"Real protections will come only if federal laws are passed to limit what companies can do with
the data they collect. Until then, no matter what settings we choose, we're all at risk."
Freaked Out?
3 Steps to Protect Your Phone - The New York Times
Colleges Track Hundreds Of Thousands Of Students Using Their Phones by Tyler Durden Wed, 12/25/2019 -
20:15 0 SHARES
"Graduates will be well prepared to embrace 24/7 government tracking and social credit
systems ."
An app created to track the attendance of 'less academically inclined' college athletes is
under fire, after over 40 schools have begun using the technology to monitor students
campus-wide , according to the
Washington Post .
Developed by former college basketball coach Rick Carter (who is currently under a
restraining order by DePaul University for allegedly threatening the athletic director and head
basketball coach), the Chicago-based SpotterEDU app uses Bluetooth beacons to ping a student's
smartphone once they enter a lecture hall. About the size of a deck of cards, they are
installed in covert locations on walls and ceilings.
School officials give SpotterEDU the students' full schedules , and the system can email a
professor or adviser automatically if a student skips class or walks in more than two minutes
late . The app records a full timeline of the students' presence so advisers can see whether
they left early or stepped out for a break. -
Washington Post
Syracuse University IT instructor Jeff Rubin uses the app to encourage his students to
attend lectures - awarding "attendance points" to those who show up. Rubin is also notified
when students skip classes.
"They want those points," said Rubin. " They know I'm watching and acting on it. So,
behaviorally, they change. "
According to Rubin, his 340-student lecture has never been so full at around 90%
attendance.
Double Secret Dystopia
Understandably, not everyone is thrilled with the intrusive new technology , which many
argue breaches students' privacy rights on a massive scale.
" We're adults. Do we really need to be tracked? " said sophomore Robby Pfeifer, a student
at Commonwealth University in Richmond, which recently began using the campus' WiFi network to
track students. "Why is this necessary? How does this benefit us? And is it just going to keep
progressing until we're micromanaged every second of the day? "
School and company officials, on the other hand, argue that monitoring students is a
powerful motivator and will encourage students to adopt habits geared towards success.
"If they know more about where students are going, they argue, they can intervene before
problems arise," according to the Post .
That said, some schools have taken things further - assigning "risk scores" to students
based on factors such as whether they are going to the library enough .
The dream of some administrators is a university where every student is a model student,
adhering to disciplined patterns of behavior that are intimately quantified, surveilled and
analyzed .
But some educators say this move toward heightened educational vigilance threatens to
undermine students' independence and prevents them from pursuing interests beyond the
classroom because they feel they might be watched.
" These administrators have made a justification for surveilling a student population
because it serves their interests , in terms of the scholarships that come out of their
budget, the reputation of their programs, the statistics for the school," said Kyle M. L.
Jones, an Indiana University assistant professor who researches student privacy.
" What's to say that the institution doesn't change their eye of surveillance and start
focusing on minority populations, or anyone else? " he added. Students "should have all the
rights, responsibilities and privileges that an adult has. So why do we treat them so
differently?" -
Washington Post
"It embodies a very cynical view of education -- that it's something we need to enforce on
students, almost against their will," said UCSD digital scholarship librarian Erin Rose Glass.
"We're reinforcing this sense of powerlessness when we could be asking harder questions, like:
Why are we creating institutions where students don't want to show up? "
Hilariously, creators of the dystopian surveillance app have tried to make things 'more
fun,' by 'gamifying students' schedules with colorful Bitmoji or digital multiday streaks.'
That said, " the real value may be for school officials, who Carter said can split students
into groups, such as "students of color" or "out-of-state students," for further review ."
When asked why an official would want to segregate out data on students of color, Carter
said many colleges already do so, looking for patterns in academic retention and performance
, adding that it "can provide important data for retention. Even the first few months of
recorded data on class attendance and performance can help predict how likely a group of
students is to" stay enrolled.
Students' attendance and tardiness are scored into a point system that some professors use
for grading, Carter said, and schools can use the data to "take action" against truant
students, such as grabbing back scholarship funds. -
Washington Post
Meanwhile, another app from Austin-based start-up Degree Analytics uses WiFi check-ins to
track around 200,000 students across 19 state universities, private colleges and other schools
, according to the Post.
Founded in 2017 by data scientist Aaron Benz, the company claims that every student can
graduate with "a proper environment and perhaps a few nudges along the way."
According to Benz, his system can solve "a real lack of understanding about the student
experience" by using campus WiFi data to measure and analyze 98% of students.
But the company also claims to see much more than just attendance. By logging the time a
student spends in different parts of the campus, Benz said, his team has found a way to
identify signs of personal anguish: A student avoiding the cafeteria might suffer from food
insecurity or an eating disorder; a student skipping class might be grievously depressed. The
data isn't conclusive, Benz said, but it can "shine a light on where people can investigate,
so students don't slip through the cracks."
To help find these students, he said, his team designed algorithms to look for patterns in
a student's "behavioral state" and automatically flag when their habits change. He calls it
scaffolding -- a temporary support used to build up a student, removed when they can stand on
their own.
At a Silicon Valley summit in April, Benz outlined a recent real-life case: that of
Student ID 106033, a depressed and "extremely isolated" student he called Sasha whom the
system had flagged as "highly at-risk" because she only left her dorm to eat. "At every
school, there are lots of Sashas," he said. "And the bigger you are, the more Sashas that you
have." -
Washington Post
Gossufer2.0 and CrowdStrike are the weakest links in this sordid story. CrowdStrike was nothing but FBI/CIA contractor.
So the hypothesis that CrowdStrike employees implanted malware to implicate Russians and created fake Gussifer 2.0 personality
is pretty logical.
Notable quotes:
"... Not one piece of corroborating intelligence. It is all based on opinion and strong belief. There was no human source report or electronic intercept pointing to a relationship between the GRU and the two alleged creations of the GRU--Guccifer 2.0 persona and DCLeaks.com. Now consider the spin that Robert Mueller put on this opinion in his report on possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians. Mueller bluffs the unsuspecting reader into believing that it is a proven fact that Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks were Russian assets. But he is relying on a mere opinion from a handpicked group of intel analysts working under the direction of then CIA Director John Brennan ..."
"... In October 2015 John Brennan reorganized the CIA . As part of that reorganization he created a new directorate--DIRECTORATE OF DIGITAL INNOVATION. Its mission was to "manipulate digital footprints." In other words, this was the Directorate that did the work of creating Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks. One of their specialties, creating Digital Dust. ..."
"... We also know, thanks to Wikileaks, that the CIA was using software specifically designed to mask CIA activity and make it appear like it was done by a foreign entity. Wikipedia describes the Vault 7 documents : ..."
"... Exhibit A in the case is this document created and later edited in the ubiquitous Microsoft Word format. Metadata left inside the file shows it was last edited by someone using the computer name "Феликс Эдмундович." That means the computer was configured to use the Russian language and that it was connected to a Russian-language keyboard. More intriguing still, "Феликс Эдмундович" is the colloquial name that translates to Felix Dzerzhinsky, the 20th Century Russian statesman who is best known for founding the Soviet secret police. (The metadata also shows that the purported DNC strategy memo was originally created by someone named Warren Flood, which happens to be the name of a LinkedIn user claiming to provide strategy and data analytics services to Democratic candidates.) ..."
"... Why would the CIA do this? The CIA knew that Podesta's emails had been hacked and were circulating on the internet. But they had no evidence about the identity of the culprit. If they had such evidence, they would have cited it in the 2017 ICA. ..."
"... The U.S. intelligence community became aware around May 26, 2016 that someone with access to the DNC network was offering those emails to Julian Assange and Wikileaks. Julian Assange and people who spoke to him indicate that the person was Seth Rich. Whether or not it was Seth, the Trump Task Force at CIA was aware that the emails, which would be embarrassing to the Clinton campaign, would be released at some time in the future. Hence the motive to create Guccifer 2.0 and pin the blame on Russia. ..."
"... The only source for the claim that Russia hacked the DNC is a private cyber security firm, CrowdStrike. ..."
"... Time for the common sense standard again. Crowdstrike detected the Russians on the 6th of May, according to CEO Dimitri Alperovitch, but took no steps to shutdown the network, eliminate the malware and clean the computers until 34 days later, i.e., the 10th of June. That is 34 days of inexcusable inaction. ..."
"... The actions attributed to DCLeaks and Guccifer 2.0 should be priority investigative targets for U.S. Attorney John Durham's team of investigators. This potential use of a known CIA tool, developed under Brennan with the sole purpose to obfuscate the source of intrusions, pointing to another nation, as a false flag operation, is one of the actions and issues that U.S. Attorney John Durham should be looking into as a potential act of "Seditious conspiracy. It needs to be done. To quote the CIA, I strongly assess that the only intelligence agency that evidence indicates was meddling via cyber attacks in the 2016 Presidential election was the CIA, not the GRU. ..."
"... LJ bottom line: "The only intelligence agency that evidence indicates was meddling via cyber attacks in the 2016 Presidential election was the CIA, not the GRU." ..."
"... ICA which seemed to have been framed to allow journalists or the unwary to link the ICA with more rigorous standards used by more authentic assessments? ..."
"... With the Russians not having the advantages that the NSA does (back doors in all US-designed network hardware/software and taps all over the internet), would Russia reveal anything unless it involved an immediate major national security threat. I doubt that would cover Trump. ..."
Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report insists that Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks were created by Russia's military intelligence organization,
the GRU, as part of a Russian plot to meddle in the U.S. 2016 Presidential Election. But this is a lie. Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks
were created by Brennan's CIA and this action by the CIA should be a target of U.S. Attorney John Durham's investigation. Let me
explain why.
Let us start with the January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment aka ICA. Only three agencies of the 17 in the U.S. intelligence
community contributed to and coordinated on the ICA--the FBI, the CIA and NSA. In the preamble to the ICA, you can read the following
explanation about methodology:
When Intelligence Community analysts use words such as "we assess" or "we judge," they are conveying an analytic assessment or
judgment
To be clear, the phrase,"We assess", is intel community jargon for "opinion". If there was actual evidence or source material
for a judgment the writer of the assessment would state, "According to a reliable source" or "knowledgeable source" or "documentary
evidence."
Pay close attention to what the analysts writing the ICA stated about the GRU and Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks:
We assess with high confidence that the GRU used the Guccifer 2.0 persona, DCLeaks.com, and WikiLeaks to release US victim data
obtained in cyber operations publicly and in exclusives to media outlets.
Guccifer 2.0, who claimed to be an independent Romanian hacker, made multiple contradictory statements and false claims
about his likely Russian identity throughout the election. Press reporting suggests more than one person claiming to be Guccifer
2.0 interacted with journalists.
Content that we assess was taken from e-mail accounts targeted by the GRU in March 2016 appeared on DCLeaks.com starting
in June.
We assess with high confidence that the GRU relayed material it acquired from the DNC and senior Democratic officials to WikiLeaks.
Moscow most likely chose WikiLeaks because of its self-proclaimed reputation for authenticity. Disclosures through WikiLeaks did
not contain any evident forgeries.
Not one piece of corroborating intelligence. It is all based on opinion and strong belief. There was no human source report or
electronic intercept pointing to a relationship between the GRU and the two alleged creations of the GRU--Guccifer 2.0 persona and
DCLeaks.com. Now consider the spin that Robert Mueller put on this opinion in his report on possible collusion between the Trump
campaign and the Russians. Mueller bluffs the unsuspecting reader into believing that it is a proven fact that Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks
were Russian assets. But he is relying on a mere opinion from a handpicked group of intel analysts working under the direction of
then CIA Director John Brennan.
Here's Mueller's take (I apologize for the lengthy quote but it is important that you read how the Mueller team presents this):
DCLeaks
"The GRU began planning the releases at least as early as April 19, 2016, when Unit 26165 registered the domain dcleaks.com
through a service that anonymized the registrant.137 Unit 26165 paid for the registration using a pool of bitcoin that it had
mined.138 The dcleaks.com landing page pointed to different tranches of stolen documents, arranged by victim or subject matter.
Other dcleaks.com pages contained indexes of the stolen emails that were being released (bearing the sender, recipient, and date
of the email). To control access and the timing of releases, pages were sometimes password-protected for a period of time and
later made unrestricted to the public.
Starting in June 2016, the GRU posted stolen documents onto the website dcleaks.com, including documents stolen from a number
of individuals associated with the Clinton Campaign. These documents appeared to have originated from personal email accounts
(in particular, Google and Microsoft accounts), rather than the DNC and DCCC computer networks. DCLeaks victims included an advisor
to the Clinton Campaign, a former DNC employee and Clinton Campaign employee, and four other campaign volunteers.139 The GRU released
through dcleaks.com thousands of documents, including personal identifying and financial information, internal correspondence
related to the"Clinton Campaign and prior political jobs, and fundraising files and information.140
GRU officers operated a Facebook page under the DCLeaks moniker, which they primarily used to promote releases of materials.141
The Facebook page was administered through a small number of preexisting GRU-controlled Facebook accounts.142
GRU officers also used the DCLeaks Facebook account, the Twitter account @dcleaks__, and the email account [email protected]
to communicate privately with reporters and other U.S. persons. GRU officers using the DCLeaks persona gave certain reporters
early access to archives of leaked files by sending them links and passwords to pages on the dcleaks.com website that had not
yet become public. For example, on July 14, 2016, GRU officers operating under the DCLeaks persona sent a link and password for
a non-public DCLeaks webpage to a U.S. reporter via the Facebook account.143 Similarly, on September 14, 2016, GRU officers sent
reporters Twitter direct messages from @dcleaks_, with a password to another non-public part of the dcleaks.com website.144
The dcleaks.com website remained operational and public until March 2017."
Guccifer 2.0
On June 14, 2016, the DNC and its cyber-response team announced the breach of the DNC network and suspected theft of DNC documents.
In the statements, the cyber-response team alleged that Russian state-sponsored actors (which they referred to as "Fancy Bear")
were responsible for the breach.145 Apparently in response to that announcement, on June 15, 2016, GRU officers using the persona
Guccifer 2.0 created a WordPress blog. In the hours leading up to the launch of that WordPress blog, GRU officers logged into
a Moscow-based server used and managed by Unit 74455 and searched for a number of specific words and phrases in English, including
"some hundred sheets," "illuminati," and "worldwide known." Approximately two hours after the last of those searches, Guccifer
2.0 published its first post, attributing the DNC server hack to a lone Romanian hacker and using several of the unique English
words and phrases that the GRU officers had searched for that day.146
That same day, June 15, 2016, the GRU also used the Guccifer 2.0 WordPress blog to begin releasing to the public documents
stolen from the DNC and DCCC computer networks.
The Guccifer 2.0 persona ultimately released thousands of documents stolen from the DNC and DCCC in a series of blog posts
between June 15, 2016 and October 18, 2016.147 Released documents included opposition research performed by the DNC (including
a memorandum analyzing potential criticisms of candidate Trump), internal policy documents (such as recommendations on how to
address politically sensitive issues), analyses of specific congressional races, and fundraising documents. Releases were organized
around thematic issues, such as specific states (e.g., Florida and Pennsylvania) that were perceived as competitive in the 2016
U.S. presidential election.
Beginning in late June 2016, the GRU also used the Guccifer 2.0 persona to release documents directly to reporters and other
interested individuals. Specifically, on June 27, 2016, Guccifer 2.0 sent an email to the news outlet The Smoking Gun offering
to provide "exclusive access to some leaked emails linked [to] Hillary Clinton's staff."148 The GRU later sent the reporter a
password and link to a locked portion of the dcleaks.com website that contained an archive of emails stolen by Unit 26165 from
a Clinton Campaign volunteer in March 2016.149 "That the Guccifer 2.0 persona provided reporters access to a restricted portion
of the DCLeaks website tends to indicate that both personas were operated by the same or a closely-related group of people.150
The GRU continued its release efforts through Guccifer 2.0 into August 2016. For example, on August 15, 2016, the Guccifer
2.0 persona sent a candidate for the U.S. Congress documents related to the candidate's opponent.151 On August 22, 2016, the Guccifer
2.0 persona transferred approximately 2.5 gigabytes of Florida-related data stolen from the DCCC to a U.S. blogger covering Florida
politics.152 On August 22, 2016, the Guccifer 2.0 persona sent a U.S. reporter documents stolen from the DCCC pertaining to the
Black Lives Matter movement.153"
Wow. Sounds pretty convincing. The documents referencing communications by DCLeaks or Guccifer 2.0 with Wikileaks are real. What
is not true is that these entities were GRU assets.
In October 2015 John Brennan reorganized the CIA . As part of that reorganization he created a new directorate--DIRECTORATE
OF DIGITAL INNOVATION. Its mission was to "manipulate digital footprints." In other words, this was the Directorate that did the
work of creating Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks. One of their specialties, creating Digital Dust.
We also know, thanks to Wikileaks, that the CIA was using software specifically designed to mask CIA activity and make it
appear like it was done by a foreign entity. Wikipedia describes the
Vault 7 documents :
Vault 7 is a series of documents that WikiLeaks began to publish on 7 March 2017, that detail activities and capabilities of the
United States' Central Intelligence Agency to perform electronic surveillance and cyber warfare. The files, dated from 2013–2016,
include details on the agency's software capabilities, such as the ability to compromise cars, smart TVs,[1] web browsers (including
Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, and Opera Software ASA),[2][3][4] and the operating systems of most smartphones (including
Apple's iOS and Google's Android), as well as other operating systems such as Microsoft Windows, macOS, and Linux[5][6
One of the tools in Vault 7 carries the innocuous name, MARBLE.
Hackernews explains the purpose and function
of MARBLE:
Dubbed "Marble," the part 3 of CIA files contains 676 source code files of a secret anti-forensic Marble Framework, which is basically
an obfuscator or a packer used to hide the true source of CIA malware.
The CIA's Marble Framework tool includes a variety of different algorithm with foreign language text intentionally inserted into
the malware source code to fool security analysts and falsely attribute attacks to the wrong nation.
Marble is used to hamper[ing] forensic investigators and anti-virus companies from attributing viruses, trojans and hacking attacks
to the CIA," says the whistleblowing site.
"...for example by pretending that the spoken language of the malware creator was not American English, but Chinese, but then
showing attempts to conceal the use of Chinese, drawing forensic investigators even more strongly to the wrong conclusion," WikiLeaks
explains.
So guess what
gullible techies "discovered" in mid-June 2016? The meta data in the Guccifer 2.0 communications had "Russian fingerprints."
We still don't know who he is or whether he works for the Russian government, but one thing is for sure: Guccifer 2.0 -- the nom
de guerre of the person claiming he hacked the Democratic National Committee and published hundreds of pages that appeared to prove
it -- left behind fingerprints implicating a Russian-speaking person with a nostalgia for the country's lost Soviet era.
Exhibit A in the case is this document created and later edited in the ubiquitous Microsoft Word format. Metadata left inside
the file shows it was last edited by someone using the computer name "Феликс Эдмундович." That means the computer was configured
to use the Russian language and that it was connected to a Russian-language keyboard. More intriguing still, "Феликс Эдмундович"
is the colloquial name that translates to Felix Dzerzhinsky, the 20th Century Russian statesman who is best known for founding the
Soviet secret police. (The metadata also shows that the purported DNC strategy memo was originally created by someone named Warren
Flood, which happens to be the name of a LinkedIn user claiming to provide strategy and data analytics services to Democratic candidates.)
Just use your common sense. If the Russians were really trying to carry out a covert cyberattack, do you really think they
are so sloppy and incompetent to insert the name of the creator of the Soviet secret police in the metadata? No. The Russians are
not clowns. This was a clumsy attempt to frame the Russians.
Why would the CIA do this? The CIA knew that Podesta's emails had been hacked and were circulating on the internet. But they
had no evidence about the identity of the culprit. If they had such evidence, they would have cited it in the 2017 ICA.
The U.S. intelligence community became aware around May 26, 2016 that someone with access to the DNC network was offering
those emails to Julian Assange and Wikileaks. Julian Assange and people who spoke to him indicate that the person was Seth Rich.
Whether or not it was Seth, the Trump Task Force at CIA was aware that the emails, which would be embarrassing to the Clinton campaign,
would be released at some time in the future. Hence the motive to create Guccifer 2.0 and pin the blame on Russia.
It is essential to recall the timeline of the alleged Russian intrusion into the DNC network. The only source for the claim
that Russia hacked the DNC is a private cyber security firm, CrowdStrike. Here is the timeline for the DNC "hack."
Here are the facts on the public record. They are at odds with the claims of the Intelligence Community:
It was
29 April 2016 , when the DNC claims it became aware its servers had been penetrated. No claim yet about who was responsible.
And no claim that there had been a prior warning by the FBI of a penetration of the DNC by Russian military intelligence.
According to CrowdStrike founder , Dimitri Alperovitch, his company first supposedly detected the Russians mucking around
inside the DNC server on 6 May 2016. A CrowdStrike intelligence analyst reportedly told Alperovitch that:
Falcon had identified not one but two Russian intruders: Cozy Bear, a group CrowdStrike's experts believed was affiliated
with the FSB, Russia's answer to the CIA; and Fancy Bear, which they had linked to the GRU, Russian military intelligence.
The Wikileaks data shows that the last message copied from the DNC network is dated Wed, 25 May 2016 08:48:35.
10 June 2016 --CrowdStrike waited until 10 June 2016 to take concrete steps to clean up the DNC network. Alperovitch told
Esquire's Vicky Ward that: 'Ultimately, the teams decided it was necessary to replace the software on every computer at the DNC.
Until the network was clean, secrecy was vital. On the afternoon of Friday, June 10, all DNC employees were instructed to leave
their laptops in the office."
On June 14, 2016 , Ellen Nakamura, a Washington Post reporter who had been briefed by computer security company hired by the
DNC -- Crowdstrike--, wrote:
Russian government hackers penetrated the computer network of the Democratic National Committee and gained access to the
entire database of opposition research on GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump, according to committee officials and security
experts who responded to the breach.
The intruders so thoroughly compromised the DNC's system that they also were able to read all email and chat traffic, said
DNC officials and the security experts.
The intrusion into the DNC was one of several targeting American political organizations. The networks of presidential
candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were also targeted by Russian spies, as were the computers of some Republican political
action committees, U.S. officials said. But details on those cases were not available.
15 June, 2016 , an internet "personality" self-described as Guccifer 2.0 surfaces and claims to be responsible for the hacks
but denies being Russian. The people/entity behind Guccifer 2.0:
Used a Russian VPN service provider to conceal their identity.
Created an email account with AOL.fr (a service that exposes the sender's IP address) and contacted the press (exposing his
VPN IP address in the process).
Contacted various media outlets through this set up and claimed credit for hacking the DNC, sharing copies of files purportedly
from the hack (one of which had Russian error messages embedded in them) with reporters from Gawker, The Smoking Gun and other
outlets.
Carried out searches for terms that were mostly in English, several of which would appear in Guccifer 2.0's first blog post.
They chose to do this via a server based in Moscow. (this is from the indictment,
"On or about June 15, 2016, the Conspirators logged into a Moscow-based server used and managed by Unit 74455")
Created a blog and made an initial blog post claiming to have hacked the DNC, providing links to various documents as proof.
Carelessly dropped a "Russian Smiley" into his first blog post.
Managed to add the name "Феликс Эдмундович" (which translates to Felix Dzerzhinsky, also known as "Iron Felix") to the metadata
of several documents. (Several sources went beyond what the evidence shows and made claims about Guccifer 2.0 using a Russian
keyboard, however, these claims are just assumptions made in response to the presence of cyrillic characters.)
The only thing that the Guccifer 2.0 character did not do to declare its Russian heritage was to take out full page ads in the
New York Times and Washington Post. But the "forensic" fingerprints that Guccifer 2.0 was leaving behind is not the only inexplicable
event.
Time for the common sense standard again. Crowdstrike detected the Russians on the 6th of May, according to CEO Dimitri Alperovitch,
but took no steps to shutdown the network, eliminate the malware and clean the computers until 34 days later, i.e., the 10th of June.
That is 34 days of inexcusable inaction.
It is only AFTER Julian Assange announces on 12 June 2016 that WikiLeaks has emails relating to Hillary Clinton that DCLeaks or
Guccifer 2.0 try to contact Assange.
The actions attributed to DCLeaks and Guccifer 2.0 should be priority investigative targets for U.S. Attorney John Durham's
team of investigators. This potential use of a known CIA tool, developed under Brennan with the sole purpose to obfuscate the source
of intrusions, pointing to another nation, as a false flag operation, is one of the actions and issues that U.S. Attorney John Durham
should be looking into as a potential act of "Seditious conspiracy. It needs to be done. To quote the CIA, I strongly assess that
the only intelligence agency that evidence indicates was meddling via cyber attacks in the 2016 Presidential election was the CIA,
not the GRU.
LJ bottom line: "The only intelligence agency that evidence indicates was meddling via cyber attacks in the 2016 Presidential
election was the CIA, not the GRU."
Larry, thanks -- vital clarifications and reminders. In your earlier presentation of this material did you not also distinguish
between the way actually interagency assessments are titled, and ICA which seemed to have been framed to allow journalists or
the unwary to link the ICA with more rigorous standards used by more authentic assessments?
Thank you Larry. You have discovered one more vital key to the conspiracy. We now need the evidence of Julian Assange. He is kept
incommunicado and He is being tortured by the British in jail and will be murdered by the American judicial system if he lasts
long enough to be extradited.
You can be sure he will be "Epsteined" before he appears in open court because he knows the source of what Wikileaks published.
Once he is gone, mother Clinton is in the clear.
I can understand the GRU or SVR hacking the DNC and other e-mail servers because as intelligence services that is their job, but
can anyone think of any examples of Russia (or the Soviet Union) using such information to take overt action?
With the Russians
not having the advantages that the NSA does (back doors in all US-designed network hardware/software and taps all over the internet),
would Russia reveal anything unless it involved an immediate major national security threat. I doubt that would cover Trump.
"... detailed smartphone tracking is far more ubiquitous than many think , despite the ongoing claims by companies that people's data is "anonymous". ..."
"... describing location data as anonymous is "a completely false claim that has been debunked in multiple studies." ..."
"... "Really precise, longitudinal geolocation information is absolutely impossible to anonymize. D.N.A. is probably the only thing that's harder to anonymize than precise geolocation information." ..."
"... The op-ed looked at trying to identify people in positions of power. It identified and tracked "scores" of notable people, like military officials with security clearances, as they drove home at night. They also tracked law enforcement officials and high powered lawyers. Though they didn't name any of the people, they followed them on private jets, vacations and taking their kids to school. ..."
"... "That makes me uncomfortable. I'm sure that makes every other person uncomfortable, to know that companies can have free rein to take your data, locations, whatever else they're using. It is disturbing," she continued. ..."
"... These companies downplay the risks of collecting such revealing data at scale. Brian Czarny, chief marketing officer at Factual, one such company, said: "No, it doesn't really keep us up at night. Factual does not resell detailed data like the information [The Times] reviewed. We don't feel like anybody should be doing that because it's a risk to the whole business." ..."
"... Companies are required to disclose "very little" about data collection, but rather are only required to describe their practices in their privacy policies. ..."
"... Companies like Verizon and AT&T have been selling the data for years. Last year, Vice found that data being sold was being used by bounty hunters to find specific cell phones in real time. Telecom companies pledged, after the scandal, to stop selling the data. But there is still no law that prevents it. ..."
"... In one case, we observed a change in the regular movements of a Microsoft engineer. He made a visit one Tuesday afternoon to the main Seattle campus of a Microsoft competitor, Amazon. The following month, he started a new job at Amazon. It took minutes to identify him as Ben Broili, a manager now for Amazon Prime Air, a drone delivery service. ..."
Millions of Americans are walking around with phones that have, unknowingly, created one of
the most disturbing and unintentional "surveillance states" to ever exist. An explosive new opinion
piece in the NY Times aims to demonstrate that detailed smartphone tracking is far more
ubiquitous than many think , despite the ongoing claims by companies that people's data is
"anonymous".
Paul Ohm, a law professor and privacy researcher at the Georgetown University Law Center,
said that describing location data as anonymous is "a completely false claim that has been
debunked in multiple studies."
He added: "Really precise, longitudinal geolocation information is absolutely impossible to
anonymize. D.N.A. is probably the only thing that's harder to anonymize than precise
geolocation information."
The op-ed looked at trying to identify people in positions of power. It identified and
tracked "scores" of notable people, like military officials with security clearances, as they
drove home at night. They also tracked law enforcement officials and high powered lawyers.
Though they didn't name any of the people, they followed them on private jets, vacations and
taking their kids to school.
Despite some of the data pointing to "scandal and crime", the purpose of tracking them was
to document the risk of under-regulated surveillance.
One person identified was Mary Millben, a singer based in Virginia who has performed for
three Presidents. When told her phone was putting her "on the map" for everyone to see, she
said: "To know that you have a list of places I have been, and my phone is connected to that,
that's scary. What's the business of a company benefiting off of knowing where I am? That seems
a little dangerous to me."
She couldn't name the app that shared her location, despite saying she was "careful" about
which apps she allowed to share her location.
"That makes me uncomfortable. I'm sure that makes every other person uncomfortable, to know
that companies can have free rein to take your data, locations, whatever else they're using. It
is disturbing," she continued.
On inauguration weekend, the authors were able to track "elite attendees at presidential
ceremonies, religious observers at church services, supporters assembling across the National
Mall", as well as protesters. They even spotted a senior official at the DOD walking through
the Women's March, along with his wife.
Yet companies that take your location data collect "orders of magnitude" more that what the
Times opinion writers had access to.
There are dozens of companies out there that profit from this data. Many use "technical and
nuanced language that may be confusing to average smartphone users." Many company names would
likely be unfamiliar to most Americans.
These companies downplay the risks of collecting such revealing data at scale. Brian Czarny,
chief marketing officer at Factual, one such company, said: "No, it doesn't really keep us up
at night. Factual does not resell detailed data like the information [The Times] reviewed. We
don't feel like anybody should be doing that because it's a risk to the whole business."
But without federal privacy laws, the industry has largely been self-regulated. Several groups
have offered ethical guidelines and groups like the Mobile Marketing Association are drafting
pledges to improve this self-regulation.
But states are starting to respond. For instance, the California Consumer Protection Act
takes effect next year and allows residents to ask companies to delete their data or prevent
its sale. But legally, the law could leave the industry free to do whatever it wants.
Calli Schroeder, a lawyer for the privacy and data protection company VeraSafe said: "If a
private company is legally collecting location data, they're free to spread it or share it
however they want."
Companies are required to disclose "very little" about data collection, but rather are only
required to describe their practices in their privacy policies.
Location data, gathered by latitude and longitude, coupled with time spent in an area, feed
a lucrative secondary business of analyzing, licensing and transferring that information to
third parties. Here's what that data looks like:
The data provides intelligence for big businesses, as well:
The Weather Channel app's parent company, for example, analyzed users' location data for
hedge funds, according to a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles this year that was triggered by
Times reporting. And Foursquare received much attention in 2016 after using its data trove to
predict that after an E. coli crisis, Chipotle's sales would drop by 30 percent in the coming
months. Its same-store sales ultimately fell 29.7 percent.
Companies like Verizon and AT&T have been selling the data for years. Last year, Vice
found that data being sold was being used by bounty hunters to find specific cell phones in
real time. Telecom companies pledged, after the scandal, to stop selling the data. But there is
still no law that prevents it.
Additionally, the piece notes "everything can be hacked". That means that any server that
houses this data is susceptible to having it wind up in the wrong hands.
For most Americans, the distribution of this information could result in embarrassment or
inconvenience. But for people like survivors of abuse, it could come with substantially more
risks.
And the ability to identify individuals was stunning:
In one case, we observed a change in the regular movements of a Microsoft engineer. He
made a visit one Tuesday afternoon to the main Seattle campus of a Microsoft competitor,
Amazon. The following month, he started a new job at Amazon. It took minutes to identify him
as Ben Broili, a manager now for Amazon Prime Air, a drone delivery service.
Broili commented: "I can't say I'm surprised. But knowing that you all can get ahold of it
and comb through and place me to see where I work and live -- that's weird."
He continued: "It's an awful lot of data. And I really still don't understand how it's being
used. I'd have to see how the other companies were weaponizing or monetizing it to make that
call."
In case of Page it was much worse the Glenn Greenwald claims. The most probably scenario
that he was directed to join Trump compain and then to contact Russian government so that this
false flag operatin can be used for establishing surveillance. Why they need to establish
surveillance on CIA/FBI informant? Because he called people they really wanted to survail.
Just as was true when the Mueller investigation closed
without a single American being charged with criminally conspiring with Russia over the
2016 election, Wednesday's issuance of the long-waited report from the
Department of Justice's Inspector General reveals that years of major claims and narratives
from the U.S. media were utter
frauds .
Before evaluating the media component of this scandal, the FBI's gross abuse of its power
– its serial deceit – is so grave and manifest that it requires little effort to
demonstrate it. In sum, the IG Report documents multiple instances in which the FBI –
in order to convince a FISA court to allow it spy on former Trump campaign operative Carter
Page during the 2016 election – manipulated documents, concealed crucial exonerating
evidence, and touted what it knew were unreliable if not outright false claims.
If you don't consider FBI lying, concealment of evidence, and manipulation of documents in
order to spy on a U.S. citizen in the middle of a presidential campaign to be a major
scandal, what is? But none of this is aberrational: the FBI still has its headquarters in a
building named after J. Edgar Hoover – who constantly blackmailed elected officials
with dossiers and tried to blackmail Martin Luther King into killing himself – because
that's what these security state agencies are. They are out-of-control, virtually unlimited
police state factions that lie, abuse their spying and law enforcement powers, and subvert
democracy and civic and political freedoms as a matter of course.
In this case, no rational person should allow standard partisan bickering to distort or
hide this severe FBI corruption. The IG Report leaves no doubt about it. It's brimming with
proof of FBI subterfuge and deceit, all in service of persuading a FISA court of something
that was not true: that U.S. citizen and former Trump campaign official Carter Page was an
agent of the Russian government and therefore needed to have his communications
surveilled.
Just a few excerpts from the report should suffice to end any debate for rational persons
about how damning it is. The focus of the first part of the IG Report was on the warrants
obtained by the DOJ, at the behest of the FBI, to spy on Carter Page on the grounds that
there was probable cause to believe he was an agent of the Russian government. That Page was
a Kremlin agent was a widely disseminated media claim – typically asserted as fact even
though it had no evidence. As a result of this media narrative, the Mueller investigation
examined these widespread accusations yet concluded that "the investigation did not establish
that Page coordinated with the Russian government in its efforts to interfere with the 2016
presidential election."
The IG Report went much further, documenting a multitude of lies and misrepresentations by
the FBI to deceive the FISA court into believing that probable cause existed to believe Page
was a Kremlin agent. The first FISA warrant to spy on Page was obtained during the 2016
election, after Page had left the Trump campaign but weeks before the election was to be
held.
About the warrant application submitted regarding Page, the IG Report, in its own words,
"found that FBI personnel fell far short of the requirement in FBI policy that they ensure
that all factual statements in a FISA application are 'scrupulously accurate.'" Specifically,
"we identified multiple instances in which factual assertions relied upon in the first FISA
application were inaccurate, incomplete, or unsupported by appropriate documentation, based
upon information the FBI had in its possession at the time the application was filed."
It's vital to reiterate this because of its gravity: we identified multiple instances in
which factual assertions relied upon in the first FISA application were inaccurate,
incomplete, or unsupported by appropriate documentation, based upon information the FBI had
in its possession at the time the application was filed.
The specifics cited by the IG Report are even more damning. Specifically, "based upon the
information known to the FBI in October 2016, the first application contained [] seven
significant inaccuracies and omissions." Among those "significant inaccuracies and
omissions": the FBI concealed that Page had been working with the CIA in connection with his
dealings with Russia and had notified CIA case managers of at least some of those contacts
after he was "approved as an 'operational contact'" with Russia; the FBI lied about both the
timing and substance of Page's relationship with the CIA; vastly overstated the value and
corroboration of Steele's prior work for the U.S. Government to make him appear more credible
than he was; and concealed from the court serious reasons to doubt the reliability of
Steele's key source.
... ... ..
Among the most significant new acts of deceit was that the FBI "omitted the fact that
Steele's Primary Subsource, who the FBI found credible, had made statements in January 2017
raising significant questions about the reliability of allegations included in the FISA
applications, including, for example, that he/she did not recall any discussion with Person 1
concerning Wikileaks and there was 'nothing bad' about the communications between the Kremlin
and the Trump team, and that he/she did not report to Steele in July 2016 that Page had met
with Sechin."
In other words, Steele's own key source told the FBI that Steele was lying about what the
source said: an obviously critical fact that the FBI simply concealed from the FISA court
because it knew how devastating that would be to being able to continue to spy on Page. As
the Report put it, "among the most serious of the 10 additional errors we found in the
renewal applications was the FBI's failure to advise [DOJ] or the court of the
inconsistences, described in detail in Chapter Six, between Steele and his Primary Sub-source
on the reporting relied upon in the FISA applications."
The IG Report also found that the FBI hid key information from the court about Steele's
motives: for instance, it "omitted information obtained from [Bruce] Ohr about Steele and his
election reporting, including that (1) Steele's reporting was going to Clinton's presidential
campaign and others, (2) [Fusion GPS's Glenn] Simpson was paying Steele to discuss his
reporting with the media, and (3) Steele was "desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and
was passionate about him not being the U.S. President."
If it does not bother you to learn that the FBI repeatedly and deliberately deceived the
FISA court into granting it permission to spy on a U.S. citizen in the middle of a
presidential campaign, then it is virtually certain that you are either someone with no
principles, someone who cares only about partisan advantage and nothing about basic civil
liberties and the rule of law, or both. There is simply no way for anyone of good faith to
read this IG Report and reach any conclusion other than that this is yet another instance of
the FBI abusing its power in severe ways to subvert and undermine U.S. democracy. If you
don't care about that, what do you care about?
* * * * *
But the revelations of the IG Report are not merely a massive FBI scandal. They are also a
massive media scandal, because they reveal that so much of what the U.S. media has
authoritatively claimed about all of these matters for more than two years is completely
false.
Ever since Trump's inauguration, a handful of commentators and journalists – I'm
included among them – have been sounding the alarm about the highly dangerous trend of
news outlets not merely repeating the mistake of the Iraq War by blindly relying on the
claims of security state agents but, far worse, now employing them in their newsrooms to
shape the news. As Politico's media writer Jack Shafer wrote in 2018, in
an article entitled "The Spies Who Came Into the TV Studio" :
In the old days, America's top spies would complete their tenures at the CIA or one of
the other Washington puzzle palaces and segue to more ordinary pursuits. Some wrote
their memoirs . One
ran for president . Another died a few months after
surrendering his post. But today's national-security establishment retiree has a different
game plan. After so many years of brawling in the shadows, he yearns for a second,
lucrative career in the public eye. He takes a crash course in speaking in soundbites,
refreshes his wardrobe and signs a TV news contract. Then, several times a week, waits for
a network limousine to shuttle him to the broadcast news studios where, after a light
dusting of foundation and a spritz of hairspray, he takes a supporting role in the anchors'
nighttime shows. . . .
[T]he downside of outsourcing national security coverage to the TV spies is obvious.
They aren't in the business of breaking news or uncovering secrets. Their first loyalty --
and this is no slam -- is to the agency from which they hail. Imagine a TV network covering
the auto industry through the eyes of dozens of paid former auto executives and you begin
to appreciate the current peculiarities.
In a perfect television world, the networks would retire the retired spooks from their
payrolls and reallocate those sums to the hiring of independent reporters to cover the
national security beat. Let the TV spies become unpaid anonymous sources because when you
get down to it, TV spies don't want to make news -- they just want to talk about it.
It's long been the case that CIA, FBI and NSA operatives tried to infiltrate and shape
domestic news, but they at least had the decency to do it clandestinely. In 2008, the New
York Times' David Barstow
won the Pulitzer Prize for exposing a secret Pentagon
program in which retired Generals and other security state agents would get hired as
commentators and analysts and then – unbeknownst to their networks – coordinate
their messaging to ensure that domestic news was being shaped by the propaganda of the
military and intelligence communities.
But now it's all out in the open. It's virtually impossible to turn on MSNBC or CNN
without being bombarded with former Generals, CIA operatives, FBI agents and NSA officials
who now work for those networks as commentators and, increasingly, as reporters.
Congrats to my friend @joshscampbell , CNN's newest
national Correspondent. His passion for going where the news is and covering important
stories will continue to benefit viewers. pic.twitter.com/j49k0KOzNj
The past three years of "Russiagate" reporting – for which U.S. journalists have
lavished themselves with Pulitzers and other prizes despite a
multitude of embarrassing and dangerous errors about the Grave Russian Threat – has
relied almost exclusively on anonymous, uncorroborated claims from Deep State operatives (and
yes, that's a term that fully applies to the U.S.). The few exceptions are when these
networks feature former high-level security state operatives on camera to spread their false
propaganda, as in this enduringly humiliating instance:
John Brennan has a lot to answer for -- going before the American public for months,
cloaked with CIA authority and openly suggesting he's got secret info, and repeatedly
turning in performances like this. pic.twitter.com/EziCxy9FVQ
All of this has meant that U.S. discourse on these national security questions is shaped
almost entirely by the very agencies that are trained to lie: the CIA, the NSA, the Pentagon,
the FBI. And their lying has been highly effective.
For years, we were told by the nation's leading national security reporters something that
was blatantly false: that the FBI's warrants to spy on Carter Page were not based on the
Steele Dossier. GOP Congressman Devin Nunes was
widely vilified and
mocked by the super-smart DC national security reporters for issuing a
report claiming that this was the case. The Nunes memo in essence claimed what the IG
Report has corroborated: that embedded within the FBI's efforts to obtain FISA court
authorization to spy on Carter Page was a series of misrepresentations, falsehoods and
concealment of key evidence:
As the Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi – one of the few left/liberal journalists with
the courage and integrity to dissent from the DNC/MSNBC script on these issues – put it
in
a detailed article :
"Democrats are not going to want to hear this, since conventional wisdom says former
House Intelligence chief Devin Nunes is a conspiratorial evildoer, but the Horowitz report
ratifies the major claims of the infamous '
Nunes memo .'"
That the Page warrant was based on the Steele Dossier was something that the media
servants of the FBI and CIA rushed to deny. Did they have any evidence for those denials?
That would be hard to believe, given that the FISA warrant applications are highly
classified. It seems far more likely that – as usual – they were just repeating
what the FBI and CIA (and the pathologically dishonest Rep. Adam Schiff) told them to say,
like the good and loyal puppets that they are. But either way, what they kept telling the
public – in highly definitive tones – was completely false, as we now know from
the IG Report:
Yes. I am telling you the dossier was not used as the basis for a FISA warrant on Carter
Page.
Over and over, the IG Report makes clear that, contrary to these denials, the Steele
Dossier was indeed crucial to the Page eavesdropping warrant. "We determined that the
Crossfire Hurricane team's receipt of Steele's election reporting on September 19, 2016
played a central and essential role in the FBI's and Department's decision to seek the FISA
order," the IG Report explained. A central and essential role .
Just compare the pompous denials from so many U.S. national security reporters at the
nation's leading news outlets – that the Page warrant was not based on the Steele
Dossier – to the actual truth that we now know :
"in support of the fourth element in the FISA application-Carter Page's alleged
coordination with the Russian government on 2016 U.S. presidential election activities, the
application relied entirely on the following information from Steele Reports 80, 94, 95,
and 102″ (emphasis added).
Indeed, it was the Steele Dossier that led FBI leadership, including Director James Comey
and Deputy Diretor Andrew McCabe, to approve the warrant application in the first place
despite concerns raised by other agents that the information was unreliable. Explains the IG
Report:
FBI leadership supported relying on Steele's reporting to seek a FISA order on Page
after being advised of, and giving consideration to, concerns expressed by Stuart Evans,
then NSD's Deputy Assistant Attorney General with oversight responsibility over QI, that
Steele may have been hired by someone associated with presidential candidate Clinton or the
DNC, and that the foreign intelligence to be collected through the FISA order would
probably not be worth the 'risk' of being criticized later for collecting communications of
someone (Carter Page) who was "politically sensitive."
The narrative manufactured by the security state agencies and laundered by their reliable
media servants about these critical matters was a sham, a fraud, a lie. Yet again, U.S.
discourse was subsumed by propaganda because the U.S. media and key parts of the security
state have decided that subverting the Trump presidency is of such a high priority –
that their political judgment outweighs the results of the election – that everything,
including outright lying even to courts let alone the public, is justified because the ends
are so noble.
As Taibbi put it:
"No matter what people think the political meaning of the Horowitz report might be,
reporters who read it will know: Anybody who touched this nonsense in print should be
embarrassed."
No matter how dangerous you believe the Trump presidency to be, this is a grave threat to
the pillars of U.S. democracy, a free press, an informed citizenry and the rule of law.* * *
* *
Underlying all of this is another major lie spun over the last three years by the
newly-minted media stars and liberal icons from the security state agencies. Ever since the
Snowden reporting – indeed, prior to that, when the New York Times' Eric Lichtblau and
Jim Risen (now with the Intercept)
revealed in 2005 that the Bush-era NSA was illegally spying on U.S. citizens without the
warrants required by law – it was widely understood that the FISA process was a
rubber-stamping joke, an illusory safeguard that, in reality, offered no real limits on the
ability of the U.S. Government to spy on its own citizens. Back in 2013 at the Guardian, I
wrote a
long article , based on Snowden documents, revealing what an empty sham this process
was.
But over the last three years, the strategy of Democrats and liberals – particularly
their cable outlets and news sites – has been to venerate and elevate security state
agents as the noble truth-tellers of U.S. democracy. Once-reviled-by-liberal sites such as
Lawfare – composed of little more than pro-NSA and pro-FBI apparatchiks –
gained
mainstream visibility for the first time on the strength of a whole new group of liberals
who decided that the salvation of U.S. democracy lies not with the political process but with
the dark arts of the NSA, the FBI and the CIA.
Sites like Lawfare – led by Comey-friend Benjamin Wittes and ex-NSA lawyer Susan
Hennessey – became Twitter and cable news stars and used their platform to resuscitate
what had been a long-discredited lie: namely, that the FISA process is highly rigorous and
that the potential for abuse is very low. Liberals, eager to believe that the security state
agencies opposed to Trump should be trusted despite their decades of violent lawlessness and
systemic lying, came to believe in the sanctity of the NSA and the FISA process.
The IG Report obliterates that carefully cultivated delusion. It lays bare what a sham the
whole FISA process is, how easy it is for the NSA and the FBI to obtain from the FISA court
whatever authorization it wants to spy on any Americans they want regardless of how flimsy is
the justification. The ACLU and other civil libertarians had spent years finally getting
people to realize this truth, but it was wiped out by the Trump-era veneration of these
security state agencies.
In an excellent article
on the fallout from the IG Report , the New York Times' Charlie Savage, long one of the
leading journalistic experts on these debates, makes clear how devastating these revelations
are to this concocted narrative designed to lead Americans to trust the FBI and NSA's
eavesdropping authorities :
At more than 400 pages, the study amounted to the most searching look ever at the
government's secretive system for carrying out national-security surveillance on American
soil. And what the report showed was not pretty.
The Justice Department's independent inspector general, Michael E. Horowitz, and his
team uncovered a staggeringly dysfunctional and error-ridden process in how the F.B.I. went
about obtaining and renewing court permission under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Act, or FISA, to wiretap Carter Page, a former Trump campaign adviser.
"The litany of problems with the Carter Page surveillance applications demonstrates how
the secrecy shrouding the government's one-sided FISA approval process breeds abuse," said
Hina Shamsi, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union's National Security
Project. "The concerns the inspector general identifies apply to intrusive investigations
of others, including especially Muslims, and far better safeguards against abuse are
necessary."
His exposé left some former officials who generally defend government
surveillance practices aghast.
"These errors are bad," said David Kris, an expert in FISA who oversaw the Justice
Department's National Security Division in the Obama administration. "If the broader audit
of FISA applications reveals a systematic pattern of errors of this sort that plagued this
one, then I would expect very serious consequences and reforms" .
Civil libertarians for years have called the surveillance court a rubber stamp because
it only rarely rejects wiretap applications. Out of 1,080 requests by the government in
2018, for example, government records
showed that the court fully denied only one.
Defenders of the system have argued that the low rejection rate stems in part from how
well the Justice Department self-polices and avoids presenting the court with requests that
fall short of the legal standard. They have also stressed that officials obey a heightened
duty to be candid and provide any mitigating evidence that might undercut their request. .
. .
But the inspector general found major errors, material omissions and unsupported
statements about Mr. Page in the materials that went to the court. F.B.I. agents
cherry-picked the evidence, telling the Justice Department information that made Mr. Page
look suspicious and omitting material that cut the other way, and the department passed
that misleading portrait onto the court.
This system of unlimited domestic spying was built by both parties, which only rouse
themselves to object when the power lies in the other side's hands. Just last year, the vast
majority of the GOP caucus joined with a minority of Democrats led by Nancy Pelosi and Adam
Schiff to
hand President Trump all-new domestic spying powers while blocking crucial reforms and
safeguards to prevent abuse. The spying machinery that Edward Snowden risked his life and
liberty to expose always has been, and still is, a bipartisan creation.
Perhaps these revelations will finally lead to a realization about how rogue, and
dangerous, these police state agencies have become, and how urgently needed is serious
reform. But if nothing else, it must serve as a tonic to the three years of unrelenting media
propaganda that has deceived and misled millions of Americans into believing things that are
simply untrue.
None of these journalists have acknowledged an iota of error in the wake of this report
because they know that lying is not just permitted but encouraged as long as it pleases and
vindicates the political beliefs of their audiences . Until that stops, credibility and faith
in journalism will never be restored, and – despite how toxic it is to have a media
that has no claim on credibility – that despised status will be fully deserved.
The former (((Guardian))) "journalist" *** libtard Joo who lives in Brazil with his
boyfriend, is going to tell us the truth about the (((FBI))) and the (((Deep
State)))????
LOL
The (((Intercept))) has already ratted out at least one whistleblower to the Deep State,
so be careful on who do you believe in..
The most important point of the FISA abuse for surveillance authorization of 4 US
citizens was for the purpose of collateral surveillance of all of their contacts with the
Trump campaign, transition and White House
investigate the 17 intel agencies that unanimously said Russia 'meddled' in the 2016
election. if they lied for political gain, then they are traitors for trying to start a war
with Russia that endangers all Americans
I honestly don't care either way. The entire system is corrupt and overrun with Zionists
from top to bottom, including of course the MSM. All this theater of a witch hunt against
Trump is for show; in reality they're all on the same page, playing the American public for
fools. That's why nothing significant ever changes no matter who gets into office. Always
more wars for faux-Israel and the MIC, staged coups and proxy wars abroad, more regulatory
capture, the national debt skyrocketing into oblivion, no border security, special
privileges for a (((chosen few))) which violate Constitutional law, massive bailouts at
taxpayers' expense, and on it goes.
I did not waste my time reading it all. Just skimmed few paragraphs to confirm that all
of this was known to everybody long time ago.
To me the basic question is why Trump is a such *****. He should fire long time ago 3/4
of CIA, FBI, Justice Department and many other three letter government employers. He has
full right as a president to do this. If he doesn't do that they eventually will destroy
him.
Instead he is pussying around those grave issues and nobody gets punished for high
crimes they committed. He is just tweeting crap that bear no consequences to anybody.
This is the best chance he's got to drain the swamp. But I am pretty sure swamp will
stink for a long time after he is gone. In short, he is sissy unable to do the job he
promised to do to the people who voted for him.
The MSM is reporting the "impeachment" as if it was a serious (approved by expert
academics) endeavor. However, the veil is lifting. The revealed face of the ruling class is
Neo-Orwellian.
"Nadler's committee will likely vote to impeach Trump. In a report defining what it
considers impeachable offenses, the committee states that even if Trump did not actually
break any laws in his supposed "quid pro quo" dealings with Ukrainian President Volodymyr
Zelensky, he can still be impeached for his unstated motives.
"The question is not whether the president's conduct could have resulted from
permissible motives. It is whether the president's real reasons, the ones in his mind at the
time, were legitimate, " it stated."
"... More generally, I think AI gets far too much of the billing in authoritarian apocalypse forecasts. Cheap, ubiquitous cameras, microphones, and location trackers are the real issue. If the state can track everyone's movements and conversations, then it can build a better Stasi even with crude, simple ai. ..."
The theory behind this is one of strength reinforcing strength – the strengths of
ubiquitous data gathering and analysis reinforcing the strengths of authoritarian repression to
create an unstoppable juggernaut of nearly perfectly efficient oppression. Yet there is another
story to be told – of weakness reinforcing weakness. Authoritarian states were always
particularly prone to the deficiencies identified in James Scott's Seeing Like a State
– the desire to make citizens and their doings legible to the state, by
standardizing and categorizing them, and reorganizing collective life in simplified ways, for
example by remaking cities so that they were not organic structures that emerged from the
doings of their citizens, but instead grand chessboards
with ordered squares and boulevards, reducing all complexities to a
square of planed wood . The grand state bureaucracies that were built to carry out these
operations were responsible for multitudes of horrors, but also for the crumbling of the
Stalinist state into a Brezhnevian desuetude, where everyone pretended to be carrying on as
normal because everyone else was carrying on too. The deficiencies of state action, and its
need to reduce the world into something simpler that it could comprehend and act upon created a
kind of feedback loop, in which imperfections of vision and action repeatedly reinforced each
other.
So what might a similar analysis say about the marriage of authoritarianism and machine
learning? Something like the following, I think. There are two notable problems with machine
learning. One – that while it can do many extraordinary things, it is not nearly as
universally effective as the mythology suggests. The other is that it can serve as a magnifier
for already existing biases in the data. The patterns that it identifies may be the product of
the problematic data that goes in, which is (to the extent that it is accurate) often the
product of biased social processes. When this data is then used to make decisions that may
plausibly reinforce those processes (by singling e.g. particular groups that are regarded as
problematic out for particular police attention, leading them to be more liable to be arrested
and so on), the bias may feed upon itself.
This is a substantial problem in democratic societies, but it is a problem where there are
at least some counteracting tendencies. The great advantage of democracy is its openness to
contrary opinions and divergent perspectives . This opens up democracy to a specific set of
destabilizing attacks but it also means that there are countervailing tendencies to
self-reinforcing biases. When there are groups that are victimized by such biases, they may
mobilize against it (although they will find it harder to mobilize against algorithms than
overt discrimination). When there are obvious inefficiencies or social, political or economic
problems that result from biases, then there will be ways for people to point out these
inefficiencies or problems.
These correction tendencies will be weaker in authoritarian societies; in extreme versions
of authoritarianism, they may barely even exist. Groups that are discriminated against will
have no obvious recourse. Major mistakes may go uncorrected: they may be nearly invisible to a
state whose data is polluted both by the means employed to observe and classify it, and the
policies implemented on the basis of this data. A plausible feedback loop would see bias
leading to error leading to further bias, and no ready ways to correct it. This of course, will
be likely to be reinforced by the ordinary politics of authoritarianism, and the typical
reluctance to correct leaders, even when their policies are leading to disaster. The flawed
ideology of the leader (We must all study Comrade Xi thought to discover the truth!) and of the
algorithm (machine learning is magic!) may reinforce each other in highly unfortunate ways.
In short, there is a very plausible set of mechanisms under which machine learning and
related techniques may turn out to be a disaster for authoritarianism, reinforcing its
weaknesses rather than its strengths, by increasing its tendency to bad decision making, and
reducing further the possibility of negative feedback that could help correct against errors.
This disaster would unfold in two ways. The first will involve enormous human costs:
self-reinforcing bias will likely increase discrimination against out-groups, of the sort that
we are seeing against the Uighur today. The second will involve more ordinary self-ramifying
errors, that may lead to widespread planning disasters, which will differ from those described
in Scott's account of High Modernism in that they are not as immediately visible, but that may
also be more pernicious, and more damaging to the political health and viability of the regime
for just that reason.
So in short, this conjecture would suggest that the conjunction of AI and authoritarianism
(has someone coined the term 'aithoritarianism' yet? I'd really prefer not to take the blame),
will have more or less the opposite effects of what people expect. It will not be Singapore
writ large, and perhaps more brutal. Instead, it will be both more radically monstrous and more
radically unstable.
Like all monotheoretic accounts, you should treat this post with some skepticism –
political reality is always more complex and muddier than any abstraction. There are surely
other effects (another, particularly interesting one for big countries such as China, is to
relax the assumption that the state is a monolith, and to think about the intersection between
machine learning and warring bureaucratic factions within the center, and between the center
and periphery).Yet I think that it is plausible that it at least maps one significant set of
causal relationships, that may push (in combination with, or against, other structural forces)
towards very different outcomes than the conventional wisdom imagines. Comments, elaborations,
qualifications and disagreements welcome.
Ben 11.25.19 at 6:32 pm (no link)
This seems to equivocate between two meanings of bias. Bias might mean a flaw that leads to
empirically incorrect judgements and so to bad decisions, and it's true that that type of
bias could destabilize an authoritarian state. But what we usually worry about with machine
learning is that the system will find very real, but deeply unjust, patterns in the data, and
reinforce those pattern. If there's a particular ethnic group that really does produce a
disproportionate number of dissidents, and an algorithm leads to even-more-excessive
repression of that group -- I'm not sure why an authoritarian state would see a stability
threat in that tendency.
More generally, I think AI gets far too much of the billing in authoritarian
apocalypse forecasts. Cheap, ubiquitous cameras, microphones, and location trackers are the
real issue. If the state can track everyone's movements and conversations, then it can build
a better Stasi even with crude, simple ai.
I'd just like to point out (re: the tweet in the original post) that the "Uighur
face-matching AI" idea is bullshit invented by scaremongers, with no basis in fact and
traceable to a shoddy reddit thread. The Chinese government is not using facial recognition
to identify Uighur, and the facial recognition fears about the Chinese government are vastly
overstated.
Australia's border control facial recognition software is far more advanced than
China's, as is the UK's, and facial recognition is actually pretty common in democracies. See
e.g. the iPhone.
The main areas in which China uses facial recognition are in verifying ID for some high
cost functions (like buying high speed rail tickets), and it's quite easy to avoid these
functions by joining a queue and paying a human. The real intrusiveness of the Chinese
security state is in its constant bag searches and very human-centric abuses of power in
everyday life in connection with "security". Whether you get stopped and searched depends a
lot on very arbitrary and error prone judgments by bored security staff at railway stations,
in public squares, and on buses, not some evil intrusive state technology.
Conversely, the UK is a world leader in installing and using CCTV cameras, and has been
for a long time. Furthermore, these CCTV cameras are a huge boon to law-abiding citizens,
since they act as both excellent forms of crime prevention (I have had this experience
myself) and for finding serious criminals. The people responsible for the death of those 39
Vietnamese labourers in the ice truck were caught because of CCTV; so was the guy who
murdered that woman on the street in Melbourne a few years ago.
Finally to address another point that's already been raised (sadly): China no longer
harvests organs, and the 2019 report that says it does is a sham. The social credit system is
also largely a myth, and nobody from China even seems to know wtf it is.
If you're going to talk about how state's work, and the relative merits of autocratic vs.
democratic states and their interaction with technology, it's a really good idea to get the
basic facts right first.
Nathanael 11.26.19 at 6:10 am (no link)
I'll add that John Quiggin's point that Xi has already lost control of the provinces is
correct -- but it DOES threaten his position as dictator. Once the provincial governors know
they can act with impunity, it is absolutely standard for the next step to be getting rid of
that annoying guy who is pretending to be dictator. It may take a few years but Xi now has
dozens of powerful insiders who know that he's a weakling. They'll bide their time but when
he crosses too many of them they'll take him out. And if China doesn't shut down coal, he's
going to look like a weakling internationally too, in a couple of years. This will create a
new group of ambitious insiders with a different reason to take him out.
