Slashdot Mirror
Government Information Awareness
gbjbaanb writes "Wired News is reporting about the GIA, software inspired by the TIA program. 'Researchers at the MIT Media Lab unveiled the Government Information Awareness, or GIA, website Friday. Using applications developed at the Media Lab, GIA collects and collates information about government programs, plans and politicians from the general public and numerous online sources. Currently the database contains information on more than 3,000 public figures. The premise of GIA is that if the government has a right to know personal details about citizens, then citizens have a right to similar information about the government.'"
I wonder if it's just a coincidence that this site was put up on the 4th of July?
Things like credit card purchases, phone bills, personal contact information, organizational affiliations, travel history, books checked out from the library -- you know, things you wouldn't want to hide unless you were a criminal?
The Gamer's Intelligence Agency died a while ago... :(
Only requirement for good karma: be pedantic as much and as often as possible.
People like these are the true patriots. Unlike my neighbors who never flown a flag until 9/11.
Politicians don't like it when they are held to the same standard as everyone else. It will be *really* funny when some unethical "contributions" are discovered. When Politicians see just how bad stuff like this is, maybe they will think twice.
In a democratic republic, WE are the government. And, if you don't feel you are, take a more active role and make it so.
I think that the government has done way too much for the sake of secrecy against its own citezens. Perhaps they should reconsider much of their classified data, especially that which is not-vital or threatening to the American nation as a whole.
However, personal information should be kept secret. Displaying the data of as many government officials as possible just as "proper compensation" for the data they collect about us is not only unfair to the politicians but unfair to us (how dare them think we would be so stupid). Thousands of politicians vs. millions of people with their data harvested. It's arrogance on the government's part to think such a thing.
Did George Orwell ever imagine a world where the populace itself would become the Big Brother of the government? It's 1984 in reverse. Quite ironic really. I wonder how the politicians will react. Increased privacy laws? We'll see. Maybe not in my lifetime though...
...was that serious, or sarcastic?
It was pretty straighfaced, if it was sarcastic. But if it was serious, it was just plain scary.
-fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
000-00-0002 is Mr. Burns' SS number.
"Will it include the same information they collect? "
I think individuals pushing for massive data collection should be the most heavily looked-at people on there. People like John Poindexter, John Ashcroft, and any Congresscritter who shows support for anything like the TIA needs to be followed, reported on, have their every purchase logged, their every movement cataloged, their every affair made public, and have every habit at the fingertips of the world. Let's show these people just what it is we don't like about programs like the TIA. Let's show them what it's like to have strangers turning your life into a database entry. Something like GIA could very easily turn into a platform for opposing programs like the TIA with actions instead of words. I'm not saying we should be in-you-face harassing these people; I'm saying we should simply find out every bit of possible information about them on a continuing basis until they drop support for 1984-inspired programs. If anyone who lives near these people would like to help out, then all the better.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
At first, I thought sure, this'll work, those politicians are too smart to get caught doing their shady stuff out in the open.
/NO CARRIER
Then I realized NO THEY AREN'T.
So, this should be fun. Wonder how long before this site quietly goes away.
Just remember folks, this is the government you are talking about. If they want, they can make you disapp...
Sent from your iPad.
"Will it include the same information they collect? Things like credit card purchases, phone bills, personal contact information, organizational affiliations, travel history, books checked out from the library..."
There's always hope. After all, it only takes a few people who work in bars, restaurants, etc. to get the travel history, eating habits, partners' descriptions, etc. of the entire congress...
The name and concept is supposed to be a spin of the Government's TIA (Terrorist Information Awareness) program that spys on citizens for terrorist activity. More information on TIA is available at DARPA and a story that Wired ran.
-Valen
anyone work at ISPs or uplinks serving members of government? People with access to NYT subscriber database, etc.?
While I am not sure if you are serious or not, your logic is flawed. The simple fact that the government has ACCESS to those files should not be legal. This is about challenging your government. Its what happens in fascist and dictator states.
"Oh Look, he checked out an article by Locke, or Marx, or Lenin, Or an Islamic Text.....he MUST be doing something illegal. Kill him". While this is extreme, the government knowing what people are doing, seeing, reading, and learning allows them to find and target those with different political beliefs than they. The whole point of a free democracy is to prevent such things.
The MIT cause hopes to prevent the government from having all the info and all the power, and returns some power to the people. The simple fact is, that behind every bad decision in government, there is a person responsible. The MIT site helps us to pinpoint who, so we (the PEOPLE, the CITIZENS) to not elect next time, or to ask our reps to fire.
This idea is phenomenal. Finally a way for people to do a search on some meaningful information about their government officials. Hopefully, it will support more government databases in the future, as I believe that there are more than 3,000 government officials in the US.
