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Innocent Or Not, the NSA Is Watching You
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from Wired: "Under construction by contractors with top-secret clearances, the blandly named Utah Data Center is being built for the National Security Agency. A project of immense secrecy, it is the final piece in a complex puzzle assembled over the past decade. Its purpose: to intercept, decipher, analyze, and store vast swaths of the world's communications as they zap down from satellites and zip through the underground and undersea cables of international, foreign, and domestic networks. The heavily fortified $2 billion center should be up and running in September 2013. Flowing through its servers and routers and stored in near-bottomless databases will be all forms of communication, including the complete contents of private emails, cell phone calls, and Google searches, as well as all sorts of personal data trails — parking receipts, travel itineraries, bookstore purchases, and other digital 'pocket litter.' It is, in some measure, the realization of the 'total information awareness' program created during the first term of the Bush administration — an effort that was killed by Congress in 2003 after it caused an outcry over its potential for invading Americans' privacy."
I love that the magazine cover says "Deep in the Utah desert." It isn't. It is literally in the middle of the city growth centers. I've been watching them build this since they broke ground. It is a mere 15 minute drive from my house and I live in suburbia. The center sits less than 1 mile off I-15 between Salt Lake City and Utah County. BYU is 30 minutes away from it. There is a water park 10 minutes up the road. They aren't hiding this thing at all. It is in plain sight. It sits up on the side of the hill across the Jordan river valley. And yes, it is freaking massive.
For those interested, here is a google map of the location they are building this. http://maps.google.com/maps?q=40.430485,-111.934547&num=1&t=h&z=14
european and eastern governments are no better than the US.
Some European and Eastern governments are no better than the US.
Most European and some Eastern governments are better than the US, whatever measurements you use to define "better" (there exist a lot of international human-rights/life-quality/press-freedom/democracy/crime/health/IQ et c. indices and the same countries usually top most of them, US is usually placed somewhere in the middle (if it is not an index constructed with the sole purpose to show how "good" US is, it is easy to identify those, they have to change their methods of measurement every other year)). Almost all countries around the world behave better towards people living in other countries (even China (the atrocities committed in Tibet is nothing compared to what US troupes does abroad, and China only occupy one region outside China, it doesn't invade a lot of new regions every year like USA (and Tibet was not a very nice place to live for most inhabitants even before the Chinese occupation))), the exceptions being perhaps Israel and Russia.
If you look at Northern Europe (sans Great Britain, i.e. Scandinavia, Netherlands, Germany et c., even France if you fancy), all countries there are much "better" then US, both to live in and in their relations towards other countries. [Except, perhaps, if you consider owning and carrying weapons designed to kill people a basic human right. But both Sweden and Finland have more privately owned fire arms per capita then US, except they are made for hunting animals and are not very good for killing or maiming people, hunting being the most popular hobby in most regions of those countries]
The countries in Northern Europe practise the 20th century kind of democracy, and they are a lot "better" then the 18th century kind of democracies, the model of democracy practised in USA. They may be surpassed by some new 21th century democracy model (there are a lot of experiments in government models going on today in societies in South Americas, the Baltics and the Middle East, perhaps they lead to even better modes of Democracy), but for now, they are as good as it gets.
Myself, I live in Sweden, one of those countries that usually are ranked among the best in different human life quality indexes. I'm highly critical towards the Swedish government and society, and very active in actions trying to make Sweden a better place to live. If you heard or read my criticism of the Swedish society, you could get the impression that it is hell on earth. Except it is not, my criticism i aimed at making Sweden better, I'm very well aware that compared to most countries around the world (including USA) it is almost a paradise. Heck, I couldn't even do most of the things (methods of protests et c.) I have the right to do Sweden in most countries outside Northern Europe, including USA.
There's no need to go this far off the deep end, just yet. Fortunately, thousands of people who are opposed to over-intrusive government are getting together and actually doing something about it ... and getting results!
Part of the Second American Revolution!
Then again... "intercept, decipher, analyze, and store vast swaths of the world's communications" is ok just as long as it does not affect US citizens?
The real problem with this line of reasoning (which is very common in the USA - rights are only for citizens) is that it opens you up to easy abuses. The NSA spies on British citizens, GCHQ spies on US citizens, and both can say 'we don't spy on our own people!'. Of course, they share data when something interesting crops up...
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