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Julian Assange Says Google's Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen Are "Witch Doctors"
An anonymous reader writes "The Times publishes Assange's takedown of Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen. From the article: 'New Digital Age is a startlingly clear and provocative blueprint for technocratic imperialism, from two of its leading witch doctors, Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen, who construct a new idiom for United States global power in the 21st century. This idiom reflects the ever closer union between the State Department and Silicon Valley, as personified by Mr. Schmidt, the executive chairman of Google, and Mr. Cohen, a former adviser to Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton who is now director of Google Ideas.'"
i think he might just be right... the world has already lost its privacy to google
He is clearly more than that or the media would not feel the need to smear him like this.
The "witch doctors" quote is taken completely out of context. All he is saying is that some companies are rushing ahead with new tech like Google Glass and Streetview and telling us everything is fine and its good for us.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
A new “crop of consultants” will “use data to build and fine-tune a political figure.”
Wait, that's in the future? Wasn't that the 2008 election?
He's a freak, and a paranoid treacherous loony
Treacherous? Nothing Assange has done constitutes treason. You're conflating Assange and Manning, shock amazement.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
In case it's not clear from the article, it's Assange doing a book review.
http://www.amazon.com/books/dp/1480542288
"“The Future of Terrorism” gets a whole chapter. The future of terrorism, we learn, is cyberterrorism. A session of indulgent scaremongering follows, including a breathless disaster-movie scenario, wherein cyberterrorists take control of American air-traffic control systems and send planes crashing into buildings"
Difficult to believe Schmidt put his name to that crap, there's no reason to open Air Traffic control to hackers.
"The section on “repressive autocracies” describes, disapprovingly, various repressive surveillance measures: legislation to insert back doors into software to enable spying on citizens, monitoring of social networks and the collection of intelligence on entire populations. All of these are already in widespread use in the United States. In fact, some of those measures — like the push to require every social-network profile to be linked to a real name — were spearheaded by Google itself. "
Yeh CALEA and CALEA II coming soon. American.
He pans the books.
For what it's worth, Schmidt has virtually disappeared inside Google (I work there). Once Larry took over Eric's influence - never actually high at the best of times - appears to have dropped to somewhere near absolute zero. He rarely appears in internal events anymore and doesn't seem to have any impact on priorities or staffing decisions. He was always something of a caretaker leader even in the years he was CEO ... the real drive and product direction was always coming from back seat driving by L&S.
Assange's article makes him sound like he's been locked up in that embassy for too long, to be honest. Schmidt and Cohen may well have an unhealthily close relationship with the US Government, but as neither of them are in charge any more it makes little difference. The idea that "Google is trying to position itself as America's geopolitical visionary" is silly. I can't imagine anything that must interest Page less than geopolitics.
As opposed to David Tennent , Matt Smith, and now John Hurt who are Who Doctors...
NO, sorry, you should RTFA. He's quite a lot more, and a lot different from that. Just for starters;
"The book proselytizes the role of technology in reshaping the world’s people and nations into likenesses of the world’s dominant superpower, whether they want to be reshaped or not. "
It's an interesting read. Wish I had read the book myself first. Assange's knee-jerk reaction is to presume the worst, and hidden, motives for anything related to American interests and motives. In this way he's like Chomsky, and the problem with this is, he's liable to be right at least every so often (e.g. broken clocks being right twice a day). That is annoying. But it makes every individual argument less convincing as there's no evidence it's actually a nuanced or considered position.
Also, I don't believe the word 'banal' means what he thinks it does.
Assange has an awful lot of very astute writing and work leading up to Wikileaks, technically he's no Jacob Appelbaum, but his philosophical writing nails it.
Wikileaks was based upon that philosophy and changed our world by starting this "leaking culture", certainly leaking existed long before, but social factors preventing it were more powerful. Assange created a framework proving that leaking often works where internal reforms fail.
Assange has obviously been driven a little batty by the U.S. government's pursuit via Sweden, U.K., etc., but historians will continue talking about Assange long after they've forgotten about Bush, Clinton, etc. Anyone who can actually push all the way from new philosophy to real political change is a certified genius.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
He is also trapped in an embassy, and making occasional news outlet is the only thing that keeps him alive and this is not an hyperbole. He did wikileaks, and is now trying to fight for his right to remain free even after that. That is indeed a commendable effort.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
He's paraphrasing "The banality of evil", the title of a report on the Eichmann trials.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
The fact the book was endorsed by Kissenger is enough for me. The man is an authoritarian nightmare; he helped craft the concept of the unitary executive, bombed neutral nations into the dirt, and overthrew legally elected governments to name just a few things. If Kissenger likes it it smells like imperialism to me.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
> Assange's knee-jerk reaction is to presume the worst, and hidden, motives for anything related to American interests and motives.