/.ed ;-)
Unfortunately, I can't search on anything cuz the site just got
Here, on the 4th of July, Americans have been presented with something that many of them would certainly like to have. Information on the individuals that have power over them. But is it not true that much of the information is available to the general public? The information in the database, which now contains information on more than 3,000 public figures, seems to be accessible enough. It would include information about campaign finance, corporate ties, etc. I suppose that this website would facilitate finding such information, which certainly is good. But it is all information that already seems to be avilable to us, as it can be submitted by people like you and I (and anonymously: good news for those who like to post as ACs here.)
But what I'm sure many people would want is a more open government. One that does not keep as many secrets. One that does not do as much behind our backs. One in which there is less "classified information" although that may be a pipe dream. I understand that much information was removed from sites with the .mil TLD as a cetain terrorist organization was allegedly getting much useful information from it.
But this stil seems to be a good idea. It'll make much information accessible to U.S. citizens, and, perhaps, if nothing else, hold up a mirror to those in power who want as much information on us as possible.
After all, it's supposed to be an open and transparent government despite Dumbya's efforts otherwise. But I wonder if it will survive. Some years ago, video rental outfits leaked a list of porno movies that members of congress and high-ranking justices were watching. Congress instantly passed legislation making it illegal to do that. It seemed that they didn't like people probing their personal viewing and reading habits. However, these same bunch of baffoons have no problem doing the same to Joe Public ala the Patriot Act and TIA.
Keep this in mind in 2004 and vote.
When all else fails, run.
The mayor supported the Chief of Police in defying a Court Order not to troll through people's garbage without a warrant. But when a weekly paper went through THEIR garbage and published their findings (which were pretty banal, nothing spicey) the cop got "hostile" and the mayor went "ballistic"
Both should lose their jobs.
http://www.wweek.com/flatfiles/News3485.lasso
In true foil-hat fashion, I can't help but think that the GIA will only cover a fraction of what our government really does.
If people start using the GIA as a standard for truth, if they say "It's in the GIA, it must be true," then the government will have an incredibly convenient way to encourage the belief in whatever information or misinformation it feels like. This would certainly have more clout than mass media outlets, which obviously have their own credibility issues.
No government tells its citizens everything, and of what it does tell them, it's never the whole truth. What I do hope for from the GIA is at least apparent accountability that, while not touching upon all the madman's deeds that go on in secret subterranean complexes, will at least raise the public consciousness with regard to elected officials and get them (both the public and the officials) to act a little more responsible.
The coolest voice ever.
SELECT name FROM FederalPoliticians WHERE name.bimbo<>name.wife
This project has scant little information on the various politicians I searched for. John Ashcroft's entry merely has his position, and who appointed him to it. Not to be a conspiracy theorist, but.... CONSPIRACY!
...
In all seriousness though, this actually seems like a good thing, but it needs more meat to fill up the information pages.
Wow, the site design looks quite a bit like java.sun.com, down to the color of the sidebar border.
They have this chip they recovered from a furturistic robot a few years ago, and they reverse engineered it to the point where they could create a nearly sentient machine.
This machine is now in charge of our entire country. It makes laws for us, fires nuclear warheads for us, etc.
Anyways, the chip is pretending to send billions of dollars in foreign aid money while it is really ordering hundreds of millions of pizzas for its cyborg creations.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
must...mention...1984!
cryptome.org is a good site as well. It isn't the easiest site to get around, but its comprehensive. Maybe there can be a marriage of the two. It would be beautiful.
"Displaying the data of as many government officials as possible just as "proper compensation" for the data they collect about us is not only unfair to the politicians but unfair to us (how dare them think we would be so stupid)."
Huh? who is they? MIT media-lab? the Government?
"Thousands of politicians vs. millions of people with their data harvested. It's arrogance on the government's part to think such a thing."
I'm at a loss here too. What you are saying sounds interesting because its a total mystery
If this takes off, how long you think it'll last online before the gov't declares it a 'terrorist informational tool' and starts (pardon the pun) terrorizing the masterminds of this one?
Helluva idea, but I have a feeling it'll highly piss off our lovely government.
I must say, this site is rather tame. Age, place of birth, religion... its all really only information one might find in an encyclopedia. This is hardly intrusive, though a happy step forward. Perhaps my fellow commenters would care to post some ideas regarding new "features?"
Bored with karma, be a fan/freak
There is system to rank the credability of the contributors to keep things in check, similar to epinions' trustworthiness ranking system.
However, this could still be open to widespread abuse with a coordinated effort. A person posting a comment could be backed up by hundreds of people vouching for his or her integrity, and even if the politician replies denying the claim, the damage is already done, which is the whole point behind a smear campaign.
