Slashdot Mirror
Government Adds Consumer Databases To Mining Queries
mrraven writes "According to an article in the Washington Post the government is increasingly using consumer databases for surveillance purposes. " From the article: "It is difficult to pinpoint the number of such contracts because many of them are classified, experts said. At the federal level, 52 government agencies had launched, or planned to begin, at least 199 data-mining projects as far back as 2004, according to a Government Accountability Office study."
Slashdot really needs to change their error messgae when you click on read more link and the story isn't ready yet. Scared me for a second considering the topic.
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
In Soviet Amerika, data mines you!
I knew I shouldn't have answered the question "When is the last time you purchased weapons of mass destruction?" on that Safeway survey!
Commercial companies are doing far worse and most of them don't ensure the same level of privacy as the government would maintain.
After all, I'm sure they're only scrutinizing people who are actually doing something wrong. It's the government! We can trust the government to do the right thing and not abuse its power. Unless it's the part of the government that gives money to poor people or sets school standards. That part of the government is run by a bunch of incompetent lunatics. But the part that secretly tabulates data about people, of course they're all good guys.
Cue the rants by the tin foil hat and the anti-Bush crowd (aka 80% of Slashdot).
- G. Orwell, Functional Specification: A Consumer Data Mining Model for Homeland Security
The damndest part is that I drink like a fish, and the only problem I have with pork is my Homeresque refusal to believe that things as wonderful as bacon, ham, and sausage can all come from the same, magical animal.
Unfortunately, I live next to a really good butcher's shop, and have no need of a loyalty-card based chain grocery stores. Guess I gotta get out there and start buying Lee Greenwood albums on my credit card or something.
given the bang up job the gov't is doing in New Orleans and Iraq, I don't see much to worry about.
move along
+1 fashionably cynical
Hmmm . . . Maybe I shouldn't be buying those evening gowns with my credit card.
If this doesn't reek of corporate interest and funding classified projects with private sector funds then I don't know what does. At the end of this rainbow lies a HUUGGGEEE pot of gold once the "mission is aborted". I mean what do they want to know, if terrorists are seasonal shoppers or impulse buyers?! Or maybe you can spot them by brand. I always see terrorists wearing Nike before they carry out an act of sedition...Air force One's usually, although they have been spotted in Air Huarache's in some random cases.
and will proudly present my papers when searched by the Politburo's duly designated Security Police.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Eh, what’s wrong with an end run around the safeguards protecting our freedom and liberty? They act like that’s a bad thing or something.
I guess when the “strict constructionists” say that the Constitution isn’t a “living document,” that must imply that it’s just some smelly old corpse to be kicked out of the way by the guy with the biggest boots.
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
If you data mine in their systems or otherwise snoop too deeply into NSA or the FBI you get yourself 5 to 10 years in federal P.M.I.T.A. prison.
- For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism.
"It is difficult to pinpoint the number of such contracts because many of them are classified,"
If a contract is classified, who gets to bid on it? Just the big defense agency companies? Where's the oversight?
Buy my data. I don't have anything to hide (sorry paranoid /.ers I just don't care, as long as they are not telling me what to do). But I want Royalties for usage anytime my results are yielded in a search!
-- Brought to you by Carl's JR
Huh ?
Just i have finished replying to a comment requesting that i provided an example to 'corporations taking control of a country' for another discussion.
It is a giant conspiracy against people of united states. And money is at the helm.
Read radical news here
Well, DUH! Don't buy your copy of The Anarchists Cookbook on Amazon if you don't want to be called in for questioning every time some nimrod torches a McDonalds. It's just common sense.
What is so frightening about the data that the NSA/FBI is gathering about U.S. citizens is that while they claim it will solely be used to look for terrorists today, next year they will be using it to look for drug dealers, then file-sharers, then political "radicals", etc.
