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Pentagon Soft-Pedals Total Information Awareness
PizzaFace writes "Congress was concerned that the Pentagon's 'Total Information Awareness' program would invade citizens' privacy, so it gave the program the red light until the Pentagon addressed Congress's privacy concerns. DARPA, the Pentagon technology agency that brought us the Internet in more innocent times, showed its Total Marketing Awareness by renaming the TIA program, 'Terrorism Information Awareness.' The gist of its report seems to be that data may be collected from everyone, but it will only be used against evildoers. You can read DARPA's report and a background story from the Washington Post."
'You're a terrorist' in the US is starting to carry the same weight as 'You're a Jew' in Nazi Germany.
Or, my personal favorite:
"You're a Communist," in the McCarthy era.
Many of you will probably be aware that in Spain there is a terrorist group called "ETA", that wants the Basque country (a bit in the North-West of Spain) to be independant. They are terrorists, no question, and they should be stopped. However, the current president of Spain (Aznar) hates that any of the regions of Spain wants independence, and is tending to brand anyone who wants independence as supporting terrorism. Political parties are being banned if they have members which are on a list of (several hundred) individuals which the state has decided are supporting terrorism. This means that practically any political party that is pro-independance for the Basque country is now banned. I believe this is obviously a real blow for democracy in Spain, and highlights the fact that a few terrorists can reduce the freedoms of a huge number of people if the government reacts in the wrong way.
Just my thoughts.
"You know how stupid the average person is? Well, statistically, half of them are even dumber than that" - Lewton, P.I. (Discworld Noir)
Or a resounding yes, people really are stupid enough to swallow this.
State Monitors War Protesters
This, along with threatening, imprisoning and sueing foreign programmers based on the DMCA, is just the kind of shit why I've decided not to visit the US anymore in the near future unless I absolutely must. No more Game Developer's Conferences, E3's or other trade shows. And certainly no holiday trips.
Totalitarian Information Awareness, unbelieveable.
Darpa are also soliciting proposals for a comprehensive, searchable database of individual human lives encompassing every communication, encounter, transaction and even 'feeling' generated by a lifetime of social interaction. This article on the register describes it.
I have posted on the subject of surveillance many times before. Here is an extract regarding the psychological aspect. This particular part was wrote by another and did a better job of explaining than I could:
"Foucault focused on Bentham's prison model, or the Penopticon as Bentham called it - which literally means, that which sees all. The Penopticon prison, which was popular in the early nineteenth century, was designed to allow guards to see their prisons, but not allow prisoners to see guards. The building was circular, with prisoner's cells lining the outer diameter, and in the center of the circle was a large, central observational tower. At any given time, guards could be looking down into each prisoner's cells - and thereby monitor potentially unmoral behavior - but carefully-placed blinds prevented prisoners from seeing the guards, thereby leaving them to wonder if they were being monitored at any given moment. It was Bentham's belief that the "gaze" of the Panopticon would force prisoners to behave morally. Like the all-seeing eye of God, they would feel shame at their wicked ways. In effect, the coercive nature of the Panopticon was built into its very structure."
Full text is here and also on my personal website.
You are a member of a peaceful meeting. Someone (not you, not your friend, not a member of organization you endorse, not anyone you even know) throws a bomb. You are arrested and sentenced to death for "conspiracy with unknown person". Would you call this justice? And that is the essence of the Haymarket trial. Nobody knows who threw the bomb, and no liaisons were proven for the hanged persons. They just stood there, that was their only guilt.
This begins my fight. It's not "Soft-Pedals", it's "soft peddles" as in sells. For the love of Christ, people! This is your native language!
You could also add to that list 'suspected terrorist'.
When the Patriot Act was enacted after Sept 11, 2001, it included a provision to allow US companies to discontinue services with a suspected terrorist. At my company, a large anonymous insurance company, we are being asked (in lieu of $10,000,000 fines) to compare every claimant, vendor, and any name we come across to a database of suspected terrorists provided by the Treasury Department.
If the name matches, we are to withhold payment of the claim until we mail a form to the Treasury Dept, and they investigate the suspected terrorist.
So, if a person is injured on the job, is out of work, and wants to collect workers compensation from his employer's insurance company, he wont be able to if he has the same name as someone on the Treasury Dept's list. So, he wont be able to work because he's injured, and he wont be able to collect any insurance. Where's he going to get money to live on while the Treasury dept investigates?
