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Total Information Awareness still Running
gordm writes "National Journal reports that, instead of being shut down 2 years ago, the Total Information Awareness program is still datamining away. Must be effective. What else could explain Morrissey's latest adventure?" Just posting this story probably puts me on their radar.
Inch by inch, we're getting closer to living in a massive panopticon.
Some bring out the best in others, some the worst. Some bring out far more.
"They were trying to determine if I was a threat to the government, and similarly in England. But it didn't take them very long to realise that I'm not."
Bogus. They can determine that from a distance. They just made him an example of what happens when you call fraud a fraud; when you say the king has no clothes.
I leave you with the wisdom of Mr. Eisenhower from 1961.
I wouldnt be suprised if at some point the government will start selling off 'de-classifed' data to the highest bidder. Such as what kind of socks you buy.. or your food habits..
the rest of the data ( like your friends, or what street corner you stopped too long at last saturday at 12am ) wont be sold off. Instead it will be used against you when your turn to be directly invesigated comes. Remember, we are all criminals to 'the system'.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I have wrote on subject of the Surveillance Society many times - including here on Slashdot.
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e.g. this is snippet from one post:
Quote from the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency: "The goal of the Total Information Awareness (TIA) program is to revolutionize the ability of the United States 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."
The declared GOAL is to, quote: "identify foreign terrorists" - what rubbish. They know you are American citizen, not even a suspect foreigner - yet want to know what you buy, where you travel - everything. They want to profile you, like a criminal. I find it hard to believe that U.S. politicians are that dumb to go along with this violation of the American Peoples Rights. Looks like TIA initials stand for Totally Ignorant Acceptance (for their propaganda).
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=100317&ci
GITI - Global Infotek - is the company still in control of a lot of this tech.
http://www.globalinfotek.com/
when I was working there a few years ago they had a half dozen projects that they specifically told me were the next iteration of TIA, and that TIA had not been shut down, but simply renamed and split up.
I didn't have a security clearance, and nothing they said was confidential, but they threatened my job if I told anyone about it while I was there. Needless to say, I left fairly quickly.
Over a period of decades, the U.S. government paid to kill Arabs and interfere with their politics. The U.S. government also paid to train Arabs in terrorism to fight in Afghanistan.
Is it surprising that a small percentage of Arabs eventually decided to react to violence with more violence? Is it surprising that Arabs don't like being killed?
Now, those who wanted violence have what they want. They can claim that there is a threat, and can make billions in largely hidden contracts for weapons and contracts for war.
The U.S. government is more corrupt now than ever before. Here are some short reviews of books about the corruption. The article is old and needs revision and additions, but gives a small view of a very extensive subject: Unprecedented Corruption: A guide to conflict of interest in the U.S. government.
Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in World War Two and former U.S. President General Dwight D. Eisenhower said in a famous speech that we should beware of the "military-industrial complex". Here's a quote:
"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
"We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes."
Another quote:
"The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present - and is gravely to be regarded."
--
Before, Saddam got Iraq oil profits & paid part to kill Iraqis. Now a few Americans share Iraq oil profits, & U.S. citizens pay to kill Iraqis. Improvement?
Looking into the US from a long way off, articles like this consistently give the impression that the US is out of control; at least out of the control or ordinary hard working citizens. What has happened to accountability? How does the average citizen take a stand and agitate for real change if it takes umpteen million dollars or ownership of a great chunk of popular media to get elected to office?
How far from the ideal can you go and still call it a democracy? Maybe you still get to vote (If you are willing to stand in line for hours on end on polling day, and you haven't been taken off the electoral roll by your political opponents for some unknown reason) but if the political establishment has pre-filtered or sanitised or heavily biased (with little regard for impartial analysis of the facts) all the information available to help you make your choice can you still claim to be making an informed choice?
If the practical realities of electioneering mean you only get to choose from those with very large bank balances, can you really claim ultimate political authority still comes from the people? If only the very rich can stand for office with any expectation of being elected, don't they have considerably more political authority than the average citizen?
While the US does still sometimes present a shining beacon for the world, it increasingly looks dimmer and less frequent. The darker episodes also seem to be more frequent. With luck, this will come to be seen as an aberration, but from where I stand I don't like the downward direction the US looks to be heading in.