Xi broke the "technocratic consensus" which was present after Deng, of central committee
members who strove for competence and fact-based decision-making. That was a surprisingly
effective type of junta government which led to lots of thinkpieces about whether
authoritarian China would beat the democratic west. But it succumbed to the succession
problem, like all authoritarian systems; Xi made himself Premier-for-life and the country is
now exhibiting all the usual failures of authoritarian countries.
Hidari 11.26.19 at 9:08 am (no link)
@11 Yes it's strange that allegations of Chinese use of facial recognition software is
gaining so much traction at a time when the Trump regime is deliberately ratcheting up
tensions with China to pursue nakedly imperial goals, when the objective facts of Israeli use
of similar software, which the Israelis boast about (
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/all/why-did-microsoft-fund-israeli-firm-surveils-west-bank-palestinians-n1072116
) doesn't cause so much interest, at a time when the Trump regime has simple decreed that the
Israeli invasion/colonisation of Palestine is 'legal under international law'.
One of life's little mysteries I guess.
If we must talk about China could we at least bring it back to areas where we are
responsible and where, therefore, we can do something about it?
Publishing here my afterword for "2030, A New Vision for Europe", the manifesto for
European Data Protection Supervisor, Giovanni Buttarelli, who died this summer. The manifesto
was developed by Christian D'Cunha, who works in the EDPS office, based on his many
conversations with Giovanni.
"A cage went in search of a bird"
Franz Kafka certainly knew how to write a story. The eight-word aphorism he jotted down in a
notebook a century ago reveals so much about our world today. Surveillance goes in search of
subjects. Use-cases go in search of profit. Walled gardens go in search of tame customers.
Data-extractive monopolies go in search of whole countries, of democracy itself, to envelop and
re-shape, to cage and control. The cage of surveillance technology stalks the world, looking
for birds to trap and monetise. And it cannot stop itself. The surveillance cage is the
original autonomous vehicle, driven by financial algorithms it doesn't control. So when we
describe our data-driven world as 'Kafka-esque', we are speaking a deeper truth than we even
guess.
Giovanni knew this. He knew that data is power and that the radical concentration of power
in a tiny number of companies is not a technocratic concern for specialists but an existential
issue for our species. Giovanni's manifesto, Privacy 2030: A Vision for Europe, goes far beyond
data protection. It connects the dots to show how data-maximisation exploits power asymmetries
to drive global inequality. It spells out how relentless data-processing actually drives
climate change. Giovanni's manifesto calls for us to connect the dots in how we respond, to
start from the understanding that sociopathic data-extraction and mindless computation are the
acts of a machine that needs to be radically reprogrammed.
... ... ...
In October 2018, the Vatican's Papal Nuncio to the European Union wrote to
Giovanni to support the work of the 40th International Conference of Data Protection and
Privacy Commissioners. He said technology is a precious resource when it's working for
everyone, but that technology alone cannot set the direction of human progress. You don't have
to be a Catholic to insist that we ditch cute, reductionist mind-games like the 'trolley
problem' to decide who wins and who loses, and insist that technology ethics are instead
grounded in respect for people. And you shouldn't have to sound radical to insist that tech
business models must serve and be accountable to us, not the other way around.
The manifesto and its Ten-Point Plan for Sustainable Privacy show there is another digital
path forward. Not the oppressive brittleness of China's state sovereignty model, and not the
colonialist extraction of Silicon Valley. There is a European Union version of the Internet
that starts with the society we as citizens want to live in, and then figures out how to get
there. It recognises that just as we don't live our lives to serve corporate interests, nor
must we sacrifice our private and public spaces to serve the state. Because in any future we
actively want to live in, autonomy is for humans, not machines.
The European vision of our digital future will take the work of many of our lifetimes to
achieve. That eight-word story doesn't have an ending we can yet see. The surveillance cage
cannot help but try to trap birds. That's its programming. That's just what it does. But the
cage isn't the technology; the cage is our flawed and narrow assumptions about what technology
can do.
notGoodenough 11.19.19 at 11:02 am (no link)
Gareth Wilson @ 1
With respect, nowhere in the post has it been implied that iris scanners are required for
refugee camps, so you would appear to be disagreeing with a position that hasn´t been
proposed.
I won´t speak for the OP, but I think it is not a particularly controversial idea
that technology can facilitate things (for good or ill), and so it would seem not
unreasonable that there should be at least some consideration of potential ethical and social
ramifications during the process of implementation.
For example, most people using modern technology generate information about themselves
(the websites they visit, who they follow on the twitters, who is facebook friends, etc.).
What should be that person´s right to privacy and control over their information? I
don´t think it requires the most active imagination to think of ways this could be
exploited (and indeed, one might be able to find examples even now), and leaving these things
unregulated does rather open that possibility.
While people may disagree whether or not it is problematic for companies to undertake
commodification our electronic information (and to what extent, if any, this should be
regulated), I would hope you agree that the conversation is worth having?
"... Finally, the Thought Police were also inspired by the human struggle for self-honesty and the pressure to conform. "The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe," Rudyard Kipling once observed. ..."
"... The struggle to remain true to one's self was also felt by Orwell, who wrote about "the smelly little orthodoxies" that contend for the human soul. Orwell prided himself with a "power of facing unpleasant facts" -- something of a rarity in humans -- even though it often hurt him in British society. ..."
"... In a sense, 1984 is largely a book about the human capacity to maintain a grip on the truth in the face of propaganda and power. ..."
"... The new Thought Police may be less sinister than the ThinkPol in 1984 , but the next generation will have to decide if seeking conformity of thought or language through public shaming is healthy or suffocating. FEE's Dan Sanchez recently observed that many people today feel like they're "walking on eggshells" and live in fear of making a verbal mistake that could draw condemnation. ..."
"... When the Berlin Wall came down in November 1989, it was revealed that the Stasi , East Germany's secret police, had a full-time staff of 91,000. That sounds like a lot, and it is, but what's frightening is that the organization had almost double that in informants, including children. And it wasn't just children reporting on parents; sometimes it was the other way around." ..."
"... Movies like the Matrix actually helped people to question everything. What is real and not. Who is the enemy, and can we be sure. And when Conspiracy theories become fact, people learn. The problem is in later generations who get indoctrinated at school and college to not think, not question. Rational examination is forbidden. ..."
There are a lot of unpleasant things in George Orwell's dystopian novel 1984 . Spying screens. Torture and propaganda. Victory
Gin and Victory Coffee always sounded particularly dreadful. And there is Winston Smith's varicose ulcer,
apparently a symbol of his humanity (or something),
which always seems to be "throbbing." Gross.
None of this sounds very enjoyable, but it's not the worst thing in 1984 . To me, the most terrifying part was that you couldn't
keep Big Brother out of your head.
Unlike other 20th-century totalitarians, the authoritarians in 1984 aren't that interested in controlling behavior or speech.
They do, of course, but it's only as a means to an end. Their real goal is to control the gray matter between the ears.
"When finally you surrender to us, it must be of your own free will," O'Brien (the bad guy) tells the protagonist Winston Smith
near the end of the book.
We do not destroy the heretic because he resists us: so long as he resists us we never destroy him. We convert him, we capture
his inner mind, we reshape him.
Big Brother's tool for doing this is the Thought Police, aka the ThinkPol, who are assigned to root out and punish unapproved
thoughts. We see how this works when Winston's neighbor Parsons, an obnoxious Party sycophant, is reported to the Thought Police
by his own child, who heard him commit a thought crime while talking in his sleep.
"It was my little daughter," Parsons tells Winston when asked who it was who denounced him.
"She listened at the keyhole. Heard what I was saying, and nipped off to the patrols the very next day. Pretty smart for a
nipper of seven, eh?"
Who Are These Thought Police?
We don't know a lot about the Thought Police, and some of what we think we know may actually not be true since some of what Winston
learns comes from the Inner Party, and they lie.
What we know is this: The Thought Police are secret police of
Oceania -- the fictional land
of 1984 that probably consists of the UK, the Americas, and parts of Africa -- who use surveillance and informants to monitor the
thoughts of citizens. The Thought Police also use psychological warfare and false-flag operations to entrap free thinkers or nonconformists.
Those who stray from Party orthodoxy are punished but not killed. The Thought Police don't want to kill nonconformists so much
as break them. This happens in Room 101 of the Ministry of Love, where prisoners are re-educated through degradation and torture.
(Funny sidebar: the name Room 101
apparently was inspired by a conference room at the BBC in which Orwell was forced to endure tediously long meetings.)
The Origins of the Thought Police
Orwell didn't create the Thought Police out of thin air. They were inspired to at least some degree by
his experiences in
the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), a complicated and
confusing affair. What you really need to know is that there were no good guys, and it ended with left-leaning anarchists and Republicans
in Spain crushed by their Communist overlords, which helped the fascists win.
Orwell, an idealistic 33-year-old socialist when the conflict started, supported the anarchists and loyalists fighting for the
left-leaning Second Spanish Republic, which received most of its support from the Soviet Union and Josef Stalin. (That might sound
bad, but keep in mind that the Nazis were on the other side.) Orwell described the atmosphere in Barcelona in December 1936 when
everything seemed to be going well for his side.
The anarchists were still in virtual control of Catalonia and the revolution was still in full swing ... It was the first time
that I had ever been in a town where the working class was in the saddle,
he wrote in Homage to Catalonia.
[E]very wall was scrawled with the hammer and sickle ... every shop and café had an inscription saying that it had been collectivized.
That all changed pretty fast. Stalin, a rather paranoid fellow, was bent on making Republican Spain loyal to him . Factions and
leaders perceived as loyal to his exiled Communist rival, Leon
Trotsky , were liquidated. Loyal Communists found themselves denounced as fascists. Nonconformists and "uncontrollables" were
disappeared.
Orwell never forgot the
purges or the steady stream of lies and propaganda churned out from Communist papers during the conflict. (To be fair, their Nationalist
opponents also used propaganda
and lies .) Stalin's NKVD was not exactly like the Thought Police
-- the NKVD showed less patience with its victims --
but they certainly helped inspire Orwell's secret police.
The Thought Police were not all propaganda and torture, though. They also stem from Orwell's ideas on truth. During his time in
Spain, he saw how power could corrupt truth, and he shared these reflections in his work
George Orwell: My Country Right or Left, 1940-1943 .
...I saw newspaper reports which did not bear any relation to the facts, not even the relationship which is implied in an ordinary
lie. I saw great battles reported where there had been no fighting, and complete silence where hundreds of men had been killed.
I saw troops who had fought bravely denounced as cowards and traitors, and others who had never seen a shot fired hailed as the
heroes of imaginary victories; and I saw newspapers in London retailing these lies and eager intellectuals building emotional
superstructures over events that had never happened.
In short, Orwell's brush with totalitarianism left him
worried that "the very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world."
This scared him. A lot. He actually wrote, "This kind of thing is frightening to me."
Finally, the Thought Police were also inspired by the human struggle for self-honesty and the pressure to conform. "The individual
has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe," Rudyard Kipling once observed.
The struggle to remain true to one's self was also felt by Orwell, who
wrote about "the smelly little orthodoxies" that contend for the human soul. Orwell prided himself with a "power of facing unpleasant
facts" -- something of a rarity in humans -- even though it often hurt him in British society.
In a sense, 1984 is largely a book about the human capacity to maintain a grip on the truth in the face of propaganda and power.
It might be tempting to dismiss Orwell's book as a figment of dystopian literature. Unfortunately, that's not as easy as it sounds.
Modern history shows he was onto something.
When the Berlin Wall came down in November 1989, it was revealed that the Stasi, East Germany's secret police, had a full-time
staff of 91,000.
When the Berlin Wall came down in November 1989, it was revealed that
the Stasi , East Germany's secret police, had a full-time staff
of 91,000. That sounds like a lot, and it is, but what's frightening is that the organization had almost double that in informants,
including children. And it wasn't just children reporting on parents;
sometimes
it was the other way around.
Nor did the use of state spies to prosecute thoughtcrimes end with the fall of the Soviet Union. Believe it or not, it's still
happening today. The New York Times recently ran
a report featuring one Peng
Wei, a 21-year-old Chinese chemistry major. He is one of the thousands of "student information officers" China uses to root out professors
who show signs of disloyalty to President Xi Jinping or the Communist Party.
The New Thought Police?
The First Amendment of the US Constitution, fortunately, largely protects Americans from the creepy authoritarian systems found
in 1984 , East Germany, and China; but the rise of "cancel culture" shows the pressure to conform to all sorts of orthodoxies (smelly
or not) remains strong.
The new Thought Police may be less sinister than the ThinkPol in 1984 , but the next generation will have to decide if seeking
conformity of thought or language through public shaming is healthy or suffocating. FEE's Dan Sanchez
recently observed
that many people today feel like they're "walking on eggshells" and live in fear of making a verbal mistake that could draw condemnation.
That's a lot of pressure, especially for people still learning the acceptable boundaries of a new moral code that is constantly
evolving. Most people, if the pressure is sufficient, will eventually say "2+2=5" just to escape punishment. That's exactly what
Winston Smith does at the end of 1984 , after all. Yet Orwell also leaves readers with a glimmer of hope.
"Being in a minority, even a minority of one, did not make you mad," Orwell wrote.
"There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad."
In other words, the world may be mad, but that doesn't mean you have to be.
" When the Berlin Wall came down in November 1989, it was revealed that the Stasi, East Germany's secret police, had a full-time
staff of 91,000.
When the Berlin Wall came down in November 1989, it was revealed that
the Stasi , East Germany's secret police, had a full-time staff
of 91,000. That sounds like a lot, and it is, but what's frightening is that the organization had almost double that in
informants,
including children. And it wasn't just children reporting on parents;
sometimes
it was the other way around."
Confidential informants should be illegal.
How many people are employed by the various Federal intelligence agencies, of which there are 17 the last time I heard. Hundreds
of thousands of Federal employees, protected by strong government employee unions.
When this shitshow goes live, it will only take a small team to shut off the water that is necessary to keep the NSA servers
cool in Utah.
Movies like the Matrix actually helped people to question everything. What is real and not. Who is the enemy, and can we be sure. And when Conspiracy theories become fact, people learn. The problem is in later generations who get indoctrinated at school and college to not think, not question.
Rational examination
is forbidden.
"... "The border has become a rights-free zone for Americans who have to travel," Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) said in a statement given to Boland at the time. "The founders never could have imagined that the government would be able to sift through your entire digital life, from pictures to emails and even where you've been, just because you decide to take a vacation or travel for work." ..."
At last a victory for citizens. For nearly 20 years, the federal government has used and
abused the memory of the 9/11 attacks to expand its law enforcement authorities at the nation's
airports, even if that has meant broaching one of our most sacrosanct constitutional freedoms:
the right against illegal search and seizure, otherwise known as the 4th Amendment.
On Tuesday, a federal court in Boston ruled that the
Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) can no longer
detain Americans coming back over the border to search their laptops, cell phones and other
electronic devices, without cause. One would think this is a no-brainer, but the number of
these incidents has actually escalated to over 33,000 last year -- nearly four times as many as
the previous three years,
according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation:
The ruling came in a lawsuit, Alasaad v. McAleenan , filed by the
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and ACLU of
Massachusetts, on behalf of 11 travelers whose smartphones and laptops were searched without
individualized suspicion at U.S. ports of entry.
International travelers returning to the United States have reported numerous cases of
abusive searches in recent months. While searching through the phone of Zainab Merchant, a
plaintiff in the Alasaad case, a border agent knowingly rifled through privileged
attorney-client communications. An immigration officer at Boston Logan Airport
reportedly searched an incoming Harvard freshman's cell phone and laptop, reprimanded the
student for friends' social media postings expressing views critical of the U.S. government,
and denied the student entry into the country following the search.
According to EFF, border officers "must now demonstrate individualized suspicion of illegal
contraband before they can search a traveler's device."
TAC's Barbara Boland reported on this over the summer . The number of electronic devices
accessed in 2018 was six times the number in 2012, suggesting that this is not only a
post-9/11 issue, but that somewhere along the line the Trump Administration signaled to these
agencies, which are all under the umbrella of the Department of Homeland Security, that it was
gloves-off at the border -- even for American citizens. Lest you think this is just an
extension of the president's tough illegal immigration policies, be warned, many of the folks
targeted were typical international visitors and U.S. citizens -- think students, journalists,
academics, doctors -- and not travelers to this country for the first time. And they were
treated like they were coming into the Third World. From Boland:
One person detailed to Amnesty
International how she was selected for secondary screening at the border, locked in a
cramped, narrow concrete cell, and subjected to an invasive body search. Her requests for a
lawyer and medical treatment were denied. The supervisor told her she would be held
indefinitely.
When she told him that she is an American citizen, he replied: "The Fourth Amendment
doesn't apply here. We can hold you for as long as we want to."
She was released after four hours.
Journalist Seth Harp wrote a similarly
disturbing story about what happened when he was singled out for a "secondary screening" at
the Austin Airport in Texas. CBP agents pried him for information about what he was writing,
his sources, his reporting as a war correspondent, and his discussions with his editors.
"The border has become a rights-free zone for Americans who have to travel," Senator Ron
Wyden (D-Oregon) said in a statement given to Boland at the time. "The founders never could
have imagined that the government would be able to sift through your entire digital life, from
pictures to emails and even where you've been, just because you decide to take a vacation or
travel for work."
Let's hope that Tuesday's order fixes that -- though it might take a Supreme Court ruling to
put an end to it for good.
My intent here is not to summarize Snowden's entire interview. I want to focus on some
points he made that I found especially revealing, pertinent, and insightful.
Without further ado, here are 12 points I took from this interview:
1. People who reach the highest levels of government do so by being risk-averse. Their
goal is never to screw-up in a major way. This mentality breeds cautiousness, mediocrity, and
buck-passing. (I saw the same in my 20 years in the U.S. military.)
2. The American people are no longer partners of government. We are subjects. Our rights
are routinely violated even as we become accustomed (or largely oblivious) to a form of
turnkey tyranny.
3. Intelligence agencies in the U.S. used 9/11 to enlarge their power. They argued that
9/11 happened because there were "too many restrictions" on them. This led to the PATRIOT Act
and unconstitutional global mass surveillance, disguised as the price of being kept "safe"
from terrorism. Simultaneously, America's 17 intelligence agencies wanted most of all not to
be blamed for 9/11. They wanted to ensure the buck stopped nowhere. This was a goal they
achieved.
4. Every persuasive lie has a kernel of truth. Terrorism does exist - that's the kernel of
truth. Illegal mass surveillance, facilitated by nearly unlimited government power, in the
cause of "keeping us safe" is the persuasive lie.
5. The government uses classification
("Top Secret" and so on) primarily to hide things from the American people, who have no "need
to know" in the view of government officials. Secrecy becomes a cloak for illegality.
Government becomes unaccountable; the people don't know, therefore we are powerless to rein
in government excesses or to prosecute for abuses of power.
6. Fear is the
mind-killer (my expression here, quoting Frank Herbert's Dune ). Snowden spoke much about
the use of fear by the government, using expressions like "they'll be blood on your hands"
and "think of the children." Fear is the way to cloud people's minds. As Snowden put it, you
lose the ability to act because you are afraid.
7. What is true patriotism? For Snowden, it's about a constant effort to do good for the
people. It's not loyalty to government. Loyalty, Snowden notes, is only good in the service
of something good.
8. National security and public safety are not synonymous. In fact, in the name of
national security, our rights are being violated. We are "sweeping up the broken glass of our
lost rights" in today's world of global mass surveillance, Snowden noted.
9. We live naked before power. Companies like Facebook and Google, together with the U.S.
government, know everything about us; we know little about them. It's supposed to be the
reverse (at least in a democracy).
10. "The system is built on lies." James Clapper, the director of national intelligence,
lies under oath before Congress. And there are no consequences. He goes unpunished.
11. We own less and less of our own data. Data increasingly belongs to corporations and
the government. It's become a commodity. Which means we are the commodity. We are being
exploited and manipulated, we are being sold, and it's all legal, because the powerful make
the policies and the laws, and they are unaccountable to the people.
12. Don't wait for a hero to save you. What matters is heroic decisions. You are never
more than one decision away from making the world a better place.
In 2013, Edward Snowden made a heroic decision to reveal illegal mass surveillance by the
U.S. government, among other governmental crimes. He has made the world a better place, but as
he himself knows, the fight has only just begun against turnkey tyranny.
Governments using fear for control is nothing new.
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous
to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them
imaginary.
Sorry folks. In time you will see that Snowden was, is, and always will be CIA (black
hat). The whistle blowing was a CIA attempt to shut down the NSA (white hat) leaving no one
to watch over the black hats whilst they conduct thier drug running and regime changing, and
MK ultra operations. Ask Kennedy. Oh wait CIA and daddy Bush blew his head off.
Snowden, in my opinion, is a limited hangout. Not necessarily aware of it, he could just
be a convenient dupe.
If there's this much surveillance, how in the Hell did he exfiltrate that much data AND be
able to leave the country? Why did it take so long to track him down and revoke his passport?
It makes no sense. Why didn't he go to Wikileaks, who has a proven and reliable track record
but instead went to MSM?
I think he is probably genuine in his beliefs, but still see him as a limited hangout.
He has made the world a better place
How? Uncle Scam still has all it's capabilities. That big *** data center in Utah.
Nothing's changed except we were told about it- again. Remember Drake, Wiebe and Binney
spilled the beans in 2004.
And how does a guy go from CIA janitor to effectively an NSA systems admin? Seriously, not
to **** on janitors, but how in the actual **** does that happen?
All your questions are answered in his book. Wkileaks wasn't an option because they
release en masse without any vetting. He didn't want people to die from release of some of
the docs he had.
They are just now getting to the point where they have the tech to effectively sort and
search through all that data. Plus. He tapped it from the source.
The real shame is how little resulted from the exposure. Nothing changed, no one was held
to account, and we the people did nothing. We are a nation of contented slaves, for now.
"Intelligence agencies in the U.S. used 9/11 to enlarge their power. "
And their power was supposed to be limited to foreign actors. The skinny, jug-eared, gay
guy and his acolytes thought up sinister illegal ways to extend that power to private US
citizens and the gay guy's political enemies.
Most of these problems were predicted centuries ago when the founders feared a standing
army that could be turned against the people. Now we have standing armies, and civilian
paramilitaries in every county and big city, local cops, city cops, state police. We have
ATF, FBI, CIA, NSA, IRS, and dozens of other armed alphabet soup agencies.
With We THE People are gonna regain our country again and many people will die again, and
with luck all the traitors will hang by the neck until dead.
The elites who think it is their birthright to lord over us need to be reminded that they
serve us. All the communist democrats are in need of reminders and quick drop at the end of a
rope.
It's heartening to know Snowden is a martial alumni..
And speaking of tyranny, we came across a gem, a most enlightening gem thus..
"If you take me down, I'll come after you with everything I've got It will become my
life's mission."
"These are the words of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to newspaper publisher Arnon
Mozes in a recording that has become central evidence in a corruption case against Netanyahu,
as revealed Saturday by Channel 13 journalist Raviv Drucker.."
So why have we brought this to your attention?
So you may understand that Liberty is not for the lily livered. If Jefferson and Co had
been squeamish, Americans would still be serfs..
If MLK had been squeamish, negros would not be free today, to be in position to advocate
for rights..
And if Cesar Chavez had adopted cowardice, then Latinos would have no mojo to
advocate..
And if Hugo Chavez had not given his life to Venezuela, it's doubtful that Maduro would
have had a leg to stand on..
And yet, Lula is imprisoned..just like Nelson Mandela, for the best years of his
life..
My friends, mortality eventually ends, that's a certainty..what you do with yours, is
consequential, for good or ill..
When the depraved hurl threats, it means they're afraid, and in that event, increase the
artillery barrage of truth..cheers...
The digital world has become disturbingly invasive and the source of the data the
governments uses against us.
Abstain.
Get off of social media, limit net time, encrypt communications, leave our mobile devices
at home and use cash.
Anything that leaves a digital footprint is being tracked.
The loss of our privacy is the loss of our freedom.
To return democracy to the people we need to do the following:
-Term limits of 8 years at any one level of government for the politicians, diplomats,
bureaucrats and senior civil servants. If our legislators know they will spend the majority
of their working lives in the private sector they will not pass laws that solely benefit the
public sector.
-Recall legislation to hold our legislators accountable.
-Balance budget laws that require referendums to amend or repeal.
-Zero tax increase laws that require referendums to amend or repeal.
We need to return democracy to the people and we do that by demanding change at the
grassroots levels.
These days , The Shang Dynasty's moral decay quickly comes to mind, as outlined in
The Art of War : lies, deceit and diffusion were the norm; unaccountable leaders
immersed themselves in debauchery, orgies and lavish self-profiting (today's
Epsteinism in full-swing); brutally-enforced high taxes & wage thefts levied on
citizens; government's increased violence against state residents, particularly those brave
enough to resist widespread tyranny; escalated harmful interference in the country's
agricultural operations; and knee-jerked, violent responses with heavy-handed, inhuman
punishments (like SWAT teams blowing away innocents -- women & children -- over minor,
inconsequential infractions), especially violation of peoples' guaranteed civil liberties, as
well as their sovereign dignities and property rights, under the guise of ridiculously
concocted "boogeymen" nonsense.
It's also interesting that this area has more millionaires per capita than anywhere else
in America. It's not a high tech area, no manufacturing, and no big agriculture. Sucking the
tit of our taxes.
"... All that changed with the conversion of the federal government to a national-security state and with the adoption of a pro-empire, pro-intervention foreign policy. When that happened, the U.S. government assumed the duty to fix the wrongs of the world. ..."
"... That's when U.S. officials began thinking in terms of empire and using empire-speak. Foreign regimes became "allies," "partners," and "friends." Others became "opponents," "rivals," or "enemies." Events thousands of miles away became threats to "national security." ..."
"... The results of U.S. imperialism and interventionism have always been perverse, not only for foreigners but also for Americans. That's how Americans have ended up with out-of-control federal spending and debt that have left much of the middle class high and dry, unable to support themselves in their senior years, unable to save a nest egg for financial emergencies, and living paycheck to paycheck. Empire and interventionism do not come cheap. ..."
"... There is but one solution to all this chaos and mayhem -- the dismantling, not the reform, of the Pentagon, the military-industrial complex, the vast empire of foreign and domestic military bases, and the NSA, along with an immediate end to all foreign interventionism. A free, peaceful, prosperous, and harmonious society necessarily entails the restoration of a limited-government republic and a non-interventionist foreign policy to our land. ..."
The chaos arising from U.S. interventionism in Syria provides an excellent opportunity to explore the interventionist mind.
Consider the terminology being employed by interventionists: President Trump's actions in Syria have left a "power vacuum," one
that Russia and Iran are now filling. The United States will no longer have "influence" in the region. "Allies" will no longer be
able to trust the U.S. to come to their assistance. Trump's actions have threatened "national security." It is now possible that
ISIS will reformulate and threaten to take over lands and even regimes in the Middle East.
This verbiage is classic empire-speak. It is the language of the interventionist and the imperialist.
Amidst all the interventionist chaos in the Middle East, it is important to keep in mind one critically important fact: None of
it will mean a violent takeover of the U.S. government or an invasion and conquest of the United States. The federal government will
go on. American life will go on. There will be no army of Muslims, terrorists, Syrians, ISISians, Russians, Chinese, drug dealers,
or illegal immigrants coming to get us and take over the reins of the IRS.
Why is that an important point? Because it shows that no matter what happens in Syria or the rest of the Middle East, life will
continue here in the United States. Even if Russia gets to continue controlling Syria, that's not going to result in a conquest of
the United States. The same holds true if ISIS, say, takes over Iraq. Or if Turkey ends up killing lots of Kurds. Or if Syria ends
up protecting the Kurds. Or if Iran continues to be controlled by a theocratic state. Or if the Russians retake control over Ukraine.
It was no different than when North Vietnam ended up winning the Vietnamese civil war. The dominoes did not fall onto the United
States and make America Red. It also makes no difference if Egypt continues to be controlled by a brutal military dictatorship. Or
that Cuba, North Korea, and China are controlled by communist regimes. Or that Russia is controlled by an authoritarian regime. Or
that Myanmar (Burma) is controlled by a totalitarian military regime. America and the federal government will continue standing.
America was founded as a limited government republic, one that did not send its military forces around the world to slay monsters.
That's not to say that bad things didn't happen around the world. Bad things have always happened around the world. Dictatorships.
Famines. Wars. Civil wars. Revolutions. Empires. Torture. Extra-judicial executions. Tyranny. Oppression. The policy of the United
States was that it would not go abroad to fix or clear up those types of things.
All that changed with the conversion of the federal government to a national-security state and with the adoption of a pro-empire,
pro-intervention foreign policy. When that happened, the U.S. government assumed the duty to fix the wrongs of the world.
That's when U.S. officials began thinking in terms of empire and using empire-speak. Foreign regimes became "allies," "partners,"
and "friends." Others became "opponents," "rivals," or "enemies." Events thousands of miles away became threats to "national security."
That's when U.S. forces began invading and occupying other countries, waging wars of aggression against them, intervening in foreign
wars, revolutions, and civil wars, initiating coups, destroying democratic regimes, establishing an empire of domestic and foreign
military bases, and bombing, shooting, killing, assassinating, spying on, maiming, torturing, kidnapping, injuring, and destroying
people in countries all over the world.
The results of U.S. imperialism and interventionism have always been perverse, not only for foreigners but also for Americans.
That's how Americans have ended up with out-of-control federal spending and debt that have left much of the middle class high and
dry, unable to support themselves in their senior years, unable to save a nest egg for financial emergencies, and living paycheck
to paycheck. Empire and interventionism do not come cheap.
The shift toward empire and interventionism has brought about the destruction of American liberty and privacy here at home. That's
what the assassinations, secret surveillance, torture, and indefinite detentions of American citizens are all about -- to supposedly
protect us from the dangers produced by U.S. imperialism and interventionism abroad. One might call it waging perpetual war for freedom
and peace, both here and abroad.
There is but one solution to all this chaos and mayhem -- the dismantling, not the reform, of the Pentagon, the military-industrial
complex, the vast empire of foreign and domestic military bases, and the NSA, along with an immediate end to all foreign interventionism.
A free, peaceful, prosperous, and harmonious society necessarily entails the restoration of a limited-government republic and a non-interventionist
foreign policy to our land.
"... The main take away for me came towards the end where Snowden outlines the special legal conditions and laws that the US government enforces to control presentation of evidence in these cases. These same 'servant' thugs who are stepping into the now 3rd-world UK court system and pulling the strings on Australia's Assange. The same crew that Snowden worked with and blew the whistle on (apparently). ..."
"... Snowden makes great bravado about being willing to go back to the USA and face the music -- if only he could say in court why he did it (something the legal Act prohibits apparently). In this, and a few other matters of history, I find him less than genuine. Is/was he a plant? .... I'm still out with the jury on that. ..."
Indeed Orwell's "1984" referred to the UK as "Airstrip One" and this Brexit fiasco surely
proves that Outside Influences not only run the Judiciary when necessary, but also plant
poison on doorknobs when it suits them.
The ever servile Australian government to the empire du jour does nothing to honor their
passport pledge. We would have to assume it qualifies as Orwell's "Airstrip Two"
In contrast to Assange's predicament (and Manning I assume), the main point of this post
is to mention the recent Joe Rogan interview of Edward Snowden (touting his book) --
http://podcasts.joerogan.net/podcasts/edward-snowden
Nearly three hours of mostly Snowden rambling on. I stayed with it to the end. A few items
of interest but mostly just noise. I found him initially somewhat suspicious -- by the end I
was more neutral. However, what a display of American arrogance and ingratitude. The Russian
government has saved his bacon and has given him refuge with great freedoms he would not have
in the USA -- or Airstrip One ... or, HK, or any South American backyard colony. And yet he
makes no attempt to thank them and even virtually panders to the American anti-Russian meme.
He has even dabbled in Russian opposition politics via local newspaper comments. What an
ungrateful guest! (Or still an agent @ work?) I would entirely understand the Russians
putting him on a plane back to the USA tomorrow. Ungrateful little character, imo. And says a
lot about the way Americans treat the external world from inside their little fishbowl.
Simply a doormat for convenience.
The main take away for me came towards the end where Snowden outlines the special legal
conditions and laws that the US government enforces to control presentation of evidence in
these cases. These same 'servant' thugs who are stepping into the now 3rd-world UK court
system and pulling the strings on Australia's Assange. The same crew that Snowden worked with
and blew the whistle on (apparently).
Snowden makes great bravado about being willing to go back to the USA and face the music
-- if only he could say in court why he did it (something the legal Act prohibits
apparently). In this, and a few other matters of history, I find him less than genuine.
Is/was he a plant? .... I'm still out with the jury on that.
"... "The value of any piece of information is only known when you can connect it with something else that arrives at a future point in time," Hunt said. "Since you can't connect dots you don't have, it drives us into a mode of, we fundamentally try to collect everything and hang on to it forever." ..."
"... "Technology in this world is moving faster than government or law can keep up," he said. "It's moving faster I would argue than you can keep up: You should be asking the question of what are your rights and who owns your data." ..."
"... In its vast Utah Data Center constructed earlier this decade, the National Security Agency has the capacity to store virtually unlimited amounts of digital data it hoovers up daily. This is what Gus Hunt was talking about. The biggest problem is how to make that data useful for the government's purposes -- that is, how to find the needle in the haystack of data. ..."
"... " Your entire life is in storage somewhere -- and the government will be able to search it at will, quickly." ..."
"... 'Somewhere' has an address. Add in the data stored by FB/Amazon/Google, and a nearly complete picture of you as an individual, your thoughts, fears, hopes, etc is online and can be quantified. https://www.theatlantic.com... ..."
"... I sincerely hope that the NSA, looking at my life, will find itself sufficiently entertained that it will put up with my boring comments. I would hate to be responsible for someone its bowels to be put to sleep at an inopportune moment and have a serious national crisis occur as a result ..."
"... The hubris is that tech is all powerful, because we have experienced a rapid growth in the ability to produce and access information, but it is not bringing wisdom or any beer governance. ..."
Speaking before a crowd of tech geeks at GigaOM's Structure:Data conference in New York City, CTO Ira "Gus" Hunt said that
the world is increasingly awash in information from text messages, tweets, and videos -- and that the agency wants all of it.
"The value of any piece of information is only known when you can connect it with something else that arrives at a future
point in time," Hunt said. "Since you can't connect dots you don't have, it drives us into a mode of, we fundamentally try to
collect everything and hang on to it forever."
Hunt's comments come two days after Federal Computer Week reported that the CIA has committed to a massive, $600 million, 10-year
deal with Amazon for cloud computing services. The agency has not commented on that report, but Hunt's speech, which included
multiple references to cloud computing, indicates that it does indeed have interest in storage and analysis capabilities on a
massive scale.
More:
"It is really very nearly within our grasp to be able to compute on all human generated information," Hunt said. After that
mark is reached, Hunt said, the agency would also like to be able to save and analyze all of the digital breadcrumbs people don't
even know they are creating.
"You're already a walking sensor platform," he said, nothing that mobiles, smartphones and iPads come with cameras, accelerometers,
light detectors and geolocation capabilities.
"You are aware of the fact that somebody can know where you are at all times, because you carry a mobile device, even if that
mobile device is turned off," he said. "You know this, I hope? Yes? Well, you should."
Hunt also spoke of mobile apps that will be able to control pacemakers -- even involuntarily -- and joked about a "dystopian"
future where self-driving cars force people to go to the grocery store to pick up milk for their spouses.
Hunt's speech barely touched on privacy concerns. But he did acknowledge that they exist.
"Technology in this world is moving faster than government or law can keep up," he said. "It's moving faster I would argue
than you can keep up: You should be asking the question of what are your rights and who owns your data."
Note well: "It is really very nearly within our grasp to be able to compute on all human generated information."
In its vast Utah Data Center constructed earlier this decade, the National Security Agency has the capacity to store virtually
unlimited amounts of digital data it hoovers up daily. This is what Gus Hunt was talking about. The biggest problem is how to make
that data useful for the government's purposes -- that is, how to find the needle in the haystack of data.
" Your entire life is in storage somewhere -- and the government will be able to search it at will, quickly."
'Somewhere' has an address. Add in the data stored by FB/Amazon/Google, and a nearly complete picture of you as an individual,
your thoughts, fears, hopes, etc is online and can be quantified.
https://www.theatlantic.com...
I sincerely hope that the NSA, looking at my life, will find itself sufficiently entertained that it will put up with my boring
comments. I would hate to be responsible for someone its bowels to be put to sleep at an inopportune moment and have a serious
national crisis occur as a result
Or, optionally, you refuse to participate by maintaining a minimal online presence or communicating in person. Also, this sure
is all snazzy, but it's happening in a nation which is facing serious material and structural issues.
The hubris is that tech
is all powerful, because we have experienced a rapid growth in the ability to produce and access information, but it is not bringing
wisdom or any beer governance. The material systems which underlie the technical ones, such as infrastructure, food production,
and so on, can't be "quantized" in a supercomputer. If anything, reliance on tech really moves us closer to real collapse.
(arstechnica.com) 34Ars Technica reports: The threat isn't just theoretical. Whitehat hackers
at Germany's Security Research Labs developed eight apps -- four Alexa "skills" and four Google
Home "actions" -- that all passed Amazon or Google security-vetting processes. The skills or
actions posed as simple apps for checking horoscopes, with the exception of one, which
masqueraded as a random-number generator. Behind the scenes, these "smart spies," as the
researchers call them,
surreptitiously eavesdropped on users and phished for their passwords ...
The apps gave the impression they were no longer running when they, in fact, silently waited for the next phase of the
attack .... The apps quietly logged all conversations within earshot of the device and sent
a copy to a developer-designated server. The phishing apps follow a slightly different path by
responding with an error message that claims the skill or action isn't available in that user's
country. They then go silent to give the impression the app is no longer running. After about a
minute, the apps use a voice that mimics the ones used by Alexa and Google home to falsely
claim a device update is available and prompts the user for a password for it to be
installed....
In response, both companies removed the apps and said they are changing their approval
processes to prevent skills and actions from having similar capabilities in the future.
(theverge.com) 41BeauHD on Friday October 11,
2019 @07:20PM from the can't-act-like-I'm-surprised dept. A new study from Princeton
University shows internet-connected TVs, which allow people to stream Netflix and Hulu,
are loaded with data-hungry trackers . "If you use a device such as Roku and Amazon Fire
TV, there are numerous companies that can build up a fairly comprehensive picture of what
you're watching," Arvind Narayanan, associate professor of computer science at Princeton, wrote
in an email to The Verge. "There's very little oversight or awareness of their practices,
including where that data is being sold." From the report: To understand how much
surveillance is taking place on smart TVs, Narayanan and his co-author Hooman Mohajeri
Moghaddam built a bot that automatically installed thousands of channels on their Roku and
Amazon Fire TVs. It then mimicked human behavior by browsing and watching videos. As soon as it
ran into an ad, it would track what data was being collected behind the scenes. Some of the
information, like device type, city, and state, is hardly unique to one user. But other data,
like the device serial number, Wi-Fi network, and advertising ID, could be used to pinpoint an
individual. "This gives them a more complete picture of who you are," said Moghaddam. He noted
that some channels even sent unencrypted email addresses and video titles to the
trackers.
In total, the study found trackers on 69 percent of Roku channels and 89 percent of
Amazon Fire channels. "Some of these are well known, such as Google, while many others are
relatively obscure companies that most of us have never heard of," Narayanan said. Google's ad
service DoubleClick was found on 97 percent of Roku channels. "Like other publishers, smart TV
app developers can use Google's ad services to show ads against their content, and we've helped
design industry guidelines for this that enable a privacy-safe experience for users," a Google
spokesperson said in a statement emailed to The Verge. "Depending on the user's preferences,
the developer may share data with Google that's similar to data used for ads in mobile apps or
on the web." "Better privacy controls would certainly help, but they are ultimately
band-aids," Narayanan said. "The business model of targeted advertising on TVs is incompatible
with privacy, and we need to confront that reality. To maximize revenue, platforms based on ad
targeting will likely turn to data mining and algorithmic personalization/persuasion to keep
people glued to the screen as long as possible."
Another study from Northeastern University and the Imperial College of London
found that other smart-home devices are also collecting reams of data that is being sent to
third parties like advertisers and major tech companies.
"... It's a major unanticipated consequence of the digital "revolution." It has gotten us stuck looking backward at events, obsessively replaying them, while working overtime to spin them favorably for one team or the other, at the expense of actually living in real time and dealing with reality as it unspools with us. If life were a ballgame, we'd only be watching jumbotron replays while failing to pay attention to the action on the field. ..."
"... The stupendous failure of the Mueller Investigation only revealed what can happen when extraordinary bad faith, dishonesty, and incompetence are brought to this project of reinventing "truth" -- of who did what and why -- while it provoked a counter-industry of detecting its gross falsifications. ..."
"... Perhaps you can see why unleashing the CIA, NSA, and the FBI on political enemies by Mr. Obama and his cohorts has become such a disaster. When that scheme blew up, the intel community went to the mattresses, as the saying goes in Mafia legend and lore. The "company" found itself at existential risk. Of course, the CIA has long been accused of following an agenda of its own simply because it had the means to do it. It had the manpower, the money, and the equipment to run whatever operations it felt like running, and a history of going its own way out of sheer institutional arrogance, of knowing better than the crackers and clowns elected by the hoi-polloi. The secrecy inherent in its charter was a green light for limitless mischief and some of the agency's directors showed open contempt for the occupants of the White House. Think: Allen Dulles and William Casey. And lately, Mr. Brennan. ..."
Here's one big reason that America is driving itself batshit crazy : the explosion of computerized records, emails, inter-office
memos, Twitter trails, Facebook memorabilia, iPhone videos, YouTubes, recorded conversations, and the vast alternative universe of
storage capacity for all this stuff makes it seem possible to constantly go back and reconstruct reality. All it has really done
is amplified the potential for political mischief to suicide level.
It's a major unanticipated consequence of the digital "revolution." It has gotten us stuck looking backward at events, obsessively
replaying them, while working overtime to spin them favorably for one team or the other, at the expense of actually living in real
time and dealing with reality as it unspools with us. If life were a ballgame, we'd only be watching jumbotron replays while failing
to pay attention to the action on the field.
Before all this, history was left largely to historians, who curated it from a range of views for carefully considered introduction
to the stream of human culture, and managed this process at a pace that allowed a polity to get on with its business at hand in the
here-and-now -- instead of incessantly and recursively reviewing events that have already happened 24/7. The more electronic media
has evolved, the more it lends itself to manipulation, propaganda, and falsification of whatever happened five minutes, or five hours,
or five weeks ago.
This is exactly why and how the losing team in the 2016 election has worked so hard to change that bit of history. The stupendous
failure of the Mueller Investigation only revealed what can happen when extraordinary bad faith, dishonesty, and incompetence are
brought to this project of reinventing "truth" -- of who did what and why -- while it provoked a counter-industry of detecting its
gross falsifications.
This dynamic has long been systematically studied and applied by institutions like the so-called "intelligence community," and
has gotten so out-of-hand that its main mission these days appears to be the maximum gaslighting of the nation -- for the purpose
of its own desperate self-defense. The "Whistleblower" episode is the latest turn in dishonestly manipulated records, but the most
interesting feature of it is that the release of the actual transcript of the Trump-Zelensky phone call did not affect the "narrative"
precooked between the CIA and Adam Schiff's House Intel Committee. They just blundered on with the story and when major parts of
the replay didn't add up, they retreated to secret sessions in the basement of the US capitol.
Perhaps you can see why unleashing the CIA, NSA, and the FBI on political enemies by Mr. Obama and his cohorts has become
such a disaster. When that scheme blew up, the intel community went to the mattresses, as the saying goes in Mafia legend and lore.
The "company" found itself at existential risk. Of course, the CIA has long been accused of following an agenda of its own simply
because it had the means to do it. It had the manpower, the money, and the equipment to run whatever operations it felt like running,
and a history of going its own way out of sheer institutional arrogance, of knowing better than the crackers and clowns elected by
the hoi-polloi. The secrecy inherent in its charter was a green light for limitless mischief and some of the agency's directors showed
open contempt for the occupants of the White House. Think: Allen Dulles and William Casey. And lately, Mr. Brennan.
The recently-spawned NSA has mainly added the capacity to turn everything that happens into replay material, since it is suspected
of recording every phone call, every email, every financial transaction, every closed-circuit screen capture, and anything else its
computers can snare for storage in its Utah Data Storage Center. Now you know why the actions of Edward Snowden were so significant.
He did what he did because he was moral enough to know the face of malevolence when he saw it. That he survives in exile is a miracle.
As for the FBI, only an exceptional species of ineptitude explains the trouble they got themselves into with the RussiaGate fiasco.
The unbelievable election loss of Mrs. Clinton screwed the pooch for them, and the desperate acts that followed only made things
worse. The incompetence and mendacity on display was only matched by Mr. Mueller and his lawyers, who were supposed to be the FBI's
cleanup crew and only left a bigger mess -- all of it cataloged in digital records.
Now, persons throughout all these agencies are waiting for the hammer to fall. If they are prosecuted, the process will entail
yet another monumental excursion into the replaying of those digital records. It could go on for years. So, the final act in the
collapse of the USA will be the government choking itself to death on replayed narratives from its own server farms.
In the meantime, events are actually tending in a direction that will eventually deprive the nation of the means to continue most
of its accustomed activities including credible elections, food distribution, a reliable electric grid, and perhaps even self-defense.
"... This is the direction in which the world is going at the present time, and the trend lies deep in the political, social and economic foundations of the contemporary world situation. ..."
"... Specifically the danger lies in the structure imposed on Socialist and on Liberal capitalist communities by the necessity to prepare for total war with the U.S.S.R. and the new weapons, of which of course the atomic bomb is the most powerful and the most publicized. But danger lies also in the acceptance of a totalitarian outlook by intellectuals of all colours. ..."
"... Two of the principal super states will obviously be the Anglo-American world and Eurasia. If these two great blocks line up as mortal enemies it is obvious that the Anglo-Americans will not take the name of their opponents and will not dramatize themselves on the scene of history as Communists. Thus they will have to find a new name for themselves. The name suggested in Nineteen Eighty-Four is of course Ingsoc, but in practice a wide range of choices is open. In the U.S.A. the phrase "Americanism" or "hundred per cent Americanism" is suitable and the qualifying adjective is as totalitarian as anyone could wish. ..."
"... Pretty much explains the SDP and NuLabourInc and his name sake Blair and our political landscape of the last 50 years, don't you think? ..."
"... Also pay attention to the 'parody phrase. ' ..."
Because i feel that some agenda is at play. I'm not going to accuse you of trolling, or even a bit of gas lighting, but
it seems like a slide into classic red scaring and recasting of Eric Blair
By way of explaining my emotion and since you mention Warburg, here is an example of Orwellian post humous attribution.
He never said "imagine a boot stamping on a human face, forever."
'from a post-publication press release directed by publisher Fredric Warburg toward readers who "had misinterpreted [Orwell's]
aim, taking the novel as a criticism of the current British Labour Party, or of contemporary socialism in general." The quotation
from the press release was "soon given the status of a last statement or deathbed appeal, given that Orwell was hospitalized
at the time and dead six months later."
You can read more at georgeorwellnovels.com, which provides a great deal of context on this press release, which runs, in
full, as follows:
It has been suggested by some of the reviewers of Nineteen Eighty-Four that it is the author's view that this, or something
like this, is what will happen inside the next forty years in the Western world. This is not correct. I think that, allowing
for the book being after all a parody, something like Nineteen Eighty-Four could happen. This is the direction in which
the world is going at the present time, and the trend lies deep in the political, social and economic foundations of the contemporary
world situation.
Specifically the danger lies in the structure imposed on Socialist and on Liberal capitalist communities by the necessity
to prepare for total war with the U.S.S.R. and the new weapons, of which of course the atomic bomb is the most powerful and
the most publicized. But danger lies also in the acceptance of a totalitarian outlook by intellectuals of all colours.
The moral to be drawn from this dangerous nightmare situation is a simple one: Don't let it happen. It depends on you.
George Orwell assumes that if such societies as he describes in Nineteen Eighty-Four come into being there will be several
super states. This is fully dealt with in the relevant chapters of Nineteen Eighty-Four. It is also discussed from a different
angle by James Burnham in The Managerial Revolution. These super states will naturally be in opposition to each other or (a
novel point) will pretend to be much more in opposition than in fact they are.
Two of the principal super states will obviously be the Anglo-American world and Eurasia. If these two great blocks
line up as mortal enemies it is obvious that the Anglo-Americans will not take the name of their opponents and will not dramatize
themselves on the scene of history as Communists. Thus they will have to find a new name for themselves. The name suggested
in Nineteen Eighty-Four is of course Ingsoc, but in practice a wide range of choices is open. In the U.S.A. the phrase "Americanism"
or "hundred per cent Americanism" is suitable and the qualifying adjective is as totalitarian as anyone could wish.
If there is a failure of nerve and the Labour party breaks down in its attempt to deal with the hard problems with which
it will be faced, tougher types than the present Labour leaders will inevitably take over, drawn probably from the ranks of
the Left, but not sharing the Liberal aspirations of those now in power. Members of the present British government, from Mr.
Attlee and Sir Stafford Cripps down to Aneurin Bevan will never willingly sell the pass to the enemy, and in general the older
men, nurtured in a Liberal tradition, are safe, but the younger generation is suspect and the seeds of totalitarian thought
are probably widespread among them. It is invidious to mention names, but everyone could without difficulty think for himself
of prominent English and American personalities whom the cap would fit.' http://www.openculture.com/2014/11/george-orwells-final-warning.html
-- -- -- -
Pretty much explains the SDP and NuLabourInc and his name sake Blair and our political landscape of the last 50 years, don't
you think?
Also pay attention to the 'parody phrase. '
'
As i wrote earlier, perhaps Blair of Eton ultimately saw how clearly hist talents had been misused by the 'totalitarians' before
he died.
I understand that some of his works are still censored and others never published. As are his state employment in propaganda
on which he probably based his 'parody' on.
The Iron Heel is a dystopian[1] novel by American writer Jack London, first published in
1908.[2] Generally considered to be "the earliest of the modern dystopian" fiction,[3] it
chronicles the rise of an oligarchic tyranny in the United States.
In The Iron Heel, Jack London's socialist views are explicitly on display. A forerunner of
soft science fiction novels and stories of the 1960s and '70s, the book stresses future changes
in society and politics while paying much less attention to technological changes.
The novel is based on the fictional "Everhard Manuscript" written by Avis Everhard... The
Manuscript itself covers the years 1912 through 1932 in which the Oligarchy (or "Iron Heel") arose in the United
States. In Asia, Japan conquered East Asia and created its own empire, India gained independence,
and Europe became socialist. Canada, Mexico, and Cuba formed their own Oligarchies and were
aligned with the U.S. (London remains silent as to the fates of South America, Africa, and the
Middle East.)
In North America, the Oligarchy maintains power for three centuries until the Revolution
succeeds and ushers in the Brotherhood of Man. During the years of the novel, the First Revolt is
described and preparations for the Second Revolt are discussed. From the perspective of Everhard,
the imminent Second Revolt is sure to succeed but from Meredith's frame story , the reader knows that Ernest
Everhard's hopes would go unfulfilled until centuries after his death.
The Oligarchy is the largest monopoly of trusts (or robber barons ) who manage to
squeeze out the middle class by bankrupting most small to mid-sized business as
well as reducing all farmers to effective serfdom . This Oligarchy maintains power through a
"labor caste " and the
Mercenaries . Laborers in
essential industries like steel and rail are elevated and given decent wages, housing, and
education. Indeed, the tragic turn in the novel (and Jack London's core warning to his
contemporaries) is the treachery of these favored unions which break with the other unions and
side with the Oligarchy. Further, a second, military caste is formed: the Mercenaries. The Mercenaries are
officially the army of the US but are in fact in the employ of the Oligarchs.
Jack London ambitiously predicted a breakdown of the US republic starting a few years past
1908, but various events have caused his predicted future to diverge from actual history. Most
crucially, though London placed quite accurately the time when international tensions will reach
their peak (1913 in "The Iron Heel", 1914 in actual history ), he (like many others at
the time) predicted that when this moment came, labor solidarity would prevent a war that would
include the US, Germany and other nations.
The Iron Heel is cited by George Orwell 's biographer Michael Shelden as having influenced
Orwell's most famous novel Nineteen Eighty-Four .
[4] Orwell himself
described London as having made "a very remarkable prophecy of the rise of Fascism ", in the book and believed that
London's understanding of the primitive had made him a better prophet "than many better-informed
and more logical thinkers." [5] ( The Iron Heel - Wikipedia )
As writer or thinker, Jack London can't touch George Orwell, but he's nearly the Brit's
equal when it comes to describing society's bottom. To both, being a writer is as much a
physical as an intellectual endeavor. Wading into everything, they braved all discomforts and
dangers. This attitude has become very rare, and not just among writers. Trapped in intensely
mediated lives, we all think we know more as we experience less and less.
At age 14, London worked in a salmon cannery. At 16, he was an oyster pirate. At 17, he was
a sailor on a sealing schooner that reached Japan. At 18, London crossed the country as a hobo
and, near Buffalo, was jailed for 30 days for vagrancy. At 21, he prospected for gold in the
Klondike. London was also a newsboy, longshoreman, roustabout, window washer, jute mill grunt,
carpet cleaner and electrician, so he had many incidents, mishaps and ordeals to draw from, and
countless characters to portray.
London's The Road chronicles his hobo and prison misadventure. Condemned to hard labor, the
teenager nearly starved, "While we got plenty of water, we did not get enough of the bread. A
ration of bread was about the size of one's two fists, and three rations a day were given to
each prisoner. There was one good thing, I must say, about the water -- it was hot. In the
morning it was called 'coffee,' at noon it was dignified as 'soup,' and at night it masqueraded
as 'tea.' But it was the same old water all the time."
London quickly worked his way up the clink's hierarchy, to become one of 13 enforcers for
the guards. This experience alone should have taught him that in all situations, not just dire
ones, each man will prioritize his own interest and survival, and that there's no solidarity
among the "downtrodden" or whatever. Orwell's Animal Farm is a parable about this. Since man is
an egoist, power lust lurks everywhere.
During the Russo-Japanese War a decade later, London would approvingly quote a letter from
Japanese socialists to their Russian comrades, but this pacific gesture was nothing compared to
the nationalistic fervor engulfing both countries. Like racism, nationalism is but self love.
Though clearly madness if overblown, it's unextinguishable.
Jailed, London the future socialist stood by as his gang disciplined a naïf, "I
remember a handsome young mulatto of about twenty who got the insane idea into his head that he
should stand for his rights. And he did have the right of it, too; but that didn't help him
any. He lived on the topmost gallery. Eight hall-men took the conceit out of him in just about
a minute and a half -- for that was the length of time required to travel along his gallery to
the end and down five flights of steel stairs. He travelled the whole distance on every portion
of his anatomy except his feet, and the eight hall-men were not idle. The mulatto struck the
pavement where I was standing watching it all. He regained his feet and stood upright for a
moment. In that moment he threw his arms wide apart and omitted an awful scream of terror and
pain and heartbreak. At the same instant, as in a transformation scene, the shreds of his stout
prison clothes fell from him, leaving him wholly naked and streaming blood from every portion
of the surface of his body. Then he collapsed in a heap, unconscious. He had learned his
lesson, and every convict within those walls who heard him scream had learned a lesson. So had
I learned mine. It is not a nice thing to see a man's heart broken in a minute and a half."
Jailed, you immediately recover your racial consciousness, but London apparently missed
this. In any case, a lesser writer or man wouldn't confess to such complicity with power.
Elsewhere, London admits to much hustling and lying, and even claims these practices made him a
writer, "I have often thought that to this training of my tramp days is due much of my success
as a story-writer. In order to get the food whereby I lived, I was compelled to tell tales that
rang true [ ] Also, I quite believe it was my tramp-apprenticeship that made a realist out of
me. Realism constitutes the only goods one can exchange at the kitchen door for grub."
Informed by hard-earned, bitter experience, London's accounts resonate and convince, even
when outlandish, for they are essentially true about the human condition.
London on a fellow prisoner, "He was a huge, illiterate brute, an
ex-Chesapeake-Bay-oyster-pirate, an 'ex-con' who had done five years in Sing Sing, and a
general all-around stupidly carnivorous beast. He used to trap sparrows that flew into our hall
through the open bars. When he made a capture, he hurried away with it into his cell, where I
have seen him crunching bones and spitting out feathers as he bolted it raw."
Though London often uses "beast" or "beastly" to describe how humans are treated, this
fellow appears to be congenitally bestial, with his all-around stupidity. As for the other
prisoners, "Our hall was a common stews, filled with the ruck and the filth, the scum and
dregs, of society -- hereditary inefficients, degenerates, wrecks, lunatics, addled
intelligences, epileptics, monsters, weaklings, in short, a very nightmare of humanity." Though
many are wrecked, others are born deficient, addled or weak, but in our retarded days, morons
must be smart in other ways, and raging monsters are merely oppressed into mayhem or
murder.
ORDER IT NOW
But of course, society does oppress, then and now. Remember that an 18-year-old London was
sentenced to 30 days of hard labor for merely being in a strange city without a hotel
reservation. Another inmate was doing 60 for eating from a trash can, "He had strayed out to
the circus ground, and, being hungry, had made his way to the barrel that contained the refuse
from the table of the circus people. 'And it was good bread,' he often assured me; 'and the
meat was out of sight.' A policeman had seen him and arrested him, and there he was." Well, at
least Americans are no longer locked up for dumpster diving, so there's progress for you, but
then many must still feed from the garbage, with that number rapidly rising.
Though London was a worldwide celebrity at his death in 1916, his fame faded so fast that
Orwell could comment in 1944, "Jack London is one of those border-line writers whose works
might be forgotten altogether unless somebody takes the trouble to revive them."
London's most enduring book may turn out to be The People of the Abyss, his 1903
investigation into the abjectly impoverished of London's East End.
Dressed accordingly, London joined its homeless to see how they survived. With a 58-year-old
carter and a 65-year-old carpenter, London wandered the cold streets, "From the slimy,
spittle-drenched, sidewalk, they were picking up bits of orange peel, apple skin, and grape
stems, and, they were eating them. The pits of greengage plums they cracked between their teeth
for the kernels inside. They picked up stray bits of bread the size of peas, apple cores so
black and dirty one would not take them to be apple cores, and these things these two men took
into their mouths, and chewed them, and swallowed them; and this, between six and seven o'clock
in the evening of August 20, year of our Lord 1902, in the heart of the greatest, wealthiest,
and most powerful empire the world has ever seen."
Having mingled with many homeless in cities across America, I can attest that the food
situation is not as bad in that unraveling empire, but the squalor is just as appalling, if not
worse. A Wall Street Journal headline, "California's Biggest Cities Confront a 'Defecation
Crisis'." There's no need to import public shitting from shitholes, since there's already
plenty of it, homegrown and well-fertilized with smirkingly cynical policies.
Trump, "We can't let Los Angeles, San Francisco and numerous other cities destroy themselves
by allowing what's happening," but he's only talking about the unsightliness of it all, not its
root cause, which is a deliberately wrecked economy that, over decades, has fabulously enriched
his and our masters. This, too, is a controlled demolition.
Ensconced in some leafy suburb, you might be missing this beastly, raving, zonked out and
shitty transformation. Jack London, though, never recoiled from society's diarrhea. My favorite
passage of The People of the Abyss is his account of bathing, so to speak, in a workhouse:
We stripped our clothes, wrapping them up in our coats and buckling our belts about them,
and deposited them in a heaped rack and on the floor -- a beautiful scheme for the spread of
vermin. Then, two by two, we entered the bathroom. There were two ordinary tubs, and this I
know: the two men preceding had washed in that water, we washed in the same water, and it was
not changed for the two men that followed us. This I know; but I am also certain that the
twenty-two of us washed in the same water.