The Patriot Act was supposedly passed to help law enforcement in their fight against terrorism, but it didn't take long before it was being used in the "war on drugs". When the Patriot Act was renewed recently, they added a provision about methamphetamine.
In Attorney General Gonzo's own words: Importantly, the legislation provides additional tools for protecting our mass transportation systems and seaports from attack; takes steps to combat the methamphetamine epidemic that is sweeping our country; and closes dangerous loopholes in our ability to prevent terrorist financing.
It is scary how this was packaged up under the "terrorism-oogity-boogity-label". This may all seem a bit off-topic, but it demonstrates that the government is willing and able to lump other issues into the terrorism catch-all.
i so love it when a vested interest puts words in the public's mouth.
from the article:
"The public is willing to bend the rules a little bit with respect to privacy," said Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center, adding that Americans showed similar tendencies during the "red scares" after World War I and World War II. "They are giving the government the benefit of the doubt in large part because they are concerned about terrorism."
yep, the us government really showed how much they can be trusted in these situations. mcarthy didn't go over the top at all...
sum.zero
ps yes, that was sarcasm
Lest we forget:
(o) (o)
This is their ultimate goal. Knowing everything about everybody at all times. Except for themselves, of course...
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur. . . . . . . .
Why is it when Google offers free, slightly better webmail you rush to them with handfuls of your personal data and when the government offers sweeping improvements in security you defend the collection of relatively meaningless data points that you call a life like a snarling wolverine? The government isn't sending me spam, let them mine whatever they want. They can tap my phone, too, if they want. I don't care if some algorithm somewhere is analyzing my terror potential, because believe it or not, I have nothing to worry about. That's exactly the kind of government I *want* - where good, decent, respect-your-neighbor folks are free to exude personal data and the slimeball terrorists have to guard their every dirty step, living in fear themselves. I want the government to analyze my and everyone else's actions, because I know I'll come out clean. It's the neighbor everyone thought was "such a nice, quiet man" but is actually check out my asscheeks in the shower that I want to Federal Bureau of Douchebags to swoop in and ship away.
What's the big deal? I've got nothing to hide...
Pay with cash. It hasn't been outlawed yet.
This is the reason why i'm against the realID act and dont use kroger plus cards.
it's all fine and good for companies to use data for better inventory management, there is no reason however to tie it to my name.
as for the realid act, I have absolutely no problem with a machine readable ID.. what I DO have a problem with is the fact that there are no regulations in place banning private institutions from making databases on when where and why my "realID" was swiped...
the government is accountable to the public, corporations are not, and for all you people out there saying "but corporations are private entities theyre entitled to freedom from regulation!11oneone~!".. read and learn .
corporations now have powers and infrastructure similar to government, and the government can work with them to make end runs around the constitution.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Honestly, I'm seriously interested in this and I want to hear from you guys what (if anything) you do to evade that kind of surveillance... Personally I used to work for a European card processing company, i.e. the people who operate the terminal network and supply the hardware and then route the terminal traffic to all the major creditcard acquirers and of course the national debit card scheme as well as operate nationwide loyalty card schemes. I know exactly what kind of data goes over those wires and ever since I have never touched a loyalty card again nor used any plastic when I could be using cash. OVER HERE IN EUROPE with a loyalty card the merchant gets a list of whatever you purchased and an identity to mach it up with. Whenever you swipe your card, the network company, the credit card company and/or your bank know where you shopped (account-details / PAN, terminal-id(location), time of day, amount, in fact with the terminal-id we can tell in which checkout lane you were and get the right surveillance tape). And whereas it is forbidden in Europe to match up card number / PAN (Personal Account Number) details (but which I'm sure the big guys do anyway) I doubt that is much of a problem in the US. Personally I have pulled out of that system as much as I could. I refuse to use loyalty cards and I pay in cash whatever I can and when I have to give my name and address to anyone I have a phoney address to give out to them. At least over here they don't want to see your ID just because they're trying to wheedle marketing data out of people. What are you up against? What do you do about it?
