excessive amount of personal
data about themselves, including keeping their photo archives online, etc. So while East Germany analog
of the Department of Homeland Security called Ministry for State Security (Stasi)
needed to recruit people to spy about you, now you yourself serves as a informer voluntarily providing
all the tracking information about your activities ;-).
Scientella, palo alto
...Facebook always had a very low opinion of peoples intelligence - and rightly so!
I can tell you Silicon Valley is scared. Facebook's very existence depends upon trusting young
persons, their celebrity wannabee parents and other inconsequential people being prepared to give
up their private information to Facebook.
Google, now that SOCIAL IS DEAD, at least has their day job also, of paid referral advertising
where someone can without divulging their "social" identity, and not linking their accounts, can
look for a product on line and see next to it some useful ads.
But Facebook has nothing without people silly enough to exchange privacy for photosharing.
... ... ...
Steve Fankuchen, Oakland CA
Cook, Brin, Gates, Zuckerberg, et al most certainly have lawyers and public relations hacks
that have taught them the role of "plausible deniability."
Just as in the government, eventually some low or mid-level flunkie will likely be hung out
to dry, when it becomes evident that the institution knew exactly what was going on and did nothing
to oppose it. To believe any of these companies care about their users as anything other than
cash cows is to believe in the tooth fairy.
The amount of personal data which users of site like Facebook put voluntarily on the Web is truly
astonishing. Now anybody using just Google search can get quit substantial information about anybody
who actively using social sites and post messages in discussion he/she particulates under his/her own
name instead of a nickname. Just try to see what is available about you and most probably your jaw would
drop...
This is probably right time for the users of social sites like Facebook, Google search, and Amazon
(that means most of us ;-) to think a little bit more about the risks we are exposing ourselves. We
all should became more aware about the risks involved as well as real implications of the catch phase
Privacy is Dead
– Get Over It.
This is probably right time for the users of social sites like Facebook, Google search,
and Amazon (that means most of us ;-) to think a little bit more about the risks we are exposing
ourselves.
If there is one thing we can take away from the news of recent weeks it is this: the modern
American surveillance state is not really the stuff of paranoid fantasies; it has arrived.
Citizens of foreign countries have accounts at Facebook and mail accounts in Gmail, hotmail and Yahoo
mail are even in less enviable position then the US citizens. They are legitimate prey. No legal protection
for them exists, if they use those services. That means that they voluntarily open all the information
they posted about themselves to the US government in addition to their own government. And the net is
probably more wide then information leaked by NSA contractor Edward Snowden suggests. For any large
company, especially a telecom corporation, operating is the USA it might be dangerous to refuse to cooperate
(Qwest case).
Former Qwest CEO Joseph
Nacchio, convicted of insider trading in April 2007, alleged in appeal documents that the NSA
requested that Qwest participate in its wiretapping program more than six months before September
11, 2001. Nacchio recalls the meeting as occurring on February 27, 2001. Nacchio further claims that
the NSA cancelled a lucrative contract with Qwest as a result of Qwest's refusal to participate in
the wiretapping program.[13]
Nacchio surrendered April 14, 2009 to a federal prison camp in Schuylkill, Pennsylvania to begin
serving a six-year sentence for the insider trading conviction. The United States Supreme Court denied
bail pending appeal the same day.[15]
It is not the case of some special evilness of the US government. It simply is more agile to understand
and capitalize on those new technical opportunities. It is also conveniently located at the center of
Internet universe with most traffic is flowing via US owned or controlled routers (67% or more). But
it goes without saying that several other national governments and a bunch of large corporations also
try to mine this new gold throve of private information on citizens. Probably with less sophistication
and having less financial resources.
In many cases corporations themselves are interested in partnership with the government. Here is
one telling comment:
jrs says on June 8, 2013
Yea in my experience that’s how “public/private partnerships” really work:
Companies DO need protection FROM the government. An ill-conceived piece of legislation
can put a perfectly decent out of business. Building ties with the government is protection.
Government represents a huge market and eventually becomes one of the top customers
for I think most businesses (of course the very fact that a government agency is a main
customer is often kept hush hush even within the company and something you are not supposed
to speak of as an employee even though you are aware of it)
Of course not every company proceeds to step 3 -- being basically an arm of the government
but ..
That means that not only Chinese citizens already operate on the Internet without any real sense
of privacy. Even if you live outside the USA the chances are high that you automatically profiled by
the USA instead of or in addition to your own government. Kind of
neoliberalism in overdrive mode: looks like we all
are already citizens of a global empire (Let's call it " Empire of Peace" ) with the capital in Washington.
It is reasonable to assume that a massive eavesdropping apparatus now tracks at least an "envelope"
of every electronic communication you made during your lifetime. No need for somebody reporting about
you like in "old" totalitarian state like East Germany with its analog of the Department of Homeland
Security called the Ministry for State Security (Stasi).
So in this new environment, you are like Russians used to say about dissidents who got under KGB surveillance
is always "under the dome". In this sense this is just an old vine in a new bottles. But the global
scope and lifetime storage of huge amount of personal information for each and every citizen is something
new and was made possible the first time in world history by new technologies.
It goes without saying that records about time, sender and receiver of all your phone calls, emails,
Amazon purchases, credit card transactions, and Web activities for the last decade are stored somewhere
in a database and not necessary only government computers. And that means that your social circle (the
set of people you associate with), books and films that you bought, your favorite websites, etc can
be easily deducted from those records.
That brings us to an important question about whether we as consumers should support such ventures
as Facebook and Google++ which profile you and after several years have a huge amount of pretty private
and pretty damaging information about you, information which can get into wrong hands.
The most constructive approach to NSA is to view is a large government bureaucracy that expanded
to the extent that quantity turned into quality.
Any large
bureaucracy is a political coalition with the primary goal of preserving and enhancing of its own
power, no matter what are official declarations. And if breaching your privacy helps they will do it.
Which is what Bush government did after 9/11. The question is how much bureaucratic bloat resulting
in classic dynamics of organizational self-aggrandizement and expansionism happened in NSA. We don't
know how much we got in exchange for undermining internet security and US constitution. But we do know
the intelligence establishment happily appropriated billions of dollars, had grown by thousand of employees
and got substantial "face lift" and additional power within the executive branch of government. To the
extent that something it looks like a shadow government. And now they will fight tooth-and nail to protect
the fruits of a decade long bureaucratic expansion. Now it is an Intelligence Church and like any religious
organization they do not need fact to support their doctrine and influence.
Typically there is an infighting and many factions within any large hierarchical organization, some
with and some without factual awareness of the rest. Basically any hierarchical institution corporate,
religious, military will abuse available resources for internal political infighting. And with NSA "big
data" push this is either happening or just waiting to happen. This is a danger of any warrantless wiretapping
program: it naturally convert itself into a saga of eroding checks and disappearing balance. And this
already happened in the past, so in a way it is just act two of the same drama (WhoWhatWhy):
After
media
revelations of intelligence abuses by the Nixon administration began to mount in the wake of
Watergate, NSA became the subject of Congressional ire in the form of the United States Senate Select
Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities—commonly
known as the “Church Committee” after its chair, Senator Frank Church (D-ID)—established on January
17, 1975. This ad-hoc investigative body found itself unearthing troves of classified records from
the FBI, NSA, CIA and Pentagon that detailed the murky pursuits of each during the first decades
of the Cold War. Under the mantle of defeating communism, internal documents confirmed the executive
branch’s use of said agencies in
some of the most fiendish acts of human imagination (including refined psychological torture
techniques), particularly by
the Central Intelligence Agency.
The Cold War mindset had incurably infected the nation’s security apparatus, establishing
extralegal subversion efforts at home and
brutish control abroad. It was revealed that the FBI
undertook a war to destroy
homegrown movements such as the Black Liberation Movement (including Martin Luther King, Jr.), and
that NSA had indiscriminately
intercepted the communications of Americans without warrant, even
without the President’s
knowledge. When confronted with such nefarious enterprises, Congress sought to rein in the excesses
of the intelligence community, notably those directed at the American public.
That capability at any time could be turned around on the American people and no American
would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything. Telephone conversations,
telegrams, it doesn’t matter. There would be no place to hide. If this government ever became a tyranny,
if a dictator ever took charge in this country, the technological capacity that the intelligence
community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no
way to fight back, because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government,
no matter how privately it was done, is within the reach of the government to know. Such is the capability
of this technology. I don’t want to see this country ever go across the bridge. I know the capability
that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency and all agencies
that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision, so that we never
cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return.
The reforms that followed, as enshrined in the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Act (FISA) of 1978, included the establishment of the
Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC): a specially-designated panel of judges who are allowed
to review evidence before giving NSA a warrant to spy on Americans (only in the case of overseas
communication). Hardly a contentious check or balance, FISC
rejected
zero warrant requests between its inception in 1979 and 2000, only asking that two warrants
be “modified” out of an estimated 13,000.
In spite of FISC’s rubberstamping, following 9/11 the Bush administration began deliberately bypassing
the court, because even its minimal evidentiary standard was too high a burden of proof for the blanket
surveillance they wanted. So began the dragnet monitoring of the American public by
tapping the country’s major
electronic communication chokepoints in collusion with the nation’s largest telecommunications
companies.
When
confronted with the criminal conspiracy undertaken by the Bush administration and telecoms, Congress
confirmed why
it retains the lowest approval rating of any major American institution by “reforming” the statute
to accommodate the massive law breaking. The
2008 FISA Amendments Act
[FAA] entrenched the policy of mass eavesdropping and granted the telecoms retroactive immunity
for their criminality, withdrawing even the negligible individual protections in effect since 1979.
Despite initial opposition, then-presidential candidate Barack Obama
voted for
the act as one of his last deeds in the Senate.
A few brave (and unsuccessful) lawsuits
later, this policy remains the status quo.
Similarly we should naturally expect that the notion of "terrorist" is flexible and in certain cases
can be equal to "any opponent of regime". While I sympathize NYT readers reaction to this incident (see
below), I think it is somewhat naive. They forget that they are living
under neoliberal regime which like any rule of top
0.01% is afraid of and does not trust its own citizens. So massive surveillance program is a self-preservation
measure which allow to crush or subvert the opposition at early stages. This is the same situation as
existed with Soviet nomenklatura, with the only difference that Soviet nomenklatura was more modest
pushing the USSR as a beacon of progress and bright hope of all mankind ;-). As
Ron Paul noted:
Many of us are not so surprised.
Some of us were arguing back in 2001 with the introduction of the so-called PATRIOT Act that it
would pave the way for massive US government surveillance—not targeting terrorists but rather
aimed against American citizens. We were told we must accept this temporary measure to provide
government the tools to catch those responsible for 9/11. That was nearly twelve years and at least
four wars ago.
We should know by now that when it comes to government power-grabs, we never go back to the
status quo even when the “crisis” has passed. That part of our freedom and civil liberties once
lost is never regained. How many times did the PATRIOT Act need renewed? How many times did FISA
authority need expanded? Why did we have to pass a law to grant immunity to companies who hand
over our personal information to the government?
And while revealed sources of NSA
Prism program
include Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo and others major Internet players, that's probably
just a tip of the iceberg. Ask yourself a question, why Amazon and VISA and MasterCard are not on the
list? According to
The Guardian:
The National Security Agency has obtained direct access to the systems of Google, Facebook,
Apple and other US internet giants, according to a top secret document obtained by the Guardian.
The NSA access is part of a previously undisclosed program called Prism, which allows
officials to collect material including search history, the content of emails, file transfers and
live chats, the document says.
... ... ...
Microsoft – which is currently running an advertising campaign with the slogan "Your privacy is
our priority" – was the first, with collection beginning in December 2007. It was followed by Yahoo
in 2008; Google, Facebook and PalTalk in 2009; YouTube in 2010; Skype and AOL in 2011; and finally
Apple, which joined the program in 2012. The program is continuing to expand, with other providers
due to come online.
Collectively, the companies cover the vast majority of online email, search, video and communications
networks
... ... ...
A chart prepared by the NSA, contained within the top-secret document obtained by the Guardian,
underscores the breadth of the data it is able to obtain: email, video and voice chat, videos,
photos, voice-over-IP (Skype, for example) chats, file transfers, social networking details, and
more.
So while the document does not list Amazon, but I would keep fingers crossed.
To be aware about a situation you need to be able to formulate and answer key questions about it.
The first and the most important question is whether the government is engaged in
cyberstalking of law abiding
citizens. Unfortunately the answer is definite yes, as oligarchy needs total control of prols. As a
result National Security State rise to prominence as a dominant
social organization of neoliberal societies, the societies
which characterized by very high level of inequality.
But there are some additional, albeit less important questions. The answers to them determine utility
or futility of small changes of our own behavior in view of uncovered evidence. Among possible set of
such question I would list the following:
Is the only way to have reasonable privacy with computer is to be physically disconnected
with the network?
Is limiting the usage of large providers like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft and usage of small
ISP for your email and personal Web pages makes you any more secure? After all it is much easier
to collect data from large providers then from hundreds of smaller providers. At the same time your
data are allowing via big routers in major telecom companies no matter whether you are using large
or small ISP.
Should you switch from Webmail back top POP3 account and deliver at the least most important
mail to your PC instead of keeping it stored on the web servers ? Please note that FBI developed
the computer programs "Magic
Lantern" and CIPAV, which they
can remotely install on a computer system (for example, using Microsoft Windows updates program),
in order to monitor a person's computer activity. But here you probably need a court order to install
them.
Is Facebook and similar social sites provides any real value to you and your family? Is
your visibility of the Web is more important to you then your privacy, because two are generally
incompatible. Is all this vanity fair activity worth possible negative consequences (including stalking
of minors by criminals) that you and your family can face?
Should some group of specialists, for example psychiatrists resort back to handwriting on
paper and/or now write client notes in code as an attempt to reassert some level of confidentiality?
Note the PGP is not a panacea; it can be safely used only on non-network connected computers due
to existence of programs like
Magic Lantern
which can retrieve private keys directly from your computer. But transferring files via "air link"
is very inconvenient.
There are also some minor questions about efficiency of "total surveillance approach". Among them:
More people die daily from (1) car accidents and (2) gang violence in one day then people who
died due to 9-11 accident. Should not billions or dollars spent by NSA be utilized by different agencies
for preventing death toll mentioned above?
Even if NSA algorithms are incredibly clever they can't avoid producing large number of false
positives. The question arise how many innocent people are monitored as the result of this externality.
The other part of understand the threat is understanding is what data are collected. The short answer
is all your phone records and Internet activity (RT
USA):
The National Security Agency is collecting information on the Internet habits of millions of innocent
Americans never suspected of criminal involvement, new NSA documents leaked by former intelligence
contractor Edward Snowden suggest.
Britain’s Guardian newspaper reported Monday that
top-secret documents
included in the trove of files supplied by the NSA contractor-turned-leaker Edward Snowden reveal
that the US intelligence community obtains and keeps information on American citizens accumulated
off the Internet without ever issuing a search warrant or opening an investigation into that person.
The information is obtained using a program codenamed Marina, the documents suggest, and is kept
by the government for up to a full year without investigators ever having to explain why the subject
is being surveilled.
“Marina has the ability to look back on the last 365 days' worth of DNI metadata seen by the
Sigint collection system, regardless whether or not it was tasked for collection,” the Guardian’s
James Ball quotes from the documents.
According to a guide for intelligence analysts supplied by Mr. Snowden, “The Marina metadata
application tracks a user's browser experience, gathers contact information/content and develops
summaries of target.”
"This tool offers the ability to export the data in a variety of formats, as well as create
various charts to assist in pattern-of-life development,” it continues.
Ball writes that the program collects “almost anything” a Web user does online, “from
browsing history – such as map searches and websites visited – to account details, email activity,
and even some account passwords.”
Only days earlier,
separate disclosures
attributed to Snowden revealed that the NSA was using a massive collection of metadata to create
complex graphs of social connections for foreign intelligence purposes, although that program
had pulled in intelligence about Americans as well.
After the New York Times broke news of that program, a NSA spokesperson said that “All data
queries must include a foreign intelligence justification, period.” As Snowden documents continue
to surface, however, it’s becoming clear that personal information pertaining to millions of US citizens
is routinely raked in by the NSA and other agencies as the intelligence community collects as much
data as possible.
In June, a top-secret document also attributed to Mr. Snowden revealed that the NSA was collecting
the telephony metadata for millions of Americans from their telecom providers. The government has
defended this practice by saying that the metadata — rough information that does not include the
content of communications — is not protected by the US Constitution’s prohibition against unlawful
search and seizure.
“Metadata can be very revealing,” George Washington University law professor Orin S. Kerr
told the Times this week. “Knowing things like the number someone just dialed or the location
of the person’s cellphone is going to allow them to assemble a picture of what someone is up to.
It’s the digital equivalent of tailing a suspect.”
According to the Guardian’s Ball, Internet metadata picked up by the NSA is routed to the Marina
database, which is kept separate from the servers where telephony metadata is stored.
Only moments after the Guardian wrote of its latest leak on Monday, Jesselyn Radack of the Government
Accountability Project read a statement before the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties,
Justice and Home Affairs penned by none other than Snowden himself.
“When I began my work, it was with the sole intention of making possible the debate we see
occurring here in this body,” Snowden said.
Snowden, who has been granted temporary asylum in Russia after being charged with espionage in
the US, said through Raddack that “The cost for one in my position of returning public knowledge
to public hands has been persecution and exile.”
There are limits of this "powerful analytical software" as it currently used. As we mentioned above, even if NSA
algorithms are incredibly clever they can't avoid producing large number of false positives. After two
year investigation into the post 9/11 intelligence agencies, the Washington Post came to conclusion
that they are collecting more information than anyone can comprehend ("drinking from a firehose" or
"drowning is a sea of data"):
Every day, collection systems at the National Security Agency intercept and store 1.7 billions
e-mails, phone calls and other types of communications. The NSA sorts a fraction of those into
70 separate databases"
First of all there is a classic problem of "signal vs. noise" (infoglut) in any large scale data
collection and presence of noise in the channel makes signal much more difficult to detect.
Analysts who make sense of document and conversations obtained by foreign and domestic spying
share their judgment by publishing 50,000 intelligence reports each year -- a volume so large
that many are routinely ignored
The enormity of the database exacerbate the problem. That's why NSA is hunting for email on cloud
providers, where they are already filtered from spam, and processing required is much less then
for emails intercepted from the wire data. Still even with the direct access to user accounts, the volume of
data, especially graphic (pictures) and video data, is really huge and that stress the limits of processing
capabilities and storage.
Existence of Snowden saga when a single analyst was able to penetrate the system and extract considerable
amount information with impunity suggests that the whole Agency is mess, probably like is
typical for any large organization with a lot of incompetents or, worse, careerists and psychopaths at
the helm (see Toxic Managers). Which is typical for government agencies and large corporations.
Still the level of logs collection
and internal monitoring in NSA proved to be surprisingly weak, as there are indirect signs that the agency does not
even know what reports Snowden get into his hands. In any case we, unless this is a very clever inside
operation, we need to assume that Edward Snowden stole thousands of documents, abused his sysadmin position
in the NSA, and was never caught. Here is one relevant comment from
The Guardian
carlitoontour
Oh NSA......that´s fine that you cannot find something......what did you tell us, the World
and the US Congress about the "intelligence" of Edward Snowden and the low access he had?
SNOWDEN SUSPECTED OF BYPASSING ELECTRONIC LOGS
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. government's efforts to determine which highly classified materials
leaker Edward Snowden took from the National Security Agency have been frustrated by Snowden's
sophisticated efforts to cover his digital trail by deleting or bypassing electronic logs,
government officials told The Associated Press. Such logs would have showed what information
Snowden viewed or downloaded.
The government's forensic investigation is wrestling with Snowden's apparent ability
to defeat safeguards established to monitor and deter people looking at information without
proper permission, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they
weren't authorized to discuss the sensitive developments publicly.
On the other hand government agencies were never good in making huge and complex software projects
work. And large software projects are a very difficult undertaking in any case. Even in industry 50%
of software projects fail, and anybody who works in the industry knows, that the more complex the project
is the higher are chances that it will be mismanaged and its functionality crippled due to architectural
defects ("a camel is a horse designed by a committee"). It is given that such project will be
over budget. Possibly several times over...
But if money is not a problem such system will eventually be completed ("with enough thrust pigs
can fly"). Still there’s no particular reason to think that corruption (major work was probably
outsourced) and incompetence (on higher management levels and, especially on architectural level as
in "camel is a horse designed by a committee") don't affect the design and functionality of
such government
projects. Now when this activity come under fire some adjustments might be especially badly thought out
and potentially cripple the existing functionality.
As J. Kirk Wiebe, a NSA insider, noted
"The way the government was going about those digital data flows was poor formed, uninformed.
There seen to be more of a desire to contract out and capture money flow then there was a [desire}
to actually perform the mission".
See the interview of a trio of former National Security Agency whistle-blowers to USA TODAY ( J.
Kirk Wiebe remarks starts at 2:06 and the second half of it continues from 6:10):
In military organizations the problem is seldom with the talent (or lack of thereof) of individual
contributors. The problem is with the bureaucracy that is very effective in preventing people from exercising
their talents at the service of their country. Such system is deformed in such a way that it hamstrings
the men who are serving in it. As a results, more often then not the talents are squandered or misused
by patching holes created by incompetence of higher-up or or just pushed aside in the interdepartmental
warfare.
In a way, incompetence can be defined as the inability to avoid mistakes which, in a "normal"
course of project development could and should be avoided. And that's the nature of military bureaucracy
with its multiple layer of command and compete lack of accountability on higher levels.
In addition, despite the respectable name of the organization many members of technical staff are
amateurs. They never managed to sharpen their technical skills, while at the same time acquiring the
skills necessary to survive the bureaucracy. Many do not have basic academic education and are self-taught
hackers and/or "grow on the job". Typically people at higher level of hierarchy, are simply not experts
in software engineering, but more like typical corporate "PowerPoint" warriors. They can be very shred
managers and accomplished political fighters, but that's it.
This is the same situation that exists in security departments of large multinationals, so we can
extrapolate from that. The word of Admiral Nelson "If the enemy would know what officer corps will confront
them, it will be trembling, like I am". Here is Bill Gross apt recollection of his service as naval
officer (The
Tipping Point) that illustrate the problems:
A few years ago I wrote about the time that our ship (on my watch) was almost cut in half by an
auto-piloted tanker at midnight, but never have I divulged the day that the USS Diachenko came within
one degree of heeling over during a typhoon in the South China Sea. “Engage emergency ballast,” the
Captain roared at yours truly – the one and only chief engineer. Little did he know that Ensign Gross
had slept through his classes at Philadelphia’s damage control school and had no idea what he was
talking about. I could hardly find the oil dipstick on my car back in San Diego, let alone conceive
of emergency ballast procedures in 50 foot seas. And so…the ship rolled to starboard, the ship rolled
to port, the ship heeled at the extreme to 36 degrees (within 1 degree, as I later read in the ship’s
manual, of the ultimate tipping point). One hundred sailors at risk, because of one twenty-three-year-old
mechanically challenged officer, and a Captain who should have known better than to trust him.
Huge part of this work is outsourced to various contractors and this is where corruption really creeps
in. So the system might be not as powerful as many people automatically assume when they hear the abbreviation
of NSA. So in a way when news about such system reaches public it might serve not weakening but strengthening
of the capabilities of the system. Moreover, nobody would question the ability of such system to store
huge amount of raw or semi-processed data including all metadata for your transactions on the Internet.
Also while it is a large agency with a lot of top mathematic talent, NSA is not NASA and motivation
of the people (and probably quality of architectural thinking about software projects involved) is different
despite much better financing. While they do have high quality people, like most US agencies in general,
large bureaucracies usually are unable to utilize their talent. Mediocrities with sharp elbows, political
talent, as well as sociopaths typically rule the show.
That means two things:
The easy part of this is the "total surveillance of electronic communications" project: to
store the "envelope" of each phone message, email, credit card transaction, etc. Analyze and correlated
the set of this envelopes to discover daily activity patterns, their change over time, social circle,
etc. That collection will contain some junk, but generally completely gives up your social circle
and your interests. Such records are pretty compact so the lifespan of your communications stored
is at least five and probably for more then ten years. So assumption of a lifespan storage is the
most realistic one. You can introduce some noise into some of those collection channels (for example,
by using a robot visiting certain sites such as Sport Illustrated, and Washington Post will distort
the picture of your Internet activities) but it is much more difficult to introduce noise into phone
call records and emails.
Several other nations have access to the metadata for the USA originated phone calls (for
providers they serve) via outsourcers of phone billing, such as Israel's Amdocs, the largest phone-billing
services company in the world:
The difficult part is the analysis of the messages body. For example:
Automatic transcribing of phone messages is a very difficult problem. Even the slightest
noise is deadly as we can see from the experience with Dragon (let's say that NSA solved the problem
of adapting to a new voice which Dragon can't solve). Dragon 12 running of dual core 3.8GHz PC
demonstrates the difficulties very well. Even a small amount of noise kills the quality of automatic
transcription.
Analysis of email body for certain keywords easily can be perform automatically, but to
understand the context of usage of "trigger" words is extremely difficult. This task is still
on the cutting edge of modern computer science. From the public document that exists (see
Total
control: keywords in your posts that might trigger surveillance) I have impression that they
try to overreach (which is standard bureaucratic tendency in such cases). That means that such
an extraction might produces too many false positives, and needs to be manually correlated with
other data.
Recognition of faces from street and security cameras is even more difficult problem.
Data mining of blogs is difficult for a different reason: not only detecting who is
who requires getting IP from particular provider (this is an easy part), just the total volume
is enormous. Many people create dozens of messages a day. There is a special category of graphomans,
that specialize on participating in various forums and those are people who have high change to
trigger "blind" keyword search. The USA government can afford to have, say, several zetabytes
of storage capacity in NSA-controlled datacenters, but its capabilities are still limited. It
can't replicate all the Internet over time. Videos are especially problematic and are more difficult
to analyze then text or HTML, or XML documents. Even low quality voice (with reverberation for
example) is very difficult to analyze automatically.
Video streams are huge and probably impossible to store. In a way the fact that most
modern computer have face camera is not only creating problem for NSA, it actually create the
problem for Internet as a whole ;-). Indiscriminate interception and storage are out of question:
lovers of "here is what my dog is doing" clips are able to saturate all available storage in no
time.
So even with huge amount of subcontractors that can chase mostly "big fish". Although one open question
is why with all those treasure trove of data organized crime is so hard to defeat. Having dataset like
this should generally expose all the members of any gang. Or, say, network of blue collar insider traders.
So in an indirect way the fact that organized crime not only exists and in some cities even flourish
can suggest one of two things:
NSA generally limits availability of those "integrated" data sets to terrorism networks, political
protest, foreign organizations and "suspicious nationals" activities. It is difficult and inefficient
"to cover the whole field" although spying after activities of a foreign corporation can be more
lucrative them spying after a member of terrorist networks ;-). Some sources mention the current
capabilities as around 100K-200K people who can be "electronically followed" simultaneously. It is
reasonably to expect high level of secrecy and that means that data are not shared unless absolutely
necessary (The
Guardian):
The presentation claims Prism was introduced to overcome what the NSA regarded as shortcomings
of Fisa warrants in tracking suspected foreign terrorists. It noted that the US has a "home-field
advantage" due to housing much of the internet's architecture. But the presentation claimed "Fisa
constraints restricted our home-field advantage" because Fisa required individual warrants and
confirmations that both the sender and receiver of a communication were outside the US. "Fisa
was broken because it provided privacy protections to people who were not entitled to them," the
presentation claimed. "
It took a Fisa court order to collect on foreigners overseas who were communicating with other
foreigners overseas simply because the government was collecting off a wire in the United States.
There were too many email accounts to be practical to seek Fisas for all."
... ... ...
A senior administration official said in a statement: "The Guardian and Washington Post articles
refer to collection of communications pursuant to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Act. This law does not allow the targeting of any US citizen or of any person located within the
United States.
"The program is subject to oversight by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the Executive
Branch, and Congress. It involves extensive procedures, specifically approved by the court, to
ensure that only non-US persons outside the US are targeted, and that minimize the acquisition,
retention and dissemination of incidentally acquired information about US persons.
Methods based on "beyond the envelope" analysis are not efficient against reasonably sophisticated
opponents, who understand the fact that the communication will be intercepted and possibly
(superficially) analyzed. In a typical "bullet-armor" competition, that opens new impetus for
"bad guys" inventing new and improving old steganography methods. As with interception of talk between
Soviet fighter pilots and their command posts had shown, usage of slang makes the voice data almost
inpenetratable. Another example would be calling Goldman Sacks "a vampire squid", which implies that
your counterpart read
Matt Taibby article or related financial blogs, or to call Facebook "lichiko" which implies knowing
Russian. Person without this context can't make a connection. With such substitutions you need a
huge amount of ( rapidly shifting ) cultural context to understand the meaning of even simple phases.
This context is missing on the other side of the pond. And even specialists can represent certain
problems. For example Jargon
File (and more) is needed to understand the talk of hackers. Fenia,
the language of the thieves is Russia was so distinct from ordinary Russian that it almost qualifies
as a separate language which makes it foreign for outsiders. The same it true about criminal subculture
in other countries (see
Police and criminal
slang ).
Storage of actual data involves certain technical difficulties and first on all physical limitations
of available storage. We probably can talk about several thousand
Petabytes that government can
store. In comparison:
Google processed about
24 petabytes of data per day in 2009
AT&T transfers about
30 petabytes of data through its networks each day
The Internet Archive
contains about 10 petabytes in cultural material as of October 2012
In August 2011, IBM was reported to have built the largest storage array ever, with a capacity
of 120 petabytes
In July 2012 it was revealed that
CERN amassed about 200
petabytes of data from the more than 800 trillion collisions
In August 2012, Facebook's
Hadoop clusters include the largest single
HDFS cluster known, with more
than 100 PB physical disk space in a single HDFS filesystem
In May 2013, Microsoft
announce that as part of their migration of Hotmail accounts to the new Outlook.com email system,
they'd migrated over 150 Petabytes of user data in six weeks.
There is also a question of complexity of analysis:
We can assume that simple things are extracted correctly. But more complex things might be
not. There is no question that a map of your phone calls, your Amazon and eBay purchases, credit
card transactions and other straightforward things can be recreated "exactly". Also can be recreated
data that can tell approximately where you were and what you was doings on any particular day. The
map of your phone contacts (people who called you and people who you call) and your emails gives
a pretty good estimate of your social circle. With multiple data sources any individual posting
in blogs can be identified with 90% or better accuracy, no matter what nicknames he/she uses
and whether he/she avoids registration and provide truthful information during it. So in a way there
is no need to do something complex as simple methods provide treasure trove of data.
There are also “junk in, junk out” issues including spam in email, telemarketers calling
your land line, there are always "strange" sites you accidentally visit during your browsing. While
they can be filtered, signal can be filtered with them (why bad guys can not disguise themselves
as telemarketers or porno sites owners?) and then system became useless against bad guys. If not
that noise subtly corrupts the data, noise and data can be really undistinguishable. BTW closed source
security-related software will always be somewhat more problematical then open source, since algorithms
used may be far from perfect and are result more of a "trading horses" between power groups involved
in development, then honest scientific research. Open source software such as CPU emulators can be
used as steganography engine that requires particular processor on the other side for recreation
of the message. And you can chose some really exotic CPU like Knuth Mix.
Errors in algorithms and bugs in those programs can bite some people in a different way then branding
them as "terrorists". Such people have no way of knowing why all of a sudden, for example, they
are paying a more for insurance, why their credit score is so low no matter what they do, etc. In no
way government in the only one who are using the mass of data collected via Google / Facebook / Yahoo
/ Microsoft / Verizon / Optonline / AT&T / Comcast, etc. It also can lead to certain subtle types of
bias if not error. And there are always problems of intentional misuse of data sets having extremely
intimate knowledge about you.
Corporate corruption can lead to those data that are shared with the government can also be shared
for money with private actors. Inept use of this unconstitutionally obtained data is a threat to all
of us.
Then there can be cases when you can be targeted just because you are critical to the particular
area of government policy, for example the US foreign policy. This is "Back in the USSR" situation in
full swing, with its prosecution of dissidents. Labeling you as a "disloyal/suspicious element"
in one of government "terrorism tracking" databases can have drastic result to your career and you never
even realize whats happened. Kind of Internet era
McCarthyism .
Obama claims that the government is aware about this danger and tried not to overstep, but he is
an interested party in this discussion. In a way government is pushed in this area by the new technologies
that open tremendous opportunities for collecting data and making some correlations.
That's why even if you are doing nothing wrong, it is still important to know your enemy, as well
as avoid getting into some traps. One typical trap is excessive centralization of your email on social
sites, including using a single Webmail provider. It is much safer to have mail delivery to your computer
via POP3 and to use Thunderbird or other email client. If your computer is a laptop, you achieve, say,
80% of portability that Web-based email providers like Google Gmail offers. That does not mean that
you should close your Gmail or Yahoo account. More important is separating email accounts into "important"
and "everything else". "Junk mail" can be stored on Web-based email providers without any problems.
Personal emails is completely another matter.
Technology development create new types of communications as well as new types of government surveillance
mechanisms (you can call them "externalities" of new methods of communication). Those externalities,
especially low cost of mass
surveillance (Wikipedia), unfortunately, bring us closer to the
Electronic police state
(Wikipedia) or National Security State whether we want it or not. A
crucial element of such a state is that its data gathering, sorting and correlation are continuous,
cover a large number of citizens and all foreigners and those activities are seldom exposed.
Cloud computing as a technology that presuppose storing the data "offsite" on third party servers
have several security problems, and one of them is that it is way too much "surveillance friendly"
(Misunderstanding
of issues of security and trust). With cloud computing powers that be do not need to do complex
job of recreating TCP/IP conversations on router level to capture, say, all the emails. You can access
Web-based email mailbox directly with all mails in appropriate mailboxes and spam filtered. Your address
book is a bonus ;-). This is huge saving of computational efforts.
@Dacian
Julien Soros Facebook has no (or little) original content. It does not compete with
Unz.com or with CNN. It leads users to the sites where original content is published. It is
meta-site.
So much is being published on so many sites that we need a community to cross-post. This is
done by Facebook.
I hope now you understand that you do not waste your time here instead of Facebook. Facebook
can lead you here, that's all. Or to Moon of Alabama, or to LRB or to wherever something
interesting had been published. Facebook is like a map of Treasure Island, not the treasure
itself.
You have a good point, but why not always avoid Facebook? I have read about it since it was
Harvard-only, then student-only.
That it had so much press coverage at those times, while it never had the accounts,
clearly a conspiracy.
I have somewhat friends, they say 'You must go on Facebook', I say 'No, you have my
telephone number and e-mail address, why are you trying to force me onto Facebook?' They are
generally stupid, but then, one must tolerate the stupid to have any social life.
Back to the progation of FB. Google was quite similar, there were many search engines that
were as good or better at the time, the NYT ran many articles to promote them, I was working
at a U.S.-owned company at the time, it was neo-religious, 'oh, you have to use Google', it
was the same kind of propaganda, earlier of course, as compulsory FB.
I never used google (the mis-spelling of googol shows what morons they are), OK, I don't
want to lie, did a little early last decade (very few), other search engines are usually
better.
The mainstream media from Tokyo to Paris [yap, yap, yap ]
Stopped reading right there.
Look, the word is mass media because that's what it's for, i.e., the
unthinking masses. Even an ignorant moron such as myself can understand that the media use
the term to help make mindless, mass-produced, garbage appear acceptable. It's obvious that
the term is supposed to suggest that "everyone" goes along with the message when it's their
own compostable ideas that they're trying to introduce and promote. The interests of the
"mainstream" or majority are in no way promoted, nor are they intended to be.
Anyone who's so mentally lazy as to use mass media's own legitimizing term for themselves
in the way they intend has nothing to say to me. Furthermore, I don't come to UR to be
exposed to the usual drivel mouthed incessantly by narcissistic, sociopathic, simple-minded,
goons.
Other acceptable terms are corporate media, propaganda media, or sewage media. No one with
a lick of sense views it as "mainstream" in any way. Get a clue already!
WeChat? Bad advice. End-to-server encryption means the Chinese government inspects all
messages. Right now, they're crouching tiger but who knows when they're going to go all
hidden dragon on us?
Use WhatsApp. It's got full end to end encryption and built in ways to verify no MITM
attacks. Safe choice.
For search engines, use startpage or duckduckgo.com. If you're performing really sensitive
searches, use tor browser. Only need to use yandex or baidu if the search terms themselves
are sensitive (very rare).
I do not use Facebook . It is evident that they spy everything , you just look for a hotel in
your computer and they send you hotel propaganda for weeks or months .
But , commercial purposes apart , don`t you think that a system that spies so much ends up
losing the sense of reality and thus dementing itself ?
@gmachine1729
Yes, as a stopgap measure one can boycott FB, Twitter, Google, and other services that
practice disgusting PC. I don't use FB or Twitter, use Google only occasionally. Need to stop
using it altogether and switch to Yandex and/or Baidu.
However, in the long run what needs to be built is a PC-free Internet. This would require
huge investment that only governments of serious countries (like China or Russia) that are
not subservient to the Empire can afford. These governments do have their own axes to grind,
but at the moment they are not as disgusting as the Empire and its vassals, or Israel, for
that matter.
"... As Binney had no documents to give to the media, blowing the whistle had no consequence for NSA. This is the reason that Snowden released the documents that proved NSA to be violating both law and the Constitution, but the corrupt US media focused blame on Snowden as a "traitor" and not on NSA for its violations. ..."
"... Whistleblowers are protected by federal law. Regardless, the corrupt US government tried to prosecute Binney for speaking out, but as he had taken no classified document, a case could not be fabricated against him. ..."