The lesson is, be weary of all information you receive from anywhere. Everything is suspect and most of the details of information you receive about things you did not witness in first person is probably 90% incorrect. Did you ever do that experiment in school where you whisper a phrase around in a circle of people and by the time it comes back to you it's completely different?
It will be interesting to see how this page plays out, to see if it is compromised by hundreds or thousands of people with an ajenda. It's hard to pick up on subtle slanting of information until it's too late.
"In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies." -- Winston Churchill
---Mike
but just for tax purposes.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
Looks like the fact-checking needs a little work, as shown here...
While they're at it, they can add the pictures I took of the TIA Admiral's House.
Cyde Weys Musings - Scrutinizing the inscrutable
This is an excellent idea, and one which deserves to do well. The delicate system of checks-and-balances has been become skewed of late, and our privacy has been steadily eroded.
The balance needs correcting, and this is a good way to set about it, by affecting the decision-makers personally.
((lambda x ((x))) (lambda x ((x))))
I like the premise, but this is a very superficial first effort. The site is slow, and you can get just about all of the same information at www.firstgov.gov. Knowing several public officials, I tried to use the site to see just what dirt I could dig up. I have to say I was pretty disappointed. I couldn't even get an official bio on all but the most prominent elected officials.
If TIA does nothing more than this, then we have very little to worry about.
Well, I think his point was if we, the people, demand 'tit-for-tat' information awareness, then they, the government, might start to realize that it SHOULD be illegal. Ie., when push comes to shove, they will want to protect their privacy, and so will give us ours.
Mind you, that probably won't happen, but the point was this is a tactic we can use to at least TRY to have a government that protects our rights.
"It's overkill, of course. But you can never have too much overkill." - Anonymous Slashdot Coward
So, they log your IP and show it to you at the top of the page, and you have to login to a page called "tracker" if you want to download "it"
I quote "it" because I'm not sure what they have available for download, but I thought it might be handy to have a copy of the db in case it gets shut down.
Even if these guys are benign, and I'm sure they are. Their data could easily be seized by the government when it forms it's case against them.
*shrug*
You can take that with a big tinfoil hat if you like, but if the data is supposed to be freely available, it should be really freely available.
One thing I did find interesting was looking at campaign contributions. The amount of money behind Liddy Dole and Hillary Clinton is fucking astounding. More then Ed Kennedy, more than Fritz Hollings - more than anyone else I looked at (and I looked at many).
aside from campaign money there's just not that much there. No corporate holdings (which would be a helluva lot more interesting than donations), no special interest alliances - not much of nothing.
If you read about the data collection method it seems that they are creating a database that is a cross between what you could find on google and information submitted by anyone ala IndyMedia.
Hopefully it results in solid information and not this type.
Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way...
the humour is this: in the US, or any "democratic" state these days, the people ARE the government. An elected official should *in theory* be there for the people who elected him/her. So, because the official represents the people, the people, again *in theory* should make sure the official has full reports of his/her doing. Ie - no hidden secrets....
why then, are there secrets in Government?
i think it has something to do with money, business, and money....(and maybe money)
what do the US citizens feel about this, seeing as how they are the pentultimate of Democracy?
We're like rats, in some experiment! -- George Costanza
Hell, that's being nice!
Why are they letting the government refute anything? We can't refute what TIA says about us, because we can't even SEE what it says about us.
I say let 'em hang.
That's why the ACLU is opposed to TIA and the infamous TIPS program.
The bitter lessons of a veteran coder: http://bitterprogrammer.blogspot.com
Seems to me that this database could only provide information that we already know... cause when someone does something really stupid like get a DUI or smoke up, it makes it into the news right away anyway.
Yeah, maybe with this database we can get credit card reciepts or ISP logs... what does that prove? that gov. employees watch porn or drink booze?? oh wait - so does everyone else.
BFD, I say.
I created this account just so I could comment on this story
GWB: What happen?
JA: Somebody set up us a website.
GWB: We get e-mail.
JA: Outlook Express turn on.
MIT: How are you gentlemen?
MIT: All your information are belong to us.
GWB: What you say?
MIT: You are on the way to major scandals.
MIT: You have no chance to deny cocaine use allegations, make your time.
GWB: For great justice, take off every DDoS attack!
If you want to call him Dubija, you can. "Dubija" is a texas-slang "W", which is how he can be identified from his father. But it also carries the connotation of "dubious".
But he isn't dumb, and it's inappropriate to call him Dumbya. If you want a different title, I suggest you use his actual title, based upon the succession:
George III.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
The premise of GIA is that if the government has a right to know personal details about citizens, then citizens have a right to similar information about the government.