If the govt can mine our purchases, and they have our payroll information already, then why don't they just do our taxes for us? Seriously, this would save me alot of lyin..I mean..alot of work!
Step into a huge movement. Don't Tread In Me.
Unlike things like the "do not fly" list(s) where you aren't (officially) allowed to know if your name is on the list or not -- at least if the information is commercially available you can buy it yourself and find out what big brother knows (and presumably doesn't know) about you.
You can also use that info to judge the effectiveness of whatever disinformation you use to protect yourself. For example, a good friend of mine had a fake id made up with her real name. But it had a bogus age (younger than her real age, she is a woman after all), bogus address and bogus SS# (or maybe DL# I forget). She was tired of all the clubs that swipe the magstripe to "check id" when in fact they are "swiping" your personal information.
This use had the unexpected side-effect of creating a completely bogus "identical twin" in a surprisingly large number of these commercial databases with the same name and same town, but otherwise completely different info. In some databases like the address lookups on yahoo and other places, her "twin" is the only entry - her real info isn't there. At the very least, this twin should confuse any stalkers (she's had a few before this development).
Yes but we expect companies to be greedy and to try to get away with as much as they can. On the other hand the government is supposed to represent the people and respect our rights. A company is created by a few people for their benefit, but the government is created by all the people, and it should be run to the benefit of everyone, not just the power-hungry and the wealthy.
<rant>
Theoretically, in a democracy, the government is elected by the people. Unfortunately the selection of candidates available to be elected is usually controlled by a smal clique of wealthy people since it has become so expensive to run for office that no normal person can afford it without sellign his/her soul to these special interest groups. So in effect it is they who are create the government, not the people. Sometimes I get the feeling that the only thing that keeps democracy from being a totally unworkable system of government is the fact that the pack of weasels that make up the government are usually to busy the stabbing each other in the back to concentrate fully on their great design which seems to be to bring about the total collapse of human civilization as we know it. That and the fact that once in a while.... uhmmm.... make that once in a loooooooong while the people grow a spine, get off their ass and remind their 'elected representitives' that governments should never forget to fear their electorate.
</rant>
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
Remember that admiral Poindexter with his Total Information Awareness (TIA) programme? It looks as if his ideas have been implemented from the first to the last. Links: http://www.p2pnet.net/issue03/page1.html and http://www.p2pnet.net/issue05/page1.html
Funny how when someone wants the government to investigate it's own spending reports are spun around showing it would cost billions to investigate such activities, yet investigating Americans seems to be no problem.
Hypocracy at it's finest.
I use the "Fletch" method to disguise my consumer loyalty cards. I have been thanked as "Mr. Nugent", "Mr. Truman" and "Mr. Cocktosen".
Otherwise try these tips...
Going
Diss credit: Want to be hard to find? Start by dashing off stern opt-out letters to the big database companies and credit bureaus - Experian, TransUnion, Equifax. These folks may make a mint peddling personal info, but they can be cajoled into stopping. First, though, they'll make you jump through hoops - like filling out a 1040-sized form or idling in toll-free hell. Junkbusters has a good list of opt-out addresses.
Anonymize: Ditch your ISP and sign up with a service that lets you surf by proxy, keeping your IP address concealed. Send email via an anonymous remailer like Mixmaster, a digital middleman that scrambles timestamps and message sizes. And if you're going to be advocating the violent overthrow of the government or bragging about your cool new bong, make sure your remailer routes messages through multiple machines.
Grok the fine print: Boring as it sounds, read the privacy statements that clutter your mailbox around tax time and sever ties with companies that admit, "Our privacy policy may change over time" - industry lingo for "We reserve the right to screw you."
Going Further
Ditch the digits:Want to drop out?Start by rustling up a new Social Security number.