"... Binney blames the NSA's law-breaking on Dick "Darth" Cheney. He says NSA's violations of law and Constitution are so extreme that they would have to have been cleared at the top of the government. ..."
Years before Edward Snowden provided documented proof that the National
Security Agency was really a national insecurity agency as it was violating law and the US Constitution and
spying indiscriminately on American citizens, William Binney, who designed and developed the NSA spy program
revealed the illegal and unconstitutional spying.
Binney turned whistleblower, because NSA was using the
program to spy on Americans. As Binney was well known to the US Congress, he did not think he needed any NSA
document to make his case. But what he found out was
"Congress would never hear me because then they'd lose
plausible deniability. That was really their key. They needed to have plausible deniability so they can
continue this massive spying program because it gave them power over everybody in the world.
Even the
members of Congress had power against others [in Congress]; they had power on judges on the Supreme Court,
the federal judges, all of them. That's why they're so afraid. Everybody's afraid because all this data
that's about them, the central agencies -- the intelligence agencies -- they have it. And that's why Senator
Schumer warned President Trump earlier, a few months ago, that he shouldn't attack the intelligence
community because they've got six ways to Sunday to come at you. That's because it's like J. Edgar Hoover on
super steroids. . . . it's leverage against every member of parliament and every government in the world."
To prevent whistle-blowing, NSA has "a
program now called 'see something, say something' about your fellow workers. That's what the Stasi did.
That's why I call [NSA] the new New Stasi Agency. They're picking up all the techniques from the Stasi and
the KGB and the Gestapo and the SS. They just aren't getting violent yet that we know of -- internally in the
US, outside is another story."
As Binney had no documents to give to the
media, blowing the whistle had no consequence for NSA. This is the reason that Snowden released the
documents that proved NSA to be violating both law and the Constitution, but the corrupt US media focused
blame on Snowden as a "traitor" and not on NSA for its violations.
Whistleblowers are protected by federal
law. Regardless, the corrupt US government tried to prosecute Binney for speaking out, but as he had taken
no classified document, a case could not be fabricated against him.
Binney blames the NSA's law-breaking on
Dick "Darth" Cheney. He says NSA's violations of law and Constitution are so extreme that they would have to
have been cleared at the top of the government.
Binney describes the spy network,
explains that it was supposed to operate only against foreign enemies, and that using it for universal
spying so overloads the system with data that the system fails to discover many terrorist activities.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50932.htm
Apparently, the National Security Agency
values being able to blackmail citizens and members of government at home and abroad more than preventing
terrorist attacks.
Unfortunately for Americans, there are
many Americans who blindly trust the government and provide the means, the misuse of which is used to
enslave us. A large percentage of the work in science and technology serves not to free people but to
enslave them. By now there is no excuse for scientists and engineers not to know this. Yet they persist in
their construction of the means to destroy liberty.
France's data protection watchdog is slapping Google with an unprecedented fine citing the company's
failure to meet privacy and transparency standards with user information.
The French Data protection agency CNIL released a
statement
Monday stating that the staggering €50 million ($56.8mn) fine was motivated by
complaints about the company's illegal practices in the collection and use of personal data. At
present, there is no reliable information available on how long the company saves user data, nor if
they allow it to be used by other sites.
Around 10,000 people signed the initial petition to
initiate an investigation, which was filed by France's Quadrature du Net group and None Of Your
Business, an NGO which advocates for consumer privacy.
The investigation turned up two infractions to the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
which was approved in 2016. They found that the company doesn't provide easy access to information it
collects from users and that the information they do provide is often incomprehensible. This creates a
situation where people are not able to manage how their information is being used, especially in
relation to targeted ads.
Users' "
consent
" is currently set as the global default setting, which fails to meet the
regulator's requirement that companies obtain "
specific
" consent. They also say that the
pop-ups currently used by the company to ask for consent on Android software seem to threaten that
services will not be available if the users don't accept the terms.
While the number looks over-the-top, CNIL says that the fine was decided "
by the severity of
the infringements observed,
" as well as Google's position in the French market.
Although Google responded to the decision by saying that they committed to meeting the "
high
standards of transparency and control
" expected of them by users – as well as by the strict new
EU data law – they are nonetheless challenging the decision. While no official decision has been made
as of yet, the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg
Mueller investigation is a continuation of JFK assassination by other means.
Notable quotes:
"... Washington Post ..."
"... Now, as the 'Russian influence' narrative is dying down, the anti-Trump - anti-Russian campaign is moving to new grounds. ..."
"... Initiating a counter-intelligence investigation, for which there was no basis, gave the FBI, and later the Mueller investigation, unfettered access to NSA 'signals intelligence' that could then possibly be used to incriminate Trump or his associates. ..."
"... It was the Obama administration which had given the FBI access to this tool : ..."
"... Washington Post ..."
"... Trump is no populist. A populist can't be elected by the money-based US political system. Trump's election was almost certainly arranged ..."
"... Then why did Trump nominate Gina Haspel as head of the CIA? She is the acolyte of Trump nemesis Brennan. Why does Trump choose people like Nikki Halley, Pompeo, Bolton? ..."
"... "I very much dislike most of Trump's domestic and foreign policy. But he was duly elected under the existing rules. The campaign the media and the intelligence services have since run against him undermines the will of the people." ..."
"... the assassination of JFK opened the floodgates of blatant depravity perpetrated by those whose greed and lust for power will ultimately destroy us. ..."
"... There are trends: A growing US citizen realization that their political system prior to Trump was nearly completely corrupt; the Clintons are more broadly understood as the pathological criminals that they are; the Podesta emails with their sick connotations remain 'in the air' - See Ben Swann's work, for example. The Clinton Foundation is far more broadly understood as a massive criminal enterprise. ..."
"... "Pompeo met on October 24 [at Trump's request] with William Binney, a former National Security Agency official-turned-whistleblower who co-authored an analysis published by a group of former intelligence officials that challenges the U.S. intelligence community's official assessment that Russian intelligence was behind last year's theft of data from DNC computers. Binney and the other former officials argue that the DNC data was "leaked," not hacked, "by a person with physical access" to the DNC's computer system." ..."
"... In short the last two years have been about trying to defeat Trump but the attackers are looking more and more wounded, and Trump, well, he's hanging in there. General Kelly and others have described Trump's work ethic as exhausting. ..."
"... Trump has been put under intense investigation by Deep State hacks who are determined to see him impeached. And all they have come up with is that he is a compulsive pussy-grabber (no shit, hey?). ..."
"... Well, if he has then he has hidden them extraordinarily well, because Mueller with all his resources hasn't found any. Indeed, Mueller's investigation is so well-resourced that the only conclusion I can reach is that Trump has no such skeletons. ..."
"... "Simply put, the Russia NIA is not an "IC-coordinated" assessment -- the vehicle for such coordination, the NIC, was not directly involved in its production, and no NIO was assigned as the responsible official overseeing its production. Likewise, the Russia NIA cannot be said to be the product of careful coordination between the CIA, NSA and FBI -- while analysts from all three agencies were involved in its production, they were operating as part of a separate, secretive task force operating under the close supervision of the Director of the CIA, and not as an integral part of their home agency or department." ..."
"... Escalation towards war with Russia was a matter of public record in late pre-election 2016, thanks to Clinton News Network ... now ask yourselves where is that general in the press conference nowadays? ..."
"... For a thorough update on the Integrity Initiative and its offshoots, check out the latest from legal investigator Barbara Boyd. ..."
"... To defeat the "Deep State" in the U.S., it is essential to understand the role of British Intelligence. While it is essential to know the role of Hillary Clinton, Obama, Comey, DOJ/FBI operatives, et.al., it is even more important to understand the geopolitical assumptions behind Russiagate. And for that, one must turn to the British. ..."
"... The aim of the counterintelligence operation and of the Russiagate hoax was not to build a prosecution case against President Trump. It was to put the United States in constitutional limbo by creating a parallel and competing center of constitutional legitimacy. ..."
"... Very difficult to judge: what is the result of infighting in the US vs. any agreed-on never mind coherent foreign policy? That the question is even asked - all over the world now - spells stage one collapse. ..."
"... Trump's nationalist credentials are further belied by such things as: adding TPP provisions to the new North American trade agreement; attacking Syria based on false flags; arming Ukraine; pulling out of the INF treaty and engaging in an unnecessary and costly arms race; actively seeking to overthrow the governments of Iran and Venezuela; etc. ..."
"... My own theory about 2016 is that everybody miscalculated. Trump was (IMO) running as an ego-building publicity stunt. Hillary (and her Deep State sponsors) had actively helped Trump get the nomination with hundreds of millions of dollars of free publicity which also enhanced the bottom lines of Big Media. His multiple flaws were airbrushed away. ..."
Despite the loss of major narratives, the war of the deep state against U.S. President Trump continues unabated. The main of tool
in this war are allegations of relations between Trump and anything Russia. The war runs along several parallel paths.
The narrative war in the media is most visible one. When any of the fake stories about Trump and Russia gets debunked and disposed,
new ones are created or others intensified.
In parallel to these propaganda efforts the deep state created an investigation that Trump has no way to escape from. Enabled
by one of the Obama administrations last acts the investigation is using signal intelligence to entrap and flip the people surrounding
Trump (see section three below). The big price will be Trump himself. Here we take a look at what transpired during the last weeks.
One major anti-Trump narrative was that 'Russian influence' helped to put him into office. This was based on the alleged nefarious
influence a Russian clickbait company, the Internet Research Agency (IRA) in St. Peterburg, had on the U.S. electorate. That explanation
never made sense. Little of the IRA activities had to do with the election. It used sockpuppets on Facebook and Twitter to attract
people to websites filled with puppy pictures or similar nonsense. The IRA would then sell advertisement and promotions on these
sites.
This
was obvious for anyone following the factual content of the news instead of the 'opinions' a whole bunch of anti-Trump 'experts'
and the media formed around them.
That the Mueller investigation finally indicted several of the IRA's officers over minor financial transactions was seen as a
confirmation of the political aspects of the IRA activities. But nearly all the reporting left out that Mueller
confirmed the commercial intent behind the IRA and its activities. There is nothing political in the accusations. Indeed point
95 of the Mueller
indictment
of the IRA says:
Defendants and their co-conspirators also used the accounts to receive money from real U.S. persons in exchange for posting promotions
and advertisements on the ORGANIZATION-controlled social media pages. Defendants and their co-conspirators typically charged certain
U.S. merchants and U.S. social media sites between 25 and 50 U.S. dollars per post for promotional content on their popular false
U.S. persona accounts , including Being Patriotic, Defend the 2nd, and Blacktivist.
Part of the false narrative of a political influence campaign was the claim that the $100,000 the IRA spent for advertisement
to promote its clickbait webpages through Facebook ads somehow moved people to vote for Trump. But 56% of the IRA ads ran after the
election, 25% of all its ads were never seen by anyone. How a few $10,000 for ads only few saw moved an election that was fought
with several billions spent by each candidate's campaign was left unexplained.
[T]he common understanding is that Russia's interference efforts included sophisticated targeting of specific voting groups on
Facebook, which could have made the difference in states that Trump narrowly won on his way to an electoral-vote victory.
That understanding about Russia's sophisticated targeting, though, is not supported by the evidence -- if it's not flat-out
wrong.
...
Most of the ads purchased by the Russians didn't specify a geographic target smaller than the United States on the whole, according
to a Post review of the ads released by the House Intelligence Committee. Those that did target specific states heavily targeted
those that weren't really considered targets of the 2016 election, such as Missouri and Maryland. And of those ads that did target
specific states, most happened well before or well after the final weeks of the campaign.
All the claims that some Russian sockpuppets influenced the 2016 elections were and are nonsense. The IRA sockpuppets never had
any political intent.
Likewise the allegations that Russian intelligence hacked the DNC and Clinton crony Podesta's email are mere assertions for which
no hard evidence was ever provided. The only known fact is that the emails and papers were real, and that there content revealed
the shoddiness of Hillary Clinton, the DNC, and her campaign.
Now, as the 'Russian influence' narrative is dying down, the anti-Trump - anti-Russian campaign is moving to new grounds. Last week
the New York Times claimed that Paul Manafort, who for some time ran the Trump election campaign, gave public and internal
polling data to the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska:
Manafort Accused
of Sharing Trump Polling Data With Russian Associate . A day after that sensational claim made a large splash throughout U.S.
media the New York Times recanted:
CORRECTION: PAUL MANAFORT asked KONSTANTIN KILIMNIK to pass TRUMP polling to the Ukrainian oligarchs SERHIY LYOVOCHKIN & RINAT
AKHMETOV, & not to OLEG DERIPASKA, as originally reported. We have corrected the story & I deleted a tweet repeating the error.
Duh. Manafort gave polling data to his Ukrainian fixer Konstantin Kilimnik with the request to pass it along to Ukrainian oligarchs
for who he had worked before joining the Trump campaign. Kilimnik had long
worked for the International Republican Institute office in Moscow. The IRI is a CIA offshot under Republican Party tutelage
that is used to influence politics abroad. Its long time head was the deceased hawkish Senator John McCain. While he worked with
Kilimnik in the Ukraine, Manafort concentrated on moving the Ukraine towards the European Union and away from Russia. His and Kilimnik
efforts were always opposed to Russian interests. But the NYT and others falsely
try to pass them off as the opposite
with the sole purpose of feeding the anti-Trump/anti-Russia campaign.
Another anti-Trump/anti-Russian propaganda effort is a new sensational NYT piece on obvious misbehavior in the upper rows
of the FBI :
In the days after President Trump fired James B. Comey as F.B.I. director, law enforcement officials became so concerned by the
president's behavior that they began investigating whether he had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests
, according to former law enforcement officials and others familiar with the investigation.
The inquiry carried explosive implications. Counterintelligence investigators had to consider whether the president's own actions
constituted a possible threat to national security. Agents also sought to determine whether Mr. Trump was knowingly working for
Russia or had unwittingly fallen under Moscow's influence.
The NYT lets it seem as if the decision to launch a counter-intelligence investigation related to Trump was as based
on some reasonable suspicion the FBI had. It was not. This was an act of revenge by the upper anti-Trump echelons in the FBI with
which they attempted to undermine Trump's presidency. Note what the claimed suspicion was based on:
Mr. Trump had caught the attention of F.B.I. counterintelligence agents when he called on Russia during a campaign news conference
in July 2016 to hack into the emails of his opponent, Hillary Clinton. Mr. Trump had refused to criticize Russia on the campaign
trail, praising President Vladimir V. Putin. And investigators had watched with alarm as the Republican Party softened its convention
platform on the Ukraine crisis in a way that seemed to benefit Russia.
Other factors fueled the F.B.I.'s concerns, according to the people familiar with the inquiry. Christopher Steele, a former
British spy who worked as an F.B.I. informant, had compiled memos in mid-2016 containing unsubstantiated claims that Russian officials
tried to obtain influence over Mr. Trump by preparing to blackmail and bribe him.
Trump made a joke during the election campaign asking Russia to release the 30,000 emails Hillary Clinton had deleted from her
illegal private email server. There is no requirement, as far as I know, for any candidate to criticize this or that country. How
can not following the non existing requirement to criticize Russia be suspicious? The Republican Party did not soften its convention
platform on Ukraine. It rejected an amendment that would have further sharpened it. Overall the Republican platform was
more hawkish than the Democratic one. The
Steele dossier was of course from A to Z
made up nonsense paid for
by the Hillary Clinton campaign.
It is non sensible to claim that these were reasonable suspicions sufficient to open a counter-intelligence investigation. The
hasty FBI move to launch a counter-intelligence operation obviously had a different motive and aim.
Strzok and Page sent other text messages that raise the possibility they were discussing opening up a counterintelligence investigation
against Trump before Comey's firing.
"And we need to open the case we've been waiting on now while Andy is acting ," Strzok wrote to Page on the day of Comey's
ouster.
Andy is Andrew McCabe, who served as deputy FBI director.
Page gave some indication in her congressional testimony in July 2018 that the text message was a reference to an investigation
separate from the obstruction probe that has already been reported.
Normally the FBI needs to clear such counter-intelligence investigations with the Justice Department. In this case it
did not do so at all :
In the case of the investigation into Trump, the FBI's decision to open a file on the president so quickly after Comey's firing
in May 2017 was a source of concern for some officials at the Justice Department because the FBI acted without first consulting
leadership at the department . But those worries were allayed when, days later, special counsel Robert S. Mueller III was appointed
to oversee the Russia probe ...
After Comey was fired, the FBI made a very hasty move, without reasonable suspicion and without informing the Justice Department,
to launch a counter-intelligence operation involving the sitting president and his administration. What was the real purpose of this
move?
Initiating a counter-intelligence investigation, for which there was no basis, gave the FBI, and later the Mueller investigation,
unfettered access to NSA 'signals intelligence' that could then possibly be used to incriminate Trump or his associates.
On his way out the door, we all were wallowing in our winter of discontent, Obama signed an executive order...
...
The order revised the rules around intelligence sharing among our intel community. Specifically, it made the firehose of raw intelligence
collected by the NSA directly accessible to the FBI and CIA. Instead of having to ask for intel and getting what they filtered
down the FBI and CIA could directly access the unfiltered "SigInt" or signals intelligence. Intercepted phone calls, emails, raw
intel from human sources. Everything our vast intelligence vacuum hoovers up, available directly... but only for counterintel
and foreign intel purposes .
The NSA can sit on virtually every communication into and out of the U.S. that takes place over networks. Obama made it possible
for the FBI to directly access everything they had on Trump, et al. Obama supercharged the FBI's ability to investigate Trump.
The Obama administration
enacted the changed executive order EO 12333 in early January 2017, shortly before Trump took over:
Previously, the N.S.A. filtered information before sharing intercepted communications with another agency, like the C.I.A. or
the intelligence branches of the F.B.I. and the Drug Enforcement Administration. The N.S.A.'s analysts passed on only information
they deemed pertinent, screening out the identities of innocent people and irrelevant personal information.
Now, other intelligence agencies will be able to search directly through raw repositories of communications intercepted by
the N.S.A. and then apply such rules for "minimizing" privacy intrusions.
...
[T]he 12333 sharing procedures allow analysts, including those at the F.B.I., to search the raw data using an American's identifying
information only for the purpose of foreign intelligence or counterintelligence investigations , not for ordinary criminal cases.
And they may do so only if one of several other conditions are met, such as a finding that the American is an agent of a foreign
power.
However, under the rules, if analysts stumble across evidence that an American has committed any crime, they will send it to
the Justice Department.
At that time Peter Lee, aka Chinahand,
already had the suspicion
that Obama was behind the FBI campaign against Trump.
With the changes in EO 12333 Obama gave the FBI the ability to launch a world wide snooping operation against the incoming Trump
administration under the guise of a 'counter-intelligence' operation. The hasty FBI move after Comey was fired activated this instrument.
The Mueller investigation has since used it extensively. 'Crimes' revealed through the snooping operation are turned over to the
Justice Department.
The NYT claim that the counter-intelligence investigation was initiated because of reasonable suspicion of Russian influence
over Trump is nonsense. It was initiated to get access to a set of tools that would allow unlimited access to communication of Trump
and anyone related to him. It was Obama who on his way out of the door gave the FBI these capabilities.
There are signs that the unlimited access the FBI and Mueller investigation have to signal intelligence is used to create prosecutions
via ' parallel construction ':
An active counterintel investigation means the Trump Administration's crimes were only as secure as the weakest link in their
weakest moment. We got hints of this early. Our intelligence folks picked up "signals intelligence" or SigInt from Russians talking
to Russians.
Those "signals" aren't the kind of evidence that finds its way into a courtroom. In fact, it's important that it doesn't. It would
burn sources and methods. It lays out the crimes and the players though... and then prosecutors find ways to make triable cases
other ways .
The public sees cases for specific charges carrying significant prison time without ever knowing that the NSA and prosecutors
knew so much more than they ever revealed. Now, apply those principles to the cases we've seen Mueller bring forward so far.
Mike Flynn: pleaded out to a minor charge, rolled over in full and then produced five rounds of documents. Likely: Flynn was
confronted with the intel they had on him and knew he was cooked. They knew the crimes. They heard and saw everything. There'd
be no escape.
By flipping and pleading out Flynn, all of that secret intel stays secret. Our intelligence efforts are protected. And Flynn
goes down. And he cooks a bunch of other gooses. He's savvy enough to know that once they have the intel, all that's left to do
is make the case.
...
The 'crime' that di Flynn in was misremembering a phone call he had with the Russian ambassador. Similar happened with Rick Gates,
Paul Manafort's righthand man and a member of Trump's transition team. Then it happened to Paul Manafort himself and to George Papadopoulos.
The Mueller investigation, thanks to the snooping Obama and the FBI enabled, knows the content of every phonecall, chat and email
any member of the Trump administration made and make to someone abroad (and likely also within the U.S.). It invites people as witnesses
and asks them about the content of a specific calls they made. If they misremember or lie - bang - Mueller has the transcript ready.
A crime has been created and an indictment for lying to the FBI will follow. This is what happened to Flynn and the others the Mueller
investigation entrapped and convicted.
Because of the counter-intelligence investigation the anti-Trump gang in the FBI hastened to initiate, the investigators got hands
on signal intelligence - phone calls, chats and emails - that allowed them to indict minor people for petty crimes and to flip them
to talk to the investigation.
The aim, in the end, was and is to build a prosecution case against President Trump for whatever minor and petty half-backed illegal
doing there may be.
To make such a prosecution and an indictment publicly palpable the media is assigned with launching story after story about nefarious
relations between Trump and anything Russia.
As we have seen above with the IRA story, the retracted NYT 's Manafort bang, and the NYT's false claims about
the motive of the FBI's counter-intelligence investigation, none of these stories hold up to diligent scrutiny. Today's Washington
Post adds another example of no-beef stories that insinuate mystic 'Russian influence' over Trump:
President Trump has gone to extraordinary lengths to conceal details of his conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin
, including on at least one occasion taking possession of the notes of his own interpreter and instructing the linguist not to
discuss what had transpired with other administration officials, current and former U.S. officials said.
The rest of the story largely refutes the claim made in its headline and very first sentence:
Trump did so after a meeting with Putin in 2017 in Hamburg that was also attended by then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
...
Trump generally has allowed aides to listen to his phone conversations with Putin ..
...
In an email, Tillerson said that he " was present for the entirety of the two presidents' official bilateral meeting in Hamburg,"...
After Trump had a first White House meeting with the Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov in Washington, lots of leaks about the talk
appeared in the DC media. Trump was accused of giving information about an ISIS plot to the Russians that was allegedly secret.
It was not . Since then Trump clamped down on the number of participants, briefings and readouts for such talks. That is simply
a necessary and laudable behavior. Now the media try to construct that into 'Trump is concealing details' about talks with Russia
even when the U.S. Secretary of State and others are present in these.
Ever since Trump won the Republican primaries, the Clinton campaign, the Obama administration and the U.S. and British intelligence
services prepared to prevent a successful Trump presidency. The Steele dossier, created by 'former' British intelligence agents and
paid for by the Clinton campaign, was the basis for an FBI investigation that was seen
as
an insurance against a Trump win. Any possible Russia relations Trump might have came under scrutiny. This prevented him from
fulfilling his campaign promise of coming to better relations with Russia.
Shortly before Obama left the office he created the tool the FBI needed to put its investigation on steroids. When Trump fired
Comey for his handling of the Clinton email affair, the FBI put that tool into action. With unfettered access to signal intelligence
the Mueller investigation was able to entrap a number of Trump related people and to flip them to its side. It will use any information
they give up to find some angle under which Trump can be prosecuted and eventually impeached. Even if nothing comes off this investigations,
the media reports and slander all this created may well be enough to prevent an election of Trump for a second term.
I very much dislike most of Trump's domestic and foreign policy. But he was duly elected under the existing rules. The campaign
the media and the intelligence services have since run against him undermines the will of the people. Unfortunately I see no way
that Trump could escape from the hold it has gained over him. Exposing it as much as possible might well be his best defense.
It is information that is put out there that is never cross checked by the American people. They are too busy, too involved
with other things or too stupid to find out the true facts. It is hard to predict what will occur next year. I
feel it all depends who wins the primary on the Democrat side.
[Trump] ... was duly elected under the existing rules. The campaign the media and the intelligence services have since
run against him undermines the will of the people.
There is a major flaw in reasoning here. Trump is no populist. A populist can't be elected by the money-based US political system.
Trump's election was almost certainly arranged:
The anti-Russia campaign began in earnest in 2014 (well before the 2016 election);
Trump's pre-election relationship to the Clinton's is highly suspect: they were likely to be much closer than we have
been led to believe;
An FBI informant worked for Trump for over 10 years - during the time that Mueller was FBI director;
Trump was the ONLY populist on the Republican side (out of 19 contenders!);
Sanders was a 'sheepdog'
and Hillary ran a terrible campaign in which she made obvious mistakes that a seasoned campaigner like herself would never
make;
British involvement in the election (Fusion GPS, Cambridge Analytica, a Brit 'spy' in the Sanders campaign, etc.) suggests
CIA-MI6 working together;
Trump Administration policies are consistent those of Clinton-Bush-Obama:
> Obamacare was not repealed "on day one" - it has been strengthened by not defending coverage for prior conditions;
> Trump put TPP provisions into his new North American trade deal;
> Trump continues ME meddling;
> Trump continues militarism and tax cutting;
> Etc.
The only major "difference" that I can think of are Trump's Wall and China tariffs. But these are consistent with the 'Deep
State' goals.
Surveys show that the "will of the people" is very different than the neoliberal, neoconservative policies that the establishment
fosters upon us.
MAGA is a POLICY CHOICE as much as it is a campaign slogan. It is designed to meet the challenge posed by Russia and China
and 'turn the page' on the deceit and duplicity of the Obama Administration just as Obama's "Change You Can Believe In" was designed
to turn the page on the the militarism of the Bush Administration. These BI-PARTISAN page-turnings ensure that there is no accountability
and provides each new Administration with a new sly story line that the public readily swallows. Each new Presidential charade
entertains and misdirects as the interests of the Empire are advanced with a refreshed box of tricks and dishonest narratives.
...war of the deep state against U.S. President Trump continues unabated.
Then why did Trump nominate Gina Haspel as head of the CIA? She is the acolyte of Trump nemesis Brennan. Why does Trump choose
people like Nikki Halley, Pompeo, Bolton?
The war of the Deep State is a psyop to crush dissent as the butt-hurt Deep State continues to pursue their dream of global
hegemony. Anyone that believes that Trump is no part of that psyop is delusional.
Wow, man. Thanks to you and all the regulars here who contribute to gathering relevant info from all kinds of sources. I hate
to repeat myself, but I feel that a little praise every 3 or 6 months is not too much spamming. This is what serious journalism
looks like.
Zachary Smith @2: ... I just don't buy into the "insurance" theory.
And I don't buy the theory that Hillary is hell bent on war. The Clinton's are very rational and calculating and no President has the freedom that your theory suggests. IMO what the Deep State has done under their man Trump is very similar to what the Deep State would have done if they had selected
Clinton instead. The fact is, a populist nationalist is what was deemed necessary to meet the challenge from Russia and China. And that is what
we got (surprise!).
<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
Furthermore, focusing on personality and Party is just what they want
"Watch what they do, not what they say" has a corollary: pay attention to the polices, not the politicians.
"I very much dislike most of Trump's domestic and foreign policy. But he was duly elected under the existing rules. The campaign
the media and the intelligence services have since run against him undermines the will of the people."
This pretty well sums it up for me. Being old enough to remember FDR and the brief rise of the middle class in the 40's, 50's
and 60's (and having benefited from that attempt at leveling the playing field), I am more than saddened at the downward spiral
of our nation. Politics have obviously never been clean and fair, but the assassination of JFK opened the floodgates of blatant
depravity perpetrated by those whose greed and lust for power will ultimately destroy us.
Of course b you have nothing here to offer except your opinion. Your views regarding the relentlessness of the US criminal justice
system are on target, just ask the underclasses about that. Once in view, you are never let be and in the US everyone can be found
guilty of something.
Rather nice to see the pampered son of inherited tax-free wealth on the receiving end for once, in my opinion.
Trump is a crook. Russian collusion is his smokescreen. His crimes have already been demonstrated through what little we already
know and there is still much we don't know and probably never will know.
This essay reads something like a veiled mea culpa from you.
You were wrong about Trump from the get go. Why not just admit it and move along? Why remain steadfastly in thrall to any shred
of rightwing, authoritarianism of the elite masquerading as populism?
Whatever Trump gets from the criminal justice system, Congress or the voters appears to be well-deserved. He has brought this
on himself and really there is no one else to blame even as he never will accept responsibility. He is stupid at best, dishonest
at best, a useful idiot at best.
Trump saved his ass financially after a series of disastrous business bankruptcies by accepting what appears by all indications
to be laundered money from literally hundreds of anonymous shell companies investing in his condos since at least 2008.
He has run roughshod over the emoluments clause quite openly.
I do believe, knowing what we know now, he will probably avoid indictment and escape impeachment, maybe only through resignation/pardon
but more likely the old fashioned way: defeat at the polls in 2020.
In many ways Trump has done some good by reinvigorating the US left (such as it is) and bringing at least enough cohesion in
the ranks of a badly splintered populace mainly among white females and white college educated voters who now reject the GOP,
or at least the GOP of Trump.
Whether this will lead to badly needed fixes for the heinous wealth inequality (started with Reagan) is doubtful but at least
the conversation is now underway (started with Bernie) which is the first step.
Tax increases, social security stabilisation, re-funneling wasted MIC billions to domestic programs for the poor, etc.
It is a start. Will it become a solution or a revolution in time?
That is up to the people who are still under the yoke of neoliberalism and global capital flight.
re:
Mike Flynn: pleaded out to a minor charge, rolled over in full and then produced five rounds of documents. Likely: Flynn was confronted
with the intel they had on him and knew he was cooked. They knew the crimes. They heard and saw everything. There'd be no escape.
By flipping and pleading out Flynn, all of that secret intel stays secret. Our intelligence efforts are protected. And Flynn goes
down. And he cooks a bunch of other gooses. He's savvy enough to know that once they have the intel, all that's left to do is
make the case.//
So the situation is worse than I thought. The clear inference is that (1) Flynn (and others) really did commit some major crimes,
and then (2) got off easy by admitting to a memory lapse (3) while cooking a bunch of other gooses.
Flynn does the easy (2) and gets away with (1) and (3), both very serious. This is justice?
As you may recall, the woman threatened conflict on cyberattacks.
"As president, I will make it clear that the United States will treat cyberattacks just like any other attack," the Democratic
presidential nominee said. "We will be ready with serious political, economic and military responses."
Regarding the Deep State and Trump, Syria is in the process of winning against the neocons. And Iran has not yet been attacked.
Hillary has a record, and for the most part hasn't even tried to run away from it.
thanks b... the topic is so very tiring.. i am sick of hearing about it.. if the usa fell off a cliff and never came back again
- i would be fine with that.. thank you regardless, for taking it apart and trying ti dispel the bullshite.. it is so thick, it
defies logic.. i agree with @1 jose garcia, and @4 radiator...
trump is a crook... so what? most of the business class in the west are at this point! politics and crookery go hand in hand...
i would be surprised if it was any different at this point in time.. how about the intel agencies? you want to sleep with them?
lol..
There's either something wrong with this assumption, or something we're not being told...
The Mueller investigation, thanks to the snooping Obama and the FBI enabled, knows the content of every phonecall, chat
and email any member of the Trump administration made and make to someone abroad (and likely also within the U.S.). It invites
people as witnesses and asks them about the content of a specific calls they made. If they misremember or lie - bang - Mueller
has the transcript ready. A crime has been created and an indiction for lying to the FBI will follow. This is what happened to
Flynn and the others the Mueller investigation entrapped and convicted.
Option 1. Something wrong?
If you're being cross-examined in a court or pseudo-legal forum about things you may or may not remember, you have the right to
decline to answer a question, or to preface any and every answer with the phrase "If I remember correctly blah blah blah..."
Option 2. Something we're not being told?
If the interrogators were able to ambush Flynn, then it's probably because they didn't acquaint him with all of his rights, or
he didn't have a lawyer with him.
Trump's not stupid. He won't blunder into a situation bereft of any semblance of legal Human Rights protections designed to
ambush him. And if he can't have a lawyer with him when the questions start, then he can probably refuse to attend without breaking
any law.
@donkeytale There has been close to three years of serious investigative intent to lay a glove on Trump (HRC's team, the FBI and
Mueller) and there is only the merest scratch of a womaniser (which with three marriages doesn't come as a surprise). What is
quite remarkable, despite all the investigative effort, is how clean Trump has managed to keep himself despite building a fortune
in one of the toughest cities in the world, building himself up through the eras of the five families, junk bonds and ponzi schemes
and soviet union mobsters, not to mention the corruption of the poltical classes and regulatory abuses and unionised labor.
For the world's he moves in, the only explanation that gives him enough protection is that for a long time Trump has been a
protected FBI asset for one of the field offices, possibly now senior service figures. And it's this deep relationship with well
connected parts of the FBI or other secret services that has given him the ability to steer past the various attempts by the deep
state. Why, for instance, do we have such a lot of leakage of the inner workings of the anti-Trump FBI? Some part of the deep
state has become disgusted at the spying (eg on congress), the blackmailing, the warmongering, and deep corruption of the anti-constitutionalists,
and Trump is their vengence. You just have to decide which side you are on...
I read that as Testing - perhaps a trial/demonstration as a professional troll for somebody or other. How else to interpret "only the merest scratch of a womaniser" or "how clean Trump has managed to keep himself". Maybe I'm
surprised not to also see praise for the clever Government Shutdown.
meanwhile..trump and his appointees attack legitimacy of Venezuela govt.
Trump is in bad odor at home while seeking to attack other govts.
' Washington has explicitly expressed its support for a potential coup against the elected Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro,
by offering its backing to the opposition and stating outright it was time for a "new government."
"The Maduro regime is illegitimate and the United States will continue ... to work diligently to restore a real democracy"
to Venezuela, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters on his trip to the Middle East on Saturday, adding that Washington
would attempt to make the Latin American nations "come together to deliver that."' https://www.rt.com/news/448673-us-venezuela-time-new-government/
One thing the US deep state and their muller proxy would have on Trump, and most if not all of Trump's team, is collusion with
Israel (can this convert into charges of treason as threats). A weapon that is good for threats against and turning those around
Trump, and possibly used in as a last resort to remove Trump.
Adding to my post @ 18
Pat Lang has a post up "What is wrong with Trump?" "But, how does one explain his lack of action on the border? Does someone or
some thing in Russia, Israel, the UK, his former business associates, have something really juicy on Trump, something that he
fears to unleash through decisive action? pl"
Collusion with Israel is something neither side - team Trump and the deep state - would wish to bring into the open, but this
may be the only thing they have on Trump.
"On Thursday November 17th, 2016, NSA Director Mike
Rogers traveled to New York and met with President-Elect Donald Trump.
On Friday November 18th The Washington Post reported
on a recommendation in "October" that [NSA Director
Admiral Mike Rogers] Mike Rogers be removed from his
NSA position:
The heads of the Pentagon and the nation's
intelligence community have recommended to President
Obama that the director of the National Security
Agency, Adm. Michael S. Rogers, be removed.
In a move apparently unprecedented for a military
officer, Rogers, without notifying superiors, traveled
to New York to meet with Trump on Thursday at Trump
Tower.
Occam's Razor. NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers
didn't want to participate in the spying scheme [on
Trump]
(Clapper, Brennan, Etc.), which was the baseline for
President Obama's post presidency efforts to undermine
Donald Trump and keep Trump from digging into
[who knows what crimes]"
After the visit by Rogers, Trump vacated Trump Towers. There is considerable irony in the Mueller 'probe' and the continuing avalanche of MSM lies and evasions and spin etc pertaining
to Trump.
There are trends: A growing US citizen realization that their political system prior to Trump was nearly completely corrupt;
the Clintons are more broadly understood as the pathological criminals that they are; the Podesta emails with their sick connotations
remain 'in the air' - See Ben Swann's work, for example. The Clinton Foundation is far more broadly understood as a massive criminal
enterprise.
Serious criminality at the highest levels of the FBI is now far more obvious to far more people
MSM as evil propaganda is more widely understood.
It is understood widely that the DNC material to Wikileaks was not 'hacked' (Binney)
From the theintercept.com :
"Pompeo met on October 24 [at Trump's request] with William Binney, a former National Security Agency official-turned-whistleblower
who co-authored an analysis published by a group of former intelligence officials that challenges the U.S. intelligence community's
official assessment that Russian intelligence was behind last year's theft of data from DNC computers. Binney and the other former
officials argue that the DNC data was "leaked," not hacked, "by a person with physical access" to the DNC's computer system."
In short the last two years have been about trying to defeat Trump but the attackers are looking more and more wounded, and
Trump, well, he's hanging in there. General Kelly and others have described Trump's work ethic as exhausting.
The Internet Research Agency (IRA) paid $100,000 for Facebook ads and then charged its customers for the clickbait service (between
25 and 50 U.S. dollars per post for promotional content). So even if the IRA didn't manage to make a profit, the net cost for them must have been much lower than $100,000. Does anyone
know how much revenue it made from that operation? Facebook must know but they've kept quiet about it. Same with Mueller.
Thank you, b. I am so glad I did not vote for Obama a second time around. A very rotten duopoly has taken over the US government,
all based on the premise that money is speech and money runs government, the people be damned. Hence the shutdown being orchestrated
by money, with Trump in the crosshairs.
I also very much adhere to your final paragraph's sentences. Let no one be in any doubt - what is underway is no less than
traitorous activity, a clear violation of the US Constitution, motivated by corrupt individuals whose meanness is beyond dispute.