Why the fuck are you Americans so paranoid? You have all the guns you want, a massive military yet you're still so utterly shit scared that everyone's out to get you. For all the talk of "If I someone tried to attack me, I'd shoot them because I'm a hard scary person" in your country you don't have cry like a bunch of pussies each time someone talks bad of you and you don't half seem unable to consider how you might use your own physical form to defend yourselves if your guns were taken away as if the idea of punching someone attempting to attack you is too much for your feeble existences.
There's no doubt his organisation's biggest leak was embarrassing to the US but he leaked things about plenty of other countries prior to that. The only way he's started to focus on the US is in the way that it's been turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy where paranoid Americans like yourself and your government have cried "He's out to get us!" and attacked him in the media and so forth, to which he responds and points out the hypocrisy of your country and your countrymen which you then cry "He's out to get us!" again and so the cycle repeats.
He's not out to get you beyond the fact that your country and it's people have made it an us vs. him thing such that the media always asks about that US complaining against him such that another feedback loop commences about "how he's always on about the US because he just mentioned us! (even though he was asked about us and was just answering the question)" type scenario.
If he has started to pursue the US specifically then that's entirely you're nation's own doing. He only gives a toss about transparency and corruption and if you want him to focus on exposing that in other countries then you know what? Just shut up, and give it up with your attempt at extraordinary rendition via Sweden on trumped up rape charges against him so he can get on with exactly that.
we can't be surprised when people in power want to attract other people in power. Sadly, it is how it goes, whether it is for the greater good or not.
He specifically said John Hurt NOT Doctor!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
My friend the Google search, it taught me what to say
My friend the Google search, it taught me what to do
It knew what I would buy when said what I liked, by typing:
Ooh, ee, ooh ah ah
Ting tang walla-walla bing bang
Ooh, ee, ooh ah ah
Ting tang walla-walla bing bang
I am officially gone from
While being in UK someone asked Swedish authorities directly: is there a guarantee that he will not be extradited to US upon return to Sweden -- and there was no guarantee. This rape charges theater staged by Swedish authorities means they are completely on the leash with US, so I would not call it "safest place".
Please, don't forget that Julian became something of a minor hero, when his leaks concerned mostly Arab nations that we disapproved of, or approved of very little. It wasn't until Manning's stuff was published that Julian became "Public Enemy #xx". Congress critters and the White House gave him praise, even if it was faint, as long as he seemed to be focusing on Arab nations. How quickly the tables turned when we became the focus of attention!
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
How has Assange committed treachery, exactly?
He may not be on your side -- but he's not exactly betrayed the side he's on. That's treachery, and he's not committed it.
Why the fuck are you Americans so paranoid? You have all the guns you want, a massive military yet you're still so utterly shit scared that everyone's out to get you. For all the talk of "If I someone tried to attack me, I'd shoot them because I'm a hard scary person" in your country
I am a hard scary person, but it looks like someone needs a hug
That hardly answers the question. Why does he think he'd be in so much more danger in Sweden? Why is being in the UK, where extradition is easy, better than being in Sweden, where extradition is hard? Why is being in Ecuador, where the CIA doesn't mind sending in assassins, better than being in Sweden? And it's not me that says assassination might happen in Ecuador - it's the president of the country that's just granted him asylum.
Calling the rape charges theatre directed by the US makes no sense. It would have been terribly easy for the USA to extradite him directly from Britain. Going to Sweden makes it much harder. The only way it makes sense is if it is Julian directing the theatre - all this rubbish about US conspiracies is diverting attention from the sex charges against him.
Slashdot - News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters, in ISO-8859-1 Has just realised that beta makes this signature redundant
Your 1. has a flaw. What you mean is, you BELIEVE that there is zero chance that Assange would be extradited from Sweden. In fact, the "charges" aren't even charges - he has NOT been charged with any crime involving those women. Sweden has an ulterior motive for dragging Assange back into their jurisdiction. What could that motive be? Well - an arrangement with the US to permit Assange to be extradited or "rendered" seems most likely to me.
Do we need to revisit the two women involved?
1. Both women came on to Julian, and seduced him - not the other way around.
2. Both women, in interviews, have flatly stated that he did NOT rape or assault them.
3. Both women make exactly the same claim - on the "morning after" Julian had a second helping, WITHOUT a condom.
4. Neither woman made any complaint until AFTER they coincidentally met, and discussed their encounters with Julian.
It is important to note, that after one judge dismissed warrants for Assange's arrest, a DIFFERENT judge took over, and issued warrants on greater crimes than anyone had previously considered.