The Social Security Administration doesn't accept paranoia as a criterion for granting a new card, but it recognizes cultural objections and religious pleas. One stratagem: Contend that your credit has been irrevocably damaged by a number-related snafu, or that you live in fear of a stalker who knows your digits. Once you switch your SSN, never use it. Instead, dole out 078-05-1120, an Eisenhower-era card that works 99 percent of the time.
Call cell-free: Use the humble pay phone. Mobile phones are being outfitted with global positioning satellite chips to comply with an FCC mandate. By 2006, all wireless networks must feature 911-friendly tracking technology. Marketers are cooking up ways to capitalize, like zapping burger coupons to your Nokia as you stroll by a fast-food joint.
Pay full price: You may relish saving 10 percent on Prell, but deep-six your buyers' club cards. Supermarkets and pharmacies haven't yet perfected the art of data mining, but it won't be long. "If you're having a child custody fight, they could subpoena your frequent-shopper cards and say, 'Look, he's buying too many potato chips, he's hurting the kids,'" says Robert Gellman, a Washington-based privacy consultant.
Gone
Move: Want to go completely off the grid? Start by moving - address changes bedevil databasers. But don't buy a home. All those loan apps will blow your cover. Residential hotels smell like cheap cigars and urine, but at least you can register under a pseudonym. Give a fake address: 3500 S. Wacker, Chicago, IL, 60616 - the front door for Comiskey Park.
Toss your cards:Pay cash for everything, and don't plan on a life of luxury. Any (legal) cash transaction more than $10,000 triggers government reporting regulations, which means you can forget about that Cadillac Escalade you've had your eye on. Settle for the subway or bus, using coins rather than prepaid fare cards, which keep a record of trips.
Go incognito: Facial-recognition gear will soon be ubiquitous in public spaces. To fool the systems, invest in a pair of bulky aviator sunglasses and a hat. If you fear being tailed, alter your gait every time you hit the street - a pigeon-toed shuffle one day, a bowlegged amble the next. There are also Central American plastic surgery mills, beloved of drug lords, that can alter the loops and whorls on your fingertips. It'll set you back 10 Gs, but then, Costa Rican doctors have been known to accept gold Rolexes in lieu of cash.
But really, how do you know you'll come out clean?
What if your identity was stolen and someone had done something suspicious in your name and it got entered into a commercial database, and the government decided you had an unhealthy interest in certain things and decided to put you under 24-hour surveillance?
Hell, what if the database is just plain wrong? It happens all the time, you know. Can you really have a database with entries about millions of people without hundreds, thousands or more of those entries containing fucking bogus information? Have you ever checked your credit report? You might be surprised at the kind of stuff that's on it.
Just because you have nothing to hide, does NOT mean the gov't should be allowed to snoop and spy on you and collect and aggregate data about you.
Final question. Have you ever seen the movie "Enemy of the State"? Some of the stuff in it is farfetched, but information is power, and doesn't it worry you in the slightest to give your gov't (which is made up of fallible, and often corruptible, human beings) so much power over your life?
A government of the people, by the people, for the people? What kind of whacked out pinko commie rhetoric is that? For the people...puleeeze... Next what will you want? Votes that actually count? How about free karma points while you are at it? I guess you will want a government that sticks to that liberal manifesto...what do you call it...The Bill of Rights next? Don't you know that thing is also called the Presidential toilet paper?
This is the NSA and we approve this post.
No animals were harmed in the making of this sig.
Well, there was that one puppy, but he is all better now.
Here I was all set to put on my tinfoil hat and rant about Bush and you came along and ruined it by predicting what I would do in advance. That's pretty clever, did you think up that tactic all by yourself? You see what he did everybody? He claimed we would all rant about Bush, and implied that anyone who does is akin to someone with a mental illness who wears tinfoil on his head to keep out the evil mind rays. That is so clever, that is just so, so fresh, how did you come up with that? Wow, just... wow. I bow down before your superior debating skills.