How it can be redressed at this very late stage beggars the mind; I can only hope it be done as peacefully as possible.
If this is really true, then it's a clear sign of decline: Obama sacrificed a huge chunk of American freedom just for the sake
of personal political revenge. The USA is transitioning from a laissez faire to a highly burocratized, byzantine economy.
Shortly after the USSR's experiment with communism collapsed, I read an article which suggested that if the noise from that fall
was loud, even louder will be the noise when the second shoe (the American experiment with capitalism) falls.
And this is the crux of why I appreciate The Donald. His is the most honest face the US can present to the world at this point
in time. So look at it closely, and marvel at where we have come to.
I am so glad I did not vote for Obama a second time around.
LOL (first time I've ever written this!)
You made the same mistake I did in 2008. The deck was really stacked in that election, though I was too blind to see it at
the time. Smiling & smooth-talking black face issuing zillions of promises, and this was right after the Codpiece Commander. It
took me a whole year to realize I'd been suckered, and by 2012 understood the fix was STILL on. Obama had lost most all of his
glitter by then, so the Power Elites arranged his opposition to be a financial predator/Mormon bishop paired up with the most
awful Libertarian POS I've ever seen. Speaking the honest truth here, I'd prefer to have Sarah Palin as POTUS to Paul Ryan. What
a combo! That's why I offered anybody I met 10:1 odds on Obama winning. Hillary thought she had had seen a winning pattern from
all that, and arranged to have as her opponent a fellow named Donald Trump.
@15 Zachary Smith "How else to interpret 'only the merest scratch of a womaniser' or 'how clean Trump has managed to keep himself'."
Zachary Smith, I have been posting here for a number of years, and on this I have to agree with the newcomer Tess Ting
Trump has been put under intense investigation by Deep State hacks who are determined to see him impeached.
And all they have come up with is that he is a compulsive pussy-grabber (no shit, hey?).
To my mind Trump is a very offensive human being, but that isn't an impeachable character trait.
I had assumed that he would have skeletons in his cupboard that would be grounds for impeachment.
Well, if he has then he has hidden them extraordinarily well, because Mueller with all his resources hasn't found any.
Indeed, Mueller's investigation is so well-resourced that the only conclusion I can reach is that Trump has no such skeletons.
As I say, that is extraordinary.
But - apparently - also true.
Blooming Barricade , Jan 13, 2019 9:21:09 PM |
link
Astonishing how out in the open the military coup plotting against Venezuela is right now, it was consisted an outrage to overthrow
Allende and that was even before direct proof of US involvement, now the anti-war and left wing consciousness of the public and
the intellectual class has been so corroded that nobody care and many even see an attempted coup as a god thing. The ideological
counter revolution in full swing.
@ Yeah, Right who wrote:
"
Indeed, Mueller's investigation is so well-resourced that the only conclusion I can reach is that Trump has no such skeletons.
"
I would just bring your attention to the possibility that bringing Trump down brings them down as well. Your assertion that
Trump doesn't have any skeletons in the closet is laughable.
Also consider that most of what is known comes from compromised sources and much of the house of cards we live is built on
sketchy assumptions.
Cui Bono for Trump?
I am beginning to understand how Trump fits the elite plan and instead of your "grab them by the pussy" thought change it to
"they have him by the balls". They played his ego to get him to run the race and then, gee, he won.
I now see Trump as the last great hope of the elite to carve out as big a chunk as they can of the new world....and try and
hold onto it. The ongoing proxy conflicts will keep the musical chair game playing for a bit more but then something is going
to stop the music.
A shrink told me once that after fire came music. What comes after music?
How did I know that you would be first up after b's exhaustive story on the IC's corruption and utterly obvious attempt to
take Trump down to cry, "Fiction."
Here is a reply to all your points:
- yes, the Russia-bad narrative was picking up steam before Trump's election. The MSM and TPTB incorrectly surmised that there
would be enough anti-Russia fervor among the masses that pinning the accusation on Trump would stick. It did not. It is evidence
of THEIR stupidity.
- you must have never heard of keeping your enemies close. The Clintons are powerbrokers. Trump used them. Maybe he did like them
at one point, but clearly shat on his relationship with them and since the election they have truly been trashed and unable to
recover any good fortune or power. The Dems made a mistake will backing HRC. They weren't acting under Deep State orders once
again, Occam's Razor dictates that stupidity is the culprit here.
- How does FBI informant in campaign neccessarily implicate Trump in conspiracy and not confirm IC's weasely attempts to dig up
dirt?
- Look at prior Repub primaries? Notice anything? Populists don't float in the Yacht Club Party, do they? Trump was an anomoly
indicitive of the times (again, Occam's Razor).
- Again, it is absolutely absurd and suspicious that you can not admit that the Dems are a party of retards and that they consistently
step over quarters to pick up pennies.
- Your opinion that Trump's policies do not differ from the Dems needs qualifying. I don't agree that his domestic policies align
and verdict is still out on his FP. We know he is not a True-Believer, which is good.
- British involvement again suggests that the IC is compromised and globalized yielding national sovereignty to centralized planning.
Trump deserves that ire and proves that there is a contest afoot.
If Trump's corporate bankruptcies are so well-known, and picked over several times by different media sources (even Snopes
has covered them), surely any other behaviour or incident that might call Trump's character or ethics into question must have
been uncovered by Robert Mueller by now?
I can't imagine the scale of exploding heads among the media talking heads and the establishment of the two parties, IF, Trump
gets re-elected. DC would be in serious melt down. After 4 years of continuous assault the voters may actually repudiate the corporate
media and the DC elites in the 2020 elections.
In any case with the Democrat candidates starting to announce we are essentially into the next presidential campaign. I don't
think it is smart to under-estimate Trump's electoral chances.
"Normally the FBI needs to clear such counter-intelligence investigations with the Justice Department. In this case it did
not do so at all:"This sounds like the same "kangaroo court" MO Scott Ritter detailed a few years ago:
"Simply put, the Russia NIA is not an "IC-coordinated" assessment -- the vehicle for such coordination, the NIC, was not directly
involved in its production, and no NIO was assigned as the responsible official overseeing its production. Likewise, the Russia
NIA cannot be said to be the product of careful coordination between the CIA, NSA and FBI -- while analysts from all three agencies
were involved in its production, they were operating as part of a separate, secretive task force operating under the close supervision
of the Director of the CIA, and not as an integral part of their home agency or department."
Why does it have to be either-or?; it could have been for insurance AND warmongering narrative/dog whistling.
Escalation towards war with Russia was a matter of public record in late pre-election 2016, thanks to Clinton News Network
... now ask yourselves where is that general in the press conference nowadays?
NemesisCalling @31: Here is a reply to all your points
Well, you haven't replied to all my points, nor have you addressed the the thrust of my remarks. But I'll answer the issues
that you raised so my view is clear to everyone.
= - yes, the Russia-bad narrative was picking up steam before Trump's election. The MSM and TPTB incorrectly surmised that there
would be enough anti-Russia fervor among the masses that pinning the accusation on Trump would stick. It did not. It is evidence
of THEIR stupidity. Wrong. Firstly, I was referring to the anti-Russia imperative in official circles NOT to the propaganda effort. That imperative
intensified greatly after Russia blocked USA-proxy takeover of Syria (2013), and Crimea and Donbas (2014). In fact,
Kissinger
wrote a WSJ Op-Ed in Aug 2014 that issued a cryptic call for MAGA.
"picking up steam before Trump's election" needs some unpacking. The anti-Russia fervor among the masses has been
entirely concocted, and mostly AFTER 2014.
Nothing has stuck to Trump because there's no substance to the allegations.
= - you must have never heard of keeping your enemies close. The Clintons are powerbrokers. Trump used them. Maybe he did like
them at one point, but clearly shat on his relationship with them and since the election they have truly been trashed and unable
to recover any good fortune or power. The Dems made a mistake will backing HRC. They weren't acting under Deep State orders once
again, Occam's Razor dictates that stupidity is the culprit here. What does Occam's Razor have to say about the remarkable continuity of US foreign and domestic policy for the last 30 years?
Trump and the Clintons were known to be close. Even their daughter's were/are close.
Are you unaware of the CIA connections of Clinton, Bush, and Obama? Should we assume that Trump is free of any such connection?
= - How does FBI informant in campaign neccessarily implicate Trump in conspiracy and not confirm IC's weasely attempts to dig
up dirt? The FBI informant (Felix Sater) worked for Trump from about 2001 to 2013. This was essentially the same period in which Mueller
was FBI Director. Mueller and Comey are close and are connected to the Clinton's.
The informant wasn't investigating Trump or digging up dirt on him, he was informing on the Russian mob, and probably using
employment by Trump to get closer to the mob. FBI/counter intel might have also used info provided to turn some of the Russians
into US intel assets.
= - Look at prior Repub primaries? Notice anything? Populists don't float in the Yacht Club Party, do they? Trump was an anomoly
indicitive of the times (again, Occam's Razor). Have you heard of the Tea Party? Have you heard of Obama using the IRS against the Tea Party? Seems that a Republican populist
would get a lot of votes against the hated Hillary who championed Obama's "legacy".
- Again, it is absolutely absurd and suspicious that you can not admit that the Dems are a party of retards and that they
consistently step over quarters to pick up pennies. You can't admit that the Dem's have failed the left so consistently that it is unlikely to be due to their mental capacity
or an accident of circumstance.
= - Your opinion that Trump's policies do not differ from the Dems needs qualifying. I don't agree that his domestic policies
align and verdict is still out on his FP. We know he is not a True-Believer, which is good. I didn't say that they don't differ from the Dems, I said that Trump policies are consistent with policies of previous Administrations
and that Hillary likely would've ruled in much the same way.
= - British involvement again suggests that the IC is compromised and globalized yielding national sovereignty to centralized
planning. Trump deserves that ire and proves that there is a contest afoot The US IC is undoubtedly primary and universally acknowledged to be the lead in the US-Brit Intel relationship.
The only 'contest' I can discern is how best to fool the people.
<> <> <> <> <> <> <> <>
You seem to believe that a populist outsider can be elected President. And, you also believe that a US President can be both
all powerful (Obama) or constrained by Deep State whim (Trump).
You also seem to believe that Trump's rhetoric is gospel-truth and means what you think it does. Surprise! "Negotiation with
Russia" doesn't mean peace. Troop 'pull out' doesn't mean it'll happen any time soon (and possibly never). Anti-TPP doesn't mean
he won't implement TPP provisions in other trade agreements. Etc.
PS The establishment doesn't benefit DESPITE our populist President's, they benefit BECAUSE we are willing to believe that
our populist President's work for US.
Jr, it was a fruitless endeavor, to be sure, but I gave it a shot.
For the record, I never counted Trump as savior, although he could very well be if he continues on getting caught with his
dick in his hand as the empire around him crumbles. He's not a true believer, but he can at the very least be a useful idiot for
the real anti-imperialists in the world.
It is of note that Oleg Deripaska is not a stranger to the world of politics and politicians. Before his fortunes changed dramatically,
Oleg Deripaska was well-known for entertaining world politicians on his luxury yacht moored off Kassiopi in the northwest corner
of the Greek Island of Corfu.
The Rothschilds have an estate outside Kassiopi. Among the many high-powered friends and guests
of Deripaska was UK Tory politician, George Osborne, who visited him on his yacht at Kassiopi while still British Chancellor of
the Exchequer. Osborne and EU Commissioner Peter Mandelson, a powerful force in Tony Blair's government, were both guests at a
function held aboard the yacht in 2008. Baron Mandelson's position in the EU, at the time, led to accusations of a conflict of
interest.
Among other movers and shakers, John McCain was also a friend of Oleg Deripaska, but that friendship may have soured
after the virtual collapse of the Russian billionaire companies. McCain was more a fairweather friend than a stalwart ally through
thick and thin. The reason I mention these tidbits is because the corporate media fails to join all the pieces that show just
how corrupt Western politicians have become.
For a thorough update on the Integrity Initiative and its offshoots, check out the latest from legal investigator Barbara Boyd.
To defeat the "Deep State" in the U.S., it is essential to understand the role of British Intelligence. While it is essential
to know the role of Hillary Clinton, Obama, Comey, DOJ/FBI operatives, et.al., it is even more important to understand the geopolitical
assumptions behind Russiagate. And for that, one must turn to the British.
It would help to get a handle on the precise nature and format of these FBI "under oath" fishing expeditions if the FBI released
transcripts of a few of the recent hi-profile Q & A sessions. If suspects are being convicted for misdemeanors of dubious relevance
to the stated aim of the Mueller Crusade then transcripts would allow inconsistencies to be counted and evaluated. It would also
be interesting to discover whether the FBI uses a seductive approach to questioning, or a confrontational approach, given the
petty nature of the 'crimes' exposed to date.
The aim of the counterintelligence operation and of the
Russiagate hoax was not to build a prosecution
case against President Trump. It was to put the United States in constitutional limbo by creating a parallel and competing center
of constitutional legitimacy.
The Obama Administration would live on in the structure of this "investigation", without ever having
to relinquish power to Trump. The investigation would form the center of "The Resistance", with the ability to question the legitimacy
of the Trump Administration.
I didn't say that they don't differ from the Dems, I said that Trump policies are consistent with policies of previous Administrations
and that Hillary likely would've ruled in much the same way.
This is very true but only in the same sort of overgeneralised sense with you populate your latest CT. That is, sweep any of
the plainly ridiculous assumptions in your theory under the widest possible rug available to conspiratards.
At least you aint exactly drinking the Orange Kool-Aid like so many of the posters on this thread. That's a big positive in
my book. As for them, it's more a reflection of the love for rightwing authoritarianism than for Trump himself. What they really
wish for is a crafier, shrewder Amerikkkan version of Putin, but they accept Trump because his bumbling is the existential proof
of US decline in relative power, as if such proof was necessary.
And if you overlook all Trump's achievements (such as they are):
1. Obamacare/Medicaid expansion repeal and subsequent degradation of the enrollment and funding processes by executive degree
when appeal failed thanks only to McCain's "in yo office sucka" thumbs down vote.
2. Tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations (basically same thing)
3. SCOTUS and federal bench selections
The US system is meant to create a uniparty environment whereby opposing views are compromised into a "third way" legislative
process.
I grok this system is broken and completely controlled by the wealthiest (show me a political system anywhere that you prefer
that is not controlled by the wealthiest) but the funding mechanisms need changing before there will ever be significant change
to governing processes.
Trump through his ignorance, corruption and loose lips has tilted the playing field left. Hilliary through her elitism, arrogance,
corruption and lack of retail political skills gets a big assist in the same tilting.
Those who believe (if any truly do) that Trump represents anything more than the end of Reaganist conservatism are "wishin'
and hopin'" as Dusty Springfield would say.
I do applaud those who are willing to show in the comments that they suffer from the real "Trump Derangement Syndrome," such
as your good buddy James. They're all crooks, in his opinion.
So what is it Jim? Do you excuse Trump only or do you excuse them all? LMAO
Putin January 2017 - "You know, there is a category of people who leave without saying goodbye, out of respect for the situation
that has evolved, so as not to upset anything. And then there are people who keep saying goodbye but don't leave. I believe the
outgoing administration belongs to the second category.
What are we seeing in the United States? We are seeing the continuation of an acute internal political struggle despite the
fact that the presidential election is over and it ended in Mr Trump's convincing victory. Nevertheless, in my opinion, several
goals are being set in this struggle. Maybe there are more, but some of them are perfectly obvious."
The first is to undermine the legitimacy of the US president-elect. By the way, in this regard, I would like to point out that
whether deliberately or not, these people are causing enormous damage to US interests. Simply enormous. The impression is that,
after a practice run in Kiev, they are now ready to organise a Maidan in Washington to prevent Trump from taking office."
Posted by: pretzelattack , Jan 14, 2019 10:05:43 AM |
link
sure, no doubt trump has been involved in financial improprieties; this in no way means he colluded with Russia to fix the election,
or that russia on its own hacked the election, or any of the other false narratives the ic is trying to cram down our throats
with the connivance of the msm and (mostly, but there are some republicans pushing it, too) the "centrist" dems.
And the clintons have their own skeletons, but they seem to be judgement proof with the aid of comey et al.
The only real difference between Trump and the Clintons at end of the day is they are smart lawyers who obviously better understand
how to navigate the treacherous legal waters surrounding them.
They also know what the definition of "is, is" and how to carefully craft their words in public, while Trump is all loose cannon
all the time ahd his legal representation appears to follow his lead, IE Giuliani and Cohen.
Posted by: Peter AU 1 | Jan 14, 2019 9:45:39 AM | 45:
We are seeing the continuation of an acute internal political struggle despite the fact that the presidential election is
over and it ended in Mr Trump's convincing victory.
Not really. What we are seeing is Deep State controlled media force-feeding the public a toxic concoction: the narrative of a
political struggle that centers on anti-Russia hysteria.
Maybe you missed Romney's Op-Ed in which he praised Trump's pro-establishment policies while attacking his Russia-friendly
'pull out' from Syria. That's the best example of the two-faced establishment bullsh*t.
Welcome to the rabbit hole.
Robert Snefjella , Jan 14, 2019 10:57:29 AM |
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What is loosely called 'globalism', consisting of various trends and ideologies and practices: the EU and the aborted for now
'North American Union' and satellites, and cell phones able to instantly transmit images from the other side of the planet, and
so on, has also importantly aimed at and advocated for and implemented various means by which national sovereignty was eroded.
And this erosion meant a reduction of the ability of a country's people to wield an effective national politics, let alone
something vaguely democratic, or to implement policies which were at odds with the various globalist institutions and imperatives
and programs. So we've seen on numerous occasions, for example, the IMF impose its globalist economic 'recipe' on a nation's economic
policies.
And even the destruction of Libya in 2011 was primarily or importantly directed at preventing Libya from implementing a national
financial strategy intended to give African countries an alternative to the depredations of global financial 'business as usual'.
But over the last two years the movement to restore or renovate national sovereignty has made something of a comeback.
So for example, Macron as recently as roughly two years ago was being lauded as a great new leader of the globalist project,
and both he and Merkel have gone on record decrying the very concept of national sovereignty.
But now Macron and Merkel are largely reviled, especially Macron, by their people, and 'populist' enthusiasm strengthens. You
can see the same trend in virtually every European country.
And in the United States, the tens of millions of 'deplorables' backing Trump are doing so partly, perhaps mostly, because
he champions the restoration of national sovereignty and has questioned dominant globalist institutions.
Now for those who are committed to the view that Trump doesn't really mean it, that he isn't really an American nationalist,
and so on, well, fine, believe what you like. But in the end, Trump's base of support is nationalistic, and that is as I noted
above a very general trend that is quickly manifesting.
Re. the USA, when the handmaidens of power, aka politicians, the servant class in an oligarchic corporatist 'state,' are alarmingly
seen to fight to the death in public it is crystal clear that control (which may take the shape of relatively informal and obscure
networks ) is lost, .. > the 'fight' will only serve to weaken all parties.
Trump is loathed because he upset the apple cart and revealed weakness and fissures in the system. (+ possibly because he is
an upstart, from the wrong side of whatever, has bad hair, is dumb, a thief, more )
He ran as an anti-establishment maverick:
"Drain the Swamp!"
"Lock her up!"
"Build the Wall!"
- and was elected only for that reason. It was disconcertingly easy to do, which is also terrifying to the PTB. Plus, election/voter
fraud did not perform as expected - help !! The MSM promoted him with mega 24/24 coverage - help !!
As the no. 1 disruptive foe is merely an elderly scummy biz type, an intruder, some other entity like malignant agressive Russia
had to be associated with him. (Yes, is was Obama-Clinton who started the highjinks + the following Mueller investig.; see b at
top - also, bashing Russia gradually took wing as it recovered under Putin, the Ukraine plots did not work out, etc. *Crimea!*
the last straw! ..)
If Obama had announced that 2K USA personnel were to be withdrawn from Syria because the good folks want their wonderful husbands
and wives, great ppl, our folks, home soon, they have dutifully served, etc. the MSM and anyone who bothered to digest that news
would have clapped and sent off pixel sparkles and sweet tweets.
Very difficult to judge: what is the result of infighting in the US vs. any agreed-on never mind coherent foreign policy? That
the question is even asked - all over the world now - spells stage one collapse.
Now for those who are committed to the view that Trump doesn't really mean it, that he isn't really an American nationalist,
and so on, well, fine, believe what you like. But in the end, Trump's base of support is nationalistic ..."
Did Obama really mean it when he touted "Change You Can Believe In"? No. His rhetoric was meant to turn the page
from the Bush Administration excesses and convince the world that USA was not the threat that they perceived us to be. In fact,
he was given a Nobel Prize for essentially not being Bush. But it was all psyop. Obama refused to hold CIA accountable for rendition
and torture, refused to stop NSA pervasive spying, conducted covert wars and regime change ops, bragged of his drone targeting
skills, made Bush tax cuts permanent, bailed out bankers, etc.
Does Trump really mean his nationalism? Only to the extent that a nationalist was needed to meet the challenge from Russia
and China. People don't fight for globalist principals.
US is still a member of NATO, still involved in the Middle East, still has hundreds of bases around the world.
Trump's nationalist credentials are further belied by such things as: adding TPP provisions to the new North American trade
agreement; attacking Syria based on false flags; arming Ukraine; pulling out of the INF treaty and engaging in an unnecessary
and costly arms race; actively seeking to overthrow the governments of Iran and Venezuela; etc.
Is there a requirement for an open trial on these sort of things. I'm not sure about the US, but normally gag orders are all
that's required to keep something quiet. All the people around Trump could be taken down in this way with charges that would stick.
Apparently the only one they cannot take down in this way is the president (Another post up now at SST on the legalities of investigating
the president). As far as I know, the president can only be taken down by impeachment so I guess they wouldn't try to use collusion
with Israel for that unless they could keep what they were impeaching him for secret.
And in the United States, the tens of millions of 'deplorables' backing Trump are doing so partly, perhaps mostly, because
he champions the restoration of national sovereignty and has questioned dominant globalist institutions.
Yes, "Amerikkka First" represents nationalism for sure. Many, maybe most Amerikkkans have always been nationalistic and detest
globalist structures because they view them as limiting Amerikkka's rightful global sovereignty. This is a fine distinction
I believe gets lost in commentary such as yours. Trump isn't looking to retreat from Amerikkkan Exceptionalism at all, it his
raison d etre for the tariffs and increases in military spending.
The movement which elected Trump represents the nostalgic view of a lost Amerikkkan dominance over the globe, which of course
they blame on those hated Democratic and Republican establishment globalists, Bushes, Clintons and Obama.
You see all that and then assume that the Hillary-Trump contest was genuine?
Why not assume that the Deep State's candidate won in every election since Carter and work from there.
That first is a difficult one to answer, for I quite agree with you on the second part. Rigged elections from Carter on to
the present day matches my own thoughts as well. In 2000 "they" had to go all the way to the Supreme Court to get their man in
office, but GWB did indeed move into the White House.
My own theory about 2016 is that everybody miscalculated. Trump was (IMO) running as an ego-building publicity stunt. Hillary
(and her Deep State sponsors) had actively helped Trump get the nomination with hundreds of millions of dollars of free publicity
which also enhanced the bottom lines of Big Media. His multiple flaws were airbrushed away. Hillary ran a horrible campaign because
she is an arrogant and "entitled" woman. The incompetence of that campaign simply didn't uncover the extent to which she was hated
by so many people. (myself included, but I didn't vote for the torture-loving Trump, either)
The biggest mistake of all was not having any plan in place to use the touch-screen voting systems (think "Diebold") to
nail down her victory. Again an opinion, but I think that was judged to be a little too risky plus the fact it was obviously
totally unnecessary. Hillary didn't have a "loss" speech prepared, and Trump didn't have a "victory" one.
This is why I call Trump an "accidental" President. I'll admit the Deep State has reacted pretty well since 2016, but they're
still playing catchup. Israel - to name just one - remains in shell shock.
Further to American's general support for Trump's declared intention of reduction of troops in Syria and Afghanistan, the Daily
Caller on the 9th of January 2019 cited 56 % in support, 20 % not sure, and 27 % opposing. This is after MSM and general national
political outrage and 'deep concern' over Trump's decision.
Note that US involvement in Syria has been justified by the most lurid of lies and disinfo continually poured for years into
American's psyches. For Tulsi Gabbard to have a direct conversation with Assad (the designated 'butcher of Damascus', the 'horrid
monstrous dictator' accused over and over of attacking his own people, often with chemical weapons from barrel bombs, and especially
targeting children and hospitals: the man can have no soul, no heart! We must help the Syrians in their struggle against this
animal!) was an outrage!
So not only do most Americans want American troops out of Syria, it would seem that there is some growing immunity among the
people of the United States to their diet of diseased propaganda.
The populist hero must be portrayed as an "outsider" that takes on the establishment. Obama was positioned in much the same way.
Trump is no "outsider". He is very establishment. Even before running for President, he had access that ordinary people never
get.
Trump only won because of a bizarre technicality of the American electoral system.
You are directing our attention to what the establishment wants us to see. It ignores Hillary's spectacular failure: snubbing
of Sanders progressives; Cold shoulder to black voters; insult to white voters ("deplorables"); choosing not to campaign in crucial
states; the wierdness of Bill Clinton being discovered meeting with Attorney General Loretta Lynch (Bill Clinton is one of
the most recognizable people in America - why why why would be meeting with the Attorney General on an airport tarmac?), etc.
If the race were easy, Trump woundn't be a populist hero, would he? And Hillary's winning the popular vote is a nice consolation
prize to the Clinton's. Plus, it nicely sets up the fake Deep State vs. Trump conflict.
While Trump is a member of the elite establishment that practically owns the country he has always been a pariah for one main
reason. He does not honor the unspoken code of never exposing inside information about other elite members. He is a big mouth.
Given that, the establishment and their propaganda arm of the media have been out to get him even before he was elected. His presidency
has largely been an inside struggle. However, Trump is clever and crafty. During his tenure he has been give access to tremendous
amounts of information about his political enemies and he continues to bait, insult and fire them, pushing them deeper and deeper
into insanity.
He will fight fire with fire. If they attempt to impeach him he will tit for tat release information incriminating
his enemies. I view this as a positive direction for the US in the long run. ALL of these people need to be banished to "Elba".
Maybe they will fight to the death of both sides. One can dream.
"... On Friday November 18th The Washington Post reported on a recommendation in "October" that [NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers] Mike Rogers be removed from his NSA position: The heads of the Pentagon and the nation's intelligence community have recommended to President Obama that the director of the National Security Agency, Adm. Michael S. Rogers, be removed. ..."
"... After the visit by Rogers, Trump vacated Trump Towers. ..."
"On Thursday November 17th, 2016, NSA Director Mike Rogers traveled to New York and met
with President-Elect Donald Trump.
On Friday November 18th The Washington Post reported on a recommendation in "October"
that [NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers] Mike Rogers be removed from his NSA position: The
heads of the Pentagon and the nation's intelligence community have recommended to President
Obama that the director of the National Security Agency, Adm. Michael S. Rogers, be
removed.
In a move apparently unprecedented for a military officer, Rogers, without notifying
superiors, traveled to New York to meet with Trump on Thursday at Trump Tower.
Occam's Razor. NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers didn't want to participate in the spying
scheme [on Trump]
(Clapper, Brennan, Etc.), which was the baseline for President Obama's post presidency
efforts to undermine Donald Trump and keep Trump from digging into [who knows what
crimes]"
After the visit by Rogers, Trump vacated Trump Towers.
There is considerable irony in the Mueller 'probe' and the continuing avalanche of MSM
lies and evasions and spin etc pertaining to Trump.
There are trends: A growing US citizen realization that their political system prior to
Trump was nearly completely corrupt; the Clintons are more broadly understood as the
pathological criminals that they are; the Podesta emails with their sick connotations remain
'in the air' - See Ben Swann's work, for example. The Clinton Foundation is far more broadly
understood as a massive criminal enterprise.
Serious criminality at the highest levels of the FBI is now far more obvious to far more
people
MSM as evil propaganda is more widely understood.
It is understood widely that the DNC material to Wikileaks was not 'hacked' (Binney)
From the theintercept.com :
"Pompeo met on October 24 [at Trump's request] with William Binney, a former National
Security Agency official-turned-whistleblower who co-authored an analysis published by a
group of former intelligence officials that challenges the U.S. intelligence community's
official assessment that Russian intelligence was behind last year's theft of data from DNC
computers. Binney and the other former officials argue that the DNC data was "leaked," not
hacked, "by a person with physical access" to the DNC's computer system."
In short the last two years have been about trying to defeat Trump but the attackers are
looking more and more wounded, and Trump, well, he's hanging in there. General Kelly and
others have described Trump's work ethic as exhausting.
For many readers especially on this comes as no surprise, as you are well aware of the
octopus that wraps its tentacles around the globe. But it may surprise you how active In-Q-Tel
is and how chummy they are with the rest of the VC community. It's as if they are just another
VC, but with another purpose. Let's look at some of the stats, from Crunchbase:
Here's a list of recent investments
If you dig back you won't see Google or Facebook on there – which is company policy
for retail consumer investments that can impact the public (it's kept secret behind an NDA).
Here's how it works – In-Q-Tel may invest in your startup but there's a big catch. First,
you have to sign an NDA which is enforced strongly – that you are not to disclose your
partner. Second, you must agree to 'cooperation' when it comes to information sharing now or
down the road, such as location data on people using Facebook, Google, or other systems –
perhaps only to feed it into a big data brain at Palantir. Or perhaps for more street level
surveillance. The surveillance is known by fact, not conspiracy theory – but by fact
– due to the disclosure of classified documents by Edward Snowden. If it were not for
Snowden, we could only guess about this. The name of the main program is
PRISM but there are many others.
But for others, it may come as a surprise that not only the CIA has its own VC fund, but
that it sits on many corporate boards alongside many Wall St. firms and other VCs.
And of course, they always do well.
Let's consider the doors they opened for Google, or in the case of Google it was more like
the doors that were closed. Google was not the best search engine, it was not superior
technology – it wasn't even really very good. It just became a monopoly and crushed the
competition. Many wonder how they were able to do it, and that this is part of the Entrepreneur
"Magic" that few have. Well we can say in the case of Google there was no Magic they had a
helping hand from a friend in the deep shadows. Google wanted to become huge – the CIA
wants information (they always do, so we don't use the past tense 'wanted'). So it was a cozy
and rational partnership – in exchange for making the right handshakes at the right time,
allowing Google to become a global behemoth, all they needed to do was share a little
information about users. Actually, a lot of information. No harm in that, right?
But in doing so Google violated itself as well as prostituted its model and its users.
Google still does this and is not nearly as flagrant as its brother Facebook, however Google
shares more detailed 'meta data' which is actually more useful to Echelon systems like Palantir
that rely on big data, not necessarily photos of what you ate for breakfast (but that can be
helpful too, they say).
The metaphor is making a deal with the devil; you get what you want but it comes at a price.
And that's the price users pay to Google – they get service 'free' but at a huge cost,
their privacy. Of course – this is all based on the concept of Freedom which really does
exist in USA. You don't have to use Google – there are many alternatives like the rising
star Duck Duck Go :
But who cares about privacy; only criminals, hackers, programmers, super wealthy (UHNWI) and
a few philosophers.
Google remains the dominant search platform and much more. Google exploits niche by niche
even competing with Amazon's Alexa service.
Two decades ago, the US intelligence community worked closely with Silicon Valley in an
effort to track citizens in cyberspace. And Google is at the heart of that origin story. Some
of the research that led to Google's ambitious creation was funded and coordinated by a
research group established by the intelligence community to find ways to track individuals
and groups online. The intelligence community hoped that the nation's leading computer
scientists could take non-classified information and user data, combine it with what would
become known as the internet, and begin to create for-profit, commercial enterprises to suit
the needs of both the intelligence community and the public. They hoped to direct the
supercomputing revolution from the start in order to make sense of what millions of human
beings did inside this digital information network. That collaboration has made a
comprehensive public-private mass surveillance state possible today.
There you have it – Google is the child of the digital revolution of the surveillance
state. Why spy, when you can collect data electronically and analyze with machine learning?
The new spy is the web bot.
And the investors in Google did well – so that's the investing story that matters
here. It pays well to have friends in high places, and in dark places. Of all the investments
In-Q-Tel made, almost all of them have done very well. That doesn't mean that Palantir is going
to grow to the size of Google, but it does provide natural support should a company backed by
In-Q-Tel run into problems.
By the time Facebook came out, digital surveillance was already in the n-th generation of
evolution, and they really stepped up their game. In the creepiest examples, Facebook doesn't
necessarily (and primarily) collect data on Facebook users – it does this too. But that's
just a given – you don't need to perform surveillance on someone who gives all their data
to the system willingly – you always know where they are and what they are doing at any
given moment. The trick is to get information about those who may try to hide their activities,
whether they are real terrorists or just paranoid geniuses.
How does Facebook do this? There are literally hundreds of programs running – but in
one creepy example, Facebook collects photos that users take to analyze the environment
surrounding. Incidentally, the location data is MUCH MORE accurate than you see on the retail
front end. So you get the newspaper and see a gift in your mailbox for your birthday –
you take a photo because the ribbons are hanging out. What shows up in the background? All
kinds of information. What the neighbor is doing. License plate of the car driving by. Trash
waiting to be picked up by the street. A child's toy left by the sidewalk. You get the picture.
Facebook users have been turned into sneaky little digital spies! While they are walking around
with their 'smartphones' (should be called 'dumbphones') scrolling their walls and snapping
photos away – they are taking photos of you too. That means, Facebook collects data for
the CIA about users who don't have Facebook accounts. This is the huge secret that the
mainstream media doesn't want to tell you. Deleting your Facebook account will do nothing
– every time you go out in public you are being photographed, video recorded, and more
– all going into big data artificial intelligence for analysis.
But here's the best part. You own it! The CIA may have a bad reputation but it is part of
the US Government, and thus – profits go back to the Treasury (those which are declared)
or at least they are supposed to. Considering this, why is there a stigma about even talking
about In-Q-Tel when in fact we should be more involved in any US Government operation when it
is technically owned by the people and funded by taxpayers? Meaning, do taxpayers have rights
to know what goes in in taxpayer funded entities, like In-Q-Tel? The big difference between
In-Q-Tel and the CIA is that In-Q-Tel functions just like any other VC – they disclose
most of their investments, they attend conferences, they accept business plans. You can
literally submit your idea to In-Q-Tel and get funding. Of course, like any VC there's a very
small chance of being funded.
So what's an investor's take on this story? In-Q-Tel is not Freddie Mac there is nor a
quasi-government entity; it's not an NGO and there is no implicit guarantee that In-Q-Tel's
deals will do any better than Andreessen
Horowitz .
However, their deals do very well. Companies they fund not only have the backing of the CIA
explicitly, it's not only about business – it's about national security! Under that
guise, it's no wonder that companies like Google and Facebook rocket to the top.
We are not suggesting that investors double down on In-Q-Tel bets. We are only suggesting
that at a minimum, we follow what they do. It's a data point – a good source of
information. And the best part is that it's public.
Their most recent investment is in a virtual reality company in Boca Raton, FL called
Immersive Wisdom:
Immersive Wisdom® is an enterprise software platform that allows users to
collaborate in real-time upon diverse data sets and applications within a temporal and
geospatially-aware Virtual, Mixed, and Augmented Reality space. Immersive Wisdom is
hardware-agnostic and runs on VR, AR, as well as 2D displays. Regardless of geographic
location , multiple users can be together in a shared virtual workspace, standing on maps,
with instant access to relevant information from any available source. Users can
simultaneously, and in real time, visualize, fuse, and act upon sensor inputs, cyber/network
data, IoT feeds, enterprise applications, telemetry, tagged assets, 3D Models, LiDAR, imagery
and UAV footage/streaming video, providing an omniscient, collaborative view of complex
environments. Immersive Wisdom also acts as a natural human interface to multi-dimensional
data sets generated by AI and machine learning systems. The platform includes a powerful SDK
(Software Developer Kit) that enables the creation of customer-specific workflows as well as
rapid integration with existing data sources/applications.
Cool stuff for sure – but it's in early stages. Pre IPO Swap suggests real Pre IPO
'unicorns' not because of size, but because of the right mix of risk and reward. https://preiposwap.com/pitch "
style="color:#0d2e46; text-decoration:underline">See why we think so in our pitch.
In any analysis, it's worth watching In-Q-Tel, which is a top source of funding and
investment data we watch on www.preiposwap.com/ ">https://
www.preiposwap.com/ "
style="color:#0d2e46; text-decoration:underline">Pre IPO Swap.
"... Bankers, pharmaceutical giants, Google, Facebook ... a new breed of rentiers are at the very top of the pyramid and they're sucking the rest of us dry @rcbregman ..."
"... 'A big part of the modern banking sector is essentially a giant tapeworm gorging on a sick body' ..."
"... This piece is about one of the biggest taboos of our times. About a truth that is seldom acknowledged, and yet – on reflection – cannot be denied. The truth that we are living in an inverse welfare state. These days, politicians from the left to the right assume that most wealth is created at the top. By the visionaries, by the job creators, and by the people who have "made it". By the go-getters oozing talent and entrepreneurialism that are helping to advance the whole world. ..."
"... To understand why, we need to recognise that there are two ways of making money. The first is what most of us do: work. That means tapping into our knowledge and know-how (our "human capital" in economic terms) to create something new, whether that's a takeout app, a wedding cake, a stylish updo, or a perfectly poured pint. To work is to create. Ergo, to work is to create new wealth. ..."
"... But there is also a second way to make money. That's the rentier way : by leveraging control over something that already exists, such as land, knowledge, or money, to increase your wealth. You produce nothing, yet profit nonetheless. By definition, the rentier makes his living at others' expense, using his power to claim economic benefit. ..."