I did no more than make a show of splashing some of this dubious liquid at myself, while I
hastily brushed it off with a towel wet from the bodies of other men. My equanimity was not
restored by seeing the back of one poor wretch a mass of blood from attacks of vermin and
retaliatory scratching.
If other men had to endure that, why shouldn't London, especially since he was trying to
understand these wretches?
Many moons, suns and saturns ago, I taught a writing course at UPenn, and for one
assignment, I asked students to take the subway to a strange stop, get off, walk around and
observe, but don't do it in the dark, I did warn them. Frightened, one girl couldn't get off,
so simply wrote about her very first ride. At least she got a taste of an entirely alien world
beyond campus. Considering that her parents had to cough up over 60 grands annually to consign
her to the Ivy League, they'd probably want to murder me for subjecting their precious to such
needless anxieties.
Cocooned, Americans are oblivious to their own destruction. Screwed, they're fixated by
Pornhub.
London insisted a worldwide class revolution was the answer. A century and several gory
nightmares later, there are those who still cling to this faith, but only in the West. In the
East, even the most ignorant know the survival of his identity and dignity is conterminous with
his nation's. Orwell understood this well. It is the biggest crime to wreck anyone's heritage
in a flash.
In each society, you can begin to right the ship by prosecuting the biggest criminals, with
existing laws, but first, you must have the clarity and courage to identify them.
In the US, at least, this shouldn't be too complicated, for their crimes are mostly out in
the open, and their enforcers appear nightly in your living room, not unlike 1984. As you
watch, they cheerfully lie, silence witnesses, mass murder, squander your last cent and
dismantle, brick by brick, the house your forefathers built and died defending. Even if all
they saw was its basement, it was still their everything.
Lexicologically, Jack London far surpasses Orwell. He mixes erudite and argot. Stylistically
London far surpassed anything Orwell ever came up with. Orwell is a man of unum librum.
Nor would I say Orwell was a better thinker than London. 1984 is partly inspired by the
Iron Heel, an image coined by London in a namesake book.
Reducing London to being a mere "socialist" is moronic.
London is one of those authors whom aesthetes despise, but who- against all odds- stubbornly
refuse to go away. When he wrote about "serious" topics, London was a failure (Burning
Daylight, Martin Eden, ); on the other hand, when he wrote about animals, primitives,
mentally impaired, (white) underclass & quasi-fascist-Darwinian fantasies (most stories
& short novels) -he was an unavoidable writer, one that will be read long after most
canonized authors are just a footnote.
By the way, he was extremely popular even in Czarist Russia, something along the lines of
American vitalism & energy.
Jack London's "The Iron Heel" is another of his fictional stories about the working classes
and in the book he attacks capitalism and promotes socialism while presenting the story of
the US turned into an oligarchy in 1913 (the book was written in 1907). What's interesting
about "The Iron Heel" is that by 1900 it must have been quite obvious as to how the world's
more powerful nations were planning on parceling up the world, and London makes reference to
this in his novel about the future military campaigns that will take place in the book's
dystopian future, and his fiction was not far wrong from what actually transpired in WW1 and
WW2.
After Jack London gained fame he did not work alone, he hired aspiring writers to
"fill-in" his fiction, much like famous painters painting large commissions would hire
subordinates to "fill-in" their canvas after the outline was drawn. The plot and subplots
would come from London, but his underlings would write the stories. At this point in time I
can't remember the names but as I recall a few famous authors got their start working for
Jack London.
London was also cursed with the writer's nemesis, he was an alcoholic, and his
autobiographical novel "John Barleycorn" treats the "demon drink" as one of the world's great
ills. The book being published in 1913, it is noteworthy that the eighteenth amendment
banning alcohol was passed by congress a few years later in 1919, so it could be that London
was at least a minor fulcrum in giving a push to the moral crusade against alcohol being sold
in the US.
Much of Jack London's work is classic like his short story fiction placed in Alaska, "To
Start a Fire" about a man exposed to the elements and slowly freezing to death, or his
fictional tales about being a constable sailing a schooner chasing pirates off the coast of
California. Also unique and thrilling is the short story "A Piece of Steak" about an aging
boxer hoping to win one last fight. These were tough and gritty stories about men at their
extremity, and not tales for children.
London wrote a good tale and he understood human nature, and perhaps that's what motivated
him to become an alcoholic socialist.
@Bardon
Kaldian I enjoyed much of London's works. Although I read many of his books when
young,and I don't remember them too much, they helped inspire me to head north in the very
backyard of Burning Daylight, a best seller in it's day. His portrayal of characters of the
North seem quite believable and his description of the land and it's peculiar traits are also
accurate. The short story 'All Gold Canyon' is spot on for how a prospector prospects.
I read the Jack London Reader (for sale in Chicken, ak) a few years ago and enjoyed it
immensely as I did the Sea Wolf.
Martin Eden is a depressing read. I have only read Animal Farm so I really can't compare.
Depends how much one 'likes' to get disgruntled.
Cocooned, Americans are oblivious to their own destruction. Screwed, they're fixated by
Pornhub.
Funny, all I ever read on the Internet these days are articles about America's
destruction. This article's another one. Yet according to some pouty guy on the other side of
the planet, we're oblivious.
And Pornhub is #32 according to Alexa. That's really high, but 31 websites precede it.
I've never visited Pornhub, and I'd bet neither have 9 out of 10 Americans. Eliminate kids
under 10, adults over 80, most women, and all those without Internet access, and you're left
with a core of certain primetime lusty guys who are comfortable with pornography. Couldn't be
more than 10%.
It'd be wonderful if we could have a single calendar day, say October 21, when everyone
declares a moratorium on blithely shitting on America. Or is this part of the Jewish strategy
to keep us divided and unhappy?
"London was also a newsboy, longshoreman, roustabout, window washer, jute mill grunt, carpet
cleaner and electrician" and – not least – SPORTSWRITER!John Griffith Chaney
packed a lot of experience into his short forty year span on this wretched earth but his
stint on the Oakland Herald & later sports writing – especially about surfing
– are some of his best & consistent with his own fiery enjoyment of active outdoor
sports. Perhaps best summed up in his aphorism:"I would rather be ashes than dust." London
was not known for being a soccer fan but nonetheless, he would probably still be pleased to
know that there is in his hometown today a very large & thriving Jack London Youth Soccer
League. Anybody's guess how long it will be before the Woke Folk in town try to shut it down
for being named after a 'white supremacist'.
Eric Arthur Blair had a similarly short stay in this world – only seven more years than
London – but didn't much share his enthusiasm for the sporting life. Orwell was quite
candid in his rejection of the world's favorite past time, explaining in an essay: "I loathed
the game, and since I could see no pleasure or usefulness in it, it was very difficult for me
to show courage at it. Football, it seemed to me, is not really played for the pleasure of
kicking a ball about, but is a species of fighting." Orwell was even more pointed in a London
Tribune op-ed during his early newspaper days, commenting on a recent series of matches
between a Russian & English clubs, " the games cult did not start till the later part of
the last century. Dr Arnold, generally regarded as the founder of the modern public school,
looked on games as simply a waste of time. Then, chiefly in England and the United States,
games were built up into a heavily-financed activity, capable of attracting vast crowds and
rousing savage passions, and the infection spread from country to country. It is the most
violently combative sports, football and boxing, that have spread the widest. There cannot be
much doubt that the whole thing is bound up with the rise of nationalism -- that is, with the
lunatic modern habit of identifying oneself with large power units and seeing everything in
terms of competitive prestige."
"Orwell understood this well. It is the biggest crime to wreck anyone's heritage in a
flash."
Or beat their national team. Go Golden Dragons!
When I read about a woman dying from a rooster attack, or people falling to their death to
take selfies, or the growing number of hikers who venture out into semi- wilderness with
their cell phones but not adequate water, I always think of London's "To Build a Fire."
If London observed man's diminished capacity to measure and survive nature in his era,
what would he make of any airport or street today? Like the parasite creature in "Alien",
phones are stuck to every face encountered. Most people are not "present" in any sense when
in the public sphere now, let alone taking note of the world around them.
Great essay. I made it a point to visit Jack London's ranch on a California visit. The ranch
was a huge unfulfilled project with the sad burnt out ruins of his dream house reminding us
of his grand plans. The condition of his grown-over untended grave startled me. I find it
interesting that many men of that time viewed socialism as a panacea; however, the intellect,
ambition and energy of a man like Jack London would never have survived the ideology he
espoused.
@Paul Did
you see the "Trotsky" miniseries on Netflix? It was in Russian with English subtitles, but I
enjoyed reading them all and found it riveting. It appeared to be historically accurate to
someone like me who knows little of Russian history. Trotsky (born Lev Bronstein) was a
Ukrainian Jew who cared little for how many Russians he killed. I guess Ukies hated Russians
even back then.
In each society, you can begin to right the ship by prosecuting the biggest criminals,
with existing laws, but first, you must have the clarity and courage to identify them.
This is why I don't get your disgust at President Trump. He has the will and the position
to do just as you recommend and he would do it if the ruling class weren't trying to cut him
off at the knees 24-7. Trump is the people's first successful attempt to drive the destroyers
from the forum. I fear for coming generations if he doesn't.
@simple_pseudonymic_handle
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Herman Melville
Walt Whitman
Mark Twain
Stephen Crane
T.S. Eliot
Henry James
Tennessee Williams
Saul Bellow
John Updike
I wish the author would have done an analysis of London's "Iron Heel." I just read it for
the first time, and what he was writing about 100 years ago on the dominance of the
"oligarchs", i.e., the "iron heel" rings as true today as it did back then.
Curious also how he died so suddenly. There is a YouTube video of him at his ranch looking
as healthy as can be only a couple of days before he mysteriously died.
@AaronB
An empire exploits and abuses all natives, including those of its host nation. Just think of
how they must send these natives to foreign lands, not just to kill, but die. It's better to
be a house slave than a field one, however, so many far flung subjects of the empire will try
to sneak into the house. It's also safer there, generally. Except for rare instances, as in
9/11, the empire won't blow up natives inside its borders.
September
25, 2019 by Yves Smith Yves here. I suspect many
readers already employ some of the recommendations for how to keep tech from taking too much
mindshare.
By Justin Podur, a Toronto-based writer and a writing fellow at Globetrotter , a project of the
Independent Media Institute. You can find him on his website at podur.org and on Twitter @justinpodur . He teaches at York University in the
Faculty of Environmental Studies. He is the author of the novel Siegebreakers . Produced by Globetrotter , a
project of the Independent Media Institute
Human nature -- how we exist, how we live our lives -- is at risk. That's the premise of
Shoshana Zuboff's book The Age of Surveillance Capitalism .
Zuboff believes the tech giants have created a new form of capitalism. The surveillance
capitalist "wants your bloodstream and your bed, your breakfast conversation, your commute,
your run, your refrigerator, your parking space, your living room."
In the old propaganda system, media audiences were not the consumers but the products, sold
to the real consumers, the advertisers. In surveillance capitalism, you are neither the
consumer nor the product, simply raw material. The tech giants don't need your consumption, or
even your attention: they make their money by selling products that predict your behavior based
on the trails of data that you throw off as you go about your daily business online (and,
increasingly -- with ubiquitous surveillance devices in the environment -- offline as
well).
And once your behavior can be predicted, it can be changed. You are being hacked, Zuboff
says, as the surveillance capitalists "nudge, tune, herd, manipulate, and modify behavior in
specific directions by executing actions as subtle as inserting a specific phrase into your
Facebook news feed, timing the appearance of a BUY button on your phone, or shutting down your
car engine when an insurance payment is late."
Each new nudge-able behavior becomes a free asset for the taking, as opportunities are found
to make money by controlling you. For example, insurance companies offer discounted premiums if
you install a surveillance device in your car to monitor your good driving behavior. Once it's
in there, in Zuboff's words, "the insurance company can set specific parameters for driving
behavior. These can include anything from fastening the seat belt to rate of speed, idling
times, braking and cornering, aggressive acceleration, harsh braking, excessive hours on the
road, driving out of state, and entering a restricted area." Amazon's employees, called
"athletes," wear monitored devices to push them to higher levels of productivity. We fear
being replaced by robots: surveillance capitalists make us into the robots.
The stakes are as high as the level of control is microscopic. A new form of power, which
Zuboff calls "instrumentarian," has arisen. Instrumentarian power would have you cede your
privacy, your behavior, your free will, all to the profit imperatives of the tech giants. To
maintain your individuality, Zuboff suggests, you are forced to "hide in your own life," trying
to use encryption and privacy technology to get around the surveillance. But the story of
WhatsApp suggests that they can find you if you try to use technology to hide: intended as an
encrypted and secure platform for people to chat with one another in privacy, WhatsApp is now
one of Facebook's flagship products. It's also the platform on which lynchings are organized in
India and on which the fascist Jair Bolsonaro's election was coordinated in Brazil.
As you consciously try to minimize surveillance capitalism's control on your individual
mind and life, a philosophical framework would come in handy. Computer scientist Cal
Newport has set out such a framework in his book Digital Minimalism . Newport argues that social media
tools delivered through smartphones can add value to a person's life, but not if used as
directed. He asks readers to think carefully about exactly what value they are getting from
engagement with these tools, and how we can get that value without the huge costs in time,
energy, and emotion that we are currently paying. You can probably get the full value of
Facebook from 20-40 minutes per week, he writes. All the other hours per day that you are
spending are a voluntary gift of your attention and eyeballs to Facebook, which has figured out
how to turn that attention into profit.
How to Defend Yourself Against Big Tech Manipulation
In the face of the old propaganda system, Noam Chomsky advocated a course of "intellectual
self-defense." In the face of the new, supercharged, surveillance capitalist version, I'm
advocating a course of "social self-defense." With help from Zuboff and Newport, here are four
steps you can take to defend yourself against social media manipulation.
1. Join the Attention Resistance. If you are using social media tools like Twitter,
Facebook, and Instagram, and hoping to retain your autonomy, Newport writes, "it's crucial to
understand that this is not a casual decision. You're instead waging a David and Goliath battle
against institutions that are both impossibly rich and intent on using this wealth to stop you
from winning." You will have to become a member of what Newport calls the attention resistance,
"who combine high-tech tools with disciplined operating procedures to conduct surgical strikes
on popular attention economy services -- dropping in to extract value, and then slipping away
before the attention traps set by these companies can spring shut." Long live the
resistance!
2. Minimize the Role of Devices in Your Life. Newport's tactical advice in this
section is sound, and I won't rehash it all, but here are a few key points: remove social media
from your phone and access it on a computer; "dumb down" your smartphone; try embracing "slow"
media; turn watching Netflix into a social, not an individual activity.
3. Get Into Real Life. One way to "hide in your own life," as Zuboff suggests, is to
embrace Newport's suggestions to take up "high-quality" leisure activities to crowd out the
"low-quality" leisure that swiping and clicking on your phone represents. Don't use your phone
until you've lost the dexterity to use your hands, like the medical students who now lack the dexterity
to stitch patients . Do things that involve your hands. Go for walks; embrace conversation,
which is a "high-bandwidth" activity and the only real way to maintain friendships (and yes,
phone and video calling do count as conversations, though in-person is better).
4. Fight for a Better Digital World. Using your new practice interacting with real
human beings in real life, join groups who are trying to get surveillance capitalism under
control. The struggle to assert collective rights to privacy, to communication and information,
will have to take a collective form. Perhaps it will be a struggle for regulation, to break up
the tech monopolies and assert legal and democratic controls. Perhaps the communications
infrastructure of societies shouldn't be in private hands at all, but should be nationalized
(there was a time when economists believed that certain infrastructures were "natural
monopolies" that should be government-owned and run).
Newport emphasizes social and civic activity in crowding out mindless phone use, and warns
not to be turned off by normal group dynamics: "It's easy to get caught up in the annoyances or
difficulties inherent in any gathering of individuals struggling to work toward a common goal.
These obstacles provide a convenient excuse to avoid leaving the comfort of family and close
friends, but it's worth pushing past these concerns." I know that I'm not the only activist who
has gotten caught up in the "inherent annoyances and difficulties" of offline activism (i.e.,
endless meetings, dysfunctional group dynamics). And in those dark moments when we think of
isolation as an alternative, our phones are there to offer us the lowest forms of socializing
and the lowest simulations of activism, clicking "like" (which Newport advises us to never do)
and retweeting, or "desperately checking for retweets of a clever quip." Don't do that stuff --
instead, join a real group and interact with people in real life.
There was a time decades ago when I was frustrated as an activist with groups who spent a
lot of time talking and not enough time doing things (action being defined then mainly as
street protests, or sometimes occupying things). I'm old enough to remember the criticism of
"preaching to the choir," back when there was apparently a metaphorical equivalent of a choir
who would sing together every week. These days, getting together and talking about politics in
person, even just with like-minded people, would already be subversive. Let's talk. Because to
work, the new tools of social self-defense must still be complemented by the old intellectual
self-defense methods: talking and thinking with others, wide and critical reading, and taking
conscious social action according to your principles.
One or two suggestions. Take a look at your mobile and start deleting all those apps that
you do not use. Not so much for getting space back on your mobile but you can never be sure
just what those apps are doing on your mobile or who they are reporting their findings too.
If you don't need them, why are they there? Did they come pre-installed?
Another one. If you can get away with not using any of Google's offerings, perhaps it might
be an idea to consider using a Huawei mobile. They are cheaper and appear to be as good as
most mobiles but there is a point to consider. Will a Huawei mobile spy on you the same way
that an Apple or an Android will? Absolutely! But they will not be in much of a position to
monetize you as much as the later two companies will.
If you are concerned about privacy you shouldn't be using smartphone at all or at least
not one hooked to the web. They do make handy GPS navigators, cameras, music players.
Today's smart phone operating system (e.g. Android) is a crucial, strategic interface to
today's human being. It's the point at which many of us connect to society at large.
It's like there's a toll-both outside your front door, and in order to enter and operate
in society, you must first pay the toll every day, each and every time you participate.
I often wonder what it would take to write, via open-source project, a smart-phone
operating system that would have a decent user interface, make and take phone calls, and have
a few other basic functions, like web browser support, contacts management, calculator, so
forth.
Canonical – the company that supports the Ubuntu derivative of Linux – tried
this a while back. They wrote all the software, and then abandoned the project. They gave up
because not enough people wanted to use it.
We may be approaching the time to re-visit that decision.
Would you want your phone to be running code that works for you, and defends your
interests?
Count me as well. The problem is walking the software into a phone, the hardware. The
project would inevitably wind up with lots of DIY projects. With something like this, I'd
have to run Ubuntu on my windows laptop, then install it into my project . A pain but
doable.
I thought Android was open source except for the google apps and the google store –
which both technically are not part of the OS. You could build a new "distribution", which is
a whole lot easier than writing a whole new OS from scratch, but it is the apps that do most
of the information gathering.
An Android phone has Google software embedded into the OS. Some Google apps can be
deleted, but others can only be "disabled". And then there are the "system background
services" that cannot be turned off and send info to Google intermittently.
I use a Motorola Play (smartphone) with every possible app turned off. The phone is either
off or in "airplane mode". I only carry it on my person if I think I'll absolutely need it;
otherwise it's stays at home or in the car. Most of my communication is text (SMS) or
email.
The reason to use a laptop more than your phone is the availability of more robust defense
apps to keep one's activity in the "dark". (Excepting, of course, the NSA.)
Since installing Linux Mint (variation of Ubuntu) on my laptop I'm all in for a Linux
smart phone. People are still working on the project and I think at some point it could
happen. I use an iphone and have almost everything turned off or deleted, but I do use some
apps, such as podcasts, a guitar tuner, maps, etc. I never use the phone for social
media.
People who are using Windows 10 really should check out Linux Mint, it's super easy to set
up a dual boot on a Windows machine, or just try it live from a USB stick to see how you like
it. I found the transition to Linux fairly easy, and I'm very happy with it.
Something called Kali Linux is available to run on Android phones but it appears to mostly
be used for forensics and security testing, I don't know much about it.
Kali Linux is mostly used for hacking. "Penetration Testing" can be a euphemism for
hacking. ;)
Did you know that Mozilla (FIrefox) once made a phone operating system? They couldn't make
it happen, which was too bad. I had a Firefox OS phone; it sucked.
Good luck to Purism and
enjoy your life in Linux Land – I've been there for 26 years!
It's most cars. (Since plate readers are everywhere).
Basically if I wanted a trackless system, I wouldn't use a credit card, a car, public
transport, or a cell phone. I can't walk in a public place without being under video
surveillance either. It's going to be impossible to roll back the clock on our entrenched
surveillance system. You have to get people to ask the question:
What has all of this extra surveillance done for public safety?
The answer is next to nothing. Ask someone for direct examples of it. I can't think of
one
How about not using social media? It still amazes me how many anti-corporate
anti-establishment types will meet on a Facebook page.
Its like protesting against Starbucks by meeting up at a Starbucks.
It wasn't that long ago that people got by just fine with no social media, the fact that so
many feel they cant live without it is pretty depressing.
You don't fight the beast by feeding it.
It's tough. There's a Transition Town initiative starting up in
the village, and they so far handle all their contacts through Facebook. Facebook
seems to decline to talk to me unless I join. So I'll have to scramble to keep in touch
face-to-face. (And they're findable on the events page at the library web site. So there is
some good in them.)
We need a Consumer Protection Agency warning (much like the Surgeon General's warning on
Tabacco products) placed in/on all advertisement that makes use of big data research to take
advantage of people's innate weaknesses to get them to buy something.
It could read something like this:
CONSUMER PROTECTION AGENCY'S WARNING: This Advertisement was developed using "big data" and
possibly even your own personal data to strongly persuade you to purchase something you may
not otherwise desire to purchase.
It couldn't be that hard to regulate and implement.
It couldn't be that hard to regulate and implement? Who are you kidding? Every electoral
candidate forced to issue a disclaimer before opening their mouth, every company and
corporation admitting you may not need or want their products?
If they ever agreed to anything like your suggestion, it would become something like
We use the most advanced and cutting edge technology to ensure your needs are fulfilled.
which they would of course argue means exactly the same, just without the subversive
anti-capitalist connotations.
How about having businesses (anybody else also) pay you for using your personal data
profiles??????
Seems we have the system backwards and the advertisers/businesses/politicians love it!
They profit and we are like automatons!!
How about (horror of horrors!) not using that spying device called a "smart" phone? I
don't carry one and I will not unless/until I'm absolutely forced to. Nor do I have a
twitter, FB or any other social media account. I guess I should feel somehow left out –
but I don't.
I find it rather amazing how so many people have been brainwashed into thinking they must
be "connected" at all times. If you volunteer to be spied on, don't complain about being
spied on.
You haven't been left out. Facebook probably has a hefty file on you anyway.
"
This is how Facebook collects data on you even if you don't have an account " –
Vox. Well worth a skim.
I've never tried getting in touch with FB to see or delete whatever they have on me, another
non-user. Does anyone have any experience of this?
I assume that there is some info. on me "out there" since most of my relatives do have FB
accounts. I also assume I'm being tracked by someone/something just about anywhere I go on
the 'net. I just don't voluntarily give it up & (hopefully) maintain a minimal
"footprint".
(I seem to remember that Vox article – may have been linked here in NC)
Other things that can be done (to minimize): turn off the GPS on your smart phone, and
prevent sharing that information with as many apps as possible (phone will still collect,
from towers and what not) but preventing the sharing and logging helps. Also, use duckduckgo
search engine (not google), which does not log and monetize your searches.
RE:
Big Tech 'Nudges' Our Behavior for Its Own Greed: Here's a 4-Step Social Media Self-Defense
Class.
Avoid "Butt-Book" like the idiotic scam that it is; anybody can access "mailing lists with
many hundreds or thousands of interesting and important topics; sign up and you can be heard
over and over again; you will never need the permission of some "butt-book" moron to speak
your piece.!!
World War II ended nearly three generations ago, and few of its adult survivors still walk
the earth. From one perspective the true facts of that conflict and whether or not they
actually contradict our traditional beliefs might appear rather irrelevant. Tearing down the
statues of some long-dead historical figures and replacing them with the statues of others
hardly seems of much practical value.
But if we gradually conclude that the story that all of us have been told during our entire
lifetimes is substantially false and perhaps largely inverted, the implications for our
understanding of the world are enormous. Most of the surprising material presented here is
hardly hidden or kept under lock-and-key. Nearly all the books are easily available at Amazon
or even freely readable on the Internet, many of the authors have received critical and
scholarly acclaim, and in some cases their works have sold in the millions.
Yet this important material has been almost entirely ignored or dismissed by the popular
media that shapes the common beliefs of our society. So we must necessarily begin to wonder
what other massive falsehoods may have been similarly promoted by that media, perhaps involving
incidents of the recent past or even the present day. And those latter events do have enormous
practical significance. As I pointed out several years ago in my original American Pravda article :
Aside from the evidence of our own senses, almost everything we know about the past or the
news of today comes from bits of ink on paper or colored pixels on a screen, and fortunately
over the last decade or two the growth of the Internet has vastly widened the range of
information available to us in that latter category. Even if the overwhelming majority of the
unorthodox claims provided by such non-traditional web-based sources is incorrect, at least
there now exists the possibility of extracting vital nuggets of truth from vast mountains of
falsehood.
We must also recognize that many of the fundamental ideas that dominate our present-day
world were founded upon a particular understanding of that wartime history, and if there seems
good reason to believe that narrative is substantially false, perhaps we should begin
questioning the framework of beliefs erected upon it.
ORDER IT NOW
George Orwell fought in the Spanish Civil War during the 1930s and discovered that the true
facts in Spain were radically different from what he had been led to believe by the British
media of his day. In 1948 these past experiences together with the rapidly congealing "official
history" of the Second World War may have been uppermost in his mind when he published his
classic novel 1984, which famously declared that "Who controls the past controls the future;
who controls the present controls the past."
Great article, thank you. The WWII legend is sacrosanct because it is the founding myth of
the empire that replaced our republic, just as the Founders predicted would be the result of
choosing sides in foreign conflicts. Is seems credible to think that FDR enabled Churchill's
blood lust because encouraging the seriously weakened British empire to finish committing
suicide by engaging in another ground war in Europe would clear the way for the US to finally
replace the hated mother country as the world's great power- just as another faction of the
Founders dreamed. The motto on our National Seal "Novus Ordo Seclorum" is quoted from
Virgil's Eclogues, where it is the prophecy of the Cumaean Sybil that Rome was destined to
rule the world.
Historian Murray Rothbard best described the impact of the war in this obituary he wrote
for fellow popular historian Harry Elmer Barnes, "Our entry into World War II was the crucial
act in foisting a permanent militarization upon the economy and society, in bringing to the
country a permanent garrison state, an overweening military-industrial complex, a permanent
system of conscription. It was the crucial act in expanding the United States from a republic
into an Empire, and in spreading that Empire throughout the world, replacing the sagging
British Empire in the process. It was the crucial act in creating a Mixed Economy run by Big
Government, a system of State-Monopoly-Capitalism run by the central government in
collaboration with Big Business and Big Unionism. It was the crucial act in elevating
Presidential power, particularly in foreign affairs, to the role of single most despotic
person in the history of the world. And, finally, World War II is the last war-myth left, the
myth that the Old Left clings to in pure desperation: the myth that here, at least, was a
good war, here was a war in which America was in the right. World War II is the war thrown
into our faces by the war-making Establishment, as it tries, in each war that we face, to
wrap itself in the mantle of good and righteous World War II."
For those who lack the time to read these books, or even this great essay, here is a
13-minute video summary. For those shocked by this information, return and read this entire
essay, then the books if you still fail to understand that history has been distorted.
"Although Saddam Hussein clearly had no connection to the attacks, his status as a
possible regional rival to Israel had established him as their top target, and they soon
began beating the drums for war, with America finally launching its disastrous invasion in
February 2003."
I agree that replacing a progressive Arab leader with an Anglo-American puppet government
was an important factor, but the return of Iraqi oil fields to Anglo-American control was the
main objective. Exxon-Mobil, Shell, Total, and British Petroleum are now the biggest
producers of Iraqi oil.:
Thank You to Mr. Unz for mentioning the long-forgotten hero of the America First Committee,
John T. Flynn.
His biography, by Michele Stenehjem Gerber, is called An American First: John T. Flynn
and the America First Committee and has not yet been banned on Amazon:
Nonetheless I read it years ago, and it confirmed my suspicion that Lillian Gish,
pioneering film actress, was on a blacklist of some sort, and indeed she was. And this was
years before her name was removed from a college building here in Ohio. It is short, not hard
to read, less a full biography of Flynn than an interesting look at that filthy period in US
history when non-interventionists were slimed as "isolationists" and had their reputations
ruined. Or at least dinged quite a bit.
From an Amazon review:
This book inspires the broadening of the America First discussion, making references to
Lillian Gish, who proved she was blacklisted , Charlie Chaplin, whose The Great
Dictator was itself attacked as propaganda, and the charges of anti-Semitism from some
names not already researched, like Brooklyn Dodgers' president Larry MacPhail, S. H. Hauk,
Laura Ingalls, and Wilhelm Kunze of the German-American Bund (but still no Walt Disney
I went to Cambridge University in 1966 to study history. Two things I recall very distinctly:
the powerful impression Taylor's books made on me; and the very subtle but unmistakable
deprecation my tutors and lecturers applied to him and his work.
Taylor was certainly very talented, they said, but prone to "bees in his bonnet";
over-enthusiastic; sometimes unreliable.
Looking back, I can see how very effective this treatment was. As a rebellious and
iconoclastic 18-year-old, if I had been told that Taylor was wicked and wrong and I must
ignore his books, I would have hurried to study them deeply. But since I was cleverly
informed that he was just mildly eccentric and prone to unjustified speculation, I neglected
him in order to concentrate on the many other writers we had to read.
Most of the surprising material presented here is hardly hidden or kept under
lock-and-key. Nearly all the books are easily available at Amazon or even freely readable
on the Internet, many of the authors have received critical and scholarly acclaim, and in
some cases their works have sold in the millions. Yet this important material has been
almost entirely ignored or dismissed by the popular media that shapes the common beliefs of
our society. So we must necessarily begin to wonder what other massive falsehoods may have
been similarly promoted by that media, perhaps involving incidents of the recent past or
even the present day. And those latter events do have enormous practical significance.
Being the Guardian, of course, their prescription is that people should make a more
sincere effort to support the Reporters of Truth, such as the Guardian. In their retrograde
Left vs Right world, it's still up to the 'goodthinkers' to preserve our liberties from the
Boris Johnsons and Donald Trumps of the world. Never in a million years would they entertain
the possibility that Johnsons and Trumps come about because the Establishment–most
certainly including its MSM lackeys–is corrupt to its core.
As the Washington Post has it, "Democracy Dies in Darkness" -- neglecting to add, "We
supply the Darkness."
So now, instead of now [erroneously] believing, as we were all , er, "taught", that the
allies were the good guys of WW2, and that the Japs and Germans were the bad guys, we are now
supposed to believe the exact opposite, right, Mr Unz ? Jap and German governments now"good"-
WW2 allies governments now "bad"?
Reality fact: before, during and after WW2 and all the way up to this present
moment in time, the US, Soviet, French , Polish, Brit [etc. etc. ad infinitum] governments
lied; the German government lied, the Jap government lied. They ALL lied [and lie]!
Reality fact: It [lying] is what all governments everywhere all do – , all of
the time!
Reality fact: It's what they _must_ do to maintain power over their slave
populations [ see the Bernays quote below].
Regarding the fundamental nature of all governments, past, present, or future – this
"just" in :
"Because they are all ultimately funded via both direct and indirect theft [taxes], and
counterfeiting [via central bank monopolies], all governments are essentially, at their very
cores, 100% corrupt criminal scams which cannot be "reformed","improved", nor "limited" in
scope, simply because of their innate criminal nature." onebornfree
" The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the
masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen
mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our
country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested,
largely by men we have never heard of." Edward Bernays http://www.voltairenet.org/IMG/pdf/Bernays_Propaganda_in_english_.pdf
"The receptivity of the masses is very limited, their intelligence is small, but their
power of forgetting is enormous. In consequence of these facts, all effective propaganda must
be limited to a very few points and must harp on these in slogans until the last member of
the public understands what you want him to understand by your slogan." ~ Adolf Hitler
"My first rule- I don't believe anything the government tells me- nothing!- ZERO!" George
Carlin
@Tom67
Thank God we American's were pillars morality. LOL
Hitler proudly told his comrades just how closely he followed the progress of the
American eugenics movement. "I have studied with great interest," he told a fellow Nazi,
"the laws of several American states concerning prevention of reproduction by people whose
progeny would, in all probability, be of no value or be injurious to the racial stock."
Hitler even wrote a fan letter to American eugenic leader Madison Grant calling his
race-based eugenics book, The Passing of the Great Race his "bible."
In 2013, Edward Snowden was an IT systems expert working under contract for the National
Security Agency when he traveled to Hong Kong to provide three journalists with thousands of
top-secret documents about U.S. intelligence agencies' surveillance of American citizens.
To Snowden, the classified information he shared with the journalists exposed privacy abuses
by government intelligence agencies. He saw himself as a whistleblower. But the U.S. government
considered him a traitor in violation of the
Espionage Act .
After meeting with the journalists, Snowden intended to leave Hong Kong and travel -- via
Russia -- to Ecuador, where he would seek asylum. But when his plane landed at Moscow's
Sheremetyevo International Airport, things didn't go according to plan.
"What I wasn't expecting was that the United States government itself ... would cancel my
passport," he says.
Snowden was directed to a room where Russian intelligence agents offered to assist him -- in
return for access to any secrets he harbored. Snowden says he refused.
"I didn't cooperate with the Russian intelligence services -- I haven't and I won't," he
says. "I destroyed my access to the archive. ... I had no material with me before I left Hong
Kong, because I knew I was going to have to go through this complex multi-jurisdictional
route."
Snowden spent 40 days in the Moscow airport, trying to negotiate asylum in various
countries. After being denied asylum by 27 nations, he settled in Russia, where he remains
today.
"People look at me now and they think I'm this crazy guy, I'm this extremist or whatever.
Some people have a misconception that [I] set out to burn down the NSA," he says. "But that's
not what this was about. In many ways, 2013 wasn't about surveillance at all. What it was about
was a violation of the Constitution."
Snowden's 2013 revelations led to changes in the laws and standards governing American
intelligence agencies and the practices of U.S. technology companies, which now encrypt much of
their Web traffic for security. He reflects on his life and his experience in the intelligence
community in the memoir Permanent Record.
On Sept. 17, the U.S. Justice Department filed suit to recover all proceeds from the book,
alleging that Snowden violated nondisclosure agreements by not letting the government review
the manuscript before publication; Snowden's attorney, Ben Wizner, said in a statement that the
book contains no government secrets that have not been previously published by respected news
organizations, and that the government's prepublication review system is under court
challenge.
If you are paranoid enough, and want to follow Snowden steps (he actually has valid reason to be afraid that each his step is
monitored by all available tech means, including using his sell phone) you do not need to open the phone and disconnect the mike.
You can just put a drop of epoxy into microphone phone. That disables microphone as no air will get to the membrane.
Notable quotes:
"... I try not to use one as much as possible, and when I do use one, I use a cellphone that I have myself modified. [I've] performed a kind of surgery on it. I open it up with special tools and I use a soldering iron to remove the microphone and I disconnect the camera so that the phone can't simply listen to me when it's sitting there. It physically has no microphone in it. And when I need to make a call I just connect an external microphone through the headphone jack. And this way the phone works for you rather than you working for the phone. ..."
I try not to use one as much as possible, and when I do use one, I use a cellphone that I
have myself modified. [I've] performed a kind of surgery on it. I open it up with special tools
and I use a soldering iron to remove the microphone and I disconnect the camera so that the
phone can't simply listen to me when it's sitting there. It physically has no microphone in it.
And when I need to make a call I just connect an external microphone through the headphone
jack. And this way the phone works for you rather than you working for the phone.
We need to
be regulating the collection of data, because our phones, our devices, our laptops -- even just
driving down the street with all of these systems that surround us today -- is producing
records about our lives. It's the modern pollution.
You need to be careful about the software you put on your phone, you need to be careful
about the connections it's making, because today most people have got a thousand apps on their
phones; it's sitting there on your desk right now or in your hand and the screen can be off but
it's connecting hundreds or thousands of times a second. ...
And this is this core problem of the data issue that we're dealing with today. We're passing
laws that are trying to regulate the use of data. We're trying to regulate the protection of
data, but all of these things presume that the data has already been collected. ...
We need to be regulating the collection of data, because our phones, our devices, our
laptops -- even just driving down the street with all of these systems that surround us today
-- is producing records about our lives. It's the modern pollution.
When the ideology collapses like neoliberalism collapsed in 2008 defections and leaks from the intelligence agencies became more
prominent and higher level. Just before the USSR collapsed there were several high level officers of KGB that changed sides including
at least one general of KGB.
We can probably view Snowden and Manning as signs of similar process which started in the USA after the collapse of neoliberalism.
They suggest that loyalty to the USA in CIA or NSA is on low level not became of some external factors, but due to lack of conviction
in the sanity of the current social system in the USA (aka neoliberal society). So "protest defections" will probably continues unabated.
Of course, dealing with intelligence agencies is tricky as Snowden revelation might just be a limited revenge of CIA to NSA.
But in any case it is undisputable that while few Snowden files were published the mere fact of exfiltration of so much highly sensitive
information did some damage to military industrial complex. That makes is less pausible that he operates as CIA mole, which several
commenters below suggest.
At the same time in this interview Snowden sounds like a naive and disoriented person: " I try to keep a distance between myself
and Russian society, and this is completely intentional. I live my life with basically the English-speaking community." English
speaking community in Russia probably has highest in the world percentage of intelligence officers of Western countries including CIA
officers.
Another somewhat suspicious fact is that very few files that Snowden files were released. So the whole story now looks like "Too
much ado about nothing." Unlike Wikileaks that published Manning materials.
Notable quotes:
"... He describes the 18 years since the September 11 attacks as "a litany of American destruction by way of American self-destruction, with the promulgation of secret policies, secret laws, secret courts and secret wars". ..."
"... Snowden also said: " The greatest danger still lies ahead, with the refinement of artificial intelligence capabilities, such as facial and pattern recognition. ..."
"... " An AI-equipped surveillance camera would be not a mere recording device, but could be made into something closer to an automated police officer ." - The Guardian ..."
"... You have to remember, in the beginning I didn't even know mass surveillance was a thing because I worked for the CIA, which is a human intelligence organization. But when I was sent back to NSA headquarters and my very last position to directly work with a tool of mass surveillance, there was a guy who was supposed to be teaching me . And sometimes he would spin around in his chair, showing me nudes of whatever target's wife he's looking at. And he's like: "Bonus!" ..."
"... The most important part of the Rubik's cube was actually not as a concealment device, but a distraction device. I had to get things out of that building many times. I really gave Rubik's cubes to everyone in my office as gifts and guards saw me coming and going with this Rubik's cube all the time. So I was the Rubik's cube guy . ..."
"... When you're doing this for the first time, you're just going down the hallway and trying not to shake. And then, as you do it more times, you realize that it works. You realize that a metal detector won't detect an SD card because it has less metal in it than the brackets on your jeans. ..."
"... I try to keep a distance between myself and Russian society, and this is completely intentional. I live my life with basically the English-speaking community . I'm the president of the Freedom of the Press Foundation. And, you know, I'm an indoor cat. It doesn't matter where I am -- Moscow, Berlin, New York -- as long as I have a screen to look into. ..."
"... 16 June 2013 The revelations expand to include the UK, with news that GCHQ intercepted foreign politicians' communications during the 2009 G20 summit in London, and that the British spy agency has also tapped the fibre-optic cables carrying much of the internet's traffic. ..."
"... 3 July 2013 While en route from Moscow, Bolivia's president, Evo Morales, is forced to land in Vienna after European countries refuse his plane airspace, suspecting that Snowden was on board. It is held and searched for 12 hours. ..."
"... December 2016 Oliver Stone releases the movie Snowden featuring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Melissa Leo, Tom Wilkinson, Zachary Quinto and a cameo by former Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger. ..."
"... When he originally contacted Glenn Greenwald, I was suspicious. I said then, nothing will come of this, and nothing did, because WE NEVER GOT TO SEE all the files he had and what was on them. ..."
"... Read in Reuters that he's requested asylum in France. ..."
"... It will be common knowledge soon that it was the NSA (Admiral Rogers) that first detected the coup against Trump and the illegal surveillance. Remember friends, the FISA warrants were a cover for the illegal spying the Obama administration was ALREADY doing on Trump, Cruz, and others. ..."
"... I try to keep a distance between myself and Russian society, and this is completely intentional. I live my life with basically the English-speaking community. ..."
"... What an ungrateful twat. Russia saved his bacon and yet he wants to know nothing of the country and its people and maybe begin to understand WHY they would offer to help him...even if he doesnt like the Russain government, he CHOOSES to know nothing of the Russian people. What a loser! ..."
"... Maybe he doesn't know how to speak Russian, seeing as how getting stuck in Russia was not exactly his original plan. He just happened to be in a Russian airport when the USA happened to revoke his passport, making it impossible for him to leave. ..."
"... There is also the other angle, that perhaps he might be working as a CIA agent even now, and that his predicament is actually all entirely pre-meditated by the USA. Russia might take his getting friendly with the locals as being a bit impolite if he is doing spy work for the USA while living in Russia. ..."
"... He doesnt need to be "palsy-walsy" with Russians, he has NO knowledge of the country he lives in and its people and doesn't want to. That is ungrateful to the nth degree. ..."
"... If Russia wanted to they could shut down his ability to give video-conferences etc. They don't, they continue to show him a hospitality that he seems willing to spit on! ..."
"... Serious damage? I fear Snowden and Assange wasted their lives upon the American people. Was Snowden wrong morally? He fought the totalitarian giant and for this the people sit back in their arm chairs and moralize whether it was right or wrong. We don't deserve to be "free.". ..."
"... Why and how has Greenwald been able to "sit on" countless info files but never released them? If that is true then why haven't US authorities gone after him as well? Way too many strange aspects to Snowden's cover story and how he's allowed by the Russian's to make public statements about their local political landscape. ..."
"... It's not just that. Greenwald lives full time in Brazil for a very good reason--Brazil has no extradition treaty with the US. He's relatively safe there, although his boyfriend was stupid enough to go to London briefly and nearly got the Assange treatment... ..."
"... What I hate is that Snowden gave all those documents to Greenwald who said he was going to publish them and once he went to the Intercept under Omadyar...nothing but silence on those files. To my mind he betrayed Snowden. ..."
"... Book tour, Docudrama and T-Shirt? ..."
"... That part of the narrative does seem a bit odd, doesn't it? She's allowed to come and go as she pleases in the USA, yet is married to this guy wanted by the US authorities? Hmm. Nothing suspicious about that. ..."
"... Can anybody name something that Snowfen revealed that wasn't common knowledge? ..."
Meeting with both
The Guardian and
Spiegel Online in Moscow as part of its promotion, the infamous whistleblower spent nearly five hours with the two media
outlets - offering a taste of what's in the book, details on his background, and his thoughts on artificial intelligence, facial
recognition, and other intelligence gathering tools coming to a dystopia near you.
While The Guardian interview is 'okay,' scroll down for the far more interesting Spiegel interview, where Snowden
goes way deeper into his cloak-and-dagger life, including thoughts on getting suicided.
First, The Guardian :
Snowden describes in detail for the first time his background, and what led him to leak details of the secret programms being
run by the US National Security Agency (NSA) and the UK's secret communication headquarters,
GCHQ .
He describes the 18 years since the September 11 attacks as "a litany of American destruction by way of American self-destruction,
with the promulgation of secret policies, secret laws, secret courts and secret wars".
Snowden also said: " The greatest danger still lies ahead, with the refinement of artificial intelligence capabilities,
such as facial and pattern recognition.
" An AI-equipped surveillance camera would be not a mere recording device, but could be made into something closer
to an automated police officer ." -
The Guardian
Snowden secretly married his partner, Lindsay Mills, two years ago in a Russian courthouse. They met when he was 22 (14 years
ago) on the internet site "Hot or Not," where he rated her a 10 out of 10 and she rated him a (generous) eight.
He freely moves around Moscow, riding the metro, visiting art galleries or the ballet, and meeting with friends in cafes and
restaurants.
The 36-year-old lives in a two-bedroom flat on the outskirts of Moscow, and derives most of his income (until now) from speaking
fees - mainly to students, civil rights activists and others abroad via video chat.
Snowden is an "indoor cat by choice," who is "happiest sitting at his computer late into the night, communicating with campaigners
and supporters."
At a training school for spies, Snowden was nicknamed "the Count" after the Sesame Street character.
The Der Spiegel interview, meanwhile, is way more interesting ... For example:
" If I Happen to Fall out of a Window, You Can Be Sure I Was Pushed. "
Meeting Edward Snwoden is pretty much exactly how children imagine the grand game of espionage is played.
But then, on Monday, there he was, standing in our room on the first floor of the Hotel Metropol, as pale and boyish-looking
as the was when the world first saw him in June 2013 . For the last six years, he has been living in Russian exile. The U.S. has
considered him to be an enemy of the state, right up there with Julian Assange, ever since he revealed, with the help of journalists,
the full scope of the surveillance system operated by the National Security Agency (NSA).
For quite some time, though, he remained silent about how he smuggled the secrets out of the country and what his personal
motivations were. -
Spiegel Online
Select excerpts via Der Spiegel (emphasis ours):
***
DER SPIEGEL: Mr. Snowden, you always said: "I am not the story." But now you've written 432 pages about yourself. Why?
Edward Snowden: Because I think it's more important than ever to explain systems of mass surveillance and mass manipulation
to the public. And I can't explain how these systems came to be without explaining my role in helping to build them.
DER SPIEGEL: Wasn't it just as important four or even six years ago?
Snowden: Four years ago, Barack Obama was president. Four years ago, Boris Johnson wasn't around and the AfD ( Germany's
right-wing populist party Alternative for Germany ) was still kind of a joke. But now in 2019, no one is laughing. When you look
around the world, when you look at the rising factionalization of society, when you see this new wave of authoritarianism sweeping
over many countries: Everywhere political classes and commercial classes are realizing they can use technology to influence the world
on a new scale that was not previously available. We are seeing our systems coming under attack.
DER SPIEGEL: What systems?
Snowden: The political system, the legal system, the social system. And we have the proclivity to think that if we get rid of
the people we don't like, the problem is solved. We go: "Oh, it's Donald Trump. Oh, it's Boris Johnson. Oh, it's the Russians" But
Donald Trump is not the problem. Donald Trump is the product of the problem.
***
DER SPIEGEL: While writing, did you discover any truths about yourself that you didn't like?
Snowden: The most unflattering thing is to realize just how naïve and credulous I was and how that could make me into a
tool of systems that would use my skills for an act of global harm . The class of which I am a part of, the global technological
community, was for the longest time apolitical. We have this history of thinking: "We're going to make the world better."
***
DER SPIEGEL: Was that your motivation when you entered the world of espionage?
Snowden: Entering the world of espionage sounds so grand. I just saw an enormous landscape of opportunities because the
government in its post-9/11 spending blitz was desperate to hire anybody who had high-level technical skills and a clearance. And
I happened to have both. It was weird to be just a kid and be brought into CIA headquarters, put in charge of the entire Washington
metropolitan area's network .
DER SPIEGEL: Was it not also fascinating to be able to invade pretty much everybody's life via state-sponsored hacking?
Snowden: You have to remember, in the beginning I didn't even know mass surveillance was a thing because I worked for
the CIA, which is a human intelligence organization. But when I was sent back to NSA headquarters and my very last position to directly
work with a tool of mass surveillance, there was a guy who was supposed to be teaching me . And sometimes he would spin around in
his chair, showing me nudes of whatever target's wife he's looking at. And he's like: "Bonus!"
***
DER SPIEGEL: You became seriously ill and fell into depression. Have you ever had suicidal thoughts?
Snowden: No! This is important for the record. I am not now, nor have I ever been suicidal. I have a philosophical objection
to the idea of suicide, and if I happen to fall out of a window, you can be sure I was pushed.
***
DER SPIEGEL: You write that you sometimes smuggled SD memory cards inside a Rubik's cube .
Snowden: The most important part of the Rubik's cube was actually not as a concealment device, but a distraction device.
I had to get things out of that building many times. I really gave Rubik's cubes to everyone in my office as gifts and guards saw
me coming and going with this Rubik's cube all the time. So I was the Rubik's cube guy . And when I came out of the tunnel with
my contraband and saw one of the bored guards, I sometimes tossed the cube to him. He's like, "Oh, man, I had one of these things
when I was a kid, but you know, I could never solve it. So I just pulled the stickers off." That was exactly what I had done -- but
for different reasons.
DER SPIEGEL: You even put the SD cards into your mouth.
Snowden:When you're doing this for the first time, you're just going down the hallway and trying not to shake. And
then, as you do it more times, you realize that it works. You realize that a metal detector won't detect an SD card because it has
less metal in it than the brackets on your jeans.
***
DER SPIEGEL: You describe your arrival in Moscow as a walk in the park. You say you refused to cooperate with the Russian
intelligence agency FSB and they let you go. That sounds implausible to us.
Snowden: I think what explains the fact that the Russian government didn't hang me upside down my ankles and beat me with
a shock prod until secrets came out was because everyone in the world was paying attention to it. And they didn't know what to do.
They just didn't know how to handle it. I think their answer was: "Let's wait and see."
DER SPIEGEL: Do you have Russian friends?
Snowden: I try to keep a distance between myself and Russian society, and this is completely intentional. I live my
life with basically the English-speaking community . I'm the president of the Freedom of the Press Foundation. And, you know, I'm
an indoor cat. It doesn't matter where I am -- Moscow, Berlin, New York -- as long as I have a screen to look into.
***
Read the rest of Der Spiegel' s interview with Edward Snowden
here .
Meanwhile, The Guardian provides an interesting 'Snowden Timeline':
Snowden's timeline
21 June 1983 Edward Joseph Snowden is born in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, US.
2006-2013 Initially at the CIA, and then as a contractor for first Dell and then Booz Allen Hamilton, Snowden spends years
working in cybersecurity on projects for the US National Security Agency (NSA).
20 May 2013 Edward Snowden arrives in Hong Kong, where a few days later he meets with Guardian journalists, and shares with
them a cache of top secret documents he has been downloading and storing for some time.
5 June 2013 The Guardian begins reporting the Snowden leaks, with revelations about the NSA storing the phone records of millions
of Americans, and the agency's claim its Prism programme had "direct access" to data held by Google, Facebook, Apple and other
US internet giants.
7 June 2013 The US president, Barack Obama, is forced to defend the programmes, insisting that they are adequately overseen
by the courts and Congress.
9 June 2013 Snowden goes public as the source of the leaks in a video interview.
16 June 2013 The revelations expand to include the UK, with news that GCHQ intercepted foreign politicians' communications
during the 2009 G20 summit in London, and that the British spy agency has also tapped the fibre-optic cables carrying much of
the internet's traffic.
21 June 2013 The US files espionage charges against Snowden and requests Hong Kong detain him for extradition.
23 June 2013 Snowden leaves Hong Kong for Moscow. Hong Kong claims that the US got Snowden's middle name wrong in documents
submitted requesting his arrest meaning they were powerless to prevent his departure.
1 July 2013 Russia reveals that Snowden has applied for asylum. He also expresses an interest in claiming asylum in several
South American nations. Eventually Ecuador, Nicaragua, Bolivia, and Venezuela offer permanent asylum.
3 July 2013 While en route from Moscow, Bolivia's president, Evo Morales, is forced to land in Vienna after European countries
refuse his plane airspace, suspecting that Snowden was on board. It is held and searched for 12 hours.
1 August 2013 After living in an airport for a month, Snowden is granted asylum in Russia.
21 August 2013 The Guardian reveals that the UK government ordered it to destroy the computer equipment used for the Snowden
documents.
December 2013 Snowden is a runner-up to Pope Francis as Time's Person of the Year, and gives Channel 4's "Alternative Christmas
Message".
May 2015 The NSA stops the bulk collection of US phone calling records that had been revealed by Snowden.
December 2016 Oliver Stone releases the movie Snowden featuring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Melissa Leo, Tom Wilkinson, Zachary
Quinto and a cameo by former Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger.
January 2017 Snowden's leave to remain in Russia is extended for three more years.
June 2018 Snowden says he has no regrets about his revelations, saying: "The government and corporate sector preyed on our
ignorance. But now we know. People are aware now. People are still powerless to stop it but we are trying."
March 2019 Vanessa Rodel, who sheltered Snowden in Hong Kong, is granted asylum in Canada.
September 2019 Snowden remains living in an undisclosed location in Moscow as he prepares to publish his memoirs.
There's really no way to know that for sure if this guy is legit. If he is part of an operation, let's hope it's for something
good. When he originally contacted Glenn Greenwald, I was suspicious. I said then, nothing will come of this, and nothing
did, because WE NEVER GOT TO SEE all the files he had and what was on them.
Just what this man is up to we will likely never know. These kinds of operations can take years to set up.
My guess is Snowden is the Decoy, the distraction. There is likely someone else or something else that all of this camouflages.
Things go both ways in a surveillance environment. Snowden will be exposed in time as a CIA operative. The NSA has everything
including Hillary's private emails. Obama and many in his regime were also using private email servers, and the NSA has them all.
Snowden was trying to destroy the NSA, when they are what was needed to take down the CIA, FBI, and the Deep State. I don't
like the NSA being in existence, but this will help in prosecuting the criminals.
So what is the NSA waiting for? The statute of limitations to expire? LOL. Snowden wasn't trying to do anything except educate
people on what their government is doing. You obviously hate truth and knowledge. You work for the NSA?
I don't believe a damned thing about anything published about any of the alphabet agencies - good, bad, neutral, doesn't matter
it's all clown show bs.
Any other critical thinkers notice the CIA activated their asset again finally ? A predictable programmed book really ? Just
imagine what kind of juicy already known statecraft he will reveal. Lol. America loves their confabulated mythical pseudo-hero's
& cucked political demigods full of bovine scat don't they.
The UberMensch hero who somehow miraculously survived the 'enkryptonite' where other HVT can't. Amazing. Need to hurl makes
me gag reflex & gut retch.
Snowden is still CIA and his mission was to throw the NSA under the bus.
It will be common knowledge soon that it was the NSA (Admiral Rogers) that first detected the coup against Trump and the
illegal surveillance. Remember friends, the FISA warrants were a cover for the illegal spying the Obama administration was ALREADY
doing on Trump, Cruz, and others.
I try to keep a distance between myself and Russian society, and this is completely intentional. I live my life with
basically the English-speaking community.
What an ungrateful twat. Russia saved his bacon and yet he wants to know nothing of the country and its people and maybe
begin to understand WHY they would offer to help him...even if he doesnt like the Russain government, he CHOOSES to know nothing
of the Russian people. What a loser!
Just how is he to know who is undercover security services and who is just plain good and interesting?
Maybe he doesn't know how to speak Russian, seeing as how getting stuck in Russia was not exactly his original plan. He
just happened to be in a Russian airport when the USA happened to revoke his passport, making it impossible for him to leave.
There is also the other angle, that perhaps he might be working as a CIA agent even now, and that his predicament is actually
all entirely pre-meditated by the USA. Russia might take his getting friendly with the locals as being a bit impolite if he is
doing spy work for the USA while living in Russia.
He doesnt need to be "palsy-walsy" with Russians, he has NO knowledge of the country he lives in and its people and doesn't
want to. That is ungrateful to the nth degree.
If Russia wanted to they could shut down his ability to give video-conferences etc. They don't, they continue to show him
a hospitality that he seems willing to spit on!
No, really, I met people there who were deep and friendly and sensitive. Lots critical of what's not right with their own society,
and yet not traitors to their country.
I agree with you vasilievich....I am looking forward to visiting Russia next spring in time for the V-Day and the Immortal
Regiment, then spend a month visiting Russian and hopefully getting to interact with Russians "on the street".
One of the differences with Russia and the "West" is that Putins hours long live "conversations" with Russians and the way
he gets his government to follow up up problems, which he himself follows up on to insure actions are taken, ensure that people
have that freedom to be critical of their own society. Such an opposite to what happens to critics in the "west"
My take on Snowden is he's basically a decent guy who did some serious damage. Was he wrong legally? Hell yes! Was he wrong
morally? Possibly. Would I put the guy in prison if I could? Yeah for about 30 days because the bottom line of what he did was
to expose **** that needed to be exposed.
It's complicated but occasionally a guy like this is needed to stir the pot.
Serious damage? I fear Snowden and Assange wasted their lives upon the American people. Was Snowden wrong morally? He fought
the totalitarian giant and for this the people sit back in their arm chairs and moralize whether it was right or wrong. We don't
deserve to be "free.".
There is still more and something very fishy about Snowden.....if he really did so much so called "damage" to the US why do
US authorities never mention him? Why do they never pressure Russia to send him back?
Why and how has Greenwald been able to "sit on" countless info files but never released them? If that is true then why
haven't US authorities gone after him as well? Way too many strange aspects to Snowden's cover story and how he's allowed by the
Russian's to make public statements about their local political landscape.
It's not just that. Greenwald lives full time in Brazil for a very good reason--Brazil has no extradition treaty with the
US. He's relatively safe there, although his boyfriend was stupid enough to go to London briefly and nearly got the Assange treatment...
What I hate is that Snowden gave all those documents to Greenwald who said he was going to publish them and once he went
to the Intercept under Omadyar...nothing but silence on those files. To my mind he betrayed Snowden.
That part of the narrative does seem a bit odd, doesn't it? She's allowed to come and go as she pleases in the USA, yet
is married to this guy wanted by the US authorities? Hmm. Nothing suspicious about that.
How does what I wrote translate into an integrity issue?
Been married twice, fully faithful. But at his age particularly, would not recommend it to a guy who is in an unstable situation
anyway. (not to mention the girl originally rejected him when the going got rough).
Live a little, enjoy your youth, and enjoy the infamy!
"... The Inteligence elite mistake their power over people -- and the unspeakable sums of money that are flooded into their agencies -- for success. As you might imagine, that has spelled disaster where ever in the world that they operate. God help the society where they gain the upper hand. Like in the United States, for example. Their minds are broken beyond repair because reality actively lies to them. ..."
Court: FBI Must Destroy Memos Calling Antiwar.com a Threat
Ruling comes after a eight-year battle over secret surveillance of the popular website after
9/11.
By KELLEY BEAUCAR VLAHOS • September 12, 2019
In a major victory for Antiwar.com, free speech and journalism, a federal appeals court has
ruled that the FBI must expunge surveillance memos that agents had drafted about the website's
co-founders Eric Garris and Justin Raimondo in the early years following the 9/11 attacks.
"It's been a long fight and I'm glad we had an outcome that could might affect future FBI
behavior," said Garris, who runs Antiwar.com, based in the San Francisco Bay area. "I just wish
Justin was still here to know that this has happened."
Raimondo, 67, passed away in June from a long bout with cancer. He and Garris had sued the
FBI in 2013 demanding it turn over all the memos and records it was keeping on the two men and
the website, which has been promoting anti-interventionist news and views from a
libertarian-conservative perspective since 1995
They won their case, and in 2017 the FBI agreed to turn over all the memos and settle their
legal fees, $299,000, but the final expungement of two key memos involving intelligence
gathered on the men and Antiwar.com, had yet to be expunged from the agency's record...