This is all fine and dandy except for one small thing: the government does not have a right to know personal details about citizens with the force of Big Brother's dream come true: TIA. I think it would be more beneficial to channel the energy that goes into GIA into making sure we elect leaders who will kill TIA before it really gets rolling. And un-electing those who permitted it to be born in the first place. Besides, if Big Brother has anything to say about it, this MIT Media Lab project will last only until the first time MIT is unexpectedly denied a government research grant or contract.
I thought goatse.cx trolls posted AC. :)
-uso.
All my FPs are by name!
Dreams, dreams, don't doubt dreams, dreaming children's dreaming dreams. Sailor Moon SS
exactly, it's like having neighbors informing on each other. How many will be honest and how many will use it for a vendetta?
The U.S., as a function of population percentage has more people in prison now than the Soviet Union did at the height of power.
stop us from Destroying the evidence!!
Seems to me that one possible way to counter "awareness" (assuming you'd want to) would be to pollute the databases. So if bankruptcies and multiple homicide convictions started showing up routinely and inappropriately in the databases checks, it might discredit the whole system. I don't really have that much of an issue with the current state of things, I just have an academic curiosity about whether it's possible or not to defeat or marginalize "awareness", and whether it's been tried.
Sen. "Call me Ahnold" Hatch already terminated their systems.
Why would you hope that? I could probably find more dirt on Hillary Clinton by hitting the drudge site than I could via this open secrets mirror. If this site is to serve as an open dossier on our politicos I would hope it would have exactly this sort of information - from all sides of the spectrum.
Or in other words, "I say we stalk 'em" (Score: +5, insightful)
I encourage you to also check out InfoWars as well as Prison Planet, or any number of related sites. Most of these things that come up in YRO segments here on slashdot have been predicted or commented on weeks or months in advance by these folks.
A healthy dose of paranoia or cold hard facts, you be the judge. But at any rate, they do their best to avoid speculation and point directly to the house & senate bills and underscore text of scary things like the Patriot Act. Much like Slashdot they are always linking to supporting stories from AP, Reuters, Washington post, etc.
But in the words of Reading Rainbow's beloved host LeVar Burton: "You don't have to take my word for it."
*Dons his Ring of Protection from Flame and wields the Troll Cleaver*
Well, in the Alan Moore Book it was Rorschach.
But in a free and Democratic society, it is us.
It had better be us. If not us, then the democracy will fail.
This is an excellent step towards accountability in profoundly corrupt times. Another site that can help you "Follow the Money" is http://www.opensecrets.org
To find out where your tax billions are going, try searching on: Halliburton, Bechtel, Brown & Root on either and both sites.
Kremvax
--- Little Atomo - The Amazing Thinking Robot from Atomocom! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIP9KisHi4k
Ted Nelson's Xanadu, which was sort of like an overcentralized World Wide Web with revision control and micropayments, was the first attempt in this direction. The "Wiki" crowd has the same idea.
This works well for popular culture and badly for almost everything else. To work, it needs a fan base. Slashdot is about as good as this idea gets.
Particularly data about police officers.
This is a shrine to crap.
George Walker Bush's information, as stated on his information page, comes from: one of any unitedstatian government administration's major spin factories. If you want the real scoop on the iq-deficient president you're better off hiring a private investigator.
JESUS CHRIST!
HAD
I submitted this article at 10:00 AM PST, 1:00 PM EST, this morning, but it was rejected. I don't know why that was the case, except I didn't take the standard /. twist to these issues.
I believe this is actually an extremely positive step, for I am in agreement with David Brian and the arguments he makes in The Transparent Society , saying that we should realize that there is no privacy, and that we should focus on building transparency in our society.
When we struggle to preserve annonimity and privacy, we are actually playing into the hands of those that would be despots, by building a system where they don't have to be accountable for their actions. For a small example of this one, think of how many times you have heard a government official state, when speaking of some action that is being challenged, "We can't discuss this matter do to privacy issues." Whose privacy are they protecting? The person that is challenging a wrongful firing or the child that claims they were abused in the local youth facility? No, they are protecting themselves, but they are using (and abusing) our focus on privacy at all costs to protect themselves and their positions.
Bring on the transparent society. Let's work to end this situation!
While this may be useful, it will die a horrible death; too much information at a high-level and not enough depth. Someone seems to be taking snapshots of CSPAN and associating these with names. Really, a person shouldn't be added unless quite an initial file can be made for them, such as name, associations, etc. Just their name and picture isn't a good start and will only serve to hurt the process.