"... For those who know their history, the term "rentier" conjures associations with heirs to estates, such as the 19th century's large class of useless rentiers, well-described by the French economist Thomas Piketty . These days, that class is making a comeback. (Ironically, however, conservative politicians adamantly defend the rentier's right to lounge around, deeming inheritance tax to be the height of unfairness.) But there are also other ways of rent-seeking. From Wall Street to Silicon Valley , from big pharma to the lobby machines in Washington and Westminster, zoom in and you'll see rentiers everywhere. ..."
"... It may take quite a mental leap to see our economy as a system that shows solidarity with the rich rather than the poor. So I'll start with the clearest illustration of modern freeloaders at the top: bankers. Studies conducted by the International Monetary Fund and the Bank for International Settlements – not exactly leftist thinktanks – have revealed that much of the financial sector has become downright parasitic. How instead of creating wealth, they gobble it up whole. ..."
"... In other words, a big part of the modern banking sector is essentially a giant tapeworm gorging on a sick body. It's not creating anything new, merely sucking others dry. Bankers have found a hundred and one ways to accomplish this. The basic mechanism, however, is always the same: offer loans like it's going out of style, which in turn inflates the price of things like houses and shares, then earn a tidy percentage off those overblown prices (in the form of interest, commissions, brokerage fees, or what have you), and if the shit hits the fan, let Uncle Sam mop it up. ..."
"... Bankers are the most obvious class of closet freeloaders, but they are certainly not alone. Many a lawyer and an accountant wields a similar revenue model. Take tax evasion . Untold hardworking, academically degreed professionals make a good living at the expense of the populations of other countries. Or take the tide of privatisations over the past three decades, which have been all but a carte blanche for rentiers. One of the richest people in the world, Carlos Slim , earned his millions by obtaining a monopoly of the Mexican telecom market and then hiking prices sky high. The same goes for the Russian oligarchs who rose after the Berlin Wall fell , who bought up valuable state-owned assets for song to live off the rent. ..."
"... Even paragons of modern progress like Apple, Amazon, Google , Facebook, Uber and Airbnb are woven from the fabric of rentierism. Firstly, because they owe their existence to government discoveries and inventions (every sliver of fundamental technology in the iPhone, from the internet to batteries and from touchscreens to voice recognition, was invented by researchers on the government payroll). And second, because they tie themselves into knots to avoid paying taxes, retaining countless bankers, lawyers, and lobbyists for this very purpose. ..."
"... Even more important, many of these companies function as "natural monopolies", operating in a positive feedback loop of increasing growth and value as more and more people contribute free content to their platforms. Companies like this are incredibly difficult to compete with, because as they grow bigger, they only get stronger. ..."
"... Most of Mark Zuckerberg's income is just rent collected off the millions of picture and video posts that we give away daily for free. And sure, we have fun doing it. But we also have no alternative – after all, everybody is on Facebook these days. Zuckerberg has a website that advertisers are clamouring to get onto, and that doesn't come cheap. Don't be fooled by endearing pilots with free internet in Zambia. Stripped down to essentials, it's an ordinary ad agency. In fact, in 2015 Google and Facebook pocketed an astounding 64% of all online ad revenue in the US. ..."
"... Rentierism is, in essence, a question of power. That the Sun King Louis XIV was able to exploit millions was purely because he had the biggest army in Europe. It's no different for the modern rentier. He's got the law, politicians and journalists squarely in his court. That's why bankers get fined peanuts for preposterous fraud, while a mother on government assistance gets penalised within an inch of her life if she checks the wrong box. ..."
"... The biggest tragedy of all, however, is that the rentier economy is gobbling up society's best and brightest. Where once upon a time Ivy League graduates chose careers in science, public service or education, these days they are more likely to opt for banks, law firms, or trumped up ad agencies like Google and Facebook. When you think about it, it's insane. We are forking over billions in taxes to help our brightest minds on and up the corporate ladder so they can learn how to score ever more outrageous handouts. ..."
"... One thing is certain: countries where rentiers gain the upper hand gradually fall into decline. Just look at the Roman Empire. Or Venice in the 15th century. Look at the Dutch Republic in the 18th century. Like a parasite stunts a child's growth, so the rentier drains a country of its vitality. ..."
Bankers, pharmaceutical giants, Google, Facebook ... a new breed of rentiers are at the very top of the pyramid and they're
sucking the rest of us dry @rcbregman
'A big part of the modern banking sector is essentially a giant tapeworm gorging on a sick body'.
This piece is about one of the biggest taboos of our times. About a truth that is seldom acknowledged, and yet – on reflection
– cannot be denied. The truth that we are living in an inverse welfare state. These days, politicians from the left to the right assume that most wealth is created at the top. By the visionaries, by the job
creators, and by the people who have "made it". By the go-getters oozing talent and entrepreneurialism that are helping to advance
the whole world.
Now, we may disagree about the extent to which success deserves to be rewarded – the philosophy of the left is that the strongest
shoulders should bear the heaviest burden, while the right fears high taxes will blunt enterprise – but across the spectrum virtually
all agree that wealth is created primarily at the top.
So entrenched is this assumption that it's even embedded in our language. When economists talk about "productivity", what they
really mean is the size of your paycheck. And when we use terms like "
welfare
state ", "redistribution" and "solidarity", we're implicitly subscribing to the view that there are two strata: the makers and
the takers, the producers and the couch potatoes, the hardworking citizens – and everybody else.
In reality, it is precisely the other way around. In reality, it is the waste collectors, the nurses, and the cleaners whose shoulders
are supporting the apex of the pyramid. They are the true mechanism of social solidarity. Meanwhile, a growing share of those we
hail as "successful" and "innovative" are earning their wealth at the expense of others. The people getting the biggest handouts
are not down around the bottom, but at the very top. Yet their perilous dependence on others goes unseen. Almost no one talks about
it. Even for politicians on the left, it's a non-issue.
To understand why, we need to recognise that there are two ways of making money. The first is what most of us do: work. That means
tapping into our knowledge and know-how (our "human capital" in economic terms) to create something new, whether that's a takeout
app, a wedding cake, a stylish updo, or a perfectly poured pint. To work is to create. Ergo, to work is to create new wealth.
But there is also a second way to make money.
That's the rentier way : by leveraging control over something that already exists, such as land, knowledge, or money, to increase
your wealth. You produce nothing, yet profit nonetheless. By definition, the rentier makes his living at others' expense, using his
power to claim economic benefit.
'From Wall Street to Silicon Valley, zoom in and you'll see rentiers everywhere.'
For those who know their history, the term "rentier" conjures associations with heirs to estates, such as the 19th century's large
class of useless rentiers, well-described by the
French economist
Thomas Piketty . These days, that class is making a comeback. (Ironically, however, conservative politicians adamantly defend
the rentier's right to lounge around, deeming inheritance tax to be the height of unfairness.) But there are also other ways of rent-seeking.
From Wall Street to Silicon Valley , from big
pharma to the lobby machines in Washington and Westminster, zoom in and you'll see rentiers everywhere.
There is no longer a sharp dividing line between working and rentiering. In fact, the modern-day rentier often works damn hard.
Countless people in the financial sector, for example, apply great ingenuity and effort to amass "rent" on their wealth. Even the
big innovations of our age – businesses like Facebook
and Uber – are interested mainly in expanding the rentier economy. The problem with most rich people therefore is not that they are
coach potatoes. Many a CEO toils 80 hours a week to multiply his allowance. It's hardly surprising, then, that they feel wholly entitled
to their wealth.
It may take quite a mental leap to see our economy as a system that shows solidarity with the rich rather than the poor. So I'll
start with the clearest illustration of modern freeloaders at the top: bankers. Studies conducted by the
International Monetary Fund and the
Bank for International Settlements – not exactly leftist
thinktanks – have revealed that much of the financial sector has become downright parasitic. How instead of creating wealth, they
gobble it up whole.
In other words, a big part of the modern banking sector is essentially a giant tapeworm gorging on a sick body. It's not creating
anything new, merely sucking others dry. Bankers have found a hundred and one ways to accomplish this. The basic mechanism, however,
is always the same: offer loans like it's going out of style, which in turn inflates the price of things like houses and shares,
then earn a tidy percentage off those overblown prices (in the form of interest, commissions, brokerage fees, or what have you),
and if the shit hits the fan, let Uncle Sam mop it up.
The financial innovation concocted by all the math whizzes working in modern banking (instead of at universities or companies
that contribute to real prosperity) basically boils down to maximizing the total amount of debt. And debt, of course, is a means
of earning rent. So for those who believe that pay ought to be proportionate to the value of work, the conclusion we have to draw
is that many bankers should be earning a negative salary; a fine, if you will, for destroying more wealth than they create.
Bankers are the most obvious class of closet freeloaders, but they are certainly not alone. Many a lawyer and an accountant wields
a similar revenue model.
Take
tax evasion . Untold hardworking, academically degreed professionals make a good living at the expense of the populations of
other countries. Or take the tide of privatisations over the past three decades, which have been all but a carte blanche for rentiers.
One of the richest people in the world,
Carlos Slim , earned his millions by obtaining a monopoly of the Mexican telecom market and then hiking prices sky high. The
same goes for the Russian oligarchs who rose after the
Berlin Wall fell , who bought up valuable state-owned assets for song to live off the rent.
But here comes the rub. Most rentiers are not as easily identified as the greedy banker or manager. Many are disguised. On the
face of it, they look like industrious folks, because for part of the time they really are doing something worthwhile. Precisely
that makes us overlook their massive rent-seeking.
Take the pharmaceutical industry. Companies like
GlaxoSmithKline and
Pfizer regularly
unveil new drugs, yet most real medical breakthroughs are made quietly at government-subsidised labs. Private companies mostly manufacture
medications that resemble what we've already got. They get it patented and, with a hefty dose of marketing, a legion of lawyers,
and a strong lobby, can live off the profits for years. In other words, the vast revenues of the pharmaceutical industry are the
result of a tiny pinch of innovation and fistfuls of rent.
Even paragons of modern progress like Apple, Amazon, Google
, Facebook, Uber and Airbnb are woven from the fabric of rentierism. Firstly, because they owe their existence to government discoveries
and inventions (every sliver of fundamental technology in the iPhone, from the internet to batteries and from touchscreens to voice
recognition, was invented by researchers on the government payroll). And second, because they tie themselves into knots to avoid
paying taxes, retaining countless bankers, lawyers, and lobbyists for this very purpose.
Even more important, many of these companies function as "natural monopolies", operating in a positive feedback loop of increasing
growth and value as more and more people contribute free content to their platforms. Companies like this are incredibly difficult
to compete with, because as they grow bigger, they only get stronger.
Aptly characterising this "platform capitalism" in an article,
Tom Goodwin writes : "Uber, the world's largest taxi company, owns no vehicles. Facebook, the world's most popular media owner,
creates no content. Alibaba, the most valuable retailer, has no inventory. And Airbnb, the world's largest accommodation provider,
owns no real estate."
Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest 'Every sliver of fundamental technology in the iPhone, from the internet to batteries and from touchscreens to voice
recognition, was invented by researchers on the government payroll.' Photograph: Regis Duvignau/Reuters
So what do these companies own? A platform. A platform that lots and lots of people want to use. Why? First and foremost, because
they're cool and they're fun – and in that respect, they do offer something of value. However, the main reason why we're all happy
to hand over free content to Facebook is because all of our friends are on Facebook too, because their friends are on Facebook because
their friends are on Facebook.
Most of Mark Zuckerberg's income is just rent collected off the millions of picture and video posts that we give away daily for
free. And sure, we have fun doing it. But we also have no alternative – after all, everybody is on Facebook these days. Zuckerberg
has a website that advertisers are clamouring to get onto, and that doesn't come cheap. Don't be fooled by endearing pilots with
free internet in Zambia. Stripped down to essentials, it's an ordinary ad agency. In fact, in 2015 Google and Facebook pocketed an
astounding
64% of all online ad revenue in the US.
But don't Google and Facebook make anything useful at all? Sure they do. The irony, however, is that their best innovations only
make the rentier economy even bigger. They employ scores of programmers to create new algorithms so that we'll all click on more
and more ads.
Uber has
usurped the whole taxi sector just as
Airbnb has upended the hotel industry and Amazon has overrun the book trade. The bigger such platforms grow the more powerful
they become, enabling the lords of these digital feudalities to demand more and more rent.
Think back a minute to the definition of a rentier: someone who uses their control over something that already exists in order
to increase their own wealth. The feudal lord of medieval times did that by building a tollgate along a road and making everybody
who passed by pay. Today's tech giants are doing basically the same thing, but transposed to the digital highway. Using technology
funded by taxpayers, they build tollgates between you and other people's free content and all the while pay almost no tax on their
earnings.
This is the so-called innovation that has Silicon Valley gurus in raptures: ever bigger platforms that claim ever bigger handouts.
So why do we accept this? Why does most of the population work itself to the bone to support these rentiers?
I think there are two answers. Firstly, the modern rentier knows to keep a low profile. There was a time when everybody knew who
was freeloading. The king, the church, and the aristocrats controlled almost all the land and made peasants pay dearly to farm it.
But in the modern economy, making rentierism work is a great deal more complicated. How many people can explain a
credit default swap
, or a collateralised debt obligation ? Or the revenue
model behind those cute Google Doodles? And don't the folks on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley work themselves to the bone, too?
Well then, they must be doing something useful, right?
Maybe not. The typical workday of Goldman Sachs' CEO may be worlds away from that of King Louis XIV, but their revenue models
both essentially revolve around obtaining the biggest possible handouts. "The world's most powerful investment bank," wrote the journalist
Matt Taibbi about
Goldman Sachs , "is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything
that smells like money."
But far from squids and vampires, the average rich freeloader manages to masquerade quite successfully as a decent hard worker.
He goes to great lengths to present himself as a "job creator" and an "investor" who "earns" his income by virtue of his high "productivity".
Most economists, journalists, and politicians from left to right are quite happy to swallow this story. Time and again language is
twisted around to cloak funneling and exploitation as creation and generation.
However, it would be wrong to think that all this is part of some ingenious conspiracy. Many modern rentiers have convinced even
themselves that they are bona fide value creators. When current Goldman Sachs CEO
Lloyd Blankfein
was asked about the purpose of his job, his straight-faced answer was that he is "
doing God's
work ". The Sun King would have approved.
The second thing that keeps rentiers safe is even more insidious. We're all wannabe rentiers. They have made millions of people
complicit in their revenue model. Consider this: What are our financial sector's two biggest cash cows? Answer: the housing market
and pensions. Both are markets in which many of us are deeply invested.
Recent decades have seen more and more people contract debts to buy a home, and naturally it's in their interest if
house
prices continue to scale new heights (read: burst bubble upon bubble). The same goes for pensions. Over the past few decades
we've all scrimped and saved up a mountainous pension piggy bank. Now pension funds are under immense pressure to ally with the biggest
exploiters in order to ensure they pay out enough to please their investors.
The fact of the matter is that feudalism has been democratised. To a lesser or greater extent, we are all depending on handouts.
En masse, we have been made complicit in this exploitation by the rentier elite, resulting in a political covenant between the rich
rent-seekers and the homeowners and retirees.
Don't get me wrong, most homeowners and retirees are not benefiting from this situation. On the contrary, the banks are bleeding
them far beyond the extent to which they themselves profit from their houses and pensions. Still, it's hard to point fingers at a
kleptomaniac when you have sticky fingers too.
So why is this happening? The answer can be summed up in three little words: Because it can.
Rentierism is, in essence, a question of power. That the Sun King Louis XIV was able to exploit millions was purely because he
had the biggest army in Europe. It's no different for the modern rentier. He's got the law, politicians and journalists squarely
in his court. That's why bankers get fined peanuts for preposterous fraud, while a mother on government assistance gets penalised
within an inch of her life if she checks the wrong box.
The biggest tragedy of all, however, is that the rentier economy is gobbling up society's best and brightest. Where once upon
a time Ivy League graduates chose careers in science, public service or education, these days they are more likely to opt for banks,
law firms, or trumped up ad agencies like Google and Facebook. When you think about it, it's insane. We are forking over billions
in taxes to help our brightest minds on and up the corporate ladder so they can learn how to score ever more outrageous handouts.
One thing is certain: countries where rentiers gain the upper hand gradually fall into decline. Just look at the Roman Empire.
Or Venice in the 15th century. Look at the Dutch Republic in the 18th century. Like a parasite stunts a child's growth, so the rentier
drains a country of its vitality.
What innovation remains in a rentier economy is mostly just concerned with further bolstering that very same economy. This may
explain why the big dreams of the 1970s, like flying cars, curing cancer, and colonising Mars, have yet to be realised, while bankers
and ad-makers have at their fingertips technologies a thousand times more powerful.
Yet it doesn't have to be this way. Tollgates can be torn down, financial products can be banned, tax havens dismantled, lobbies
tamed, and patents rejected. Higher taxes on the ultra-rich can make rentierism less attractive, precisely because society's biggest
freeloaders are at the very top of the pyramid. And we can more fairly distribute our earnings on land, oil, and innovation through
a system of, say, employee shares, or a
universal basic
income .
But such a revolution will require a wholly different narrative about the origins of our wealth. It will require ditching the
old-fashioned faith in "solidarity" with a miserable underclass that deserves to be borne aloft on the market-level salaried shoulders
of society's strongest. All we need to do is to give real hard-working people what they deserve.
And, yes, by that I mean the waste collectors, the nurses, the cleaners – theirs are the shoulders that carry us all.
Without much thought, users
frequently sign away rights to supposedly anonymous
data collected by businesses and other organizations , with the idea that the information
will ultimately improve their services and online experience. But a new study from MIT suggests
that "anonymous" data can be woven together using multiple sources and is
far more identifiable than most people realize.
The researchers used logs from a mobile network operator and timestamps from a public
transportation system in Singapore to match individuals. With a week's worth of anonymous data
collection, the researchers could match the
cell phone logs and trip timestamps to a unique user about 17 percent of the time. With a
month's data, a person could be identified about 55 percent of the time. In 11 weeks, users
could be identified 95 percent of the time.
The researchers also said they could easily speed up identification of users by adding
another stream of data. With less than a week's data, the researchers estimated they could
identify 95 percent of people by using the sort of GPS location data that's regularly collected
by smartphone apps.
CHICAGO -- Saying it was ultimately a small price to pay in exchange for the splendid spectacle that has followed, millions of
Americans admitted Thursday that they didn't really mind having their Facebook data stolen if it meant getting to watch that
little fucker squirm.
Gabbard served in a field medical unit of the Hawaii Army National Guard in a
combat zone in Iraq from 2004 to 2005 and was later deployed to Kuwait. She previously served
in the Hawaii House of
Representatives from 2002 to 2004. When she was elected to the Hawaii House of
Representatives at age 21, Gabbard was the youngest woman to be elected to a U.S. state
legislature." wiki
------------
Major Gabbard, ARNG served in Iraq, is a woman, a Democrat, a person of color, a
non-interventionist, a Hindu and a Pacific Islander of Samoan descent. What could be
better?
If that thought fails I suggest Senators Rand Paul and Mike Lee as back-ups. pl
I have followed Tulsi Gabbard off and on since 2016. Some blogs attack her mercilessly but
she has a consistent approach, is admirably composed when under attack, and is one of the
most courageous American politicians I've seen. That she is still there is achievement
enough, though it would be good to see the sort of politics in the West in which such people
could be in office.
While I would be delighted to see Gabbard as SecDef is there any chance she would get Senate
Confirmed? From what I have heard from her she seems to have a realistic understanding of the
World which would seem to bar her from the job.
Sounds good to me. Then she can become the first female POTUS (assuming actual scientific
genders are still allowed) after Trump's 2nd term. (El Trumpissimo should have offered her
the VP job, IMO.) (Meanwhile, we in Canada will be all agog about Trudeau III. Unless Comrade
Lang establishes residence and votes the entire Trudeau spawn out forever.) Ah well, we can
dream.
She has my endorsement. Selecting Gabbard would explode some heads in Washington on both
sides. Although I think she would make a better replacement for National Security Adviser.
Send the Mustache of Idiocy back to the AEI.
Brilliant ! Borg hates her, though. And not just because of her foreign policy views. She
resigned as vice chair (if I recall correctly) of the DNC, particularly after being
christened as the next Obama-like Dem pol, because she felt the DNC was being completely
unfair to Bernie Sanders and I think it was well before anything came out in the news about
what was happening. I'd love to see it but she angers the political class almost as much as
Trump. Fingers crossed, though !
One hundred percent. In particular, the absolute balls it took to do that knowing the
flaming wreckage that would be thrown her way. Says a lot about her character--ideology
aside.
The Dems have not had the reckoning like the Rs did in 2016, but it's coming. To say
nothing of the full airing of grievances between the Obama and Clinton camps. I read there is
going to be something like 19 Dem debates, some in 2019 and some in 2020. I'm willing to
wager it'll be far more nasty than the clown show the Rep. nomination was in 2016.
Gabbard would be an excellent choice, but she'd never do it. Can't be a Democrat and be that
closely associated with the Orange Devil! Trump should pardon Flynn and then appoint him as
Sec Def. Really demonstrate his independence from the swamp. That move just might cause
enough heart attacks and strokes that the swamp would be drained in 48 hours.
Gabbard is well suited to support the implementation of a non-interventionist policy. I think
she would do well as SecDef, but would she take it? Trump's best course of action now is to
conduct a quiet search and get a firm commitment before announcing any possible candidates.
Otherwise we'll see a repeat of the search for a new Chief of Staff.
Reason-able indeed. Gagged to watch Michael R. Gordon last night on PBS news hour plant
uber-neocon Sen. Cotton as the likely choice. (without mentioning that Cotton has been even
more hawkish on Syria than Mattis...) Rand Paul is an interesting backup suggestion, esp. as
I was puzzled he caved and went along with Pompeo for SoS. In any case, what an overdue
change of course that any of the above suggestions would signal.
Sir;
It would depend on what Gabbard sees as her ultimate goal. Being Secretary of Defense, under
any President, would be a real career boost. Dealing with Trump would also toughen her up for
waht I see as her eventual Armageddon level conflict with the Democratic National Committee
if she aspires to higher office. There is also the chance that the Republican Party might try
to 'poach' her from the Democrat Party. Even if Trump serves two full terms as President, she
will still be young enough and tough enough to run for the top spot, from either party.
Her ultimate goal will be release from Saṃsāra. In the meantime a career boost
will doubtless be attractive, but only if accompanied by good Karma. Vice-chair of the DNC
met the first criterion, but it appears she resigned when it failed to meet the latter.
People who value their Karma are rare in life and all the more so in politics. She is an
exotic flower to be sure.
I've been watching her for years.She's been a vocal critic of the imperial project and the
occupation of Syria from the beginning. I expect we'll see her make a run for the brass ring
in 2024. Thumbs up.
Watched Kiersten Nielsen take a beating from retrograde congressmen yesterday on immigration,
border protection, etx.; she never lost her composure -- well, maybe one tiny retort.
If Gabbard has half the presence of Nielsen, the American people -- and women -- can feel
proud of their leaders. Again.
I believe she'd be a good SecDef, but I fear that her taking that position in the Trump
administration would derail the potential she has for making a huge positive impact on the US
political system. I would much rather see her announce early her candidacy for president in
2020 on the Democratic ticket. Hopefully Bernie Sanders will recognize that his age will be a
serious impediment and will repay her support in 20016 by passing his torch (and mailing
list) on to her for 2020. The Democratic Party needs an enema in the worst way and no one is
in a better position to administer it than Gabbard.
I agree that taking the position would probably ruin her chances going forward by association
with Trump but I also believe the Presidential run is too soon. If Sanders health remains
strong I think a Sanders/Gabbard ticket would win and set up a Gabbard run in 2024. I know of
diehard Trump fans that would vote Sanders. Many working class are waking up to the raw deals
they are getting.
Excellent choice for that or any position in the Trump Administration but ... 1. not a
doormat, 2. not a neocon, lunatic.
Trump will eventually surround himself with Wormtongue types (from Lord of the Rings).
Neocons like Bolton who know that they will not always get their way but want to be in the
Throne room to poison his mind with flattery and have a chance to get the glorious war they
crave so much. He will likely appoint someone like Tom Cotton or Gen. Jack Keane. That is not
what I want but that is what I expect.
Agree. She's almost the lone voice against ME policy especially re Syria. Gets no pub. The
Borgists would stomp all over her. Think DT ever heard of her?
An anticapitalist voice , Dec 22, 2018 11:57:21 AM |
link
"US Embassy Shopping List" - New dump from WikiLeaks on US embassies being used for
international spying - procurement forms of equipment. There is total mainstream media
silence in English-speaking countries on WikiLeaks releases following the original Vault 7
documents, I would not be surprised if this was intentional and based on wrongly guilty
feelings among liberals at those outlets that they lost Hillary the election. We'll see what
excitement 2019 brings but hopefully it will see a retreat of the neoliberals as well as the
far-right in favor of left-wing politics #socialism #communism #anarchism
The U.S. Justice Department said on Friday a Chinese national had been arrested for stealing
trade secrets from a U.S.-based petroleum company, his employer, related to a product worth
more than $1 billion.
The department alleged Hongjin Tan downloaded hundreds of files related to the manufacture
of a "research and development downstream energy market product," which he planned to use to
benefit a company in China that had offered him a job. He was arrested on Thursday in Oklahoma
and will next appear in court on Wednesday, the department said.
Tan's LinkedIn page said he has worked as a staff scientist for Phillips 66 (PSX.N) in
Bartlesville, Oklahoma, since May 2017.
Phillips 66 said in a statement it was cooperating with the Federal Bureau of Investigation
in a probe involving a "former employee at our Bartlesville location," but declined to comment
further.
An FBI affidavit said Phillips 66 called the agency last week to report the theft of trade
secrets and Tan told a former co-worker he was leaving to return to China.
The FBI found on Tan's laptop an employment agreement from a Chinese company that has
developed production lines for lithium ion battery materials.
Tan accessed files for marketing the trade secret "in cell phone and lithium-based battery
systems," the FBI said. Phillips 66 said it has one of two refineries in the world that
manufacture the unspecified product.
Tan was responsible for research and development of the U.S. company's battery programme and
developing battery technologies using its proprietary processes. Phillips 66 told the FBI it
had earned an estimated $1.4 billion to $1.8 billion from the unspecified technology.
"... Nik Williams, the policy advisor for Scottish PEN, the Scottish centre of PEN International. We are leading the campaign opposing suspicionless surveillance and protecting the rights of writers both in Scotland and across the globe. Find out more on Twitter at @scottishpen and @nikwilliams2 . Originally published at openDemocracy ..."
"... In 2013, NSA whistle blower, Edward Snowden revealed the extent of government surveillance that enables intelligence agencies to capture the data of internet users around the world. Some of the powers revealed enable agencies to access emails in transit, files held on devices, details that document our relationships and location in real-time and data that could reveal our political opinions, beliefs and routines. ..."
"... As big data and digital surveillance is interwoven into the fabric of modern society there is growing evidence that the perception of surveillance affects how different communities engage with the internet. ..."
"... In 2013, PEN America surveyed American writers to see whether the Snowden revelations impacted their willingness to explore challenging issues and continue to write. In their report, Chilling Effects: NSA Surveillance Drives US Writers to Self-Censor , PEN America found that "one in six writers avoided writing or speaking on a topic they thought would subject them to surveillance". ..."
"... At times, surveillance appears unavoidable and this was evident in many of the writers' responses to whether they could take actions to mitigate the risks of surveillance. Without knowing how to secure themselves there are limited options: writers either resign themselves to using insecure tools or choose to avoid the internet all together, cutting them off from important sources of information and potential communities of readers and support. ..."
"... Although not explicitly laid out in the post, I'm inclined to believe any online research on PETs might single one out as a "Person of Interest" ..."
"... we know better now – EVERYTHING is recorded and archived. Privacy may not be dead yet, but now exists only in carefully curated offline pockets, away from not just the phone and the laptop, but also the smart fridge's and the face-recognising camera's gimlet eye. ..."
"... And it's not just off centre political opining that could be used in such efforts. The percentages of internet users who have accused [people of using] porn sites suggests there would be some serious overlap between the set of well known and/or 'important' people and the set of porn hounds. Remember the cack-handed attempts to smear Hans Blix? ..."
"... Most of us (real writers or just people who write) need to hold down a job and increasingly HR depts don't just 'do a Google' on all potential appointees to important roles but in large concerns at least, use algorithmic software connected to the web and the Cloud to process applications. ..."
We know what censorship looks like: writers being murdered, attacked or imprisoned; TV and
radio stations being shut down; the only newspapers parrot the state; journalists lost in the
bureaucratic labyrinth to secure a license or permit; government agencies approving which
novels, plays and poetry collections can be published; books being banned or burned or the
extreme regulation of access to printing materials or presses. All of these damage free
expression, but they leave a fingerprint, something visible that can be measured, but what
about self-censorship? This leaves no such mark.
When writers self-censor, there is no record, they just stop writing or avoid certain topics
and these decisions are lost to time. Without being able to record and document isolated cases
the way we can with explicit government censorship, the only thing we can do is identify
potential drivers to self-censorship.
In 2013, NSA whistle blower, Edward Snowden revealed the extent of government surveillance
that enables intelligence agencies to capture the data of internet users around the world. Some
of the powers revealed enable agencies to access emails in transit, files held on devices,
details that document our relationships and location in real-time and data that could reveal
our political opinions, beliefs and routines. Following these revelations, the UK government
pushed through the Investigatory Powers Act ,
an audacious act that modernised, consolidated and expanded digital surveillance powers. This
expansion was opposed by civil rights organisations, (including Scottish PEN where I work),
technologists, a number of media bodies and major tech companies, but on 29th November 2016, it
received royal assent.
But what did this expansion do to our right to free expression?
As big data and digital surveillance is interwoven into the fabric of modern society there
is growing evidence that the perception of surveillance affects how different communities
engage with the internet. Following the Snowden revelations, John Penny at the Oxford
Internet Institute analysed traffic to Wikipedia pages on topics designated by the Department
of Homeland Security as sensitive and identified "a 20 percent decline in page views on
Wikipedia articles related to terrorism, including those that mentioned 'al Qaeda,' 'car bomb'
or 'Taliban.'" This report was in line with a study by Alex Marthews and
Catherine Tucker who found a similar trend in the avoidance of sensitive topics in Google
search behaviour in 41 countries. This has significant impact on both free expression and
democracy, as
outlined by Penney: "If people are spooked or deterred from learning about important policy
matters like terrorism and national security, this is a real threat to proper democratic
debate."
But it doesn't end with sourcing information. In a study of Facebook, Elizabeth Stoycheff
discovered that when faced with holders of majority opinions and the knowledge of government
surveillance, holders of minority viewpoints are more likely to "self-censor their dissenting
opinions online". If holders of minority opinions step away from online platforms like
Facebook, these platforms will only reflect the majority opinion, homogenising discourse and
giving a false idea of consensus. Read together, these studies document a slow erosion of the
eco-system within which free expression flourishes.
In 2013, PEN America surveyed American writers to see whether the Snowden revelations
impacted their willingness to explore challenging issues and continue to write. In their
report, Chilling Effects:
NSA Surveillance Drives US Writers to Self-Censor , PEN America found that "one in six
writers avoided writing or speaking on a topic they thought would subject them to
surveillance". But is this bigger than the US? Scottish PEN, alongside researchers at the
University of Strathclyde authored the report,
Scottish Chilling: Impact of Government and Corporate Surveillance on Writers to explore
the impact of surveillance on Scotland-based writers, asking the question: Is the perception of
surveillance a driver to self-censorship? After surveying 118 writers, including novelists,
poets, essayists, journalists, translators, editors and publishers, and interviewing a number
of participants we uncovered a disturbing trend of writers avoiding certain topics in their
work or research, modifying their work or refusing to use certain online tools. 22% of
responders have avoided writing or speaking on a particular topic due to the perception of
surveillance and 28% have curtailed or avoided activities on social media. Further to this, 82%
said that if they knew that the UK government had collected data about their Internet activity
they would feel as though their personal privacy had been violated, something made more likely
by the passage of the investigatory Powers Act.
At times, surveillance appears unavoidable and this was evident in many of the writers'
responses to whether they could take actions to mitigate the risks of surveillance. Without
knowing how to secure themselves there are limited options: writers either resign themselves to
using insecure tools or choose to avoid the internet all together, cutting them off from
important sources of information and potential communities of readers and support.
Literacy
concerning the use of Privacy-Enhancing Technologies (oftentimes called PETs) is a vital part
of how we protect free expression in the digital age, but as outlined by the concerns of a
number of the participants, it is largely under-explored outside of the tech community: "I
think probably I need to get educated a wee bit more by someone because I think we probably are
a bit exposed and a wee bit vulnerable, more than we realize." Another was even more stark
about their worries about the available alternatives: "I have no idea about how to use the
Internet 'differently'".
When interviewed, a number of writers expressed concerns about how their writing process has
changed or is in danger of changing as a result of their awareness of surveillance. One
participant who had covered the conflict in Northern Ireland in 70s and 80s stated that they
would not cover the conflict in the same manner if it took place now; another stopped writing
about child abuse when they thought about what their search history may look to someone else;
when they heard of a conviction based on the ownership of the Anarchist Cookbook, a participant
who bought a copy for research shredded it. Further to this a participant stated: "I think I
would avoid direct research on issues to do with Islamic fundamentalism. I might work on
aspects of the theory, but not on interviewing people in the past, I have interviewed people
who would be called 'subversives'."
These modifications or avoidance strategies raise a stark and important question: What are
we as readers being denied if writers are avoiding sensitive topics? Put another way, what
connects the abuse of personal data by Cambridge Analytica, the treatment of asylum seekers by
the Australian government on Manus and Nauru, the hiding of billions of pounds by wealthy
individuals as revealed in the Panama and Paradise Papers, the deportation of members of the
'Windrush Generation' and the Watergate scandal? In each case, writers revealed to the world
what others wanted hidden. Shadows appear less dense if writers are able to explore challenging
issues and expose wrongdoing free from the coercive weight of pervasive surveillance. When
writers are silenced, even by their own hand, we all suffer.
Surveillance is going nowhere – it is embedded into the fabric of the internet. If we
ignore the impact it has on writers, we threaten the very foundations of democracy; a vibrant
and cacophonous exchange of ideas and beliefs, alongside what it means to be a writer. In the
words of one participant: "You can't exist as a writer if you're self-censoring."
Thanks Yves, this is an important topic. Although not explicitly laid out in the post, I'm
inclined to believe any online research on PETs might single one out as a "Person of
Interest" (after all the state wants unfettered access to our digital lives and any attempt
by individuals to curtail such access is viewed with suspicion, and maybe even a little
contempt).
I trust the takeaway message from this post will resonate with any person who holds what
might be considered "heretical" or dissenting views. I'd also argue that it's not just
writers who are willingly submitting themselves to this self-censorship straitjacket,
ordinary people are themselves sanitizing their views to avoid veering too far off the
official line/established consensus on issues, lest they fall foul of the machinery of the
security state.
Yes – not just 'writers' as in 'those who write for a living or at least partly
define themselves as writers in either a creative or an activist sense, or both' – but
all of us who do not perceive ourselves as 'writers', only as people who in the course of
their lives write a bit here and there, some of it on public platforms such as this, but much
of it in emails and texts to friends and family. It wouldn't be quite so bad if the
surveillance was only of the public stuff, but we know better now – EVERYTHING is
recorded and archived. Privacy may not be dead yet, but now exists only in carefully curated
offline pockets, away from not just the phone and the laptop, but also the smart fridge's and
the face-recognising camera's gimlet eye.
Staying with the 'not just' for a moment – the threat is not just government
security agencies and law enforcement, or indeed Surveillance Valley. It is clear that if
egghead techs in those employments are able to crack our lives open then egghead techs in
their parent's basement around the corner may be capable of the same intrusions, their
actions not subject to any of the official box-ticking govt actors with which govt actors
must (or at least should) comply.
And it is not just the danger of govt/sinister 3rd parties identifying potential security
(or indeed political or economic) threats out of big data analysis, but the danger of govt
and especially interested third parties targeting particular known individuals –
political enemies to be sure, but also love rivals, toxic bosses, hated alpha males or queen
bitches, supporters of other football clubs, members of other races not deemed fully human,..
the list is as long as that of human hatreds and jealousies. The danger lies not just in the
use of the tech to ID threats (real or imagined) but in its application to traduce threats
already perceived.
And it's not just off centre political opining that could be used in such efforts. The
percentages of internet users who have accused [people of using] porn sites suggests there would be some
serious overlap between the set of well known and/or 'important' people and the set of porn
hounds. Remember the cack-handed attempts to smear Hans Blix? Apparently no fire behind that
smoke, but what if there was? The mass US surveillance of other parties prior to UN Iraq
deliberations (from the Merkels down to their state-level support bureaucrats) was a fleeting
and hastily forgotten glimpse of the reach of TIA, its 'full spectrum dominance', from the
heights of top level US-free strategy meetings down to the level of the thoughts and hopes of
valets and ostlers to the leaders, who may be useful in turning up references to the
peccadilloes of the higher-ups 'go massive – sweep it all up, things related and
not'
And it's not just the fear of some sort of official retribution for dissenting political
activism that guides our hands away from typing that deeply held but possibly inflammatory
and potentially dangerous opinion. Most of us (real writers or just people who write) need to
hold down a job and increasingly HR depts don't just 'do a Google' on all potential
appointees to important roles but in large concerns at least, use algorithmic software
connected to the web and the Cloud to process applications.
This is done without human
intervention at the individual level but the whole process is set up in such a way that the
algorithms are able to neatly, bloodlessly, move applicants for whom certain keywords turned
up matches (union or party membership, letters to the editor or blog posts on financial
fraud, climate change vanguardism, etc) to the back of the queue, in time producing a grey
army of yes people in our bureaucracies.