It all began when an observant reader brought a heavily redacted 2004 memo to Antiwar.com's
attention in 2011. It was part of a batch of documents the reader had obtained through FOIA
requests. It was clear from the documents' contents that the FBI had been collecting
information and records on Raimondo and Garris for some time. At one point the FBI agent
writing the April 30, 2004 memo on Antiwar.com recommended further monitoring of the website in
the form of opening a "preliminary investigation to determine if [redaction] are engaging in,
or have engaged in, activities which constitute a threat to national security."
Why? Because the website was questioning U.S. war policy ...
Agents noted that Antiwar.com had, or linked to, published counter-terrorism watch lists
(already in the public domain). The FBI noted at least two of Raimondo's columns and wondered
openly, "who are (Antiwar.com's) contributors and what are the funds utilized for?" This, after
acknowledging there was no evidence of any crime being plotted or committed.
Other things noted in the documents::
-- Garris had passed along a threat he received on Sept. 12, 2001 from a Antiwar.com reader
obviously disgruntled with the website's coverage of 9/11. The subject line read, "YOUR SITE IS
GOING DOWN," and proceeded with this missive: "Be warned assholes, ill be posting your site
address to all the hack boards tonight your site is history."
Concerned, Garris forwarded the email to the FBI field office in San Francisco. Garris heard
nothing, but by January 2002, it turned up again, completely twisted around, in a secret FBI
memo entitled, "A THREAT BY GARRIS TO HACK FBI WEBSITE."
It turns out this "threat" went on to justify, at least in part, the FBI's ongoing interest
in monitoring the website.
-- The FBI took interest in Raimondo's writing about a 2001 FBI investigation of five
Israeli nationals who were witnessed smiling and celebrating and taking pictures of the burning
Twin Towers from a rooftop perch across the river from Manhattan in Union City, New Jersey, on
9/11. After witnesses called the police, the individuals, who all worked for a local moving
company, were taken into custody and grilled by FBI and CIA for two months after it was deemed
their work visas had expired. They were eventually deported without charge.
Raimondo, in writing about the case in 2002, linked to an American-generated terror
watchlist (which had been published elsewhere on the Internet) that went out to Italian
financial institutions and included the name of the man who owned the New Jersey moving company
in question.
-- The FBI noted Antiwar.com was cited in an article, the name of the author redacted, about
U.S aid to Israel.
-- They also noted that Raimondo had appeared on MSNBC to talk about his opposition to the
Iraq War.
-- It also cited an article that listed Antiwar.com as a reference was handed out in 2002 at
a "peaceful protest" at a British air base in the U.K.
-- The FBI was watching a member of a domestic neo-Nazi group who had "discussed a website,
Antiwar.com" while encouraging fellow members at a conference to "educate themselves" about the
Middle East conflict.
-- The agency said a special agent's review of hard drives seized during an investigation of
an unnamed subject, revealed that the subject had visited Antiwar.com between July 25, 2002 and
June 15, 2003, "among many other websites."
The FBI acknowledged it searched the Web, as well as Lexis-Nexis, the Universal Index (FBI
central records), the agency's Electronic Case File, Department of Motor Vehicles and Dunn
& Bradsheet (credit reports) for information on Antiwar.com and for "one or more
individuals" working for the website.
Looking back, it's hard to fathom how such tiny (Constitutionally protected) crumbs led the
FBI to the conclusion that Garris and Raimondo, two dedicated activists (Raimondo was also a
prolific author) with decades of time in California's political trenches, might be a "threat to
national security," but there you are...
The case decided on Wednesday revolved around two remaining memos that the FBI had so far
refused to expunge. One involved the call Garris made to the FBI in 2002. The U.S. Court of
Appeals for the 9th Circuit in Northern California found that the government did not have a
compelling law enforcement reason to keep them.
"Maintenance of a record that describes only First Amendment activity and does not implicate
national security is not pertinent to the FBI's authorized activities," the court
concluded...
Garris said he was relieved and elated that the court was able to end this ugly chapter for
the website...
Not to mention that casual erasures of any part of the Bill of Rights by government are
frickin' scary, as are casual acceptance and rationalization of same by ordinary Americans
(and/or those seeming like ordinary Americans).
In his memoir, True Compass , Ted Kennedy said that LBJ told him that LBJ considered
the FBI culpable in the assassination of JFK, in that the FBI had had its eye on Oswald and
considered him dangerous, but never warned the Secret Service.
Many years later, we have failures by the FBI and CIA to coordinate and act upon intel
involved in 911. They did nothing about reports from citizens of the suspicious activities of
the Saudi assassins while the assassins were in the US, such as taking flying lessons, but
saying they didn't need to learn how to land. Moreover, the FBI and CIA had months of Arab
conversations awaiting translation because of a shortage of translators cause by the FBI's and
CIA's unwillingess to use Arab translators.
Then we have two warnings, not from ordinary citizens, but from the Russian government, that
the Tsarnaevs were a threat. Now, that alone sure sounds to me like probable cause for
surveillance. However, the FBI interviewed them and supposedly was unable to justify doing
anything else.
So, we have culpability in a Presidential assassination AND two terrorist attacks. And that
certainly can't be all before and after 1960. For instance, speaking of JFK, there was the Bay
of Pigs fiasco. On the bright side, that taught JFK to squint at the CIA and the military,
which, in turn, may have avoided nuclear disaster over the Cuban missile "crisis." (When we
place missiles somewhere, it's defense on our part and a deterrent; when another nation,
especially Russia, does the same, it's casus belli , unless some brilliant politicians
can scale it "all the way down" to a "crisis" or a "national emergency." Our hypocrisy
sickens.
BTW, according to the memoir, JFK was questioning our Vietnam involvement and Bobby Kennedy
had flat out become convinced that bombing should stop immediately and peace negotiations
should begin. He volunteered to negotiate the peace himself, but LBJ refused. So, that's
another thing Bobby and Jack had in common. (Interestingly to me, by Ted's own account, he was
the last of the three Kennedy brothers to lose support for the Vietnam War!)
The socially destructive solutions designed by the Intelligence Communities since the
mid-20th century are paying off in one way:
There is now a copious amount of research and data, that once harnessed and put to work,
will clearly demonstrate without doubt how tragic and destructive their outcomes have been.
They have accomplished precisely the opposite of the goal they were reaching for. For example,
apply their social engineering to reduce the number of terrorists in a region, and in less than
a decade the region will be overrun with terrorists.
Use their strategic genius to stop the flow of drugs from hot-spots of the world, and in
another decade, much of the world will be saturated with illegal drugs.
Humanity throughout the world are the losers, and they pay dearly for the blindness of
Nazi-mentored techniques and strategies that are embraced by intelligence agencies and military
intelligence. In the long term, they are bringers of chaos.
The nazis always lose. Ever since we brought them to America after World War II to teach us
their techniques -- the US has lost every war it attempted. The effects of this influence has
turned America into a prison complex.
The Inteligence elite mistake their power over people -- and the unspeakable sums of
money that are flooded into their agencies -- for success. As you might imagine, that has
spelled disaster where ever in the world that they operate. God help the society where they
gain the upper hand. Like in the United States, for example. Their minds are broken beyond
repair because reality actively lies to them.
If you ask them to send a rocket to the moon, they'll wait until the full moon is directly
overhead, then fire the rocket. They are void of subtlety. The failure will be classified and
forgotten.
We need Taoist leaders if we want to solve real world problems.
Before 9/11 it would have been illegal for CIA to be operating within the U.S.
Yes, the Central Intelligence Agency -CIA, was prohibited by Law to operate within
the USA, This Law/limitation of the power of a Spy Agency, was designed to limit Government
intrusion into the lives of American Citizens. [Bitter laughter in this space]
1. Imagine how much more illegal it must be for a Spy Agency of any Foreign Government to
operate within the territorial limits of the United States.
2. Does the Zionist Spy Agency, MOSSAD , come to mind? Indeed.
3. In 2019, we Americans suffer the daily intrusion into our private affairs of as many
as 16 Secret Agencies, in addition to the most powerful Spy Agency MOSSAD , (which
certainly controls the CIA, NSA, FBI, many local Police Departments, and the other Secret
Agencies- those of the Armed forces, etc.).
*Good political news goes in this space [ ]. The dismissal of one Yahoo – by a Yahoo
– to be replaced by another Yahoo – does not count.
@Durruti The many whistleblowers (Snowden etal) have explained that international
intelligence agencies have circumvented local government restrictions on domestic
surveillance by trading data.
So, England can legally spy on Americans. America can legally spy on English folks.
Swap data.
Voila!
(Mossad can spy on everybody and trade with everybody–fun, fun, fun.)
Though it's easy to imagine the outpouring of fury and wall to wall media coverage --
complete with urgent Congressional hearings -- should such allegations center on any other
foreign country caught spying on the White House (let's say Russia for example), the bombshell
Politico report has barely made a dent in the mainstream media or big cable networks'
coverage.
This is partly because the administration's own reaction has been muted, as the report notes
that "the Trump administration took no action to punish or even privately scold the Israeli
government" after being informed by US intelligence that Israel likely planted the devices.
Politico's sources in most instances held top intelligence and national security posts, who
describe the following of the
recovered spy devices :
The miniature surveillance devices, colloquially known as "StingRays," mimic regular cell
towers to fool cell phones into giving them their locations and identity information .
Formally called international mobile subscriber identity-catchers or IMSI-catchers, they also
can capture the contents of calls and data use .
The devices were likely intended to spy on President Donald Trump, one of the former
officials said, as well as his top aides and closest associates -- though it's not clear
whether the Israeli efforts were successful.
From the moment the report was unveiled early Thursday, Israel's stance has been to
vehemently deny, and to even suggest the accusations are tinged with "anti-Semitism".
The statement from the prime minister's office added, "There is a longstanding
commitment, and a directive from the Israeli government not to engage in any intelligence
operations in the U.S. This directive is strictly enforced without exception."
Uh huh... Sure. So how do you explain Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell then?
Come on readers. Next they'll be saying Israel controls all levels of government through
political donations. Possible from the $2 Billion a year they get? Anybody know how much
total Israeli contributions go to the Pres, Congress etc?
I was hoping to see a comment from Einstein, but cant find him. Wonder where he is. I
guess we will just have to lower our standards and look to ZD1 for the real scoop.
Think of the internet as a tollway with booths at either end and monitoring along the way.
When you control a booth, for example, you can see which cars pass by.
I have seen that process in action and am in favor of privacy tools (VPN, control of Java
scripts, ad/malware blockers, etc) to preserve some semblance of anonymity. Even with those
in place, there are still ways for actors to observe. Be guided accordingly.
Very difficult to provide choke points – but I am sure they are working on it.
Because almost everything depends upon instantaeous network connectivity, such as power
systems, logistics systems, communication systems, transport systems, defence systems and
banking systems, among others, any interference is going to have side effects that could be
quite serious.
In addition, systems are becoming more and more distributed, with no central control point
– blockchain being a recent example.
For example, I stopped using youtube.com years ago. Mostly I use bitchute to watch some
things directly, view videos through a search engine like DuckDuckGo or view videos embedded
in websites like NC.
Bitchute uses bittorrent to transmit videos – meaning that the viewers of the videos
also provide the bandwidth to each other – a peer to peer transmission method –
so there is almost no bandwidth cost to Bitchute and no central point of control. The more
users or 'nodes', the better the system works.
Youtube, on the other hand, can control or 'choke' content, but it has huge central server
bandwidth costs.
As I see it, YouTube is going to morph into a proprietary Netflix-type of service in just
a few years. Garage-produced indie content and alternative media startups will probably move
to a different platform.
Those measures are nothing special. They are typical for any war or any coup d'état to install totalitarian regime in the
country. Fritened people are easily manipulated. . The only question against whom the war was launched and what was real origin of
9/11. Here 1984 instantly comes to mind.
Next week will be the
18th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
Politicians and bureaucrats wasted no time after that
carnage to unleash the Surveillance State on average Americans, treating every person like a
terrorist suspect.
Since the government failed to protect the public, Americans somehow
forfeited their constitutional right to privacy. Despite heroic efforts by former NSA staffer
Edward Snowden and a host of activists and freedom fighters, the government continues ravaging
American privacy.
Two of the largest leaps towards "1984" began in 2002.
Though neither the
Justice Department's Operation TIPS nor the Pentagon's Total Information Awareness program was
brought to completion, parcels and precedents from each program have profoundly influenced
subsequent federal policies.
In July 2002, the Justice Department unveiled plans for Operation TIPS -- the Terrorism
Information and Prevention System.
According to the Justice Department website, TIPS would
be "a nationwide program giving millions of American truckers, letter carriers, train conductors,
ship captains, utility employees, and others a formal way to report suspicious terrorist activity."
TIPSters would be people who, "in the daily course of their work, are in a unique position to serve
as extra eyes and ears for law enforcement." The feds aimed to recruit people in jobs that "make
them uniquely well positioned to understand the ordinary course of business in the area they serve,
and to identify things that are out of the ordinary." Homeland Security director Tom Ridge said
that observers in certain occupations "might pick up a break in the certain rhythm or pattern of a
community." The feds planned to enlist as many as 10 million people to watch other people's
"rhythms."
The Justice Department provided no definition of "suspicious behavior" to guide
vigilantes.
As
the public began to focus on the program's sweep, opposition surfaced; even the U.S. Postal Service
briefly balked at participating in the program. Director Ridge insisted that TIPS "is not a
government intrusion." He declared, "The last thing we want is Americans spying on Americans.
That's just not what the president is all about, and not what the TIPS program is all about."
Apparently, as long as the Bush administration did not announce plans to compel people to testify
about the peccadilloes of their neighbors and customers, TIPS was a certified freedom-friendly
program.
When Attorney General John Ashcroft was cross-examined by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) on TIPS at
a Judiciary Committee hearing on July 25, he insisted that
"the TIPS program is
something requested by industry to allow them to talk about anomalies that they encounter."
But, when George W. Bush first announced the program, he portrayed it as an administration
initiative. Did thousands of Teamsters Union members petition 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue over
"anomalies"? Senator Leahy asked whether reports to the TIPS hotline would become part of a federal
database with millions of unsubstantiated allegations against American citizens.
Ashcroft told Leahy, "I have recommended that there would be none, and I've been given assurance
that the TIPS program would not maintain a database." But Ashcroft could not reveal which federal
official had given him the assurance.
The ACLU's Laura Murphy observed,
"This is a program where people's activities,
statements, posters in their windows or on their walls, nationality, and religious practices will
be reported by untrained individuals without any relationship to criminal activity."
San Diego law professor Marjorie Cohn observed, "Operation TIPS will encourage neighbors to
snitch on neighbors and won't distinguish between real and fabricated tips. Anyone with a grudge or
vendetta against another can provide false information to the government, which will then enter the
national database."
On August 9, the Justice Department announced it was fine-tuning TIPS, abandoning any "plan to
ask thousands of mail carriers, utility workers, and others with access to private homes to report
suspected terrorist activity," the
Washington Post
reported. People who had enlisted to be
TIPSters received an email notice from Uncle Sam that "only those who work in the trucking,
maritime, shipping, and mass transit industries will be eligible to participate in this information
referral service." But the Justice Department continued refusing to disclose to the Senate
Judiciary Committee who would have access to the TIPS reports.
After the proposal created a fierce backlash across the political board, Congress passed
an amendment blocking its creation.
House Majority Leader Richard Armey (R-Tex.) attached
an amendment to homeland security legislation that declared, "Any and all activities of the federal
government to implement the proposed component program of the Citizen Corps known as Operation TIPS
are hereby prohibited." But the Bush administration and later the Obama administration pursued the
same information roundup with federally funded fusion centers that encouraged people to file
"suspicious activity reports" for a wide array of innocuous behavior -- reports that are dumped into
secret federal databases that can vex innocent citizens in perpetuity.
Operation TIPS illustrated how the momentum of intrusion spurred government to propose
programs that it never would have attempted before 9/11.
If Bush had proposed in August
2001 to recruit 10 million Americans to report any of their neighbors they suspected of acting
unusual or being potential troublemakers, the public might have concluded the president had gone
berserk.
Total Information Awareness: 300 million dossiers
The USA PATRIOT Act created a new Information Office in the Pentagon's Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
In January 2002, the White House chose retired admiral
John Poindexter to head the new office. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer explained, "Admiral
Poindexter is somebody who this administration thinks is an outstanding American, an outstanding
citizen, who has done a very good job in what he has done for our country, serving the military."
Cynics kvetched about Poindexter's five felony convictions for false testimony to Congress
and destruction of evidence during the investigation of the Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages exchange.
Poindexter's convictions were overturned by a federal appeals court, which cited the immunity
Congress granted his testimony.
Poindexter committed the new Pentagon office to achieving Total Information Awareness (TIA).
TIA's mission is "to detect, classify and identify foreign terrorists -- and decipher their plans --
and thereby enable the U.S. to take timely action to successfully preempt and defeat terrorist
acts,"
according to DARPA. According to Undersecretary of Defense Pete Aldridge, TIA would
seek to discover "connections between transactions -- such as passports; visas; work permits;
driver's licenses; credit cards; airline tickets; rental cars; gun purchases; chemical purchases --
and events -- such as arrests or suspicious activities and so forth." Aldridge agreed that every
phone call a person made or received could be entered into the database. With "voice recognition"
software, the actual text of the call could also go onto a permanent record.
TIA would also strive to achieve "Human Identification at a Distance" (HumanID),
including "Face Recognition," "Iris Recognition," and "Gait Recognition."
The Pentagon
issued a request for proposals to develop an "odor recognition" surveillance system that would help
the feds identify people by their sweat or urine -- potentially creating a wealth of new job
opportunities for deviants.
TIA's goal was to stockpile as much information as possible about everyone on Earth -- thereby
allowing government to protect everyone from everything.
New York Times
columnist William
Safire captured the sweep of the new surveillance system: "Every purchase you make with a credit
card, every magazine subscription you buy and medical prescription you fill, every Web site you
visit and e-mail you send or receive, every academic grade you receive, every bank deposit you
make, every trip you book, and every event you attend -- all these transactions and communications
will go into what the Defense Department describes as 'a virtual, centralized grand database.'"
Columnist Ted Rall noted that the feds would even scan "veterinary records. The TIA believes that
knowing if and when Fluffy got spayed -- and whether your son stopped torturing Fluffy after you put
him on Ritalin -- will help the military stop terrorists before they strike."
Phil Kent, president of the Southeastern Legal Foundation, an Atlanta-based public-interest law
firm, warned that TIA was "the most sweeping threat to civil liberties since the Japanese-American
internment." The ACLU's Jay Stanley labeled TIA "the mother of all privacy invasions. It would
amount to a picture of your life so complete, it's equivalent to somebody following you around all
day with a video camera." A coalition of civil-liberties groups protested to Senate leaders, "There
are no systems of oversight or accountability contemplated in the TIA project. DARPA itself has
resisted lawful requests for information about the Program pursuant to the Freedom of Information
Act."
Bush administration officials were outraged by such criticisms.
Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld declared, "The hype and alarm approach is a disservice to the public . I
would recommend people take a nice deep breath. Nothing terrible is going to happen." Poindexter
promised that TIA would be designed so as to "preserve rights and protect people's privacy while
helping to make us all safer." (Poindexter was not under oath at the time of his statement.) The
TIA was defended on the basis that "nobody has been searched" until the feds decide to have him
arrested on the basis of data the feds snared. Undersecretary Aldridge declared, "It is absurd to
think that DARPA is somehow trying to become another police agency. DARPA's purpose is to
demonstrate the feasibility of this technology. If it proves useful, TIA will then be turned over
to the intelligence, counterintelligence, and law-enforcement communities as a tool to help them in
their battle against domestic terrorism." In January 2003, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) learned
that the FBI was working on a memorandum of understanding with the Pentagon "for possible
experimentation" with TIA. Assistant Defense Secretary for Homeland Security Paul McHale confirmed,
in March 2003 testimony to Congress, that the Pentagon would turn TIA over to law-enforcement
agencies once the system was ready to roll.
DARPA responded to the surge of criticism by removing the Information Awareness Office
logo from the website.
The logo showed a giant green eye atop a pyramid, covering half the
globe with a peculiar yellow haze, accompanied by the motto "Scientia est Potentia" (Knowledge is
Power).
Shortly after DARPA completed a key research benchmark for TIA, Lt. Col. Doug Dyer, a DARPA
program manager, publicly announced in April 2003 that Americans are obliged to sacrifice some
privacy in the name of security:
"When you consider the potential effect of a terrorist
attack against the privacy of an entire population, there has to be some trade-off."
But nothing in the U.S. Constitution entitles the Defense Department to decide how much privacy or
liberty American citizens deserve.
In September 2003, Congress passed an amendment abolishing the Pentagon's Information Office and
ending TIA funding. But by that point, DARPA had already awarded 26 contracts for dozens of private
research projects to develop components for TIA. Salon.com reported,
"According to
people with knowledge of the program, TIA has now advanced to the point where it's much more than a
mere 'research project.' There is a working prototype of the system, and federal agencies outside
the Defense Department have expressed interest in it."
The U.S. Customs and Border
Patrol is already using facial recognition systems at 20 airports and the Transportation Security
Administration is expected to quickly follow suit.
Two weeks after the 9/11 attacks, Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo sent a secret memo
to the White House declaring that the Constitution's prohibition on unreasonable searches was null
and void:
"If the government's heightened interest in self-defense justifies the use of
deadly force, then it also certainly would justify warrantless searches."
That memo
helped set federal policy until it was publicly revealed after Barack Obama took office in 2009.
Unfortunately, that anti-Constitution, anti-privacy mindset unleashed many federal intrusions that
continue to this day, from the TSA to the National Security Agency to the FBI and Department of
Homeland Security.
If you want a vision of the future, don't imagine "a boot stamping on a human face -- for
ever," as Orwell suggested in 1984 . Instead, imagine that human face staring mesmerized
into the screen of some kind of nifty futuristic device on which every word, sound, and image
has been algorithmically approved for consumption by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency ("DARPA") and its
"innovation ecosystem" of "academic, corporate, and governmental partners."
The screen of this futuristic device will offer a virtually unlimited range of
"non-divisive" and "hate-free" content, none of which will falsify or distort the "truth," or
in any way deviate from "reality." Western consumers will finally be free to enjoy an
assortment of news, opinion, entertainment, and educational content (like this Guardian
podcast about a man who
gave birth , or MSNBC's latest bombshell about
Donald Trump's secret Russian oligarch backers ) without having their enjoyment totally
ruined by discord-sowing alternative journalists like Aaron Maté or satirists like
myself.
"Fake news" will not appear on this screen. All the news will be "authentic." DARPA and its
partners will see to that. You won't have to worry about being "influenced" by Russians, Nazis,
conspiracy theorists, socialists, populists, extremists, or whomever. Such Persons of Malicious
Intent will still be able to post their content (because of "freedom of speech" and all that
stuff), but they will do so down in the sewers of the Internet where normal consumers won't
have to see it. Anyone who ventures down there looking for it (i.e., such "divisive" and
"polarizing" content) will be immediately placed on an official DARPA watchlist for "potential
extremists," or "potential white supremacists," or "potential Russians."
Once that happens, their lives will be over (i.e., the lives of the potentially extremist
fools who have logged onto whatever dark web platform will still be posting essays like this,
not the lives of the Persons of Malicious Intent, who never had any lives to begin with, and
who by that time will probably be operating out of some heavily armed, off-the-grid compound in
Idaho). Their schools, employers, and landlords will be notified. Their photos and addresses
will be published online. Anyone who ever said two words to them (or, God help them, appears in
a photograph with them) will have 24 hours to publicly denounce them, or be placed on
DARPA’s watchlist themselves.
At TruePublica we have written endlessly about the continued slow strangulation of civil liberties and human rights in Britain.
We have warned about the rise of a
techno-Stasi-state
where technology is harnessed and used against civilians without any debate or indeed any real legal framework. We have alerted the
public on the illegal mass data collections by the government and
subsequent loss of much it by MI5 who should not have had it all in the first place. We warned against '
digital strip
searches ' – an activity of the police of the victims in rape cases, and the fact that Britain is becoming a
database state . At TruePublica
we have tried to press home the story that surveillance by the state on such a scale, described as the most intrusive in the Western
world – is not just illegal, it's immoral and dangerous. (see our surveillance database
HERE ).
Here is more evidence of just how dangerous and out of hand this creeping surveillance architecture is becoming. An investigation
by Big Brother Watch has uncovered a facial recognition 'epidemic'
across privately owned sites in the UK. The civil liberties campaign group has found major property developers, shopping centres,
museums, conference centres and casinos using the technology in the UK.
Millions of shoppers scanned
Their investigation uncovered the use of live facial recognition in Sheffield's Meadowhall , one of the biggest shopping
centres in the North of England, in secret police trials that took place last year. The trial could have scanned the faces of
over 2 million visitors.
The shopping centre is owned by British Land, which owns large areas within London including parts of Paddington, Broadgate,
Canada Water and Ealing Broadway. Each site's privacy policy says facial recognition may be in use, although British Land insists
only Meadowhall has used the surveillance so far.
Last week, the Financial Times revealed that the privately owned Kings Cross estate in London was using facial recognition,
whilst Canary Wharf is considering following suit. The expose prompted widespread concerns and the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan,
to write to the estate to express his concerns. The Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham has launched an investigation.
Last year, the Trafford Centre in Manchester was pressured to stop using live facial recognition surveillance following an
intervention by the Surveillance Camera Commissioner. It was estimated that up to 15 million people were scanned during the operation.
" Dark irony" of China exhibition visitors scanned
Big Brother Watch's investigation has also revealed that Liverpool's World Museum scanned visitors with facial recognition
surveillance during its exhibition, "China's First Emperor and the Terracotta Warriors" in 2018. Director of Big Brother Watch
Silkie Carlo described it as "dark irony" noting that "this authoritarian surveillance tool is rarely seen outside of China" and
warning that "many of those scanned will have been school children".
The museum is part of the National Museums Liverpool group, which also includes the International Slavery Museum, the
Museum of Liverpool and other museums and art galleries. The museum group said it is "currently testing the feasibility of using
similar technology in the future".
" Eroding freedom of association"
Big Brother Watch's investigation also found that the Millennium Point conference centre in Birmingham uses facial recognition
surveillance "at the request of law enforcement", according to its privacy policy. In recent years, the area surrounding the conference
centre has been used for demonstrations by trade unionists, football fans and anti-racism campaigners. The centre refused to give
further information about its past or present uses of facial recognition surveillance. Millennium Point is soon to host a 'hackathon'.
A number of casinos and betting shops also have policies that refer to their use of facial recognition technology including
Ladbrokes, Coral and Hippodrome Casino London.
Director of Big Brother Watch, Silkie Carlo, said:
There is an epidemic of facial recognition in the UK.
The collusion between police and private companies in building these surveillance nets around popular spaces is deeply
disturbing. Facial recognition is the perfect tool of oppression and the widespread use we've found indicates we're facing
a privacy emergency.
We now know that many millions of innocent people will have had their faces scanned with this surveillance without knowing
about it, whether by police or by private companies.
The idea of a British museum secretly scanning the faces of children visiting an exhibition on the first emperor of China
is chilling. There is a dark irony that this authoritarian surveillance tool is rarely seen outside of China.
Facial recognition surveillance risks making privacy in Britain extinct.
Parliament must follow in the footsteps of legislators in the US and urgently ban this authoritarian surveillance from
public spaces.
"... Today, it might be argued, Americans have been plunged into our own bizarre version of 1984 . In our world, Donald Trump has, in some sense, absorbed into his own person more or less everything dystopian in the vicinity. ..."
"... In some strange fashion, he and his administration already seem like a combination of the Ministry of Truth (a ministry of eternal lies ), the memory hole (down which the past, especially the Obama legacy and the president's own discarded statements , disappear daily), the two-minutes-hate sessions and hate week that are the essence of any of his rallies ("lock her up!," " send her back! "), and recently the "hate" slaughter of Mexicans and Hispanics in El Paso, Texas, by a gunman with a Trumpian "Hispanic invasion of Texas" engraved in his brain. And don't forget Big Brother. ..."
"... In some sense, President Trump might be thought of as Big Brother flipped. In The Donald's version of Orwell's novel, he isn't watching us every moment of the day and night, it's we who are watching him in an historically unprecedented way. ..."
"... In his book, he created a nightmare vision of something like the Communist Party of the Stalin-era Soviet Union perpetuating itself into eternity by constantly regenerating and reinforcing a present-moment of ultimate power. For him, dystopia was an accentuated version of just such a forever, a "huge, accurately planned effort to freeze history at a particular moment of time," as a document in the book puts it, to "arrest the course of history" for "thousands of years." ..."
"... In other words, with the American president lending a significant hand, we may make it to 2084 far sooner than anyone expected. With that in mind, let's return for a moment to 1984 . As no one who has read Orwell's book is likely to forget, its mildly dissident anti-hero, Winston Smith, is finally brought into the Ministry of Love by the Thought Police to have his consciousness retuned to the needs of the Party. In the process, he's brutally tortured until he can truly agree that 2 + 2 = 5. Only when he thinks he's readjusted his mind to fit the Party's version of the world does he discover that his travails are anything but over. ..."
I, Winston Smith I mean, Tom Engelhardt have not just been reading a dystopian novel, but,
it seems, living one -- and I suspect I've been living one all my life.
Yes, I recently reread George Orwell's classic 1949 novel, 1984 . In it, Winston Smith, a secret opponent of the totalitarian world of Oceania,
one of three great imperial superpowers left on planet Earth, goes down for the count at the
hands of Big Brother. It was perhaps my third time reading it in my 75 years on this
planet.
Since I was a kid, I've always had a certain fascination for dystopian fiction. It started,
I think, with War of the
Worlds , that ur-alien-invasion-from-outer-space novel in which Martians land in
southern England and begin tearing London apart. Its author, H.G. Wells, wrote it at the end of
the nineteenth century, evidently to give his English readers a sense of what it might have
felt like to be living in Tasmania, the island off the coast of Australia, and have the
equivalent of Martians -- the British, as it happened -- appear in your world and begin to
destroy it (and your culture with it).
I can remember, at perhaps age 13, reading that book under the covers by flashlight when I
was supposed to be asleep; I can remember, that is, being all alone, chilled (and thrilled) to
the bone by Wells' grim vision of civilizational destruction. To put this in context: in 1957,
I would already have known that I was living in a world of potential civilizational destruction
and that the Martians were here. They were then called the Russians, the Ruskies, the Commies,
the Reds. I would only later grasp that we (or we, too) were Martians on this planet.
The world I inhabited was, of course, a post- Hiroshima , post-
Nagasaki one. I was born on July 20, 1944, just a year and a few days before my country
dropped atomic bombs on those two Japanese cities, devastating them in blasts of a kind never
before experienced and killing more
than 200,000 people. Thirteen years later, I had already become inured to scenarios of the
most dystopian kinds of global destruction -- of a sort that would have turned those Martians
into pikers -- as the U.S. and the Soviet Union (in a distant second place) built up their
nuclear arsenals at a staggering pace.
Nuclear obliteration had, by then, become part of our everyday way of life. After all, what
American of a certain age who lived in a major city can't remember, on some otherwise perfectly
normal day, air-raid sirens suddenly beginning to howl outside your classroom window as the
streets emptied? They instantly called up a vision of a world in ashes. Of course, we children
had only a vague idea of what had happened under those mushroom clouds that rose over Hiroshima
and Nagasaki. As we huddled under our desks, hands over heads, " ducking
and covering " like Bert the Turtle while a radio on the
teacher's desk blared Conelrad
warnings , we knew enough, however, to realize that those desks and hands were unlikely to
save us from the world's most powerful weaponry. The message being delivered wasn't one of
safety but of ultimate vulnerability to Russian nukes. After such tests, as historian Stephen
Weart recalled in his book Nuclear Fear ,
"The press reported with ghoulish precision how many millions of Americans 'died' in each mock
attack."
If those drills didn't add up to living an everyday vision of the apocalypse as a child,
what would? I grew up, in other words, with a new reality: for the first time in history,
humanity had in its hands Armageddon-like possibilities of a sort
previously left to the gods. Consider
, for instance, the U.S. military's Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP) of 1960 for a
massive nuclear
strike on the Communist world. It was, we now know, meant to deliver more than 3,200
nuclear weapons to 1,060 targets, including at least 130 cities. Official, if then secret,
estimates of casualties ran to 285 million dead and 40 million injured (and probably
underestimated the longer term effects of radiation).
In the early 1960s, a commonplace on the streets of New York where I lived was the
symbol for "fallout
shelters" (as they were then called), the places you would head for during just such an
impending global conflagration. I still remember how visions of nuclear destruction populated
my dreams (or rather nightmares) and those of my friends, as some would later admit to me. To
this day, I can recall the feeling of sudden heat on one side of my body as a nuclear bomb went
off on the distant horizon of one of those dreams. Similarly, I recall sneaking into a Broadway
movie theater to see On the
Beach with two friends -- kids of our age weren't allowed into such films without
parents -- and so getting a glimpse, popcorn in hand, of what a devastated, nuclearized San
Francisco might look like. That afternoon at that film, I also lived through a
post-nuclear-holocaust world's end in Australia with no less than Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, and
Fred Astaire for company.
An All-American Hate Week
So my life -- and undoubtedly yours, too -- has been lived, at least in part, as if in a
dystopian novel. And certainly since November 2016 -- since, that is, the election of Donald
Trump -- the feeling (for me, at least) of being in just such a world, has only grown stronger.
Worse yet, there's nothing under the covers by flashlight about The Donald or his invasive
vision of our American future. And this time around, as a non-member of his "base," it's been
anything but thrilling to the bone.
It was with such a feeling growing in me that, all these years later, I once again picked up
Orwell's classic novel and soon began wondering whether Donald Trump wasn't our very own
idiosyncratic version of Big Brother. If you remember, when Orwell finished the book in 1948
(he seems to have flipped that year for the title), he imagined an England, which was part of
Oceania, one of the three superpowers left on the planet. The other two were Eurasia
(essentially the old Soviet Union) and Eastasia (think: a much-expanded China). In the book,
the three of them are constantly at war with each other on their borderlands (mostly in South
Asia and Africa), a war that is never meant to be either decisive or to end.
In Oceania's Airstrip One (the former England), where Winston Smith is a minor functionary
in the Ministry of Truth (a ministry of lies, of course), the Party rules eternally in a world
in which -- a classic Orwellian formulation -- "WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS
STRENGTH." It's a world of "inner" Party members (with great privilege), an outer circle like
Smith who get by, and below them a vast population of impoverished "proles."
It's also a world in which the present is always both the future and the past, while every
document, every newspaper, every bit of history is constantly being rewritten -- Smith's job --
to make it so. At the same time, documentation of the actual past is tossed down "the memory
hole" and incinerated. It's a world in which a "telescreen" is in every room, invariably
announcing splendid news (that might have been terrible news in another time). That screen can
also spy on you at just about any moment of your life. In that, Orwell, who lived at a time
when TV was just arriving, caught something essential about the future worlds of surveillance
and social media.
In his dystopian world, English itself is being reformulated into something called Newspeak,
so that, in a distant future, it will be impossible for anyone to express a non-Party-approved
thought. Meanwhile, whichever of those other two superpowers Oceania is at war with at a given
moment, as well as a possibly mythical local opposition to the Party, are regularly subjected
to a mass daily "two minutes hate" session and periodic "hate weeks." Above all, it's a world
in which, on those telescreens and posters everywhere, the mustachioed face of Big Brother, the
official leader of the Party -- "Big Brother is watching you!" -- hovers over everything,
backed up by a Ministry of Love (of, that is, imprisonment, reeducation, torture, pain, and
death).
That was Orwell's image of a kind of Stalinist Soviet Union perfected for a future of
everlasting horror. Today, it might be argued, Americans have been plunged into our own bizarre
version of 1984 . In our world, Donald Trump has, in some sense, absorbed into his own
person more or less everything dystopian in the vicinity.
In some strange fashion, he and his
administration already seem like a combination of the Ministry of Truth (a ministry of
eternal lies ), the memory hole (down which the past, especially the
Obama legacy and the president's own
discarded statements , disappear daily), the two-minutes-hate sessions and hate week that
are the essence of any of his rallies ("lock her up!," " send her
back! "), and recently the "hate" slaughter of
Mexicans and Hispanics in El Paso, Texas, by a gunman with a Trumpian
"Hispanic invasion of Texas" engraved in his brain. And don't forget Big Brother.
In some sense, President Trump might be thought of as Big Brother flipped. In The Donald's
version of Orwell's novel, he isn't watching us every moment of the day and night, it's we who
are watching him in an historically unprecedented way. In what I've called the
White Ford Bronco presidency , nothing faintly like the media's 24/7 focus on him has ever
been matched. No human being has ever been attended to, watched, or discussed this way -- his
every gesture, tweet, passing comment, half-verbalized thought, slogan, plan, angry outburst,
you name it. In the past, such coverage only went with, say, a presidential assassination, not
everyday life in the White House (or at
Bedminster , Mar-a-Lago, his rallies, on Air Force One, wherever).
Room 101 (in 2019)
Think of Donald Trump's America as, in some sense, a satirical version of 1984 in
crazed formation. Not surprisingly, however, Orwell, remarkable as he was, fell short, as we
all do, in imagining the future. What he didn't see as he rushed to finish that
novel before his own life ended makes the Trumpian present far more potentially dystopian than
even he might have imagined. In his book, he created a nightmare vision of something like the
Communist Party of the Stalin-era Soviet Union perpetuating itself into eternity by constantly
regenerating and reinforcing a present-moment of ultimate power. For him, dystopia was an
accentuated version of just such a forever, a "huge, accurately planned effort to freeze
history at a particular moment of time," as a document in the book puts it, to "arrest the
course of history" for "thousands of years."
Yes, in 1948, Orwell obviously knew about Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the weaponry that went
with them. (In 1984 , he even mentions the use of such weaponry in the then-future
1950s.) What he didn't imagine in his book was a dystopian world not of the grimmest kind of
ongoingness but of endings, of ultimate destruction. He didn't conjure up a nuclear apocalypse
set off by one of his three superpowers and, of course, he had no way of imagining another kind
of potential apocalypse that has become increasingly familiar to us all: climate change.
Unfortunately, on both counts Donald Trump is proving dystopian indeed. He is, after all,
the president who threatened
to unleash "fire and fury like the world has never seen" on North Korea (before
falling in love with its dictator). He only recently claimed he could
achieve victory in the almost 18-year-old Afghan War "in a week" by wiping that country "off
the face of the Earth" and killing "10 million people." For the first time, his generals
used
the "Mother of all Bombs," the most powerful weapon in the U.S. conventional arsenal (with a
mushroom cloud that, in a test at least, could be seen for 20 miles), in that same country,
clearly to impress him.
More recently,
beginning with its withdrawal from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, his
administration has started trashing the Cold War-era nuclear architecture of restraint that
kept the great-power arsenals under some control. In the process, it's clearly helping to
launch a
wildly expensive new nuclear arms race on Planet Earth. And keep in mind that this is happening
at a time when we know that a relatively localized nuclear war between regional powers like
India
and Pakistan (whose politicians are once again at each other's throats
over Kashmir ) could create a global nuclear winter and
starve to death up to a
billion people.
... ... ...
And keep in mind as well that our own twisted version of Big Brother, that guy with the
orange hair instead of the mustache, could be around to be watched for significantly longer,
should he win the election of 2020. (His polling numbers have, on the whole, been slowly rising ,
not falling in these years.)
In other words, with the American president lending a significant hand, we may make it to
2084 far sooner than anyone expected. With that in mind, let's return for a moment to
1984 . As no one who has read Orwell's book is likely to forget, its mildly dissident
anti-hero, Winston Smith, is finally brought into the Ministry of Love by the Thought Police to
have his consciousness retuned to the needs of the Party. In the process, he's brutally
tortured until he can truly agree that 2 + 2 = 5. Only when he thinks he's readjusted his mind
to fit the Party's version of the world does he discover that his travails are anything but
over.
He still has to visit Room 101. As his interrogator tells him, "You asked me once what was
in Room 101. I told you that you knew the answer already. Everyone knows it. The thing that is
in Room 101 is the worst thing in the world." And that "worst thing" is always adjusted to the
specific terrors of the specific prisoner.
So here's one way to think of where we are at this moment on Planet Earth: Americans -- all
of humanity, in fact -- may already be in Room 101, whether we know it or not, and the truth
is, by this steaming summer, that most of us should know it.
It's obviously time to act on a global scale. Tell that to Big Brother.
tomdispatch.com The views of individual contributors do not necessarily represent those of
the Strategic Culture Foundation. Tags: Big BrotherOrwell
"... Latest is the secretive Andy Pryce squandering millions of public money on the "Open Information Partnership" (OIP) which is the latest name-change for the Integrity Initiative and the Institute of Statecraft, just like al-Qaeda kept changing its name. ..."
"... In true Orwellian style, they splashed out on a conference for "defence of media freedom", when they are in the business of propaganda and closing alternative 'narratives' down. And the 'media' they would defend are, in fact, spies sent to foreign countries to foment trouble to further what they bizarrely perceive as 'British interests'. Just like the disgraceful White Helmets, also funded by the FO. ..."
"... "The Guardian is struggling for money" Surely, they would be enjoying some of the seemingly unlimited US defense and some of the mind control programmes budgets. ..."
OffGuardian already covered the Global Media Freedom Conference, our article
Hypocrisy Taints UK's
Media Freedom Conference , was meant to be all there was to say. A quick note on the obvious hypocrisy of this event. But, in
the writing, I started to see more than that. This event is actually creepy. Let's just look back at one of the four "main themes"
of this conference:
Building trust in media and countering disinformation
"Countering disinformation"? Well, that's just another word for censorship. This is proven by their refusal to allow Sputnik or RT
accreditation. They claim RT "spreads disinformation" and they "countered" that by barring them from attending. "Building trust"?
In the post-Blair world of PR newspeak, "building trust" is just another way of saying "making people believe us" (the word usage
is actually interesting, building trust not earning trust). The whole conference is shot through with this language
that just feels off. Here is CNN's
Christiane Amanpour :
Our job is to be truthful, not neutral we need to take a stand for the truth, and never to create a false moral or factual equivalence."
Being "truthful not neutral" is one of Amanpour's
personal sayings
, she obviously thinks it's clever. Of course, what it is is NewSpeak for "bias". Refusing to cover evidence of The White
Helmets staging rescues, Israel arming ISIS or other inconvenient facts will be defended using this phrase – they will literally
claim to only publish "the truth", to get around impartiality and then set about making up whatever "truth" is convenient. Oh, and
if you don't know what "creating a false moral quivalence is", here I'll demonstrate: MSM: Putin is bad for shutting down critical
media. OffG: But you're supporting RT being banned and Wikileaks being shut down. BBC: No. That's not the same. OffG: It seems the
same. BBC: It's not. You're creating a false moral equivalence . Understand now? You "create a false moral equivalence" by
pointing out mainstream media's double standards. Other ways you could mistakenly create a "false moral equivalence": Bringing up
Gaza when the media talk about racism. Mentioning Saudi Arabia when the media preach about gay rights. Referencing the US coup in
Venezuela when the media work themselves into a froth over Russia's "interference in our democracy" Talking about the invasion of
Iraq. Ever. OR Pointing out that the BBC is state funded, just like RT. These are all no-longer flagrant examples of the media's
double standards, and if you say they are , you're "creating a false moral equivalence" and the media won't have to allow
you (or anyone who agrees with you) air time or column inches to disagree. Because they don't have a duty to be neutral or show both
sides, they only have a duty to tell "the truth" as soon as the government has told them what that is. Prepare to see both those
phrases – or variations there of – littering editorials in the Guardian and the Huffington Post in the coming months. Along
with people bemoaning how "fake news outlets abuse the notion of impartiality" by "being even handed between liars the truth tellers".
(I've been doing this site so long now, I have a Guardian-English dictionary in my head).
Equally dodgy-sounding buzz-phrases litter topics on the agenda. "Eastern Europe and Central Asia: building an integrated support
system for journalists facing hostile environments" , this means pumping money into NGOs to fund media that will criticize our
"enemies" in areas of strategic importance. It means flooding money into the anti-government press in Hungary, or Iran or (of course),
Russia. That is ALL it means. I said in my earlier article I don't know what "media sustainability" even means, but I feel I can
take a guess. It means "save the government mouthpieces". The Guardian is struggling for money, all print media are, TV news
is getting lower viewing figures all the time. "Building media sustainability" is code for "pumping public money into traditional
media that props up the government" or maybe "getting people to like our propaganda". But the worst offender on the list is, without
a doubt "Navigating Disinformation"
"Navigating Disinformation" was a 1 hour panel from the second day of the conference. You can watch it embedded above if you really
feel the need. I already did, so you don't have to. The panel was chaired by Chrystia Freeland, the Canadian Foreign Minister. The
members included the Latvian Foreign Minister, a representative of the US NGO Committee to Protect Journalists, and the Ukrainian
Deputy Minister of Information
Have you guessed what "disinformation" they're going to be talking about? I'll give you a clue: It begins with R. Freeland, chairing
the panel, kicks it off by claiming that "disinformation isn't for any particular aim" . This is a very common thing for establishment
voices to repeat these days, which makes it all the more galling she seems to be pretending its is her original thought. The reason
they have to claim that "disinformation" doesn't have a "specific aim" is very simple: They don't know what they're going to call
"disinformation" yet. They can't afford to take a firm position, they need to keep their options open. They need to give themselves
the ability to describe any single piece of information or political opinion as "disinformation." Left or right. Foreign or domestic.
"Disinformation" is a weaponised term that is only as potent as it is vague. So, we're one minute in, and all "navigating disinformation"
has done is hand the State an excuse to ignore, or even criminalise, practically anything it wants to. Good start. Interestingly,
no one has actually said the word "Russia" at this point. They have talked about "malign actors" and "threats to democracy", but
not specifically Russia. It is SO ingrained in these people that "propaganda"= " Russian propaganda" that they don't need
to say it.
The idea that NATO as an entity, or the individual members thereof, could also use "disinformation" has not just been dismissed
it was literally never even contemplated. Next Freeland turns to Edgars Rinkēvičs, her Latvian colleague, and jokes about always
meeting at NATO functions. The Latvians know "more than most" about disinformation, she says. Rinkēvičs says disinformation is nothing
new, but that the methods of spreading it are changing then immediately calls for regulation of social media. Nobody disagrees. Then
he talks about the "illegal annexation of Crimea", and claims the West should outlaw "paid propaganda" like RT and Sputnik. Nobody
disagrees. Then he says that Latvia "protected" their elections from "interference" by "close cooperation between government agencies
and social media companies". Everyone nods along. If you don't find this terrifying, you're not paying attention. They don't say
it, they probably don't even realise they mean it, but when they talk about "close cooperation with social media networks", they
mean government censorship of social media. When they say "protecting" their elections they're talking about rigging them. It only
gets worse. The next step in the Latvian master plan is to bolster "traditional media".
The problems with traditional media, he says, are that journalists aren't paid enough, and don't keep up to date with all the
"new tricks". His solution is to "promote financing" for traditional media, and to open more schools like the "Baltic Centre of Media
Excellence", which is apparently a totally real thing .
It's a training centre which teaches young journalists about "media literacy" and "critical thinking". You can read their depressingly
predictable list of "donors" here . I truly wish I was joking. Next
up is Courtney Radsch from CPJ – a US-backed NGO, who notionally "protect journalists", but more accurately spread pro-US propaganda.
(Their token effort to "defend"
RT and Sputnik when they were barred from the conference was contemptible).
She talks for a long time without saying much at all. Her revolutionary idea is that disinformation could be countered if everyone
told the truth. Inspiring. Beata Balogova, Journalist and Editor from Slovakia, gets the ship back on course – immediately suggesting
politicians should not endorse "propaganda" platforms. She shares an anecdote about "a prominent Slovakian politician" who gave exclusive
interviews to a site that is "dubiously financed, we assume from Russia". They assume from Russia. Everyone nods.
It's like they don't even hear themselves.
Then she moves on to Hungary. Apparently, Orban has "created a propaganda machine" and produced "antisemitic George Soros posters".
No evidence is produced to back-up either of these claims. She thinks advertisers should be pressured into not giving money to "fake
news sites". She calls for "international pressure", but never explains exactly what that means. The stand-out maniac on this panel
is Emine Dzhaparova, the Ukrainian First Deputy Minister of Information Policy. (She works for the Ministry of Information – nicknamed
the Ministry of Truth, which was formed in 2014 to "counter lies about Ukraine". Even
The Guardian thought that sounded dodgy.)
She talks very fast and, without any sense of irony, spills out a story that shoots straight through "disinformation" and becomes
"incoherent rambling". She claims that Russian citizens are so brainwashed you'll never be able to talk to them, and that Russian
"cognitive influence" is "toxic like radiation." Is this paranoid, quasi-xenophobic nonsense countered? No. Her fellow panelists
nod and chuckle. On top of that, she just lies. She lies over and over and over again. She claims Russia is locking up Crimean Tartars
"just for being muslims", nobody questions her. She says the war in Ukraine has killed 13,000 people, but doesn't mention that her
side is responsible for over 80% of civilian deaths.
She says only 30% of Crimeans voted in the referendum, and that they were "forced". A fact not supported by
any polls done by either side in the last
four years, and any referenda held
on the peninsula any time in the last last 30 year. It's simply a lie. Nobody asks her about the journalists
killed in Ukraine since their
glorious Maidan Revolution . Nobody questions the fact that she works for something called the "Ministry of Information". Nobody
does anything but nod and smile as the "countering disinformation" panel becomes just a platform for spreading total lies.
When everyone on the panel has had their ten minutes on the soapbox, Freeland asks for recommendations for countering this "threat"
– here's the list:
Work to distinguish "free speech" from "propaganda", when you find propaganda there must be a "strong reaction".
Pressure advertisers to abandon platforms who spread misinformation.
Regulate social media.
Educate journalists at special schools.
Start up a "Ministry of Information" and have state run media that isn't controlled, like in Ukraine.
This is the Global Conference on Media Freedom and all these six people want to talk about is how to control what can be said,
and who can say it. They single only four countries out for criticism: Hungary, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Russia .and Russia takes
up easily 90% of that. They mention only two media outlets by name: RT and Sputnik. This wasn't a panel on disinformation, it was
a public attack forum – a month's worth of 2 minutes of hate. These aren't just shills on this stage, they are solid gold idiots,
brainwashed to the point of total delusion.
They are the dangerous glassy eyes of a Deep State that never questions itself, never examines itself, and will do anything it
wants, to anyone it wants whilst happily patting itself on the back for its superior morality. They don't know, they don't care.
They're true believers. Terrifyingly dead inside. Talking about state censorship and re-education camps under a big sign that says
"Freedom". And that's just one talk. Just one panel in a 2 day itinerary filled to the brim with similarly soul-dead servants of
authority. Truly, perfectly Orwellian.
Read and be appalled at what America is up to .keep for further reference. We are in danger.
Tim Jenkins
It would serve Ms. Amanpour well, to relax, rewind & review her own interview with Sergei Lavrov:-
Then she might see why Larry King could stomach the appalling corporate dictatorship, even to the core of False & Fake recording
of 'our' "History of the National Security State" , No More
Amanpour was forced to laugh uncontrollably, when confronted with Lavrov's humorous interpretations of various legal aspects
of decency & his Judgement of others' politicians and 'Pussy Riots' >>> if you haven't seen it, it is to be recommended, the whole
interview, if nothing else but to study the body language and micro-facial expressions, coz' a belly up laugh is not something
anybody can easily control or even feign that first spark of cognition in her mind, as she digests Lavrov's response :- hilarious
Einstein
A GE won't solve matters since we have a Government of Occupation behind a parliament of puppets.
Latest is the secretive Andy Pryce squandering millions of public money on the "Open Information Partnership" (OIP) which
is the latest name-change for the Integrity Initiative and the Institute of Statecraft, just like al-Qaeda kept changing its name.
In true Orwellian style, they splashed out on a conference for "defence of media freedom", when they are in the business
of propaganda and closing alternative 'narratives' down. And the 'media' they would defend are, in fact, spies sent to foreign
countries to foment trouble to further what they bizarrely perceive as 'British interests'. Just like the disgraceful White Helmets,
also funded by the FO.
Pryce's ventriloquist's dummy in parliament, the pompous Alan Duncan, announced another £10 million of public money for this
odious brainwashing programme.
Tim Jenkins
That panel should be nailed & plastered over, permanently:-
and as wall paper, 'Abstracts of New Law' should be pasted onto a collage of historic extracts from the Guardian, in
offices that issue journalistic licenses, comprised of 'Untouchables' :-
A professional habitat, to damp any further 'Freeland' amplification & resonance,
of negative energy from professional incompetence.
Francis Lee
Apropos of the redoubtable Ms Freeland, Canada's Foreign Secretary.
The records now being opened by the Polish government in Warsaw reveal that Freeland's maternal grandfather Michael (Mikhailo)
Chomiak was a Nazi collaborator from the beginning to the end of the war. He was given a powerful post, money, home and car by
the German Army in Cracow, then the capital of the German administration of the Galician region. His principal job was editor
in chief and publisher of a newspaper the Nazis created. His printing plant and other assets had been stolen from a Jewish newspaper
publisher, who was then sent to die in the Belzec concentration camp. During the German Army's winning phase of the war, Chomiak
celebrated in print the Wehrmacht's "success" at killing thousands of US Army troops. As the German Army was forced into retreat
by the Soviet counter-offensive, Chomiak was taken by the Germans to Vienna, where he continued to publish his Nazi propaganda,
at the same time informing for the Germans on other Ukrainians. They included fellow Galician Stepan Bandera, whose racism against
Russians Freeland has celebrated in print, and whom the current regime in Kiev has turned into a national hero.
Those Ukrainian 'Refugees' admitted to Canada in 1945 were almost certainly members of the 14th Waffen SS Division Galizia 1.
These Ukie collaboraters – not to be confused with the other Ukie Nazi outfit – Stepan Bandera's Ukrainian Insurgent Army -were
held responsible for the massacre of many Poles in the Lviv area the most infamous being carried out in the Polish village of
Huta Pienacka. In the massacre, the village was destroyed and between 500] and 1,000 of the inhabitants were killed. According
to Polish accounts, civilians were locked in barns that were set on fire while those attempting to flee were killed. That's about
par for the course.
Canada's response was as follows:
The Canadian Deschênes Commission was set up to investigate alleged war crimes committed by the collaborators
Memorial to SS-Galizien division in Chervone, Lviv Oblast, western Ukraine
The Canadian "Commission of Inquiry on War Crimes" of October 1986, by the Honourable Justice Jules Deschênesconcluded that in
relation to membership in the Galicia Division:
''The Galicia Division (14. Waffen grenadier division der SS [gal.1]) should not be indicted as a group. The members of Galicia
Division were individually screened for security purposes before admission to Canada. Charges of war crimes of Galicia Division
have never been substantiated, either in 1950 when they were first preferred, or in 1984 when they were renewed, or before this
Commission. Further, in the absence of evidence of participation or knowledge of specific war crimes, mere membership in the Galicia
Division is insufficient to justify prosecution.''
However, the Commission's conclusion failed to acknowledge or heed the International Military Tribunal's verdict at the Nuremberg
Trials, in which the entire Waffen-SSorganisation was declared a "criminal organization" guilty of war crimes. Also, the Deschênes
Commission in its conclusion only referenced the division as 14. Waffen-Grenadier-Division der SS (Galizische Nr.1), thus in legal
terms, only acknowledging the formation's activity after its name change in August 1944, while the massacre of Poles in Huta Pieniacka,
Pidkamin and Palikrowy occurred when the division was called SS Freiwilligen Division "Galizien". Nevertheless, a subsequent review
by Canada's Minister of Justice again confirmed that members of the Division were not implicated in war crimes.
Yes, the west looks after its Nazis and even makes them and their descendants political figureheads.
mark
Most of these people are so smugly and complacently convinced of their own moral superiority that they just can't see the hypocrisy
and doublethink involved in the event.
Meanwhile Owen Jones has taken to Twitter to rubbish allegations that a reign of terror exists at Guardian Towers – the socialist
firebrand is quoted as saying 'journalists are free to say whatever they like, so long as it doesn't stray too far from Guardian-groupthink'.
Good analysis Kit, of the cognitive dissonant ping pong being played out by Nazi sympathisers such as Hunt and Freeland.
The echo chamber of deceit is amplified again by the selective use of information and the ignoring of relevant facts, such
as the miss reporting yesterday by Reuters of the Italian Neo-Nazi haul of weapons by the police, having not Russian but Ukrainian
links.
Not a word in the WMSM about this devious miss-reporting as the creation of fake news in action. But what would you expect?
Living as I do in Russia I can assure anyone reading this that the media freedom here is on a par with the West and somewhat
better as there is no paranoia about a fictitious enemy – Russians understand that the West is going through an existential crisis
(Brexit in the UK, Trump and the Clinton war of sameness in the US and Macron and Merkel in the EU). A crisis of Liberalism as
the failed life-support of capitalism. But hey, why worry about the politics when there is bigger fish to fry. Such as who will
pay me to dance?
The answer is clear from what Kit has writ. The government will pay the piper. How sweet.
I'd like to thank Kit for sitting through such a turgid masquerade and as I'm rather long in the tooth I do remember the old
BBC schools of journalism in Yelsin's Russia. What I remember is that old devious Auntie Beeb was busy training would be hopefuls
in the art of discretion regarding how the news is formed, or formulated.
In other words your audience. And it ain't the public
The British government's "Online Harms" White Paper has a whole section devoted to "disinformation" (ie, any facts, opinions,
analyses, evaluations, critiques that are critical of the elite's actual disinformation). If these proposals become law, the government
will have effective control over the Internet and we will be allowed access to their disinformation, shop and watch cute cat videos.
Question This
The liberal news media & hypocrisy, who would have ever thought you'd see those words in the same sentence.
But what do you expect from professional liars, politicians & 'their' free press?
Can this shit show get any worse? Yes, The other day I wrote to my MP regards the SNP legislating against the truth, effectively
making it compulsory to lie! Mr Blackford as much as called me a transphobic & seemed to go to great length publishing his neo-liberal
ideological views in some scottish rag, on how right is wrong & fact is turned into fiction & asked only those that agreed with
him contact him.
Tim Jenkins
"The science or logical consistency of true premise, cannot take place or bear fruit, when all communication and information is
'marketised and weaponised' to a mindset of possession and control."
B.Steere
Mikalina
I saw, somewhere (but can't find it now) a law or a prospective law which goes under the guise of harassment of MPs to include
action against constituents who 'pester' them.
I only emailed him once! That's hardly harassment. Anyway I sent it with proton-mail via vpn & used a false postcode using only
my first name so unlikely my civil & sincere correspondence will see me locked up for insisting my inalienable rights of freedom
of speech & beliefs are protected. But there again the state we live in, i may well be incarcerated for life, for such an outrageous
expectation.
Where to?
"The Guardian is struggling for money"
Surely, they would be enjoying some of the seemingly unlimited US defense and some of the mind control programmes budgets.
Harry Stotle
Its the brazen nature of the conference that is especially galling, but what do you expect when crooks and liars no longer feel
they even have to pretend?
Nothing will change so long as politicians (or their shady backers) are never held to account for public assets diverted toward
a rapacious off-shore economic system, or the fact millions of lives have been shattered by the 'war on terror' and its evil twin,
'humanatarian regime change' (while disingenuous Labour MPs wail about the 'horrors' of antisemitism rather than the fact their
former leader is a key architect of the killings).
Kit remains a go-to voice when deconstructing claims made by political figures who clearly regard the MSM as a propaganda vehicle
for promoting western imperialism – the self-satisfied smugness of cunts like Jeremy Cunt stand in stark contrast to a real journalist
being tortured by the British authorities just a few short miles away.
It's a sligtly depressing thought but somebody has the unenviable task of monitoring just how far our politicians have drifted
from the everyday concerns of the 'just about managing' and as I say Mr Knightly does a fine job in informing readers what the
real of agenda of these media love-ins are actually about – it goes without saying a very lengthy barge pole is required when
the Saudis are invited but not Russia.
