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9532. bhelpuri - 7/2/2013 1:48:02 PM 
9533. bhelpuri - 7/2/2013 1:52:44 PM FYI, that is the Muslim Brotherhood logo. Extraordinary failure in politics in just a few short months... 9534. vonKreedon - 7/2/2013 5:52:05 PM As Bhel says, the failure of US citizens to respond to the ongoing revelations about government surveillance, political IRS scrutiny, and lying about same is really depressing. I'm particularly stunned that Clapper still has a job as DNI after baldly lying to the Senate in response to a question from Sen. Wyden, answer that both Clapper and Wyden knew at the time to be a lie.
9535. Wombat - 7/3/2013 12:58:29 AM Boy, go away for a few weeks and miss the return of Pincher Martin. I've always respected his debating skills (compared to Concerned and Acey, anyway). Like many, he seems to have become embittered.
With the advent of the Internet and the propagation of sites such as facebook, most Americans have become complicit in the loss of their privacy. For those who are upset with the NSA holding telephone metadata with the capacity to access internet data, are you as concerned with private entities holding the same data and using it with no oversight or accountability for their own ends?
Updating privacy and surveillance legislation to reflect the massive increase and propagation of personal information would be a good thing (although unlikely to happen, since one political party seems to have degenerated to Concerned-like poo-flinging as their political strategy).
So too would be a debate on whether the risks of a major terrorist incident outweighs costs to privacy and potential for abuse. That too is unlikely to happen any time soon. 9536. vonKreedon - 7/3/2013 1:02:32 AM The Snowden affair surfaced a chilling phrase that I'm afraid neatly summarizes our danger: Turnkey Tyranny.
And another thing, when did The Mote implement spell checking? 9537. Wombat - 7/3/2013 1:19:02 AM It's only "tyranny" if the government actually abuses its legislatively-arrived-at capability (which it probably will at some point). Until then we have the soft tyranny of cookies and other forms of consumer data tracking, car rental agencies using GPS data, etc. 9538. vonKreedon - 7/3/2013 2:26:02 AM Yes, thus its "turnkey" nature. 9539. arkymalarky - 7/3/2013 2:39:01 AM as a long time employee of the NSA as a cryptanalyst, my dad had an interesting take on the whole situation. So, interestingly, did Wanda Sykes, who spoke about her employment with NSA on Jay Leno. Dad's point was that the NSA has always gathered the maximum amount of information they possibly could, and that it's kind of the nature of the beast--that it's been called No Such Agency virtually from its inception. Wanda Sykes had no support for Snowden.
I've been concerned about corporate control and corporate contracts for a long time before this came about. The corporatization of almost everything and the increased privatization of crucial government services is IMO the most dangerous threat to the US. But who protests that? It took decades of repression and a host of converging factors to result in the recent revolutions and the new governments are going to be vulnerable. But Americans day to day enjoy free speech and a sense of opportunity and control of their own destinies. It's the boiling frog here. Arkansas' legislature is brought to us by the Koch brothers and IMO Citizens United is just one aspect of a huge crisis. And I don't think crisis is hyperbole. 9540. arkymalarky - 7/3/2013 2:40:53 AM Vk the spell check is probably coming from your browser. My spelling sure isn't being checked. 9541. arkymalarky - 7/3/2013 2:53:09 AM as a long time employee of the NSA as a cryptanalyst, my dad had an interesting take on the whole situation. So, interestingly, did Wanda Sykes, who spoke about her employment with NSA on Jay Leno. Dad's point was that the NSA has always gathered the maximum amount of information they possibly could, and that it's kind of the nature of the beast--that it's been called No Such Agency virtually from its inception. Wanda Sykes had no support for Snowden.
I've been concerned about corporate control and corporate contracts for a long time before this came about. The corporatization of almost everything and the increased privatization of crucial government services is IMO the most dangerous threat to the US. But who protests that? It took decades of repression and a host of converging factors to result in the recent revolutions and the new governments are going to be vulnerable. But Americans day to day enjoy free speech and a sense of opportunity and control of their own destinies. It's the boiling frog here. Arkansas' legislature is brought to us by the Koch brothers and IMO Citizens United is just one aspect of a huge crisis. And I don't think crisis is hyperbole. 9542. arkymalarky - 7/3/2013 2:53:09 AM I've done a lot of research on corporate influence on public education, but when you try to address it you feel like Chicken Little. And they keep people so busy chasing individual issues while they haul everything away that no one gains any ground. It's like a burglar setting off all your smoke detectors and robbing you blind while you look for fires. I frantically bombarded poor Spudboy with all this when I first became aware of it, but it's hard to know where to even start with such a pervasive trend. Even people who mean well like Bill Gates are risking some of our most successful and important institutions. And you won't find liberal politicians and journalists very helpful. And even mass protests don't help because the powers that be don't have anything to lose by being non responsive. 9543. bhelpuri - 7/3/2013 8:07:39 AM are you as concerned with private entities holding the same data and using it with no oversight or accountability for their own ends
It's a dissimilar concern, which I don't buy as a mitigating factor.