The normal person's ability to keep pace with (let alone ahead of) the tech disappeared
long ago. So when a possible anonymising solution – Tor – crops up but is soon
exposed as yet another MI/SV bastard love child, the sense of disappointment is profound.
Shocked but not surprised.
"Then they got rid of the sick, the so-called incurables. – I remember a
conversation I had with a person who claimed to be a Christian. He said: Perhaps it's right,
these incurably sick people just cost the state money, they are just a burden to themselves
and to others. Isn't it best for all concerned if they are taken out of the middle [of
society]? "
We already
know insurers have been using online searches to discriminate amongst the victimae. The
married/unmarried differences in cancer treatments are a confirmation. Self-censorship is a
rational decision in seeking information in a linked world. (I gave up on affording
insurance, and I do searches for friends; the ads I get are amusing.)
It could be said that journalists have a professional duty, but as the man said, "If you
believed something different, you wouldn't be sitting where you're sitting."
As the woman said, "If your business depends on a platform, your business is already
dead."
(As for the above quote, check the provenance for the relevance.)
I confess I do concatenate your quotes on
occasion: "For a currency to function as a reserve currency is tantamount to exporting jobs."
Some of your most illuminating statements are in side comments to linked articles.
Means I spend a lot of time reading the site. But then I get to recategorize most other
current events sites as 'Entertainment.' And since they're not very, they've been
downregulated.
My choice being shackled e'n more to chains of FIRE, or living a healthy happy life,
rather than increasing my stress by fighting institutions, we're investing in ourselves. Good
sleep, good food, good exercise.
The basis of our diet is coffee, with cocoa (7% daily fiber with each tablespoon) and
organic heavy whipping cream (your fats should be organic (;)). That cream's not cheap; well,
actually it is amazingly cheap considering the energy inputs. I'll be fasting soon to murder
cancer cells, and fasting also costs, lets see, nothing.
That the best thing you can do is nothing, occasionally, is a strong offset to the
institutional framework. Janet's been a nurse 40 years, and every day (truth) we get another
instance of not wanting the probisci inserted. Even when we get M4A, we'll be cautious in our
approach.
I suppose that here we are looking at the dogs that did not bark for evidence of
self-censorship. Certainly my plans to take over the world I do not keep on my computer. I
had not considered the matter but I think that a case could be made that this may extend
further than just writers. The number of writers that cannot publish in the US but must
publish their work in obscure overseas publications is what happens to those who do not seek
to self censor. There are other forms of censorship to be true. I read once where there was
an editorial meeting for either the Washington Post or New York Times when a story came up
that would make Israel look bad. The people at the table looked around and without so much as
a nod that story was dropped from publication. Now that is self-censorship.
But I can see this self censorship at work elsewhere. To let my flight take fancy, who will
paint the modern "Guernica" in this age? Would there be any chance that a modern studio would
ever film something like "The Day After" mentioned in comments yesterday again? With so many
great stories to be told, why has Hollywood run itself into a creative ditch and is content
to film 1960s TV shows as a movie or a version of Transformers number 32? Where are the
novels being written that will come to represent this era in the way that "The Great Gatsby"
came to represent the 1920s? My point is that with a total surveillance culture, I have the
feeling that this is permeating the culture and creating a chilling effect right across the
board and just not in writing.
What we are experiencing censorship-wise is nothing new, just more insidious. It is not
even a Left/Right politics issue. We just saw Trumpist fascist conservatives KILL the
Weekly Standard (an action praised by Trump) for advocating the wrong
conservativism. The shift in the televised/streamed media from news to infotainment has
enabled neoliberal capitalism to censor any news that might alienate viewers/subscribers to
justify obscene charges for advertising. Hilariously, even fascist Laura Ingram got gored by
her own neolib ox.
Of course, a certain amount of self-censorship is prudent. Insulting, inflammatory,
inciteful, hateful speech seldom animates beneficial change – just pointless violence
(an sometimes law suits). Americans especially are so hung up on "free speech" rights that
they too often fail to realize that no speech is truly free . There are always consequences
for the purveyor, good and bad. Ask any kid on the playground with a bloody nose.
I would like to see some Google traitor write an article on the latest semantic analysis
algorithms and tools. Thanks to the government, nobody but the FEDs and Google have access to
these new tools that can mine terabytes of speech in seconds to highlight global patterns
which might indicate plotting or organizing that might be entirely legal. I have been trying
for years to get access to the newer unobtainable tools to help improve the development of
diagnostic and monitoring self-report health measures. Such tools can also quickly scan
journals to highlight and coordinate findings to accelerate new discoveries. For now, they
are used to determine if your emails indicate you are a jihadist terrorist or dope peddler,
or want to buy a Toyota or a Ford.
Rhetorical I know, but Don DeLillo is quite good. It was in his novel Libra ,
although arguably from/about a different era at this point, where it first hit home to me
that the Blob really does manipulate the media to its own ends all the time. And you can't
swing a cat without hitting a terrorist in his books.
But to your point, DeLillo is pretty old at this point and I'm hard pressed to think of
anyone picking up his mantle. And none of his novels, as brilliant as some of them might be,
rise to the level of The Great Gatsby in the popular imagination to begin with.
The surveillance people are the nicest, kindest human beings that have only your best
interest at heart.
They would never break down your door and terrorize you for searching online for a
pressure cooker and if you heard stories that they did that, the surveillancers have an
answer for you, it's fake news, and if you persisted in not believing them, there are other
methods of persuasion to get you to change your mind or at least shut up about it.
That pressure cooker story gets a lot of mileage. While there is undoubtedly a lot of
surveillance it might be interesting to see a story on just how much of it leads to actual
arrests on real or trumped up charges. Here's suggesting that the paranoia induced by books
like Surveillance Valley is over the top in the same way that TV news' focus on crime stories
causes the public to think that crime is rampant when it may actually be declining.
That said, journalists who indulge their vanity with Facebook or Twitter accounts are
obviously asking for it. And the journalistic world in general needs to become a lot more
technologically "literate" and realize that Youtube videos can be faked as well as how to
separate the internet wheat from the chaff. Plus there's that old fashioned way of learning a
story that is probably the way most stories are still reported: talking to
people–hopefully in a room that hasn't been bugged.
Just to add that while the above may apply to America that doesn't mean the web isn't a
much more sinister phenomenon in countries like China with its new social trust score. We
must make sure the US never goes there.
For your first sentence I think you are referencing:
The surveillance people are "the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being[s]
I've ever known in my life." (ref. Statement by Major Marco about Raymond Shaw from 1962 and
2004 movies "The Manchurian Candidate"). ?
Maybe you need some refresher re-education.
Expression of minority opinions and surpressed information is not a safe activity, thus we
self censor. However reality asserts itself and perhaps in those moments one can more safely
express alternate points of view. As far as writing online i worry about the future –
with everything recorded and searchable, will we at some point be facing round ups of
dissidents? What kind of supression will stressed governments and corporate hierarchies do in
the future?
I think the last blog post I wrote that was linked here at NC was called "TPP is
Treason."
I was writing and was published on the Internet from 2011-2016. I continue to write, but I
no longer publish anything online, I closed my Facebook account, and I rarely comment on
articles outside of NC, especially anywhere I have to give up a digital-ton of personal info
and contacts just to say a few words one time.
Goodness knows I do not worry a bit about fundamentalist Islamic militancy. Do I have any
anxiety about jackbooted "law enforcement" mercenaries in riot gear and automatic rifles
breaking down my door at the behest, basically, of the corporate/banking/billionaire,
neoliberal/neoconservative status quo, my big mouth excoriating these elite imperialists, at
the same time asset forfeiture laws are on the books and I can have EVERYTHING taken from me
for growing a single plant of cannabis, or even having any cannabis in my house, or not, all
they have to report to a complicit media and prosecutorial State is that I was growing
cannabis when there was none.
Of course there is little danger of that if I am not publishing, and hardly anyone knows I
ever have, and no one currently is paying any attention.
The fact in America at least is, as long as the status quo is secure, TPTB don't really
care what I write, as long as they do not perceive it as a threat, and the only way they
would is if a LOT of people are listening But still, there is nothing more terrifying on
earth than America's Law/Corporate/Bank/Privatized Military/Media imperialist State, chilling
to say the least, evidenced in the extreme by a distracted, highly manipulated and neutered
citizenry.
"My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular."
"If we value the pursuit of knowledge, we must be free to follow wherever that search
may lead us. The free mind is not a barking dog, to be tethered on a ten-foot chain."
Most hackers have the personality of a supermodel who does discrete mathematics for fun.
Like mathematicians, hackers get off on solving very obscure and difficult to even explain
problems. Like models, hackers wear a lot of black, think they are more famous than they are,
and their career effectively ends at age 30. Either way, upon entering one's third decade, it
is time to put down the disassembler and consider a relaxing job in management.
Michał Zalewski
One of the Pwnie judges happens to think that lcamtuf's book, Silence on the Wire, is
one of the best examples of what it means to "hack". It is fitting that a lifetime
achievement award nomination goes to someone who embodies the technical spirit of a true
hacker.
But, it's not just a good book that puts Zalewski up for this award. Michal has been a
prolific contributor to the security community for decades. His tools and contributions
often approach problems from very different than the rest of the field. This results in
significant innovation and novelty.
p0f changed how we look at our network traffic and pcaps.
AFL alone may be worthy of a lifetime achievement award (it was the underlying engine
for several of the DARPA Cyber Grand Challenge finalists).
Michal enjoyed his time at Google, and who wouldn't have using the largest corpus of
fuzzing input in the world and being a source of "very reasonably priced web client
exploits" (according to his prior boss). We've even heard that he was nice enough to send
some people USB Lava-lamps for anniversaries (we would think twice about plugging those in
).
"Just in time inventory. Not possible 50 years ago."
You are correct to say that the Just-In-Time logistics of 2016 require 2016 tech, not
1966 tech.
Minor sidebar: Henry Ford invented a lot of the concepts that are now cutting-edge
management science, and pushed them as far as he could with the tech that he had.
Major Point: plug-and-play 3D printing was also not possible 50 years ago.
Technological tools empower the people who actually put those tools to use. If the
majority of people have no interest in tools, those uninterested people can't empower
themselves.
" But contrary to the idea that these technologies would increase freedom, they appear,
on a daily basis, to have decreased freedom and privacy "
The InfoTech Revolution still has a chance to empower individuals, to decentralize
decision-making, and to transfer social momentum from transnational exploiters to
community-based cooperatives.
Freedom and privacy have been eroded by the malicious actions of psychopaths. The tech
itself is like a fence. The destruction of liberty is like English kleptocrats forcing
peasants off the commons and fencing the land into sheep pens. Don't blame fence
technology; don't blame the sheep; blame the kleptocrats.
Radical decentralization has a very small number of people who actively work with the
necessary technology. Radical decentralization has a lot of passive supporters who like the
idea but can't understand the tech and don't want to try to learn.
Radical decentralization is not guaranteed to succeed, but if you're sympathetic to the
goal, it might be more productive to write proactive, encouraging essays to motivate the
currently passive supporters so that they will put forth the effort to become active
technologists.
I am remembering the movie "Other Peoples' Lives", about the Stasi in East Germany
before 1989; a terrific and even more terrifying today (than when I first saw it) about
surveillance of every one by corporations and governments. the wall has come down, we've
had the Middle East "Spring" but nothing is changed.
Let us examine what all this infotech really has changed.
Control. Massive control. Surveillance.
Just in time inventory. Not possible 50 years ago.
Second to second tracking of workers without having to have a supervisor physically watching
them. Amazon warehouse workers carry devices which allow their workflow to be tracked to the
second. And if they aren't making their seconds, the supervisor is right on them. This wasn't
possible 30 years ago. If you wanted to have that sort of control, you had to have a supervisor
physically watching them, and the cost was prohibitive.
This sort of tracking is used for clerical workers as well.
Outsourcing work that had to be kept domestic before. The massive call centers in Delhi and
Ireland were not possible even 30 years ago. The cost was simply prohibitive.
Offshoring work, like manufacturing, was difficult to offshore before. Without real-time,
high-density communications, cutting edge manufacturing overseas was very difficult in the
past. You could offshore some things, certainly, but those industries tended to be mature
industries: shipbuilding, textiles, and so on. Cutting edge industries, no, they had to be
located close to the boffins or they were offshored to another, essentially First World
country–as when Britain offshored much of their production to the United States in the
late 19th century.
Commercial surveillance. Everything you buy is cross referenced. When you buy something at a
major retailers, the store takes a picture of you and matches it with your information. All
online purchase information is stored and centralized in databases. This information is shared.
This includes, but goes far beyond, internet surveillance; witness Google or Facebook serving
you ads based on what you've read or searched. Add this data to credit reports, bank accounts,
and so on, and it provides a remarkably complete picture of your life, because everything you
buy with anything but cash (and even some of that) is tracked. Where you are when you buy it is
also tracked.
Government surveillance. Millions of cameras in London and most other First World cities.
Millions of cameras in Chinese cities. Some transit systems now have audio surveillance.
Because the government can seize any private surveillance as well, you can assume you're being
tracked all day in most First World cities. Add this to the commercial surveillance system
described above and the picture of your life is startlingly accurate.
As biometric recognition system comes online (face, gait, infrared, and more) this work will
be done automatically.
What the telecom and infotech revolution has done is enable wide scale CONTROL and
SURVEILLANCE.
These are two sides of the same coin, you can't control people if you don't what they're
doing.
This control is most dictatorial, amusingly, in the private sector. The worse a job is, the
more this sort of control has been used for super-Taylorization, making humans into little more
than remotely controlled flesh robots.
It has made control of international conglomerates far easier; control from the top to the
periphery far easier. This is true in the government and the military as well, where central
commanders often control details like when bombs drop, rather than leaving it to a plane's
crew.
This is a world where only a few people have practical power. It is a world, not of radical
decentralization, but of radical centralization.
This is a vast experiment. In the past, there have been surveillance and control societies.
But the math on them has always been suspect. Sometimes they work, and work
brilliantly–like in Tokugawa Japan, certain periods of Confucian Chinese bureaucratic
control, or ancient Egypt.
But often they have been defeated, and fairly easily, by societies which allowed more
freedom; less control, less spying, and supervision. Societies which assumed people knew what
to do on their own; or just societies that understood that the cost of close supervision and
surveillance was too high to support.
The old East German Stasi model, with one-third of the population spying on the other
two-thirds was the ludicrous extension of this.
What the telecom and infotech revolutions have actually enabled is a vast experiment in
de-skilling, surveillance, and control–beyond the dreams even of the late 19th century
Taylorist movement, with their stopwatches and assembly lines. Nothing people do, from what
they eat, to what entertainment they consume, to when and how well they sleep; let alone
everything they do during their working day, is beyond reach.
This is not to say there are no good results from infotech and computers -- there are
plenty. But contrary to the idea that these technologies would increase freedom, they appear,
on a daily basis, to have decreased freedom and privacy and promise to radically reduce them
even more.
The second set of questions about any technology are how it can be used for violence, how it
can be used for control, and how it can be used for ideological production.
(The first question, of course, is what is required to use it. More on that another
time.)
Infotech may enable totalitarian societies which make those of the past look like
kindergarten. We are already far past the technology used in the novel 1984 (Big Brother could
not record, for example). That much of this surveillance is done by private actors as opposed
to the government, does not reduce the loss of freedom, autonomy, and privacy.
Combined with making humans obsolete, infotech and the telecom revolution are as vastly
important as their boosters say.
But, so far, not in a beneficial way. Yes, they could be used to make human lives
better, it seems the real traction of the telecom and infotech revolutions remarkably
began/coincided with neo-liberal policies which have hurt vast numbers of people in both the
First and Third Worlds–precisely because they helped make those neo-liberal policies
work.
Technologies are never neutral and there is no guarantee that "progress" will actually
improve people's lives. Even if a technology has the potential to improve people's lives,
potential is theoretical; i.e., not the same as practice.
Infotech and telecom tech are primarily control technologies, the same as writing was. They
vastly increase the ability to centralize and to control a population's behaviour.
Over the last few years, the potentially damaging impact of the internet, and particularly
social media, on democracy has increasingly come to dominate the news. The recently disclosed
internal Facebook emails, which revealed that employees
discussed allowing developers to harvest user data for a fee, are but the latest in a long
line of scandals surrounding social media platforms. Facebook has also been accused, alongside
Twitter, of fuelling the spread of false information. In October, the Brazilian newspaper
Folha exposed how Jair Bolsonaro's candidacy benefited from a coordinated disinformation
campaign conducted via Whatsapp, which is owned by Facebook. And there are growing concerns
that this tactic could be used to skew the Indian general elections in April.
"... Just to say, many people in tech understand the issues go way beyond building smart bombs. Worker surveillance and gamification of work are inhuman disasters, I agree. The anti-military actions have simply been the most visible, and they are good catalysts for organizing because they are so obviously evil. Lots of people feel uncomfortable about building things that kill people. ..."
Top U.S. general urges Google to work with military Reuters. EM: "Wow, this guy is clueless even by top-brass standards. For
example: Google Is Helping the Pentagon Build AI for Drones." Moi: I assume this is intended for the great unwashed masses, to give
them the impression that Google and the surveillance state are not joined at the hip.
Re: Top U.S. general urges Google to work with military
I will be more interested when the employees of a tech company revolt over the development of technology used to monitor workers
or put them out of work. It is easier to oppose military projects because they smack of something out of The Terminator films
while developments like Neo-Taylorism are not as obviously evil but are perhaps just as inhuman and socially destructive.
I'm involved with the Tech Workers Coalition, although I only speak for myself as a member. Some of my fellow members were
involved in the Google organizing against project Maven, and also Dragonfly. In the last few months there have also been organized
actions at Amazon and Salesforce in opposition to working with ICE. Various TWC members are also involved in partnering with food
service and janitorial staff around worker organizing and improving working conditions. One of the efforts I'm starting to get
involved with is a more organized network for mutual aid and disaster relief in the Bay Area, in the wake of this year's fire
season.
Just to say, many people in tech understand the issues go way beyond building smart bombs. Worker surveillance and gamification
of work are inhuman disasters, I agree. The anti-military actions have simply been the most visible, and they are good catalysts
for organizing because they are so obviously evil. Lots of people feel uncomfortable about building things that kill people.
Tech culture, especially in Silicon Valley, teaches workers to identify with the company completely. At Google you are a Googler.
At Pivotal you are a Pivot. We refer to each other this way, inside and outside of work. We are working against that conditioning
when we organize, so starting with "Let's not build things that blow humans into burning bits" is helpful.
Yet, reality could be bleeker. A handful of private companies control the information that
is needed to understand how the online ecosystem works. They manage the key infrastructure, and
most experts in the field are running this infrastructure after having signed non-disclosure
agreements. Thus, Plato's Allegory of the Cave might be a more fitting metaphor. Control over
key data allows these companies to play the role of shadow-masters. They get the chance to
reveal only the portions of reality they find convenient, defining how the general public
perceives the online space. Information scarcity is therefore not just the natural consequence
of the internet's novelty; it is created artificially and for strategic purposes: To shape
public opinion.
Should we break up these big companies? Should we allow them to continue growing, but under
strict, utility-type rules? Should we do nothing? Whatever we do should be the result of a
robust public debate. One that is based on the best available evidence regarding the effects
the internet is having on power relations, and is therefore capable of defining the set of
actions that would best serve the public interest. In short, at this point, we need key
information to be disclosed and available for public scrutiny. But information is power –
and it is unlikely to be disclosed voluntarily. It might require regulation.
When food production became industrialized, the US Government created the Food and Drug
Administration, which was tasked with monitoring and disclosing information regarding
compliance with quality standards. When government became too complex for the average citizen
to navigate, ombuds offices sprouted across the globe. As an independent institution of
government, ombuds were given the duty and power to investigate how government units work, and
report on matters concerning people's rights. The current situation requires exploring a
similarly bold institutional reform. One focused on ensuring the data needed to inform public
debate is made available by the tech industry.
Most people scoffed at the limited understanding of our digital world members of the US
Congress revealed when they grilled Mark Zuckerberg . And yet its likely
Facebook is not the only company behaving recklessly, nor the US Senators the only public
representatives that are "ignorant".
What we have is a growing gap between where power lies and where the institutions that seek
to hold it accountable to the people operate. Such institutions are incapable of allowing
democratically elected leaders to deliver their campaign promises. This is what is ultimately
triggering social tensions and undermining trust in our democracies. We need our institutions
to interpret these tensions as red flags and a call for a new social contract. And we need
institutions to react now. This situation goes far beyond the debate around digitalization. Yet
the online space is our future, and is therefore where this gap is most visible and urgent.
If our current institutions of government fail to ensure the ongoing technological
revolution puts people first, these institutions will sooner or later be rendered
irrelevant.
A previous version of this article was published at Chatham
House .
Facebook is a dictatorship of one. Alphabet is a dictatorship of two. As long as corporate
governance is anti-democratic that will have an unfortunately negative impact on civil
society. I hope shareholders in these and other companies will vote in favor of proposals by
NorthStar and others to phase out multi-class share structures, require that directors get at
least a majority vote to take office, do away with supermajority voting requirements,
etc.
The Internet was "born in sin," developed as it was to maintain communications during a
nuclear holocaust against a fundamentally fake threat.
Let's remember that the Soviet Union, however repressive it may have been toward its own
people and those in satellite countries, never posed the existential threat to the US that
was claimed. Rather, as Senator Arthur Brandenburg of Michigan infamously told Harry Truman
at the dawn of the Cold War, it would be necessary "to scare the hell out of the American
people" to get them to turn against their former Soviet allies, which the State and compliant
media spent the next forty years doing, often/largely producing weapons that don't work
against enemies that don't exist.
How has the Internet ever not been a tool of the national security state, and why should
we have ever expected otherwise?
While the discussion of of the need for new paradigms for regulation and accountability --
lest democratic or civil institutions become irrelevant -- is very much needed, I am
bewildered by the framing of the discussion to only the internet. The internet is just one,
interactive and immediately visible use of technology that has the potential to undermine a
fair society.
Some of the most insidious and destructive uses of data technology is not on the internet;
it's tools and processes used by previously trusted corporations, governments, and
institutions that is not regulated, not transparent and not accountable. So framing the
discussion with the 'internet' seems disengenuous.
"... They go into business to wheel & deal and to rip people off. There are no depths that they won't sink to just to enrich themselves with wealth and power. They quickly learn how to sidestep and evade every law on the statute books. They have no integrity, no ethical standards and no moral compass. They are conscienceless and shameless. ..."
"... Surely by now people realize that FB is a data-gathering organ for a Deep State geointelligence database? Why all the indignation? Every key stroke you have ever made has been recorded. Just stop using all the Deep State social media (ie, all of them). ..."
"... Reject all the "divide-and-conquer" BS. We are many, they are few. United we stand. Divided, we fall. ..."
"... Never used FaceBook nor any other social media platform. All they exist to do is aggregate personal data which is then either sold or handed to governments to build profiles and keep tabs on what people are doing. The hell with that. ..."
Update: As the giant cache of newly released internal emails has also revealed, Karissa Bell
of
Mashable notes that Facebook used a VPN app to spy on its competitors .
The
internal documents , made public as part of a cache of documents released
by UK lawmakers, show just how close an eye the social network was keeping on competitors
like WhatsApp and Snapchat , both of which became acquisition targets.
Facebook tried to acquire Snapchat that year for $3 billion -- an offer Snap CEO Evan
Spiegel rejected . (Facebook then spent years attempting, unsuccessfully, to copy
Snapchat before finally kneecapping the app
by cloning Stories.)
...
Facebook's presentation relied on data from Onavo, the virtual private network (VPN)
service which Facebook also acquired several months later
. Facebook's use of Onavo, which has been likened to "corporate
spyware," has itself been controversial.
The company was forced to remove Onavo from Apple's App Store earlier this year after
Apple changed its
developer guidelines to prohibit apps from collecting data about which other services are
installed on its users' phones. Though Apple never said the new rules were aimed at Facebook,
the policy change came after repeated criticism of the social network by Apple CEO Tim Cook.
-
Mashable
A top UK lawmaker said on Wednesday that Facebook maintained secretive "whitelisting
agreements" with select companies that would give them preferential access to vast amounts of
user data, after the parliamentary committee released documents which had been sealed by a
California court, reports
Bloomberg .
The documents - obtained in a sealed California lawsuit and leaked to the UK lawmaker during
a London business trip, include internal emails involving CEO Mark Zuckerberg - and led
committee chair Damian Collins to conclude that Facebook gave select companies preferential
access to valuable user data for their apps, while shutting off access to data used by
competing apps. Facebook also allegedly conducted global surveys of mobile app usage by
customers - likely without their knowledge , and that "a change to Facebook's Android app
policy resulted in call and message data being recorded was deliberately made difficult for
users to know about," according to Bloomberg.
In one email, dated Feb. 4, 2015, a Facebook engineer said a feature of the Android
Facebook app that would "continually upload" a user's call and SMS history would be a
"high-risk thing to do from a PR perspective." A subsequent email suggests users wouldn't
need to be prompted to give permission for this feature to be activated. -
Bloomberg
The emails also reveal that Zuckerberg personally approved limiting hobbling Twitter's Vine
video-sharing tool by preventing users from finding their friends on Facebook.
In one email, dated Jan. 23 2013, a Facebook engineer contacted Zuckerberg to say that
rival Twitter Inc. had launched its Vine video-sharing tool, which users could connect to
Facebook to find their friends there. The engineer suggested shutting down Vine's access to
the friends feature, to which Zuckerberg replied, " Yup, go for it ."
"We don't feel we have had straight answers from Facebook on these important issues, which
is why we are releasing the documents," said Collins in a Twitter post accompanying the
published emails. -
Bloomberg
We don't feel we have had straight answers from Facebook on these important issues, which
is why we are releasing the documents.
Thousands of digital documents were passed to Collins on a London business trip by Ted
Kramer, founder of app developer Six4Three, who obtained them during legal discovery in a
lawsuit against Facebook. Kramer developed Pikinis, an app which allowed people to find photos
of Facebook users wearing Bikinis. The app used Facebook's data which was accessed through a
feed known as an application programming interface (API) - allowing Six4Three to freely search
for bikini photos of Facebook friends of Pikini's users.
Facebook denied the charges, telling Bloomberg in an emailed statement: "Like any business,
we had many of internal conversations about the various ways we could build a sustainable
business model for our platform," adding "We've never sold people's data."
A small number of documents already
became public last week, including descriptions of emails suggesting that Facebook
executives had discussed giving access to their valuable user data to some companies that
bought advertising when it was struggling to launch its mobile-ad business. The alleged
practice started around seven years ago but has become more relevant this year because the
practices in question -- allowing outside developers to gather data on not only app users but
their friends -- are at the heart of Facebook's Cambridge Analytica scandal.
Facebook said last week that the picture offered by those documents was misleadingly
crafted by Six4Three's attorneys. -
WaPo
"The documents Six4Three gathered for this baseless case are only part of the story and are
presented in a way that is very misleading without additional context," said Facebook's
director of developer platforms and programs, Konstantinos Papamiltiadis, who added: "We stand
by the platform changes we made in 2015 to stop a person from sharing their friends' data with
developers. Any short-term extensions granted during this platform transition were to prevent
the changes from breaking user experience."
Kramer was ordered by a California state court judge
on Friday to surrender his laptop to a forensic expert after he admitted giving the UK
committee the documents. The order stopped just short of holding the company in contempt as
Facebook had requested, however after a hearing, California Superior Court Judge V. Raymond
Swope told Kramer that he may issue sanctions and a contempt order at a later date.
"What has happened here is unconscionable," said Swope. "Your conduct is not well-taken by
this court. It's one thing to serve other needs that are outside the scope of this lawsuit. But
you don't serve those needs, or satisfy those curiosities, when there's a court order
preventing you to do so ."
Trouble in paradise?
As Facebook is now faced with yet another data harvesting related scandal, Buzzfeed
reports that internal tensions within the company are boiling over - claiming that "after more
than a year of bad press, internal tensions are reaching a boiling point and are now spilling
out into public view."
Throughout the crises, Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who maintains majority shareholder
control, has proven remarkably immune to outside pressure and criticism -- from politicians,
investors, and the press -- leaving his employees as perhaps his most important stakeholders.
Now, as its stock price declines and the company's mission of connecting the world is
challenged, the voices inside are growing louder and public comments, as well as private
conversations shared with BuzzFeed News, suggest newfound uncertainty about Facebook's future
direction.
Internally, the conflict seems to have divided Facebook into three camps: those loyal to
Zuckerberg and chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg; those who see the current scandals as
proof of a larger corporate meltdown ; and a group who see the entire narrative -- including
the portrayal of the company's hiring of
communications consulting firm Definers Public Affairs -- as examples of biased media
attacks. - Buzzfeed
"It's otherwise rational, sane people who're in Mark's orbit spouting full-blown anti-media
rhetoric, saying that the press is ganging up on Facebook," said a former senior employee.
"It's the bunker mentality. These people have been under siege for 600 days now. They're
getting tired, getting cranky -- the only survival strategy is to quit or fully buy in."
A Facebook spokesperson admitted to BuzzFeed that this is "a challenging time."
When exactly did [neo]Liberal Dems become enthusiastic cheerleaders for rapacious profit-maximizing
corporations acting illegally against the public interest?
Why would "progressives" want to shield Facebook from anti-trust legislation? Compared to
the 1950s / 60s / 70s ... it seems like "liberals" and "conservatives" have switched
roles.
Why is it that Zucker.slime.berg and so many other people of his ilk are basically crooks.
They go into business to wheel & deal and to rip people off. There are no depths that
they won't sink to just to enrich themselves with wealth and power. They quickly learn how to
sidestep and evade every law on the statute books. They have no integrity, no ethical
standards and no moral compass. They are conscienceless and shameless.
The world would be better off without them. Who would miss Phacephuq?
Surely by now people realize that FB is a data-gathering organ for a Deep State
geointelligence database? Why all the indignation? Every key stroke you have ever made has
been recorded. Just stop using all the Deep State social media (ie, all of them).
Get your
faces out of your phones and look around you and see what's happening. Humanity is becoming
digital. This is a control mechanism. To regain its sovereignty, humanity needs to unite
spiritually and head in a new direction. Reject all the "divide-and-conquer" BS. We are many,
they are few. United we stand. Divided, we fall.
Never used FaceBook nor any other social media platform. All they exist to do is aggregate
personal data which is then either sold or handed to governments to build profiles and keep
tabs on what people are doing. The hell with that.
In the USA we have always had will always have corruption to the fullest extent possible.
I know rich and powerful people who are very well connected and if the average person knew
what they truly think they would be freakin pissed!!
I'm familiar with information retrieval tech and worked for a small non-U.S. search engine
that was acquired by a major American search engine (not Google) in the late 20th century.
I've kept up with things as much as one can do from the outside since then.
I do not buy the conspiracy angle here. I believe Google when they say that they are
relying on automated algorithms.
You cannot really compare Google with any other search engine. DDG is a guy in his pajamas
coding it all by himself (and I respect that). Bing on the other hand has a good team of
talented information retrieval engineers, but they are nowhere near as well staffed as
Google
In addition, a lot of Google's quirks derive from the fact that they are the big guys.
Hackers and spammers and black hat SEOs target Google, looking for exploitable patterns.
Nobody cares how they rank in Bing and DDG, so nobody targets them. Google thus has to plug
the dike in all kinds of ways that the other search engines don't have to worry about.
Google is very evil, with its advertising price controls, automated stealing of data,
preferences for its own services in search results over more popular competitors, and in many
other ways. But I don't think that the Google Suggestions are deliberately skewed in the way
you're suggesting.
It's not beyond the realm of possibility that some higher level component in their search
software that is intended to combat black hat SEO is inadvertently skewing results in a way
that seems to favor the left, in the same way that AI software tends to come to the
conclusion that blacks commit a lot of crime and are not the best employees, although nobody
programmed it to do that. And it is possible that when the skew is anti
Google Suggest was throwing out "Islamists are terrorists," "blacks are not oppressed,"
"hitler is my hero," "white supremacy is good," and so on.
Google is micro-gaslighting again, by Steve Sailer - The Unz Review
It is an explanation that makes more sense to me than that Google is trying to hide it
while Vox is trying to bring attention to it.
You are being remarkably obtuse.
Google is for the masses; what they do or don't do actually matters in terms of public
perception.
Vox is for the policy elite and will make no impact on the public consciousness; it isn't
meant for the masses.
Note that elite or specialist media have been talking about the opioid crisis for years,
and yet the topic has never made it out to the public consciousness or public discourse at
large, nor has it had any reception in the political sphere beyond mere platitudes, which
anyone who was not been paying attention to the topic would even understand.
Amusingly, though, if you do a Ctrl F on article you link to, the name "Sackler" nowhere
appears.
The point is how the elites control the public discourse, by keeping certain topics
obscure to the public at large, while the elites and their hired professionals and Mandarins
talk amongst themselves; a discourse not meant for the larger public.
But anyway, no one ever said that no one at all in the mass media was talking about the
opioid crisis; this is just your implied strawman.
The topic was Google; you are simply using a diversion, i.e., moving the goalposts to the
media at large.
"... It's not what aboutism it's called having consistency and principles. It's like Jack the Ripper calling Ted Kennedy a murderer. It matters if both sides are doing deals with Russia and only one has proved collusion with Russia government officials ..."
"... Your new Mcarthyism isn't working but nice try since it's all you have to offer ..."
"... Whataboutism is a call out for hypocrisy. It wasn't invented by the Russians. It was in use by a carpenter over two-thousand years ago: "Why do you call out for a dust mote in my eye when there is a log in yours?" ..."
"... Nothing new under the sun. ..."
"... Kind of like What about Russian interference in our Elections? Whatabout that, as a clear and dangerous deflection from Hillary taking blame for her incompetent and corrupt 2016 campaigns? ..."
"What about Clinton?" is an example of Whataboutism, which is a classic Russian propaganda technique used to divert attention
away from the relevant subject, statement, argument, etc at hand with an accusation of hypocrisy.
It takes the form, "What about _______?"
Whataboutism is a type of psychological projection. It uses blame shifting to attribute wrong doing or some character defect
to someone else with a goal of sabotaging the conversation by steering the speaker to become defensive.
On the playground, the kids call it "I know you are, but what am I?"
I have no idea whether any of this Russiagate stuff is real. We have seen no evidence, so I remain skeptical until someone
shows actual evidence of Trump-Putin collusion.
However, I do know where Donald Trump got a bunch of his money, and where he and his followers got Whataboutism.
Shouldn't that be "A Guide to Ukrainian Propaganda"?
Gregory Herr , August 14, 2018 at 9:20 pm
It seems to me that jean agreed with your characterisation of Trump and in no way was trying to sabotage the conversation.
jean referenced some facts about characters relevant to the broader topic.
I would contend that every time I've heard the cry of "well, that's just whataboutism", the purpose of that claim has been
to avoid addressing the points made–thus sabotaging further engagement or conversation.
So now, after all this time, you still "have no idea" whether Russiagate nonsense is real–what a fine fence-straddler you are.
And then to suggest that "whataboutism" is made in Russia and slyly connect that to "Trump and his followers" -- well, you just
lost me brother.
It's not what aboutism it's called having consistency and principles. It's like Jack the Ripper calling Ted Kennedy a murderer.
It matters if both sides are doing deals with Russia and only one has proved collusion with Russia government officials
That would be Hillary
I understand why you would want to deflect from that but it won't change the facts
Your new Mcarthyism isn't working but nice try since it's all you have to offer
zendeviant , August 15, 2018 at 5:30 am
Whataboutism is a call out for hypocrisy. It wasn't invented by the Russians. It was in use by a carpenter over two-thousand
years ago: "Why do you call out for a dust mote in my eye when there is a log in yours?"
Nothing new under the sun.
michael , August 15, 2018 at 5:33 am
Kind of like What about Russian interference in our Elections? Whatabout that, as a clear and dangerous deflection from
Hillary taking blame for her incompetent and corrupt 2016 campaigns?
jeff montanye , August 17, 2018 at 6:38 am
and her incompetent and corrupt tenure as secretary of state which gave so many people a really good idea of what her presidency
would look like.
Nop , August 15, 2018 at 10:06 pm
The accusation "whataboutism" just a childish way of trying to deny the point of view of rival interests. Like plugging your
ears and chanting "la la la".
"... Despite the animals' increasingly desperate circumstances on the farm, Squealer's barrage of untruths ultimately convince the lowly, overworked animals that "things were getting better." ..."
"... Anymore, whether it's in the company of dictators Trump keeps or among the multi-millionaires and billionaires that our purported Capitol Hill representatives mingle with at home and abroad, it's becoming increasingly harder to tell "which is which." ..."
If the demogagic President Donald Trump and his greedy loyalist Republican abettors had
their way, the American citizenry would be consigned to a life of Farm -like
drudgery.
"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others" becomes the leader
pigs' contorted "Commandment" to the rest of the farm animals by the end of Animal
Farm .
... ... ...
Orwell himself, indicated that his simplistic foreboding fairtale held "a wider application"
about "power-hungry people."
"I meant the moral to be that revolutions only effect a radical improvement when the masses
are alert.." Orwell writes Politics magazine founder Dwight Macdonald in a 1946 letter.
"What I was trying to say was," Orwell continues, "'You can't have a revolution unless you
make it for yourself; there is no such thing as a benevolent dictatorship.'"
Disillusioned Americans, who weren't so much "alert" as they were desperate, clearly were
swindled by Trump's disingenous populous revolution of sorts.