Where to?
This Media Freedom Conference is surely a creepy theatre of the absurd.
It is a test of what they can get away with.
Mikalina
Yep. Any soviet TV watcher would recognise this immediately. Message? THIS is the reality – and you are powerless.
mark
When are they going to give us the Ministry of Truth we so desperately need?
"... We know our disinformation program is complete when almost everything the American public believes is false.' ..."
"... Using groundbreaking camera and lighting techniques, Riefenstahl produced a documentary that mesmerized Germans; as Pilger noted, her Triumph of the Will 'cast Adolf Hitler's spell'. She told the veteran Aussie journalist the "messages" of her films were dependent not on "orders from above", but on the "submissive void" of the public. ..."
"... All in all, Riefenstahl produced arguably for the rest of the world the most compelling historical footage of mass hysteria, blind obedience, nationalistic fervour, and existential menace, all key ingredients in anyone's totalitarian nightmare. That it also impressed a lot of very powerful, high profile people in the West on both sides of the pond is also axiomatic: These included bankers, financiers, industrialists, and sundry business elites without whose support Hitler might've at best ended up a footnote in the historical record after the ill-fated beer-hall putsch. (See here , and here .) ..."
"... The purpose of this propaganda barrage, as Sharon Bader has noted, has been to convince as many people as possible that it is in their interests to relinquish their own power as workers, consumers, and citizens, and 'forego their democratic right to restrain and regulate business activity. As a result the political agenda is now confined to policies aimed at furthering business interests.' ..."
Here was, of course, another surreal spectacle, this time courtesy of one of the Deep State's most dangerous, reviled, and divisive
figures, a notable protagonist in the Russia-Gate conspiracy, and America's most senior diplomat no less.
Not only is it difficult to accept that the former CIA Director actually believes what he is saying, well might we ask, "Who can
believe Mike Pompeo?"
And here's also someone whose manifest cynicism, hypocrisy, and chutzpah would embarrass the much-derided
scribes and Pharisees of Biblical days.
We have Pompeo on record recently in a rare moment of
honesty admitting – whilst laughing his ample ass off, as if recalling some "Boy's Own Adventure" from his misspent youth with a
bunch of his mates down at the local pub – that under his watch as CIA Director:
We lied, cheated, we stole we had entire training courses.'
It may have been one of the few times in his wretched existence that Pompeo didn't speak with a forked tongue.
At all events, his candour aside, we can assume safely that this reactionary, monomaniacal, Christian Zionist 'end-timer' passed
all the Company's "training courses" with flying colours.
According to Matthew Rosenberg
of the New York Times, all this did not stop Pompeo however from name-checking Wikileaks when it served his own interests. Back
in 2016 at the height of the election campaign, he had ' no compunction about pointing people toward emails stolen* by Russian hackers
from the Democratic National Committee and then posted by WikiLeaks."
[NOTE: Rosenberg's omission of the word "allegedly" -- as in "emails allegedly stolen" -- is a dead giveaway of bias on his part
(a journalistic Freudian slip perhaps?), with his employer
being one of those MSM marques leading the charge with the "Russian Collusion" 'story'. For a more insightful view of the source
of these emails and the skullduggery and thuggery that attended Russia-Gate, readers are encouraged to
check this out.]
And this is of course The Company we're talking about, whose past and present relationship with the media might be summed up in
two words:
Operation Mockingbird (OpMock). Anyone vaguely familiar with the well-documented Grand Deception that was OpMock, arguably the
CIA's most enduring, insidious, and successful
psy-ops gambit, will know what
we're talking about. (See
here ,
here ,
here , and
here .) At its most basic, this operation was all about propaganda and censorship, usually operating in tandem to ensure all
the bases are covered.
After opining that the MSM is 'totally infiltrated' by the CIA and various other agencies, for his part former NSA whistleblower
William Binney recently added , ' When it
comes to national security, the media only talk about what the administration wants you to hear, and basically suppress any other
statements about what's going on that the administration does not want get public. The media is basically the lapdogs for the government.'
We know our disinformation program is complete when almost everything the American public believes is false.'
In order to provide a broader and deeper perspective, we should now consider the views of a few others on the subjects at hand,
along with some history. In a 2013 piece musing on the modern significance of the practice, my compatriot John Pilger
ecalled a time when he met
Leni Riefenstahl
back in 70s and asked her about her films that 'glorified the Nazis'.
Using groundbreaking camera and lighting techniques, Riefenstahl produced a documentary that mesmerized Germans; as Pilger
noted, her Triumph of the Will 'cast Adolf Hitler's
spell'. She told the veteran Aussie journalist the "messages" of her films were dependent not on "orders from above", but on the
"submissive void" of the public.
All in all, Riefenstahl produced arguably for the rest of the world the most compelling historical footage of mass hysteria,
blind obedience, nationalistic fervour, and existential menace, all key ingredients in anyone's totalitarian nightmare. That it also
impressed a lot of very powerful, high profile people in the West on both sides of the pond is also axiomatic: These included
bankers, financiers, industrialists,
and sundry business elites without whose support Hitler might've at best ended up a footnote in the historical record after the
ill-fated
beer-hall
putsch. (See
here , and here .)
" Triumph " apparently still resonates today. To the surprise of few one imagines, such was the impact of the film -- as casually
revealed in the excellent 2018 Alexis Bloom documentary Divide and
Conquer: The Story of Roger Ailes -- it elicited no small amount of admiration from arguably the single most influential propagandist
of recent times.
[Readers might wish to check out Russell Crowe's recent portrayal of Ailes in Stan's mini-series
The Loudest Voice , in my view one the best performances of the man's career.]
In a recent piece unambiguously titled "Propaganda Is The Root Of All Our Problems", my other compatriot Caitlin Johnstone also
had a few things to
say about the subject, echoing Orwell when she observed it was all about "controlling the narrative".
Though I'd suggest the greater "root" problem is our easy propensity to ignore this reality, pretend it doesn't or won't affect
us, or reject it as conspiratorial nonsense, in this, of course, she's correct. As she cogently observes,
I write about this stuff for a living, and even I don't have the time or energy to write about every single narrative control
tool that the US-centralised empire has been implementing into its arsenal. There are too damn many of them emerging too damn
fast, because they're just that damn crucial for maintaining existing power structures.'
Fittingly, in a discussion encompassing amongst other things history, language, power, and dissent, he opined, ' Determining how
individuals communicate is' an objective which represents for the power elites 'the best chance' [they] have to control what people
think. This translates as: The more control 'we' have over what the proles think, the more 'we' can reduce the inherent risk for
elites in democracy.
' Clumsy men', Saul went on to say, 'try to do this through power and fear. Heavy-handed men running heavy-handed systems attempt
the same thing through police-enforced censorship. The more sophisticated the elites, the more they concentrate on creating intellectual
systems which control expression through the communications structures. These systems require only the discreet use of censorship
and uniformed men.'
In other words, along with assuming it is their right to take it in the first place, ' those who take power will always try to
change the established language ', presumably to better facilitate their hold on it and/or legitimise their claim to it.
For Oliver Boyd-Barrett, democratic theory presupposes a public communications infrastructure that facilitates the free and open
exchange of ideas.' Yet for the author of the recently published
RussiaGate and Propaganda: Disinformation in the Age of Social Media , 'No such infrastructure exists.'
The mainstream media he says, is 'owned and controlled by a small number of large, multi-media and multi-industrial conglomerates'
that lie at the very heart of US oligopoly capitalism and much of whose advertising revenue and content is furnished from other conglomerates:
The inability of mainstream media to sustain an information environment that can encompass histories, perspectives and vocabularies
that are free of the shackles of US plutocratic self-regard is also well documented.'
Of course the word "inability" suggests the MSM view themselves as having some responsibility for maintaining such an egalitarian
news and information environment. They don't of course, and in truth, probably never really have! A better word would be "unwilling",
or even "refusal". The corporate media all but epitomise the " plutocratic self-regard" that is characteristic of "oligopoly capitalism".
Indeed, the MSM collectively functions as advertising, public relations/lobbying entities for Big Corp, in addition to acting
as its Praetorian bodyguard , protecting their secrets,
crimes, and lies from exposure. Like all other companies they are beholden to their shareholders (profits before truth and people),
most of whom it can safely be assumed are no strangers to "self-regard", and could care less about " histories, perspectives and
vocabularies" that run counter to their own interests.
It was Aussie social scientist Alex Carey who
pioneered the study of nationalism ,
corporatism , and moreso for our purposes herein, the
management (read: manipulation) of public opinion, though all three have important links (a story for another time). For Carey, the
following conclusion was inescapable: 'It is arguable that the success of business propaganda in persuading us, for so long, that
we are free from propaganda is one of the most significant propaganda achievements of the twentieth century.' This former farmer
from Western Australia became one of the world's acknowledged experts on propaganda and the manipulation of the truth.
Prior to embarking on his academic career, Carey was a successful sheep
grazier . By all accounts, he was a first-class judge of the
animal from which he made his early living, leaving one to ponder if this expertise gave him a unique insight into his main area
of research!
In any event, Carey in time sold the farm and travelled to the U.K. to study psychology, apparently a long-time ambition. From
the late fifties until his death in 1988, he was a senior lecturer in psychology and industrial relations at the Sydney-based University
of New South Wales, with his research being lauded by such luminaries as Noam Chomsky and John Pilger, both of whom have had a thing
or three to say over the years about The Big Shill. In fact such was his admiration, Pilger
described him as "a second Orwell", which in anyone's lingo
is a big call.
In fact, for anyone with an interest in how public opinion is moulded and our perceptions are managed and manipulated, in whose
interests they are done so and to what end, it is as essential reading as any of the work of other more famous names. This tome came
complete with a foreword by Chomsky, so enamoured was the latter of Carey's work.
For Carey, the three "most significant developments" in the political economy of the twentieth century were:
the growth of democracy the growth of corporate power; and the growth of propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against
democracy.
For Carey, it is an axiom of conventional wisdom that the use of propaganda as a means of social and ideological control is 'distinctive'
of totalitarian regimes. Yet as he stresses: the most minimal exercise of common sense would suggest a different view: that propaganda
is likely to play at least as important a part in democratic societies (where the existing distribution of power and privilege is
vulnerable to quite limited changes in popular opinion) as in authoritarian societies (where it is not).' In this context, 'conventional
wisdom" becomes conventional ignorance; as for "common sense", maybe not so much.
The purpose of this propaganda
barrage, as Sharon Bader has noted, has been to convince as many people as
possible that it is in their interests to relinquish their own power as workers, consumers, and citizens, and 'forego their democratic
right to restrain and regulate business activity. As a result the political agenda is now confined to policies aimed at furthering
business interests.'
An extreme example of this view playing itself right under our noses and over decades was the cruel fiction of the "
trickle down effect " (TDE) -- aka the 'rising tide that would lift all yachts' -- of
Reaganomics . One of several mantras that defined Reagan's
overarching political shtick, the TDE was by any measure, decidedly more a torrent than a trickle, and said "torrent" was going up
not down. This reality as we now know was not in Reagan's glossy economic brochure to be sure, and it may have been because the Gipper
confused his prepositions and verbs.
Yet as the GFC of 2008 amply demonstrated, it culminated in a free-for all, dog eat dog, anything goes, everyman for himself form
of cannibal (or anarcho) capitalism -- an updated, much
improved version of the no-holds-barred mercenary mercantilism much reminiscent of the
Gilded Age and the
Robber Barons who 'infested' it, only one
that doesn't just eat its young, it eats itself!
Making the World Safe for Plutocracy
In the increasingly dysfunctional, one-sided political economy we inhabit then, whether it's widgets or wars or anything in between,
few people realise the degree to which our opinions, perceptions, emotions, and views are shaped and manipulated by propaganda (and
its similarly 'evil twin' censorship ,) its most adept practitioners, and those elite, institutional, political, and corporate entities
that seek out their expertise.
It is now just over a hundred years since the practice of propaganda took a giant leap forward, then in the service of persuading
palpably reluctant Americans that the war raging in Europe at the time was their war as well.
This was at a time when Americans had just voted their then-president
Woodrow Wilson back into office for a second term, a victory
largely achieved on the back of the promise he'd
"keep us out of the War." Americans were
very much in what was one of their most
isolationist
phases , and so Wilson's promise resonated with them.
But over time they were convinced of the need to become involved by a distinctly different appeal to their political sensibilities.
This "appeal" also dampened the isolationist mood, one which it has to be said was not embraced by most of the political, banking,
and business elites of the time, most of whom stood to lose big-time if the Germans won, and/or who were already profiting or benefitting
from the business of war.
For a president who "kept us out of the war", this wasn't going to be an easy 'pitch'. In order to sell the war the president
established the Committee on Public Information
(aka the Creel Committee) for the purposes of publicising the rationale for the war and from there, garnering support for it
from the general public.
Either way, Bernays 'combined their perspectives and synthesised them into an applied science', which he then 'branded' "public
relations".
For its part the Creel committee struggled with its brief from the off; but Bernays worked with them to persuade Americans their
involvement in the war was justified -- indeed necessary -- and to that end he devised the brilliantly inane slogan,
"making the world safe for democracy"
.
Thus was born arguably the first
great propaganda catch-phrases of the modern era, and certainly one of the most portentous. The following sums up Bernays's unabashed
mindset:
The conscious, intelligent manipulation of the organised habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic
society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power
of our country.'
The rest is history (sort of), with Americans becoming more willing to not just support the war effort but encouraged to view
the Germans and their allies as evil brutes threatening democracy and freedom and the 'American way of life', however that might've
been viewed then. From a geopolitical and historical perspective, it was an asinine premise of course, but nonetheless an extraordinary
example of how a few well chosen words tapped into the collective psyche of a country that was decidedly opposed to any U.S involvement
in the war and turned that mindset completely on its head.
' [S]aving the world for democracy' (or some 'cover version' thereof) has since become America's positioning statement, 'patriotic'
rallying cry, and the "Get-out-of-Jail Free" card for its war and its white collar criminal clique.
At all events it was by any measure, a stroke of genius on Bernays's part; by appealing to people's basic fears and desires, he
could engineer consent on a mass scale. It goes without saying it changed the course of history in more ways than one. That the U.S.
is to this day still using a not dissimilar meme to justify its
"foreign entanglements" is testament to both its utility and durability.
The reality as we now know was markedly different of course. They have almost always been about power, empire, control, hegemony,
resources, wealth, opportunity, profit, dispossession, keeping existing capitalist structures intact and well-defended, and crushing
dissent and opposition.
The Bewildered Herd
It is instructive to note that the template for 'manufacturing consent' for war had already been forged by the British. And the
Europeans did not 'sleepwalk'
like some " bewildered herd ' into this conflagration.
For twenty years prior to the outbreak of the war in 1914, the then stewards of the British Empire had been diligently preparing
the ground for what they viewed as a preordained clash with their rivals for empire the Germans.
To begin with, contrary to the opinion of the general populace over one hundred years later, it was not the much touted German
aggression and militarism, nor their undoubted imperial ambitions, which precipitated its outbreak. The stewards of the British Empire
were not about to let the Teutonic upstarts chow down on their imperial lunch as it were, and set about unilaterally and preemptively
crushing Germany and with it any ambitions it had for creating its own imperial domain in competition with the Empire upon which
Ol' Sol never set.
The "Great War" is worth noting here for other reasons. As documented so by Jim Macgregor and Gerry Docherty in their two books
covering the period from 1890-1920, we learn much about propaganda, which attest to its extraordinary power, in particular its
power to distort
reality en masse in enduring and subversive ways.
In reality, the only thing "great" about World War One was the degree to which the masses fighting for Britain were conned via
propaganda and censorship into believing this war was necessary, and the way the official narrative of the war was sustained for
posterity via the very same means. "Great" maybe, but not in a good way!
The horrendous carnage and destruction that resulted from it was of course unprecedented, the global effects of which linger on
now well over one hundred years later.
Such was the
enduring power
of the propaganda that today most folks would have great difficulty in accepting the following; this is a short summary of historical
realities revealed by Macgregor and Docherty that are at complete odds with the official narrative, the political discourse, and
the school textbooks:
It was Great Britain (supported by France and Russia) and not Germany who was the principal aggressor in the events and actions that
let to the outbreak of war; The British had for twenty years prior to 1914 viewed Germany as its most dangerous economic and imperial
rival, and fully anticipated that a war was inevitable; In the U.K. and the U.S., various factions worked feverishly to ensure the
war went on for as long as possible, and scuttled peacemaking efforts from the off; key truths about this most consequential of geopolitical
conflicts have been concealed for well over one hundred years, with no sign the official record will change; very powerful forces
(incl. a future US president) amongst U.S. political, media, and economic elites conspired to eventually convince an otherwise unwilling
populace in America that U.S. entry onto the war was necessary; those same forces and many similar groups in the U.K. and Europe
engaged in everything from war profiteering, destruction/forging of war records, false-flag ops, treason, conspiracy to wage aggressive
war, and direct efforts to prolong the war by any means necessary, many of which will rock folks to their very core.
But peace was not on the agenda. When, by 1916, the military failures were so embarrassing and costly, some key players in the
British government were willing to talk about peace. This could not be tolerated. The potential peacemakers had to be thrown under
the bus. The unelected European leaders had one common bond: They would fight Germany until she was crushed.
Prolonging the Agony details how this secret cabal organised to this end the change of government without a single vote being
cast. David Lloyd George was promoted to prime minister
in Britain and Georges Clemenceau made prime minister
in France. A new government, an inner-elite war cabinet thrust the Secret Elite leader, Lord
Alfred Milner into power at the very inner-core of the
decision-makers in British politics.
Democracy? They had no truck with democracy. The voting public had no say. The men entrusted with the task would keep going till
the end and their place-men were backed by the media and the money-power, in Britain, France and America.
Propaganda Always Wins
But just as the pioneering adherents of propaganda back in the day might never have dreamt how sophisticated and all-encompassing
the practice would become, nor would the citizenry at large have anticipated the extent to which the industry has facilitated an
entrenched, rapacious plutocracy at the expense of our economic opportunity, our financial and material security, our physical, social
and cultural environment, our values and attitudes, and increasingly, our basic democratic rights and freedoms.
We now live in the Age of the Big Shill -- cocooned in a submissive void no less -- an era where nothing can be taken on face
value yet where time and attention constraints (to name just a few) force us to do so; [where] few people in public life can be taken
at their word; where unchallenged perceptions become accepted reality; where 'open-book' history is now incontrovertible not-negotiable,
upon pain of imprisonment fact; where education is about uniformity, function, form and conformity, all in the service of imposed
neo-liberal ideologies embracing then prioritising individual -- albeit dubious -- freedoms.
More broadly, it's the "Roger Ailes" of this world -- acting on behalf of the power elites who after all are their paymasters
-- who create the intellectual systems which control expression through the communications structures, whilst ensuring these systems
require only 'the discreet use of censorship and uniformed men.'
They are the shapers and moulders of the discourse that passes for the accepted lingua franca of the increasingly globalised,
interconnected, corporatised political economy of the planet. Throughout this process they 'will always try to change the established
language.'
And we can no longer rely on our elected representatives to honestly represent us and our interests. Whether this decision making
is taking place inside or outside the legislative process, these processes are well and truly in the grip of the banks and financial
institutions and transnational organisations. In whose interests are they going to be more concerned with?
We saw this all just after the
Global Financial Crisis
(GFC) when the very people who brought the system to the brink, made billions off the dodge for their banks and millions for
themselves, bankrupted hundreds of thousands of American families, were called upon by the U.S. government to fix up the mess, and
to all intents given a blank cheque to so do.
That the U.S. is at even greater risk now of economic
implosion is something few serious pundits would dispute, and a testament to the effectiveness of the snow-job perpetrated upon Americans
regarding the causes, the impact, and the implications of the 2008 meltdown going forward.
In most cases, one accepts almost by definition such disconnects (read: hidden agendas) are the rule rather than the exception,
hence the multi-billion foundation -- and global reach and impact -- of the propaganda business. This in itself is a key indicator
as to why organisations place so much importance on this aspect of managing their affairs.
At the very least, once corporations saw how the psychology of persuasion could be leveraged to manipulate consumers and politicians
saw the same with the citizenry and even its own workers, the growth of the industry was assured.
As Riefenstahl noted during her chinwag with Pilger after he asked if those embracing the "submissive void" included the liberal,
educated bourgeoisie? " Everyone ," she said.
By way of underscoring her point, she added enigmatically: 'Propaganda always wins if you allow it'.
Greg Maybury is a freelance writer based in Perth, Australia. His main areas of interest are American history and politics
in general, with a special focus on economic, national security, military, and geopolitical affairs. For 5 years he has regularly
contributed to a diverse range of news and opinion sites, including OpEd News, The Greanville Post, Consortium News, Dandelion Salad,
Global Research, Dissident Voice, OffGuardian, Contra Corner, International Policy Digest, the Hampton Institute, and others.
nottheonly1
This brilliant essay is proof of the reflective nature of the Universe. The worse the propaganda and oppression becomes, the greater
the likelihood such an essay will be written.
Such is the sophistication and ubiquity of the narrative control techniques used today -- afforded increasingly by 'computational
propaganda' via automated scripts, hacking, botnets, troll farms, and algorithms and the like, along with the barely veiled
censorship and information gatekeeping practised by Google and Facebook and other tech behemoths -- it's become one of the
most troubling aspects of the technological/social media revolution.
Very rarely can one experience such a degree of vindication. My moniker 'nottheonly1' has received more meaning with this precise
depiction of the long history of the manipulation of the masses. Recent events have destroyed but all of my confidence that there
might be a peaceful way out of this massive dilemma. Due to this sophistication in controlling the narrative, it has now become
apparent that we have arrived at a moment in time where total lawlessness reigns. 'Lawlessness' in this case means the loss of
common law and the use of code law to create ever new restrictions for free speech and liberty at large.
Over the last weeks, comments written on other discussion boards have unleashed a degree of character defamation and ridicule
for the most obvious crimes perpetrated on the masses through propaganda. In this unholy union of constant propaganda via main
stream 'media' with the character defamation by so called 'trolls' – which are actually virtual assassins of those who write the
truth – the ability of the population, or parts thereof to connect with, or search for like minded people is utterly destroyed.
This assault on the online community has devastating consequences. Those who have come into the cross hairs of the unintelligence
agencies will but turn away from the internet. Leaving behind an ocean of online propaganda and fake information. Few are now
the web sites on which it is possible to voice one's personal take on the status quo.
There is one word that describes these kind of activities precisely: traitor. Those who engage in the character defamation
of commenters, or authors per se, are traitors to humanity. They betray the collective consciousness with their poisonous attacks
of those who work for a sea change of the status quo. The owner class has all game pieces positioned. The fact that Julian Assange
is not only a free man, but still without a Nobel price for peace, while war criminals are recipients, shows just how much the
march into absolute totalitarianism has progressed. Bernays hated the masses and offered his 'services' to manipulate them often
for free.
Even though there are more solutions than problems, the time has come where meaningful participation in the search for such
solution has been made unbearable. It is therefore that a certain fatalism has developed – from resignation to the acceptance
of the status quo as being inevitable. Ancient wisdom has created a proverb that states 'This too, will pass'. While that is a
given, there are still enough Human Beings around that are determined to make a difference. To this group I count the author of
this marvelous, albeit depressing essay. Thank you more that words can express. And thank you, OffGuardian for being one of the
last remaining places where discourse is possible.
Really great post! Thanks. I'm part of the way through reading Alex Carey's book: "Taking the Risk Out of Democracy: Corporate
Propaganda Versus Freedom and Liberty," referenced in this article. I've learned more about the obviously verifiable history of
U.S. corporate propaganda in the first four chapters than I learned gaining a "minor" in history in 1974 (not surprisingly I can
now clearly see). I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in just how pervasive, entrenched and long-standing are the
propaganda systems shaping public perception, thought and behavior in America and the West.
Norcal
Wow Greg Maybury great essay, congratulations. This quote is brilliant, I've never see it before, "For Carey, the following conclusion
was inescapable: 'It is arguable that the success of business propaganda in persuading us, for so long, that we are free from
propaganda is one of the most significant propaganda achievements of the twentieth century.' "
Too, Rodger Ailes was the man credited with educating Nixon up as how to "use" the TV media, and Ailes never looked back as
he manipulated media at will. Thank you!
nondimenticare
That is also one of the basic theses of Harold Pinter's Nobel Prize speech.
vexarb
I read in 'Guns, Germs and Steel' about Homo Sapiens and his domesticated animals. Apparently we got on best in places where we
could find animals that are very like us: sheep, cattle, horses and other herd animals which instinctively follow their Leader.
I think our cousins the chimpanzee are much the same; both species must have inherited this common trait from some pre-chimpanzee
ancestor who had found great survival value in passing on the sheeple trait to their progeny. As have the sheep themselves.
By the way, has anybody observed sheeple behaviour in ants and bees? For instance, quietly following a Leader ant to their
doom, or noisily ganging up to mob a worker bee that the Queen does not like?
I'd say the elites are both for and against. Competing factions.
It's clear that many are interested in overturning democracy, whilst others want to exploit it.
The average grunt on the street is in the fire, regardless of the pan chosen by the elites.
"... Latest is the secretive Andy Pryce squandering millions of public money on the "Open Information Partnership" (OIP) which is the latest name-change for the Integrity Initiative and the Institute of Statecraft, just like al-Qaeda kept changing its name. ..."
"... In true Orwellian style, they splashed out on a conference for "defence of media freedom", when they are in the business of propaganda and closing alternative 'narratives' down. And the 'media' they would defend are, in fact, spies sent to foreign countries to foment trouble to further what they bizarrely perceive as 'British interests'. Just like the disgraceful White Helmets, also funded by the FO. ..."
"... "The Guardian is struggling for money" Surely, they would be enjoying some of the seemingly unlimited US defense and some of the mind control programmes budgets. ..."
OffGuardian already covered the Global Media Freedom Conference, our article
Hypocrisy Taints UK's
Media Freedom Conference , was meant to be all there was to say. A quick note on the obvious hypocrisy of this event. But, in
the writing, I started to see more than that. This event is actually creepy. Let's just look back at one of the four "main themes"
of this conference:
Building trust in media and countering disinformation
"Countering disinformation"? Well, that's just another word for censorship. This is proven by their refusal to allow Sputnik or RT
accreditation. They claim RT "spreads disinformation" and they "countered" that by barring them from attending. "Building trust"?
In the post-Blair world of PR newspeak, "building trust" is just another way of saying "making people believe us" (the word usage
is actually interesting, building trust not earning trust). The whole conference is shot through with this language
that just feels off. Here is CNN's
Christiane Amanpour :
Our job is to be truthful, not neutral we need to take a stand for the truth, and never to create a false moral or factual equivalence."
Being "truthful not neutral" is one of Amanpour's
personal sayings
, she obviously thinks it's clever. Of course, what it is is NewSpeak for "bias". Refusing to cover evidence of The White
Helmets staging rescues, Israel arming ISIS or other inconvenient facts will be defended using this phrase – they will literally
claim to only publish "the truth", to get around impartiality and then set about making up whatever "truth" is convenient. Oh, and
if you don't know what "creating a false moral quivalence is", here I'll demonstrate: MSM: Putin is bad for shutting down critical
media. OffG: But you're supporting RT being banned and Wikileaks being shut down. BBC: No. That's not the same. OffG: It seems the
same. BBC: It's not. You're creating a false moral equivalence . Understand now? You "create a false moral equivalence" by
pointing out mainstream media's double standards. Other ways you could mistakenly create a "false moral equivalence": Bringing up
Gaza when the media talk about racism. Mentioning Saudi Arabia when the media preach about gay rights. Referencing the US coup in
Venezuela when the media work themselves into a froth over Russia's "interference in our democracy" Talking about the invasion of
Iraq. Ever. OR Pointing out that the BBC is state funded, just like RT. These are all no-longer flagrant examples of the media's
double standards, and if you say they are , you're "creating a false moral equivalence" and the media won't have to allow
you (or anyone who agrees with you) air time or column inches to disagree. Because they don't have a duty to be neutral or show both
sides, they only have a duty to tell "the truth" as soon as the government has told them what that is. Prepare to see both those
phrases – or variations there of – littering editorials in the Guardian and the Huffington Post in the coming months. Along
with people bemoaning how "fake news outlets abuse the notion of impartiality" by "being even handed between liars the truth tellers".
(I've been doing this site so long now, I have a Guardian-English dictionary in my head).
Equally dodgy-sounding buzz-phrases litter topics on the agenda. "Eastern Europe and Central Asia: building an integrated support
system for journalists facing hostile environments" , this means pumping money into NGOs to fund media that will criticize our
"enemies" in areas of strategic importance. It means flooding money into the anti-government press in Hungary, or Iran or (of course),
Russia. That is ALL it means. I said in my earlier article I don't know what "media sustainability" even means, but I feel I can
take a guess. It means "save the government mouthpieces". The Guardian is struggling for money, all print media are, TV news
is getting lower viewing figures all the time. "Building media sustainability" is code for "pumping public money into traditional
media that props up the government" or maybe "getting people to like our propaganda". But the worst offender on the list is, without
a doubt "Navigating Disinformation"
"Navigating Disinformation" was a 1 hour panel from the second day of the conference. You can watch it embedded above if you really
feel the need. I already did, so you don't have to. The panel was chaired by Chrystia Freeland, the Canadian Foreign Minister. The
members included the Latvian Foreign Minister, a representative of the US NGO Committee to Protect Journalists, and the Ukrainian
Deputy Minister of Information
Have you guessed what "disinformation" they're going to be talking about? I'll give you a clue: It begins with R. Freeland, chairing
the panel, kicks it off by claiming that "disinformation isn't for any particular aim" . This is a very common thing for establishment
voices to repeat these days, which makes it all the more galling she seems to be pretending its is her original thought. The reason
they have to claim that "disinformation" doesn't have a "specific aim" is very simple: They don't know what they're going to call
"disinformation" yet. They can't afford to take a firm position, they need to keep their options open. They need to give themselves
the ability to describe any single piece of information or political opinion as "disinformation." Left or right. Foreign or domestic.
"Disinformation" is a weaponised term that is only as potent as it is vague. So, we're one minute in, and all "navigating disinformation"
has done is hand the State an excuse to ignore, or even criminalise, practically anything it wants to. Good start. Interestingly,
no one has actually said the word "Russia" at this point. They have talked about "malign actors" and "threats to democracy", but
not specifically Russia. It is SO ingrained in these people that "propaganda"= " Russian propaganda" that they don't need
to say it.
The idea that NATO as an entity, or the individual members thereof, could also use "disinformation" has not just been dismissed
it was literally never even contemplated. Next Freeland turns to Edgars Rinkēvičs, her Latvian colleague, and jokes about always
meeting at NATO functions. The Latvians know "more than most" about disinformation, she says. Rinkēvičs says disinformation is nothing
new, but that the methods of spreading it are changing then immediately calls for regulation of social media. Nobody disagrees. Then
he talks about the "illegal annexation of Crimea", and claims the West should outlaw "paid propaganda" like RT and Sputnik. Nobody
disagrees. Then he says that Latvia "protected" their elections from "interference" by "close cooperation between government agencies
and social media companies". Everyone nods along. If you don't find this terrifying, you're not paying attention. They don't say
it, they probably don't even realise they mean it, but when they talk about "close cooperation with social media networks", they
mean government censorship of social media. When they say "protecting" their elections they're talking about rigging them. It only
gets worse. The next step in the Latvian master plan is to bolster "traditional media".
The problems with traditional media, he says, are that journalists aren't paid enough, and don't keep up to date with all the
"new tricks". His solution is to "promote financing" for traditional media, and to open more schools like the "Baltic Centre of Media
Excellence", which is apparently a totally real thing .
It's a training centre which teaches young journalists about "media literacy" and "critical thinking". You can read their depressingly
predictable list of "donors" here . I truly wish I was joking. Next
up is Courtney Radsch from CPJ – a US-backed NGO, who notionally "protect journalists", but more accurately spread pro-US propaganda.
(Their token effort to "defend"
RT and Sputnik when they were barred from the conference was contemptible).
She talks for a long time without saying much at all. Her revolutionary idea is that disinformation could be countered if everyone
told the truth. Inspiring. Beata Balogova, Journalist and Editor from Slovakia, gets the ship back on course – immediately suggesting
politicians should not endorse "propaganda" platforms. She shares an anecdote about "a prominent Slovakian politician" who gave exclusive
interviews to a site that is "dubiously financed, we assume from Russia". They assume from Russia. Everyone nods.
It's like they don't even hear themselves.
Then she moves on to Hungary. Apparently, Orban has "created a propaganda machine" and produced "antisemitic George Soros posters".
No evidence is produced to back-up either of these claims. She thinks advertisers should be pressured into not giving money to "fake
news sites". She calls for "international pressure", but never explains exactly what that means. The stand-out maniac on this panel
is Emine Dzhaparova, the Ukrainian First Deputy Minister of Information Policy. (She works for the Ministry of Information – nicknamed
the Ministry of Truth, which was formed in 2014 to "counter lies about Ukraine". Even
The Guardian thought that sounded dodgy.)
She talks very fast and, without any sense of irony, spills out a story that shoots straight through "disinformation" and becomes
"incoherent rambling". She claims that Russian citizens are so brainwashed you'll never be able to talk to them, and that Russian
"cognitive influence" is "toxic like radiation." Is this paranoid, quasi-xenophobic nonsense countered? No. Her fellow panelists
nod and chuckle. On top of that, she just lies. She lies over and over and over again. She claims Russia is locking up Crimean Tartars
"just for being muslims", nobody questions her. She says the war in Ukraine has killed 13,000 people, but doesn't mention that her
side is responsible for over 80% of civilian deaths.
She says only 30% of Crimeans voted in the referendum, and that they were "forced". A fact not supported by
any polls done by either side in the last
four years, and any referenda held
on the peninsula any time in the last last 30 year. It's simply a lie. Nobody asks her about the journalists
killed in Ukraine since their
glorious Maidan Revolution . Nobody questions the fact that she works for something called the "Ministry of Information". Nobody
does anything but nod and smile as the "countering disinformation" panel becomes just a platform for spreading total lies.
When everyone on the panel has had their ten minutes on the soapbox, Freeland asks for recommendations for countering this "threat"
– here's the list:
Work to distinguish "free speech" from "propaganda", when you find propaganda there must be a "strong reaction".
Pressure advertisers to abandon platforms who spread misinformation.
Regulate social media.
Educate journalists at special schools.
Start up a "Ministry of Information" and have state run media that isn't controlled, like in Ukraine.
This is the Global Conference on Media Freedom and all these six people want to talk about is how to control what can be said,
and who can say it. They single only four countries out for criticism: Hungary, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Russia .and Russia takes
up easily 90% of that. They mention only two media outlets by name: RT and Sputnik. This wasn't a panel on disinformation, it was
a public attack forum – a month's worth of 2 minutes of hate. These aren't just shills on this stage, they are solid gold idiots,
brainwashed to the point of total delusion.
They are the dangerous glassy eyes of a Deep State that never questions itself, never examines itself, and will do anything it
wants, to anyone it wants whilst happily patting itself on the back for its superior morality. They don't know, they don't care.
They're true believers. Terrifyingly dead inside. Talking about state censorship and re-education camps under a big sign that says
"Freedom". And that's just one talk. Just one panel in a 2 day itinerary filled to the brim with similarly soul-dead servants of
authority. Truly, perfectly Orwellian.
Read and be appalled at what America is up to .keep for further reference. We are in danger.
Tim Jenkins
It would serve Ms. Amanpour well, to relax, rewind & review her own interview with Sergei Lavrov:-
Then she might see why Larry King could stomach the appalling corporate dictatorship, even to the core of False & Fake recording
of 'our' "History of the National Security State" , No More
Amanpour was forced to laugh uncontrollably, when confronted with Lavrov's humorous interpretations of various legal aspects
of decency & his Judgement of others' politicians and 'Pussy Riots' >>> if you haven't seen it, it is to be recommended, the whole
interview, if nothing else but to study the body language and micro-facial expressions, coz' a belly up laugh is not something
anybody can easily control or even feign that first spark of cognition in her mind, as she digests Lavrov's response :- hilarious
Einstein
A GE won't solve matters since we have a Government of Occupation behind a parliament of puppets.
Latest is the secretive Andy Pryce squandering millions of public money on the "Open Information Partnership" (OIP) which
is the latest name-change for the Integrity Initiative and the Institute of Statecraft, just like al-Qaeda kept changing its name.
In true Orwellian style, they splashed out on a conference for "defence of media freedom", when they are in the business
of propaganda and closing alternative 'narratives' down. And the 'media' they would defend are, in fact, spies sent to foreign
countries to foment trouble to further what they bizarrely perceive as 'British interests'. Just like the disgraceful White Helmets,
also funded by the FO.
Pryce's ventriloquist's dummy in parliament, the pompous Alan Duncan, announced another £10 million of public money for this
odious brainwashing programme.
Tim Jenkins
That panel should be nailed & plastered over, permanently:-
and as wall paper, 'Abstracts of New Law' should be pasted onto a collage of historic extracts from the Guardian, in
offices that issue journalistic licenses, comprised of 'Untouchables' :-
A professional habitat, to damp any further 'Freeland' amplification & resonance,
of negative energy from professional incompetence.
Francis Lee
Apropos of the redoubtable Ms Freeland, Canada's Foreign Secretary.
The records now being opened by the Polish government in Warsaw reveal that Freeland's maternal grandfather Michael (Mikhailo)
Chomiak was a Nazi collaborator from the beginning to the end of the war. He was given a powerful post, money, home and car by
the German Army in Cracow, then the capital of the German administration of the Galician region. His principal job was editor
in chief and publisher of a newspaper the Nazis created. His printing plant and other assets had been stolen from a Jewish newspaper
publisher, who was then sent to die in the Belzec concentration camp. During the German Army's winning phase of the war, Chomiak
celebrated in print the Wehrmacht's "success" at killing thousands of US Army troops. As the German Army was forced into retreat
by the Soviet counter-offensive, Chomiak was taken by the Germans to Vienna, where he continued to publish his Nazi propaganda,
at the same time informing for the Germans on other Ukrainians. They included fellow Galician Stepan Bandera, whose racism against
Russians Freeland has celebrated in print, and whom the current regime in Kiev has turned into a national hero.
Those Ukrainian 'Refugees' admitted to Canada in 1945 were almost certainly members of the 14th Waffen SS Division Galizia 1.
These Ukie collaboraters – not to be confused with the other Ukie Nazi outfit – Stepan Bandera's Ukrainian Insurgent Army -were
held responsible for the massacre of many Poles in the Lviv area the most infamous being carried out in the Polish village of
Huta Pienacka. In the massacre, the village was destroyed and between 500] and 1,000 of the inhabitants were killed. According
to Polish accounts, civilians were locked in barns that were set on fire while those attempting to flee were killed. That's about
par for the course.
Canada's response was as follows:
The Canadian Deschênes Commission was set up to investigate alleged war crimes committed by the collaborators
Memorial to SS-Galizien division in Chervone, Lviv Oblast, western Ukraine
The Canadian "Commission of Inquiry on War Crimes" of October 1986, by the Honourable Justice Jules Deschênesconcluded that in
relation to membership in the Galicia Division:
''The Galicia Division (14. Waffen grenadier division der SS [gal.1]) should not be indicted as a group. The members of Galicia
Division were individually screened for security purposes before admission to Canada. Charges of war crimes of Galicia Division
have never been substantiated, either in 1950 when they were first preferred, or in 1984 when they were renewed, or before this
Commission. Further, in the absence of evidence of participation or knowledge of specific war crimes, mere membership in the Galicia
Division is insufficient to justify prosecution.''
However, the Commission's conclusion failed to acknowledge or heed the International Military Tribunal's verdict at the Nuremberg
Trials, in which the entire Waffen-SSorganisation was declared a "criminal organization" guilty of war crimes. Also, the Deschênes
Commission in its conclusion only referenced the division as 14. Waffen-Grenadier-Division der SS (Galizische Nr.1), thus in legal
terms, only acknowledging the formation's activity after its name change in August 1944, while the massacre of Poles in Huta Pieniacka,
Pidkamin and Palikrowy occurred when the division was called SS Freiwilligen Division "Galizien". Nevertheless, a subsequent review
by Canada's Minister of Justice again confirmed that members of the Division were not implicated in war crimes.
Yes, the west looks after its Nazis and even makes them and their descendants political figureheads.
mark
Most of these people are so smugly and complacently convinced of their own moral superiority that they just can't see the hypocrisy
and doublethink involved in the event.
Meanwhile Owen Jones has taken to Twitter to rubbish allegations that a reign of terror exists at Guardian Towers – the socialist
firebrand is quoted as saying 'journalists are free to say whatever they like, so long as it doesn't stray too far from Guardian-groupthink'.
Good analysis Kit, of the cognitive dissonant ping pong being played out by Nazi sympathisers such as Hunt and Freeland.
The echo chamber of deceit is amplified again by the selective use of information and the ignoring of relevant facts, such
as the miss reporting yesterday by Reuters of the Italian Neo-Nazi haul of weapons by the police, having not Russian but Ukrainian
links.
Not a word in the WMSM about this devious miss-reporting as the creation of fake news in action. But what would you expect?
Living as I do in Russia I can assure anyone reading this that the media freedom here is on a par with the West and somewhat
better as there is no paranoia about a fictitious enemy – Russians understand that the West is going through an existential crisis
(Brexit in the UK, Trump and the Clinton war of sameness in the US and Macron and Merkel in the EU). A crisis of Liberalism as
the failed life-support of capitalism. But hey, why worry about the politics when there is bigger fish to fry. Such as who will
pay me to dance?
The answer is clear from what Kit has writ. The government will pay the piper. How sweet.
I'd like to thank Kit for sitting through such a turgid masquerade and as I'm rather long in the tooth I do remember the old
BBC schools of journalism in Yelsin's Russia. What I remember is that old devious Auntie Beeb was busy training would be hopefuls
in the art of discretion regarding how the news is formed, or formulated.
In other words your audience. And it ain't the public
The British government's "Online Harms" White Paper has a whole section devoted to "disinformation" (ie, any facts, opinions,
analyses, evaluations, critiques that are critical of the elite's actual disinformation). If these proposals become law, the government
will have effective control over the Internet and we will be allowed access to their disinformation, shop and watch cute cat videos.
Question This
The liberal news media & hypocrisy, who would have ever thought you'd see those words in the same sentence.
But what do you expect from professional liars, politicians & 'their' free press?
Can this shit show get any worse? Yes, The other day I wrote to my MP regards the SNP legislating against the truth, effectively
making it compulsory to lie! Mr Blackford as much as called me a transphobic & seemed to go to great length publishing his neo-liberal
ideological views in some scottish rag, on how right is wrong & fact is turned into fiction & asked only those that agreed with
him contact him.
Tim Jenkins
"The science or logical consistency of true premise, cannot take place or bear fruit, when all communication and information is
'marketised and weaponised' to a mindset of possession and control."
B.Steere
Mikalina
I saw, somewhere (but can't find it now) a law or a prospective law which goes under the guise of harassment of MPs to include
action against constituents who 'pester' them.
I only emailed him once! That's hardly harassment. Anyway I sent it with proton-mail via vpn & used a false postcode using only
my first name so unlikely my civil & sincere correspondence will see me locked up for insisting my inalienable rights of freedom
of speech & beliefs are protected. But there again the state we live in, i may well be incarcerated for life, for such an outrageous
expectation.
Where to?
"The Guardian is struggling for money"
Surely, they would be enjoying some of the seemingly unlimited US defense and some of the mind control programmes budgets.
Harry Stotle
Its the brazen nature of the conference that is especially galling, but what do you expect when crooks and liars no longer feel
they even have to pretend?
Nothing will change so long as politicians (or their shady backers) are never held to account for public assets diverted toward
a rapacious off-shore economic system, or the fact millions of lives have been shattered by the 'war on terror' and its evil twin,
'humanatarian regime change' (while disingenuous Labour MPs wail about the 'horrors' of antisemitism rather than the fact their
former leader is a key architect of the killings).
Kit remains a go-to voice when deconstructing claims made by political figures who clearly regard the MSM as a propaganda vehicle
for promoting western imperialism – the self-satisfied smugness of cunts like Jeremy Cunt stand in stark contrast to a real journalist
being tortured by the British authorities just a few short miles away.
It's a sligtly depressing thought but somebody has the unenviable task of monitoring just how far our politicians have drifted
from the everyday concerns of the 'just about managing' and as I say Mr Knightly does a fine job in informing readers what the
real of agenda of these media love-ins are actually about – it goes without saying a very lengthy barge pole is required when
the Saudis are invited but not Russia.
Where to?
This Media Freedom Conference is surely a creepy theatre of the absurd.
It is a test of what they can get away with.
Mikalina
Yep. Any soviet TV watcher would recognise this immediately. Message? THIS is the reality – and you are powerless.
mark
When are they going to give us the Ministry of Truth we so desperately need?
"... We know our disinformation program is complete when almost everything the American public believes is false.' ..."
"... Using groundbreaking camera and lighting techniques, Riefenstahl produced a documentary that mesmerized Germans; as Pilger noted, her Triumph of the Will 'cast Adolf Hitler's spell'. She told the veteran Aussie journalist the "messages" of her films were dependent not on "orders from above", but on the "submissive void" of the public. ..."
"... All in all, Riefenstahl produced arguably for the rest of the world the most compelling historical footage of mass hysteria, blind obedience, nationalistic fervour, and existential menace, all key ingredients in anyone's totalitarian nightmare. That it also impressed a lot of very powerful, high profile people in the West on both sides of the pond is also axiomatic: These included bankers, financiers, industrialists, and sundry business elites without whose support Hitler might've at best ended up a footnote in the historical record after the ill-fated beer-hall putsch. (See here , and here .) ..."
"... The purpose of this propaganda barrage, as Sharon Bader has noted, has been to convince as many people as possible that it is in their interests to relinquish their own power as workers, consumers, and citizens, and 'forego their democratic right to restrain and regulate business activity. As a result the political agenda is now confined to policies aimed at furthering business interests.' ..."
Here was, of course, another surreal spectacle, this time courtesy of one of the Deep State's most dangerous, reviled, and divisive
figures, a notable protagonist in the Russia-Gate conspiracy, and America's most senior diplomat no less.
Not only is it difficult to accept that the former CIA Director actually believes what he is saying, well might we ask, "Who can
believe Mike Pompeo?"
And here's also someone whose manifest cynicism, hypocrisy, and chutzpah would embarrass the much-derided
scribes and Pharisees of Biblical days.
We have Pompeo on record recently in a rare moment of
honesty admitting – whilst laughing his ample ass off, as if recalling some "Boy's Own Adventure" from his misspent youth with a
bunch of his mates down at the local pub – that under his watch as CIA Director:
We lied, cheated, we stole we had entire training courses.'
It may have been one of the few times in his wretched existence that Pompeo didn't speak with a forked tongue.
At all events, his candour aside, we can assume safely that this reactionary, monomaniacal, Christian Zionist 'end-timer' passed
all the Company's "training courses" with flying colours.
According to Matthew Rosenberg
of the New York Times, all this did not stop Pompeo however from name-checking Wikileaks when it served his own interests. Back
in 2016 at the height of the election campaign, he had ' no compunction about pointing people toward emails stolen* by Russian hackers
from the Democratic National Committee and then posted by WikiLeaks."
[NOTE: Rosenberg's omission of the word "allegedly" -- as in "emails allegedly stolen" -- is a dead giveaway of bias on his part
(a journalistic Freudian slip perhaps?), with his employer
being one of those MSM marques leading the charge with the "Russian Collusion" 'story'. For a more insightful view of the source
of these emails and the skullduggery and thuggery that attended Russia-Gate, readers are encouraged to
check this out.]
And this is of course The Company we're talking about, whose past and present relationship with the media might be summed up in
two words:
Operation Mockingbird (OpMock). Anyone vaguely familiar with the well-documented Grand Deception that was OpMock, arguably the
CIA's most enduring, insidious, and successful
psy-ops gambit, will know what
we're talking about. (See
here ,
here ,
here , and
here .) At its most basic, this operation was all about propaganda and censorship, usually operating in tandem to ensure all
the bases are covered.
After opining that the MSM is 'totally infiltrated' by the CIA and various other agencies, for his part former NSA whistleblower
William Binney recently added , ' When it
comes to national security, the media only talk about what the administration wants you to hear, and basically suppress any other
statements about what's going on that the administration does not want get public. The media is basically the lapdogs for the government.'
We know our disinformation program is complete when almost everything the American public believes is false.'
In order to provide a broader and deeper perspective, we should now consider the views of a few others on the subjects at hand,
along with some history. In a 2013 piece musing on the modern significance of the practice, my compatriot John Pilger
ecalled a time when he met
Leni Riefenstahl
back in 70s and asked her about her films that 'glorified the Nazis'.
Using groundbreaking camera and lighting techniques, Riefenstahl produced a documentary that mesmerized Germans; as Pilger
noted, her Triumph of the Will 'cast Adolf Hitler's
spell'. She told the veteran Aussie journalist the "messages" of her films were dependent not on "orders from above", but on the
"submissive void" of the public.
All in all, Riefenstahl produced arguably for the rest of the world the most compelling historical footage of mass hysteria,
blind obedience, nationalistic fervour, and existential menace, all key ingredients in anyone's totalitarian nightmare. That it also
impressed a lot of very powerful, high profile people in the West on both sides of the pond is also axiomatic: These included
bankers, financiers, industrialists,
and sundry business elites without whose support Hitler might've at best ended up a footnote in the historical record after the
ill-fated
beer-hall
putsch. (See
here , and here .)
" Triumph " apparently still resonates today. To the surprise of few one imagines, such was the impact of the film -- as casually
revealed in the excellent 2018 Alexis Bloom documentary Divide and
Conquer: The Story of Roger Ailes -- it elicited no small amount of admiration from arguably the single most influential propagandist
of recent times.
[Readers might wish to check out Russell Crowe's recent portrayal of Ailes in Stan's mini-series
The Loudest Voice , in my view one the best performances of the man's career.]
In a recent piece unambiguously titled "Propaganda Is The Root Of All Our Problems", my other compatriot Caitlin Johnstone also
had a few things to
say about the subject, echoing Orwell when she observed it was all about "controlling the narrative".
Though I'd suggest the greater "root" problem is our easy propensity to ignore this reality, pretend it doesn't or won't affect
us, or reject it as conspiratorial nonsense, in this, of course, she's correct. As she cogently observes,
I write about this stuff for a living, and even I don't have the time or energy to write about every single narrative control
tool that the US-centralised empire has been implementing into its arsenal. There are too damn many of them emerging too damn
fast, because they're just that damn crucial for maintaining existing power structures.'
Fittingly, in a discussion encompassing amongst other things history, language, power, and dissent, he opined, ' Determining how
individuals communicate is' an objective which represents for the power elites 'the best chance' [they] have to control what people
think. This translates as: The more control 'we' have over what the proles think, the more 'we' can reduce the inherent risk for
elites in democracy.
' Clumsy men', Saul went on to say, 'try to do this through power and fear. Heavy-handed men running heavy-handed systems attempt
the same thing through police-enforced censorship. The more sophisticated the elites, the more they concentrate on creating intellectual
systems which control expression through the communications structures. These systems require only the discreet use of censorship
and uniformed men.'
In other words, along with assuming it is their right to take it in the first place, ' those who take power will always try to
change the established language ', presumably to better facilitate their hold on it and/or legitimise their claim to it.
For Oliver Boyd-Barrett, democratic theory presupposes a public communications infrastructure that facilitates the free and open
exchange of ideas.' Yet for the author of the recently published
RussiaGate and Propaganda: Disinformation in the Age of Social Media , 'No such infrastructure exists.'
The mainstream media he says, is 'owned and controlled by a small number of large, multi-media and multi-industrial conglomerates'
that lie at the very heart of US oligopoly capitalism and much of whose advertising revenue and content is furnished from other conglomerates:
The inability of mainstream media to sustain an information environment that can encompass histories, perspectives and vocabularies
that are free of the shackles of US plutocratic self-regard is also well documented.'
Of course the word "inability" suggests the MSM view themselves as having some responsibility for maintaining such an egalitarian
news and information environment. They don't of course, and in truth, probably never really have! A better word would be "unwilling",
or even "refusal". The corporate media all but epitomise the " plutocratic self-regard" that is characteristic of "oligopoly capitalism".
Indeed, the MSM collectively functions as advertising, public relations/lobbying entities for Big Corp, in addition to acting
as its Praetorian bodyguard , protecting their secrets,
crimes, and lies from exposure. Like all other companies they are beholden to their shareholders (profits before truth and people),
most of whom it can safely be assumed are no strangers to "self-regard", and could care less about " histories, perspectives and
vocabularies" that run counter to their own interests.
It was Aussie social scientist Alex Carey who
pioneered the study of nationalism ,
corporatism , and moreso for our purposes herein, the
management (read: manipulation) of public opinion, though all three have important links (a story for another time). For Carey, the
following conclusion was inescapable: 'It is arguable that the success of business propaganda in persuading us, for so long, that
we are free from propaganda is one of the most significant propaganda achievements of the twentieth century.' This former farmer
from Western Australia became one of the world's acknowledged experts on propaganda and the manipulation of the truth.
Prior to embarking on his academic career, Carey was a successful sheep
grazier . By all accounts, he was a first-class judge of the
animal from which he made his early living, leaving one to ponder if this expertise gave him a unique insight into his main area
of research!
In any event, Carey in time sold the farm and travelled to the U.K. to study psychology, apparently a long-time ambition. From
the late fifties until his death in 1988, he was a senior lecturer in psychology and industrial relations at the Sydney-based University
of New South Wales, with his research being lauded by such luminaries as Noam Chomsky and John Pilger, both of whom have had a thing
or three to say over the years about The Big Shill. In fact such was his admiration, Pilger
described him as "a second Orwell", which in anyone's lingo
is a big call.
In fact, for anyone with an interest in how public opinion is moulded and our perceptions are managed and manipulated, in whose
interests they are done so and to what end, it is as essential reading as any of the work of other more famous names. This tome came
complete with a foreword by Chomsky, so enamoured was the latter of Carey's work.
For Carey, the three "most significant developments" in the political economy of the twentieth century were:
the growth of democracy the growth of corporate power; and the growth of propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against
democracy.
For Carey, it is an axiom of conventional wisdom that the use of propaganda as a means of social and ideological control is 'distinctive'
of totalitarian regimes. Yet as he stresses: the most minimal exercise of common sense would suggest a different view: that propaganda
is likely to play at least as important a part in democratic societies (where the existing distribution of power and privilege is
vulnerable to quite limited changes in popular opinion) as in authoritarian societies (where it is not).' In this context, 'conventional
wisdom" becomes conventional ignorance; as for "common sense", maybe not so much.
The purpose of this propaganda
barrage, as Sharon Bader has noted, has been to convince as many people as
possible that it is in their interests to relinquish their own power as workers, consumers, and citizens, and 'forego their democratic
right to restrain and regulate business activity. As a result the political agenda is now confined to policies aimed at furthering
business interests.'
An extreme example of this view playing itself right under our noses and over decades was the cruel fiction of the "
trickle down effect " (TDE) -- aka the 'rising tide that would lift all yachts' -- of
Reaganomics . One of several mantras that defined Reagan's
overarching political shtick, the TDE was by any measure, decidedly more a torrent than a trickle, and said "torrent" was going up
not down. This reality as we now know was not in Reagan's glossy economic brochure to be sure, and it may have been because the Gipper
confused his prepositions and verbs.
Yet as the GFC of 2008 amply demonstrated, it culminated in a free-for all, dog eat dog, anything goes, everyman for himself form
of cannibal (or anarcho) capitalism -- an updated, much
improved version of the no-holds-barred mercenary mercantilism much reminiscent of the
Gilded Age and the
Robber Barons who 'infested' it, only one
that doesn't just eat its young, it eats itself!
Making the World Safe for Plutocracy
In the increasingly dysfunctional, one-sided political economy we inhabit then, whether it's widgets or wars or anything in between,
few people realise the degree to which our opinions, perceptions, emotions, and views are shaped and manipulated by propaganda (and
its similarly 'evil twin' censorship ,) its most adept practitioners, and those elite, institutional, political, and corporate entities
that seek out their expertise.
It is now just over a hundred years since the practice of propaganda took a giant leap forward, then in the service of persuading
palpably reluctant Americans that the war raging in Europe at the time was their war as well.
This was at a time when Americans had just voted their then-president
Woodrow Wilson back into office for a second term, a victory
largely achieved on the back of the promise he'd
"keep us out of the War." Americans were
very much in what was one of their most
isolationist
phases , and so Wilson's promise resonated with them.
But over time they were convinced of the need to become involved by a distinctly different appeal to their political sensibilities.
This "appeal" also dampened the isolationist mood, one which it has to be said was not embraced by most of the political, banking,
and business elites of the time, most of whom stood to lose big-time if the Germans won, and/or who were already profiting or benefitting
from the business of war.
For a president who "kept us out of the war", this wasn't going to be an easy 'pitch'. In order to sell the war the president
established the Committee on Public Information
(aka the Creel Committee) for the purposes of publicising the rationale for the war and from there, garnering support for it
from the general public.
Either way, Bernays 'combined their perspectives and synthesised them into an applied science', which he then 'branded' "public
relations".
For its part the Creel committee struggled with its brief from the off; but Bernays worked with them to persuade Americans their
involvement in the war was justified -- indeed necessary -- and to that end he devised the brilliantly inane slogan,
"making the world safe for democracy"
.
Thus was born arguably the first
great propaganda catch-phrases of the modern era, and certainly one of the most portentous. The following sums up Bernays's unabashed
mindset:
The conscious, intelligent manipulation of the organised habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic
society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power
of our country.'
The rest is history (sort of), with Americans becoming more willing to not just support the war effort but encouraged to view
the Germans and their allies as evil brutes threatening democracy and freedom and the 'American way of life', however that might've
been viewed then. From a geopolitical and historical perspective, it was an asinine premise of course, but nonetheless an extraordinary
example of how a few well chosen words tapped into the collective psyche of a country that was decidedly opposed to any U.S involvement
in the war and turned that mindset completely on its head.
' [S]aving the world for democracy' (or some 'cover version' thereof) has since become America's positioning statement, 'patriotic'
rallying cry, and the "Get-out-of-Jail Free" card for its war and its white collar criminal clique.
At all events it was by any measure, a stroke of genius on Bernays's part; by appealing to people's basic fears and desires, he
could engineer consent on a mass scale. It goes without saying it changed the course of history in more ways than one. That the U.S.
is to this day still using a not dissimilar meme to justify its
"foreign entanglements" is testament to both its utility and durability.
The reality as we now know was markedly different of course. They have almost always been about power, empire, control, hegemony,
resources, wealth, opportunity, profit, dispossession, keeping existing capitalist structures intact and well-defended, and crushing
dissent and opposition.
The Bewildered Herd
It is instructive to note that the template for 'manufacturing consent' for war had already been forged by the British. And the
Europeans did not 'sleepwalk'
like some " bewildered herd ' into this conflagration.
For twenty years prior to the outbreak of the war in 1914, the then stewards of the British Empire had been diligently preparing
the ground for what they viewed as a preordained clash with their rivals for empire the Germans.
To begin with, contrary to the opinion of the general populace over one hundred years later, it was not the much touted German
aggression and militarism, nor their undoubted imperial ambitions, which precipitated its outbreak. The stewards of the British Empire
were not about to let the Teutonic upstarts chow down on their imperial lunch as it were, and set about unilaterally and preemptively
crushing Germany and with it any ambitions it had for creating its own imperial domain in competition with the Empire upon which
Ol' Sol never set.