What the heck. Ridicule or not, I'll take /. as the forum to say that I'm an outspoken person against the current government on blogs and reveal that I have had the "Philip K. Dick experience".
/.ers probably know, PKD wasn't in a good state when he died. He said that his house was ransacked and, although he said he didn't know who did it, he suspected the FBI or local sheriff. Some people think he might have done it himself at that point in his life.
As a large percentage of
You have to visualize my apartment storage. Since I hoard books and some amateur radio equipment, it is much like a solid 8x8x6 cube of heavy boxes. One night I got broken into and _every_ box inspected. Other building occupants were coming down over the HOURS I was repacking and marveling how my stuff had exploded into the aisles of the space.
Yet, here's the thing. As far as I can tell, NOTHING and I emphasize NOTHING was taken. Screw the amateur radio equipment -- where are you going to hock an old HF transceiver quietly? But it seems to me if I were some young punk(s) who went to that much trouble I would have either taken something like the window air conditioner, the few 1950s comic books, or the like for slight compensation of the night or maybe just destroyed some stuff out of anger and frustration.
The local police station told me, "Nothing stolen or destroyed, no crime." So who has that discipline? Maybe info thieves looking for cancelled checks and credit cards (_old_ ones in my storage space?) or someone else who wanted to know who I was and what I was holding. You give me your guess who you think that would be.
If nothing else, when a government demonstrates that it thinks it can make and break the law and work in the dark, paranoia is going to rise. That's not necessarily a bad attitude for a citizen either but, then, when is enough enough? The first casualty of a lawless government is peace of mind.
The article, a troll, was posted to Slashdot, as others are to other forums, to elicit responses that can be added to the secret data bases and correlated with the user's email, other postings, cell phone calls, etc. with the idea of fingering anyone who is disloyal (to the present regime at least). If it's determined that the person is not a security threat he or she can be picked up for questioning (intimidation) or other intimidating actions taken. Or if there might, possibly, be a threat sterner methods may be in store.
Ah, this couldn't be true, I need my morning coffee. Wait who's at the door at this hour?
Nate
Nate
Roe Vs Wade affirmed a right to privacy in our constitution. Maybe we should stand up for our right to privacy before Roe Vs Wade gets overturned.
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I'm in a small Vermont town recently featured on the front page of the Washington Post because the police chief got an earmark grant to spend $100,000 putting 19 surveillance cameras throughout the 1.2 square mile village of 3,000. He said, "Trust me, we'd never abuse this. Heck, you're not that interesting to watch!" When the public rose up about 5 to 1 against the proposal, the village trustees voted to have the cops buy digital radios instead of the cameras. The cops immediately began issuing traffic tickets to everyone going 2 or 3 mph over the 15 mph speed limit through downtown, while working to intimidate people into signing their new petition to revert to the camera plan.
On the one hand, I've never heard so many great speechs from citizens about bedrock American values as occurred in the village trustees' meeting that focused on the chief's camera plan. On the other hand, I haven't seen on a local level such a total willingness to abuse power on the part of the cops, over what in the scheme of things should be but a minor disappointment to them (they still get shiney new radios!), and so soon after the chief's claim that they'd never abuse power.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
Do you suppose that it might not be that Congress is powerless to stop the abuses, but has no desire to do so? Consider the serious ethical lapses in the Republican leadership recently, and that they have been described as "absolutely drunk with power."
:P
Under Republican control, this Congress has shown itself to be a patsy of the Bush administration. They quietly kill all investigations into it's questionable activities: Lying about Iraq, the Valery Plame incident, massive no-bid contracts to Cheney's friends, the NSA wiretapping, Bush and torture, you name it and they'll decieve you to cover him.
So I suppose what I'm saying is... it's not impotent, it just doesn't want to do it right now
Yeah, I voted for GWB because he said some of the right things. He said it was wrong that the Federal Government, in a time of peace, was taking in as much of the GDP as it did in WWII. He also thought the Federal Government was too invasive and should be scaled back. How clever of him to have justified it all with endless warfare in a few short years.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.