Needless to say, I was appauled that we had to program these features into our claim system.
http://github.com/gbook/nidb
(this is a cut and paste)
THE FIFTY STEPS TO WORLD WAR & FASCISM
( an adaptation of Author Thom Hartman"s "When Democracy Failed,
1. THE GOVERNMENT RECEIVED WARNINGS OF AN IMMINENT ATTACK.
2. THE WARNINGS WERE IGNORED.
3. THE NATION'S LEADER WAS ILLEGITIMATE, ELECTED BY A MINORITY.
4. HE WAS A SIMPLETON WHO SAW THINGS IN BLACK AND WHITE ONLY.
5. HIS LANGUAGE WAS COARSE AND OFFENSIVE.
6. AS A YOUNG MAN, HE JOINED A SECRET SOCIETY WHOSE RITUALS
INCLUDED SKULL AND BONES.
7. HE KNEW THE TERRORIST WHO WAS GOING TO STRIKE.
8. HE STOOD ON THE RUBBLE OF THE BUILDING ATTACKED.
9. HE DECLARED ALL-OUT WAR AGAINST EVIL.
10. A DETENTION CENTER FOR TERRORISTS WAS SOON BUILT.
11. LEGISLATION WAS ENACTED BANNING FREE SPEECH, PRIVACY AND HABEAS CORPUS.
12. SUSPECTED TERRORISTS COULD BE IMPRISONED WITHOUT ACCESS TO LAWYERS.
13. A PATRIOTIC "DECREE" WAS PASSED WITH A 4 YEAR SUNSET PROVISION.
14. LEGISLATORS DID NOT HAVE TIME TO READ IT.
15. SUSPICIOUS PERSONS WERE ARRESTED WITHOUT ACCESS TO LAWYERS OR THE COURTS.
16. THOSE OBJECTING WERE IGNORED BY A MAINSTREAM PRESS.
17. PROTESTING CITIZENS WERE FENCED OFF IN ZONES.
18. THE COUNTRY WAS REFERRED TO AS THE "HOMELAND".
19. IT WAS OUR HOMELAND VS. ALL OTHERS.
20. THE LEADER DECLARED THAT AN INTERNATIONAL BODY WHICH DID NOT ACT FIRST IN THE BEST INTEREST OF THE NATION WAS IRRELEVANT.
21. HE WITHDREW FROM THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS.
22. HE CLAIMED HIS MOTIVATIONS WERE ROOTED IN CHRISTIANITY.
23. HE FELT THAT THE VARIOUS AGENCIES WERE NOT COORDINATED TO DEAL WITH THE TERRORIST THREAT.
24. HE PROPOSED A SINGLE AGENCY TO PROTECT THE HOMELAND.
25. HE APPOINTED ONE OF HIS TRUSTED ASSOCIATES TO LEAD THIS NEW AGENCY.
26. THE RADIO AND PRESS WERE AT HIS DISPOSAL.
27. PEOPLE WERE ENCOURAGED TO PHONE IN TIPS ABOUT SUSPICIOUS NEIGHBORS.
28. OPPOSITION LEADERS AND CELEBRITIES WHO SPOKE OUT WERE
DENOUNCED.
29. THE LEADER CONSOLIDATED HIS POWER AND BROUGHT CORPORATE
LEADERS INTO HIGH GOVERNMENT POSITIONS.
30. A FLOOD OF GOVERNMENT MONEY POURED INTO CORPORATE COFFERS.
31. THE LEADER ENCOURAGED LARGE CORPORATIONS TO ACQUIRE MEDIA OUTLETS AND OTHER INDUSTRIAL CONCERNS ACROSS THE NATION,
PARTICULARLY THOSE OWNED BY SUSPICIOUS PEOPLE OF MIDDLE EASTERN
ANCESTRY.
32. HE BUILT POWERFUL ALLIANCES WITH INDUSTRY.
33. DISSENT AROSE WITHIN AND OUTSIDE THE GOVT. LEADERS OF OTHER NATIONS SPOKE OUT AGAINST HIS BELLICOSE RHETORIC.
34. THE LEADER NEEDED A DIVERSION TO DIRECT PEOPLE AWAY FROM CORPORATE CRONYISM.
35. HE BEGAN A CAMPAIGN TO MANIPULATE THE MEDIA TO HYPE A LIMITED WAR.
36. A NATION WHICH HARBORED SUSPICIOUS PEOPLE AND HAD A TENUOUS RELATIONSHIP WITH THE TERRORIST WHO HAD SET AFIRE THE NATIONS MOST IMORTANT BUILDING, HAD THE RESOURCES HE NEEDED.