The "Great War" is worth noting here for other reasons. As documented so by Jim Macgregor and Gerry Docherty in their two books
covering the period from 1890-1920, we learn much about propaganda, which attest to its extraordinary power, in particular its
power to distort
reality en masse in enduring and subversive ways.
In reality, the only thing "great" about World War One was the degree to which the masses fighting for Britain were conned via
propaganda and censorship into believing this war was necessary, and the way the official narrative of the war was sustained for
posterity via the very same means. "Great" maybe, but not in a good way!
The horrendous carnage and destruction that resulted from it was of course unprecedented, the global effects of which linger on
now well over one hundred years later.
Such was the
enduring power
of the propaganda that today most folks would have great difficulty in accepting the following; this is a short summary of historical
realities revealed by Macgregor and Docherty that are at complete odds with the official narrative, the political discourse, and
the school textbooks:
It was Great Britain (supported by France and Russia) and not Germany who was the principal aggressor in the events and actions that
let to the outbreak of war; The British had for twenty years prior to 1914 viewed Germany as its most dangerous economic and imperial
rival, and fully anticipated that a war was inevitable; In the U.K. and the U.S., various factions worked feverishly to ensure the
war went on for as long as possible, and scuttled peacemaking efforts from the off; key truths about this most consequential of geopolitical
conflicts have been concealed for well over one hundred years, with no sign the official record will change; very powerful forces
(incl. a future US president) amongst U.S. political, media, and economic elites conspired to eventually convince an otherwise unwilling
populace in America that U.S. entry onto the war was necessary; those same forces and many similar groups in the U.K. and Europe
engaged in everything from war profiteering, destruction/forging of war records, false-flag ops, treason, conspiracy to wage aggressive
war, and direct efforts to prolong the war by any means necessary, many of which will rock folks to their very core.
But peace was not on the agenda. When, by 1916, the military failures were so embarrassing and costly, some key players in the
British government were willing to talk about peace. This could not be tolerated. The potential peacemakers had to be thrown under
the bus. The unelected European leaders had one common bond: They would fight Germany until she was crushed.
Prolonging the Agony details how this secret cabal organised to this end the change of government without a single vote being
cast. David Lloyd George was promoted to prime minister
in Britain and Georges Clemenceau made prime minister
in France. A new government, an inner-elite war cabinet thrust the Secret Elite leader, Lord
Alfred Milner into power at the very inner-core of the
decision-makers in British politics.
Democracy? They had no truck with democracy. The voting public had no say. The men entrusted with the task would keep going till
the end and their place-men were backed by the media and the money-power, in Britain, France and America.
Propaganda Always Wins
But just as the pioneering adherents of propaganda back in the day might never have dreamt how sophisticated and all-encompassing
the practice would become, nor would the citizenry at large have anticipated the extent to which the industry has facilitated an
entrenched, rapacious plutocracy at the expense of our economic opportunity, our financial and material security, our physical, social
and cultural environment, our values and attitudes, and increasingly, our basic democratic rights and freedoms.
We now live in the Age of the Big Shill -- cocooned in a submissive void no less -- an era where nothing can be taken on face
value yet where time and attention constraints (to name just a few) force us to do so; [where] few people in public life can be taken
at their word; where unchallenged perceptions become accepted reality; where 'open-book' history is now incontrovertible not-negotiable,
upon pain of imprisonment fact; where education is about uniformity, function, form and conformity, all in the service of imposed
neo-liberal ideologies embracing then prioritising individual -- albeit dubious -- freedoms.
More broadly, it's the "Roger Ailes" of this world -- acting on behalf of the power elites who after all are their paymasters
-- who create the intellectual systems which control expression through the communications structures, whilst ensuring these systems
require only 'the discreet use of censorship and uniformed men.'
They are the shapers and moulders of the discourse that passes for the accepted lingua franca of the increasingly globalised,
interconnected, corporatised political economy of the planet. Throughout this process they 'will always try to change the established
language.'
And we can no longer rely on our elected representatives to honestly represent us and our interests. Whether this decision making
is taking place inside or outside the legislative process, these processes are well and truly in the grip of the banks and financial
institutions and transnational organisations. In whose interests are they going to be more concerned with?
We saw this all just after the
Global Financial Crisis
(GFC) when the very people who brought the system to the brink, made billions off the dodge for their banks and millions for
themselves, bankrupted hundreds of thousands of American families, were called upon by the U.S. government to fix up the mess, and
to all intents given a blank cheque to so do.
That the U.S. is at even greater risk now of economic
implosion is something few serious pundits would dispute, and a testament to the effectiveness of the snow-job perpetrated upon Americans
regarding the causes, the impact, and the implications of the 2008 meltdown going forward.
In most cases, one accepts almost by definition such disconnects (read: hidden agendas) are the rule rather than the exception,
hence the multi-billion foundation -- and global reach and impact -- of the propaganda business. This in itself is a key indicator
as to why organisations place so much importance on this aspect of managing their affairs.
At the very least, once corporations saw how the psychology of persuasion could be leveraged to manipulate consumers and politicians
saw the same with the citizenry and even its own workers, the growth of the industry was assured.
As Riefenstahl noted during her chinwag with Pilger after he asked if those embracing the "submissive void" included the liberal,
educated bourgeoisie? " Everyone ," she said.
By way of underscoring her point, she added enigmatically: 'Propaganda always wins if you allow it'.
Greg Maybury is a freelance writer based in Perth, Australia. His main areas of interest are American history and politics
in general, with a special focus on economic, national security, military, and geopolitical affairs. For 5 years he has regularly
contributed to a diverse range of news and opinion sites, including OpEd News, The Greanville Post, Consortium News, Dandelion Salad,
Global Research, Dissident Voice, OffGuardian, Contra Corner, International Policy Digest, the Hampton Institute, and others.
nottheonly1
This brilliant essay is proof of the reflective nature of the Universe. The worse the propaganda and oppression becomes, the greater
the likelihood such an essay will be written.
Such is the sophistication and ubiquity of the narrative control techniques used today -- afforded increasingly by 'computational
propaganda' via automated scripts, hacking, botnets, troll farms, and algorithms and the like, along with the barely veiled
censorship and information gatekeeping practised by Google and Facebook and other tech behemoths -- it's become one of the
most troubling aspects of the technological/social media revolution.
Very rarely can one experience such a degree of vindication. My moniker 'nottheonly1' has received more meaning with this precise
depiction of the long history of the manipulation of the masses. Recent events have destroyed but all of my confidence that there
might be a peaceful way out of this massive dilemma. Due to this sophistication in controlling the narrative, it has now become
apparent that we have arrived at a moment in time where total lawlessness reigns. 'Lawlessness' in this case means the loss of
common law and the use of code law to create ever new restrictions for free speech and liberty at large.
Over the last weeks, comments written on other discussion boards have unleashed a degree of character defamation and ridicule
for the most obvious crimes perpetrated on the masses through propaganda. In this unholy union of constant propaganda via main
stream 'media' with the character defamation by so called 'trolls' – which are actually virtual assassins of those who write the
truth – the ability of the population, or parts thereof to connect with, or search for like minded people is utterly destroyed.
This assault on the online community has devastating consequences. Those who have come into the cross hairs of the unintelligence
agencies will but turn away from the internet. Leaving behind an ocean of online propaganda and fake information. Few are now
the web sites on which it is possible to voice one's personal take on the status quo.
There is one word that describes these kind of activities precisely: traitor. Those who engage in the character defamation
of commenters, or authors per se, are traitors to humanity. They betray the collective consciousness with their poisonous attacks
of those who work for a sea change of the status quo. The owner class has all game pieces positioned. The fact that Julian Assange
is not only a free man, but still without a Nobel price for peace, while war criminals are recipients, shows just how much the
march into absolute totalitarianism has progressed. Bernays hated the masses and offered his 'services' to manipulate them often
for free.
Even though there are more solutions than problems, the time has come where meaningful participation in the search for such
solution has been made unbearable. It is therefore that a certain fatalism has developed – from resignation to the acceptance
of the status quo as being inevitable. Ancient wisdom has created a proverb that states 'This too, will pass'. While that is a
given, there are still enough Human Beings around that are determined to make a difference. To this group I count the author of
this marvelous, albeit depressing essay. Thank you more that words can express. And thank you, OffGuardian for being one of the
last remaining places where discourse is possible.
Really great post! Thanks. I'm part of the way through reading Alex Carey's book: "Taking the Risk Out of Democracy: Corporate
Propaganda Versus Freedom and Liberty," referenced in this article. I've learned more about the obviously verifiable history of
U.S. corporate propaganda in the first four chapters than I learned gaining a "minor" in history in 1974 (not surprisingly I can
now clearly see). I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in just how pervasive, entrenched and long-standing are the
propaganda systems shaping public perception, thought and behavior in America and the West.
Norcal
Wow Greg Maybury great essay, congratulations. This quote is brilliant, I've never see it before, "For Carey, the following conclusion
was inescapable: 'It is arguable that the success of business propaganda in persuading us, for so long, that we are free from
propaganda is one of the most significant propaganda achievements of the twentieth century.' "
Too, Rodger Ailes was the man credited with educating Nixon up as how to "use" the TV media, and Ailes never looked back as
he manipulated media at will. Thank you!
nondimenticare
That is also one of the basic theses of Harold Pinter's Nobel Prize speech.
vexarb
I read in 'Guns, Germs and Steel' about Homo Sapiens and his domesticated animals. Apparently we got on best in places where we
could find animals that are very like us: sheep, cattle, horses and other herd animals which instinctively follow their Leader.
I think our cousins the chimpanzee are much the same; both species must have inherited this common trait from some pre-chimpanzee
ancestor who had found great survival value in passing on the sheeple trait to their progeny. As have the sheep themselves.
By the way, has anybody observed sheeple behaviour in ants and bees? For instance, quietly following a Leader ant to their
doom, or noisily ganging up to mob a worker bee that the Queen does not like?
I'd say the elites are both for and against. Competing factions.
It's clear that many are interested in overturning democracy, whilst others want to exploit it.
The average grunt on the street is in the fire, regardless of the pan chosen by the elites.
"... The ruling exposes the illegality of the conspiracy by the US government, backed by the governments of Britain, Ecuador, Australia and Sweden and the entire corporate media and political establishment, to extradite Assange to the US, where he faces 175 years in federal prison on charges including espionage. ..."
"... The dismissal of the civil suit exposes massive unreported conflicts of interest and prosecutorial misconduct and criminal abuse of process by those involved. The criminal prosecution of Assange has nothing to do with facts and is instead aimed at punishing him for telling the truth about the war crimes committed by US imperialism and its allies. ..."
"... The judge labeled WikiLeaks an "international news organization" and said Assange is a "publisher," exposing the liars in the corporate press who declare that Assange is not subject to free speech protections. Judge Koeltl continued: "In New York Times Co. v. United States ..."
"... New York Times Co. v. United States ..."
"... The DNC's baseless complaint cited the New York Times ..."
"... New York Times ..."
"... Everyone seems to forget one thing.. Assange knows who gave Assange the DNC data. At some point you have to entertain the idea that eventually he'll play that card. ..."
"... The DNC never allowed a REAL cyber-inspection of it's servers, did they? They also never said the information contained in the supposedly 'stolen' E-Mails was "WRONG" or "INACCURATE", have they? It says volumes.... Occam's Razor points to disgruntled DNC employee Seth Rich using a large capacity flash drive to download the E-Mails, etc which he then passed to someone who got it to Wikileaks. For which he was killed!! ..."
"... No. they never did. Also, if you examine Mueller's BS indictments, the domain they claim was used to phish for Podesta's password (and others) was registered on the same day or perhaps the day before they unsealed the indictment. It's a total fabrication, start to finish! ..."
"... That's just one example of many. The Malware they allegedly 'discovered' (by a Ukranian owned security company Crowdstrike) was not Russian, it was Ukrainian and been floating around the internet for years prior to this alleged non-existent 'hack'.. The whole thing has more holes than proverbial swiss ..."
"... For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence--on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations ..."
"... Its preparations are concealed, not published. Its mistakes are buried, not headlined. Its dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, no secret is revealed. It conducts the Cold War, in short, with a war-time discipline no democracy would ever hope or wish to match ..."
"... It is beyond astonishing that Democrats and the media have successfully shifted 99% of the public's attention AWAY FROM the actual content of what information was stolen from top ranking Democrats, especially the Hillary for President Campaign. ..."
"... beaglebailey > michiganderforfreedom ..."
"... ironically surely an equally damning 'leak' came from the DNCs own ex-Chair Donna Brazille in her self-serving 'memoir' Hacks ... in it she revealed Obama left DNC $24m in debt and Hillary Clinton then bailed it out and effectively bought the entire apparatus as her personal plaything. When that is understood all the 'corruption' about rigging the primaries against Sanders wasn't rigging at all, after all he was standing on Clinton's private property at the time. Blair and Brown dutifully followed the same NSA playbook and left Labour broke, presumably so Blair's 'charity' could then step in to buy it... but Corbyn then balanced the books in 6 months of his taking over ..."
"... The corporate media, having already gone to great lengths to convict Assange of such in the court of public opinion, would like to see that "conviction" stand. ..."
"... "The DNC's published internal communications allowed the American electorate to look behind the curtain of one of the two major political parties in the United States during a presidential election." That's precisely the kind of "problem" the bourgeoisie will no longer tolerate. ..."
"... Reporting the truth “undermined and distorted the DNC's ability to communicate the party's values and visions to the American electorate.” ..."
"... They're sick and tired of basic democratic rights almost as much as they're sick and tired of the working class ..."
In a ruling published late Tuesday, Judge John Koeltl of the US District Court for the
Southern District of New York delivered a devastating blow to the US-led conspiracy against
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
In his ruling, Judge Koeltl, a Bill Clinton nominee and former assistant special prosecutor
for the Watergate Special Prosecution Force, dismissed "with prejudice" a civil lawsuit filed
in April 2018 by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) alleging WikiLeaks was civilly liable
for conspiring with the Russian government to steal DNC emails and data and leak them to the
public.
Jennifer Robinson, a leading lawyer for Assange, and other WikiLeaks attorneys welcomed the
ruling as "an important win for free speech."
The decision exposes the Democratic Party in a conspiracy of its own to attack free speech
and cover up the crimes of US imperialism and the corrupt activities of the two parties of Wall
Street. Judge Koeltl stated:
If WikiLeaks could be held liable for publishing documents concerning the DNC's political
financial and voter-engagement strategies simply because the DNC labels them 'secret' and
trade secrets, then so could any newspaper or other media outlet. But that would
impermissibly elevate a purely private privacy interest to override the First Amendment
interest in the publication of matters of the highest public concern. The DNC's published
internal communications allowed the American electorate to look behind the curtain of one of
the two major political parties in the United States during a presidential election. This
type of information is plainly of the type entitled to the strongest protection that the
First Amendment offers.
The ruling exposes the illegality of the conspiracy by the US government, backed by the
governments of Britain, Ecuador, Australia and Sweden and the entire corporate media and
political establishment, to extradite Assange to the US, where he faces 175 years in federal
prison on charges including espionage.
The plaintiff in the civil case -- the Democratic Party -- has also served as Assange's
chief prosecutor within the state apparatus for over a decade. During the Obama administration,
Democratic Party Justice Department officials, as well as career Democratic holdovers under the
Trump administration, prepared the criminal case against him.
The dismissal of the civil suit exposes massive unreported conflicts of interest and
prosecutorial misconduct and criminal abuse of process by those involved. The criminal
prosecution of Assange has nothing to do with facts and is instead aimed at punishing him for
telling the truth about the war crimes committed by US imperialism and its allies.
The judge labeled WikiLeaks an "international news organization" and said Assange is a
"publisher," exposing the liars in the corporate press who declare that Assange is not subject
to free speech protections. Judge Koeltl continued: "In New York Times Co. v. United
States , the landmark 'Pentagon Papers' case, the Supreme Court upheld the press's right
to publish information of public concern obtained from documents stolen by a third
party."
As a legal matter, by granting WikiLeaks' motion to dismiss, the court ruled that the DNC
had not put forward a "factually plausible" claim. At the motion to dismiss stage, a judge is
required to accept all the facts alleged by the plaintiff as true. Here, the judge ruled that
even if all the facts alleged by the DNC were true, no fact-finder could "draw the reasonable
inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged."
Going a step further, the judge called the DNC's arguments "threadbare," adding: "At no
point does the DNC allege any facts" showing that Assange or WikiLeaks "participated in the
theft of the DNC's information."
Judge Koeltl said the DNC's argument that Assange and WikiLeaks "conspired with the Russian
Federation to steal and disseminate the DNC's materials" is "entirely divorced from the facts."
The judge further ruled that the court "is not required to accept conclusory allegations
asserted as facts."
The judge further dismantled the DNC's argument that WikiLeaks is guilty-by-association with
Russia, calling the alleged connection between Assange and the Russian government "irrelevant,"
because "a person is entitled to publish stolen documents that the publisher requested from a
source so long as the publisher did not participate in the theft."
Judge Koeltl also rejected the DNC's claim "that WikiLeaks can be held liable for the theft
as an after-the-fact coconspirator of the stolen documents." Calling this argument
"unpersuasive," the judge wrote that it would "eviscerate" constitutional protections: "Such a
rule would render any journalist who publishes an article based on stolen information a
coconspirator in the theft."
In its April 2018 complaint, the DNC put forward a series of claims that have now been
exposed as brazen lies, including that Assange, Trump and Russia "undermined and distorted the
DNC's ability to communicate the party's values and visions to the American electorate."
The complaint also alleged: "Russian intelligence services then disseminated the stolen,
confidential materials through GRU Operative #1, as well as WikiLeaks and Assange, who were
actively supported by the Trump Campaign and Trump Associates as they released and disclosed
the information to the American public at a time and in a manner that served their common
goals."
At the time the DNC filed its complaint, the New York Times wrote that the document
relies on "publicly-known facts" as well as "information that has been disclosed in news
reports and subsequent court proceedings." The lawsuit "comes amid a swirl of intensifying
scrutiny of Mr. Trump, his associates and their interactions with Russia," the Times
wrote.
It is deeply ironic that Judge Koeltl cited the Pentagon Papers case, New York Times Co.
v. United States , in his ruling.
The DNC's baseless complaint cited the New York Times eight times as "proof" of
Assange and WikiLeaks' ties to Russia, including articles by Times reporters Andrew
Kramer, Michael Gordon, Niraj Chokshi, Sharon LaFraniere, K.K. Rebecca Lai, Eric Lichtblau,
Noah Weiland, Alicia Parlapiano and Ashley Parker, as well as a July 26, 2016 article by
Charlie Savage titled "Assange, avowed foe of Clinton, timed email release for Democratic
Convention."
The first of these articles was published just weeks after the New York Times hired
James Bennet as its editorial page editor in March 2016. James Bennet's brother, Michael
Bennet, is a presidential candidate, a senator from Colorado and former chair of the DNC's
Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. In 2018, Bennet signed a letter to Vice President
Mike Pence noting he was "extremely concerned" that Ecuador had not canceled asylum for
Assange, who was then trapped in the Ecuadorian embassy in London.
"It is imperative," the letter read, "that you raise US concerns with [Ecuadorian] President
[Lenin] Moreno about Ecuador's continued support for Mr. Assange at a time when WikiLeaks
continues its efforts to undermine democratic processes globally."
In April 2019, after the Trump administration announced charges against Assange, the New
York Times editorial board, under James Bennet's direction, wrote: "The administration has
begun well by charging Mr. Assange with an indisputable crime." Two weeks later, Michael Bennet
announced his presidential run and has since enjoyed favorable coverage in the Times
editorial page.
Additionally, the father of James and Michael Bennet, Douglas Bennet, headed the CIA-linked
United States Agency for International Development in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
On Wednesday, the Times published a brief, six-paragraph article on page 25 under
the headline, "DNC lawsuit against election is dismissed." In its online edition, the
Times prominently featured a link to its special page for the Mueller Report, which is
based on the same DNC-instigated threadbare lies that Judge Koeltl kicked out of federal court
LC • 9 hours ago
Everyone seems to forget one thing.. Assange knows who gave Assange the DNC data. At some point you have to entertain
the idea that eventually he'll play that card.
Liberalism Has Failed • 2 days ago
The DNC never allowed a REAL cyber-inspection of it's servers, did they? They also never said the information
contained in the supposedly 'stolen' E-Mails was "WRONG" or "INACCURATE", have they? It says volumes.... Occam's Razor points
to disgruntled DNC employee Seth Rich using a large capacity flash drive to download the E-Mails, etc which he then passed to
someone who got it to Wikileaks. For which he was killed!!
LC > Liberalism Has Failed • 9 hours ago
No. they never did. Also, if you examine Mueller's BS indictments, the domain they claim was used to phish for
Podesta's password (and others) was registered on the same day or perhaps the day before they unsealed the indictment. It's a
total fabrication, start to finish!
That's just one example of many. The Malware they allegedly 'discovered' (by a Ukranian owned security company
Crowdstrike) was not Russian, it was Ukrainian and been floating around the internet for years prior to this alleged
non-existent 'hack'.. The whole thing has more holes than proverbial swiss
Tradairn > SFWhite • a day ago
Then why does the US keep interfering in other countries' political processes? You've become the schoolyard bully of the
world.
SFWhite > Tradairn • 18 hours ago
Quoting from JFK's speech archived in the JFK Library:
THE PRESIDENT AND THE PRESS: ADDRESS BEFORE THE AMERICAN NEWSPAPER PUBLISHERS ASSOCIATION, APRIL 27, 1961
https://www.jfklibrary.org/...
If the press is awaiting a declaration of war before it imposes the self-discipline of combat conditions, then I can only say
that no war ever posed a greater threat to our security. If you are awaiting a finding of "clear and present danger," then I
can only say that the danger has never been more clear and its presence has never been more imminent.
It requires a change in outlook, a change in tactics, a change in missions--by the government, by the people, by every
businessman or labor leader, and by every newspaper.
***For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for
expanding its sphere of influence--on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation
instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and
material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic,
intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations.
Its preparations are concealed, not published. Its mistakes are buried, not headlined. Its dissenters are silenced, not
praised. No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, no secret is revealed. It conducts the Cold War, in short, with a
war-time discipline no democracy would ever hope or wish to match.***
michiganderforfreedom • 2 days ago
It is beyond astonishing that Democrats and the media have successfully shifted 99% of the public's attention AWAY
FROM the actual content of what information was stolen from top ranking Democrats, especially the Hillary for President
Campaign.
Had the actual Content of what had been stolen was simply meeting schedules, work shift assignments, lawn sign purchase
orders and speech notes, NONE of this scandal would have happened!!
But, the CONTENT of what was stolen revealed the upper echelon of Democrat Party leadership to be nothing but lying,
conniving, cheating, law-breaking dirty politicians who are hell-bent on bringing down the American Federation at any cost.
If the actual Content had been cookie recipes and wedding plans, we would not have been put though this traumatic national
wringer!!
beaglebailey > michiganderforfreedom • 7 hours ago
This was the reason Hillary's campaign came up with the idea to blame it on Russia. This kept people from focusing on
their content and it worked. To this day Hillary's supporters think that her rigging the primary is a conspiracy theory. And
it's why they believe that Russia interfered with the election. How sad to see people who saw through the Saddam had WMDs
have fallen for the new WMDs scam.
Charlotte Ruse • 4 days ago
"The decision exposes the Democratic Party in a conspiracy of its own to attack free speech and cover up the crimes of US
imperialism and the corrupt activities of the two parties of Wall Street."
One should never forget that the corrupt political duopoly is controlled by the military/security/surveillance/corporate
state. Assange, published documents revealing to millions that the US committed war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, murdered
innocent civilians, and slaughtered two Reuter Reporters.
Revealing atrocities is BAD MARKETING for the military industry which for decades has been robbing the US Treasury blind.
Assange's documents threatens the "official narrative" spread by the state-run mainstream news convincing the public to
passively accept the plundering of the US Treasury to enhance the wealth of a small cabal of war profiteer gangsters.
In other words, Assange is being attacked by the US Government because he revealed that a big CON GAME is being perpetuated
against the American public by the security state.
Dennis Stein > Charlotte Ruse • 3 days ago
“We’ll Know Our Disinformation Program Is Complete When Everything the American Public Believes Is False”
—CIA Director William Casey at an early February 1981 meeting of newly elected President Reagan.
Adrian • 4 days ago
Great news on Assange... but ironically surely an equally damning 'leak' came from the DNCs own ex-Chair Donna
Brazille in her self-serving 'memoir' Hacks ... in it she revealed Obama left DNC $24m in debt and Hillary Clinton then
bailed it out and effectively bought the entire apparatus as her personal plaything. When that is understood all the
'corruption' about rigging the primaries against Sanders wasn't rigging at all, after all he was standing on Clinton's
private property at the time. Blair and Brown dutifully followed the same NSA playbook and left Labour broke, presumably so
Blair's 'charity' could then step in to buy it... but Corbyn then balanced the books in 6 months of his taking over
Ed Bergonzi • 5 days ago
This is good news. But now the advantage is with Trump. What will the Democrats do if Trump presses for extradition
claiming "national security" concerns, i.e., Assange's exposure of US war crimes. I think their present silence regarding
Judge Koeltl's decision speaks volumes.
Greg • 5 days ago • edited
"Going a step further, the judge called the DNC’s arguments “threadbare,” adding: “At no point does the DNC allege any
facts” showing that Assange or WikiLeaks “participated in the theft of the DNC’s information.”
The corporate media, having already gone to great lengths to convict Assange of such in the court of public opinion,
would like to see that "conviction" stand.
"On Wednesday, the Times published a brief, six-paragraph article on page 25..."
Greg • 5 days ago • edited
"The DNC's published internal communications allowed the American electorate to look behind the curtain of one of
the two major political parties in the United States during a presidential election." That's precisely the kind of
"problem" the bourgeoisie will no longer tolerate.
Reporting the truth “undermined and distorted the DNC's ability to communicate the party's values and visions to the
American electorate.”
They're sick and tired of basic democratic rights almost as much as they're sick and tired of the working class.
They practically come out and say it: "There was no attempt by other reporters to pursue the matter, and Conway then began to
rant about Trump's reasons for targeting the four congresswomen, saying, “He's tired, a lot of us are sick and tired of this
country—of America coming last, to people who swore an oath of office.”
To
buy his favorite oatmeal, Gregory Kelly drives to a city 40 miles away rather than sharing his
data with an online retailer, or purchasing it from the company's web site, "which he says is
riddled with tracking software from Google," according to the Washington Post:
"I'm just not
sure why Google needs to know what breakfast cereal I eat," the 51-year-old said. Kelly is one
of a hearty few who are
taking the ultimate step to keep their files and online life safe from prying eyes :
turning off Google entirely. That means eschewing some of the most popular services on the Web,
including Gmail, Google search, Google Maps, the Chrome browser, Android mobile operating
software and even YouTube. Such never-Googlers are pushing friends and family to give up the
search and advertising titan, while others are taking to social media to get the word out.
Online guides have sprouted up to help consumers untangle themselves from Google.
These intrepid Web users say they'd rather deal with daily inconveniences than give up
more of their data. That means setting up permanent vacation responders on Gmail and telling
friends to resend files or video links that don't require Google software. More than that, it
takes a lot of discipline.
While there's no data on how many people are avoiding Google, the article points out that
DuckDuckGo is now averaging 42.4 million searches every day -- up from 23.5 million a
year ago.
But at least one Berkeley tech consultant acknowledged that "the improvement is mostly in
the category of self-righteousness." Seeking an office software with better privacy
protections, he's now paying $100 a year for a subscription to Microsoft Office 365.
"... I favor the notion that the Internet's gift of vastly more accessible information and greater and less expensive communication is exposing more of corruption in government that continues an ancient trend, this web site being a sterling example. ..."
Quite a few people couldn't help but notice that the country was shifting into a
dis-informational mode several years ago. So much for the Information Age, the Internet and
hand held ( communication ) devices to increase awareness. It was noticed by some folks even
here at CN that tendencies had come ito play that were reminiscent of Orwell's dystopian yet
fictional accounts in the novel 1984. This entire Russiagate episode could just as easily
have come from 1984's Ministry of Information as our own Intelligence Services and might have
been just as boring if it had . Meanwhile us , prols, just go with the flow and don't really
care. Are things that much different than they have ever been? I rem,ember the Waterdate
hearings and the Iran-Contra Hearings, Ken Starr's Investigation. I'm a little to young to
remember the Warren Commission or Senator Joe McCarthy and the Red Scare but I do remember
the 9/11 Commission and WMGs in Iraq.. I remember wrote a paper on Propaganda films in WW II.
Is this episode really all that different?
@ "Quite a few people couldn't help but notice that the country was shifting into a
dis-informational mode several years ago. So much for the Information Age, the Internet and
hand held ( communication ) devices to increase awareness. "
You address a topic I've pondered long and hard. Although I can cite scant evidence, I
can't help but wonder: Are we instead only noticing -- because of the far wider availability
of information via the Internet -- a disinformation phenomenon that is perhaps centuries old
if not still older?
Huxley's Brave New World was published in 1931, Orwell's 1984 in 1949. Dickens' Bleakhouse
was serialized in 1852-53. All can be fairly said to deal with a perception that those who
control government are dishonest and corrupt, based on then-current norms. E.g., Dickens
noted in the preface of his first edition that his fictional Jarndyce and Jarndyce largely
paralleled the sadly real Thellusson v Woodford. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thellusson_v_Woodford
Such precedents argue against the "disinformational mode" being of recent origin.
I favor the notion that the Internet's gift of vastly more accessible information and
greater and less expensive communication is exposing more of corruption in government that
continues an ancient trend, this web site being a sterling example.
"... Any candidate that is publicly against the empire is the enemy of not only the state, it's quislings in the media, the corporations who profit from it and the party machines of both the GOP and the DNC. That is Gabbard's crime. And it's the only crime that matters. ..."
"... This represents an intervention into her ability to speak to voters and, as such, is a violation of not only her First Amendment rights but also, more critically, campaign finance law. ..."
"... On a day when it became clear to the world that Robert Mueller led an investigation to affect the outcome of the 2018 mid-term elections (and beyond) while attempting to overthrow an elected President, Gabbard attacking the one of the main pillars of the information control system is both welcome and needed. ..."
"... Her filing this lawsuit is making it clear that even a fairly conventional Democrat on most all other issues is to be marginalized if she criticizes the empire. ..."
"... You can disagree with Tulsi on many things but she is absolutely right and the only one who gets the real problem.Military Industrial Complex & The Empire. ..."
Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI)
is suing Google
. It's about time someone did. It's one thing to for conservatives and libertarians to be outraged by their treatment
by the tech giant, it's another for them to go after a female Democrat.
Since Trump's election the campaign to curtail free speech has went into overdrive and we are now far beyond Orwell's dystopian
vision in 1984 in terms of technological infrastructure.
Google makes Big Brother look like George Carlin's the Hippy Dippy Weather Man with the "hippy dippy weather, man." The drive
to stamp out all forms of political division has only one thing animating it, protecting the drive of the elites I call The Davos
Crowd to erect a transnational superstate to herd humanity to their vision of sustainability.
Gabbard is the only person running for the Democratic nomination worth any amount of my time. Her fundamental criticisms of the
U.S. warfare state are spot on. She's sincere about this. It's costing her stature within her own party.
She's a committed anti-imperialist. She's also young, inexperienced and a little bit naive. But that, to me, is part of her charm.
It means she is still malleable. She's smart enough to be outraged about where we are headed and young enough to be flexible about
what the solutions are to stop it from happening.
So, as such, she's the perfect champion for the defenders of free speech and critics of the U.S. empire. A young, attractive,
intelligent woman of mixed-race heritage with a service record who stands athwart the mainstream on the most important issue in politics
today: the U.S. empire.
The entire time I was growing up the prevailing wisdom was Social Security was the third rail of U.S. politics. That, like so
many other pearls of wisdom, was nonsense.
The true third rail of U.S. politics is empire.
Any candidate that is publicly against the empire is the enemy of not only the state, it's quislings in the media, the corporations
who profit from it and the party machines of both the GOP and the DNC. That is Gabbard's crime. And it's the only crime that matters.
For that crime Google acted to blunt interest in her campaign in the critical hours after the first democratic debate. So, Gabbard,
rightly, sued them.
The two main points of her lawsuit are:
1) suspending her Google Ad account for six hours while search traffic for her was spiking and
2) Gmail disproportionately junked her campaign emails.
This represents an intervention into her ability to speak to voters and, as such, is a violation of not only her First Amendment
rights but also, more critically, campaign finance law.
Whether this lawsuit goes anywhere or not is beside the point. Google will ignore it until they can't and then settle with her
before discovery. Gabbard doing this is good PR for her as it sets her on the right side of an incredibly important issue, censorship
and technological bias/de-platforming of political outsiders.
It's also good because if she does pursue this principally, it will lead to potential discovery of Google's internal practices,
lending the DoJ a hand in pursuing all the big tech firms for electioneering.
On a day when it became clear to the world that Robert Mueller led an investigation to affect the outcome of the 2018 mid-term
elections (and beyond) while attempting to overthrow an elected President, Gabbard attacking the one of the main pillars of the information
control system is both welcome and needed.
Her filing this lawsuit is making it clear that even a fairly conventional Democrat on most all other issues is to be marginalized
if she criticizes the empire.
As libertarians and conservatives it is irrelevant if she is conventional in other areas. It doesn't matter that she's been to
a CFR meeting or two or that she's anti-gun. She's not going to be president.
This is not about our virtue-signaling about the purity of essence of our political figures. They are tools to our ends. And on
now two incredibly important issues leading up to the 2020 election Tulsi Gabbard is on the right side of them.
She is someone we can and should reach out to and support while she makes these issues the centerpiece of her campaign. Her timing
is even more excellent than what I've already stated.
Filing this lawsuit is a pre-emptive strike at Google now that she's qualified for the next two Democratic debates. And it may
assist her in breaking out of the bottom tier of the Democratic field, Ron Paul style if she gets her opportunity.
Shedding light on Google's anti-free speech practices is a fundamental good, one we should celebrate. Dare I say, it's double
plus good.
* * *
Join
my Patreon
and
install Brave
if you both hate big tech censorship and the empire in equal
measure.
You can disagree with Tulsi on many things but she is absolutely
right and the only one who gets the real problem.Military
Industrial Complex & The Empire.
If you won't kill this problem
you can virtue signal about your left and right opinions about
your perfect candidate as much as you want without getting
anything done ( Trump). Purism won't help you. It only gets you
distracted and controlled by the elites.
The point of this article is that Gabbard is taking on GOOGLE,
for screwing with her account. See Google demonitizes, deboosts,
deplatforms people without them even knowing it, and diddles their
search algorythms NOT ONLY against conservatives, but for
independent democrats like Gabbard. THAT'S THE POINT, not who or
what Gabbard stands for. The dem party did the same to Gabbard
during the 2016 election, cut her off from financing, because she
supported Bernie Sanders.
This is the sort of **** things dim's do, and progressive
companies like Fakebook, Twatter and Goolag. Now Gabbard may not
have views that we can support, but if she is taking on GOOLAG,
than we should stand like a wall behind her. This is a big threat
to 1st amendment rights.
Good point, chunga. She is already being given the Ron Paul
treatment by MSM (they either slam her as basically a naive
fool, or just ignore her), so no way does she rise to the top
of the **** pile of Blue Team candidates. Would make a good
run as an independent, and maybe wake some people up.
"... I favor the notion that the Internet's gift of vastly more accessible information and greater and less expensive communication is exposing more of corruption in government that continues an ancient trend, this web site being a sterling example. ..."
Quite a few people couldn't help but notice that the country was shifting into a
dis-informational mode several years ago. So much for the Information Age, the Internet and
hand held ( communication ) devices to increase awareness. It was noticed by some folks even
here at CN that tendencies had come ito play that were reminiscent of Orwell's dystopian yet
fictional accounts in the novel 1984. This entire Russiagate episode could just as easily
have come from 1984's Ministry of Information as our own Intelligence Services and might have
been just as boring if it had . Meanwhile us , prols, just go with the flow and don't really
care. Are things that much different than they have ever been? I rem,ember the Waterdate
hearings and the Iran-Contra Hearings, Ken Starr's Investigation. I'm a little to young to
remember the Warren Commission or Senator Joe McCarthy and the Red Scare but I do remember
the 9/11 Commission and WMGs in Iraq.. I remember wrote a paper on Propaganda films in WW II.
Is this episode really all that different?
@ "Quite a few people couldn't help but notice that the country was shifting into a
dis-informational mode several years ago. So much for the Information Age, the Internet and
hand held ( communication ) devices to increase awareness. "
You address a topic I've pondered long and hard. Although I can cite scant evidence, I
can't help but wonder: Are we instead only noticing -- because of the far wider availability
of information via the Internet -- a disinformation phenomenon that is perhaps centuries old
if not still older?
Huxley's Brave New World was published in 1931, Orwell's 1984 in 1949. Dickens' Bleakhouse
was serialized in 1852-53. All can be fairly said to deal with a perception that those who
control government are dishonest and corrupt, based on then-current norms. E.g., Dickens
noted in the preface of his first edition that his fictional Jarndyce and Jarndyce largely
paralleled the sadly real Thellusson v Woodford. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thellusson_v_Woodford
Such precedents argue against the "disinformational mode" being of recent origin.
I favor the notion that the Internet's gift of vastly more accessible information and
greater and less expensive communication is exposing more of corruption in government that
continues an ancient trend, this web site being a sterling example.
When Alex Stamos announced that the Internet Research Agency's ad buys were a drop in
the ocean, Zuckerberg was promptly taken to the Congressional Woodshed and told to report
to the Atlantic Council. Those two billion-odd fake accounts may be a fraud perpetrated on
the advertisers, but they are invaluable to US "law" enforcement and to US propaganda, where
the ability to open a fake account on Facebook gives the illusion of privacy.
With all due respect to Mr. Greenspan and his Lowell House creds, I think he fails to
understand that Facebook is now an NSA asset.
This is a fascinating article and it certainly put a smile on my dial. As an asset for use
by governments around the world, Facebook may be too invaluable to just let sink. One guy
reported that he was in a meeting with Facebook’s top brass including the Zuck when a
head honcho of the FBI came into the meeting and sang Zuck’s praises for all the help
that Facebook gave the FBI. So the question remains. Just how many “real” Facebook
accounts does Facebook have? Ones that people check on daily. Now that is the killer
question.
I have three Facebook accounts. The two I never ever look at are the one for my cat and
the one for my feminine alter ego. My own account is used for only one thing, watching
"People You May Know" to see how far they've penetrated my graph; occasionally disturbing,
occasionally hilarious. I've never looked at my "wall", issued or accepted a friend request,
posted anything, messaged anyone but they have my email, and wow do I hate this company!
May 2018, a woman I loved and was ultimately going to get to move in died (age 70, natural
causes). Twice a week on average I get emails from Facebook inviting me to read her most
recent messages. You can imagine how I feel about that. SHE DED!
Facebook has boasted on the order of 2-3 billion users, a significant percentage of the
world's population, and I don't believe a word of it. One may assume that the early adopters
were people with more tech savvy, affluence and most important, leisure time to screw around
on the internet, and the proles don't have a lot of leisure time. Moreover, the value to the
advertiser of a set of eyeball impressions is directly related to the amount of disposable
income those eyeballs have, and sure, India has about one and a half billion people, but a
lot of them have zero disposable income and zero leisure time.
"Based on a combination of publicly available research and Plaintiffs' own analysis, among
18-34 years-olds in Chicago, for example, Facebook asserted its Potential Reach was
approximately 4 times (400%) higher than the number of real 18-34 year-olds with Facebook
accounts in Chicago. Based on a combination of publicly available research and Plaintiffs'
own analysis, Facebook's asserted Potential Reach in Kansas City was approximately 200%
higher than the number of actual 18-54 year-olds with Facebook accounts in Kansas City. This
inflation is apparent in other age categories as well."
"These foundational representations are false. Based on publicly available research and
Plaintiffs' own analysis, Facebook overstates the Potential Reach of its advertisements. For
example, based on publicly available data, Facebook's purported Potential Reach among the key
18-34 year-
22 old demographic in every state exceeds the actual population of 18-34 year-olds ."
"... Russiagate, the most extensive disinformation/propaganda campaign since Iraqi WMD, has fallen/is falling apart without any need to reference fake Facebook accounts. ..."
"... The Collusion narrative/conspiracy theory was preposterous from the get-go, riven with internal inconsistencies, and the recent Federal court ruling that prevents Mueller from continuing to publicly accuse Concord management of "undermining our democracy" (that's a hot one) discredits the second of the three bases of the narrative. ..."
Russiagate, the most extensive disinformation/propaganda campaign since Iraqi WMD, has
fallen/is falling apart without any need to reference fake Facebook accounts.
The Collusion narrative/conspiracy theory was preposterous from the get-go, riven with
internal inconsistencies, and the recent Federal court ruling that prevents Mueller from
continuing to publicly accuse Concord management of "undermining our democracy" (that's a hot
one) discredits the second of the three bases of the narrative.
Someday the McResistance TM and unhinged liberals possessed by magical thinking must grapple
with the fact that Trump was elected in America, by Americans, and that there is no Santa
Claus.
"... Facebook hasn't provided any data to clarify the matter, in fact their data further confuses it. In that respect it resembles a Madoff-style scheme. And that will become terribly relevant once revenue growth slows down. ..."
From an investor point of view, revs are growing very nicely albeit at a slowing rate and
forward earning valuations are not atrocious. 47% rev growth in 2017. 37% rev growth in
2018.
24% rev growth forecast for 2019. 21% rev growth forecast in 2020. Those rev growth rates
are over the moon compared to the SP500.
Who gives a rat's ass about fake accounts as long as the revs are growing.
And Singer, poor fella, he was crying in his beer back in August because he probably lost
money when the stock price went down following an announcement that rev growth rates would
predictably slow. If the cry-baby didn't sell, the market has made him pretty much whole
again.
If and when rev growth falls off a cliff instead of a natural rate of deceleration, then
the fake accounts may become material. Even if revs fall off a cliff, there is little to no
likelihood you will find a Madoff of Ponzi lurking around the corner.
It sounds like revenue is only growing because advertisers aren't aware of the fake
accounts and related puffery.
That will only remain true for so long. Facebook hasn't provided any data to clarify
the matter, in fact their data further confuses it. In that respect it resembles a
Madoff-style scheme. And that will become terribly relevant once revenue growth slows
down.
Fortunately, elites never go after each other so Z and friends will be fine. No worries
there.
FB fake accounts were an issue for a very long time. It pops up now and then, and then is
ignored. Unfortunately.
Google, TBH, has a not dissimilar problem, although it's more obvious to the buyers. That
is, it can't tell how many clicks (don't even mention "impressions") are bots. And it has no
incentive to put anything strong there, to the contrary, it has incentive to show some
captures, but as few as possible.
After all, advertisers pay for clicks and impressions, and you don't want to drop those
numbers that your revenue depends on, do you?
If you business model is "user is the product", then of course you have an incentive to
fake the users..
While email and web activity of employees is definitely monitored, all other monitoring
usually is pretty fragmentary. Often on a corporate smartphone there are two zones -- secure zone
where you access corporate network and email and private zone where you have access to the
internet via you provider and traffic is not monitored other then for the volume.
Keeping track of all those details (and some of them will be wrong) is just too expensive and
few corporation outside FIRE sector so that.
In short anything that opens company to a lawsuit will be monitored, but outside of that
companies actually are not interested in the information collection as it opens them to
additional liability in save of suicides and such.
Mining data from social media is a different complex topic and requires a separate
article.
Notable quotes:
"... From there, the company even sees as Chet logs onto the guest Wi-Fi connections at places like the coffee shop in the morning. Many companies require additional authentication when they try to access company information from unsecure Wi-Fi networks. ..."
"... Then, as Chet gets to his desk, his web browsing is tracked along with his email. New software breaks down how workers interact with email and how quickly colleagues reply in an attempt to see which employees are most influential . Some software on company computers even snaps screenshots every 30 seconds to evaluate productivity and hours worked. ..."
"... Even Chet's phone conversations can be recorded, transcribed and monitored. Companies use this information to find subject matter experts and measure productivity. Even conference room discussions and meetings can now be recorded and analyzed by software. ..."
Orwell, Inc.: How Your Employer Spies On You From When You Wake Up Until You Go To Bed
An increasing number of large companies are using data from employees' electronic devices to
track such personal details like when you they wake up, where they go for coffee in the
morning, their whereabouts throughout the entire day, and what time they go to bed according to
a new Wall
Street Journal article. What's the company explanation for this type of spying?
"An increasing number of companies are keeping track of such information to flag
potentially suspicious activity and measure work-life balance," the article claims.
The article walks through the day in the life of a fictional worker, Chet. It starts by
noting that his employer logs the time and his location when he first wakes up to check his
e-mail in the morning.
From there, the company even sees as Chet logs onto the guest Wi-Fi connections at
places like the coffee shop in the morning. Many companies require additional authentication
when they try to access company information from unsecure Wi-Fi networks.
Then, a Bluetooth device and his ID badge mark what time he arrives at the office while
tracking his movement around the building. These technologies are supposedly used to see what
teams collaborate frequently and to make sure that employees aren't accessing unauthorized
areas.
Then, as Chet gets to his desk, his web browsing is tracked along with his email. New
software breaks down how workers interact with email and how quickly colleagues reply in an
attempt to see which employees are most influential . Some software on company computers even
snaps screenshots every 30 seconds to evaluate productivity and hours worked.
Even Chet's phone conversations can be recorded, transcribed and monitored. Companies
use this information to find subject matter experts and measure productivity. Even conference
room discussions and meetings can now be recorded and analyzed by software.
At the end of the day, if Chet goes to the gym or for a run, the company will know that too
and just how many calories he has burned: his fitness tracker logs how many steps he takes and
what exercise, if any, he is doing. Companies then use that information to determine how
frequently employees are exercising and whether or not they should be paying for health and
fitness services.
They retain firms that track us on our social media accounts. Supposedly to defend against
workplace violence threats. And then there are the cameras. We never really know. Just do my
job and keep personal use of company resources to a minimum.
The operation known as "LifeLog" was replaced the very day that Face Book came into
being?
Life Log : The objective of the LifeLog concept was "to be able to trace the 'threads' of
an individual's life in terms of events, states, and relationships", and it has the ability
to "take in all of a subject's experience, from phone numbers dialed and e-mail messages
viewed to every breath taken, step made and place gone". [1]
My takeaway from all this is that many, perhaps most, human institutions are corrupt and
that there is no basis from which most people are able to discern truth from lies or right
from wrong. This explains the ability of the Power Elite to easily divide people against each
other. For example, you cannot debate a Liberal because they have their basis for truth on
their personal feeling or emotions. Many conservatives do as well, but they are closer in
their thingking to the foundation from which truth sits upon.
Edward Snowden, former NSA employee. Snowden is an absolute supporter of encryption of all
stored and transmitted content. Now there are many applications that have encryption
features. And among them there are common and well-known messengers, such as, for example,
WhatsApp, Telegram and others.
The former NSA agent also advises to secure his computer, in particular, the hard drive.
On the Internet you can find instructions on how to do this. Usually used special software.
For example, for Windows, there is a program preinstalled in advanced versions of the OS --
BitLocker, for Mac -- FileVault. Thus, if the computer is stolen, the attacker will not be
able to read your data.
Password Managers A useful thing that most people do not even think about. Such programs
allow you to keep your passwords in order - to create unique keys and store them. According
to Snowden, one of the most common problems with online privacy is leaks.
Tor. The former NSA official calls the anonymous Tor network "the most important
technological project to ensure the confidentiality of those currently used." He stated that
he uses it on a daily basis. Tor allows you to "cover up traces" on the Internet, that is, it
provides anonymity, making it difficult to determine the person's IP address and
location.
Also, Snowden told how to avoid total surveillance. For example, special services that can
remotely turn on a microphone or camera on a smartphone and start listening. The answer is
simple - pull out the microphone and camera modules from the device. Instead, it is proposed
to use an external accessory and disconnect from the selfie and never use it.
The only safe way is to abstain as much as possible, which is now next to impossible.
Security is only as protected as the weakest link. Consider a person who uses their smart
phone giving Google or Apple the permissions needed to use their OS's and apps; we do not
even know exactly how much info we agreed to give away. Consider all the contact info that
your friends, relatives, work or other organizations you associate with have on their devices
and how vulnerable they make it; they are not as cautious as you and some people using these
things do not even think about security; it never occurs to them.. .. just some musing on my
part.
Jeez, I used to sign a quarterly affirmation that I complied with all of the companies
electronic communication monitoring policies...and they made us sign that we understood that
they had climbed up our *** and pitched a tent.
One of the reasons they had to find a replacement for me when I quit.
If you're using your employer's devices, facilities, or networks, you should assume they
are tracking what you're doing, and they have every right to do so. When I buy your company's
products or services, I don't want to have to pay for your time spent messing around at
work.
I can't read the article since it's behind a paywall, but I don't see how your waking and
sleeping time and "work life balance" could be tracked unless you are using your employer's
devices or networks outside of work. Which is friggin stupid if you do it.
Actually it doesnt work like that... Chet isn't informed of this happening. The fact that
the company does this is buried in vague language in the 500 page employee handbook that Chet
has to sign when he is hired. Chet is just like anyone else with a company provided
electronic device. All companies monitor and track everything they can with the electronic
devices they provide. If you have one and th think your company doesnt do it... you are
naive.
Chet has the ability to determine when and where he uses the work-provided devices. And
why does work have access to his fitness tracker? Supplied by his employer too? Really, Chet
had options
Not with me... I have a personal phone and when I am not at work I keep my work phone at
home turned off. My emails are forwarded to my personal device and any voicemail I get also
gets forwarded to my personal device. I never place personal calls with my work phone and I
turn it off the second I leave work to go home.
What a waste of resources. If you want to see what I do, just ask. I'll show you how I
accomplish my work-related duties. How I manage my time at work. Where I go to cry and regret
my life choices.
The amount of data collected by various companies is just staggering. Any person in the USA is really like a bug under the
microscope. The question arise why we still have organized crime unless this is a branch of CIA.
Notable quotes:
"... Not to mention the legally required auto and homeowner's insurance, which can only be obtained through private corporations. Both of which maintain histories on your driving and lifestyle habits to determine how much of your wage to pocket. ..."
"... Even basic healthcare is only provided through private insurance that you are legally required to pay. And these insurance companies desperately try to charge you extra or cancel you for pre-existing conditions. ..."
"... The liberty of Americans has to be redefined. Where liberty is no longer to live a life of freedom from coercion, but to only live a life of coercion from government, except when the coercion involves a private corporation, then it is perfectly acceptable. And Americans have readily given up their liberty. ..."
The government actually has little influence in our lives. But it doesn't need to. Life's necessities are all controlled by
private corporations. The key to the control is the removal of liberty. If housing costs so much that I have to obtain a mortgage
to buy basic shelter, then my credit score determines my ability to obtain adequate shelter. The same works with rent. And I can't
pay for either of those things without a wage based job. And I can't be hired into one of those without the proper credentials
being bestowed upon me by some school, and I cannot have any felony arrests in my background. And transportation to my job generally
requires a car and another loan with the associated credit score.
Not to mention the legally required auto and homeowner's insurance, which can only be obtained through private corporations.
Both of which maintain histories on your driving and lifestyle habits to determine how much of your wage to pocket.
Even basic healthcare is only provided through private insurance that you are legally required to pay. And these insurance
companies desperately try to charge you extra or cancel you for pre-existing conditions.
The government actually doesn't have to control you. They've turned over the destruction of your liberty to private corporations
who are all working hard to nudge you to accept their rules through various subtle systems.
And unless you have enough money to own your own house and cars, and not actually have to work, you have no choice but to be
obedient.
The only real difference between China and the US is that the Chinese have no expectation of liberty. They understand from
birth that they must be obedient.
The liberty of Americans has to be redefined. Where liberty is no longer to live a life of freedom from coercion, but to only
live a life of coercion from government, except when the coercion involves a private corporation, then it is perfectly acceptable.
And Americans have readily given up their liberty.
It is also rigged to silence real journalists like Julian Assange who are trying to
overturn the access journalism prized by the corporate media – with its reliance on
official sources and insiders for stories – to divulge the secrets of the national
security states we live in.
His case is really Kafaesque. Sweden wanted his extradition to Sweden and issued an European
arrest warrant for him to be arrested and taken to Sweden. He sought asyl in the embassy of
Ecuador. People kept saying for years that he was a criminal evading justice because of that.
The British police kept the embassy under surveillance for seven years without interruptions in
order to arrest him and send him to Sweden.
Finally after seven years he was forced to leave the embassy. He should have been sent
immediately to Sweden. After all, this was the reason why the British had initially arrested
him, had limited his movements, had sought to arrest him after he went to the embassy.
Everything happened because of an allegued crime in Sweden. But when he was arrested Sweden
didn't care to demand that he be taken to Sweden. They had issued an European arrest warrant
and this means that they should have a case against him that would justify him being arrested
in England. The material against him should be ready and they should send it again to England.
But they haven't done that until now.
I'm not sure of the details but I think that the first time that they issued an arrest
warrant, this was done by the Swedish prosecuting attorney and not by a judge. Many people
complained that this was not legal, but it was said that the French version of European
agreements would allow this to happen. Now, the Swedish prosecuting attorney would like to
reopen the case against Assange, but this time apparently the case has to be assessed by a
judge and some months after Assange was arrested the Swedes haven't yet demanded that he be
taken to Sweden. Sweden sought Assange for 8 or 9 years to arrest him. This is the reason he
spent 7 years in the embassy. Now he was arrested but Sweden doesn't want him (at least until
now).
1984, Brave New World, and Idiocracy look more and more like Documentaries now.
Notable quotes:
"... Describing the protagonist Winston Smith's frugal London flat, he mentions an instrument called a 'telescreen', which sounds strikingly similar to the handheld 'smartphone' that is enthusiastically used by billions of people around the world today. ..."
"... At the same time, the denizens of 1984 were never allowed to forget they were living in a totalitarian surveillance state, under the control of the much-feared Thought Police. Massive posters with the slogan 'Big Brother is Watching You' were as prevalent as our modern-day advertising billboards. Today, however, such polite warnings about surveillance would seem redundant, as reports of unauthorized spying still gets the occasional lazy nod in the media now and then. ..."
"... In fact, just in time for 1984's anniversary, it has been reported that the National Security Agency (NSA) has once again been illicitly collecting records on telephone calls and text messages placed by US citizens. ..."
"... Another method of control alluded to in 1984 fell under a system of speech known as 'Newspeak', which attempted to reduce the language to 'doublethink', with the ulterior motive of controlling ideas and thoughts. ..."
"... Another Newspeak term, known as 'facecrime', provides yet another striking parallel to our modern situation. Defined as "to wear an improper expression on your face (to look incredulous when a victory was announced, for example) was itself a punishable offense." It would be difficult for the modern reader to hear the term 'facecrime' and not connect it with 'Facebook', the social media platform that regularly censors content creators for expressing thoughts it finds 'hateful' or inappropriate. ..."
"... 'Hate speech' is precisely one of those delightfully vague, subjective terms with no real meaning that one would expect to find in the Newspeak style guide. Short of threatening the life of a person or persons, individuals should be free to criticize others without fear of reprisal, least of all from the state, which should be in the business of protecting free speech at all cost. ..."
"... Another modern phenomenon that would be right at home in Orwell's Oceania is the obsession with political correctness, which is defined as "the avoidance of forms of expression or action that are perceived to exclude, marginalize, or insult groups of people who are socially disadvantaged or discriminated against." But since so many people today identify with some marginalized group, this has made the intelligent discussion of controversial ideas – not least of all on US college campuses , of all places – exceedingly difficult, if not downright dangerous. Orwell must be looking down on all of this madness with much surprise, since he provided the world with the best possible warning to prevent it. ..."
70 years ago, the British writer George Orwell captured the essence of technology in its ability to shape our destinies in his
seminal work, 1984. The tragedy of our times is that we have failed to heed his warning.
No matter how many times I read 1984, the feeling of total helplessness and despair that weaves itself throughout Orwell's masterpiece
never fails to take me by surprise. Although usually referred to as a 'dystopian futuristic novel', it is actually a horror story
on a scale far greater than anything that has emerged from the minds of prolific writers like Stephen King or Dean Koontz. The reason
is simple. The nightmare world that the protagonist Winston Smith inhabits, a place called Oceania, is all too easily imaginable.
Man, as opposed to some imaginary clown or demon, is the evil monster.
In the very first pages of the book, Orwell demonstrates an uncanny ability to foresee future trends in technology. Describing
the protagonist Winston Smith's frugal London flat, he mentions an instrument called a 'telescreen', which sounds strikingly similar
to the handheld 'smartphone' that is enthusiastically used by billions of people around the world today.
Orwell describes the ubiquitous device as an "oblong metal plaque like a dulled mirror" affixed to the wall that "could be dimmed,
but there was no way of shutting it off completely." Sound familiar?
It is through this gadget that the rulers of Oceania are able
to monitor the actions of its citizens every minute of every day.
At the same time, the denizens of 1984 were never allowed to forget
they were living in a totalitarian surveillance state, under the control of the much-feared Thought Police. Massive posters with
the slogan 'Big Brother is Watching You' were as prevalent as our modern-day advertising billboards. Today, however, such polite
warnings about surveillance would seem redundant, as reports of unauthorized spying still gets the occasional lazy nod in the media
now and then.
In fact, just in time for 1984's anniversary, it has been
reported that the National Security
Agency (NSA) has once again been illicitly collecting records on telephone calls and text messages placed by US citizens. This latest
invasion
of privacy has been casually dismissed as an "error" after an unnamed telecommunications firm handed over call records the NSA
allegedly "hadn't requested" and "weren't approved" by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. In 2013, former CIA employee
Edward Snowden blew the whistle on the NSA's intrusive surveillance operations, yet somehow the government agency is able to continue
– with the help of the corporate sector – vacuuming up the private information of regular citizens.
Another method of control alluded to in 1984 fell under a system of speech known as 'Newspeak', which attempted to reduce the
language to 'doublethink', with the ulterior motive of controlling ideas and thoughts. For example, the term 'joycamp', a truncated
term every bit as euphemistic as the 'PATRIOT Act', was used to describe a forced labor camp, whereas a 'doubleplusgood duckspeaker'
was used to praise an orator who 'quacked' correctly with regards to the political situation.
Another Newspeak term, known as 'facecrime', provides yet another striking parallel to our modern situation. Defined as "to wear
an improper expression on your face (to look incredulous when a victory was announced, for example) was itself a punishable offense."
It would be difficult for the modern reader to hear the term 'facecrime' and not connect it with 'Facebook', the social media platform
that regularly censors content creators
for expressing thoughts it finds 'hateful' or inappropriate. What social media users need is an Orwellian lesson in 'crimestop',
which Orwell defined as "the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought." Those
so-called unacceptable 'dangerous thoughts' were determined not by the will of the people, of course, but by their rulers.
And yes, it gets worse. Just this week, Mark Zuckerberg's 'private company'
agreed to give French authorities the "identification
data" of Facebook users suspected of spreading 'hate speech' on the platform, in what would be an unprecedented move on the part
of Silicon Valley.
'Hate speech' is precisely one of those delightfully vague, subjective terms with no real meaning that one would expect to find
in the Newspeak style guide. Short of threatening the life of a person or persons, individuals should be free to criticize others
without fear of reprisal, least of all from the state, which should be in the business of protecting free speech at all cost.
Another modern phenomenon that would be right at home in Orwell's Oceania is the obsession with political correctness, which is
defined as "the avoidance of forms of expression or action that are perceived to exclude, marginalize, or insult groups of people
who are socially disadvantaged or discriminated against." But since so many people today identify with some marginalized group, this
has made the intelligent discussion of controversial ideas – not least of all on US college
campuses , of all places – exceedingly difficult,
if not downright dangerous. Orwell must be looking down on all of this madness with much surprise, since he provided the world with
the best possible warning to prevent it.