This needs to be more like open source "meritocracies", where anyone can send stuff to a "patch-list" but only committers who have proven themselves get access to change the database. Any other mechanism will be flooded by garbage.
How should one 'properly dispose of flags'? Burning them ceremonially in gasoline? It's an inanimate object. Sure, one that is vaguely symbolic to us as Ameicans. Sure, one that, when taken care of, is a symbol of patriotism and respect for our country's past.
But I don't see anything useful about pretending there should be a proper way to dispose of it. Throw it in the can.
Politicians have always been open relays to anyone who offers up money. A large majority of them are scum, whether by their own choice or by having to be scum because they are the proxies of scum. For most of history, they've been able to keep this under the carpet, because the ordinary people couldn't really make ripples; They didn't have the means of distribution available to them. Now the 'net has turned that on it's head.
For a long time, politicians have wanted to and usually succedded in trying to control the people because they were the only ones who had the means of distribution available to them. Now here comes the internet and turns that around and kicks it soundly out the door. Now anyone can make their opinions available to millions in a matter of minutes or seconds.
I suppose what I'm getting at is that GIA is backlash, to remind our politicians that they no longer control information or it's distribution. And you can bet they'll be screaming and kicking like spoiled little brats from hell. However, try all you want to put this magnesium-and-sodium candle out. It'll always come back, and if you douse it with water it'll only burn hotter.
Interestingly, most current politicians haven't played with this kind of fire yet, and they haven't learned that you'll get burned.
To-do List: Receive telemarketing call during a tornado warning. Check.
Well except they'll probably just make it illegal for us, and write in an exception for their own total information awareness programes
--- As to make my comment seem, by comparison, more intelegent... doodie doodie doodie poop poop poop!
Or in other words, "I say we stalk 'em" (Score: +5, insightful)
OR "If they plan on stalking us, and argue there's no reason we should mind, then how about we show them what it's like?"
Pandora's box is open, but there, fluttering on the bottom, is hope. We can't stem the flood of information that is about to wash away every vestige of the notion of privacy, but we can make sure that it washes over the rich as well as the poor, the powerful as well as the weak. I think the weak will bend before the flood, while the powerful, who have more to hide, will break.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
taken from this page: http://opengov.media.mit.edu/GIA/data.jsp
If you look at the flowchart they have, it actually takes quite a bit of effort to get information onto the system, as two of the possible four results of the system lead to the information being discarded. Check out the flowchart, and read the page - It covers a lot of important stuff.
hi all -- i just know that i am going to LOVE THIS SITE!
If I had any moderation points at the moment, you'd certianly earned a few right here.
exactly. http://www.usflag.org/us.code36.html#176. Although I'm sure you knew that.
Holy Shit! Have you read all that? Unless Little League, BSA, GSA and hundreds of others have been designated a "patriotic organization", they are all in violation for wearing flag patches.
God help all those people in D.C. who put flag decals on their cars, then later sell them. $100 fine and/or 30 days in jail. (This may only relate to any vehicle used in business, I'm still in too much shock to re-read it all.) [Title 4, Chapter 1, Paragraph 3]
Want to make & sell a flag or lapel button flag? Get a license from the Sec. of Defense for face $1,000 max. fine.
However...
"...no federal agency has the authority to issue 'official' rulings legally binding on civilians or civilian groups."
Thus they are customs, not law. Except for the D.C. thing.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Sorry for the semi-off-topic rent, but I felt like getting it out. This is pissing me off... this terrorist information act is bullshit. The CIA/whatever has enough information already on any group you can name. The fact is, they just don't fucking use it. However it works, they are about as far away as you can get from being efficient with the data they have, so the government assumes they need more worthless information on their own citizens and then maybe they'll do their job. What we need to do is fire the government and elect smart people. Elections are a joke. Truth be told, I'd take Bush over Gore any day. But look what we're being fed! How many Independant candidates do we elect? The problem is, we, as Americans, are lazy and dumb. Maybe some wars and terrorist attacks will wake some people up, but probably not. The government will just keep on doing what it feels like off in their own world.
I don't see anything in there about a $100 fine and/or 30 days in jail. Anyway, none of this is stuff that you "violate." It's just the official encoding of "the way we do it." Ya know, in case you were wondering if the proper way to dispose of an old, ragged flag was to shit on it and flush it down the toilet, now you know that is "officially" incorrect.
Stupid people make stupid things profitable.
ah i figured out what you were talking about. http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/4/3.html.
Stupid people make stupid things profitable.
>The rest of us just have our one vote.
..."
This is the wrong attitude to have; keeping silent until election day out of cynicism of the system because the wealthy have better access than you.
Join a political organization, the ACLU and NORML could always use more members. *two organization I'm part of.