You, sir, are a master debater.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Private firms, if the system is kept competitive, will not share their data with competitors, past a certain level of detail. If you have a history of not paying debts, they'll share that. But if you are a particularly good prospect, as compared to a bad one, they'll tend to hoard that information - selling it if they can to companies which don't compete with them, but never sharing it with their direct competitors. And those private firms have as their chief, often only, goal to sell you something. Now, it's true, if they sell you credit, to a small extent they own you - they own a slice of your future income.
Governments, by contrast, don't have to sell you anything. They get to take the money through taxation regardless of whether you're inclined to buy the services they offer. So they already own a slice of your future income. When they mine data they're after something more than that. Their ultimate goal, insofar as possible, is to own you outright.
It all comes down to who you're more threatened by, a salesman or a cop? The companies either rate you as worthy of a sales call, or not; the government rates you as worthy of a fine, imprisonment, or death, or not.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
Nope. Hitler could at least form a sentence without mis pronouncing things to the point where, in the words of Carlos Mencia, "Even [racial remark replaced with Mexican immigrants] were saying, 'Dat's not how you say dat.'"
And to say Cheney is a mole is to imply he is trying to hide it.
And Bush is too busy with Hooked on phonics to listen to phone sex. That is Rumsfeld's job.
No animals were harmed in the making of this sig.
Well, there was that one puppy, but he is all better now.
I don't have mod points.
Compare for yourself these two fine examples of the US government showing how much they can be trusted ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Edgar_Hoover
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_McCarthy
Buy less. Buy cash. Close your credit accounts.
Actually that's pretty sane advice from a "ending up with more money and less crap you don't need" point of view as well...
My sig is too lon
i've said this before: the government needs some data to be able to protect us from crimes. would you rather have it have more data or less; more protection or less? that's like saying would you rather have fewer cops. hey, i hate it. i really hate it. i want 100% encrypted SSH-tunneled locked signed privacy. but i can't have it. not yet. for now we are adjusting to this digital stuff. there's cyber-crimes galore and on top of that there's a lot of dangerous criminals adjusting, terrorists, to our favorite medium. once they move on we'll take back our privacy online and the cycle will continue. the government, as a system, as a living organization, is consuming the Internet as much as possible along with our personal information. that's how it's dealing with its fear of the internet. it's going to get as much as possible organized into it's proprietary, perhaps poorly guarded databases. for now we have to let the monster rampage our data until it's happy enough to do it more safely.
Dell asks you if you are a terrist. Better say no (the story)
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
I think payment authorization and consumption tracking are two different systems in most stores.
If it is approved, send "approved". If fail, send "failure" with no other hook into the transaction.
Payment programming in particular is pretty strict about that kind of thing because of the door you would open to every merchant with a terminal.
Can someone enlighten us on the topic?
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Source article
Arguing with a leftist is like arguing with the dog. They don't listen and al they do is whine.
I'm sure that's true in some cases, but I'm sure that newer POS terminals at least eat and log the name from the mag stripe. And I doubt any retailer is going to pass up the $$$ from selling the stripe data for very long whether their merchant agreements allow it or not.
I too have felt the cold finger of injustice.
The phone companies have to collect enough information to allow traffic analysis, just so they can send out bills.
It's illegal for them to hand that information over to the government. Even Republican Arlen Specter said "There is no doubt that the NSA program violates the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act"
There is no such law to forbid phone companies from selling call records to private consumer research firms. As far as I know, there's no law forbidding the NSA from being yet another customer of the consumer research firms. Presto, "information laundering".
If the NSA stops grabbing call records, with a great show of reluctance and a few smear tactics against their critics, the next thing to check is whether they're still getting the exact same information.
I don't have any inside information, but it's obvious to me that if you give information, they will take it and use it. The only way to avoid that is not to give it. By using your credit card with a loyalty card, even once, you are making it possible for them to associate the two.
If they aren't doing it already, they will be as soon as someone figures out it's possible. It's all one system in that the same machine reads both cards, so if they're separating the data, it's because they decided to do so.