For anyone who entertains expectations for a happy ending in 1984, be prepared for serious disappointment (spoiler alert, for
the few who have somehow not read this book). Although Winston Smith manages to finally experience love, the brief romance – like
a delicate flower that was able to take root amid a field of asphalt – is crushed by the authorities with shocking brutality. Not
satisfied with merely destroying the relationship, however, Smith is forced to betray his 'Julia' after undergoing the worst imaginable
torture at the 'Ministry of Love'.
The book ends with the words, "He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother." Will we too declare, like Winston Smith,
our love for 'Big Brother' above all else, or will we emerge victorious against the forces of a technological tyranny that appears
to be just over the horizon? Or is Orwell's 1984 just really good fiction and not the instruction manual for tyrants many have come
to fear it is?
An awful lot is riding on our answers to those questions, and time is running out.
1984, Brave New World, and Idiocracy look more and more like Documentaries now.
Notable quotes:
"... Describing the protagonist Winston Smith's frugal London flat, he mentions an instrument called a 'telescreen', which sounds strikingly similar to the handheld 'smartphone' that is enthusiastically used by billions of people around the world today. ..."
"... At the same time, the denizens of 1984 were never allowed to forget they were living in a totalitarian surveillance state, under the control of the much-feared Thought Police. Massive posters with the slogan 'Big Brother is Watching You' were as prevalent as our modern-day advertising billboards. Today, however, such polite warnings about surveillance would seem redundant, as reports of unauthorized spying still gets the occasional lazy nod in the media now and then. ..."
"... In fact, just in time for 1984's anniversary, it has been reported that the National Security Agency (NSA) has once again been illicitly collecting records on telephone calls and text messages placed by US citizens. ..."
"... Another method of control alluded to in 1984 fell under a system of speech known as 'Newspeak', which attempted to reduce the language to 'doublethink', with the ulterior motive of controlling ideas and thoughts. ..."
"... Another Newspeak term, known as 'facecrime', provides yet another striking parallel to our modern situation. Defined as "to wear an improper expression on your face (to look incredulous when a victory was announced, for example) was itself a punishable offense." It would be difficult for the modern reader to hear the term 'facecrime' and not connect it with 'Facebook', the social media platform that regularly censors content creators for expressing thoughts it finds 'hateful' or inappropriate. ..."
"... 'Hate speech' is precisely one of those delightfully vague, subjective terms with no real meaning that one would expect to find in the Newspeak style guide. Short of threatening the life of a person or persons, individuals should be free to criticize others without fear of reprisal, least of all from the state, which should be in the business of protecting free speech at all cost. ..."
"... Another modern phenomenon that would be right at home in Orwell's Oceania is the obsession with political correctness, which is defined as "the avoidance of forms of expression or action that are perceived to exclude, marginalize, or insult groups of people who are socially disadvantaged or discriminated against." But since so many people today identify with some marginalized group, this has made the intelligent discussion of controversial ideas – not least of all on US college campuses , of all places – exceedingly difficult, if not downright dangerous. Orwell must be looking down on all of this madness with much surprise, since he provided the world with the best possible warning to prevent it. ..."
70 years ago, the British writer George Orwell captured the essence of technology in its ability to shape our destinies in his
seminal work, 1984. The tragedy of our times is that we have failed to heed his warning.
No matter how many times I read 1984, the feeling of total helplessness and despair that weaves itself throughout Orwell's masterpiece
never fails to take me by surprise. Although usually referred to as a 'dystopian futuristic novel', it is actually a horror story
on a scale far greater than anything that has emerged from the minds of prolific writers like Stephen King or Dean Koontz. The reason
is simple. The nightmare world that the protagonist Winston Smith inhabits, a place called Oceania, is all too easily imaginable.
Man, as opposed to some imaginary clown or demon, is the evil monster.
In the very first pages of the book, Orwell demonstrates an uncanny ability to foresee future trends in technology. Describing
the protagonist Winston Smith's frugal London flat, he mentions an instrument called a 'telescreen', which sounds strikingly similar
to the handheld 'smartphone' that is enthusiastically used by billions of people around the world today.
Orwell describes the ubiquitous device as an "oblong metal plaque like a dulled mirror" affixed to the wall that "could be dimmed,
but there was no way of shutting it off completely." Sound familiar?
It is through this gadget that the rulers of Oceania are able
to monitor the actions of its citizens every minute of every day.
At the same time, the denizens of 1984 were never allowed to forget
they were living in a totalitarian surveillance state, under the control of the much-feared Thought Police. Massive posters with
the slogan 'Big Brother is Watching You' were as prevalent as our modern-day advertising billboards. Today, however, such polite
warnings about surveillance would seem redundant, as reports of unauthorized spying still gets the occasional lazy nod in the media
now and then.
In fact, just in time for 1984's anniversary, it has been
reported that the National Security
Agency (NSA) has once again been illicitly collecting records on telephone calls and text messages placed by US citizens. This latest
invasion
of privacy has been casually dismissed as an "error" after an unnamed telecommunications firm handed over call records the NSA
allegedly "hadn't requested" and "weren't approved" by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. In 2013, former CIA employee
Edward Snowden blew the whistle on the NSA's intrusive surveillance operations, yet somehow the government agency is able to continue
– with the help of the corporate sector – vacuuming up the private information of regular citizens.
Another method of control alluded to in 1984 fell under a system of speech known as 'Newspeak', which attempted to reduce the
language to 'doublethink', with the ulterior motive of controlling ideas and thoughts. For example, the term 'joycamp', a truncated
term every bit as euphemistic as the 'PATRIOT Act', was used to describe a forced labor camp, whereas a 'doubleplusgood duckspeaker'
was used to praise an orator who 'quacked' correctly with regards to the political situation.
Another Newspeak term, known as 'facecrime', provides yet another striking parallel to our modern situation. Defined as "to wear
an improper expression on your face (to look incredulous when a victory was announced, for example) was itself a punishable offense."
It would be difficult for the modern reader to hear the term 'facecrime' and not connect it with 'Facebook', the social media platform
that regularly censors content creators
for expressing thoughts it finds 'hateful' or inappropriate. What social media users need is an Orwellian lesson in 'crimestop',
which Orwell defined as "the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought." Those
so-called unacceptable 'dangerous thoughts' were determined not by the will of the people, of course, but by their rulers.
And yes, it gets worse. Just this week, Mark Zuckerberg's 'private company'
agreed to give French authorities the "identification
data" of Facebook users suspected of spreading 'hate speech' on the platform, in what would be an unprecedented move on the part
of Silicon Valley.
'Hate speech' is precisely one of those delightfully vague, subjective terms with no real meaning that one would expect to find
in the Newspeak style guide. Short of threatening the life of a person or persons, individuals should be free to criticize others
without fear of reprisal, least of all from the state, which should be in the business of protecting free speech at all cost.
Another modern phenomenon that would be right at home in Orwell's Oceania is the obsession with political correctness, which is
defined as "the avoidance of forms of expression or action that are perceived to exclude, marginalize, or insult groups of people
who are socially disadvantaged or discriminated against." But since so many people today identify with some marginalized group, this
has made the intelligent discussion of controversial ideas – not least of all on US college
campuses , of all places – exceedingly difficult,
if not downright dangerous. Orwell must be looking down on all of this madness with much surprise, since he provided the world with
the best possible warning to prevent it.
For anyone who entertains expectations for a happy ending in 1984, be prepared for serious disappointment (spoiler alert, for
the few who have somehow not read this book). Although Winston Smith manages to finally experience love, the brief romance – like
a delicate flower that was able to take root amid a field of asphalt – is crushed by the authorities with shocking brutality. Not
satisfied with merely destroying the relationship, however, Smith is forced to betray his 'Julia' after undergoing the worst imaginable
torture at the 'Ministry of Love'.
The book ends with the words, "He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother." Will we too declare, like Winston Smith,
our love for 'Big Brother' above all else, or will we emerge victorious against the forces of a technological tyranny that appears
to be just over the horizon? Or is Orwell's 1984 just really good fiction and not the instruction manual for tyrants many have come
to fear it is?
An awful lot is riding on our answers to those questions, and time is running out.
Major American corporations, including online and retail businesses, employers and
landlords are using Secret Surveillance Scores to charge some people higher prices for the
same product than others, to provide some people with better customer services than others,
to deny some consumers the right to purchase services or buy or return products while
allowing others to do so and even to deny people housing and jobs.
The Secret Surveillance Scores are generated by a shadowy group of privacy-busting firms
that operate in dark recesses of the American marketplace. They collect thousands or even
tens of thousands of intimate details of each person's life – enough information, it is
thought, to literally predetermine a person's behavior – either directly or through
data brokers. Then, in what is euphemistically referred to as "data analytics," the firms'
engineers write software algorithms that instruct computers to parse a person's data trail
and develop a digital "mug shot." Eventually, that individual profile is reduced to a number
– the score – and transmitted to corporate clients looking for ways to take
advantage of, or even avoid, the consumer. The scoring system is automatic and instantaneous.
None of this is disclosed to the consumer: the existence of the algorithm, the application of
the Surveillance Score or even that they have become the victim of a technological scheme
that just a few years ago would appear only in a dystopian science fiction novel. (
source )
These scores are used to discriminate based on income.
Written by lawyers Laura Antonini, the policy director of the Consumer Education Foundation,
and Harvey Rosenfield, who leads the foundation, the complaint highlights four areas in which
companies are using surveillance scoring: pricing, customer service, fraud prevention, and
housing and employment.
"This is a way for companies to discriminate against users based on income and wealth,"
Antonini
told The Hill .
"It can range from monetary harm or basic necessities of life that you're not
getting."
Antonini and Rosenfield argue that the practices outlined in the complaint are illegal
– and that consumers are largely unaware that they're being secretly evaluated in ways
that can influence how much they pay online.
"The ability of corporations to target, manipulate and discriminate against Americans is
unprecedented and inconsistent with the principles of competition and free markets,"
the complaint reads . "Surveillance scoring promotes inequality by empowering companies to
decide which consumers they want to do business with and on what terms, weeding out the people
who they deem less valuable. Such discrimination is as much a threat to democracy as it is to a
free market."
Stores are using this scoring system to charge you higher prices.
The filing points to a
2014 Northeastern University study exploring the ways that companies like Home Depot and
Walmart use consumer data to customize prices for different customers. Rosenfield and
Antonini replicated the study using an online tool that compares prices that they're charged
on their own computers with their own data profiles versus the prices charged to a user
browsing sites through an anonymized computer server with no data history.
What they found was that Walmart and Home Depot were offering lower prices on a number of
products to the anonymous computer. In the search results for "white paint" on Home Depot's
website, Rosenfield and Antonini were seeing higher prices for six of the first 24 items that
popped up.
In one example, a five-gallon tub of Glidden premium exterior paint would have cost them
$119 compared with $101 for the anonymous computer.
A similar pattern emerged on Walmart's website. The two lawyers found the site was
charging them more on a variety of items compared with the anonymous web tool, including
paper towels, highlighters, pens and paint.
One paper towel holder cost $10 less for the blank web user. (
source )
To see screenshots of different "personalized" prices shown for items from Home Depot and
Walmart, please see
pages 12-16 of the complaint. The examples presented demonstrate just how much these
inflated prices for common household goods can really add up.
The travel industry is
particularly sneaky.
A few days ago, we reported on
hidden fees that could be costing you big bucks . The travel industry is a particularly
large offender when it comes to sneaky fees, and they are also implicated in this scheme:
Travelocity. Software developer Christian Bennefeld, founder of etracker.com and
eBlocker.com, did a sample search for hotel rooms in Paris on Travelocity in 2017 using his
eBlocker device, which "allows him to act as if he were searching from two different"
computers. Bennefeld found that when he performed the two searches at the same time, there
was a $23 difference in Travelocity's prices for the Hotel Le Six in Paris.
CheapTickets. The Northeastern Price Discrimination Study found that the online bargain
travel site CheapTickets offers reduced prices on hotels to consumers who are logged into an
account with CheapTickets, compared to those who proceed as "guests." We performed our own
search of airfares on CheapTickets without being logged in. We searched for flights from LAX
to Las Vegas for April 5 through April 8, 2019. Our searches produced identical flight
results in the same order, but Mr. Rosenfield's prices were all quoted at three dollars
higher than Ms. Antonini's.
Other travel websites. The Northeastern Price Discrimination Study found that Orbitz also
offers reduced prices on hotels to consumers who were logged into an account (Orbitz has been
accused of quoting higher prices to Mac users versus PC users because Mac users have a higher
household income); Expedia and Hotels.com steer a subset of users toward more expensive
hotels; and Priceline acknowledges it "personalizes search results based on a user's history
of clicks and purchases. (
source )
There is an industry that exists to evaluate you and sell your data to
companies.
The complaint also describes an industry that offers retailers evaluations of their
customers' "trustworthiness" to determine whether they are a potential risk for fraudulent
returns. One such firm – called Sift – offers these evaluations to major companies
like Starbucks and Airbnb. Sift boasts on its website that it can
tailor "user experiences based on 16,000+ real-time signals – putting good customers in
the express lane and stopping bad customers from reaching the checkout."
The Hill contacted Sift for comment, and the company was not able to respond. But, back in
April, a Sift spokesperson told
The Wall Street Journal that it rates customers on a scale of 0 to 100, likening it to a
credit score for trustworthiness.
While credit scores can wreak havoc on a person's ability to make big purchases (and
sometimes, gain employment), they at least are transparent. Surveillance scoring is not. There
is NO transparency for consumers, and Rosenfield and Antonini argue that companies are using
them to engage in illegal discrimination while users have little recourse to correct false
information about them or challenge their ratings.
We are being spied on and scored on a
wide variety of factors.
"In the World Privacy Forum's landmark study "The Scoring of America: How Secret Consumer
Scores Threaten Your Privacy and Future," authors Pam Dixon and Bob Gellman identified
approximately 44 scores currently used to predict the actions of consumers," the
complaint explains:
These include:
The Medication Adherence Score, which predicts whether a consumer is likely to follow a
medication regimen;
The Health Risk Score, which predicts how much a specific patient will cost an insurance
company;
The Consumer Profitability Score, which predicts which households may be profitable for a
company and hence desirable customers;
The Job Security score, which predicts a person's future income and ability to pay for
things;
The Churn Score, which predicts whether a consumer is likely to move her business to
another company;
The Discretionary Spending Index, which scores how much extra cash a particular consumer
might be able to spend on non-necessities;
The Invitation to Apply Score, which predicts how likely a consumer is to respond to a
sales offer;
The Charitable Donor Score, which predicts how likely a household is to make significant
charitable donations;
The Pregnancy Predictor Score, which predicts the likelihood of someone getting pregnant.
(
source )
The government isn't doing anything to stop these practices.
Back in 2014, the Federal Trade Commission held a workshop on a practice they call
"predictive scoring" but the agency has done little since to reign in the practice. Antonini
said that their complaint is pushing the agency to reexamine the industry and investigate
whether it violates laws against unfair and deceptive business practices,
according to The Hill :
"It's far, far worse than when they looked at it in 2014," she said. "There's an
exponentially larger amount of data that's being collected about the American public that's
in the hands of data brokers and companies. Their ability to process that data and write
algorithms have also improved exponentially. " (
source )
We seem to be past the point of expecting our data to remain private, The
Introduction to the complaint begins with a passage that sums up reality for us now:
This Petition does not ask the Commission to investigate the collection of Americans'
personal information. The battle over whether Americans' personal data can be collected is
over, and, as of this moment at least, consumers have lost. Consumers are now victims of an
unavoidable corporate surveillance capitalism.
Rather, this Petition highlights a disturbing evolution in how consumers' data is deployed
against them. (
source )
We can't go anywhere without being surveilled now.
It is now impossible to shop in any large chain stores without being spied on. Stores are
starting to use "smart coolers", which are refrigerators equipped with cameras that scan
shoppers' faces and make
inferences on their age and gender. And, a recent article from Futurism describes how security
cameras are no longer being used solely to reduce theft:
"Instead of just keeping track of who's in a store, surveillance systems could use facial
recognition to determine peoples' identities and gathering even more information about them.
That data would then be out there, with no opportunity to opt out. ( source )
A new ACLU
report titled "The Dawn of Robot Surveillance" describes how emerging AI technology enables
security companies to constantly monitor and collect data about people.
"Growth in the use and effectiveness of artificial intelligence techniques has been so
rapid that people haven't had time to assimilate a new understanding of what is being done,
and what the consequences of data collection and privacy invasions can be," the report
concludes.
"... Google, Facebook and Twitter will track you even if you don't use their services. Firefox recently disabled all the add-ons I used to block these trackers. Firefox now whitelists Google. Screw them, I switched to Brave. ..."
"... No browser is secure. ..."
"... People would be very naive to think that anything done online is "hidden", regardless of the software, VPN, ad-block, browser, or anything else they use to attempt to block or obfuscate their activity. All that stuff does is alert the "authorities" that you want to hide your online activities, which earns you an automatic red flag and more in-depth tracking and surveillance. ..."
"... If you don't want to be tracked, don't use technology that can track you (i.e., anything Internet- or GPS-connected). It's that simple. And don't be so naive as to think that switching from one browser to another or adding an adblock is going to protect you from being tracked. People need to get real about this. ..."
"... These people are not omnipotent. Nor are they the best and brightest. ..."
"... HOWEVER - if you know you are being Spied on then You have the advantage. You can misdirect, misinform, decoy etc ..."
"... Yes, you can do those things, but just like there are AIs that can detect forgeries, there are AIs that can detect when you're purposely trying to cover your Internet tracks, so why bother? ..."
"... Your profile was developed years ago already. Nothing you do now will change that, except if you stop all Internet activity and wear a hat, sunglasses and burka every time you go outdoors. Oh, and never live in the same place for more than a few months. ..."
"... Most of the smart people have been replaced by H1Bs, wahmen, and minorities. My evidence, besides inside info, is that Google has not created anything innovative in-house since Gmail. ..."
"... One should have NO expectation of privacy especially at work and on work's computers. ..."
"... There is no privacy. Once you venture onto the internet nothing is secret, private, or able to be hidden. Not convinced that Firefox is really any better than others. ..."
Google's Chrome is essentially spy software according to
Washington
Post
tech columnist Geoffrey Fowler, who spent a week analyzing the popular browser and
concluded that it "looks a lot like surveillance software."
Fowler has since switched to
Mozilla's Firefox
because of its default privacy settings, and says that it was easier
than one might imagine.
My tests of Chrome vs. Firefox
unearthed a personal data caper of
absurd proportions
. In a week of Web surfing on my desktop,
I discovered
11,189 requests for tracker "cookies"
that Chrome would have ushered right onto my computer
but were automatically blocked by Firefox.
These little files are the hooks that data
firms, including Google itself, use to follow what websites you visit so they can build profiles
of your interests, income and personality.
Chrome welcomed trackers even at websites you would think would be
private
. I watched Aetna and the Federal Student Aid website set cookies for Facebook
and Google. They surreptitiously told the data giants every time I pulled up the insurance and
loan service's log-in pages.
And that's not the half of it.
Look in the upper right corner of your Chrome browser.
See a
picture or a name in the circle? If so, you're logged in to the browser, and Google might be
tapping into your Web activity to target ads
. Don't recall signing in? I didn't,
either.
Chrome recently started doing that automatically when you use Gmail.
-
Washington
Post
Meanwhile,
Chrome is even worse when it comes to mobile devices -
reporting the precise
location of Android users unless location sharing is turned off, in which case it will send out
your rough coordinates.
Cookie monsters
According to one study, tracking cookies from third-parties are on
92% of websites
.
The
Washington Post
, for example, uses around 40 - which the company said is "average for
a news site," and says they are designed to deliver better-targeted ads and track ad performance.
But cookies can also be found on websites with no advertising.
Both Aetna and the FSA service said the cookies on their sites help measure their own
external marketing campaigns.
The blame for this mess belongs to the entire advertising, publishing and tech industries.
But what responsibility does a browser have in protecting us from code that isn't doing
much more than spying?
-
Washington
Post
Mozilla to the rescue
?
For the past four years or so, Firefox browser has had a built-in anti-tracking feature for the
past four or so years in its "private" browsing mode. Earlier this month, Mozilla
activated this
feature for normal browsing mode
. While ads will still appear, Firefox is now separating
cookies in real time to determine which ones are required for a website to function correctly, and
which ones are simply spies.
Apple
began to block cookies on their Safari mobile browser starting
in 2017, using an algorithm the company calls "intelligent tracking protection."
Chrome, meanwhile,
continues to welcome cookies onto your computer and phone
with open arms. That said, the company announced last month that it would require third-party
cookies to better identify themselves, which will supposedly allow them to apply better controls.
That said, the company did not offer
The Post
a timeline or say whether it would employ
default tracking blockers.
I'm not holding my breath. G
oogle itself, through its Doubleclick
and other ad businesses, is the
No. 1 cookie
maker -- the
Mrs. Fields of the Web
. It's hard to imagine Chrome ever cutting off Google's
moneymaker. -
Washington
Post
"Cookies play a role in user privacy, but a narrow focus on cookies obscures the broader privacy
discussion because it's just one way in which users can be tracked across sites," according to
Chrome's director of product management, Ben Galbraith. "
This is a complex problem, and
simple, blunt cookie blocking solutions force tracking into more opaque practices
."
Giving up on Google
In his decision to kick Chrome to the curb, Fowler cites a
blog post
by Johns Hopkins associate professor Matthew Green, who said last year he was "done" with the
browser.
Like Green, I've chosen Firefox, which works across phones, tablets, PCs
and Macs. Apple's Safari is also a good option on Macs, iPhones and iPads, and the niche
Brave
browser
goes even further in trying to jam the ad-tech industry.
What does switching to Firefox cost you? It's free, and downloading a
different browser is much simpler than changing phones.
In 2017, Mozilla launched a new version of Firefox called
Quantum
that
made it considerably faster. In my tests, it has felt almost as fast as Chrome, though
benchmark
tests
have found it can be slower in some contexts. Firefox says it's better about managing
memory if you use lots and lots of tabs.
Switching means you'll have to move your bookmarks, and Firefox
offers
tools to help.
Shifting passwords is easy if you use a
password
manager
. And most browser add-ons are available, though it's possible you won't find your
favorite. -
Washington
Post
Perhaps Fowler can reach out to some of his
Washington Post
colleagues
to see what their many sources in the US intelligence community think of Chrome vs. Firefox...
Google, Facebook and Twitter will track you even if you don't use
their services.
Firefox recently disabled all the add-ons I used
to block these trackers. Firefox now whitelists Google. Screw
them, I switched to Brave.
Brave automatically blocks ads, trackers, scripts and upgrades
HTTP to HTTPS.
They also don't seem to mind that I still use all the add-ons
that Firefox disabled.
Maybe god got tired of watching everything we do and hired Google
to do the job. Maybe if we donate some money to Google, they can
make some of our past actions from the web deleted.
If you like Chrome's interface but don't want to share every last
detail of your online life with the Googlebergs, SRWare's Iron
browser is a good alternative.
No browser is secure. Firefox jumped the shark when their board
made that gentleman resign several years ago because he supported
traditional marriage.
This article doesn't mention browser
add-ons that block cookies and trackers.
Ghostery
Adblock
Adblock plus
Adblock for YouTube
There are many more. Just search Google extensions for
Adblockers and pick which ones floats your buoy
If privacy and anonymity are your goals, and you don't mind some
impact on the way you usually use the Internet, then Tor is the
solution you seek. Tor (The Onion Router) is actually a system
more than just a browser.
The Tor browser connects to the Tor
network and uses technology originally developed by the United
States Naval Research Laboratory to provide secure communications
for intelligence assets (spies, diplomats, etc.).
oday, millions of people around the world who need serious
privacy protection use Tor. We're talking about those intelligence
assets, along with activists, whistleblowers, police, citizen
journalists, and anyone else who is willing to trade some
convenience and speed for greater privacy and anonymity.
The Tor browser is based on Firefox. While it is designed for
browsing the public Internet (the Clearnet) just like Firefox is,
Tor doesn't connect directly to a resource in the Clearnet. All
communications between your Tor browser and a Clearnet resource
pass through the Tor network of volunteer-run routers.
Messages between the Tor network and the Clearnet resource are
not encrypted. However, thanks to the design of the Tor network,
the resource cannot see your IP Address. It can only see the IP
Address of the Tor server that it is connected to. This makes you
anonymous in that there is no way, short of hacking the Tor
network (or you doing something stupid), of connecting your
messages to your address.
People would be very naive to think that anything done online is
"hidden", regardless of the software, VPN, ad-block, browser, or
anything else they use to attempt to block or obfuscate their
activity. All that stuff does is alert the "authorities" that you
want to hide your online activities, which earns you an automatic
red flag and more in-depth tracking and surveillance.
You know
I'm right about this.
If you don't want to be tracked, don't use technology that can
track you (i.e., anything Internet- or GPS-connected). It's that
simple. And don't be so naive as to think that switching from one
browser to another or adding an adblock is going to protect you
from being tracked. People need to get real about this.
The article is not keeping it real.
As a law abiding citizen, I'm not worried about "the
authorities" knowing that I post on ZeroHedge. The invasive
nature of private companies selling my data without
compensating me offends me, and I'm not comfortable with the
idea that some kid (or an AI) at Facebook or Google can
activate my camera and read my emotions as I look at a meme or
read an article.
Everyone should strive to stay offline as
much as possible, but we should also take all legal measures to
protect our privacy. Of course the government can track you;
that doesn't mean you should make your life an open book to the
data pimps.
Everyone
has things that they would prefer to keep
private. That's why the Fourth Amendment exists.
Brave browser is a much better option than firefox. Strips away
all crap and even pays you to watch ads if you enable it and its
available in your area. Completely changes the model for how ads
and revenue to content creators are set up.
Yes, you can do those things, but just like there are AIs that
can detect forgeries, there are AIs that can detect when you're
purposely trying to cover your Internet tracks, so why bother?
Your profile was developed years ago already. Nothing you do
now will change that, except if you stop all Internet activity
and wear a hat, sunglasses and burka every time you go
outdoors. Oh, and never live in the same place for more than a
few months.
Most of the smart people have been replaced by H1Bs,
wahmen, and minorities. My evidence, besides inside
info, is that Google has not created anything innovative
in-house since Gmail.
One should have NO expectation of privacy
especially
at
work and on work's computers.
They don't just own that hardware, they legally own all that
data on the drives.
There is no privacy. Once you venture onto the internet nothing
is secret, private, or able to be hidden. Not convinced that
Firefox is really any better than others.
VPN usage can be hidden by using an Obfuscated VPN if you really
do no want your ISP to know you are using a VPN.
But even with a
naked VPN your data is encrypted.
Or you can use a double VPN if you are concerned.
Or TOR if data speed is not an issue.
If you test your VPN security and privacy on the various tests
sites you will find that your IP address is gone and replaced. You
ought to secure your browser with privacy extensions to ensure
nothing else leaks.
We connect to Chinese and other streaming TV that is blocked in
our country. They are smart enough to know to block a VPN, but
don't recognize a double VPN for some reason, or XOR. And streams
at TV quality download to our TV.
Don't believe this BS. VPN providers have known IP addresses.
You don't need any special tricks to know that if you are
connecting to a VPN provider's IP you are using a VPN.
There
is a lot of horseshit passed around as knowledge by people
pimping VPN's. VPN's provide a brick in the wall of security
but aren't the magic pill people pimp them as.
Obfuscation requires compatible software on both ends. It
doesn't matter if your VPN claims to use it. That will only
work from your router to the VPN provider - whose IP's are
known.
The push for Firefox is because Firefox is ideologically compliant
in blocking websites that question the globalist degeneration of
the free world. Mozilla joined up with George Soros to block
websites that publish "fake news" or spread "hate" as defined by
groups like the ADL, SPLSC, etc. Look up Mozilla's MITI program.
I only use Chrome for the pr0n sites (different nick). Firefox is
for my D.G.Neree stuff (main nick). Opera is for my real name stuff (I won't tell you). Now I have installed Brave too and it will be for my political
commentaries (still searching for a nick)
You installed Google software on your device. You now have no
privacy, even if Google appears to not be running, it will have
a monitoring program running, recording everything you do.
I use Vivaldi, which was developed by one of the Opera
co-founders. I believe it has Chrome behind it, but I have both
Ad-block and Ghostery. I also have gone deep into the settings,
customizing it exactly the way I want it. Constantly delete all
history, cookies, etc. So I see no ads on ZH whatsoever. I also
use a VPN.
Stop being stupid. You installed someone else's software on
your device, it can now read everything - it can even send
screen grabs to Google - your privacy is no more.
I used to like Opera, but the Chinese bought the company. That
ended my use of Opera.
See my post above on Vivaldi.
I used to really like Firefox, but they bug you to log in
now. I don't want a Firefox account and won't ever sign up for
one!
Google recently were in the process of rewriting the
Chromium engine that Opera and Vivaldi among others use as a
basis of their browsers. Microsoft is also following suit
rewriting Edge with the Chromium engine. Back to the new
Chromium release, Google had written the new engine to
remove all Ad Blocking hooks, that would mean if you were
using say Brave along with an ad blocker, your ad blocker
would be disabled. The browser publishers threw a fit such
that Google said they were rethinking that decision, most
publishers said they would not use the new engine as well. I
haven't seen any recent developments since Google made that
statement. As a note Firefox does not use the Chromium
engine.
Here is what Google has noted about disabling ad
blockers in the latest version:
Google Chrome
Adblock was great when it first came out, but it sold out to
the advertisers a long time ago. Since adblock plus actually
allows ads and trackers now, i'm not sure what benefit there is
in using it. Ublock Origin blocks ads.
"You had to live -- did live, from habit that became instinct -- in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard,
and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized."
Who could have predicted that 70 years after Orwell typed the final words to his dystopian novel, "He loved Big Brother," we would
fail to heed his warning and come to love Big Brother.
"To the future or to the past, to a time when thought is free, when men are different from one another and do not live alone
-- to a time when truth exists and what is done cannot be undone: From the age of uniformity, from the age of solitude, from the
age of Big Brother, from the age of doublethink -- greetings!"
-- George Orwell
1984 portrays a global society of total control in which people are not allowed to have thoughts that in any way disagree
with the corporate state. There is no personal freedom, and advanced technology has become the driving force behind a surveillance-driven
society. Snitches and cameras are everywhere. People are subject to the Thought Police, who deal with anyone guilty of thought crimes.
The government, or "Party," is headed by Big Brother who appears on posters everywhere with the words: "Big Brother is watching you."
We have arrived, way ahead of schedule, into the dystopian future dreamed up by not only Orwell but also such fiction writers
as Aldous Huxley, Margaret Atwood and Philip K. Dick.
"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."
―George Orwell
Much like Orwell's Big Brother in 1984 , the government and its corporate spies now watch our every move. Much like Huxley's
A Brave New World , we are churning out a society of watchers who "have their liberties taken away from them, but rather enjoy
it, because they [are] distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda or brainwashing." Much like Atwood's
The Handmaid's Tale , the
populace is now taught to "know their place and their duties, to understand that they have no real rights but will be protected up
to a point if they conform, and to think so poorly of themselves that
they will
accept their assigned fate and not rebel or run away ."
And in keeping with Philip K. Dick's darkly prophetic vision of a dystopian police state -- which became the basis for
Steven
Spielberg's futuristic thriller Minority Report -- we are now trapped in a world in which the government is all-seeing,
all-knowing and all-powerful, and if you dare to step out of line, dark-clad police SWAT teams and pre-crime units will crack a few
skulls to bring the populace under control.
What once seemed futuristic no longer occupies the realm of science fiction.
Incredibly, as the various nascent technologies employed and shared by the government and corporations alike -- facial recognition,
iris scanners, massive databases, behavior prediction software, and so on -- are incorporated into a complex, interwoven cyber network
aimed at tracking our movements, predicting our thoughts and controlling our behavior, the
dystopian visions of past writers is fast becoming
our reality .
"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."
―George Orwell
The courts have
shredded the Fourth Amendment's protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. In fact, SWAT teams battering down doors
without search warrants and FBI agents acting as a secret police that investigate dissenting citizens are common occurrences in contemporary
America. And bodily privacy and integrity have been utterly eviscerated by a prevailing view that Americans have no rights over what
happens to their bodies during an encounter with government officials, who are allowed to search, seize, strip, scan, spy on, probe,
pat down, taser, and arrest any individual at any time and for the slightest provocation.
"The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible
to say which was which."
We are increasingly ruled by multi-corporations wedded to the police state.
What many fail to realize is that the government is not operating alone. It cannot. The government requires an accomplice. Thus,
the increasingly complex security needs of the massive federal government, especially in the areas of defense, surveillance and data
management, have been met within the corporate sector, which has shown itself to be a powerful ally that both depends on and feeds
the growth of governmental overreach.
In fact, Big Tech wedded to Big Government has become Big Brother, and we are now ruled by the Corporate Elite whose tentacles
have spread worldwide. For example, USA Today reports that five years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the homeland security
business was booming to such an extent that it
eclipsed mature
enterprises like movie-making and the music industry in annual revenue. This security spending to private corporations such as
Google, Amazon, Microsoft and others is
forecast to exceed
$1 trillion in the near future.
The government now has at its disposal technological arsenals so sophisticated and invasive as to render any constitutional protections
null and void. Spearheaded by the NSA, which has shown itself to care little to nothing for constitutional limits or privacy, the
"security/industrial complex" -- a marriage of government, military and corporate interests aimed at keeping Americans under constant
surveillance -- has come to dominate the government and our lives. At three times the size of the CIA, constituting one third of
the intelligence budget and with its own global spy network to boot, the NSA has a long history of spying on Americans, whether or
not it has always had the authorization to do so.
Money, power, control. There is no shortage of motives fueling the convergence of mega-corporations and government. But who is
paying the price? The American people, of course.
Orwell understood what many Americans, caught up in their partisan flag-waving, are still struggling to come to terms with: that
there is no such thing as a government organized for the good of the people. Even the best intentions among those in government inevitably
give way to the desire to maintain power and control over the citizenry at all costs. As Orwell explains:
The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power,
pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from the oligarchies of the past in that we know
what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian
Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended,
perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just around the corner there
lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know what no one ever seizes power with the intention
of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution;
one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture
is torture. The object of power is power. Now you begin to understand me.
"The further a society drifts from truth the more it will hate those who speak it."
― George Orwell
How do you change the way people think? You start by changing the words they use.
In totalitarian regimes -- a.k.a. police states -- where conformity and compliance are enforced at the end of a loaded gun, the
government dictates what words can and cannot be used. In countries where the police state hides behind a benevolent mask and disguises
itself as tolerance, the citizens censor themselves, policing their words and thoughts to conform to the dictates of the mass mind.
Dystopian literature shows what happens when the populace is transformed into mindless automatons. In
Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451
, reading is banned and books are burned in order to suppress dissenting ideas, while televised entertainment is used to anesthetize
the populace and render them easily pacified, distracted and controlled.
In Huxley's Brave New World
, serious literature, scientific thinking and experimentation are banned as subversive, while critical thinking is discouraged through
the use of conditioning, social taboos and inferior education. Likewise, expressions of individuality, independence and morality
are viewed as vulgar and abnormal.
And in Orwell's 1984
, Big Brother does away with all undesirable and unnecessary words and meanings, even going so far as to routinely rewrite history
and punish "thoughtcrimes." In this dystopian vision of the future, the Thought Police serve as the eyes and ears of Big Brother,
while the Ministry of Peace deals with war and defense, the Ministry of Plenty deals with economic affairs (rationing and starvation),
the Ministry of Love deals with law and order (torture and brainwashing), and the Ministry of Truth deals with news, entertainment,
education and art (propaganda). The mottos of Oceania: WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, and IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.
All three -- Bradbury, Huxley and Orwell -- had an uncanny knack for realizing the future, yet it is Orwell who best understood
the power of language to manipulate the masses. Orwell's Big Brother relied on Newspeak to eliminate undesirable words, strip such
words as remained of unorthodox meanings and make independent, non-government-approved thought altogether unnecessary. To give a
single example, as psychologist Erich Fromm illustrates in his afterword to 1984 :
The word free still existed in Newspeak, but it could only be used in such statements as "This dog is free from lice" or
"This field is free from weeds." It could not be used in its old sense of "politically free" or "intellectually free," since political
and intellectual freedom no longer existed as concepts .
Where we stand now is at the juncture of OldSpeak (where words have meanings, and ideas can be dangerous) and Newspeak (where
only that which is "safe" and "accepted" by the majority is permitted). The power elite has made their intentions clear: they will
pursue and prosecute any and all words, thoughts and expressions that challenge their authority.
This is the final link in the police state chain.
"Until they became conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious."
-- George Orwell
Americans have been
conditioned to accept routine incursions on their privacy rights . In fact, the addiction to screen devices -- especially cell
phones -- has created a hive effect where the populace not only watched but is controlled by AI bots. However, at one time, the idea
of a total surveillance state tracking one's every move would have been abhorrent to most Americans. That all changed with the 9/11
attacks. As professor Jeffrey Rosen observes, "Before Sept. 11, the idea that Americans would voluntarily agree to live their lives
under the gaze of a network of biometric surveillance cameras, peering at them in government buildings, shopping malls, subways and
stadiums, would have seemed unthinkable,
a dystopian fantasy of a society that
had surrendered privacy and anonymity ."
Having been reduced to a cowering citizenry -- mute in the face of elected officials who refuse to represent us, helpless in the
face of police brutality, powerless in the face of militarized tactics and technology that treat us like enemy combatants on a battlefield,
and naked in the face of government surveillance that sees and hears all -- we have nowhere left to go.
We have, so to speak, gone from being a nation where privacy is king to one where nothing is safe from the prying eyes of government.
In search of so-called terrorists and extremists hiding amongst us -- the proverbial "needle in a haystack," as one official termed
it -- the Corporate State has taken to monitoring all aspects of our lives, from cell phone calls and emails to Internet activity
and credit card transactions. Much of this data is being fed through
fusion centers across the
country, which work with the Department of Homeland Security to make threat assessments on every citizen, including school children.
These are state and regional intelligence centers that collect data on you.
"Big Brother is Watching You."
―George Orwell
Wherever you go and whatever you do, you are now being watched, especially if you leave behind an electronic footprint. When you
use your cell phone, you leave a record of when the call was placed, who you called, how long it lasted and even where you were at
the time. When you use your ATM card, you leave a record of where and when you used the card. There is even a video camera at most
locations equipped with facial recognition software. When you use a cell phone or drive a car enabled with GPS, you can be tracked
by satellite. Such information is shared with government agents, including local police. And all of this once-private information
about your consumer habits, your whereabouts and your activities is now being fed to the U.S. government.
The government has nearly inexhaustible resources when it comes to tracking our movements, from electronic wiretapping devices,
traffic cameras and biometrics to radio-frequency identification cards, satellites and Internet surveillance.
Speech recognition technology now makes it possible for the government to carry out massive eavesdropping by way of sophisticated
computer systems. Phone calls can be monitored, the audio converted to text files and stored in computer databases indefinitely.
And if any "threatening" words are detected -- no matter how inane or silly -- the record can be flagged and assigned to a government
agent for further investigation. Federal and state governments, again working with private corporations, monitor your Internet content.
Users are profiled and tracked in order to identify, target and even prosecute them.
In such a climate, everyone is a suspect. And you're guilty until you can prove yourself innocent. To underscore this shift in
how the government now views its citizens, the FBI uses its wide-ranging authority to investigate individuals or groups, regardless
of whether they are suspected of criminal activity.
"Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimetres inside your skull."
― George Orwell
Here's what a lot of people fail to understand, however: it's not just what you say or do that is being monitored, but how you
think that is being tracked and targeted. We've already seen this play out on the state and federal level with hate crime
legislation that cracks down on so-called "hateful" thoughts and expression, encourages self-censoring and reduces free debate on
various subject matter.
Total Internet surveillance by the Corporate State, as omnipresent as God, is used by the government to predict and, more importantly,
control the populace, and it's not as far-fetched as you might think. For example, the NSA is now designing an artificial intelligence
system that is designed to anticipate your every move. In a nutshell, the NSA will feed vast amounts of the information it collects
to a computer system known as Aquaint (the acronym
stands for Advanced QUestion Answering for INTelligence), which the computer can then use to detect patterns and predict behavior.
No information is sacred or spared.
Everything from cell phone recordings and logs, to emails, to text messages, to personal information posted on social networking
sites, to credit card statements, to library circulation records, to credit card histories, etc., is collected by the NSA and shared
freely with its agents in crime: the CIA, FBI and DHS. One NSA researcher actually quit the Aquaint program, "citing concerns over
the dangers in placing such a powerful weapon in the hands of a top-secret agency with little accountability."
Thus, what we are witnessing, in the so-called name of security and efficiency, is the creation of a new class system comprised
of the watched (average Americans such as you and me) and the watchers (government bureaucrats, technicians and private corporations).
Clearly, the age of privacy in America is at an end.
"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face -- for ever."
-- Orwell
So where does that leave us?
We now find ourselves in the unenviable position of being monitored, managed and controlled by our technology, which answers not
to us but to our government and corporate rulers. This is the fact-is-stranger-than-fiction lesson that is being pounded into us
on a daily basis.
It won't be long before we find ourselves looking back on the past with longing, back to an age where we could speak to whom we
wanted, buy what we wanted, think what we wanted without those thoughts, words and activities being tracked, processed and stored
by corporate giants such as Google, sold to government agencies such as the NSA and CIA, and used against us by militarized police
with their army of futuristic technologies.
To be an individual today, to not conform, to have even a shred of privacy, and to live beyond the reach of the government's roaming
eyes and technological spies, one must not only be a rebel but rebel.
Even when you rebel and take your stand, there is rarely a happy ending awaiting you. You are rendered an outlaw.
So how do you survive in the American surveillance state?
We're running out of options.
As I make clear in my book
Battlefield
America: The War on the American People , we'll soon have to choose between self-indulgence (the bread-and-circus distractions
offered up by the news media, politicians, sports conglomerates, entertainment industry, etc.) and self-preservation in the form
of renewed vigilance about threats to our freedoms and active engagement in self-governance.
Yet as Aldous Huxley acknowledged in
Brave New World Revisited
: "Only the vigilant can maintain their liberties, and only those who are constantly and intelligently on the spot can hope to govern
themselves effectively by democratic procedures. A society, most of whose members spend a great part of their time, not on the spot,
not here and now and in their calculable future, but somewhere else, in the irrelevant other worlds of sport and soap opera, of mythology
and metaphysical fantasy, will find it hard to resist the encroachments of those would manipulate and control it."
There are three big reasons why. First, the rise of the internet, which undermined traditional newspaper revenue models,
especially classified ads. Second, the Great Recession, which tanked employment of all kinds. Third and most importantly, the
rise of online monopolies like Google, Facebook, and Amazon.
It raises a question: How can we stop these corporate behemoths from strangling the life out of American journalism? A good place
to start would be breaking up the tech giants, and regulating the online advertising market to ensure fair competition.
Spending on digital advertising is
projected
to surpass
the traditional sort in 2019 for the first time, and you will not be surprised to learn where that money is going.
Last year, Google alone was estimated to make
more
than $40 billion
in online advertising with
$4.7
billion of that coming from news content
, according to a new report from the News Media Alliance. That is nearly as much as
the $5.1 billion the entire American news industry earned in online ads. What's more, Google "only" accounts for
37
percent
of the online ad market. Facebook makes up another 22 percent -- an effective duopoly that has only been partially
disrupted by (who else?) Amazon, which has moved aggressively into the market over the last few years and now takes up 9 percent.
That is why journalism has continued to flounder even as the broader economy has improved a lot, and why even digital native
companies like
Buzzfeed
and
Vox
are
struggling
to keep their heads above water. For instance, as Josh Marshall of
Talking Points Memo
explains
,
Google runs the major ad market (DoubleClick), is the largest purchaser on that market (through Adexchange),
and
has
privileged access to all the valuable data thus obtained. Its "monopoly control is almost comically great," he writes -- and
that's just one company. Just as online ad revenue got to the point where it might replace print ads, internet behemoths have
sucked up a huge majority of it, leaving news companies to fight over scraps, or desperately pivot to alternative revenue models
like video content or subscriptions.
Remarkably, there appears to be some bipartisan support for regulatory action to give news companies a leg up. Hearings are
scheduled on Tuesday for a bill which would grant news companies an exemption to antitrust law,
reports
CNN
, "allowing them to band together in negotiations with online platforms."
This would probably be worth trying, but it's likely not nearly aggressive enough. The journalism industry is fragmented,
damaged, and cash-poor, and would surely struggle to compete with Google and Facebook even if it could coordinate properly. It's
telling that only Amazon --
another
gargantuan, hugely profitable tech colossus -- has managed to compete even a little.
A better approach would be to simply break up and regulate these companies. Following American antitrust law, force Alphabet
(Google's parent company) to break all its major parts into separate companies -- Google for search, YouTube for video,
DoubleClick for ads, Analytics for audience analysis, and so on. Do the same for Facebook, forcing it to split off Instagram and
Whatsapp.
Then regulate the online ad market. It is outrageous for one company to both run the major ad market and have first bite at sales
on that market, because it puts other sellers and buyers at an unfair disadvantage -- as Marshall notes, "the interplay between
DoubleClick and Adexchange is textbook anti-competitive practice." Breaking DoubleClick out into a different company would solve
that particular instance of abuse of market power, but it probably wouldn't be the end of it. An online ad sales platform (like
many internet businesses) has high fixed costs but very low marginal costs -- meaning it costs a great deal to set up all the
servers and networks, but almost nothing to serve one additional ad. Once a company has achieved massive scale, like Google has
with DoubleClick, it has an ever-increasing advantage over any would-be competitors. That's the classic definition of a natural
monopoly, which if left to its own devices will certainly abuse its market power just like
Gilded
Age railroads
.
Therefore, abuse of market power should be banned outright with
common
carrier regulations
mandating equal prices for equal services across the whole online ad business -- either that, or
DoubleClick should be nationalized outright and run as a public utility.
For many years, Big Tech had a glossy reputation, portraying itself as the vanguard of a new high-tech future where fancy gadgets
and websites would solve all our problems. It turns out it is just another grubby corporate sector, ruthlessly seeking profit no
matter who or what gets trodden underfoot in the process. It's long since time we brought these companies to heel. Cracking them
up and regulating their markets is a good place to start.
"... The internet, as Yasha Levine showed us in an admirable and unfortunately neglected book last year, was always envisioned by the military industrial complex responsible for its creation as a tool for surveillance. ..."
"... It should come as no surprise that neoliberal capitalism, the only system with even more global reach than the American armed forces (with which big tech is increasingly allied anyway), would turn it to the very purpose for which it was designed. There was never going to be another way. ..."
"... We can insist on disclosure, but nobody is ever going to read through those terms of service documents. We can also attempt to limit the relationship between digital advertising and free social media services, but the latter could not exist without the former. Nor could the unlimited amount of "content" produced by wage slaves or unpaid amateurs. ..."
"... The fact that hundreds of companies know virtually everything about me because I use technologies that are all but unavoidable for anyone who participates in modern life is terrifying. ..."
"... I wonder how many other people now think that the old arrangement -- in which we took photos with real cameras and paid people at department stores to make prints of them and shared them in the privacy of our homes with people we really love, and had beautifully clear conversations on reliable pieces of hardware, and paid for newspapers that offered good wages to their writers and editors thanks to the existence of classified ads -- was so bad. ..."
Nothing in our conversations about the pros and cons of the modern internet seems to me more
naïve than our complaints about privacy.
... ... ...
The problem is that Facebook is not really a bookstore in this analogy -- at least not in
any straightforward sense. To understand what they do you have to imagine a chain for whom
selling books is not really the point; the books, which are rather enticingly free, are only
there to give the store's owners a sense of what you might be interested in, information that
they then sell to other companies that will in turn try to hawk everything from clothing to
medicine to political candidates. If you think the neat blue website pays engineers hundreds of
millions of dollars to let you share dog scrapbooks and spy on your old high-school classmates
out of the goodness of its founders' hearts, you're delusional.
But the issues go well beyond any single platform or website. The internet, as Yasha
Levine showed us in an admirable and unfortunately neglected book last year, was always envisioned by the
military industrial complex responsible for its creation as a tool for surveillance.
It should come as no surprise that neoliberal capitalism, the only system with even more
global reach than the American armed forces (with which big tech is increasingly allied
anyway), would turn it to the very purpose for which it was designed. There was never going to
be another way.
This doesn't necessarily mean that we have to live with the status quo. It is possible to
imagine a future in which the moral hazard of putting all the information available from search
engines and email use into the hands of private corporations disappeared. Instead of Google and
Gmail we could have a massive Library of Congress search engine and a free -- with paid
upgrades available for those who need additional storage -- Postal Service email platform. I
for one would not mind entrusting Uncle Sam with the knowledge that the phrase beginning with
"M" I am most likely to search for information about is "Michigan football recruiting."
The sad truth, though, is that these things have already been tried . Very few people remember now
that the post office once attempted to get into the email business and made various attempts to
keep digital commerce within the purview of the government rather than in the hands of private
corporations. These efforts failed time and again, often due to Silicon Valley lobbying
efforts. (Internal incompetence was also an issue: imagine paying $1.70 per email
in 2002.)
This problem might be solved easily enough if those corporations had no say in the matter,
like the coal companies under the post-war Labour government in Britain. But even if forcibly
nationalizing search, email, and other basic internet services now seems like the ideal
solution, it would involve the most radical use of government power since the New Deal. I doubt
there is a single member of Congress who would even entertain the idea. What does that leave
with us? A box of Band-Aids for some gaping wounds. We can insist on disclosure, but nobody
is ever going to read through those terms of service documents. We can also attempt to limit
the relationship between digital advertising and free social media services, but the latter
could not exist without the former. Nor could the unlimited amount of "content" produced by
wage slaves or unpaid amateurs.
I don't mean to sound unduly cynical. The fact that hundreds of companies know virtually
everything about me because I use technologies that are all but unavoidable for anyone who
participates in modern life is terrifying.
I wonder how many other people now think that the old arrangement -- in which we took
photos with real cameras and paid people at department stores to make prints of them and shared
them in the privacy of our homes with people we really love, and had beautifully clear
conversations on reliable pieces of hardware, and paid for newspapers that offered good wages
to their writers and editors thanks to the existence of classified ads -- was so bad.
In the future we should be more mindful of the power of technology to destroy things we
value. But how many of those things are still left?
A new report by The Intercept has unearthed some stunning quotes from Facebook's lawyers as
the controversial social media giant recently battled litigation in California courts related
to the Cambridge Analytica data sharing scandal. The report notes that
statements from Facebook's counsel "reveal one of the most stunning examples of corporate
doublespeak certainly in Facebook's history" concerning privacy and individual users'
rights.
Contrary to CEO Mark Zuckerberg's last testimony before Congress which included the vague
promise, "We believe that everyone around the world deserves good privacy controls," the latest
courtroom statements expose in shockingly unambiguous terms that Facebook actually sees privacy
as legally "nonexistent" -- to use The Intercept's apt description of what's in the courtroom
transcript -- up until now largely ignored in media commentary. The courtroom debate was
first reported by Law360 , and captures the transcribed back and forth between Facebook
lawyer Orin Snyder of Gibson Dunn & Crutcher and US District Judge Vince Chhabria.
The Intercept cites multiple key sections of the transcript
from the May 29, 2019 court proceedings showing Snyder arguing essentially something the
complete opposite of Zuckerberg's public statements on data privacy , specifically, on the idea
that users have any reasonable expectation of privacy at all.
There is no privacy interest , because by sharing with a hundred friends on a social media
platform, which is an affirmative social act to publish, to disclose, to share ostensibly
private information with a hundred people, you have just, under centuries of common law,
under the judgment of Congress, under the SCA, negated any reasonable expectation of privacy
.
As The Intercept commented of the blunt remarks ,
"So not only is it Facebook's legal position that you're not entitled to any expectation of
privacy, but it's your fault that the expectation went poof the moment you started using the
site (or at least once you connected with 100 Facebook "friends")."
Privacy invasion, is similar to rape - one is an invasion of the body, the other, of the
soul..
However, if you don't want your privacy invaded, stop using Facebook, WhatsApp, and all
the other privacy invading apps they offer, and find platforms that respect your rights to
your privacy..
On the other hand, stop sharing extremely intimate details if you'd rather have them be
off limits - do mano a mano sharing, so you can know who leaked what, and when..
Still, monetizing the souls of folks, without their consent, is egregious, and yet, you
get what you pay for..if it's free, you're the product, or more accurately, the cow, or
better yet, the gold laying geese, or most egregiously, the snitch, snitching on
yourself..
Zuckerberg, is NOT anyone's definition of a honest person..his contraption began with a
theft, is based on a deception, and operates via blackmail, for the purpose of control..how
you describe such a person, is your prerogative, cheers...
"Let me give you a hypothetical of my own. I go into a classroom and invite a hundred
friends. This courtroom. I invite a hundred friends, I rent out the courtroom, and I have a
party. And I disclose — And I disclose something private about myself to a hundred
people, friends and colleagues. Those friends then rent out a 100,000-person arena, and they
rebroadcast those to 100,000 people. I have no cause of action because by going to a hundred
people and saying my private truths, I have negated any reasonable expectation of privacy ,
because the case law is clear."
...is spurious because, in his example, it is the friends who are disseminating the
information, but Facebook is more like the person who he rented the hall from...
disseminating the information. It would be like 101 bankers setting up a meeting in a
Marriott, and discussing business plans and tactics, as the Marriott records and sells that
information to credit unions. Claiming the Bankers gave up any right to privacy... because
there were over 100 of them in that banquet room.
In the case of the Marriott recording and selling information that is passed in their
banquet rooms... would the Facebook attorney agree that is acceptable? To be consistent he
must.
"... With nearly 6 million Americans unemployed and regular bouts of layoffs in the U.S. tech industry, major American tech companies like Google, Microsoft and Intel Corporation are nonetheless moving key operations, billions in investments, and thousands of jobs to Israel -- a trend that has largely escaped media attention or concern from even "America first" politicians. The fact that this massive transfer of investment and jobs has been so overlooked is particularly striking given that it is largely the work of a single leading neoconservative Republican donor who has given millions of dollars to President Donald Trump. ..."
"... In this report, MintPress identifies dozens of former members of an elite Israeli military intelligence unit who now hold top positions at Microsoft, Google and Facebook. ..."
"... Yet, some of these tech giants, particularly those based in the U.S., are heavily investing in their Israeli branches while laying off thousands of American employees, all while receiving millions of dollars in U.S. government subsidies funded by American taxpayers. ..."
"... Particularly troubling is the fact that, since SUNC's founding, the number of former Unit 8200 members in top positions in American tech companies has skyrocketed. Based on a non-exhaustive analysis conducted by Mintpress of over 200 LinkedIn accounts of former Israeli military intelligence and intelligence officers in three major tech companies, numerous former Unit 8200 alumni were found to currently hold top managerial or executive positions in Microsoft, Google and Facebook. ..."
"... Similarly, at Google, 28 former Unit 8200 members at the company were identified from their LinkedIn accounts. Among them are Google's Engineering Director, its strategic partner manager, two growth marketing leads, its lead technical manager, and six product and program managers, including Google's manager for trust and safety search. ..."
"... Netanyahu further outlined this policy at the 2019 Cybertech conference in Tel Aviv, where he stated that Israel's emergence as one of the top five "cyber powers" had "required allowing this combination of military intelligence, academia and industry to converge in one place" and that this further required allowing "our graduates of our military and intelligence units to merge into companies with local partners and foreign partners." The direct tie-ins of SUNC to Netanyahu and the fact that Paul Singer has also been a long-time political donor and backer of Netanyahu suggest that SUNC is a key part of Netanyahu's policy of placing former military intelligence and intelligence operatives in strategic positions in major technology companies. ..."
"... This concern is further exacerbated by the deep ties connecting top tech companies like Microsoft and Google to the U.S. military. Microsoft and Google are both key military contractors -- Microsoft in particular, given that it is set to win a lucrative contract for the Pentagon's cloud management and has partnered with the Department of Defense to produce a "secure" election system known as ElectionGuard that is set to be implemented in some U.S. states for the 2020 general election. ..."
Several U.S. tech
giants including Google, Microsoft and Intel Corporation have filled top positions with former
members of Israeli military intelligence and are heavily investing in their Israeli branches
while laying off thousands of American employees, all while receiving millions of dollars in
U.S. government subsidies funded by American taxpayers.
With nearly 6
million Americans unemployed and regular bouts of layoffs in the U.S. tech industry, major
American tech companies like Google, Microsoft and Intel Corporation are nonetheless moving key
operations, billions in investments, and thousands of jobs to Israel -- a trend that has
largely escaped media attention or concern from even "America first" politicians. The fact that
this massive transfer of investment and jobs has been so overlooked is particularly striking
given that it is largely the work of a single leading neoconservative Republican donor who has
given millions of dollars to President Donald Trump.
To make matters worse, many of these top tech companies shifting investment and jobs to
Israel at record rates continue to collect sizable U.S. government subsidies for their
operations while they move critical aspects of their business abroad, continue to layoff
thousands of American workers, and struggle to house their growing company branches in Israel.
This is particularly troubling in light of the importance of the tech sector to the overall
U.S. economy, as it
accounts for 7.1 percent of total GDP and 11.6 percent of total private-sector payroll.
Furthermore, many of these companies are hiring members of controversial Israeli companies
-- known to have spied on Americans, American companies, and U.S. federal agencies -- as well
as numerous members of Israeli military intelligence as top managers and executives.
This massive transfer of the American tech industry has largely been the work of one leading
Republican donor -- billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Singer, who also funds the
neoconservative think tank American Enterprise Institute (AEI), the Islamophobic and hawkish
think tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC),
and also funded the now-defunct Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI).
Singer's project to bolster Israel's tech economy at the U.S.' expense is known as Start-Up
Nation Central, which he founded in response to the global Boycott, Divest and Sanctions (BDS)
movement that seeks to use nonviolent means to pressure Israel to comply with international law
in relation to its treatment of Palestinians.
This project is directly linked to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who in recent
years has publicly mentioned that it has been his "deliberate policy" to have former members of
Israel's "military and intelligence units merge into companies with local partners and foreign
partners" in order to make it all but impossible for major corporations and foreign governments
to boycott Israel.
In this report, MintPress identifies dozens of former members of an elite Israeli
military intelligence unit who now hold top positions at Microsoft, Google and Facebook.
Singer's nonprofit organization has acted as the vehicle through which Netanyahu's policy
has been realized, via the group's close connections to the Israeli PM and Singer's long-time
support for Netanyahu and the Likud Party. With deep ties to Netanyahu, the American Israel
Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), and controversial tech companies -- like Amdocs -- that spied
on the American government, this Singer-funded organization has formed a nexus of connections
between the public and private sectors of both the American and Israeli economies with the
single goal of making Israel the new technology superpower, largely at the expense of
the American economy and government, which currently gives $3.2 billion in aid to Israel annually.
Researched and developed in Israel
In recent years, the top U.S. tech companies have been shifting many of their most critical
operations, particularly research and development, to one country: Israel. A 2016
report in Business Insider noted that Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon and Apple
had all opened up research and development (R&D) centers in recent years, with some of them
having as many as three such centers in Israel, a country roughly the size of New Jersey. Other
major tech companies that have also opened key
operation and research centers in Israel include Sandisk, Nvidia, PayPal, Palantir and Dell.
Forbes noted last year that the world's top 10 tech companies were now "doing
mission-critical work in Israel that's core to their businesses back at HQ."
Yet, some of these tech giants, particularly those based in the U.S., are heavily investing
in their Israeli branches while laying off thousands of American employees, all while receiving
millions of dollars in U.S. government subsidies funded by American taxpayers.