Local government: There are many opportunities to make your voice heard. *I've done a little regarding the local school system, but I hope to exploit this more
Keep in touch with your congress person: fax and phone them over issues and pending legislation. *A little ackward at first, but now I feel very comfortable calling up and saying "Yes I'm a constituent and I would like my congressman to vote against
Cyber-politics: web-based form letters, forwarding emails/links, mature discourse on poltics on web forums, etc *this is probably the most accessible way to get involved and will probably change government/citizen interaction in considerable ways in the next couple years.
I do all of the above, and yes it has its downsides, but en masse getting involved in politics is very healthy for a democracy and when real results come out of it (and they do) then it hard to justify the complete apathetic stance of 'all we get is a vote, they're in charge.' Why not become "them?"
Regardless of all the examples of cronyism and corruption you can think of, X amount of government will be little people making their voices heard. The question is do you want to be part of that X amount, thus influencing it with your views, or not?
Lastly, all of the above really doesn't take much time. I think at one time the apathetic stance could have been defended a bit more easily, but with advances in politics on the web its almost a crime not to do something as simple as point-and-click donate or point-and-click fax.
That's what I have to say. Yay! How long until le gouvernement songe puts pressure on the people/institutions that support this, though? I can see some funding/people being hurt already...
====
Crudely Drawn Games
this is one of the best uses of the internet I have ever seen. Not that I think all the people in America will suddenly become informed or care but at least it might wake a few politians up.
"At first, we thought it was just another snake cult."
Back in the olden daze we had "demonstrations" against the draft slavery and against illegal undeclared wars (as in the bigfatwhopper lie "nam"). Anyway, the goons back then do what they do now, they infiltrate demonstrations with undercover goons, who proceed to start violence, giving the uniformed goons an excuse to go mad dog. Then the goose stepping regime supporters point at the violence say "see, we need even more lowrrrr-nn-orderzzz!"
We used to get pictures of these "undercover" goons and publish them in the "alternative press" of the time, or even just mimeograph it and spread them around. Sometimes it was crude, just crowd shots with a rough circle around a goons head and an arrow pointing at them. When we could we found out their names, published that too, but that was hard a lot of times.
They HATED that stuff and tried to stop it, it was too embarassing to them to have the truth come out. that's why back then they used to hunt to find the cameras and beat up the people with them and smash the cameras, it was typical and common behavior with them. And they are still pulling their demonic crap, decades later, just now they have more money, more technology, more demon goons working for them, and are going for broke, they want THE PLANET.
Anyway, BOY HOWDY I'm in favor of this effort with the database on the goons! My recent run in with the small time but still foul local goons just triple convinces me, we are living in a junta, a military dictatorship being run by international blood profits at any costs globalists, who use badged and uniformed mercenaries to do their bidding. There are no "laws" that apply to them, they are "above the law", and commit murder on down, any crime you can imagine.
SCREW THEM! EXPOSE THEM! The USA of today is germany in the 1930s. this is just SO obvious. There's plenty of official demon goons and plenty of true believer goon regime supporters, just like there were back in the 30's. They are BAD PEOPLE, and also, quite insane. These are nuts with guns and jet planes and armies. Their judges are all part of it, you don't get to be a judge unless you are in it with them. We don't have an independent legislature, we have two criminal gangs who share the spoils. We don't have "public servants", we have career bureaucrats who protect their checks at all costs before exposing corruption, or go along with it and profit from it. We don't have an executive branch that follows the laws, we have big and medium and little order giver dictators, who's spokespeople lie daily on the tube. Screw em! It's the same thing, same actions, getting worse daily. We can learn from history or repeat it, that's the only two choices we have. And if we ignore it, it WILL get much worse, much, much, much worse. They are out of control now, completely.
Hear, Hear. If I wasn't an AC right now, you could have some mod points.
and add details on where they're funding originates. Especially if from another country who shan't be named.......
Only terrorists would attempt to discover information regarding their elected officials. You have been warned.
Hopefully they will include dossier's on all of america's nosy bastard media(NBC/McClatchy Enterprises)etc. and not just the political hacks.See the difference is the political hacks are trying to fatten their wallets,while the news media is trying to fatten their tummies.In the right of fair play...the news media deserves this kind of retaliation much more than our political hacks.Of course the political hacks are in bed with the news media so i have no prob with exposing the political hacks as well.Just make sure to expose all scumbag reporters.
No. Perhaps in a true democracy, "mob rule." WE would be the government, but then you'd still need a government to implement the entire population's decisions. In any case, government is a catch-all term for the people elected to make decisions and the people who put those decisions into action, all the way from politicians to bureaucrats to police officers. Not everyone.
Valete!