37. THE LEADER PUBLICLY DELIVERED AN ULTIMATUM.
38. HE CLAIMED THE RIGHT TO PRE-EMPTIVE STRIKE IN SELF-DEFENSE.
39. AFTER MILITARY ACTION BEGAN, THE BRITISH PM DECLARED THAT IT WOULD BRING PEACE IN OUR TIME.
40. THE LEADER DECLARED THAT THOSE HE CONQUERED LOVED HIM.
41. THE PRESS BEGAN TO EQUATE HIS POLICIES WITH PATRIOTISM AND THE NATION ITSELF.
42. THE MEDIA SAID NATIONAL UNITY WAS ESSENTIAL.
43. THOSE QUESTIONING THE LEADER WERE CALLED TRAITORS.
44. DISSENT WAS STIFLED AS INTELLECTUALS AND LIBERALS WERE
THRASHED.
45. VOICES OF OPPOSITION WERE RAISED AFTER THE LIMITED WAR.
46. THE DAILY PROPAGANDA DID NOT TOTALLY SUPPRESS DISSENT.
47. A FULL WAR WAS NECESSARY TO DIVERT ATTENTION FROM GROWING OPPOSITION.
48. ONE YEAR LATER, WORLD WAR II BEGAN.
49. THE BLITZKRIEG OR LIGHTNING WAR "SHOCKED AND AWED" EUROPE.
50. "FASCISM SHOULD MORE PROPERLY BE CALLED CORPORATISM, SINCE
IT IS THE MERGER OF STATE AND CORPORATE POWER." - BENITO MUSSOLINE
FASCISM-
"A SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT THAT EXERCISES DICTATORSHIP BY THE EXTREME RIGHT TYPICALLY THROUGH THE MERGING OF STATE AND
CORPORATE POWER, TOGETHER WITH BELLIGERENT NATIONALISM"
Sound familiar?
THE FIFTY STEPS TO WORLD WAR & FASCISM
( an adaptation of Author Thom Hartman"s "When Democracy Failed,
1. THE GOVERNMENT RECEIVED WARNINGS OF AN IMMINENT ATTACK.
2. THE WARNINGS WERE IGNORED.
3. THE NATION'S LEADER WAS ILLEGITIMATE, ELECTED BY A MINORITY.
4. HE WAS A SIMPLETON WHO SAW THINGS IN BLACK AND WHITE ONLY.
5. HIS LANGUAGE WAS COARSE AND OFFENSIVE.
6. AS A YOUNG MAN, HE JOINED A SECRET SOCIETY WHOSE RITUALS
INCLUDED SKULL AND BONES.
7. HE KNEW THE TERRORIST WHO WAS GOING TO STRIKE.
8. HE STOOD ON THE RUBBLE OF THE BUILDING ATTACKED.
9. HE DECLARED ALL-OUT WAR AGAINST EVIL.
10. A DETENTION CENTER FOR TERRORISTS WAS SOON BUILT.
11. LEGISLATION WAS ENACTED BANNING FREE SPEECH, PRIVACY AND HABEAS CORPUS.
12. SUSPECTED TERRORISTS COULD BE IMPRISONED WITHOUT ACCESS TO LAWYERS.
13. A PATRIOTIC "DECREE" WAS PASSED WITH A 4 YEAR SUNSET PROVISION.
14. LEGISLATORS DID NOT HAVE TIME TO READ IT.
15. SUSPICIOUS PERSONS WERE ARRESTED WITHOUT ACCESS TO LAWYERS OR THE COURTS.
16. THOSE OBJECTING WERE IGNORED BY A MAINSTREAM PRESS.
17. PROTESTING CITIZENS WERE FENCED OFF IN ZONES.
18. THE COUNTRY WAS REFERRED TO AS THE "HOMELAND".
19. IT WAS OUR HOMELAND VS. ALL OTHERS.
20. THE LEADER DECLARED THAT AN INTERNATIONAL BODY WHICH DID NOT ACT FIRST IN THE BEST INTEREST OF THE NATION WAS IRRELEVANT.