Net Neutrality is the trade for the telecoms handing over our call registers.
The Bankruptcy Bill was the trade for the Credit Card companies handing over our spending records. (I'm sure that there are certain high-end clients that are exempt, of course).
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
521.126. ELECTRONICALLY READABLE INFORMATION. (a) The
department may not include any information on a driver's license,
commercial driver's license, or personal identification
certificate in an electronically readable form other than the
information printed on the license and a physical description of
the licensee.
(b) Except as provided by Subsections (d), (e), and (g), a
person commits an offense if the person:
(1) accesses or uses electronically readable
information derived from a driver's license, commercial driver's
license, or personal identification certificate; or
(2) compiles or maintains a database of electronically
readable information derived from driver's licenses, commercial
driver's licenses, or personal identification certificates.
(c) An offense under Subsection (b) is a Class A
misdemeanor.
The exemption (d) is for databases used for government purposes, exemption (e) is for financial instituions for identification and can't be stored without written permission, and exemption (g) is for people in charge of maritime ports.
Don't know what state you live in, but you may want to check for a similar laws.
You are buying:
Chemicals:Semtex
Clothing:Balaclava
Other customers who have bought these items also bought
detonators
AK-47
hand grenades
bulk ammounium nitrate fertiliser
anthrax
sarin gas
religious items:
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
It's like the entry paperwork for the USA where they ask if you are visiting to assasinate the president. The goal is to help establish that you are a lying, conniving individual if for some reason you end up in court on such charges.
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
This practice is what we tried to prevent by not allowing the TIA project Poindexter proposed. How many people have 'affinity' cards for shopping? The prevalence of those has slowly eroded peoples expectations for privacy. Now the government can use taxpayer money to contract out the correlation of that information with whatever it already has obtained (illegally?). Will this include license plate scans at bridges, toll booths, and random highway camera systems? We should be fighting for data retention laws that prohibit the databasing of private consumer information beyond the purpose it was initially collected for.
Sign up for all these lovely loyalty cards and then swap them with your friends, set up a web site to do the same. If enough people do it, well, I'm sure you can see where this is going.
Unless terrorists are so stupid they use their discount card when buying nitrate fertilizer or pay it their credit card or can't resist having a frequent flyer card for the frequent flyer miles of all those plane trips to training camps in the Middle East and Africa ...
This is aimed at other purposes such as:
- Profiling by seing what kind of books, music, magazines, newspapers and other such thing people buy.
- Detecting criminals and people that try to escape taxes by estimating how much they are spending monthly and checking if it is more than the declared monthly income.
- Figuring out patterns of movement in the population by massive tracking of the places where people buy things.
- etc
Since the very dawn of life on Earth might has meant right - it's a law of nature, and there's little to be done about it. Since the very dawn of the human history there have been tribes, and the guy with the largest club or the sharpest spear has been the chieftain (that said, you cannot kill a hamster and eat it alone; you have to share with him. And you cannot have a woman he wants - his club is heavier) - right until someone else figured out how to build a shortbow. After that, most tribes rapidly changed their priorities. Those who didn't were eaten by those who did. One more note: someone was smart enough to claim the position of shaman, but that's a little different story - suffice to say that in most modern countries 'shamans' and 'chieftains' are allies, and there are cases when the shaman and the chieftain are the same person.