When I saw the headline, I thought this was going to be a project that would help give our government *some* kind of understanding of modern technology. Too bad, because that would really be a useful project.
You don't mind everyone in the world knowing everything about you. That's fine. But you saying that everyone else should feel that way, and that it will make everybody happier? That's where I draw the line. Don't you tell me what I want, what will make me happier. People not digging around in my business makes me happier.
And if an absolute lack of privacy about who I'm having sex with, or who I'm helping get through college, or what interesting sex toys I bought last week is what you would consider essential to a civil society, then I want no part of it. And if privacy has some costs, then I'm all for paying them.
If you have a perfectly open society, where everything can instantly be known about anyone with zero effort, then there might be this wonderful egalitarian explosion. But since perfection is impossible, the more transparent the society, the more control the people who are rich and powerful enough to keep their information secret will have over those whose information they can so easily gather.
Unless you're assuming that, somehow, magically, all the taboos of our society will just go away once there is no more privacy. Which, human nature being what it is, strikes me as less likely than George W. Bush's economic plan actually working as advertized. (As opposed to us finally having our cyclical recovery from recession, helped along by historically low interest rates, and him taking credit for it. Which has a probability approaching unity.)
-fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
The part I found scary was the "things you wouldn't want to hide unless you were a criminal?" part. Which, it turns out, was sarcastic.
-fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
Charles Vest, the president of MIT, published a statement in September of 2002 which dealt directly with the issue of openness in universities, particularly regarding scientific research. Although this particular endeavor doesn't specifically fit that category, his words still pertain. I've copied the most notable ones below; the entire statement may be found here.
"By and large, the academic community has treated this as a reasonable approach and, of course, will comply with the law. But even this seemingly straightforward approach is not without a huge potential price to be paid in the advancement of science, and therefore in our health and welfare. The MIT Ad Hoc Committee on Access to and Disclosure of Scientific Information was deeply concerned about the path down which we may be starting, noting that the Secretary of Health and Human Services has the statutory power to expand the list of select agents. The Committee expressed the view that we could soon arrive at a level of restriction of access to materials by our students, faculty, or staff on the basis of their citizenship, for example--something that would be incompatible with our principles of openness, and would cause us to withdraw from the corresponding research topics on our campus. "
Hopefully this doesn't come to pass, but if it does, I have some faith in MIT's ideals of openness over funding.
Access denied: Not enough clue for requested operation.
"Well except they'll probably just make it illegal for us, and write in an exception for their own total information awareness programes"
and that's the point at which, my friend, we either mount the second American Revolution, or resign ourselves forever to living in a fascist dictatorship. what'll it be for you?
Terrorism is the excuse of watching everyone.
"God we trust, Everyone else we monitor"
The people should have revolted laong ago. They however are all sheep. It's not going to happen.
They have all the guns and the money. It's too late now.
As you can see I don't care about my karma.
In-your-face harassing might be a good and effective idea, though.
The simple fact is, that behind every bad decision in government, there is a person responsible.
Actually behind every bad decision, there is alot of money.
"It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists." -Ludwig Wittgenstein
... to show the merit of this kind of reverse surveillance. Watchdog groups are of course nothing new, but building a web tool that citizens everywhere can use IS new. It will succeed or fail based on people's willingness to use it, contribute to it, and vote based on it. So they need one high-profile politician or govt official to get knocked down a few notches to get the media's attention, and thus a mass public participating. People who want this experiment to succeed should concentrate on targetting one govt official, rather than 3,000.
People got it wrong. Because of stupid Orwellian theory, or his stupid book 1984, which was nothing, more than scare tactic to sell book, there is nothing to hide. Problem comes from because information accessed, use of such information rights are infringed, revoked, suspended, when such information had no bearing whatsoever. Who cares what anyone thinks? Personally I tend not to care opinion of majority. Because opinion of majority equates to Democracy. And the world we live in is its best, because of Democracy, led by its cream of the crop leaders, I do believe there is very serious flaws in democracy. After all, it is over 2000 year old concept, and anything that old bound to have lot of flaws. Let's face it, democracy is satisfied, when will of majority rules will of minority without justification or articulation. Nothing more nothing less. Even if will of majority is to jump off the cliff like lemming, when will of minority is otherwise. And that is very flaw in its concept. Democracy is so flawed its not even funny, and smart as we clamed to be, as homo-sapiens we haven't been able to find anything better than democracy. What we need to do is to protect individual's right, even when such information is accessed. When accessed information has no bearing whatsoever, why should anyone's right be infringed or revoked? I rather go after those people who intentionally use such information to deny, infringe or revoke other people's right, with vengeance. Because no one has right to impinge, revoke anyone else's right without justification and articulation. Yes, our Constitution guarantees equal protection and due process, if so why did Supreme Court recently ruled 'Race' can be one of the factors? Obviously there is something about our Due process and Equal representation when our Supreme Court must rule "race" can be a factor in order to give Equal protection-representation and Due process to "minority."
hello? They're politicians! They already are stalked that way, and watched by hoards of reporters looking for the slightest gaff. For them, it is just justice for everyone to be tracked the way public figures are.