21. HE WITHDREW FROM THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS.
22. HE CLAIMED HIS MOTIVATIONS WERE ROOTED IN CHRISTIANITY.
23. HE FELT THAT THE VARIOUS AGENCIES WERE NOT COORDINATED TO DEAL WITH THE TERRORIST THREAT.
24. HE PROPOSED A SINGLE AGENCY TO PROTECT THE HOMELAND.
25. HE APPOINTED ONE OF HIS TRUSTED ASSOCIATES TO LEAD THIS NEW AGENCY.
26. THE RADIO AND PRESS WERE AT HIS DISPOSAL.
27. PEOPLE WERE ENCOURAGED TO PHONE IN TIPS ABOUT SUSPICIOUS NEIGHBORS.
28. OPPOSITION LEADERS AND CELEBRITIES WHO SPOKE OUT WERE
DENOUNCED.
29. THE LEADER CONSOLIDATED HIS POWER AND BROUGHT CORPORATE
LEADERS INTO HIGH GOVERNMENT POSITIONS.
30. A FLOOD OF GOVERNMENT MONEY POURED INTO CORPORATE COFFERS.
31. THE LEADER ENCOURAGED LARGE CORPORATIONS TO ACQUIRE MEDIA OUTLETS AND OTHER INDUSTRIAL CONCERNS ACROSS THE NATION,
PARTICULARLY THOSE OWNED BY SUSPICIOUS PEOPLE OF MIDDLE EASTERN
ANCESTRY.
32. HE BUILT POWERFUL ALLIANCES WITH INDUSTRY.
33. DISSENT AROSE WITHIN AND OUTSIDE THE GOVT. LEADERS OF OTHER NATIONS SPOKE OUT AGAINST HIS BELLICOSE RHETORIC.
34. THE LEADER NEEDED A DIVERSION TO DIRECT PEOPLE AWAY FROM CORPORATE CRONYISM.
35. HE BEGAN A CAMPAIGN TO MANIPULATE THE MEDIA TO HYPE A LIMITED WAR.
36. A NATION WHICH HARBORED SUSPICIOUS PEOPLE AND HAD A TENUOUS RELATIONSHIP WITH THE TERRORIST WHO HAD SET AFIRE THE NATIONS MOST IMORTANT BUILDING, HAD THE RESOURCES HE NEEDED.
37. THE LEADER PUBLICLY DELIVERED AN ULTIMATUM.
38. HE CLAIMED THE RIGHT TO PRE-EMPTIVE STRIKE IN SELF-DEFENSE.
39. AFTER MILITARY ACTION BEGAN, THE BRITISH PM DECLARED THAT IT WOULD BRING PEACE IN OUR TIME.
40. THE LEADER DECLARED THAT THOSE HE CONQUERED LOVED HIM.
41. THE PRESS BEGAN TO EQUATE HIS POLICIES WITH PATRIOTISM AND THE NATION ITSELF.
42. THE MEDIA SAID NATIONAL UNITY WAS ESSENTIAL.
43. THOSE QUESTIONING THE LEADER WERE CALLED TRAITORS.
44. DISSENT WAS STIFLED AS INTELLECTUALS AND LIBERALS WERE
THRASHED.
45. VOICES OF OPPOSITION WERE RAISED AFTER THE LIMITED WAR.
46. THE DAILY PROPAGANDA DID NOT TOTALLY SUPPRESS DISSENT.
47. A FULL WAR WAS NECESSARY TO DIVERT ATTENTION FROM GROWING OPPOSITION.
48. ONE YEAR LATER, WORLD WAR II BEGAN.
49. THE BLITZKRIEG OR LIGHTNING WAR "SHOCKED AND AWED" EUROPE.
50. "FASCISM SHOULD MORE PROPERLY BE CALLED CORPORATISM, SINCE
IT IS THE MERGER OF STATE AND CORPORATE POWER." - BENITO MUSSOLINE
FASCISM-
"A SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT THAT EXERCISES DICTATORSHIP BY THE EXTREME RIGHT TYPICALLY THROUGH THE MERGING OF STATE AND
CORPORATE POWER, TOGETHER WITH BELLIGERENT NATIONALISM"
Sound familiar?
And don't forget the FBI files on Einstein. Anyone is eligible for such a charming as 'evildoer.'
Thanks for the correction about Palestine previously being Turkish land. I may as well say s/Arab/Muslim right now, although my argument still stands.
While Israel never signed the NPT the U.K, U.S and France did, and therefore have a resonsibility not to help Israel to development nuclear weapons.
Quoting one:
Oddly, this has received absolutely no coverage in the US media."dope will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no dope"