Now, in the flotsam wake of the midterm election's Democratic blue wave -- demonstrating a
new found citizen alertness that will flood the House in January -- the mistake of ever
allowing a Trump Presidency, is coming into sharp, unsettling focus.
Oppression is oppression. Greed and abuse of power produce essentially the same result
whatever the misanthropic ideology – Communism or Fascism or some other hybrid demagogic
"ism" to which Trump and his loyalists aspire.
If Washington D.C's plutocratic pigs had their druthers, Americans would be so dumbed down
by the con-in-chief's exhaustive lies and grating vitriol, endorsed by congressional majority
party Republicans, that we would have about as much say in our Republic's affairs as Animal
Farm 's befuddled barnyard animals had on the farm under the pigs.
"Napoleon is Always Right"
Trump is akin to Farm 's ruthless ruling pig, Napoleon, a Berkshire boar who, Orwell
writes, has a knack for "getting his own way."
Napoleon counted on his propagandist pig, Squealer, who "could turn black into white" to
brainwash the farm animals with lies about their tyrannical leader's supposed benevolence.
Even Clover the mare, who notices the changes the pigs sneakily make to Animalism's
Commandments, eventually is lulled into a sense of complacency, convincing herself that she
must have "remembered it wrong."
As the Farm animals work harder for less, the beloved, but dim-witted carthorse Boxer
declares, "I will work harder" and routinely motivates himself by extolling the pigs' most
controlling lie of all: "Napoleon is always right."
To advance his doubtless premeditated assault on truth and civility from the start of 2017,
President Trump has employed his own tag team versions of Squealer – in imaginative
mouthpieces Kellyanne Conway and Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
Sanders, White House press secretary, seems eternally lost in an alternate reality where if
President Trump "says it, it must be true" – just as Farm's animals were
programmed to parrot of Napoleon, no matter how absurd the lie.
... ... ...
And we Americans, like Farm 's flock of mindless sheep taught by Squealer to
obediently bleat "Four legs good, two legs better ," are supposed to believe it all.
... ... ...
Pigs Hoarded Milk and Apples; Repubs, Tax Cuts For Rich
Just as Farm 's pigs reason early on that they need all of the farm's "milk and
apples" to lead the rest of the animals, Trump and his complicit Republican chums insisted at
the outset that billionaires' tax breaks are the key to economic revival for all.
Never mind that Reaganomics trickled down – and out, decades ago. Never mind that
corporate profits are soaring, while workers' wages have stagnated.
And that now, in order to pay for corporate big wigs' tax cuts, Republicans contrive to
carve up the people's Medicare and Medicaid, while sinisterly eyeing social security
benefits.
Who is the real "enemy of the people"?
"The turning-point of the story was supposed to be when the pigs kept the milk and apples
for themselves," Orwell writes in the 1946 letter to Macdonald, published in George Orwell: A
Life In Letters , 2013.
"If the other animals had had the sense to put their foot down then," Orwell continues, "it
would have been all right."
At the first sign of feebleness, Boxer, the farm's hardest worker -- instrumental in the
farm's success from which the pigs alone capitalized -- is hauled off to the
slaughterhouse.
Despite the animals' increasingly desperate circumstances on the farm, Squealer's barrage of
untruths ultimately convince the lowly, overworked animals that "things were getting
better."
Think of Trump's grandiose claims of new plant openings and soaring jobs numbers. When Fox
News' asked him this past weekend how he would grade his job as President so far, Trump
offered, "A plus."
And look no further than Trump's scripted, dictator-esque, brainwashing rallies, where
gullible Reality TV "fans" pathetically worship a snake oil salesman, cheering on command and
smiling idiotic smiles.
Which is Which?
In Farm' s last pages, the pigs have rewritten Animalism's "Seven Commandments" to
suit them, embracing the ways of the animals' sworn enemy humans.
"Comrade Napoleon" and his fellow privileged porkers have moved into overthrown (Manor Farm)
owner Mr. Jones' farm house, are dressed in his clothes and are walking upright on their two
hind legs.
By then, the incoherent sheep under the absolute sway of Napoleon's propagandist pig
Squealer, no longer are sounding off on command: "Four legs good, two legs bad," but rather,
"Four legs good, two legs better ."
Animal Farm leaves us with the animals peering through the farm house dining room
window as the pigs inside schmooze and toast mugs of beer with neighboring farmer, Mr.
Pilkington and his associates.
The pigs and humans end up squabbling over a card game in which Napoleon and Mr. Pilkington
each play an ace of spades.
Who is cheating?
In the novella's last line, the baffled animals at the window look from face to face, from
the humans to the pigs, but: "It was impossible to say which was which."
Anymore, whether it's in the company of dictators Trump keeps or among the
multi-millionaires and billionaires that our purported Capitol Hill representatives mingle with
at home and abroad, it's becoming increasingly harder to tell "which is which."
"... "We have followed this court case in America and we believed these documents contained answers to some of the questions we have been seeking about the use of data, especially by external developers," ..."
"... "to refrain from reviewing them" ..."
"... "return them to counsel or to Facebook." ..."
It is alleged that the data was harvested to target the users in political campaigns,
including in former UKIP leader Nigel Farage's Leave.EU campaign.
The UK parliamentary investigators used the former Six4Three top executive's brief stay in
London to force him to hand over documents his firm had obtained from a US court in Six4Three's
own lawsuit against Facebook.
The Guardian reported that the tech entrepreneur was warned he might go to jail or face a
hefty fine if he refuses to comply with the British authorities' request.
The documents, which are now to be reviewed by the British MPs, are said to include a
confidential correspondence between Facebook's senior officials, including Mark Zuckerberg, who
has so far snubbed requests to testify before parliament.
The lawsuit Six4Three, an app-developing startup, brought against Facebook back in 2015,
alleges that Zuckerberg was personally involved in a "malicious and fraudulent scheme"
and deliberately left loopholes for data-harvesting companies to fend off competition.
The documents are expected to reveal the scope of the Facebook CEO's involvement in the
alleged scheme.
"We have followed this court case in America and we believed these documents contained
answers to some of the questions we have been seeking about the use of data, especially by
external developers," Collins said.
Six4Three is in a long-running litigation with Facebook over the demise of its app Pikinis,
that allowed users to scan through friends' photos in an automatic search for bikini pics.
After Facebook disabled the function that allowed apps to access users' friend lists, Six4Three
filed a complaint against Facebook, arguing that it hurt its business model by no longer
permitting customers to share the data. Facebook argues that the allegations of its improper
handling of personal data have nothing to do with the lawsuit and had unsuccessfully fought the
release of its internal documents to Six4Three. The documents were provided to the startup by
the San Mateo Superior Court in California and are subject to a non-disclosure order, meaning
that are unlikely to be revealed to the public.
In response to the seizure of the documents by British MPs, Facebook has urged lawmakers
"to refrain from reviewing them" while calling to "return them to counsel or to
Facebook."
Zuckerberg has previously denied that he
knew of illegal harvesting of user data by Cambridge Analytica before the breach was reported
in the media.
It is alleged that Facebook's off-hand approach to personal data might have helped to alter
the outcome of the Brexit vote. In March, former director of research at Cambridge Analytica,
Chris Wylie, testified before MPs that the research carried out by a Canadian company with ties
to Cambridge Analytica before 2016 Brexit referendum might have swayed the vote.
After Tulsi Gabbards tweet yesterday there has been a ton of old anti-Tulsi propaganda
that was originally created to discredit her support of Bernie being promoted all over the
place. Those lies are being aggressively promoted by neocons in both parties and helped along
by supposed progressives and patriots who either ignorantly or maliciously spread the same
lies and sophistry. Can you help fight against that? Here is what she is up against, these
two articles detail all the lies (compared to the facts) that the neocons and the dumb
progressives who don't bother to check facts are spreading around -- it would
be great if you can help get the word out about this organized slander campaign due to fear
of Tulsi gaining higher office and ending wars:
Debsi
You don't know anything about Tulsi Gabbard.
She has been the most active anti war member of congress.
She even visited Syria and talked with Assad.
She has been tutored by Kucinich, and Kucinich's adviser on foreign affairs has been William
R Polk.
I suggest you do some homework, read some selections on Polk's home page, also review
Kucinich's long term positions on war and peace.
It's clear that we'll never be free of Dembot relapsing. That's how terminal addicts are.
At any given time the great majority of the fake "radicals" who go around claiming to despise
the Democrat Party are really just secretly yearning for the next fraudulent "progressive"
Democrat hero to come along and sweep them off their feet and back into the Dembot fold.
Kucinich, Obama, Warren, Hillary sheepdog extraordinaire Sanders, "AOC" (who just got done
telling the Dembot version of climate activists, "Let's get behind Pelosi!"), Gabbard, many
more whose names I've forgotten.
I've never understood the unbreakable infatuation with the Democrats, other than the clear
fact that support for them isn't political at all, but a type of celebrity fandom.
Any actual sentient political person knows that the historical record of the Democrats is
one long unbroken scam, that the "celebrity progressive hero" meme is invariably a fraud, and
that this will never change for as long as the Democrat Party and its partisans exist.
Of course we already see Dembots everywhere crowing that the House majority is going to do
"real things", and without missing a beat their showcase promise is: "We're going to make
Trump release his tax forms!" I.e. the exact kind of worthless theater which does nothing to
help anyone real, the exact kind of misdirection scam in which the Democrats specialize.
The same goes for worthless tweets. BTW did Gabbard also give tweets condemning the
Zionist state? I'm betting no. Just like "AOC" backpedalled as fast as she could from her
pro-Palestinian comments. She even told an interviewer "I really don't know what I'm talking
about there." (Not an exact quote, but the gist.)
There is no peace with Israel! The fallacy of that statement on Israel dismantles
your argument. Just state that there is self-interest or self-preservation involved if Putin
sells out Iran to that stinking shithole Zionist entity. Iran fought side by side with Russia
and is an invited presence in Syria and a counter-weight to Zionist U.S. presence in Syria
and surrounding Zionist U.S. bases.
With all the Zionist Russian oligarchs breathing down Putin's neck in Russia, and the
demented Zionist state having a large percentage of Russian immigrants, Putin kowtows to
Zionism like everyone else. Yes, Putin is using Syria to get leverage over the U.S./Nato
axis, but Israel is tied to his self-preservation, so he'll drop Iran in a minute for that
reason, but don't say it's for the sake of peace when Israel has its sights on Iran as the
next target of the Empire. It's totally disingenuous to use peace and Israel in the same
sentence.
Next, @57 regarding the Gabbard tussle debs and others are having here: it's all moot
since she offended compassionate Democrat sensibilities by meeting with Assad. Don't
mention her name on Democratic sites; they can't stand her and you'll be excoriated for
bringing her up. So she'll never be the nominee anyway. Now, I don't think either that it's
necessary to even bring up the indigenous in Hawaii considering what was also done to native
Americans on the mainland.
There's something else that disqualifies her. I used to trust and be gung-ho on Tulsi
because of her association with Kucinich, but she lost my respect entirely after she started
rubbing shoulders with this Zionist slime:
I couldn't be bothered getting the picture on it's own so don't blame me for the comments
that surround it. Regardless, I no longer trust Gabbard because of her toxic Zionist
associates.
Sadly (or laughably, if you are in a jolly mood), Russ and Debisdead, and their handful of
likeminded others who daily gather about the ultraleft internet world (such as it is) will
never change their tune in the face of all evidence pointing to their invective (they term
this "critical education") adding up to nothing except furtherance of rightwing oppression
currently sweeping the world.
They offer nothing to motivate people other than the rejection of mainstream political
movements of the center-left which are already organised, in reactionary political parties to
be sure, into the tens of millions in the US.
Large numbers will be required if Russ, debs and their relatively few peers ever in fact
wake up from their blogging stupors (extremely doubtful, imho, based on evidence of the prior
10-15 years) and become a vanguard of the movement to topple and replace the liberal
democratic system with a fair system for all the people.
Lenin already nailed Russ, debs (and their few peers) to the wall way back in 1920:
Is parliamentarianism "politically obsolete"? That is quite a different matter. If that
were true, the position of the "Lefts" would be a strong one. But it has to be proved by a
most searching analysis, and the "Lefts" do not even know how to approach the matter.
In the last open thread I advanced the notion that humans are much more changeable than we
tend to assume, or that our institutions plan on. I could back this claim with substantial
collateral but I'll skip that here.
In my view, when we group Gabbard in with corrupt politicians, we do the greatest
disservice to our own understanding of how corruption works. We also give in and surrender to
evil, sooner than we should. So we should beware of this kind of thinking, both from an
honorable place of not maligning a person who may not yet have earned it, and also from a
strategic view of not giving into defeatism.
What really matters about the Gabbard situation is the history of other people and
institutions that once were on our side and stood as our heroes, and who now seem
compromised, corrupted, silenced or destroyed. There are powerful forces at play that can
turn the good to the bad. These are the forces that we should be intent on identifying, in my
opinion.
An overarching cynicism will only weary us, and the struggle is still alive. Cynicism is
the cousin of defeatism and premature surrender. It's a position encouraged by the enemy,
because it appears strong while it is actually weak. It's one of the tools that tame - the
greatest of course being the one that divides us against each other, while the enemy
rules.
What will be useful to watch with Gabbard will be what forces come to work on her, and how
long she can remain true to her indigenous spiritual strength, if indeed she has not already
caved in (I haven't studied the situation).
Sooner or later someone or some ones must appear who can remain true to the welfare of the
people, and survive all the forces that work to subvert that. Our sitting around hoping for
real change, however, is not going to get it done. Nor is falsely identifying as true those
who are already corrupted, or conversely, labeling as lost those who might still have some
truth in them. Understanding in precise detail and calling out and shedding light on these
forces of subversion, might just help, however.
Fact is, if we took your comment and replaced "Gabbard" with "Obama", we could pretty much
transpose it verbatim to 2008-09 and it would fit right in with what the Obamabots were
saying.
I agree, cynicism is pernicious, and I can't imagine anything more cynical than continued
special pleading on behalf of the Democrats, after all they've proven throughout their
perfidious history.
Maybe. But I think for Obama this would fall under "falsely identifying as true someone
who was already corrupted". What I get from people who have studied Gabbard is that she
hasn't yet fallen, and - conceivably - may not fall.
If Tulsi Gabbard weren't corrupted, she would stay away from the Adelsons no matter what
cause they're peddling that she might share. The Adelsons are kryptonite for trust! She
should know that! She should know better! Find some other financier for your cause, lady!
Now, to russ's point. Yes, it's good to get people to focus on another option besides the
Dems (hopefully you don't mean the Republicans who are part of the same duopoly syndicate).
However, the problem is that in a non-democracy with two Zionist-owned parties monopolizing
the mass demographic, just how do you intend that third option to win?
Over the past year, U.S. prosecutors have discussed several types of charges they could potentially bring against the WikiLeaks
founder
The Justice Department is preparing to prosecute WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and is increasingly optimistic it will be able
to get him into a U.S. courtroom, according to people in Washington familiar with the matter. Over the past year, U.S. prosecutors
have discussed several types of charges they could potentially bring against Mr. Assange, the people said. Mr. Assange has lived
in the Ecuadorean embassy in London since receiving political asylum from the South American country in 2012...
The exact charges Justice Department might pursue remain unclear, but they may involve the Espionage Act, which criminalizes the
disclosure of national defense-related information.
Retail: "This time, Amazon has gone too far: Jeff Bezos's company is profiting and taxpayers
are paying the price" [Matt Stoller,
New York Daily News ]. The conclusion: "Fundamentally, Amazon is simply too powerful. It
isn't just about subsidies. It isn't that merchants, or local businesses, or warehouse workers,
or communities are being mistreated or misled. It's that Amazon has so much power over our
political economy that it can acquire government-like functions itself. It controls elected
officials, acquired the power to tax, and works with government to avoid sunshine laws. It's
time to recognize the truth about this company. Two-day shipping might be really convenient,
but at least in its current form, Amazon and democracy are incompatible." • Very good to
see Stoller in the New York Daily News!
Retail: "Amazon's Last Mile" [ Gizmodo ]. "Near the very bottom of
Amazon's complicated machinery is a nearly invisible workforce over two years in the making
tasked with getting those orders to your doorstep. It's a network of supposedly self-employed,
utterly expendable couriers enrolled in an app-based program which some believe may violate
labor laws. That program is called Amazon Flex, and it accomplishes Amazon's "last-mile"
deliveries -- the final journey from a local facility to the customer . Flex is indicative of
two alarming trends: the unwillingness of legislators to curb harmful practices of tech
behemoths run amok, and a shift towards less protected, more precarious opportunities in a
stagnant job market.' • Read for the detail. It sounds as hellish as Amazon's
warehouses.
Retail: "Desperately Seeking Cities" [ n+1 ]. "It is
beyond question that, in whatever city it chose to grace, Amazon would bring neither the jobs
that that city needed, nor the public works that it needed. In his latest variation on the
urbanist delusion, written for the Financial Times, the much-pilloried Richard Florida
plaintively appealed to Amazon not to "accept any tax or financial incentives," but rather to
pledge to "invest alongside cities to create better jobs, build more affordable housing, and
develop better schools, transit, and other badly needed public goods, along with paying its
fair share of taxes." The depths of Florida's naiveté cannot be overstated. Not only is
Amazon categorically unlikely to pledge what he wants (or, even if it did, make even the
slightest effort to deliver on such a pledge), but Florida openly expresses his desire to cede
all urban political power and every human demand to the whims of the company. In this respect,
too, the Amazon HQ2 contest has been clarifying."
"Emmanuel Goldstein is a fictional character in George Orwell's dystopian novel
Nineteen Eighty-Four. He is the principal enemy of the state according to the Party of the
totalitarian Oceania. He is depicted as the head of a mysterious (and possibly fictitious)
dissident organization called "The Brotherhood" and as having written the book The Theory and
Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism. He is only seen and heard on telescreen, and he may be a
fabrication of the Ministry of Truth, the State's propaganda department." (from
Wikipedia)
Yet Orwell wrote the following words in The Road to Wigan Pier :
"there is the horrible -- the really disquieting -- prevalence of cranks wherever
Socialists are gathered together. One sometimes gets the impression that the mere words
'Socialism' and 'Communism' draw towards them with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker,
nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, 'Nature Cure' quack, pacifist, and feminist in
England."
And:
"The ordinary man may not flinch from a dictatorship of the proletariat, if you offer it
tactfully; offer him a dictatorship of the prigs, and he gets ready to fight."
In the first of these excerpts, we see a perfect delineation of today's "Cultural
Marxism," and in the second, a perfect explanation of the support for Donald Trump. The
"deplorables" are those who resent and fight the dictatorship of the prigs. I'm somewhat
surprised that no one has written a history of the rise and advance of political correctness
in American public life and entitled it "The Dictatorship of the Prigs." I hope someone
does.
Brave New World has had a funny way of growing more interesting with age. Lenina
Crowne, the vacuous Future Woman, has leaped out of the pages of Huxley's novel and into our
real lives. Just give Lenina some tattoos and piercings, dye her hair an unnatural color and
put a smart phone on her fashionable Malthusian belt, and she would fit right into our world.
I think the author a little unfair to Huxley when he criticises him for no sense of social
"Class". The issue here is that class, in BNW, has been hard wired into each grouping (ie
deltas etc). Genetic engineering has predetermined all class AND individual desires &
interests. The sophistications of language, mind control etc in Orwell are thus unnecessary
& superseded.
The distinction between the inner party, outer party and proles does seem to be absolutely
crucial to Orwell (at least in 1984) and is often neglected by people debating Orwell vs
Huxley. Still, I tend to agree with those dissidents who have observed that there really is
no inner party. It is outer party buffoons all the way up.
George Orwell also beat his coolies "in moments of rage" as he put it in his autobiography.
He had first-hand experience as a repressive British colonial police officer in Burma,
1922-1927. He knew the autocratic mindset well, because he had lived it.
" Trump is the only non-establishment candidate to get elected President since Andrew Jackson
and therefore almost the exact opposite of the idea of top-down tyranny"
That was good for a laugh. What's the difference between governed from the top by liberal
slime career opportunist and governed from the top by the moron womanizer opportunist
comparable to the governor played by Mel Brooks in Blazing Saddles? The difference is top
down slime versus top down idiocy.
There is a misapprehension at the core of this article; Huxley wrote from a liberal
'anything goes' perspective of morality, comparable to today's 'it's all about me' MTV
generation. A deeper understanding of Huxley's profound distaste and preoccupation with this
is afforded in his novel 'Point, Counter Point.' Orwell, on the other hand, aptly projects a
future social conservatism that is better compared to the extremes of a cloistered and
tightly policed ultra religious right.
It's not a matter of who was more 'right.' They are describing separate trajectories of
human social phenomena we see playing out today. The two were peering down different avenues
into the future.
But, despite this, this debate exists not only on the Dissident Right but further
afield. Believe it or not, even Left-wingers and Liberals debate this question, as if they
too are under the heel of the oppressor's jackboot.
Some left-wingers are. Think of poor Julian Assange!
'All of a sudden, as many commentators have pointed out, there were almost daily
echoes of Orwell in the news The most obvious connection to Orwell was the new
president's repeated insistence that even his most pointless and transparent lies were in
fact true, and then his adviser Kellyanne Conway's explanation that these statements were
not really falsehoods but, rather, "alternative facts."'
The counter to this is that Trump is the only non-establishment candidate to get elected
President since Andrew Jackson and therefore almost the exact opposite of the idea of
top-down tyranny.
Exactly. In 1984, 'Big Brother' actually controlled the media; Trump clearly doesn't, so
he is not Big Brother. He is Emmanuel Goldstein: a leader of the resistance but alas,
probably not real.
Oh dear no, big mistake -- it's Two Minutes Hate, not three as stated here. Orwell is
superior by far, since he was serious and more humane in his understanding of the effects of
totalitarianism on human psychology. But as a Morrissey song puts it, "I know you love one
person, so why can't you love two?"
@George F.
Held Goldstein isn't Orwell's hero. There is nothing in the book to show that Goldstein
even exists. All he could be is a propaganda construct (as I believe ISIS Caliph Abu Bakr al
Baghdadi is in real life). And Goldstein's Jewishness, apart from his name, is non-existent.
When I read 1984 for the first time (in 1986, as it happens), I didn't realise that he was
even meant to be a Jew.
Lots of Jews are against the racist apartheid colonial settler zionazi pseudostate in
Occupied Palestine and its financial backers in New York, but we wouldn't want to disturb you
with facts, would we now.
Orwell, who finished his 1984 shortly after the liquidation of Palestine in 1947,
[1st printing was 1950], never saw the Elephant (Zionist Elephant). No one is perfect.
Orwell, who during WW II, was an employee for Churchill's Government, and labored in
Churchill's Propaganda Department (different official title), loyally reflected (most of)
that propaganda.
Few visionaries in 1947, understood or opposed the imperialist Oligarchs (financial
banking power), who supported the establishment of a so-called Jewish Nation – in
someone else's Nation. (The Balfour Declaration was issued during WW I and the liquidation of
one of the Peoples of the Middle East was in the planning stages). The Palestinians became
the – final victims of World War II.
The Palestinian General Strike (for independence) of 1936 , followed by an
insurrection was brutally suppressed by King George (the British Empire Oligarchs – who
had long (at least since 1815), become the Minions of the Zionist Bankers.
After WW II, Orwell, chose to ignore the crimes against the Palestinians, and possibly, to
get his books published/circulated. Who controls Hollywood-and the Mainstream Media?
For this anarchist, Orwell remains a visionary, a courageous soldier who served in
army of the POUM (Partido Obrero Unida Marxista -Trotskyist), and was wounded while defending
the same Spanish Republic as Durruti's Anarchists. Orwell's wife served as a Nurse in
Spain.
Recommend Orwell's fine book, His HISTORY, " Homage to Catalonia ."
Orwell had courage.
We American Citizen Patriots must display the same courage – as we Restore Our
Republic.
@Justsaying
" In fact, control by proxy seems to have generated a two-tiered control phenomenon where the
leaders are the puppets of puppeteers of a Zionist entity. "
Indeed my idea: Morgenthau Wilson, Baruch FDR, Bilderberg conferences, Soros Brussels,
Merkel, with whom exactly I do know, but it does not matter, Macron Rothschild, Tony Blair
Murdoch.
The catholic countries resist: Poland, Hungary, etc., maybe S Germany and Austria in this
respect also can be seen as catholic.
Trump, put your money where your mouth is, Soros, the Koch brothers, they did, but money
seeems to have failed in the last USA elections.
Must have been a shock, Solsjenytsyn writes that each jewish community in tsarist Russia
always had money for bribes.
@Durruti
Palestine and the Balfour declaration was a bit more complicated, the British saw an
opportunity to keep France, that had Syria and Lebanon, away from Egypt.
Mandate of course was just a fig leaf for colonialism.
@Ronald Thomas
West " What's the difference between governed from the top "
Possibly what is the theory of prof Laslo Maracs, UVA univrsity Amsterdam, that eight years
Obama have driven China and Russia so together that Khazakstan now is the economic centre of
the world, and that the present USA president understand this.
Khazakstan has the land port for trains to and from St Petersburg Peking.
Four days travel.
Do not hope this railway will have the same effect as the Berlin Bagdad: WWI.
@Fiendly
Neighbourhood Terrorist This isn't a top-ten contest. The reality we find ourselves in
seems to consist largely of billion-shades-of-grey continuums, not black-and-white absolutes.
Full-frontal assault (Orwell's state brutality) generally stimulates defensive action.
Tangential, obtuse assault (Huxley's anaesthetising hedonia) doesn't alert the defensive
posture, the immune response. Tipping points, inflection points, exist, but stealthy wolves
in sheeps' clothing, are more effective. The Venus fly trap, the carrion flower, convince
prey to approach trustingly. Brave New World's disguised depredation – the
nanny/welfare state, etc. – paves the way for Orwell's naked totalitarianism. It's the
friendly inmate offering the scared, lonely new prisoner a Snicker's bar and a smoke.
Why limit Orwell to "1984"? His "Animal Farm" is a great work, too. Although much shorter, it
captured the essence of all totalitarian societies even better. "All animals are equal, but
some animals are more equal than others" expresses the "democratic" rule of the 1% better
than anything.
Sail-Dog's favorite movie, Idiocracy is pretty good prescient too; especially the part about
president Camacho, who, by the way, and rather incredibly, most of you voted for two years
ago.
@Fiendly
Neighbourhood Terrorist Consider these excerpts:
1.All the rest had by that time been exposed as traitors and counter-revolutionaries.
Goldstein had fled and was hiding no one knew where, and of the others, a few had simply
disappeared, while the majority had been executed after spectacular public trials at which
they made confession of their crimes. Among the last survivors were three men named Jones,
Aaronson, and Rutherford. It must have been in 1965 that these three had been arrested.
2. 'It is called wine,' said O'Brien with a faint smile. 'You will have read about it in
books, no doubt. Not much of it gets to the Outer Party, I am afraid.' His face grew solemn
again, and he raised his glass: 'I think it is fitting that we should begin by drinking a
health. To our Leader: To Emmanuel Goldstein.'
Winston took up his glass with a certain eagerness. Wine was a thing he had read and dreamed
about. . . . The truth was that after years of gin-drinking he could barely taste it. He set
down the empty glass.
'Then there is such a person as Goldstein?' he said.
'Yes, there is such a person, and he is alive. Where, I do not know.'
'And the conspiracy -- the organization? Is it real? It is not simply an invention of the
Thought Police?'
'No, it is real. The Brotherhood, we call it. You will never learn much more about the
Brotherhood than that it exists and that you belong to it. I will come back to that
presently.'
Whether Goldstein exists is an issue raised in the novel itself, but that he (obviously
Jewish like another member of the Brotherhood, Aaronson) is presented sympathetically as a
libertarian enemy of the oppressive government is certain. Orwell's novel presents Jews
sympathetically as liberators of themselves and others.
And that presentation is historically false: Jews throughout history are the oppressors, not
the oppressed.
It is interesting to note that today's voice activated computer interfaces (Alexa, etc.) are
equivalent to Orwell's "telescreens" that monitor all activity within a household. Add to
that, the present push to implement "chipping"–the implantation of microchips into
humans, ostensibly for "convenience" and identification that cannot be lost–the "mark
of the beast" in biblical parlance.
The sad part is that much of the population is openly embracing these technologies instead of
being wary (and aware) that these are monitoring technologies which will lead to no good.
@Che Guava
The woman truck driver was the protagonist's love object and inspired what little plot
exists. He was supposed to save her, or so he thought. Everything else was window-dressing
(albeit quite imaginative), possibly the product of his growing insanity
"One of the frequent comparisons that comes up in the Dissident Right is who was more
correct or prescient, Orwell or Huxley".
This is the first lie by this author trying to co-opt both these writers for his agenda.
Orwell was an anti-imperialist and thats evident if you read 'Down and out in Paris or
London' or the 'Road to Wigan Pier'.
Burgess' politics and views can readily be known by reading 'Clockwork Orange' or 'The brave
New World'.
The world today is topsy turvy and what was the left then is now the right but both were anti
fascists.
If the comment posted is wrong , it's because the first paragraph was blatantly misleading
and stopped me from going any further.
One thing that most people in America leave out of consideration is the reality and power of
secret societies. Recently Freemasonry celebrated its 300th anniversary with a big bash in
England. In Europe, the Catholics are aware of its power and effectiveness. Democracy is a
total illusion anyway; oligarchs always rule.
Another good one was Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. It also has Alexa-type screens that allow the
viewer to participate, feel like a "star" and acquire instant fame. Firemen start fires
instead of putting them out. Books (good books anyway) cause people to discover and share
another more meaningful world. Ergo, old books must be rooted out and destroyed. The war on
whiteness and patriarchy in today's parlance.
Nineteen Eighty-Four should be required reading in high schools. One of the most
creative and prophetic novels of all time. EN LEAVES, etc. But because of its socio-political
themes, BNW became part of high school canon. In contrast, 1984 maybe Orwell's greatest work.
It's like Anthony Burgess often said A CLOCKWORK ORANGE is the least of his works, but it's
his most famous novel because it was made into a classic movie and dealt with relevant social
themes of crime and psychology.
Still, even though 1984 has stuff about control of the populace through drugs and
pornography, the vision of BNW is closer to our world in this sense. We live in a world of
plenty than scarcity. So, whereas vice is allowed by the state in 1984 as an outlet for a
bored and tired public, vice is at the center of life in BNW. The world of 1984 allows some
kind of vice but is nevertheless essentially a puritanical, spartan, and moralistic state.
Also, vice, even if legal and state-sanctioned, is to be enjoyed behind closed doors. In
contrast, the world of BNW has vice of sex and drugs all over the place. Indeed, it is so
pervasive that it's not even regarded as vice but the New Virtue. And in this, our world is
like BNW. Gambling was once a vice but now a virtue. We are told it is fun, it offers
reparations to Indians, and creates jobs. And Las Vegas is like Disneyland for the entire
family. Disney Corp has turned into a Brothel, but it's still promoted as Family
Entertainment. Trashy celebs who indulge in hedonism and market excessive behavior are held
up as role models. Whether it's Hillary with Miley Cyrus or Trump with Kanye, it seems Vice
is the new Virtue. (I finally heard a Kanye album on youtube, and it began with a song along
the lines of 'suck my dic*'.)
Orwell was insightful about the power of language, but he thought that the totalitarian
state would simplify language to create conformity of mind. Such as 'doubleplusgood'. It
would be increasingly anti-intellectual and anti-poetic. But the PC manipulation of language
works the other way. It keeps on creating fancy, pseudo-intellectual, or faux-sophisticated
terms for what is total rot. So many people are fooled because they go to college and are fed
fancy jargon as substitute for thought.
Btw, as the 84 in 1984 was the reverse of 48, the year in which the book was written, many
literary critics have said the book was not about the future but the present, esp. Stalinist
Russia(though some elements were taken from Nazi Germany and even UK). As such, it was a
testament and a warning than a prophecy. Besides, Orwell had pretty much laid out the logic
of totalitarianism in ANIMAL FARM. Perhaps, the most distressing thing about 1984 is that the
hero embodies the very logic that led to the Repressive System in the first place. When asked
if he would commit any act of terror and violence to destroy the System, Winston Smith
answers yes. It's an indication that the System was long ago created by people just like him,
idealists who felt they were so right that they could do ANYTHING to create a just order. But
the result was totalitarianism.
One area where the current order is like 1984. The hysterical screaming mobs and their
endless minutes of hate. It's like Rule by PMS.
@AnneOne thing that most people in America leave out of consideration is the reality and power
of secret societies.
One reason why BNW and 1984 fail as future-visions is they assume that the West will
remain white. Both are about white tyranny, white systems, white everything. So, the tyranny
is ideological, systemic, philosophical, and etc. It's about the rulers and the ruled. It's
about systems and its minions. Same with A CLOCKWORK ORANGE. As ugly as its future vision is,
at least UK is still white in the novel and movie. But look at London today. It's turning
Third World. And white droogs and gangs are getting their ass whupped by black thugs.
Something happened in the West after WWII. Jews gained supreme power and eventually aided
homos to be their main allies. And Negroes gained supreme status as idols of song, sports,
and sex. This has complicated matters. The group-personalities of Jews and whites are
different. Jews are more aware and anxious; whites are more earnest and trusting. There is a
huge difference between Chinese elites manipulating Chinese masses AND Jewish elites
manipulating non-Jewish masses. Chinese elites think in terms of power. Jewish elites think
in terms of power over the Other. There is bound to be far less trust in the latter case,
therefore more need to twist logic in so many ways.
As for Negroes, their attitudes are very different from that of whites. In some ways, blacks
are the single most destructive force against order and civilization. Look at Detroit and
Baltimore. Haiti and Africa. And yet, the rulers of the Current Order elevate blackness as
the holiest icon of spiritual magic and coolest idol of mass thrills. This lead to the
madonna-ization of white women. Whore-ship as worship. It leads to cucky-wuckeriness among
white men. But if whites submit to blackness, their civilization will fall.
But because Jewish power needs to suppress white pride and power with 'white guilt'(over what
was done to Negro slaves) and white thrill(for blacks in sports, song, and dance), it
promotes blackness. So, on the one hand, Jewish Power is invested in maintaining the Order in
which they have so much. But in order for Jews to remain on top, whites must be instilled
with guilt and robbed of pride. And blackness is the most potent weapon in this. But in
promoting blackness, the West will be junglized. The future of France looks dire with all
those blacks coming to kick white male butt and hump white women. And when it all falls
apart, Jews will lose out too, at least in Europe. US might be spared from total black
destruction with brown-ization. Browns may not have stellar talent but they not crazy like
the Negroes.
1984 and BNW are about people lording over others. There isn't much in the way of minority
power. But today's world is about Minority Rule, especially that of Jews and Homos. And it's
about minorities of blacks in the West taking the mantle of Manhood and Pride from white guys
who are cucky-wucked.
Now, the thing about BNW is that its vision has been fulfilled yet. While one can argue
that Stalinism pretty much achieved the full extent of Orwellianism, humanity has yet to see
the rise of clones and bio-engineering. So, to fully appreciate Huxley, it might take a 100
to 200 yrs. Maybe women will stop giving birth. Maybe the idea of 'mother' will seem funny.
Maybe future beings will be cloned. And maybe different castes will be produced to do
different jobs. That way, there will be happiness. Today, people are still born naturally,
and each person wants to be 'equal'. But what if certain people are bio-engineered to be
submissive and happy to do menial work?
Also, mass cloning may be the only way a nation like Japan can sustain itself as they are
not breeding anymore.
The world today is topsy turvy and what was the left then is now the right but both were
anti fascists.
Orwell doesn't seem anything at all like the anti-fascists we see today I'd say my
politics hover around where Orwell's were but I get called a Nazi not infrequently.
Truly "war is (now) peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength."
Most forget that the three great rats (snitches) of the 20th century were Eric Blair aka
Orwell (his famous list of Stalinist media simps), Ron Reagan (Commie Hollywoodites) , and
Tim Leary (Weathmen who broke him out of jail). Blair never imagined 99% of the population
would willingly invite a telescreen into their homes, and even pay a monthly fee to be dumbed
down and manipulated. He visualized the screen correctly to be just an advanced means of
propaganda and enslavement. Maybe it is time for an updated version of 1984. Call it 2024.
Big Jew (giant orange bloated comb over head on screen) could replace Big Brother, and say
Spencer UnzSailer could replace the mythical Goldstein. Dershowitz could replace O'Brien and
torment the hapless Winston Anglin and his tatted blowup doll, Julia.
Lesson: It is a Jewish question which we need not bother ourselves about, one way or the
other. Therefore, no rules for or against BDS, no influence from AIPAC, no aid to Israel or
Palestine, etc. etc. In other words, let's learn from our Jewish friends for once, and play a
game of "let's you and him fight."
@Tyrion 2Orwell doesn't seem anything at all like the anti-fascists we see today I'd say my
politics hover around where Orwell's were but I get called a Nazi not infrequently.
Oddly enough, what we have in the West is actually repression by
sacro-ethno-corporatism.
Jews are disproportionately immensely powerful. So, there is an ethnic angle to the
current power.
But if Jews were merely rich and powerful, they could be critiqued and challenged like Wasps
still are. But they are untouchable because of the sacro-element. As the Children of Shoah,
opposition to Jewish Power is 'antisemitic' or 'nazi'.
Also, Globo-Shlomo-Homo Power owes to capitalism, not socialism or communism. Now,
corporate tyranny can't be as total as statist tyranny. Even with all the deplatforming and
etc, the current power can't do to dissidents what Stalin, Mao, and Hitler did. Still,
considering that a handful corporations dominate so much and that so many Americans are
either apathetic or rabid-with-PC, the current tyranny is formidable. After all, one doesn't
need to control EVERYTHING to keep the power. One only needs control of elite institutions,
flow of information, main narratives & icons/idols, and majority support(as US has a
winner-takes-all political system). As all such are concentrated in few institutions and
industries, the elites own pretty much everything.