Question is: why do we think it is important to have the nation aware of blue dresses and activities between consenting adults in private, but not important to be able to look for patterns in the behaviour of large numbers of people to find the 1 in a million dangerous types?
If we don't engage in far more aggressive information gathering, then we are stuck with mindless random checks based on race i.e. "If you're arab, you might just be a terrrorist!" sticking entire groups in the "suspect" category. That is not right. It will be very hard to do properly, but it is just plain dumb not to try.
Privacy should not about hoarding or hiding information. It needs to be about managing it ethically and responsibly. Sure they track us. But in there is the audit trail of who did the tracking, and why.
corporate american has a fox guarding their hen house,their names are varied but their purpose is the same:public officials whose loyalties tilt to the tune of $ signs,we'll look the other way,we'll shoot a round on the golf course,we can even pressure watch dog groups,say the psc (public service commisioners)in all 50 states,we can leverage anything for the right,shall we say DONATION all in the name of "good business"...
Keep calling it TOTAL Information Awareness.
Get your local newspapers to keep calling it TOTAL Information Awareness.
Write to other media to encourage saying the old name TOTAL Information Awareness and never write the new name in print.
Undoubtedly all the knee-jerk anti-government and pro-privacy Slashdot kiddies will jump on this as a slap-in-the-face, right-back-at-ya revenge thing. Well, stop and think.
First of all, not all politicians are bad. Most are good. In fact, those at the local and state level are true public servants -- they're underpaid and overworked. They don't get a lot of recognition.
So great. This tool allows some wacko with a vendetta -- and I'm sure every politician has hundreds, if not thousands of those, even the small-change public servants -- to launch a smear campaign. Yeah, three cheers for that.
This is a pathetic and misguided attempt. Publishing personal information about public servants WITHOUT INDEPENDENT VERIFICATION is tantamount to creating a site that encourages libel.
Here's to hoping MIT and the site admins to SUED ASAP for everything they're worth. That'll teach them a lesson.
[tom sherman | fancy sig | mod me down]
Some ideas:
To defeat nepotism and the system of influencing pols by employing their family members, all family members of pols should be entered with their employment data.
Some feature should be devised to phrase the statement "This person is a member of this group of seven, each of whom is a CEO serving on the board of the other six."
Lastly and most difficult, there are many in public service worthy of respect. Some have surmounted great challenges, some have demonstrated courage in the face of danger, some toil diligently to serve the public weal. I hope that reports of these facts find prominent places within the dataset as well.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Or, more passively, lay in a lot of supplies, then hole up at home for a week or more. Don't leave the house, keep the curtains closed, don't even use lights visible to the outside. The watchers will at least get very, very bored, possibly to the extent that they'll quit, or get sloppy enough to fall for phase 2. Get a few friends to come over, the more the better. All immediately exit the house dressed identically and scatter in all directions. Arrange for several look-alikes to leave town.
It is a wonderful thing that the GIA web site developers are doing to fight against our government's attack on our privacy and other constitutional rights.
And what an imaginative way to do it!! Too Cool...
Too bad the rest of us don't have access to, and the ability to correct any bogus data those clowns collect on us scumbag citizens.
Hey, what do ya thing about this?
Pass a constitutional amendment that establishes the inalienable right of ownership by the individual, to any and all data collected, complied and maintained regarding that individual. Any person, public corporation, local, state or federal government agency or any other group or organization must respect the individual's right of ownership in exactly the same manner as any other constitutional protected property or right.
Sweet and simple, huh? Do ya think that would go along way in solving some of these issues? Anyway, just my $0.000002 worth.
Thanks again to the GIA developers for what they are doing!!
best regards,
buck
I just found out about this site(July 5th)and thought I'd check it out. I like what I see so far, but maintain some reservations. I would like to say that the new "patriot act" will be even worse than you might believe. It will make the collection of this kind of information illegal. They will term it a "terrorist activity". They also will make a national gun registry. This one act alone will lead directly to gun confiscation, just like Hitler's regime, Stalin & Lenin, etc. Our founding fathers wrote and spoke quite a bit concerning this one Right of the people to ensure all the other Rights we have and would get. I only hope this site will make it in time and help educate the "people" to turn the tide.