Speaking only for myself, I am not surprised that this had been going on or even the full extent of its (extraordinary) scale. What does raise my eyebrows is the degree of complicity between the US-based corporations and the intelligence infrastructure. Turns out they've been fully in cahoots from the beginning. Turns out that companies like Facebook + Google would never have become as big and pervasive as they have without co-operation, and probably the specific backing of the security state. In this and many other ways, the US is revealed to be very much like China after all!
And that last is a blow. You will definitely see a surge away from this giant US-based multinationals in the coming year, without a doubt, it's just that most of this will happen with their clients outside the US. I suspect this will add up to a rare investment opportunity in Internet and telecom companies in Europe, Asia...
9544. bhelpuri - 7/3/2013 8:18:34 AM The corporatization of almost everything and the increased privatization of crucial government services is IMO the most dangerous threat to the US.
I definitely agree it is the biggest threat to the oft-touted American "way of life", and "American values." It's crazy how docile and sheeplike this once-robust democratic polity has become.
And even mass protests don't help because the powers that be don't have anything to lose by being non responsive.
Here I don't agree, at all. In fact mass protests, civil disobedience, do help, and in the end are probably the only way that the United States can start to beat back their own highly predatory, extraordinarily selfish elites. A million people on the streets every day in just one American city would shake the government to its foundations, possibly permanently strip the layer of legitimacy that is given to the status quo. It has happened before, it happens that way all over the world (see Egypt for reference), and you just can't expect any real change in the US unless it happens again. 9545. bhelpuri - 7/3/2013 8:21:59 AM An interesting thought - once the Latino-ization of the US reaches truly substantial critical mass, let's say 40% of the electorate, then you could well see a different kind of politics being pursued than the current two-parties-one-voice shadow boxing. Veneceremos! 9546. bhelpuri - 7/3/2013 8:50:09 AM I agree with Arky that this kind of activity is actually the nature of the beast. But the beast is now a curious multi-headed hybrid of corporate civilians, government employees and the military that adds up to something really extraordinary and powerful. Immediately after these revelations, various cases came to mind: the Spitzer fall, the Petraeus affair. How did these guys get busted - tiny little bits of information that they thought had been deeply buried in the "information superhighway." Both have and had huge political enemies, and faced opposition from gargantuan vested interests. Was the current administration complicit in bringing them down via surveillance? Was it a separate entity pursuing its own agenda? You all have known me here for years as really not a conspiracy theorist of any kind, but in these and other cases it is difficult to ignore the dotted lines.
It's a crisis, and a crossroads moment. I think the US reaction to this information is very very critical to the future of the country, and certainly its image abroad. 9547. bhelpuri - 7/3/2013 8:50:37 AM sorry! 9548. Wombat - 7/3/2013 2:50:46 PM Bhel,
The flip side of the pervasiveness of personal data collection and tracking by nongovernmental bodies is convenience and portability. Previously complicated transactions and necessary information-sharing can now be accomplished in seconds with a few key strokes. Anyone who uses on-line banking knows this (and they should be aware that there is the capacity for others to track their activities).
9549. arkymalarky - 7/3/2013 5:17:45 PM But if governments are attempting to hack each others systems and institutions like banks are vulnerable to legitimate and purposeful tampering, then what happens to the people who depend on these systems in the event of a breakdown, intentional or otherwise? If WWIII is a cyber war it could break out with no warning and devastate almost everyone. This means we've become so blindly dependent on a corporate controlled infrastructure that a systemic shift the other way may be almost impossible already.
The reason I said mass protests are futile Bhel is because these big multinationals would be unaffected and don't give two shits what any group thinks. What impact would they have? 9550. arkymalarky - 7/3/2013 5:24:16 PM And many of the most concerning ones contract with the government. I don't think it's about Facebook or amazon or even Google. It's not about personal data collection or data mining. It's about the entire edifice and how embedded into it we all are. Government has a duty to control this and instead it has embraced and itself become dependent on corporate contracts of high tech services. 9551. arkymalarky - 7/3/2013 5:30:31 PM I'm not a conspiracy theorist either, though I definitely wear a tinfoil hat on this issue; but what concerns me more than even a conspiracy is that no one is minding the store which means each entity, whether government (any nation, not just the US) or corporate, has its own agenda and is trying to drive different outcomes. Which means possible endagmes are hard to even visualize, much less predict.
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