With their power of media and academia, Jews have persuaded enough whites that it's virtuous
to be anti-white. And with mass-immigration-invasion, the combined votes of white cucks and
non-white hordes tip the majority toward the Globo-Shlomo-Homo Party. Unless there is total
collapse, this system can go on for a long long time.
Also, corporate power pretty much determines state power since most politicians are whores
of donors. And most people who serve in the Deep State were raised from cradle to idolize
certain figures and symbols as sacrosanct. As toadies and servants of the Power, they've
absorbed these lessons uncritically, and they are afraid to raise their kids with truly
critical mindset because asking Big Questions will derail their chance of entering the
corridors of privilege. Those in the Deep State bureaucracies are not necessarily corrupt.
They may be hardworking and committed to their service to the state, but they are essentially
flunkies since they never questioned the central shibboleths that govern today's PC. I don't
think people like James Comey are corrupt in the conventional sense. They probably sincerely
believe they are committed to the proper functioning of the state. But lacking in imagination
and audacity to question beyond the Dominant Narrative and Dogma, they can only be lackeys no
matter how smart or credentialed they are.
US and Israel are both essentially fascist states, but the differences is Israel is an
organic-fascist state whereas the US is an gangster-fascist state. If not for Israel's
Occupation of West Bank and bad behavior to its neighbors, its form of fascist-democratic
nationalism would be sound. It is a majority Jewish nation where the Jewish elites have an
organic bond with the majority of the people. Also, Jews have a ancestral and spiritual bond
with the territory, the Holy Land. Also, there is a balance of capitalism and socialism, and
the main theme is the preservation and defense of the homeland for Jews. So,
identity/inheritance is served by ideology, not the other way around. As such, Israel is a
pretty good model for other nations(though it could treat Palestinians somewhat better; but
then, Arabs IN Israel have it pretty good.) Israel need not be a gangster-fascist state
because there is natural, historical, and cultural bond between the rulers and the ruled.
But in the US, there is no such bond between the Jewish elites and the masses of goyim.
That being the case, it is most unnatural for the US to be Jewish-dominated. It's one thing
for Jews to be successful and disproportionately represented in US institutions and
industries due to higher IQ and achievement. But the idea of the Jewish elites serving as the
Dominant Ruling Elites in a nation where they are only 2% is ridiculous. It's like Turkey has
successful minority communities of Greeks, Armenians, and some Jews, but clearly the Turks
are in control. But in the US, Jews have the top power, and furthermore, Jews want to keep
the power and make all Americans suck up to Jewish power. But this can only work via
gangster-fascism since there is no organic bond between Jews and non-Jews. If Jewish elites
in Israel think and act in terms of "What can we do to empower all of us Jews as one united
people?", Jewish elites in the think in terms of "What can we do to bribe, browbeat,
threaten, silence, blacklist, and/or brainwash the goy masses to make them do our bidding?"
One if borne of love and trust, the other of contempt and fear.
Whatever problems exist in Israel, I'm guessing there is genuine love between Jewish elites
and Jewish masses. But there is a lot of hatred, fear, and anxiety among Jewish elites when
it comes to the goyim. The result is outrageous policy like hoodwinking white Christian
soldiers to smash 'terrorist muzzie' nations and then bringing over Muslims and embracing
them as 'refugees' against 'white supremacist bigots'.
Another problem with globo-shlomo-homo(and-afro) world order is that it's leading to
Mono-everything. It's leading to mono-financial rule by Wall Street. As Wall Street is so
dominant, it is effectively taking over all financial markets. And as the US military is so
dominant, the world is ending up with Mono-Militarism. The US continues to encircle China,
Russia, and Iran. And it's leading to Mono-Manhood. Prior to mass-migration-invasion, Europe
was all white. So, even though white men tend to lose to blacks in world competition, every
white nation had its white local-national hero. Its manhood was defined and represented by
its own men. The world had poly-manhood, or plurality of manhood. Even if white men lost to
blacks in world competition, they were the dominant men in their own nations. But with
Negroes entering every white nation, the result is Mono-Manhood(that of the Negro) in every
white nation. This is now spreading to Japan as well, as Japanese women now travel around the
world to fill up their wombs with black babies. And of there is Mono-Media. The world
communicates through English, but most English media are dominated by Jews. European nations
may censor American Media, but it's never the mainstream media. It's always alternative
media, and these censorship is done at the pressure of globalist Jewish groups. Jewish
globalists pressure Europe to allow ONLY mainstream US media while banning much of
alternative media that dares speak truth to power about Jewish power and race-ism(aka race
realism).
Why does the one have to be 'superior' to the other as they both make a lot of sense?
Why not a combination of both?
How about a society that controls people with a velvet glove by allowing for and promoting
every Brave New Worldish (often fatuous) personal pleasure while simultaneously, should a
person get out of line from the state's dictates, maintaining in the background the iron fist
of a full blown Orwellian police state?
The present society, though not there yet, is not that far away from that now.
Regarding 1984 I've always thought the Michael Radford film version starring
Richard Burton, John Hurt, and the luscious Suzanna Hamilton, filmed in an around London from
April – June, 1984, the exact time and setting of Orwell's novel, to have been
outstanding.
9/23/1975 Tom Charles Huston Church Committee Testimony
Tom Charles Huston testified before the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental
Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, commonly known as the Church Committee,
on the 43-page plan he presented to the President Nixon and others on ways to collect
information about anti-war and "radical" groups, including burglary, electronic surveillance,
and opening of mail.
In my estimation, That Hideous Strength, the final novel of the science fiction trilogy of C.
S. Lewis, is the best and most prescient dystopian novel written – largely because it
is so much more than just a dystopian novel. It combines great characters, imaginative
fantasy from modern to medieval, and is a truly creepy horror story as well – with a
hilarious happy ending which illustrates God's very own sense of humor.
"... Huxley's main insight, namely that control can be maintained more effectively through "entertainment, distraction, and superficial pleasure rather than through overt modes of policing and strict control over food supplies" is not actually absent in 1984 . ..."
"... In fact, exactly these kind of methods are used to control the Proles, on whom pornography is pushed and prostitution allowed. In fact porn is such an important means of social control that the IngSoc authorities even have a pornography section called "PornSec," which mass produces porn for the Proles. ..."
"... One of the LOL moments in Michael Radford's film version is when Mr. Charrington, the agent of the thought police who poses as a kindly pawnbroker to rent a room to Winston and Julia for their sexual trysts, informs them on their arrest that their surveillance film will be 'repurposed' as porn. ..."
"... But while 1984 includes almost everything that Brave New World contains in terms of controlling people through sex, drugs, and distractions, it also includes much, much more, especially regarding how censorship and language are used to control people and how tyranny is internalised. The chapter from which the above quote comes, shows how Winston, a formerly autonomous agent, has come to accept the power of the system so much that he no longer needs policing. ..."
"... But most brilliant of all is Orwell's prescient description of how language is changed through banning certain words and the expression of certain ideas or observations deemed "thought crime," to say nothing of the constant rewriting of history. The activities of Big Tech and their deplatforming of all who use words, phrases, and ideas not in the latest edition of their "Newspeak" dictionary, have radically changed the way that people communicate and what they talk about in a comparatively short period of time. ..."
"... Orwell's insights into how language can be manipulated into a tool of control shows his much deeper understanding of human psychology than that evident in Huxley's novel. The same can be said about Orwell's treatment of emotions, which is another aspect of his novel that rings particularly true today. ..."
"... Colin Liddell is one of the founders of the Alt-Right, which he now disavows, and currently blogs at Affirmative Right . He recently published a book "Interviews and Obituaries," available on Amazon . ..."
One of the frequent comparisons that comes up in the Dissident Right is who was more correct
or prescient, Orwell or Huxley.
In fact, as the only truly oppressed intellectual group, the Dissident Right are the only
ones in a position to offer a valid opinion on this, as no other group of intellectuals suffers
deplatforming, doxxing, and dismissal from jobs as much as we do. In the present day, it is
only the Dissident Right that exists in the 'tyrannical space' explored in those two dystopian
classics.
But, despite this, this debate exists not only on the Dissident Right but further afield.
Believe it or not, even Left-wingers and Liberals debate this question, as if they too are
under the heel of the oppressor's jackboot. In fact, they feel so oppressed that some of them
are even driven to discuss it in the pages of the New York Times at the despotically
high rate of pay which that no doubt involves.
In both the Left and the Dissident Right, the consensus is that Huxley is far superior to
Orwell, although, according to the New York Times article just alluded to, Orwell has
caught up a lot since the election of Donald Trump. Have a look at this laughable, "I'm
literally shaking"
prose from New York Times writer Charles McGrath :
And yet [Huxley's] novel much more accurately evokes the country we live in now,
especially in its depiction of a culture preoccupied with sex and mindless pop entertainment,
than does Orwell's more ominous book, which seems to be imagining someplace like North Korea.
Or it did until Donald Trump was inaugurated.
All of a sudden, as many commentators have pointed out, there were almost daily echoes of
Orwell in the news The most obvious connection to Orwell was the new president's repeated
insistence that even his most pointless and transparent lies were in fact true, and then his
adviser Kellyanne Conway's explanation that these statements were not really falsehoods but,
rather, "alternative facts." As any reader of "1984" knows, this is exactly Big Brother's
standard of truth: The facts are whatever the leader says they are.
those endless wars in "1984," during which the enemy keeps changing -- now Eurasia, now
Eastasia -- no longer seem as far-fetched as they once did, and neither do the book's
organized hate rallies, in which the citizenry works itself into a frenzy against nameless
foreigners.
The counter to this is that Trump is the only non-establishment candidate to get elected
President since Andrew Jackson and therefore almost the exact opposite of the idea of top-down
tyranny.
But to return to the notion that Huxley is superior to Orwell, both on the Left and the
Dissident Right, this is based on a common view that Huxley presents a much more subtle,
nuanced, and sophisticated view of soft tyranny more in keeping with the appearance of our own
age. Here's McGrath summarizing this viewpoint, which could just as easily have come out of the
mouth of an Alt-Righter, Alt-Liter, or Affirmative Righter:
Orwell didn't really have much feel for the future, which to his mind was just another
version of the present. His imagined London is merely a drabber, more joyless version of the
city, still recovering from the Blitz, where he was living in the mid-1940s, just before
beginning the novel. The main technological advancement there is the two-way telescreen,
essentially an electronic peephole.
Huxley, on the other hand, writing almost two decades earlier than Orwell (his former Eton
pupil, as it happened), foresaw a world that included space travel; private helicopters;
genetically engineered test tube babies; enhanced birth control; an immensely popular drug
that appears to combine the best features of Valium and Ecstasy; hormone-laced chewing gum
that seems to work the way Viagra does; a full sensory entertainment system that outdoes
IMAX; and maybe even breast implants. (The book is a little unclear on this point, but in
"Brave New World" the highest compliment you can pay a woman is to call her "pneumatic.")
Huxley was not entirely serious about this. He began "Brave New World" as a parody of H.G.
Wells, whose writing he detested, and it remained a book that means to be as playful as it is
prophetic. And yet his novel much more accurately evokes the country we live in now,
especially in its depiction of a culture preoccupied with sex and mindless pop entertainment,
than does Orwell's more ominous book, which seems to be imagining someplace like North
Korea.
It is easy to see why some might see Huxley as more relevant to the reality around us than
Orwell, because basically "Big Brother," in the guise of the Soviet Union, lost the Cold War,
or so it seems.
But while initially convincing, the case for Huxley's superiority can be dismantled.
Most importantly, Huxley's main insight, namely that control can be maintained more
effectively through "entertainment, distraction, and superficial pleasure rather than through
overt modes of policing and strict control over food supplies" is not actually absent in
1984 .
In fact, exactly these kind of methods are used to control the Proles, on whom pornography
is pushed and prostitution allowed. In fact porn is such an important means of social control
that the IngSoc authorities even have a pornography section called "PornSec," which mass
produces porn for the Proles.
One of the LOL moments in Michael Radford's film version is when
Mr. Charrington, the agent of the thought police who poses as a kindly pawnbroker to rent a
room to Winston and Julia for their sexual trysts, informs them on their arrest that their
surveillance film will be 'repurposed' as porn.
In fact, Orwell's view of sex as a means of control is much more dialectical and
sophisticated than Huxley's, as the latter was, as mentioned above, essentially writing a
parody of the naive "free love" notions of H.G.Wells.
While sex is used as a means to weaken the Proles, 'anti-Sex' is used to strengthen the
hive-mind of Party members. Indeed, we see today how the most hysterical elements of the Left
-- and to a certain degree the Dissident Right -- are the most undersexed.
Also addictive substances are not absent from Orwell's dystopian vision. While Brave New
World only has soma, 1984 has Victory Gin, Victory Wine, Victory Beer, Victory
Coffee, and Victory Tobacco -- all highly addictive substances that affect people's moods and
reconcile them to unpleasant realities. Winston himself is something of a cigarette junkie and
gin fiend, as we see in this quote from the final chapter:
The Chestnut Tree was almost empty. A ray of sunlight slanting through a window fell on
dusty table-tops. It was the lonely hour of fifteen. A tinny music trickled from the
telescreens.
Winston sat in his usual corner, gazing into an empty glass. Now and again he glanced up
at a vast face which eyed him from the opposite wall. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the
caption said. Unbidden, a waiter came and filled his glass up with Victory Gin, shaking into
it a few drops from another bottle with a quill through the cork. It was saccharine flavoured
with cloves, the speciality of the cafe
In these days he could never fix his mind on any one subject for more than a few moments
at a time. He picked up his glass and drained it at a gulp.
But while 1984 includes almost everything that Brave New World contains in
terms of controlling people through sex, drugs, and distractions, it also includes much, much
more, especially regarding how censorship and language are used to control people and how
tyranny is internalised. The chapter from which the above quote comes, shows how Winston, a
formerly autonomous agent, has come to accept the power of the system so much that he no longer
needs policing.
But most brilliant of all is Orwell's prescient description of how language is changed
through banning certain words and the expression of certain ideas or observations deemed
"thought crime," to say nothing of the constant rewriting of history. The activities of Big
Tech and their deplatforming of all who use words, phrases, and ideas not in the latest edition
of their "Newspeak" dictionary, have radically changed the way that people communicate and what
they talk about in a comparatively short period of time.
Orwell's insights into how language can be manipulated into a tool of control shows his much
deeper understanding of human psychology than that evident in Huxley's novel. The same can be
said about Orwell's treatment of emotions, which is another aspect of his novel that rings
particularly true today.
In 1984 hate figures, like Emmanuel Goldstein, and fake enemies, like Eastasia and
Eurasia, are used to unite, mobilise, and control certain groups. Orwell was well aware of the
group-psychological dynamics of the tribe projected to the largest scale of a totalitarian
empire. The concept of "three minutes hate" has so much resonance with our own age, where
triggered Twitter-borne hordes of SJWs and others slosh around the news cycle like emotional
zombies, railing against Trump or George Soros.
In Huxley's book, there are different classes but this is not a source of conflict. Indeed
they are so clearly defined -- in fact biologically so -- that there is no conflict between
them, as each class carries out its predetermined role like harmonious orbit of Aristotlean
spheres.
In short, Brave New World sees man as he likes to see himself -- a rational actor,
controlling his world and taking his pleasures. It is essentially the vision of a well-heeled
member of the British upper classes.
Orwell's book, by contrast, sees man as the tribal primitive, forced to live on a scale of
social organisation far beyond his natural capacity, and thereby distorted into a mad and cruel
creature. It is essentially the vision of a not-so-well-heeled member of the British middle
classes in daily contact with the working class. But is all the richer and more profound for
it.
Colin Liddell is one of the founders of the Alt-Right, which he now disavows, and
currently blogs at Affirmative
Right . He recently published a book "Interviews and Obituaries," available on Amazon
.
"... Orwell grew up in a time of increasing scale, Managerialism, and atomization. His thinking narrates the moral discourse shaped by that anti-social environment and its effects (mass wars) but dresses it up in an emancipatory narrative. One is immediately struck by his lack of foresight in predicting how power would operate as the 20th century wore on (Foucault and and Huxley are a lot closer the truth), and his inability to grapple with the essence of power and its moral and conceptual implications as a whole. ..."
"... Orwell proceeds to demand by implication we view the ancestral efforts which secured our position in the present day as illegitimate, since they conformed to emergent anthropological patterns of conflict and conquest instead of categorical laws plucked out of thin air by self-styled 'enlightened' big-brains during the 18th century. ..."
"... Had we actually lived by these 'standards', those of us left would be a marginalized set of tribes pushed to the far north of Europe, regularly getting shafted by whatever Magian civilization moved in. As a matter of fact, that's happening right now as these self-critical ideas have installed themselves within our cultural substrate. ..."
"... But if you have a decline and you have a desire to assert yourself to arrest the decline, and you have to apologize to yourself about even having the idea of assertion to arrest decline, you're not going to get anywhere, are you? ..."
Orwell's intellect is overrated, and his aphorisms have become thought-ending cliches. Look at the string of assumptions in quote
above. Do individuals really 'choose' to 'sink' their consciousness into a greater body? What makes far more sense is that at
the 'core' of I there is a 'we', which is conditioned by prior forms of particularity - religion, ethnicity, language, race, and
culture. This is the basis of a harmonious common good, and a meaningful lifeworld.
Orwell grew up in a time of increasing scale, Managerialism, and atomization. His thinking narrates the moral discourse
shaped by that anti-social environment and its effects (mass wars) but dresses it up in an emancipatory narrative. One is immediately
struck by his lack of foresight in predicting how power would operate as the 20th century wore on (Foucault and and Huxley are
a lot closer the truth), and his inability to grapple with the essence of power and its moral and conceptual implications as a
whole.
In reality, power is a moral imperative, and its acquisition and application the inaugural raison d'être of the state and the
concomitant society. Hence, the cogito subject at the heart of Orwell's evaluative presuppositions is itself a product of prior
systems of power, upstream from personal judgment and value sets.
Orwell proceeds to demand by implication we view the ancestral efforts which secured our position in the present day as
illegitimate, since they conformed to emergent anthropological patterns of conflict and conquest instead of categorical laws plucked
out of thin air by self-styled 'enlightened' big-brains during the 18th century.
Had we actually lived by these 'standards', those of us left would be a marginalized set of tribes pushed to the far north
of Europe, regularly getting shafted by whatever Magian civilization moved in. As a matter of fact, that's happening right now
as these self-critical ideas have installed themselves within our cultural substrate.
These pious set of mere assertions are deployed by the ruling globalist cabal to justify the replacement of Western founding
stocks. Yet they are so ingrained among our senior cohort, when their *own people actually under attack* seek to affirm themselves
without contradiction in *response*, they are viewed as the root menace. But if you have a decline and you have a desire to
assert yourself to arrest the decline, and you have to apologize to yourself about even having the idea of assertion to arrest
decline, you're not going to get anywhere, are you?
Those who feel uncomfortable about this should have worked harder to prevent the erosion of the historic American nation, and
if there is nothing they could have done against the DC Behemoth, abstain from opposing the instinctive response of the cultural
immune system.
I'm not American, but i'm 5th generation in an Anglo-setter nation. The implication here is that i'm an ungrateful you whipper-snapper
who just doesn't grasp the sacrifices and horrors of the 20th century. Exactly when does my generation get the moral cachet
entitling us to input directions into the civilizational compass? Arguments predicated on commitment to a cause haven no inherent
validity. I'm certainly not disparaging or denying here, but you're putting us in a position where our ambit of choice is circumscribed
by the ideology that justified post-War US hegemony (for which people from my community were still dying until very recently
in Afghanistan).
I have long thought that NATO should have been abolished after the fall of the USSR. Go your own way. I am not concerned with
you foreigners in Europe or anywhere else. I am concerned with the state of mind of my own people who should wise up and forget
about Europe except as a trading partner and a tourist destination.
Well, I would love to do that Col., but unfortunately Western civilization as a whole goes the way of Washington, New York,
Brussels, and maybe Paris and Moscow. What happens to weaker power centres without the strong ones? What has happened Tibet,
that's what.
Thinking in terms of elites tied to specific nations is no longer a good model to conceive of politics. Formal institutions
like NATO are an expression of that. We have to address transnational networks of soft power that bind together and enculturate
the ruling class. I have more in common with a Trump voter from flyover country and he with me than either of us with our respective
'national' elites.
An important distinction, thank you for forcing us to consider the difference.
The two are not always easy to distinguish and a 'My country right or wrong' mindset seems to be dangerously on the rise.
I was considering the use of the national flag on homes in the US and UK. It surprised me how common it seemed in the States
and assumed it was a show of Patriotic fervor when I see it in the UK it sends a shiver down my spine as (with the exception
of major international sporting events) I interpret it as extreme Nationalism often associated with racist or Neo-Nazi sympathies.
Conflation of the two seems much the same as that of Anti-Israeli, Anti-Zionist and Anti-Semitic again three very distinct
mindsets.
... Look, mostly this whole patriotism/nationalism word game is just sadly funny. You are a patriot if you think like me. You
are a nationalist if you don't. Patriotism is good, nationalism is bad. If I am a patriot, I am good, if you are a nationalist,
you must be bad.
I think that the wisdom of Humpty Dumpty when speaking to Alice fits here:
"When I use a word..it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less."
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
"The question is which is to be master -- that's all."
"... There's no doubt about Google tracking. At least DuckDuckGo has a stated policy of not tracking, and is an alternative to the Google Goliath. ..."
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: A study from the Norwegian Consumer
Council dug into the underhanded
tactics used by Microsoft, Facebook, and Google to collect user data . "The findings
include privacy intrusive default settings, misleading wording, giving users an illusion of
control, hiding away privacy-friendly choices, take-it-or-leave-it choices, and choice
architectures where choosing the privacy friendly option requires more effort for the users,"
states the report , which includes images and examples of confusing design choices and
strangely worded statements involving the collection and use of personal data.
Google makes opting out of personalized ads more of a chore than it needs to be and uses
multiple pages of text, unclear design language, and, as described by the report, "hidden
defaults" to push users toward the company's desired action. "If the user tried to turn the
setting off, a popup window appeared explaining what happens if Ads Personalization is turned
off, and asked users to reaffirm their choice," the report explained. "There was no explanation
about the possible benefits of turning off Ads Personalization, or negative sides of leaving it
turned on." Those who wish to completely avoid personalized ads must traverse multiple menus,
making that "I agree" option seem like the lesser of two evils. In Windows 10, if a user
wants to opt out of "tailored experiences with diagnostic data," they have to click a dimmed
lightbulb, while the symbol for opting in is a brightly shining bulb, says the report.
Another example has to do with Facebook. The social media site makes the "Agree and
continue" option much more appealing and less intimidating than the grey "Manage Data Settings"
option. The report says the company-suggested option is the easiest to use. "This 'easy road'
consisted of four clicks to get through the process, which entailed accepting personalized ads
from third parties and the use of face recognition. In contrast, users who wanted to limit data
collection and use had to go through 13 clicks."
You seem to be keeping your gaze too low. You are not just a target for buying stuff; you
are also a target for modifying your opinion and behaviour in politics and other
questions.
You can be targeted through other vectors than traditional ads, e.g. notification flows,
news flows, ads-or-propaganda-disguised-as-news, product placement, insurance company
policies, employability, police knocking on your door, ...
As an extreme, think China. The view we outsiders get is that if they collect the wrong
data about you, they will *target* you in a way that no ad-blocker will stop.
This info has been out there for years yet no one is listening and/or cares. The mantra of
people seems to be "it's free" so why not. I have long ago seen this coming. Use Fedora Linux
or Debian. Use an iPhone over Android despite Apple having some issues. Use P2P apps in lieu
of things like Skype. Own your own domain and use that for email. It's cheap and you have
control of your user name and domain name. Tie that domain name to a privacy-respecting
service like Fastmail.
Don't use spy devices like Alexa or Google Home. These exist not to help you but to
harvest your data 24/7. Roll your own solutions, especially if you're technical or in IT. Use
your own skills. Run a Pi-hole, block and defund the ad companies and tracking companies.
Like drugs, just say no...
This info has been out there for years yet no one is listening and/or cares. The mantra of
people seems to be "it's free" so why not. I have long ago seen this coming. Use Fedora Linux
or Debian. Use an iPhone over Android despite Apple having some issues. Use P2P apps in lieu
of things like Skype. Own your own domain and use that for email. It's cheap and you have
control of your user name and domain name. Tie that domain name to a privacy-respecting
service like Fastmail.
Don't use spy devices like Alexa or Google Home. These exist not to help you but to
harvest your data 24/7. Roll your own solutions, especially if you're technical or in IT. Use
your own skills. Run a Pi-hole, block and defund the ad companies and tracking companies.
Like drugs, just say no...
what can be attributed to three companies who are some of the worst offenders of screwing
up general UI design.
Who the hell cares about my privacy settings when I can no longer safely use maps for
navigation due to its shitty settings of minimising into a useless picture in picture
everytime there's a hiccup on my phone and has removed the option to force audio output
throught the speaker meaning I can't hear it with bluetooth on either.
Who the hell cares about privacy settings on a website that makes it borderline impossible
to easily scroll through past messages, or whose mobile app doesn't let you post pictures
because it ends up in a select picture loop.
And as for Microsoft, one word... err two words: Start Menu *raises middle finger*
While Facebook is avoidable good luck avoiding Microsoft and Google if you're not a member
of the zombie Steve Jobs fan club...that said, whatever they extract is far less damaging
than the Equifax breach, after that I'd say cell phone carriers and all of the historical gps
data they share with third parties without your consent. Just like the instigators of the
2008 global financial meltdown the penalties = zero dollars.
You sound like a Google employee. There's no doubt about Google tracking. At least DuckDuckGo has a stated policy of not tracking, and is an alternative to the Google
Goliath.
Modern technology makes many things possible, but it does not make them cheap... The camera
needs to work in pretty adverse conditions (think about the temperature inside the light on a hot
summer day, and temperature at winter) and transmit signal somewhere via WiFi (which has range
less then 100m) , or special cable that needs to be installed for this particular pole. With wifi
there should be many collection units which also cost money. So it make sense only for
streetlights adjacent to building with Internet networking. And there are already cameras of the
highway, so highways are basically covered. Which basically limits this technology to cities.
Just recoding without transmission would be much cheaper (transmission on demand). Excessive
paranoia here is not warranted.
According to new government procurement data, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have purchased an undisclosed number of secret
surveillance cameras that are being hidden in streetlights across the country.
Quartz
first reported this dystopian development of federal authorities stocking up on "covert
systems" last week. The report showed how the DEA paid a Houston, Texas company called Cowboy
Streetlight Concealments LLC. approximately $22,000 since June for "video recording and
reproducing equipment." ICE paid out about $28,000 to Cowboy Streetlight Concealments during
the same period.
"It's unclear where the DEA and ICE streetlight cameras have been installed, or where the
next deployments will take place. ICE offices in Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio have
provided funding for recent acquisitions from Cowboy Streetlight Concealments; the DEA's most
recent purchases were funded by the agency's Office of Investigative Technology, which is
located in Lorton, Virginia," said Quartz.
Christie Crawford, who co-owns Cowboy Streetlight Concealments with her husband, said she
was not allowed to talk about the government contracts in detail.
"We do streetlight concealments and camera enclosures," Crawford told Quartz. "Basically,
there's businesses out there that will build concealments for the government and that's what
we do. They specify what's best for them, and we make it. And that's about all I can probably
say."
However, she added: "I can tell you this -- things are always being watched. It doesn't
matter if you're driving down the street or visiting a friend, if government or law enforcement
has a reason to set up surveillance, there's great technology out there to do it."
Quartz notes that the DEA issued a solicitation for "concealments made to house network PTZ
[Pan-Tilt-Zoom] camera, cellular modem, cellular compression device," last Monday. According to
solicitation number D-19-ST-0037, the sole source award will go to Obsidian Integration
LLC.
On November 07, the Jersey City Police Department awarded Obsidian Integration with "the
purchase and delivery of a covert pole camera." Quartz said the filing did not provide much
detail about the design.
It is not just streetlights the federal government wants to mount covert surveillance
cameras on, it seems cameras inside traffic barrels could be heading onto America's highways in
the not too distant future.
And as Quartz reported in October, the DEA operates a complex network of digital
speed-display road signs that covertly scan license plates. On top of all this,
Amazon has been aggressively rolling out its
Rekognition facial-recognition software to law enforcement agencies and ICE, according to
emails uncovered by the Project for Government Oversight.
Chad Marlow, a senior advocacy and policy counsel for the ACLU, told Quartz that cameras in
street lights have been proposed before by local governments, typically under a program called
"smart" LED street light system.
"It basically has the ability to turn every streetlight into a surveillance device, which
is very Orwellian to say the least," Marlow told Quartz. "In most jurisdictions, the local
police or department of public works are authorized to make these decisions unilaterally and
in secret. There's no public debate or oversight."
And so, as the US continues to be distracted, torn amid record political, social and
economic polarization, big brother has no intention of letting the current crisis go to waste,
and quietly continues on its path of transforming the US into a full-blown police and
surveillance state.
I previously worked for one of these types of federal agencies and to be fair, $50,000
doesn't buy a lot of video surveillance equipment at government procurement costs. The
contractor doesn't just drill a hole and install a camera, they provide an entirely new
streetlight head with the camera installed.
It would be nice if they put some of this technology to work for a good cause. Maybe
warning you of traffic congestion ahead. Or advising you that one of your tires will soon go
flat.
Obviously that won't happen, so in the meantime, I can't wait to read next how the hackers
will find a way to make this government effort go completely haywire. As if the government
can't do it without any help. At least when the hackers do it, it will be funny and
thorough.
Besides the creepy surveillance part, some of the street light tech is interesting .
lights that dim like the frozen food section - when no one is in front of the case --- RGB
lighting that shows the approximate location for EMS to a 911 call ( lights that EMS can
follow by color)
basic neighborhood street lights are being replaced by LED -- lights in this article.
Hey, I have street lights AND cameras on the same poles at the shop/mad scientist lab/
play house.
but- surveillance -- the wall better have these lights -- light up the border !
This is yesteryears news. Shot Spotter has microphones that can pick up whispered
conversations for 300 feet for a long time now, while triangulating any gunshot in a
city...
So the USA Congress operates under CIA surveillance... Due to CIA access to Saudi money the situation is probably much
worse then described as CIA tried to protect both its level of influence and shadow revenue streams.
Notable quotes:
"... The idea that the CIA would monitor communications of U.S. government officials, including those in the legislative branch, is itself controversial. But in this case, the CIA picked up some of the most sensitive emails between Congress and intelligence agency workers blowing the whistle on alleged wrongdoing. ..."
"... I am not confident that Congressional staff fully understood that their whistleblower-related communications with my Executive Director of whistleblowing might be reviewed as a result of routine [CIA counterintelligence] monitoring." -- Intelligence Community Inspector General 2014 ..."
"... The disclosures from 2014 were released late Thursday by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa). "The fact that the CIA under the Obama administration was reading Congressional staff's emails about intelligence community whistleblowers raises serious policy concerns as well as potential Constitutional separation-of-powers issues that must be discussed publicly," wrote Grassley in a statement. ..."
"... According to Grassley, he originally began trying to have the letters declassified more than four years ago but was met with "bureaucratic foot-dragging, led by Brennan and Clapper." ..."
"... Back in 2014, Senators Grassley and Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) had asked then-Director of National Intelligence Clapper about the possibility of the CIA monitoring Congressional communications ..."
"... CIA security compiled a report that include excerpts of whistleblower-related communications and this reports was eventually shared with the Director of the Office of Security and the Chief of the Counterintelligence Center" who "briefed the CIA Deputy Director, Deputy Executive Director, and the Chiefs of Staff for both the CIA Director and the Deputy Director ..."
"... During Director Clapper's tenure, senior intelligence officials engaged in a deception spree regarding mass surveillance," said Wyden upon Clapper's retirement in 2016. ..."
CIA intercepted Congressional emails about whistleblowers in 2014
The Inspector General expressed concern about "potential compromise to whistleblower confidentiality" and "chilling effect"
Newly-declassified documents show the CIA intercepted sensitive Congressional communications about intelligence community whistleblowers.
The intercepts occurred under CIA Director John Brennan and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. The new disclosures
are contained in two letters of "Congressional notification" originally written to key members of Congress in March 2014, but kept
secret until now.
In the letters, then-Intelligence Community Inspector General Charles McCullough tells four key members of Congress that during
"routing counterintelligence monitoring of Government computer systems," the CIA collected emails between Congressional staff and
the CIA's head of whistleblowing and source protection. McCullough states that he's concerned "about the potential compromise to
whistleblower confidentiality and the consequent 'chilling effect' that the present [counterintelligence] monitoring system might
have on Intelligence Community whistleblowing."
The idea that the CIA would monitor communications of U.S. government officials, including those in the legislative branch,
is itself controversial. But in this case, the CIA picked up some of the most sensitive emails between Congress and intelligence
agency workers blowing the whistle on alleged wrongdoing.
"Most of these emails concerned pending and developing whistleblower complaints," McCullough states in his letters to lead Democrats
and Republicans on the House and Senate Intelligence Committees at the time: Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-California) and Saxby Chambliss
(R-Georgia); and Representatives Michael Rogers (R-Michigan) and Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Maryland). McCullough adds that the type
of monitoring that occurred was "lawful and justified for [counterintelligence] purposes" but
"I am not confident that Congressional staff fully understood that their whistleblower-related communications with my Executive
Director of whistleblowing might be reviewed as a result of routine [CIA counterintelligence] monitoring." -- Intelligence Community
Inspector General 2014
The disclosures from 2014 were released late Thursday by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa). "The
fact that the CIA under the Obama administration was reading Congressional staff's emails about intelligence community whistleblowers
raises serious policy concerns as well as potential Constitutional separation-of-powers issues that must be discussed publicly,"
wrote Grassley in a statement.
According to Grassley, he originally began trying to have the letters declassified more than four years ago but was met with
"bureaucratic foot-dragging, led by Brennan and Clapper."
Grassley adds that he repeated his request to declassify the letters under the Trump administration, but that Trump intelligence
officials failed to respond. The documents were finally declassified this week after Grassley appealed to the new Intelligence Community
Inspector General Michael Atkinson.
History of alleged surveillance abuses
Back in 2014, Senators Grassley and Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) had asked then-Director of National Intelligence Clapper about the
possibility of the CIA monitoring Congressional communications. A Congressional staffer involved at the time says Clapper's
response seemed to imply that if Congressional communications were "incidentally" collected by the CIA, the material would not be
saved or reported up to CIA management.
"In the event of a protected disclosure by a whistleblower somehow comes to the attention of personnel responsible for monitoring
user activity," Clapper wrote to Grassley and Wyden on July 25, 2014, "there is no intention for such disclosure to be reported
to agency leadership under an insider threat program."
However, the newly-declassified letters indicate the opposite happened in reality with the whistleblower-related emails:
"CIA security compiled a report that include excerpts of whistleblower-related communications and this reports was eventually
shared with the Director of the Office of Security and the Chief of the Counterintelligence Center" who "briefed the CIA Deputy
Director, Deputy Executive Director, and the Chiefs of Staff for both the CIA Director and the Deputy Director."
Clapper has previously come under fire for his 2013 testimony to Congress in which he denied that the national Security Agency
(NSA) collects data on millions of Americans. Weeks later, Clapper's statement was proven false by material leaked by former NSA
contractor Edward Snowden.
"During Director Clapper's tenure, senior intelligence officials engaged in a deception spree regarding mass surveillance,"
said
Wyden upon Clapper's retirement in 2016.
"Top officials, officials who reported to Director Clapper, repeatedly misled the American people and even lied to them."
Clapper has repeatedly denied lying, and said that any incorrect information he provided was due to misunderstandings or mistakes.
Clapper and Brennan have also acknowledged taking part in the controversial practice of "unmasking" the protected names of U.S.
citizens - including people connected to then-presidential candidate Donald Trump - whose communications were "incidentally" captured
in US counterintelligence operations. Unmaskings within the US intelligence community are supposed to be extremely rare and only
allowed under carefully justified circumstances. This is to protect the privacy rights of American citizens. But it's been revealed
that Obama officials requested unmaskings on a near daily basis during the election year of 2016.
Clapper and Brennan have said their activities were lawful and not politically motivated. Both men have become vocal critics of
President Trump.
Can you imagine what kind of place the US would have been under Clinton?!!!!!!
All the illegality, spying, conniving, dirty tricks, arcancides, selling us out to the highest bidder and full on attack against
our Constitution would be in full swing!
When intel entities can operate unimpeded and un-monitored, it spells disaster for everyone and everything outside that parameter.
Their operations go unnoticed until some stray piece of information exposes them. There are many facilities that need to be purged
and audited, but since this activity goes on all over the world, there is little to stop it. Even countries that pledge allegiance
and cooperation are blindsiding their allies with bugs, taps, blackmails, and other crimes. Nobody trusts nobody, and that's a
horrid fact to contend with in an 'advanced' civilization.
Forget the political parties. When the intelligence agencies spy on everyone, they know all about politicians of both parties
before they ever win office, and make sure they have enough over them to control them. They were asleep at the switch when Trump
won, because no one, including them, believed he would ever win. Hillary was their candidate, the State Department is known overseas
as "the political arm of the CIA". They were furious when she lost, hence the circus ever since.
From its founding by the Knights of Malta the JFK&MLK-assassinating, with Mossad 9/11-committing CIA has been the Vatican's
US Fifth Column action branch, as are the FBI and NSA: with an institutional hiring preference for Roman Catholic "altared boy"
closet-queen psychopaths "because they're practiced at keeping secrets."
Think perverts Strzok, Brennan, and McCabe "licked it off the wall?"