It's political, and if Sweden gets their hands on Assange, he will be sacrificed to the US Justice department.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Assange#Allegations_of_sexual_assault_and_political_refugee
If making yourself a political target is a crime, then Assange is most assuredly guilty of a crime. But he's hardly guilty of any gross sexual offense.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
... to presume the worst, and hidden, motives for anything related to American interests and motives. In this way he's like Chomsky...
Have you read any Chomsky? Chomsky explictly refrains from discussing the motives of American foreign policy. This is because, he says, it is impossible to determine what the actual motives behind any particular decision are, to try and do so would just be speculation. Instead, he confines himself to pointing discrepancies between what the govt. and the media say US foreign policy is doing, or trying to do, and what they are actually doing, or trying to do.
He makes this disclaimer prominently in many, if not all of his books (on foreign policy and media hegemony).
Let me cap my argument by reminding that Assange's whole enterprise (Wikileaks) depends absolutely on the kinds of technology produced by Google and similar companies. Before the internet, Julian Assange would be some guy somewhere Xeroxing small runs of a paranoid zine. It's very likely that without Google and its peers, no one would know about Julian Assange or Wikileaks.
Those that study history have no doubt how the ruling elite operate, or the methods they use to control the populace. It is today no different from how it was three thousand years ago. The psychology of those that find themselves 'in charge' is an assumption that they are "god's chosen". Even today, in the USA, more than 50% of senior US politicians state that 'god' has given them their power to rule over others.
Of course, the reality of the so-called ruling elites is one of being prepared to do whatever it takes to keep power, and wherever possible, to grow that power and pass it on to later generations of their same family/group. America, for instance, is on the verge of getting a second Clinton or a third Bush as supreme ruler.
How do you control the masses? How do you keep the mob on a leash? How do you persuade the populace, year after year, to dedicate their lives to enriching and empowering the same tiny minority?
-learn what the mob is thinking, in as close to real-time as possible
-find the best ways to manipulate the opinions of the mob, especially their long term beliefs and aspirations
-ensure the mob only ever hears control messages from the elites that rule them. Ensure the mob is trained to disregard messages from other sources
-give the mob 'bread and circuses'. Let the mob feel self-empowered by participation in useless trivial events like organised religion, organised team sports, and harmless forms of self expression
-exterminate or co-opt any emerging grass roots movements that could grown and threaten the power bases of the elites.
Only a complete fool would fail to understand where Google fits with the above goals. The dream of computerised intelligence gathering on the general population began before the age of the electronic computer. When 'electronic brains' first appeared, the elites were massively disappointed with the end results of unthinkably expensive attempts to use computers to spy on the populace. Perversely, the fiction of powerful computers doing incredible things spread like wild-fire through the consciousness of ordinary people in the 50s and 60s, but as we know the reality was far different.
The original Google project was predicated on the availability of vast amounts of cheap commodity hard-drive storage and processing power. It looked at the NSA desire to spy on the entire Human population from a very different POV. It also took account of the fact that official government IT projects (even when secret) would always fall prey to mega-corruption and complete-incompetence as a consequence. The psychology of successful IT ambitions was being made apparent by the incredible growth of the Internet.
Google gives people useful/entertaining/addicting toys like search, Youtube, Gmail and Android. Each of these toys monitors, and encourages users to provide ever greater amounts of information about themselves to monitor.
Google also provides the infrastructure (hardware and software models) that are used by the intelligence agencies of the 'West' to store and mine the information they gather. These are shadow-Google installations, built and run by people directly employed by intelligence agencies like the NSA, but based on current designs used by Google itself.
Google, as you should know, makes a lot of money from mining its data and using the results for advertising. What few of you realise is that this business is a deliberate side-effect of Google researching and developing mining algorithms for the NSA.
Today, when you vote Republican or Democrat in the USA, you get exactly the same mid/long term policies, and exactly the same program of rolling wars. In the UK, you can vote Labour, Liberal or Conservative, but still experience the exact agenda Tony Blair laid down for the UK when that monster first rose to visible power. The elites don't even have to bother maintaining even the illusion of a choice, largely thanks to Google.
The people that run Google think that they are superior to you, and therefore their will matters, and you will does not. I hate to tell you this, but the crud that desires to rule over others always has this attitude. And when you do nothing but lay down and accept the abuse, this abusive attitude grows exponentially.
One of the things covered in the leaks he published was how the US carried out extraordinary renditions in Sweden, so that could definitely happen to him.
Except he's talking up cyber terrorism as the future of terrorism, when its not. Boston showed that.
Is the future of tickling, cyber-tickling? Is the future of stomach punching, cyber stomach punching? Cyber kissing?