Fast forward. Human population, despite constant wars of chieftains, each trying to capture as much land (=food and resources) as possible, is growing exponentially; technology is also constantly improving (there was an especially smart guy among the Dorians who somehow learned how to work with steel, downed the chieftain, and wiped out other chieftains along with their tribes because they all had bronze armor and weapons), ways of controlling masses of people are constantly improving, too (the first thing most rebels usually try to do is ensure that no further rebellions are possible), as well as personal security of the monarchs (another guy overthrew a local king by paying all of his gold to a large army of mercenaries, and after he took the throne, he made sure that none of his vassals had enough gold to pay for another army and do the same to him - that is, emptied their coffers in favour of his own treasury). And what about the people - well, they know only hard work so they can hope to live a little longer, constant pillages by their neighbour countries (many of them were becoming captive slaves and starting enjoying their lives even less, if it only could be possible), military drafts and overall a pretty inhumane treating. Nobody cared about the little peasants, workers and the rest, since if you're the leader and you want to see the next day - you must be alarm and powerful at all costs. After all, what is your population for you? Guys that you have conquered. And what are the rest? Guys that have been, alas, conquered by someone else. You goal? Command what is yours, conquer what is not (C). No need to care about the people, because they don't really have a choice (to be robbed by one lord or another - who cares?), and because they constantly breed.
Fast forward. 21st century. The smartest chieftain around (it doesn't matter if it is one person or a small group) has figured out that the best way to achieve the above-mentioned goal is:
a) Level 0. Pretend that you're not around - tell everyone that they're free, and allow them enjoy their lives enough to believe it.
b) Level 1. For those who didn't believe in Level 0: put a puppet on the throne to get arrows in the chest and anything worse for you.
c) Level 2. Hide yourself so even those weren't affected by Level 1 cannot easily find you among other seemingly powerful chieftains
d) Level 3. Continue kicking out rivals - the strongest one first, by telling his people that your people are rich (which is mostly true) and free (which is not), and that they can have the same if they join you (which is not true again). They believe you - and voila, you're the world's major superpower.
e) Level 4. Continue kicking out rivals - the richest in resources ones first, so you can keep your population relatively happy while you're building a force to wipe out everyone else and a security system to have maximum control over the said population. Meanwhile, frighten your population with stories about imaginary opponent who want to kill them, so they pay less attention to your wars against real opponents who bug you.
And surely soon there will be
f) Level 5. After you're done with opponents, determine the size of popu
You really think that the government can somehow "protect" you, and you alone? I suppose that is why at the local government level we hear on the news every day "...police prevented this man from breaking into an apartment where he was going to brutally rape and kill this woman..."? Oh, that's right - we don't hear that, do we?
Other than in the most rare of circumstances will we ever hear this, and it will be because of "some lucky break" - the cop sees the guy, the cop notices the drunk weaving a bit, the FBI agent somehow manages to put two and two together, the FEMA manager gets off his butt and actually does something in an emergency.
If 9/11 didn't teach you anything, if hurricane Katrina didn't teach you anything, if the daily news hasn't taught you, then I am going to tell you right now:
The government isn't there to protect you personnally - at best they may be able to protect the country itself from harm, and they don't even do a very good job at that (Pearl Harbor? 9/11? Katrina?). Their only function anymore seems to be "mopping up the mess left behind", and 90 percent of the time they can't even do that right without bickering, money grubbing, and ultimately forgetting what the problem originally was, leaving the mess for the citzens to deal with (look at downtown Detroit, among other blighted areas in the country, for examples of this).
The only protection you have for you and your family is you and your family. Depending on your family (or lack of it), it may just be only YOU. Don't look for the government to be there for you when disaster strikes, when war comes to our shores, or when a bad guy is on your block. Half the time if you even manage to be able to call 911, you'll be maimed or dead by the time the cops get there.
I suppose the one good thing that hurricane Katrina showed us is that the FEMA conspiracy (where FEMA had set up numerous fenced "prisons" around the country for dissidents or whatnot in a time of national emergency for "unruly citizens" to be placed and re-educated) is either false, or just wouldn't work because of ineptitude on the part of FEMA. When they can't even get some buses in place to move people with 24-48 hours warning, how would you expect them to be able to do a roundup of citizens who would be armed?
Get out of your bubble - the government isn't going to do jack to "protect you" - not even if you are Bill Gates himself.
Reason is the Path to God - Anon