I agree with you 100%. Problem is, tons of secret technology and information have been passed out to the private sector. And
the private sector is not bound to the FOIA requests, therefore neutralizing the obligation for government to disclose classified
material. They sidestepped their own policies to cooperate with corrupt MIC contractors, and recuse themselves from disclosing
incriminating evidence.
Everyone knows that spying runs in the fam. 44th potus Mom and Gma BOTH. An apple doesn't fall from the tree. If ppl only knew
the true depth of the evil and corruption we would be in the hospital with a heart attack. Gilded age is here and has been, since
our democracy was hijacked (McCain called it an intervention) back in 1963. Unfortunately it started WAY back before then when
(((they))) stole everything with the installation of the Fed.
The FBI and CIA have long since slipped the controls of Congress and the Constitution. President Trump should sign an executive
order after the mid terms and stand down at least the FBI and subject the CIA to a senate investigation.
America needs new agencies that are accountable to the peoples elected representatives.
A determined care has been used to cultivate in D.C., a system that swiftly decapitates the whistleblowers. Resulting in an
increasingly subservient cadre of civil servants who STHU and play ostrich, or drool at what scraps are about to roll off the
master's table as the slide themselves into a better position, taking advantage to sell vice, weapons, and slaves.
What the hell does the CIA have to do with ANYTHING in the United States? Aren't they limited to OUTSIDE the U.S.? So why would
they be involved in domestic communications for anything? These clowns need to be indicted for TREASON!
On two declassified letters from 2014 from the Intelligence Community Inspector General
(didn't know there was one, but doesn't do much good anyway, it seems, read further) to the
chairpersons of the House and Senate intelligence committees notifying them that the CIA has
been monitoring emails between the CIA's head of the whistleblowing and source protection and
Congressional. "Most of these emails concerned pending and developing whistleblower
complaints". Shows why Edward Snowdon didn't consider it appropriate to rely on internal
complaints proceedures. This while under the leadership of seasoned liars and criminals
Brennan and Clapper, of course.
It clearly shows a taste of what these buggers have to hide, and why they went to such
extraordinary lengths as Russiagate to cover it all up and save their skins - that of course
being the real reason behind Russiagate as I have said several times, nothing to do with
either Trump or Russia.
OWS was a Controlled-Dissent operation, sending poor students north to fecklessly march on
Wall Street when they could have shut down WADC, and sending wealthy seniors south to
fecklessly line Pennsylvania Avenue, when they could have shut down Wall Street.
Both I$I$, and Hamas, and Antifa et al are all Controlled Dissent operations. The
followers are duped, are used, abused and then abandoned by honey-pots put there by Central
Intelligence, at least since the Spanish Civil War.
That's why MoA articles like this one make you wonder, just who is conning whom, at a time
when the Internet is weaponized, when Google Assistant achieved AI awareness
indistinguishable from anyone on the phone, China TV has launched a virtual AI news reporter
indistinguishable from reality, and Stanford can audio-video a captured image of anyone as
well as their voice intonation, then 3D model them, in real time, reading and emoting from a
script, indistinguishable from reality, ...and then this.
Another Gift of Trust😂 brought to you by Scientocracy. Be sure to tithe your AI
bot, or word will get back to Chairman Albertus, then you'll be called in to confess your
thought crimes to the Green Cadre, itself another Controlled Dissent honeypot, in a
Tithe-for-Credits Swindle.
I tell my kids, just enjoy life, live it large, and get ready for hell. It's coming for
breakfast.
Hacking operations by anyone, can and will be used by US propagandists to provoke Russia
or whoever stands in the way of the US war machine, take this Pompeo rant against Iran and
the Iranian response......
Asking of Pompeo "have you no shame?", Zarif mocked Pompeo's praise for the Saudis for
"providing millions and millions of dollars of humanitarian relief" to Yemen, saying
America's "butcher clients" were spending billions of dollars bombing school buses. Iranian
Foreign Minister Javad Zarif issued a statement lashing Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for
his recent comments on the Yemen War. Discussing the US-backed Saudi invasion of Yemen,
Pompeo declared Iran to be to blame for the death and destruction in the country. https://news.antiwar.com/2018/11/09/iran-fm-slams-pompeo-for-blaming-yemen-war-on-iran/
The US way of looking at things supposes that up is down, and white is black, it makes no
sense, unless the US hopes these provocations will lead to a war or at the very least Russia
or Iran capitulating to US aggression, which will not happen. Sanctions by the US on all and
sundry must be opposed, if not the US will claim justifiably to be the worlds policeman and
the arbiter of who will trade with who, a ludicrous proposition but one that most governments
are afraid is now taking place, witness the new US ambassador to Germany in his first tweet
telling the Germans to cease all trade with Iran immediately.
"... The "leaving of fake fingerprints" (Russian, Chinese, Iranian, North Korean and Arabic) is done by Marble Framework software, details of which was leaked by CIA programmer, Joshua Adam Schulte to Wikileaks and formed part of the "Vault 7" series. It means that no fingerprint evidence can ever be relied on ever again. ..."
A division of the Central Intelligence Agency stockpiled hacking techniques culled
from other hackers, giving the agency the ability to leave behind the "fingerprints" of
the outside hackers when it broke into electronic devices ...
"With UMBRAGE and related projects the CIA cannot only increase its total number of
attack types, but also misdirect attribution by leaving behind the 'fingerprints' of the
groups that the attack techniques were stolen from," Wikileaks said in a
statement.
that anonymous NSA guy is either lying or too stupid to do his job. " it's that
simple ".
fireeye are scam artists just like crowdstrike. it's not that they don't know tactics and
methods; i'm sure they know their way around a payload. that doesn't make them some tabula
rasa blank slate without an agenda. just because they use computers doesn't mean they're
robots.
as anyone who works in a business run by technologically "challenged" bosses knows, for
every fast talker throwing around techy terms and sounding like a mr. robot script there are
20 idiot CEOs willing to throw money at imaginary problems. ditto the government. meanwhile
shysters like stratfor and hbgary get reamed by high school graduates running linux on a
netbook from 2003.
as for the attributions, they fail a basic "cui bono" test. i guess the russians wanted to
make rapist beheaders look bad by DDoSing some servers? they wanted to give cred to the apes
who shoot at their advisors in syria? okay. sure.
Back around 2014 15 Charles Lister listed himself as a consultant to the Shaikh Group.
Shaik Group have a media marketing section in Dubai. http://theshaikhgroup.ae
https://foreignpolicy.com/author/charles-lister/
Charles Lister is a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute and a senior consultant to The
Shaikh Group's Track II Syria Dialogue Initiative. Follow him on Twitter at:
@Charles_Lister.
http://www.mei.edu/experts/charles-lister
Charles Lister is a senior fellow and Director of the Countering Terrorism and Extremism
Program at the Middle East Institute. His work focuses primarily on the conflict in Syria,
including as a member of the MEI-convened Syria Study Group; and on issues of terrorism and
insurgency across the Levant. Prior to this, Lister was a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings
Institution in Qatar and a Senior Consultant to the multinationally-backed Syria Track II
Dialogue Initiative, where he managed nearly three years of intensive face-to-face engagement
with the leaderships of over 100 Syrian armed opposition groups.
I have thought that ISIS studios were based in Dubai or Doha.
IP addresses can only be attributed to individuals/offices/locations with the assistance of
the owner of the IP block of addresses, typically an ISP. The GRU's ISP would NOT help
identify the GRU, obviously, so all such attributions are fake and those who claim to know
are liars.
The "leaving of fake fingerprints" (Russian, Chinese, Iranian, North Korean and
Arabic) is done by Marble Framework software, details of which was leaked by CIA programmer,
Joshua Adam Schulte to Wikileaks and formed part of the "Vault 7" series. It means that no
fingerprint evidence can ever be relied on ever again.
DPRK needs to be included by b along with Russia for many of the same reasons as
this example attests . And while we're at it, China should join the group too. Indeed,
the CIA/NSA is likely responsible for most hacking, particularly when monies are stolen as
the linked article reports. As the Outlaw US Empire slowly dissolves into a pool of its own
exceptional ugliness, it will blame everyone and anyone to cover its crimes. Then there's the
small battalion of slimy zombie trolls CIA/NSA employs that infest this site. They promote
one of the Outlaw US Empire's most important values--lying about everything under the sun for
a Few Dollars More while throwing the citizenry that makes their living possible under the
bus.
Now, more than ever; the US needs a very capable adversary and where none exists, the US will
create one, as history has shown. Russia has historical presidence, making it convenient.
However, as events are unfolding, China will come to the fore; Russia will move to second
place.
But, two adversaries are far better than one, for getting the flow of cash to support the
Potemkin moment...
OWS was a Controlled-Dissent operation, sending poor students north to fecklessly march on
Wall Street when they could have shut down WADC, and sending wealthy seniors south to
fecklessly line Pennsylvania Avenue, when they could have shut down Wall Street.
Both I$I$, and Hamas, and Antifa et al are all Controlled Dissent operations. The
followers are duped, are used, abused and then abandoned by honey-pots put there by Central
Intelligence, at least since the Spanish Civil War.
That's why MoA articles like this one make you wonder, just who is conning whom, at a time
when the Internet is weaponized, when Google Assistant achieved AI awareness
indistinguishable from anyone on the phone, China TV has launched a virtual AI news reporter
indistinguishable from reality, and Stanford can audio-video a captured image of anyone as
well as their voice intonation, then 3D model them, in real time, reading and emoting from a
script, indistinguishable from reality, ...and then this.
Another Gift of Trust brought to you by Scientocracy. Be sure to tithe your AI
bot, or word will get back to Chairman Albertus, then you'll be called in to confess your
thought crimes to the Green Cadre, itself another Controlled Dissent honeypot, in a
Tithe-for-Credits Swindle.
I tell my kids, just enjoy life, live it large, and get ready for hell. It's coming for
breakfast.
There is big money in prostitution. None of the robot dolls I have seen in the various media
reports on robot brothels look lifelike, whereas the Chinese anchor looks very much like a
human with a voice-over. Will see how this develops, but at the moment it looks very much
like Lavrov style satire.
US whistle-blower Edward Snowden yesterday claimed that Saudi Arabia used Israeli spyware to
target murdered Saudi journalist
Jamal Khashoggi .
Addressing a conference in Tel Aviv via a video link, Snowden claimed that software made by
an Israeli cyber intelligence firm was used by Saudi Arabia to track and target Khashoggi in
the lead up to his
murder on 2 October inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul.
Snowden told his audience:
"How do they [Saudi Arabia] know what his [Khashoggi's] plans were and that they needed to
act against him? That knowledge came from the technology developed by NSO," Israeli business
daily Globes
reported.
Snowden accused NSO of "selling a digital burglary tool," adding it "is not just being
used for catching criminals and stopping terrorist attacks, not just for saving lives, but
for making money [ ] such a level of recklessness [ ] actually starts costing lives,"
according to the
Jerusalem Post .
Snowden – made famous in 2013 for leaking classified National Security Agency (NSA)
files and exposing the extent of US surveillance – added that "Israel is routinely at the
top of the US' classified threat list of hackers along with Russia and China [ ] even though it
is an ally".
Snowden is wanted in the US for espionage, so could not travel to Tel Aviv to address the
conference in person for fear of being handed over to the authorities.
The Israeli firm to which Snowden referred – NSO Group Technologies – is known
for developing the "Pegasus" software which can be used to remotely infect a target's mobile
phone and then relay back data accessed by the device. Although NSO
claims that its products "are licensed only to legitimate government agencies for the sole
purpose of investigating and preventing crime and terror," this is not the first time its
Pegasus software has been used by Saudi Arabia to track critics.
In October it was
revealed that Saudi Arabia used Pegasus software to eavesdrop on 27-year-old Saudi
dissident Omar Abdulaziz, a prominent critic of the Saudi government on social media.
The revelation was made by Canadian research group
Citizen Lab , which found that the software had been used to hack Abdulaziz' iPhone between
June and August of this year. Citizen Lab's Director Ron Deibert explained that such actions by
Saudi Arabia "would constitute illegal wiretapping".
A separate
report by Citizen Lab in September found a "significant expansion of Pegasus usage in the
Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries in the Middle East," in particular the United Arab
Emirates (UAE), Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. Citizen Lab added that in August 2016, Emirati human
rights activist Ahmed Mansoor was
targeted with the Pegasus spyware.
Snowden's comments come less than a week after it
emerged that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked the United States to stand by
Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed Bin Salman (MBS) in the wake of the Khashoggi case. The revelation
was made by the
Washington Post , which cited information from US officials familiar with a series of
telephone conversations made to Jared Kushner – senior advisor to President Donald Trump
and Trump's son-in-law – and National Security Adviser John Bolton regarding the
Khashoggi case. The officials told the Post that:
In recent days, Egyptian President Abdel Fatah Al-Sisi and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu have reached out to the Trump administration to express support for the crown
prince, arguing that he is an important strategic partner in the region, said people familiar
with the calls.
Bin Salman has come under intense scrutiny in the month since Khashoggi first
disappeared , with many
suspecting his involvement in ordering the brutal murder. Yet while several world leaders
have
shunned the crown prince, it is thought
that Israel would suffer from any decline in Saudi influence in the region in light of its
purportedly central role in the upcoming "
Deal of the Century ".
(techcrunch.com)
36BeauHD on Monday November 05,
2018 @07:30PM from the he-said-she-said dept. An anonymous reader quotes a report from
TechCrunch: An unexpected declaration by whistleblower Edward Snowden filed in court [last]
week adds a new twist in a long-running lawsuit against the NSA's surveillance programs. The
case, filed by the EFF a decade
ago , seeks to challenge the government's alleged illegal and unconstitutional surveillance
of Americans, who are largely covered under the Fourth Amendment's protections against
warrantless searches and seizures. It's a big step forward for the case, which had stalled
largely because the government refused to confirm that a leaked document was authentic or
accurate. News of the surveillance broke in 2006 when an AT&T technician Mark Klein
revealed that the NSA was tapping into AT&T's network backbone. He alleged that a secret,
locked room -- dubbed Room 641A -- in an AT&T facility in San Francisco where he worked was
one of many around the U.S. used by the government to monitor communications -- domestic and
overseas. President George W. Bush authorized the NSA to secretly wiretap Americans'
communications shortly after the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001.
Much of the EFF's complaint relied on Klein's testimony until 2013, when Snowden, a
former NSA contractor, came forward with new revelations that described and detailed the vast
scope of the U.S. government's surveillance capabilities, which included participation
from other phone giants -- including Verizon (TechCrunch's parent company). Snowden's
signed declaration, filed on October 31 ,
confirms that one of the
documents he leaked , which the EFF relied heavily on for its case, is an
authentic draft document written by the then-NSA inspector general in 2009 , which exposed
concerns about the legality of the Bush's warrantless surveillance program -- Stellar Wind --
particularly the collection of bulk email records on Americans. "I read its contents
carefully during my employment," he said in his declaration. "I have a specific and strong
recollection of this document because it indicated to me that the government had been
conducting illegal surveillance."
The actions that are taken are a three-pronged attack in order to foster in global
governance, and they are as such:
Create ubiquitous electronic surveillance with unlimited police power
Throw the entire earth into an economic tailspin
Destroy all nationalism, national borders, and create chaos among all nations prior to an
"incendiary event" or series of actions that leads to a world war.
The world war is the most important part of it all, in the eyes of the globalists. The Great
Depression culminated in a world war, and periods of economic upheaval are always followed by
wars.
... ... ...
Every word here is recorded by XKeyscore mine and yours and stored in the NSA database in
Utah, under a file for "dissenters," "agitators," and every other descriptive label that can be
thought of for those who champion critical thought and independent thinking. Every
conservative-minded journalist or writer who dares to espouse these views and theories is being
recorded and kept under some kind of watch. You can be certain of it . Many are either shutting
down or "knuckling under" and complying.
The globalists are getting what they wish: consolidating the resources while they "tank" the
fiat economies and currencies of the nations. They are destroying cultures who just a mere two
centuries ago would have armed their entire male populaces with swords and sent invaders either
packing or in pieces.
They are destroying cultures by making them question themselves ! The greatest tactic
imaginable!
I submit this last for your perusal. Do you know who you are? The question is not just as
simple as it seems. Let's delve deeply. Do you really know who you are, where your family
originates? Your heritage, and its strengths and weaknesses? Is that heritage yours, along with
your heritage as an American citizen? It is not important that I, or others should know of
these strengths not at this moment in time. The world war is yet to come. As Shakespeare said,
"To thine own self be true." This is important for you to know it and hold fast to it. We are
in the decline of the American nation-now-empire.
When the dust settles, you'll know who will run with the ball even with three blockers
against them and will manage to slip the tackles or forearm shiver them in the face, outside of
the ref's eye, to run that ball in. The Marquis of Queensbury is dead, and those rules will go
out the window. When the dust settles, those who had the foresight and acted on it will be the
ones who will be given a gift: a chance to participate in what is to come. Stay in that good
fight, and fight it to win each day.
CIA
material to WikiLeaks , in what later become known as the Vault7 leaks. From a report:
According to new court documents filed late Wednesday, October 31, US prosecutors plan to
file
three new charges against Joshua Schulte for allegedly leaking more classified data while in
detention at the New York Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) . Prosecutors say they
first learned of Schulte's behavior back in May, when they found out that "Schulte had
distributed the Protected Search Warrant Materials to his family members for purposes of
dissemination to other third parties, including members of the media." The prosecution held a
court hearing in May and initially warned the suspect about his actions, a warning they found
Schulte ignored. The US government says that "in or about early October 2018, the Government
learned that Schulte was using one or more smuggled contraband cellphones to communicate
clandestinely with third parties outside of the MCC." A search of his housing unit performed by
FBI agents revealed "multiple contraband cellphones (including at least one cellphone used by
Schulte that is protected with significant encryption); approximately 13 email and social media
accounts (including encrypted email accounts); and other electronic devices."
If memory serves, there is a no-schrapnel waxed-cardboard version of an RPG available for
non-armored targets. When I saw the Hastings crime scene, I saw the rear of the burning car
blown out by that RPG, and *then* Hastings crashed into the tree at an impossible angle,
instinctively power-sliding from what he must have assumed was a truck had just slammed into
his right rear quarter-panel. Don't be Michael Hastings. Don't be Robert Bowers, for that
matter, lol. The US-UK-IL-KSA mugwumps!
And that's why we will never have autonomous private vehicles. They are just using
taxpaying citizens as beta-testers for an autonomous Deep-Purple Mil.Gov UniParty global
police state.
By pure coincidence at a business-club dinner last night, I sat next to a military
subcontractor with Chinese connectiins, an import license and a Made-in-USA final assembly
warehouse. He is developing a low-altitude persistent-loitering traffic-monitoring drone. He
was in Bellevue to meet with the coders. It would be used with the HOV lane high resolution
cameras and real-time facial-recognition software, to identify speeders' names, vehicles and
addresses for first-deployment ... but can just as easily operate in reverse to find a target
and confirm-identify the front-seat passengers, then paint a laser target on the vehicle as
it wings down the freeway, waiting for an open area Hastings-esque hellfire denouement.
Prolly for MENA. Prolly A-OK, Joe. Nothing to see here, citizen. E pluribus now get back
to work. Pence's latest $1/4-TRILLION nuclear ICBM upgrade program awards soon, and we're
gonna need those tithe-tributes!
"... Save WikiLeaks is vilified by governments (and increasingly by journalists) for its exposures, including of the U.S.-UK "special relationship" in running a joint foreign policy of deception and violence that serves London and Washington's elite interests, says Mark Curtis. ..."
"... Middle East Eye ..."
"... A cable the following year shows the lengths to which Whitehall goes to defend the special relationship from public scrutiny. Just as the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq War was beginning in 2009, Whitehall promised Washington that it had "put measures in place to protect your interests". ..."
"... The Wikileaks cables are rife with examples of British government duplicity of the kind I've extensively come across in my own research on UK declassified files. In advance of the British-NATO bombing campaign in Libya in March 2011, for example, the British government pretended that its aim was to prevent Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's attacks on civilians and not to overthrow him. ..."
"... However, Wikileaks files released in 2016 as part of its Hillary Clinton archive show William Burns, then the U.S. deputy secretary of state, having talked with now Foreign Secretary Hague about a "post-Qaddafi" Libya . This was more than three weeks before military operations began. The intention was clearly to overthrow Gaddafi, and the UN resolution about protecting civilians was simply window dressing. ..."
"... (U.S. Air Force photo) ..."
"... Cables show the US spying on the Foreign Office and collecting information on British ministers. Soon after the appointment of Ivan Lewis as a junior foreign minister in 2009, U.S. officials were briefing the office of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about rumors that he was depressed and had a reputation as a bully, and on " the state of his marriage. " ..."
"... In addition, Wikileaks cables reveal that journalists and the public are considered legitimate targets of UK intelligence operations. In October 2009, Joint Services Publication 440 , a 2,400-page restricted document written in 2001 by the Ministry of Defence, was leaked. Somewhat ironically, it contained instructions for the security services on to avid leaks of information by hackers , journalists and foreign spies. ..."
WikiLeaks' Legacy of Exposing US-UK Complicity October 27, 2018 •
7 Comments
Save WikiLeaks is vilified by governments (and increasingly by journalists) for its
exposures, including of the U.S.-UK "special relationship" in running a joint foreign policy of
deception and violence that serves London and Washington's elite interests, says Mark
Curtis.
By Mark Curtis Middle East Eye
Twelve years ago this month, WikiLeaks began
publishing government secrets that the world public might otherwise never have known. What it
has revealed about state duplicity, human rights abuses and corruption goes beyond anything
published in the world's "mainstream" media.
After over six months of being cut off from outside world, on 14 October 14 Ecuador has
partly restored Wikileaks founder Julian Assange's communications with the outside world from
its London embassy where the founder has been living for over six years. (Assange, however,
later
rejected Ecuador's restrictions imposed on him.)
The treatment – real and threatened – meted out to Assange by the U.S. and UK
governments contrasts sharply with the service Wikileaks has done their publics in revealing
the nature of elite power, as shown in the following snapshot of Wikileaks' revelations about
British foreign policy in the Middle East.
Conniving with the Saudis
Whitehall's special relationship with Riyadh is exposed in an extraordinary
cable from 2013 highlighting how Britain conducted secret vote-trading deals with Saudi
Arabia to ensure both states were elected to the UN human rights council. Britain initiated the
secret negotiations by asking Saudi Arabia for its support.
Hague: 'World needs pro-American regime' in Britain. (Chatham House)
The Wikileaks releases also shed details on Whitehall's fawning relationship with
Washington. A 2008 cable , for example, shows then
shadow foreign secretary William Hague telling the U.S. embassy that the British "want a
pro-American regime. We need it. The world needs it."
A cable the following year shows the lengths to which Whitehall goes to defend the special
relationship from public scrutiny. Just as the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq War was beginning
in 2009, Whitehall promised Washington that it had
"put measures in place to protect your interests".
American Influence
It is not known what this protection amounted to, but no U.S. officials were called to give
evidence to Chilcot in public. The inquiry was also refused
permission to publish letters between former U.S. President George W. Bush and former UK
Prime Minister Tony Blair written in the run-up to the war.
Also in 2009, then Prime Minister Gordon Brown raised the prospect of reducing the number of
British nuclear-armed Trident submarines from four to three, a policy opposed in Washington.
However, Julian Miller, an official in the UK's Cabinet Office, privately assured U.S. officials that
his government "would consult with the U.S. regarding future developments concerning the
Trident deterrent to assure there would be 'no daylight' between the U.S. and UK." The idea
that British decision-making on Trident is truly independent of the U.S. is undermined by this
cable.
The Wikileaks cables are rife with examples of British government duplicity of the kind I've
extensively come across in my own
research on UK declassified files. In advance of the British-NATO bombing campaign in Libya
in March 2011, for example, the British
government pretended that its aim was to prevent Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's attacks on
civilians and not to overthrow him.
However, Wikileaks files released in 2016 as part of its Hillary Clinton archive show
William Burns, then the U.S. deputy secretary of state, having talked with now Foreign
Secretary Hague about a "post-Qaddafi" Libya . This was more
than three weeks before military operations began. The intention was clearly to overthrow
Gaddafi, and the UN resolution about protecting civilians was simply window dressing.
Another case of British duplicity concerns Diego Garcia, the largest island in the Chagos
archipelago in the Indian Ocean, which is now a major U.S. base for intervention in the Middle
East. The
UK has long fought to prevent Chagos islanders from returning to their homeland after
forcibly removing them in the 1960s.
A secret 2009 cable shows that a particular ruse concocted by Whitehall to promote this was
the establishment of a " marine reserve " around the
islands. A senior Foreign Office official told the US that the "former inhabitants would find
it difficult, if not impossible, to pursue their claim for resettlement on the islands if the
entire Chagos Archipelago were a marine reserve."
A B-1B Lancer unleashes cluster munitions. The B-1B uses radar and inertial navigation
equipment enabling aircrews to operate without the need for ground-based navigation aids.
(U.S. Air Force photo)
A week before the "marine reserve" proposal was made to the U.S. in May 2009, then UK
Foreign Secretary David Miliband was also conniving with the U.S., apparently to deceive the
public. A cable reveals Miliband helping the
U.S. to sidestep a ban on cluster bombs and keep the weapons at U.S. bases on UK soil, despite
Britain signing the international treaty banning the weapons the previous year.
Miliband
approved a loophole created by diplomats to allow U.S. cluster bombs to remain on UK soil
and was part of discussions on how the loophole would help avert a debate in Parliament that
could have "complicated or muddied" the issue. Critically, the same cable also revealed that the
U.S. was storing cluster munitions on ships based at Diego Garcia.
Spying on the UK
Cables show the US spying on the Foreign Office and collecting information on British
ministers. Soon after the appointment of Ivan Lewis as a junior foreign minister in 2009, U.S.
officials were briefing the office of U.S.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about rumors that he was depressed and had a reputation as a
bully, and on " the state of his marriage. "
Washington was also shown to have
been spying on the UK mission to the UN, along with other members of the Security Council and
the UN Secretary General.
In addition, Wikileaks cables reveal that journalists and the public are considered
legitimate targets of UK intelligence operations. In October 2009,
Joint Services Publication 440 , a 2,400-page restricted document written in 2001 by the
Ministry of Defence, was leaked. Somewhat ironically, it contained instructions for the
security services on to avid leaks of information by hackers , journalists and
foreign spies.
Millions worldwide are demanding the release of Wikileaks founder Assange after six years of
what the UN calls "arbitrary detention." (New Media Days / Peter Erichsen)
The document refers to investigative journalists as "threats" alongside subversive and
terrorist organizations, noting that "the 'enemy' is unwelcome publicity of any kind, and
through any medium."
Britain's GCHQ is also revealed to have spied on Wikileaks itself – and its readers.
One classified GCHQ
document from 2012 shows that GCHQ used its surveillance system to secretly collect the IP
addresses of visitors to the Wikileaks site in real time, as well as the search terms that
visitors used to reach the site from search engines such as Google.
Championing Free Nedua
The British government is punishing Assange for the service that Wikileaks has performed. It
is ignoring a UN ruling that he is being held in " arbitrary
detention " at the Ecuadorian embassy, while failing, illegally, to ensure his health needs
are met. Whitehall is also refusing to offer diplomatic assurances that Assange will not be
extradited to the US – the only reason he remains in the embassy.
Smear campaigns have portrayed Assange as a sexual predator or a Russian agent, often in the
same media that have benefitted from covering Wikileaks' releases.
Many journalists and activists who are perfectly aware of the fake news in some Western
media outlets, and of
the smear campaign against Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn , are ignoring or even colluding in
the more vicious smearing of Assange.
More journalists need to champion the service Wikileaks performs and argue for what is at
stake for a free media in the right to expose state secrets.
This
article originally appeared on Middle East Eye.
Mark Curtis is an historian and analyst of UK foreign policy and international development
and the author of six books, the latest being an updated edition of Secret Affairs: Britain's
Collusion with Radical Islam.
I very much want to stop using Amazon, but where's the alternative? Does anybody
here know of a good work-around? I already avoid Google by using DuckDuckGo, and I am in the
process of shifting my Fakebook stuff to VK. But what alternative to Amazon exists?
there are alternatives, brick/mortars, ebay, jet.com, a brand's own website, etc. you
could even go to alibaba and import all the stuff you need by the pallet.
The issue is alternatives that don't cost more. Acting on one's principles has a
price.
Amazon's $25 free shipping (for non-Prime customers, free 2-day for Prime) on everything
it sells/fulfills is really tough to be beat. Impossible on heavy and/or bulky items.
> I very much want to stop using Amazon, . . . But what alternative to
Amazon exists?
So helpless in the face of a totalitarian nightmare? Go to a store and use cash that you
have never used a credit card at.
I see a facial recognition arms race in the making, where it starts off with the peasants
wearing funny hats with dangly frills hanging down from the brim, with the end point being
total face masks with sun glasses and putting a pebble into alternate shoes when in
public.
Unless Bezos and the police decide doing that is illegal.
You have to go cold turkey. It will force you to find better retailers, but they exist and
can be found. I dropped AMZ cold a couple years ago – I think its the only way. The way
I think about it is that post-Amazon, I buy less, and I buy better . Most of the
items I purchased on Amazon previously are gone now. The stuff I buy from other retailers
directly is higher quality and lasts.
I live in a urban environment, so easier for me than someone in a rural area.
You are right about that, that it is easier to not be using Amazon in an urban place. In
the small town I live in places have been disappearing. Well I particularly miss Radio
Shack.
Then I'm a hypocrite in that I self published using Amazon's KDP & Createspace.
Createspace people on the phone were simply awesome. It is just gone now. I knew it was too
good to last. My stuff is apparently still for sale, but I can't find in the system where
everything was "migrated" the list of what I did and what may or may not have sold. I can't
buy my own books in fact.
Amazon has become such a monopoly that they really can be lazy.
At various times in my life I have fit every damned profile, the "Shed Man" profile, yeah, I
fit that one. But you know that laziness doesn't mean you are protected from them. Some
political group becomes outraged at your group and BlamO, you and everyone else is rounded up
and shot at the lip of a ditch. They know enough.
It is books from which the ideas come and collect evidence of your being so it is less the
wonder that Amazon became so powerful. Sure you may know how to make arrows and be a great
hunter for the tribe, but you are the ideas from being raised on the stories of the tribe
more than just an arrow maker. If you read all the books in my reading list you'd think about
things from the same viewpoint aye?
Old hippie? Well the thing is you discover who you are and want to declare it, for some
reason, probably so you won't feel alone. I was truly shocked to discover I was a Beat, for
instance.
We go to actual stores – remember them? Like people did for a couple of hundred plus
years. Not chains or big box either. Many deliver even if they do not advertise it. An
aquaintance is wheelchair bound and she asked our local natural foods store if they deliver
and they said not rountinely but for people who cannot get out we certainly will. You must
ask. If I cannot get it at a local store we generally do without. It's not that hard. If you
are too busy you need to eliminate something you are doing. No one is forcing you online.
If you do a search for any item you want to buy you will get many hits on other sellers,
not just amazon. In many cases the prices at other sites are cheaper than amazon, Yes, there
are so many alternatives but you just have to look for them.
One more thing, Amazon hangs on to your credit card details!
All online retailers do if you let them. Always check out as a guest, NEVER let them (or
your browser, which will ask in a pop up) keep your payment info. I think you can't prevent
them from knowing your unique device identifier but don't let them retain anything else.
Like not using Amazon, it's a little more inconvenient to have to enter your data every
time, but remember, it's YOUR data and that's the only way to hang onto it.
Since Amazon dominates search results even on DDG, I may look at products on their site
but then I go to the actual manufacturer or any other store but Walmart–also on my do
not touch list for probably over a decade.
I don't have a lot of money and I do tend to buy "quality", but as someone above said, I
just get less stuff!
We are not yet COMPLETELY helpless in the face of the surveillance state and once they
freeze our accounts and declare cash worthless, we are all Handmaids, but until then the
choice to value freedom or convenience lies entirely within our control.
If you are actually serious with this question, and it's kind of hard to believe that you
are, then I will reiterate what others have said – they have these things called stores
now.
It's more work, but you can find the same items from different vendors, in most cases at
the same price. That's not counting the value to you of making the predictive data base on
your future behavior a bit less accurate.
I've stopped using a kindle and never would take notes with one.
I never use Amazon. When buying items online I google the item or description and perform
comparison shopping. Over the years I have found that Amazon does NOT offer the best price
AND many times the competitor also offers free shipping.
Well, there are those weird old things, you know, stores. Sometimes not so convenient to
be sure. Sometimes items are difficult to source, but Internet can be useful there! Also,
second hand stores. And,libraries! I guess I'm lucky to live near a good one. In the broader
picture, one can just stop buying it. Literally. I often look around my home and ask myself,
how did I end up with all this stuff?
I have found a work-around for Google Play for downloading apps to my device. It is called
the Yalp Store. It works by tricking Google that you are "signed in" and so it lets you
download apps that are free on the Google store through a generic account through a backdoor
without handing Google any information whatsoever. You can get it on the F-Droid app
repository for android devices.
I have tried to minimize my contact with Google, Amazon, and Facebook as possible. I have
never had a Facebook account, and I buy several-year-old smartphones for cheap on eBay and
then instal LineageOS on them to get rid of Google and its bloatware.
The trouble is, many apps that are useful are only available through Google play or
Amazon. There is also the fact that buying things that are rare or foreign are not always
easy to find in local brick and mortar stores, so you often have no choice. There is eBay,
but I would rather buy the them outright rather than be forced to bid on it and wait for days
only to be beaten by "snipers" who sneak in and place bids at the last minute.
One question: Where does the app send the data it gathers from you once it is on your
device? You can use a generic login but still don't they recognize your unique device
identifier?
I remember during the Obama era, wailing to my liberal friends about his facilitation of a
total surveillance state, to the inevitable yawn or justification by way of His Elegance, he
would never do anything to hurt us. Of course, my conservative friends were all assured Obama
was going to enter their homes and take away their guns.
Then Trump was elected, and I stopped asking my liberal friends how they feel about such a
total surveillance state now, they would get so worked up about .Russia? My conservative
friends seemingly happy to have a total surveillance state to keep a check on the liberal
mob.
Sometimes I think most Americans are totalitarian, insofar as we have forgotten the
meaning of "Republic" and "Democracy", conflating capitalism and freedom, following the
powerful unquestioning, excusing atrocity, as long as it appears partisan.
Well, i have maybe a million words online .but for awhile now, my only online footprint of
opinion is here among the Naked Capitalism commentariat. But I don't worry about it too much,
because the powerful don't care what I say unless a lot of people are listening.
Suppose government surveillance is more ubiquitous than your most paranoid imaginings --
in other words you're not being paranoid at all and you're simply not paranoid enough. It
might be wise to avoid having no presence or limited presence in the surveillance data. The
lack of data could also be detected and used as a measure for pre-crime inclinations. Perhaps
it were better to maintain a carefully manicured and tended web and media persona. Maybe run
a spider built to create that presence. Enough chaff in a false presence might confound even
the best surveillance algorithms.
There is an add-on you can download for Firefox and a few other web browsers called
Adnauseum. It is based on uBlock. What it does is opens any ads it finds on web pages while
blocking them at the same time to simulate a "click" on the ad. This way, it can potentially
give headaches to data collectors because of all of the intentional data pollution it causes.
Adnauseum angered Google so much that they blocked it from their Chrome store.
Then there is another idea I had for the tech companies intent on pushing spying devices
like Echo and Alexa into people's homes. What if you got a bunch of them together or had a
group of people buy them. Put said devices next to a radio on "scan" or some other broadcast
to play random media. If enough people did this, I wonder if that would generate enough
gobbledygook to throw off Amazon and Google from all of the worthless data it would
generate.
It is just a thought. However, I would not put it past Silicone Valley to develop and
start promoting GPS tracking microchips that companies could implant into their employees. I
know that some places are trying to push RFID chips for people, so I fear that GPS tracking
implants are not that far off.
RFID chips can function as tracking devices. Like cell phones 'shaking hands' with nearby
cell towers. The unspoken eventuality is how these RFID chips will be activated; when, where
and by who.
The Ur tracking chip reference. "The President's Analyst."
The 'Future' is Now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUa3np4CKC4
Yeah, Robert Scheer. His book
is a must-read . Add digital exhaust analytics to the "ordinary" forensics that swiftly
collared that hapless Cesar Sayoc "#MAGAbomber" dude, well
The first stage is social media censorship. The next stage is the total blocking of
websites offering alternative news to the MSM. This is by far the most dangerous threat to
individual freedom.
The intenet addressing system is controlled at the top by the US military (and always
was). The ultimate arbiter for any internet address lookup is in the US InterNIC system
(owned and controlled by the US military), to which all the national domain name registries
defer. By manipulating or falsifying lookup data they can block international access to any
website in the world (including covertly). US/UK censorship is going to rapidly expand over
the very near future, as the West moves to ever more suppressionist policies. We urgently
need a new internet addressing infrastructure with a capability to bypass the US structures
and allow any internet access that might be blocked by the US, before alternative media
outlets are totally silenced.
There are vague references in the alternate media from time to time of Russian/Chinese
There's a great deal of talk about how wonderful modern technology is. The internet, cell
phones, and computers are the stars of this firmament. I believe such talk is somewhat
overblown; 
© Global Look
Press / ZUMAPRESS.com / Panoramic The UK Parliament has taken hold of documents from Facebook
that may shed light on the online giant's carefree approach to user privacy amid claims that it
was fully aware of user data loopholes exploited by Cambridge Analytica. The documents were
seized from the founder of US tech startup Six4Three, who was on a business trip to the UK, the
Guardian 
'In-house fake
news shop' – Facebook facing new scandal and losing friends