The ability to cause REAL WORLD damage is two steps harder if you add a first step of 'hack control system', 'make physical device override safeguards'. It's always easier to make real world damage if you do it in the real world.
So you've broken into the physical network, you've taken over the air traffic control, you've diverted the plane into the mountain.... how do you make the airplane radar not flash all those warnings, how do you make the pilot blind so he doesn't see the mountain???... Implausible scenarios, a Hollywood fiction.
So yeh, I'm surprised Schmidt put his name to that garbage, terrorists will always go for the easy terror, not the Rube-Goldberg terror machines involving networks and hacking.
For what it's worth, Schmidt has virtually disappeared inside Google
Sounds like something a witchdoctor could do! Just sayin'.
Julian has been involved in showing EVERYONE that the USA isn't the best and brightest and loveliest people in the world, the Leaders of the Free World as they claim.
That Wikileaks produce copious amounts of information from all across the globe is continually and habitually ignored, so that the claim can be asserted, sans proof or thought, that WL and JA specifically is a USA hater.
This is so that those who have evidence of their countries' culpability in bad actions can ignore those and instead complain about anyone and everyone else.
He's wrong. The technocratic imperialism part is accurate, in a sense.
The notion that it is centered around a specific culture confined to a specific nation-state is not. He seems to be blinded by his disdain for America, when in fact his alleged adversaries are politically ambivalent outside of their concern for policy that impacts their own state-independent agenda.
We are deeply offended by any comparison with Schmidt and Cohen.
Our harmless and ineffective curses, incantations and potions are a comfort, and not without entertainment value.
Please refrain, Mr. Assange, from making further degrading likenesses of our calling, to that of the subjects for your article.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
You're dismissal of this article out of hand, with no explanation other than the fact that you don't seem to like him, is weak and suggestive of google shilling
People on Slashdot (and Internet forums in general, I guess) really need to stop seeing dismissing a person's retarded behavior as shilling from the other side. "You disagree with me! You must be paid by the opposition company to do so, no reasonable person would disagree with my behavior!" Until recently, I've only seen the Church of Scientology make those claims on a regular basis. Now every troll on Slashdot seems to do so.
This!
In the past month I have been accused on Slashdot of being paid by 5 different companies.
I only wish there was some way I could collect all those paychecks.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
That hardly answers the question. Why does he think he'd be in so much more danger in Sweden? Why is being in the UK, where extradition is easy, better than being in Sweden, where extradition is hard?
Is Julian Assange really afraid of extradition? Personally, I think he's more afraid of indefinite detention in a Swedish government facility while being stuck in indefinite legal limbo.
In any case, does extradition even matter anymore? Sweden just went against common sense, against its own body of laws, and against existing precedents to redefine what a "rape" is supposed to be viewed like. Do you think that's just a coincidence? In my opinion, that's what Julian Assange should really be afraid of, the redefinition of law for his own "special" case and the prospect of being stuck indefinitely in a prison facility (where contact with the outside world is severely controlled and limited and your visitors are harassed and stripped-searched, assuming visitors are even allowed at all).
Why is being in Ecuador, where the CIA doesn't mind sending in assassins, better than being in Sweden?
Because the probability that the CIA will be successful in killing him in Ecuador is less than 100%, but should he return to Sweden, the probability that he will have to lose his freedom, be forced to stop most of his work, and be prosecuted under dubious just-made-up legal theory, is much closer to 100%.
It would have been terribly easy for the USA to extradite him directly from Britain.
Are you kidding me? If Assange was really extradited to the US. London would have a huge riot on its hands (and rightly so). And the current government would probably have to step down (or at least, make sure Assange never actually makes it on that plane, so that things can get back to normal without having the government needing to resign).
In any case, the extradition itself is a strawman. The threat of extradition and the legal limbo it creates, or the redefinition of "rape" and the legal limbo it creates, are more than enough to put Julian Assange under ice and out of commission for a number of years, even if none of those proceedings ever finally go through.
No shit.
Assange has become a parody of tin-foil-hat anti-US tripe.
What do you mean "become"? He's always struck me as far more motivated by anti-US hate than any desire for openness and such. His 'releases' and such seemed to target the US far more than anyone else as if no other country has secrets far more terrible to expose. They however get ignored because... well... I don't know just because?
I would be very hard to convince me that he's never been handed leaks from China, Russia, Iran, Venezuela or any of a number of places and yet (so far as I know) he/wikileaks has never released any significant material from any such place and certainly never made a multi-month big deal of them.
I was raised on the command line, bitch
"Nemo me impune lacesset"
That's not because of the US, that's because of feminists, who got Sweden to pass rape laws with ridiculous definitions.
...which were illegal. They have a history of bending over when the US establishment wants something.