For example, Intel Corporation, which is the world's second largest manufacturer of
semiconductor computer chips and is headquartered in California, has long been a major employer
in Israel, with over 10,000 employees in the Jewish state. However, earlier this year, Intel
announced that it would be
investing $11 billion in a new factory in Israel and would receive around $1 billion in an
Israeli government grant for that investment. Just a matter of months after Intel announced its
major new investment in Israel, it announced a new round of layoffs in
the United States.
Yet this is just one recent example of what has become a trend for Intel. In 2018, Intel
made public its plan to invest
$5 billion in one of its Israeli factories and
had invested an additional $15 billion in Israeli-created autonomous driving technology a
year prior, creating thousands of Intel jobs in Israel. Notably, over that same time frame,
Intel has cut nearly 12,000 jobs in the United
States. While this great transfer of investment and jobs was undermining the U.S. economy and
hurting American workers, particularly in the tech sector, Intel received
over $25 million dollars in subsidies from the U.S. federal government.
A similar phenomenon has been occurring at another U.S.-based tech giant, Microsoft.
Beginning in 2014 and continuing into 2018, Microsoft has laid off
well over 20,000 employees , most of them Americans, in several different rounds of staff
cuts. Over that same time period, Microsoft has been on a hiring spree in Israel, building
new
campuses and investing billions of dollars
annually in its Israel-based research and development center and in
other Israeli start-up companies , creating thousands of jobs abroad. In addition,
Microsoft has been pumping millions of dollars into technology programs at Israeli universities
and institutes, such as the Technion Institute .
Over this same time frame, Microsoft
has received nearly $197 million in subsidies from the state governments of Washington,
Iowa and Virginia.
Though Israeli politicians and tech company executives have praised this dramatic shift as
the result of Israel's tech prowess and growing reputation as a technological innovation hub,
much of this dramatic shift has been the work of the Netanyahu-tied Singer's effort to counter
a global movement aimed at boycotting Israel and to make Israel a global "cyber power."
Start-Up Nation Central and the Neocons
In 2009, a book titled Start Up Nation: The Story of Israel's Economic Miracle ,
written by American neoconservative Dan Senor and Jerusalem Post journalist Saul Singer
(unrelated to Paul), quickly rose to the New York Times bestseller list for its
depiction of Israel as the tech start-up capital of the world. The book -- published by the Council on Foreign Relations,
where Senor was then serving as Adjunct Senior Fellow -- asserts that
Israel's success in producing so many start-up companies resulted from the combination of its
liberal immigration laws and its "leverage of the business talents of young people with
military experience."
"The West needs innovation; Israel's got it," wrote Senor and Singer. In a post-publication
interview with the blog
Freakonomics , Senor asserted that service in the Israeli military was crucial to
Israel's tech sector success, stating that:
"Certain units have become technology boot camps, where 18- to 22-year-olds get thrown
projects and missions that would make the heads spin of their counterparts in universities or
the private sector anywhere else in the world. The Israelis come out of the military not just
with hands-on exposure to next-gen technology, but with training in teamwork, mission
orientation, leadership, and a desire to continue serving their country by contributing to
its tech sector -- a source of pride for just about every Israeli."
The book, in addition to the many accolades it received from the mainstream press, left a
lasting impact on top Republican donor Paul Singer, known for funding the most
influential neoconservative think tanks in America, as noted above. Paul Singer was so inspired
by Senor and Singer's book that he decided to spend
$20 million to fund and create an organization with a similar name. He created the Start-Up
Nation Central (SUNC) just three years after the book's release in 2012 .
To achieve his vision, Singer – who is also a top donor to the Republican Party and
Trump – tapped Israeli economist Eugene Kandel, who
served as Netanyahu's national economic adviser and chaired the Israeli National Economic
Council from 2009 to 2015.
Senor was likely directly involved in the creation of SUNC, as he was
then employed by Paul Singer and, with neoconservatives Bill Kristol and Robert Kagan,
co-founded the FPI, which Singer had long funded before it closed in 2017. In addition, Dan
Senor's sister, Wendy Singer (unrelated to either Paul
or Saul), long-time director of Israel's AIPAC office, became the organization's executive
director.
SUNC's management team, in addition to Eugene Kandel and Wendy Singer, includes Guy Hilton
as the organization's general manager. Hilton is a long-time marketing executive at Israeli
telecommunications company Amdocs, where he "transformed" the company's marketing organization.
Amdocs was once highly controversial in the United States after it was revealed by a 2001 Fox News
investigation that numerous federal agencies had investigated the company, which then had
contracts with the 25 largest telephone companies in the country, for its alleged role in an
aggressive espionage operation that targeted the U.S. government. Hilton worked at Microsoft
prior to joining Amdocs.
Beyond the management team, SUNC's board of directors includes Paul Singer, Dan Senor and
Terry Kassel -- who work for Singer at his hedge fund, Elliott Management -- and Rapheal Ouzan.
Ouzan was
an officer in the elite foreign military intelligence unit of Israel, Unit 8200, who
co-founded BillGuard the day after he left that unit, which is often compared to the U.S.'
National Security Agency (NSA). Within five months of its founding, BillGuard
was backed by funding from PayPal founder Peter Thiel and former CEO of Google, Eric
Schmidt. Ouzan is also connected to U.S. tech companies that have greatly expanded their
Israeli branches since SUNC's founding -- such as Microsoft, Google, PayPal and Intel,
all of which
support Ouzan's non-profit Israel Tech Challenge.
According to reports from the time published in Haaretz and Bloomberg , SUNC
was explicitly founded to serve as "
a foreign ministry for Israel's tech industry " and "
to strength Israel's economy " while also
aiming to counter the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions (BDS) movement that seeks to use a
nonviolent boycott to end the illegal military occupation of the West Bank and Israeli
apartheid, as well as the growth of illegal Jewish-only settlements in occupied Palestinian
territory.
Since its founding, SUNC has sought to transfer tech jobs from foreign companies to Israel
by developing connections and influence with foreign governments and companies so that they
"deepen their relationship with Israel's tech industry." Though SUNC has since expanded to
include other sectors of the Israeli "start-up" economy, its focus has long remained on
Israel's tech, specifically its cybersecurity industry. Foreign investment in this single
Israeli industry has grown from $227 million in
2014 to $815 million in 2018.
In addition to its own activities, SUNC appears to be closely linked to a similar
organization, sponsored by
Coca Cola and Daimler Mercedes Benz, called
The Bridge , which also seeks to connect Israeli start-up companies with large
international corporations. Indeed, SUNC, according to its website , was actually
responsible for Daimler Mercedes Benz's decision to join The Bridge, thanks to a delegation
from the company that SUNC hosted in Israel and the connections made during that visit.
Teaming up with Israel's Unit 8200
Members of Israel's signals intelligence Unit 8200 work under a Saudi flag. Photo | Moti
Milrod
Notably, SUNC has deep ties to Israel's military intelligence unit known as Unit 8200 and,
true to Start Up Nation' s praise of IDF service as key to Israel's success, has been
instrumental in connecting Unit 8200 alumni with key roles in foreign companies, particularly
American tech companies. For instance, Maty Zwaig , a former lieutenant colonel
in Unit 8200, is SUNC's current director of human capital programs, and SUNC's current manager
of strategic programs, Tamar Weiss , is also a former member
of the unit.
One particularly glaring connection between SUNC and Unit 8200 can be seen in Inbal Arieli , who served as
SUNC's Vice President of Strategic Partnerships from 2014 to 2017 and continues to serve as a
senior adviser to the organization. Arieli, a former lieutenant in Unit 8200, is the founder
and head of the 8200 Entrepreneurship and Innovation Support Program (EISP), which was the
first start-up accelerator in Israel aimed at harnessing "the vast network and entrepreneurial
DNA of [Unit] 8200 alumni" and is currently one of the top company accelerators in Israel.
Arieli was the top executive at 8200 EISP while working at SUNC.
Another key connection between SUNC and Unit 8200 is SUNC's promotion of Team8, a
company-creation platform whose CEO and co-founder is Nadav Zafrir, former commander of Unit
8200. In addition to prominently featuring Team8
and Zafrir on the cybersecurity section of its website, SUNC also sponsored a talk
by Zafrir and an Israeli government economist at the World Economic Forum, often referred to as
"Davos," that was attended personally by Paul Singer.
Team8's investors include Google's Eric Schmidt,
Microsoft , and Walmart
-- and it recently hired former head of the NSA and U.S. Cyber Command, retired Admiral Mike
Rogers. Team8 described the decision to hire Rogers as being "instrumental in helping
strategize" Team8's expansion in the United States. However, Jake Williams, a veteran of NSA's
Tailored Access Operations hacking unit, told CyberScoop :
"Rogers is not being brought into this role because of his technical experience. It's
purely because of his knowledge of classified operations and his ability to influence many in
the U.S. government and private-sector contractors."
In addition to connections to Unit 8200-linked groups like Team8 and 8200 EISP, SUNC also
directly collaborates with the IDF in an initiative aimed at preparing young Israeli women to
serve in Unit 8200. That initiative, called the CyberGirlz Club , is jointly
funded by Israel's Defense Ministry, SUNC and the Rashi Foundation, the philanthropic
organization set up by the Leven family of Perrier-brand water, which has close ties to the
Israeli government and IDF.
"Our aim is to bring the girls to this process already skilled, with the knowledge needed to
pass the exams for Unit 8200 and serve in the military as programmers," Zwaig told Israel National
News .
Seeding American tech
The connections between SUNC and Unit 8200 are troubling for more than a few reasons, one of
which being that Unit 8200, often likened to the U.S.' NSA, closely coordinates with Israel's
intelligence agency, the Mossad, and is responsible for 90 percent of the intelligence material
obtained by the Israeli government, according to its former commander Yair Cohen. Cohen
told
Forbes in 2016, that "there isn't a major operation, from the Mossad or any
intelligence security agency, that 8200 is not involved in." For obvious reasons, the fact that
an organization founded by an American billionaire is actively promoting the presence of former
military intelligence officers in foreign companies, specifically American companies, while
also promoting the transfer of jobs and investment to that same country, is very troubling
indeed.
Particularly troubling is the fact that, since SUNC's founding, the number of former Unit
8200 members in top positions in American tech companies has skyrocketed. Based on a
non-exhaustive analysis conducted by Mintpress of over 200 LinkedIn accounts of former
Israeli military intelligence and intelligence officers in three major tech companies, numerous
former Unit 8200 alumni were found to currently hold top managerial or executive positions in
Microsoft, Google and Facebook.
At Microsoft, managers for at least 15 of the company's products and programs -- including
Microsoft's lead managers for engineering, product strategy, threat analytics and cloud
business intelligence -- publicly listed their affiliation with Unit 8200 on their LinkedIn
accounts. In addition, the general manager of Microsoft's Israeli
Research and Development Center is also a former member of Unit 8200. In total, of the 200
accounts analyzed, 50 of them currently worked for Microsoft.
Similarly, at Google, 28 former Unit 8200 members at the company were identified from their
LinkedIn accounts. Among them are Google's Engineering Director, its strategic partner manager,
two growth marketing leads, its lead technical manager, and six product and program managers,
including Google's manager for trust and safety search.
Facebook also has several Unit 8200 members in prominent positions, though fewer than Google
and Microsoft. MintPress identified at least 13 Unit 8200 alumni working for Facebook,
including its director of engineering, lead manager for express wi-fi, and technical program
manager. Notably, Facebook
has spent the last several years collaborating with Israel's government to censor Israel's
critics.
Of course, there is likely much more influence of Unit 8200 on these companies than this
non-exhaustive analysis revealed, given that many of these companies acquired several Israeli
start-ups run by and staffed by many Unit 8200 alumni who subsequently went on to found new
companies and start-ups a few years or shortly after acquisition. Furthermore, due to the
limitations of LinkedIn's set-up, MintPress was not able to access the complete list of
Unit 8200 alumni at these three tech companies, meaning that the eye-opening numbers found were
generated by a relatively small sample.
This jump in Unit 8200 members in top positions in tech companies of global importance is
actually a policy long promoted by Netanyahu, whose long-time economic adviser is the chief
executive at SUNC. During an interview with Fox News last year,
Netanyahu was asked by Fox News host Mark Levin if the large growth seen in recent years
in Israel's technology sector was part of Netanyahu's plan. Netanyahu responded, "That's very
much my plan It's a very deliberate policy." He later added that "Israel had technology because
the military, especially military intelligence, produced a lot of capabilities. These
incredibly gifted young men and women who come out of the military or the Mossad, they want to
start their start-ups."
Netanyahu further
outlined this policy at the 2019 Cybertech conference in Tel Aviv, where he stated that
Israel's emergence as one of the top five "cyber powers" had "required allowing this
combination of military intelligence, academia and industry to converge in one place" and that
this further required allowing "our graduates of our military and intelligence units to merge
into companies with local partners and foreign partners." The direct tie-ins of SUNC to
Netanyahu and the fact that Paul Singer has also been a long-time political donor
and backer of Netanyahu suggest that SUNC is a key part of Netanyahu's policy of placing
former military intelligence and intelligence operatives in strategic positions in major
technology companies.
Notably, just as SUNC was founded to counter the BDS movement, Netanyahu has asserted that
this policy of ensuring Israel's role as a "cyber power" is aimed at
increasing its diplomatic power and
specifically undermining BDS as well as the United Nations, which has repeatedly condemned
Israel's government for war crimes and violations of international law in relation to the
Palestinians.
Building the bi-national surveillance state
Top U.S. tech companies have filled top positions with former members of Israeli military
intelligence and moved strategic and critical operations to Israel, boosting Israel's economy
at the expense of America's, and SUNC's role in this marked shift merits scrutiny.
A powerful American billionaire has built an influential organization with deep connections
to the U.S.-Israel lobby (AIPAC), an Israeli company that has been repeatedly investigated for
spying on the U.S. government (Amdocs), and the elite Israeli military intelligence unit (Unit
8200) that has used its influential connections to the U.S. government and the U.S. private
sector to dramatically shift the operations and make-up of major companies in a critical sector
of the U.S. economy.
Further consider that U.S. government documents leaked by Edward Snowden have flagged Israel
as "leading threat" to the infrastructure of U.S. financial and banking institutions, which use
much of the software produced by these top tech companies, and have also flagged Israel as a
top espionage threat. One U.S. government document cited Israel as the third most aggressive
intelligence service against the U.S. behind Russia and China. Thus, Paul Singer's pet project
in Start-Up Nation Central has undermined not only the U.S. economy but arguably U.S. national
security as well.
This concern is further exacerbated by the deep ties connecting top tech companies like
Microsoft and Google to the U.S. military. Microsoft and Google are both key military
contractors -- Microsoft in particular, given that it is set to win a lucrative contract for
the Pentagon's cloud management and has partnered with the Department of Defense to produce a
"secure" election system
known as ElectionGuard that is set to be implemented in some U.S. states for the 2020
general election.
"... Surveillance cameras are everywhere. Government agents listen in on our telephone calls and read our emails. Political correctness -- a philosophy that discourages diversity -- has become a guiding principle of modern society. ..."
"... We are increasingly ruled by multi-corporations wedded to the police state. ..."
"... What many fail to realize is that the government is not operating alone. It cannot. The government requires an accomplice. Thus, the increasingly complex security needs of the massive federal government, especially in the areas of defense, surveillance and data management, have been met within the corporate sector, which has shown itself to be a powerful ally that both depends on and feeds the growth of governmental overreach. ..."
"... In fact, Big Tech wedded to Big Government has become Big Brother, and we are now ruled by the Corporate Elite whose tentacles have spread worldwide. For example, USA Today reports that five years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the homeland security business was booming to such an extent that it eclipsed mature enterprises like movie-making and the music industry in annual revenue. This security spending to private corporations such as Google, Amazon, Microsoft and others is forecast to exceed $1 trillion in the near future. ..."
"... Everything from cell phone recordings and logs, to emails, to text messages, to personal information posted on social networking sites, to credit card statements, to library circulation records, to credit card histories, etc., is collected by the NSA and shared freely with its agents in crime: the CIA, FBI and DHS. One NSA researcher actually quit the Aquaint program, "citing concerns over the dangers in placing such a powerful weapon in the hands of a top-secret agency with little accountability." ..."
"You had to live -- did live, from habit that became instinct -- in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard,
and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized." -- George Orwell, 1984
Who could have predicted that 70 years after Orwell typed the final words to his dystopian novel, "He loved Big Brother," we would
fail to heed his warning and come to love Big Brother.
"To the future or to the past, to a time when thought is free, when men are different from one another and do not live alone
-- to a time when truth exists and what is done cannot be undone: From the age of uniformity, from the age of solitude, from the
age of Big Brother, from the age of doublethink -- greetings!" -- George Orwell
1984 portrays a global society of total control in which people are not allowed to have thoughts that in any way disagree
with the corporate state. There is no personal freedom, and advanced technology has become the driving force behind a surveillance-driven
society. Snitches and cameras are everywhere. People are subject to the Thought Police, who deal with anyone guilty of thought crimes.
The government, or "Party," is headed by Big Brother who appears on posters everywhere with the words: "Big Brother is watching
you."
We have arrived, way ahead of schedule, into the dystopian future dreamed up by not only Orwell but also such fiction writers
as Aldous Huxley, Margaret Atwood and Philip K. Dick.
"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."―George Orwell
Much like Orwell's Big Brother in 1984 , the government and its corporate spies now watch our every move. Much like Huxley's
A Brave New World , we are churning out a society of watchers who "have their liberties taken away from them, but rather enjoy
it, because they [are] distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda or brainwashing." Much like Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale
, the populace is now taught to "know their place and their duties, to understand that they have no real rights but will be protected
up to a point if they conform, and to think so poorly of themselves that
they will
accept their assigned fate and not rebel or run away ."
And in keeping with Philip K. Dick's darkly prophetic vision of a dystopian police state -- which became the basis for
Steven
Spielberg's futuristic thriller Minority Report -- we are now trapped in a world in which the government is all-seeing,
all-knowing and all-powerful, and if you dare to step out of line, dark-clad police SWAT teams and pre-crime units will crack a few
skulls to bring the populace under control.
What once seemed futuristic no longer occupies the realm of science fiction.
Incredibly, as the various nascent technologies employed and shared by the government and corporations alike -- facial recognition,
iris scanners, massive databases, behavior prediction software, and so on -- are incorporated into a complex, interwoven cyber network
aimed at tracking our movements, predicting our thoughts and controlling our behavior, the
dystopian visions of past writers is fast becoming
our reality .
"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."―George
Orwell
The courts have
shredded the Fourth Amendment's protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. In fact, SWAT teams battering down doors
without search warrants and FBI agents acting as a secret police that investigate dissenting citizens are common occurrences in contemporary
America. And bodily privacy and integrity have been utterly eviscerated by a prevailing view that Americans have no rights over what
happens to their bodies during an encounter with government officials, who are allowed to search, seize, strip, scan, spy on, probe,
pat down, taser, and arrest any individual at any time and for the slightest provocation.
"The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible
to say which was which."―George Orwell, Animal Farm
We are increasingly ruled by multi-corporations wedded to the police state.
What many fail to realize is that the government is not operating alone. It cannot. The government requires an accomplice.
Thus, the increasingly complex security needs of the massive federal government, especially in the areas of defense, surveillance
and data management, have been met within the corporate sector, which has shown itself to be a powerful ally that both depends on
and feeds the growth of governmental overreach.
In fact, Big Tech wedded to Big Government has become Big Brother, and we are now ruled by the Corporate Elite whose tentacles
have spread worldwide. For example, USA Today reports that five years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the homeland security
business was booming to such an extent that it
eclipsed mature
enterprises like movie-making and the music industry in annual revenue. This security spending to private corporations such as
Google, Amazon, Microsoft and others is
forecast to exceed
$1 trillion in the near future.
The government now has at its disposal technological arsenals so sophisticated and invasive as to render any constitutional protections
null and void. Spearheaded by the NSA, which has shown itself to care little to nothing for constitutional limits or privacy, the
"security/industrial complex" -- a marriage of government, military and corporate interests aimed at keeping Americans under constant
surveillance -- has come to dominate the government and our lives. At three times the size of the CIA, constituting one third of
the intelligence budget and with its own global spy network to boot, the NSA has a long history of spying on Americans, whether or
not it has always had the authorization to do so.
Money, power, control. There is no shortage of motives fueling the convergence of mega-corporations and government. But who is
paying the price? The American people, of course.
Orwell understood what many Americans, caught up in their partisan flag-waving, are still struggling to come to terms with: that
there is no such thing as a government organized for the good of the people. Even the best intentions among those in government inevitably
give way to the desire to maintain power and control over the citizenry at all costs. As Orwell explains:
The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power,
pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from the oligarchies of the past in that we know
what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian
Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended,
perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just around the corner there
lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know what no one ever seizes power with the intention
of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution;
one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture
is torture. The object of power is power. Now you begin to understand me.
"The further a society drifts from truth the more it will hate those who speak it." ― George Orwell
How do you change the way people think? You start by changing the words they use.
In totalitarian regimes -- a.k.a. police states -- where conformity and compliance are enforced at the end of a loaded gun, the
government dictates what words can and cannot be used. In countries where the police state hides behind a benevolent mask and disguises
itself as tolerance, the citizens censor themselves, policing their words and thoughts to conform to the dictates of the mass mind.
Dystopian literature shows what happens when the populace is transformed into mindless automatons. In
Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 , reading is banned
and books are burned in order to suppress dissenting ideas, while televised entertainment is used to anesthetize the populace and
render them easily pacified, distracted and controlled.
In Huxley's Brave New World , serious literature,
scientific thinking and experimentation are banned as subversive, while critical thinking is discouraged through the use of conditioning,
social taboos and inferior education. Likewise, expressions of individuality, independence and morality are viewed as vulgar and
abnormal.
And in Orwell's 1984 , Big Brother does
away with all undesirable and unnecessary words and meanings, even going so far as to routinely rewrite history and punish "thoughtcrimes."
In this dystopian vision of the future, the Thought Police serve as the eyes and ears of Big Brother, while the Ministry of Peace
deals with war and defense, the Ministry of Plenty deals with economic affairs (rationing and starvation), the Ministry of Love deals
with law and order (torture and brainwashing), and the Ministry of Truth deals with news, entertainment, education and art (propaganda).
The mottos of Oceania: WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, and IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.
All three -- Bradbury, Huxley and Orwell -- had an uncanny knack for realizing the future, yet it is Orwell who best understood
the power of language to manipulate the masses. Orwell's Big Brother relied on Newspeak to eliminate undesirable words, strip such
words as remained of unorthodox meanings and make independent, non-government-approved thought altogether unnecessary. To give a
single example, as psychologist Erich Fromm illustrates in his afterword to 1984 :
The word free still existed in Newspeak, but it could only be used in such statements as "This dog is free from lice" or
"This field is free from weeds." It could not be used in its old sense of "politically free" or "intellectually free," since political
and intellectual freedom no longer existed as concepts .
Where we stand now is at the juncture of OldSpeak (where words have meanings, and ideas can be dangerous) and Newspeak (where
only that which is "safe" and "accepted" by the majority is permitted). The power elite has made their intentions clear: they will
pursue and prosecute any and all words, thoughts and expressions that challenge their authority.
This is the final link in the police state chain.
"Until they became conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious." --
George Orwell
Americans have been
conditioned to accept routine incursions on their privacy rights . In fact, the addiction to screen devices -- especially cell
phones -- has created a hive effect where the populace not only watched but is controlled by AI bots. However, at one time, the idea
of a total surveillance state tracking one's every move would have been abhorrent to most Americans. That all changed with the 9/11
attacks. As professor Jeffrey Rosen observes, "Before Sept. 11, the idea that Americans would voluntarily agree to live their lives
under the gaze of a network of biometric surveillance cameras, peering at them in government buildings, shopping malls, subways and
stadiums, would have seemed unthinkable,
a dystopian fantasy of a society that
had surrendered privacy and anonymity ."
Having been reduced to a cowering citizenry -- mute in the face of elected officials who refuse to represent us, helpless in the
face of police brutality, powerless in the face of militarized tactics and technology that treat us like enemy combatants on a battlefield,
and naked in the face of government surveillance that sees and hears all -- we have nowhere left to go.
We have, so to speak, gone from being a nation where privacy is king to one where nothing is safe from the prying eyes of government.
In search of so-called terrorists and extremists hiding amongst us -- the proverbial "needle in a haystack," as one official termed
it -- the Corporate State has taken to monitoring all aspects of our lives, from cell phone calls and emails to Internet activity
and credit card transactions. Much of this data is being fed through
fusion centers across the
country, which work with the Department of Homeland Security to make threat assessments on every citizen, including school children.
These are state and regional intelligence centers that collect data on you.
"Big Brother is Watching You."―George Orwell
Wherever you go and whatever you do, you are now being watched, especially if you leave behind an electronic footprint. When you
use your cell phone, you leave a record of when the call was placed, who you called, how long it lasted and even where you were at
the time. When you use your ATM card, you leave a record of where and when you used the card. There is even a video camera at most
locations equipped with facial recognition software. When you use a cell phone or drive a car enabled with GPS, you can be tracked
by satellite. Such information is shared with government agents, including local police. And all of this once-private information
about your consumer habits, your whereabouts and your activities is now being fed to the U.S. government.
The government has nearly inexhaustible resources when it comes to tracking our movements, from electronic wiretapping devices,
traffic cameras and biometrics to radio-frequency identification cards, satellites and Internet surveillance.
Speech recognition technology now makes it possible for the government to carry out massive eavesdropping by way of sophisticated
computer systems. Phone calls can be monitored, the audio converted to text files and stored in computer databases indefinitely.
And if any "threatening" words are detected -- no matter how inane or silly -- the record can be flagged and assigned to a government
agent for further investigation. Federal and state governments, again working with private corporations, monitor your Internet content.
Users are profiled and tracked in order to identify, target and even prosecute them.
In such a climate, everyone is a suspect. And you're guilty until you can prove yourself innocent. To underscore this shift in
how the government now views its citizens, the FBI uses its wide-ranging authority to investigate individuals or groups, regardless
of whether they are suspected of criminal activity.
"Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimetres inside your skull." ― George Orwell
Here's what a lot of people fail to understand, however: it's not just what you say or do that is being monitored, but how you
think that is being tracked and targeted. We've already seen this play out on the state and federal level with hate crime
legislation that cracks down on so-called "hateful" thoughts and expression, encourages self-censoring and reduces free debate on
various subject matter.
Total Internet surveillance by the Corporate State, as omnipresent as God, is used by the government to predict and, more importantly,
control the populace, and it's not as far-fetched as you might think. For example, the NSA is now designing an artificial intelligence
system that is designed to anticipate your every move. In a nutshell, the NSA will feed vast amounts of the information it collects
to a computer system known as Aquaint (the acronym
stands for Advanced QUestion Answering for INTelligence), which the computer can then use to detect patterns and predict behavior.
No information is sacred or spared.
Everything from cell phone recordings and logs, to emails, to text messages, to personal information posted on social networking
sites, to credit card statements, to library circulation records, to credit card histories, etc., is collected by the NSA and shared
freely with its agents in crime: the CIA, FBI and DHS. One NSA researcher actually quit the Aquaint program, "citing concerns over
the dangers in placing such a powerful weapon in the hands of a top-secret agency with little accountability."
Thus, what we are witnessing, in the so-called name of security and efficiency, is the creation of a new class system comprised
of the watched (average Americans such as you and me) and the watchers (government bureaucrats, technicians and private corporations).
Clearly, the age of privacy in America is at an end.
"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face -- for ever." -- Orwell
So where does that leave us?
We now find ourselves in the unenviable position of being monitored, managed and controlled by our technology, which answers not
to us but to our government and corporate rulers. This is the fact-is-stranger-than-fiction lesson that is being pounded into us
on a daily basis.
It won't be long before we find ourselves looking back on the past with longing, back to an age where we could speak to whom we
wanted, buy what we wanted, think what we wanted without those thoughts, words and activities being tracked, processed and stored
by corporate giants such as Google, sold to government agencies such as the NSA and CIA, and used against us by militarized police
with their army of futuristic technologies.
To be an individual today, to not conform, to have even a shred of privacy, and to live beyond the reach of the government's roaming
eyes and technological spies, one must not only be a rebel but rebel.
Even when you rebel and take your stand, there is rarely a happy ending awaiting you. You are rendered an outlaw.
So how do you survive in the American surveillance state?
We're running out of options
As I make clear in my book
Battlefield America: The
War on the American People , we'll soon have to choose between self-indulgence (the bread-and-circus distractions offered
up by the news media, politicians, sports conglomerates, entertainment industry, etc.) and self-preservation in the form of renewed
vigilance about threats to our freedoms and active engagement in self-governance.
Yet as Aldous Huxley acknowledged in Brave New World Revisited : "Only the vigilant can maintain their liberties, and only
those who are constantly and intelligently on the spot can hope to govern themselves effectively by democratic procedures. A society,
most of whose members spend a great part of their time, not on the spot, not here and now and in their calculable future, but somewhere
else, in the irrelevant other worlds of sport and soap opera, of mythology and metaphysical fantasy, will find it hard to resist
the encroachments of those would manipulate and control it."
-----------------------------------------------------
The corrupt establishment will do anything to suppress sites like the Burning Platform from revealing the truth. The corporate media
does this by demonetizing sites like mine by blackballing the site from advertising revenue. If you get value from this site, please
keep it running with a donation. [Jim Quinn - PO Box 1520
Every hour taxpayers in the United States are paying $32,077,626 for
Total Cost of Wars Since 2001.
I'm going through a Department of Defense background check right now and it's not so bad. The thing is they already know everything
damn there is to know about me. How do I know this ? Because I can pull up on their computers what they already know. It's to
help guys like me pass or at least that's what they say.
They got us by the balls now . How can you fight something like this Unless you take down the whole electric grid. Only God knows
the horror that would bring.
"The further a society drifts from truth the more it will hate those who speak it." – Orwell
Galatians 4:16 KJB "Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?" – Paul
Boat Guy
It is serious concern the move from a free republic to a corporate state with armed government badge wearing just doing my
job minions existing in comfort thanks to the confiscatory tax and asset forfeiture programs in play by the circle jerk of Wall
Street to K-Street to Capitol Street .
Sadly the people of honor and integrity that could initiate a Nuremberg style justice system upon those in power and control will
quickly be stricken down by minions unaccountable thanks to nonsense like the patriot act and FISA courts . So much for the bill
of Rights that is supposed to be the impenetrable shield protecting Americans from government . Our alleged honor and oath bound
representatives have been able to turn it into Swiss cheese !
Refuse & Resist , Forget Me Not !
"... Surveillance cameras are everywhere. Government agents listen in on our telephone calls and read our emails. Political correctness -- a philosophy that discourages diversity -- has become a guiding principle of modern society. ..."
"... We are increasingly ruled by multi-corporations wedded to the police state. ..."
"... What many fail to realize is that the government is not operating alone. It cannot. The government requires an accomplice. Thus, the increasingly complex security needs of the massive federal government, especially in the areas of defense, surveillance and data management, have been met within the corporate sector, which has shown itself to be a powerful ally that both depends on and feeds the growth of governmental overreach. ..."
"... In fact, Big Tech wedded to Big Government has become Big Brother, and we are now ruled by the Corporate Elite whose tentacles have spread worldwide. For example, USA Today reports that five years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the homeland security business was booming to such an extent that it eclipsed mature enterprises like movie-making and the music industry in annual revenue. This security spending to private corporations such as Google, Amazon, Microsoft and others is forecast to exceed $1 trillion in the near future. ..."
"... Everything from cell phone recordings and logs, to emails, to text messages, to personal information posted on social networking sites, to credit card statements, to library circulation records, to credit card histories, etc., is collected by the NSA and shared freely with its agents in crime: the CIA, FBI and DHS. One NSA researcher actually quit the Aquaint program, "citing concerns over the dangers in placing such a powerful weapon in the hands of a top-secret agency with little accountability." ..."
"You had to live -- did live, from habit that became instinct -- in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard,
and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized." -- George Orwell, 1984
Who could have predicted that 70 years after Orwell typed the final words to his dystopian novel, "He loved Big Brother," we would
fail to heed his warning and come to love Big Brother.
"To the future or to the past, to a time when thought is free, when men are different from one another and do not live alone
-- to a time when truth exists and what is done cannot be undone: From the age of uniformity, from the age of solitude, from the
age of Big Brother, from the age of doublethink -- greetings!" -- George Orwell
1984 portrays a global society of total control in which people are not allowed to have thoughts that in any way disagree
with the corporate state. There is no personal freedom, and advanced technology has become the driving force behind a surveillance-driven
society. Snitches and cameras are everywhere. People are subject to the Thought Police, who deal with anyone guilty of thought crimes.
The government, or "Party," is headed by Big Brother who appears on posters everywhere with the words: "Big Brother is watching
you."
We have arrived, way ahead of schedule, into the dystopian future dreamed up by not only Orwell but also such fiction writers
as Aldous Huxley, Margaret Atwood and Philip K. Dick.
"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."―George Orwell
Much like Orwell's Big Brother in 1984 , the government and its corporate spies now watch our every move. Much like Huxley's
A Brave New World , we are churning out a society of watchers who "have their liberties taken away from them, but rather enjoy
it, because they [are] distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda or brainwashing." Much like Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale
, the populace is now taught to "know their place and their duties, to understand that they have no real rights but will be protected
up to a point if they conform, and to think so poorly of themselves that
they will
accept their assigned fate and not rebel or run away ."
And in keeping with Philip K. Dick's darkly prophetic vision of a dystopian police state -- which became the basis for
Steven
Spielberg's futuristic thriller Minority Report -- we are now trapped in a world in which the government is all-seeing,
all-knowing and all-powerful, and if you dare to step out of line, dark-clad police SWAT teams and pre-crime units will crack a few
skulls to bring the populace under control.
What once seemed futuristic no longer occupies the realm of science fiction.
Incredibly, as the various nascent technologies employed and shared by the government and corporations alike -- facial recognition,
iris scanners, massive databases, behavior prediction software, and so on -- are incorporated into a complex, interwoven cyber network
aimed at tracking our movements, predicting our thoughts and controlling our behavior, the
dystopian visions of past writers is fast becoming
our reality .
"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."―George
Orwell
The courts have
shredded the Fourth Amendment's protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. In fact, SWAT teams battering down doors
without search warrants and FBI agents acting as a secret police that investigate dissenting citizens are common occurrences in contemporary
America. And bodily privacy and integrity have been utterly eviscerated by a prevailing view that Americans have no rights over what
happens to their bodies during an encounter with government officials, who are allowed to search, seize, strip, scan, spy on, probe,
pat down, taser, and arrest any individual at any time and for the slightest provocation.
"The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible
to say which was which."―George Orwell, Animal Farm
We are increasingly ruled by multi-corporations wedded to the police state.
What many fail to realize is that the government is not operating alone. It cannot. The government requires an accomplice.
Thus, the increasingly complex security needs of the massive federal government, especially in the areas of defense, surveillance
and data management, have been met within the corporate sector, which has shown itself to be a powerful ally that both depends on
and feeds the growth of governmental overreach.
In fact, Big Tech wedded to Big Government has become Big Brother, and we are now ruled by the Corporate Elite whose tentacles
have spread worldwide. For example, USA Today reports that five years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the homeland security
business was booming to such an extent that it
eclipsed mature
enterprises like movie-making and the music industry in annual revenue. This security spending to private corporations such as
Google, Amazon, Microsoft and others is
forecast to exceed
$1 trillion in the near future.
The government now has at its disposal technological arsenals so sophisticated and invasive as to render any constitutional protections
null and void. Spearheaded by the NSA, which has shown itself to care little to nothing for constitutional limits or privacy, the
"security/industrial complex" -- a marriage of government, military and corporate interests aimed at keeping Americans under constant
surveillance -- has come to dominate the government and our lives. At three times the size of the CIA, constituting one third of
the intelligence budget and with its own global spy network to boot, the NSA has a long history of spying on Americans, whether or
not it has always had the authorization to do so.
Money, power, control. There is no shortage of motives fueling the convergence of mega-corporations and government. But who is
paying the price? The American people, of course.
Orwell understood what many Americans, caught up in their partisan flag-waving, are still struggling to come to terms with: that
there is no such thing as a government organized for the good of the people. Even the best intentions among those in government inevitably
give way to the desire to maintain power and control over the citizenry at all costs. As Orwell explains:
The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power,
pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from the oligarchies of the past in that we know
what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian
Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended,
perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just around the corner there
lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know what no one ever seizes power with the intention
of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution;
one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture
is torture. The object of power is power. Now you begin to understand me.
"The further a society drifts from truth the more it will hate those who speak it." ― George Orwell
How do you change the way people think? You start by changing the words they use.
In totalitarian regimes -- a.k.a. police states -- where conformity and compliance are enforced at the end of a loaded gun, the
government dictates what words can and cannot be used. In countries where the police state hides behind a benevolent mask and disguises
itself as tolerance, the citizens censor themselves, policing their words and thoughts to conform to the dictates of the mass mind.
Dystopian literature shows what happens when the populace is transformed into mindless automatons. In
Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 , reading is banned
and books are burned in order to suppress dissenting ideas, while televised entertainment is used to anesthetize the populace and
render them easily pacified, distracted and controlled.
In Huxley's Brave New World , serious literature,
scientific thinking and experimentation are banned as subversive, while critical thinking is discouraged through the use of conditioning,
social taboos and inferior education. Likewise, expressions of individuality, independence and morality are viewed as vulgar and
abnormal.
And in Orwell's 1984 , Big Brother does
away with all undesirable and unnecessary words and meanings, even going so far as to routinely rewrite history and punish "thoughtcrimes."
In this dystopian vision of the future, the Thought Police serve as the eyes and ears of Big Brother, while the Ministry of Peace
deals with war and defense, the Ministry of Plenty deals with economic affairs (rationing and starvation), the Ministry of Love deals
with law and order (torture and brainwashing), and the Ministry of Truth deals with news, entertainment, education and art (propaganda).
The mottos of Oceania: WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, and IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.
All three -- Bradbury, Huxley and Orwell -- had an uncanny knack for realizing the future, yet it is Orwell who best understood
the power of language to manipulate the masses. Orwell's Big Brother relied on Newspeak to eliminate undesirable words, strip such
words as remained of unorthodox meanings and make independent, non-government-approved thought altogether unnecessary. To give a
single example, as psychologist Erich Fromm illustrates in his afterword to 1984 :
The word free still existed in Newspeak, but it could only be used in such statements as "This dog is free from lice" or
"This field is free from weeds." It could not be used in its old sense of "politically free" or "intellectually free," since political
and intellectual freedom no longer existed as concepts .
Where we stand now is at the juncture of OldSpeak (where words have meanings, and ideas can be dangerous) and Newspeak (where
only that which is "safe" and "accepted" by the majority is permitted). The power elite has made their intentions clear: they will
pursue and prosecute any and all words, thoughts and expressions that challenge their authority.
This is the final link in the police state chain.
"Until they became conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious." --
George Orwell
Americans have been
conditioned to accept routine incursions on their privacy rights . In fact, the addiction to screen devices -- especially cell
phones -- has created a hive effect where the populace not only watched but is controlled by AI bots. However, at one time, the idea
of a total surveillance state tracking one's every move would have been abhorrent to most Americans. That all changed with the 9/11
attacks. As professor Jeffrey Rosen observes, "Before Sept. 11, the idea that Americans would voluntarily agree to live their lives
under the gaze of a network of biometric surveillance cameras, peering at them in government buildings, shopping malls, subways and
stadiums, would have seemed unthinkable,
a dystopian fantasy of a society that
had surrendered privacy and anonymity ."
Having been reduced to a cowering citizenry -- mute in the face of elected officials who refuse to represent us, helpless in the
face of police brutality, powerless in the face of militarized tactics and technology that treat us like enemy combatants on a battlefield,
and naked in the face of government surveillance that sees and hears all -- we have nowhere left to go.
We have, so to speak, gone from being a nation where privacy is king to one where nothing is safe from the prying eyes of government.
In search of so-called terrorists and extremists hiding amongst us -- the proverbial "needle in a haystack," as one official termed
it -- the Corporate State has taken to monitoring all aspects of our lives, from cell phone calls and emails to Internet activity
and credit card transactions. Much of this data is being fed through
fusion centers across the
country, which work with the Department of Homeland Security to make threat assessments on every citizen, including school children.
These are state and regional intelligence centers that collect data on you.
"Big Brother is Watching You."―George Orwell
Wherever you go and whatever you do, you are now being watched, especially if you leave behind an electronic footprint. When you
use your cell phone, you leave a record of when the call was placed, who you called, how long it lasted and even where you were at
the time. When you use your ATM card, you leave a record of where and when you used the card. There is even a video camera at most
locations equipped with facial recognition software. When you use a cell phone or drive a car enabled with GPS, you can be tracked
by satellite. Such information is shared with government agents, including local police. And all of this once-private information
about your consumer habits, your whereabouts and your activities is now being fed to the U.S. government.
The government has nearly inexhaustible resources when it comes to tracking our movements, from electronic wiretapping devices,
traffic cameras and biometrics to radio-frequency identification cards, satellites and Internet surveillance.
Speech recognition technology now makes it possible for the government to carry out massive eavesdropping by way of sophisticated
computer systems. Phone calls can be monitored, the audio converted to text files and stored in computer databases indefinitely.
And if any "threatening" words are detected -- no matter how inane or silly -- the record can be flagged and assigned to a government
agent for further investigation. Federal and state governments, again working with private corporations, monitor your Internet content.
Users are profiled and tracked in order to identify, target and even prosecute them.
In such a climate, everyone is a suspect. And you're guilty until you can prove yourself innocent. To underscore this shift in
how the government now views its citizens, the FBI uses its wide-ranging authority to investigate individuals or groups, regardless
of whether they are suspected of criminal activity.
"Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimetres inside your skull." ― George Orwell
Here's what a lot of people fail to understand, however: it's not just what you say or do that is being monitored, but how you
think that is being tracked and targeted. We've already seen this play out on the state and federal level with hate crime
legislation that cracks down on so-called "hateful" thoughts and expression, encourages self-censoring and reduces free debate on
various subject matter.
Total Internet surveillance by the Corporate State, as omnipresent as God, is used by the government to predict and, more importantly,
control the populace, and it's not as far-fetched as you might think. For example, the NSA is now designing an artificial intelligence
system that is designed to anticipate your every move. In a nutshell, the NSA will feed vast amounts of the information it collects
to a computer system known as Aquaint (the acronym
stands for Advanced QUestion Answering for INTelligence), which the computer can then use to detect patterns and predict behavior.
No information is sacred or spared.
Everything from cell phone recordings and logs, to emails, to text messages, to personal information posted on social networking
sites, to credit card statements, to library circulation records, to credit card histories, etc., is collected by the NSA and shared
freely with its agents in crime: the CIA, FBI and DHS. One NSA researcher actually quit the Aquaint program, "citing concerns over
the dangers in placing such a powerful weapon in the hands of a top-secret agency with little accountability."
Thus, what we are witnessing, in the so-called name of security and efficiency, is the creation of a new class system comprised
of the watched (average Americans such as you and me) and the watchers (government bureaucrats, technicians and private corporations).
Clearly, the age of privacy in America is at an end.
"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face -- for ever." -- Orwell
So where does that leave us?
We now find ourselves in the unenviable position of being monitored, managed and controlled by our technology, which answers not
to us but to our government and corporate rulers. This is the fact-is-stranger-than-fiction lesson that is being pounded into us
on a daily basis.
It won't be long before we find ourselves looking back on the past with longing, back to an age where we could speak to whom we
wanted, buy what we wanted, think what we wanted without those thoughts, words and activities being tracked, processed and stored
by corporate giants such as Google, sold to government agencies such as the NSA and CIA, and used against us by militarized police
with their army of futuristic technologies.
To be an individual today, to not conform, to have even a shred of privacy, and to live beyond the reach of the government's roaming
eyes and technological spies, one must not only be a rebel but rebel.
Even when you rebel and take your stand, there is rarely a happy ending awaiting you. You are rendered an outlaw.
So how do you survive in the American surveillance state?
We're running out of options
As I make clear in my book
Battlefield America: The
War on the American People , we'll soon have to choose between self-indulgence (the bread-and-circus distractions offered
up by the news media, politicians, sports conglomerates, entertainment industry, etc.) and self-preservation in the form of renewed
vigilance about threats to our freedoms and active engagement in self-governance.
Yet as Aldous Huxley acknowledged in Brave New World Revisited : "Only the vigilant can maintain their liberties, and only
those who are constantly and intelligently on the spot can hope to govern themselves effectively by democratic procedures. A society,
most of whose members spend a great part of their time, not on the spot, not here and now and in their calculable future, but somewhere
else, in the irrelevant other worlds of sport and soap opera, of mythology and metaphysical fantasy, will find it hard to resist
the encroachments of those would manipulate and control it."
-----------------------------------------------------
The corrupt establishment will do anything to suppress sites like the Burning Platform from revealing the truth. The corporate media
does this by demonetizing sites like mine by blackballing the site from advertising revenue. If you get value from this site, please
keep it running with a donation. [Jim Quinn - PO Box 1520
Every hour taxpayers in the United States are paying $32,077,626 for
Total Cost of Wars Since 2001.
I'm going through a Department of Defense background check right now and it's not so bad. The thing is they already know everything
damn there is to know about me. How do I know this ? Because I can pull up on their computers what they already know. It's to
help guys like me pass or at least that's what they say.
They got us by the balls now . How can you fight something like this Unless you take down the whole electric grid. Only God knows
the horror that would bring.
"The further a society drifts from truth the more it will hate those who speak it." – Orwell
Galatians 4:16 KJB "Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?" – Paul
Boat Guy
It is serious concern the move from a free republic to a corporate state with armed government badge wearing just doing my
job minions existing in comfort thanks to the confiscatory tax and asset forfeiture programs in play by the circle jerk of Wall
Street to K-Street to Capitol Street .
Sadly the people of honor and integrity that could initiate a Nuremberg style justice system upon those in power and control will
quickly be stricken down by minions unaccountable thanks to nonsense like the patriot act and FISA courts . So much for the bill
of Rights that is supposed to be the impenetrable shield protecting Americans from government . Our alleged honor and oath bound
representatives have been able to turn it into Swiss cheese !
Refuse & Resist , Forget Me Not !
Looks like PP damage the USA will sustain from prosecuting Assange will be comparable if not greater that initial damage
from WikiLeaks. This also might stimulate "revenge disclosures"
Notable quotes:
"... CNN never mentioned that Clapper was accused of perjury in denying the existence of the National Security Agency surveillance program and was personally implicated in the scandal that WikiLeaks triggered. ..."
"... this is Washington and people like Clapper are untouchable ..."
Right now, the U.S. regime is raising to a fever-pitch and
twisting beyond recognition not only U.S. laws but the U.S. Constitution, so as to impose its will against him. President Trump is
supported in this effort by the corrupt U.S. Congress, to either end Assange's life, or else lock him up for the rest of his heroic
life in a dungeon having no communication with the world outside, until he does finally die, in isolation, punishment for his heroic
last-ditch fight for the public's freedom and for democracy -- his fight, actually, against our 1984 regime.
What Jesus of Nazareth
was locally for the Roman regime in his region, Assange is for the U.S. regime throughout the world: an example to terrify anyone
else who might come forth effectively to challenge the Emperor's authority.
A key country in this operation is Ecuador, which is
ruled by the dictator Lenin Moreno, who stole office by lying to the public and pretending to be a progressive who backed his democratically
elected predecessor, Rafael Correa, but then as soon as he won power, he reversed Correa's progressive initiatives, including, above
all, his protection of Assange, who had sought refuge in the Ecuadoran Embassy in London.
On 11 April 2019, RT headlined "Who is Lenin Moreno and why did he hand Assange
over to British police?" and reported that: Following his 2017 election, Moreno quickly moved away from his election platform
after taking office. He reversed several key pieces of legislation passed under his predecessor which targeted the wealthy and the
banks. He also reversed a referendum decision on indefinite re-election while simultaneously blocking any potential for Correa to
return. He effectively purged many of Correa's appointments to key positions in Ecuador's judiciary and National Electoral Council
via the CPCCS-T council which boasts supra-constitutional powers.
Moreno has also cozied up to the US, with whom Ecuador had a strained
relationship under Correa. Following a visit from Vice President Mike Pence in June 2018, Ecuador bolstered its security cooperation
with the US, including major arms deals, training exercises and intelligence sharing. Following Assange's arrest Correa, who granted
Assange asylum in the first place, described Moreno as the "greatest traitor in Ecuadorian and Latin American history"
saying
he was guilty of a "crime that humanity will never forget."
Despite his overwhelming power and influence, however, Moreno
and his family are the subject of a sweeping corruption probe in the country, as he faces down accusations of money laundering in
offshore accounts and shell companies in Panama, including the INA Investment Corp, which is owned by Moreno's brother.
Damning images,
purportedly hacked from Moreno's phone, have irreparably damaged both his attempts at establishing himself as an anti-corruption
champion as well as his relationship with Assange, whom he accused of coordinating the hacking efforts.
On 14 April 2019, Denis Rogatyuk at The
Gray Zone headlined: "Sell Out: How Corruption, Voter Fraud and a Neoliberal Turn Led Ecuador's Lenin to Give Up Assange Desperate
to ingratiate his government with Washington and distract the public from his mounting scandals, Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno
has sacrificed Julian Assange – and his country's independence" , and he described some of the documentation for the accusations
that Moreno is corrupt. On 12 April 2019, Zero Hedge headlined
"Facebook Removes Page Of Ecuador's Former President On Same Day As Assange's Arrest"
, and opened: "Facebook has unpublished
the page of Ecuador's former president, Rafael Correa, the social media giant confirmed on Thursday, claiming that the popular leftist
leader violated the company's security policies."
On 16 April 2019, Jonathan Turley bannered
"'He Is Our Property': The D.C. Establishment Awaits Assange With A Glee And Grudge"
, and opened: They will punish Assange for
their sins The key to prosecuting Assange has always been to punish him without again embarrassing the powerful figures made mockeries
by his disclosures. That means to keep him from discussing how the U.S. government concealed alleged war crimes and huge civilian
losses, the type of disclosures that were made in the famous Pentagon Papers case.
He cannot discuss how Democratic and Republican
members either were complicit or incompetent in their oversight. He cannot discuss how the public was lied to about the program.
A glimpse of that artificial scope was seen within minutes of the arrest. CNN brought on its national security analyst, James Clapper,
former director of national intelligence.
CNN never mentioned that Clapper was accused of perjury in denying the existence of the
National Security Agency surveillance program and was personally implicated in the scandal that WikiLeaks triggered. Clapper was
asked directly before Congress, "Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?"
Clapper responded, "No, sir. Not wittingly." Later, Clapper said his testimony was "the least untruthful" statement he
could make.
That would still make it a lie, of course, but this is Washington and people like Clapper are untouchable. In the view
of the establishment, Assange is the problem.
On 11 April 2019, the YouGov polling organization headlined
"53% of Americans say Julian Assange should be extradited to America"
. On 13 April 2019, I headlined "What Public Opinion on
Assange Tells Us About the US Government Direction", and reported the only international poll that had ever been done of opinions
about Assange, and its findings demonstrated that, out of the 23 nations which were surveyed, U.S. was the only one where the public
are anti-Assange, and that the difference between the U.S. and all of the others was enormous and stark.
The report opened: The only
extensive poll of public opinion regarding Julian Assange or Wikileaks was Reuters/Ipsos on 26 April 2011,
"WikiLeaks' Julian Assange
is not a criminal: global poll" , and it sampled around a thousand individuals in each of 23 countries -- a total of 18,829 respondents.
The Reuters news-report was vague, and not linked to any detailed presentation of the poll-findings, but it did say that "US respondents
had a far more critical view" against Wikileaks than in any other country, and that the view by Americans was 69% "believing
Assange should be charged and 61 percent opposing WikiLeaks' mission."
Buried elsewhere on the Web was this detailed presentation
of Ipsos's findings in that poll
: Oppose Wikileaks: 61% US 38% UK 33% Canada 32% Poland 32% Belgium 31% Saudi Arabia 30% Japan 30% France 27% Indonesia 26% Italy
25% Germany 24% Sweden 24% Australia 22% Hungary 22% Brazil 21% Turkey 21% S. Korea 16% Mexico 16% Argentina 15% Spain 15% Russia
15% India 12% S. Africa
Is the US a democracy if the regime is so effective in gripping the minds of its public as to make them hostile
to the strongest fighter for their freedom and democracy?
Assange has been charged in the Eastern District of Virginia -- the so-called "Espionage Court." That
is just what many of us have feared. Remember, no national security defendant has ever been found not guilty in the Eastern District
of Virginia. The Eastern District is also known as the "rocket docket" for the swiftness with which cases are heard and decided.
Not ready to mount a defense? Need more time? Haven't received all of your discovery? Tough luck. See you in court. I have
long predicted that Assange would face Judge Leonie Brinkema were he to be charged in the Eastern District. Brinkema handled my case,
as well as CIA whistleblower Jeffrey Sterling's. She also has reserved the Ed Snowden case for herself. Brinkema is a hanging judge.
> Transportation: "A new analysis suggests Uber Freight's growing role in shipping is
coming at a heavy cost to the business . Morgan Stanley writes in a note initiating
coverage of Uber Technologies Inc. that the Freight unit turns back some 99% of its revenue
to trucking companies . an analysis suggesting Uber is undercutting its brokerage competitors
as it gains market share"
This is how Uber is like Amazon. A short excerpt from a long read .
In particular, current law underappreciates the risk of predatory pricing and how
integration across distinct business lines may prove anticompetitive. These concerns are
heightened in the context of online platforms for two reasons. First, the economics of
platform markets incentivize the pursuit of growth over profits, a strategy that investors
have rewarded .
Under these conditions predatory pricing becomes highly rational --
even as existing doctrine treats it as irrational.
Second, because online platforms serve
as critical intermediaries, integrating across business lines positions these platforms
to control the essential infrastructure on which their rivals depend.
This dual role also
enables a platform to exploit information collected on companies using its services to
undermine them as competitors .
Transportation executives should be crapping their pants upon the realization that the
nearly unlimited funds backing Uber won't run out before they get taken out.
"... India has tightened the noose on E-retailers and America should too. ..."
"... By far the worst abuser of the current e-commerce system here in America is Amazon which has developed strong ties with the government. Amazon has even incorporated a complacent United States Postal Service in expanding their advantage over businesses by delivering Amazon packages at a discount and even on Sunday. ..."
"... Amazon effectively put a halt on the big box store sprawl that was happening all across America from the late 1980's to the early 2010's. I'll take Amazon and a healthy competitor (Coke needs Pepsi) over a Walmart every 4.5 miles in every direction. ..."
India has tightened the noose on E-retailers and America should too. Understanding the
value of brick and mortar stores to local communities India has placed several restrictions
on E-retailers in order to level the playing field and make things fair.
By far the worst abuser of the current e-commerce system here in America is Amazon which
has developed strong ties with the government. Amazon has even incorporated a complacent
United States Postal Service in expanding their advantage over businesses by delivering
Amazon packages at a discount and even on Sunday.
To make matters worse state and local governments have put special packages together with
incentives aimed at luring Amazon to build in their areas oblivious to the damage it will
cause in coming years. More about what India is doing and what we can do in the article
below.
Amazon effectively put a halt on the big box store sprawl that was happening all across
America from the late 1980's to the early 2010's. I'll take Amazon and a healthy competitor
(Coke needs Pepsi) over a Walmart every 4.5 miles in every direction.
The US government has a tendency to hijack and weaponize revolutionary innovations, Edward
Snowden said, noting that the natural human desire to communicate with others is now being
exploited on an unprecedented scale. "Our utopian vision for the future is never guaranteed
to be realized," Snowden told the audience in Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada via
live stream from Moscow this week, stressing that the US government "corrupted our
knowledge... towards a military purpose."
They took our nuclear capability and transformed it into the most horrible weapon that
the world had ever witnessed. And we're seeing an atomic moment of computer science... Its
reach is unlimited... but its safeguards are not!
The whistleblower, who in 2013 leaked a trove of highly classified information about global
spying operations by the National Security Agency, argued that, armed with modern technology
and with the help of social media and tech giants, governments are becoming
"all-powerful" in their ability to monitor, analyze, and influence behavior.
It's through the use of new platforms and algorithms that are built on and around these
capabilities that they are able to shift our behavior. In some cases, they are able to
predict our decisions and also nudge them to different outcomes.
The natural human need for "belonging" is being exploited and users voluntarily
consent to surrender virtually all of their data by signing carefully drafted user agreements
that no one bothers to read. "Everything has hundreds and hundreds of pages of legal jargon
that we're not qualified to read and assess and yet they are considered binding upon us,"
Snowden said.
And now these institutions, which are both commercial and governmental... have
structuralized and entrenched it to where it has become now the most effective means of
social control in the history of our species.
Recently I came across
this
story
by Todd Haselton that describes how the author located an obscure
"purchases"
page
in his Google account settings and there found a methodical list of his online purchasing history, from third-party outside
vendors, going back to 2o12.
The upshot of the story was that:
Google saves years of information on purchases you've made, even outside Google, and pulls this information from
Gmail.
It's complicated to delete this private information, and options to turn it off are hidden in privacy settings.
Google says it doesn't use this information to sell you ads.
Naturally, I flagged this story for the next edition of our
#AxisOfEasy
newsletter
. Haselton reports that it isn't easy to locate and delete this information, nor is there a straight-forward
path to find it in your privacy settings to disable this behaviour.
This can't be true (can it?)
The more I thought about this the more I thought "this can't be true". I apologize for doubting Haselton, but I thought he
had
to
have it wrong, that maybe he had a stored credit card in his browser that he had forgotten or something, because the
ramifications if true, are dire.
First, it means that in order to isolate and parse purchases, Google must then be scanning
every email
, otherwise,
how would they know what's a purchase and what isn't?
Further, if they were scanning every email for purchases, what
else
where they scanning for? Either now, or in the
future? The important mechanism, the infrastructure and methodology to scan and parse every inbound email is clearly in place
and operational now, adding additional criterion is just a matter of tweaking the parameters.
Then, there is the matter that Google is doing this without informing their users. We can probably wager that there is
buried down the rabbit hole of the ToS some clause that alludes to the possibility that Google reserves the right from time to
time (including all the time) to do something or another with your email that may or may not involve machine reading it and
dissecting it for your behavioural patterns; none of us have ever read it.
More importantly, it didn't require an
explicit opt-in
to fire it up.
[ As a belated aside – everybody in tech already knew that the point of Gmail was it was free, and they would scan the
contents to target ads. At some point I think they may have announced that they stopped doing that, I can't remember. But the
vast majority of normies (defined as people who don't dream in XML), don't realize this, or haven't given it much thought.
However this, parsing out financial transaction data specifically, takes it to a new level.]
I've personally verified this is happening
As I said, I initially thought that Haselton had perhaps stored credit cards in his Chrome browser and his purchase history
was being populated from
that.
I still couldn't believe that Google was in essence reading your email and cataloging
your purchases on it's own.
My Google purchases page existed, but was empty. To test it, I configured my gmail account (which I barely use, for
anything other than Google news alerts) to receive any email from my Amazon account. None of my web browsers have any credit
cards stored. Then I went and picked up a new audiobook.
Sure enough within
seconds
, my heretofore empty purchases page, suddenly had an entry:
Hovering over the "info" icon anticipates the question,
how did this get here?
And so we click to find out
We get it from Google's mouth:
"This purchase was
found
in
your
Gmail" (emphasis added, because properly rendered it should read "
We
found this financial
transaction sifting through
your
email").
Why this is problematic
Before this revelation, I was already habitually remarking how it simply astounded me whenever I came across a law firm, or
an investment fund, or medical professional, or financial services firm, or any outfit that r
