Slashdot Mirror
DoD Paper Proposes National Security Through a Culture of Restraint (and Stigma)
decora writes "An SAIC analyst has written a paper [PDF] calling for the 'stigmatization' of the 'unattractive' types who tend to discuss government secrets in public. The plan, described in the Naval Postgraduate School Homeland Security Affairs journal, is to promote self-censorship as a 'civic duty'. Who needs to censor themselves? Amateur enthusiasts who describe satellite orbits, scientists who describe threats to the food supply, graduate students mapping the internet, the Government Accountability Office, which publishes failure reports on the TSA, the US Geologic Survey, which publishes surface water information, newspapers (the New York Times), TV shows, journalism websites, anti-secrecy websites, and even security author Bruce Schneier, to name a few."
self-censorship as a 'civic duty'
I'm speechless.
Let's stigmatize SAIC analysts who have internalized the mind-set of the Soviet Union.
It will save lots of time in the long run.
The United States government is so corrupt that the only way they see it surviving is to use 1984 as a howto manual.
As an American (hopefully not for that much longer), this is shameful. Every so-called patriot should be fighting against censorship and spying, in every form, yet both the "small government" republicans and "progressive" democrats are for this kind of crap.
Welcome to the road to a third-world banana republic, America.
Great Intellect...
How about a culture where attempting to stigmatize people for your own gain is looked on as bad?
Or one where openness and freedom of speech is looked upon as helpful?
Does anyone with more than a room temperature IQ think the "bad guys" don't know the satellite orbits?
What choice do you have? The machinery of aristocracy and control is well beyond the need for your support. They're self-sustaining and the level of corruption in all aspects of government and politics so unbelievably extensive and deep and convoluted that there is no way to simply excise the foreign tissue by itself.
Naomi Wolf does a great job of describing the process that seems to be occurring right now (including this event) in her book "The End of America".
I mean, we live in a country where our president's (last president) family did extensive business with the family of the man that killed thousands of Americans. We live in a country where government officials who are employees of Goldman Sachs take a trillion dollars from the tax payers to bail out Goldman Sachs. We live in a country where our president appoints Ken Lay as energy advisor to deregulate his own industry on his own terms. We live in a country where we allow our government to pass bills that allow the president to point at a citizen and make them disappear. Off to gitmo for torture, if he wants. Without representation or a trial. We live in a country where judges are paid off in millions of dollars by the private prison industry to fuel their business by unfairly punishing minor juvenile violators with many months in juvenile detention (google it - in Pennsylvania).
It's probably not too late to force change, but by the time you could ever even remotely possibly convince enough of the population to give a flying fuck and get their heads out of their Bible and Twilight or their "durr durr abortion" and "durr durr immigration" and "durr durr religion" bullshit to actually do something about the real problems facing us, it'll definitely be too fucking late.
Well, I guess Matt Blaze won't fit into this brave, new world, Mr. and Mrs. AmeriKKKa.
This is a proposal for better security through psychological denial and cognitive dissonance.
As such, it fulfils the "Ignorance is Strength" part of the equation, which already has it's "War is Peace" and "Freedom is Slavery" components well under way. So begins the formalisation of thoughtcrime - through state promotion of doublethink.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
A single analyst at a private company writes a paper, and now everyone pretends that it is the official policy of the US Government, 'cause by golly, we haven't had our two minutes hate yet today, and we need something to be outraged over!
We can avoid the possibility of terrorists trying to destroy a free and open society, by eliminating the free and open element - therefore removing attractiveness as a target.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
It is nothing as differentiated as that.
"Snitch" is simply a pejorative term for someone who for whatever reason(s) breaks a social contract regarding secrecy, written or unwritten, that he/she had with other person(s), or that other person(s) thought that they had.
Regardless of the nature of the secret one is disclosing, and to whom it is disclosed to, one is always seen as a "snitch" by the party whose secret(s) are being revealed.
Others might label "the snitch" an informant, an insider, a whistle-blower, an inside source, a concerned citizen, a witness, a patriot, a man of honor and integrity...
Or a hacker, a thief, a spy, a traitor, a criminal, a terrorist, a lowlife who would sell out his/her own mother...
But he/she will always be a snitch to those whose secrets he/she is revealing to the third party.
The term is SO precise and determined you may just as well use "asshole" instead. Or "cunt".
It's simply a bad word for the people you don't like cause they tell on you.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
I got the feeling this was more along the lines of not talking about ship movements and stuff... The summary is a little extreme.
Did you read the paper (it's not hard, the link is right up there in the summary)? They specifically mentioned the "leaks" referred to in the summary. At least the ones I checked (GAO TSA report, Satellite orbit info, food supply threats).
If those aren't the kind of leaks they are talking about, then why do they mention them specifically?