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C|Net Reporter Declan McCullagh Talks About Privacy (Video)
Declan Mccullagh, C|net's Chief political correspondent, has covered politics since the late 1990s for a variety of publications. He is a strong libertarian, privacy advocate, and long time Slashdot reader who is not happy about how the NSA and other government bodies are sticking their noses into our personal business. He and I originally talked about doing an interview based on a story he wrote for C|net on July 12 titled How the U.S. forces Net firms to cooperate on surveillance. Scheduling problems put the interview off for a bit, but here we are. Note that Declan has written millions of pixels worth of material about privacy, NSA spying, and related matters. With new revelations about unsavory government activities coming to light seemingly every day the interview delay is no big deal. And this question still remains: Can we repeal the Patriot Act? New Jersey Congressman Rush Holt wants to. What about your representatives? Are they willing to join Rep. Holt? Do you think they might if a bunch of people -- perhaps starting with you -- asked them to?
Any attempts to repeal the Patriot Act will be caught by the government with snooping and snubbed.
Are we really going to be calling it that after the logo?
And he suddenly writes millions more as soon as I change the font size. That's talent!!
Yeah, but he used a big font.
Not until you vote the D/R party out. However if it was to lose 20 or 30 percentage points, that might scare them into rethinking their platform, but right now there is no incentive to do so. It's easy for guys like these to stand up and make noise knowing full well nothing will come of it, but it will look great to the rubes back home who otherwise might start thinking of voting for someone else.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
The Patriot Act authorizes the US government to obtain secret warrants to investigate suspected terrorists. But what they are actually doing, is obtaining warrants for the entire US population. Repealing the Patriot Act will not stop this, because the Patriot Act is not their legal authority to seize these records. The US Government has NO authority to seize these records.
The author of the Patriot Act agrees
sudo make me a sandwich
Technically speaking, unconstitutional "laws" do not need to be repealed, because they were never properly laws in the first place.
And yes, that means those who enforced them should go to jail.
Colorado stands with you.
This is a Federal law that makes it a felony to deprive you of your rights "under color of law". And it applies specifically to government officials. Up to, and including, the President.
Also, I should point out that because of the way it is worded, if you read it quickly, you might get the impression that it applies only to racial prejudice and other such errors. Not so. It has been tested in courts and it applies to ANY of your Constitutional rights.
>> written millions of pixels worth of material
If we're using true-color pixels (24-bits), that's at least an embarrassingly bad 48M bits of information.
Quick, someone tell this guy about compression, or at least 7-bit ASCII character sets please!
Somehow or other, I think that the dystopias in Stross's Merchant Princes series and John Twelve Hawks universes are already here...
"He is a strong libertarian, privacy advocate"
Then why did he give his name for the interview?
1. Repeal the USA PATRIOT Act and Homeland Security Act
2. Triple the budget of the reestablished US Border Patrol and direct it to hire at least 40k new agents for the southern border and at least 10k new agents for the northern border.
3. Double the size of the US Coast Guard.
4. Spend the remainder of Homeland Security's former annual budget on hardening the electrical grid against an EMP attack.
5. Suspend all travel visas from countries that have a serious problem with their citizens being recruited by radical Islamic countries.
See? No war, no torture, no idenfinite detention, no one's junk getting man-handled at the airport. Homeland security is 95% "keep the borders secure, keep the known problem populations away from our territory."
Of course, it'll never happen because even if the MIC and DHS could be overpowered politically, you'd have half the country saying "no sir, I'd rather maintain the status quo than be perceived to be discriminating against people from different countries."
Patriot Act, Patriot Act, Patriot Act.
In the years that you people have been bitching and moaning about the Patriot Act, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has been created and is presently subcontracting the analysis of all credit card activity.
The only mention of the CFPB here on Malcontent Dot is where they 'embraced' FOSS and created an online complaint system. No concern whatsoever about the incredible power these people have to sift through whatever electronic transactions they care to. Not the slightest whiff of outrage.
So I'm going chalk this up to chronic Bush derangement syndrome and ignore it. There is no legitimacy to a discussion of privacy that exempts the CFPB or any other entity because the right party signed it into law. You want me living under the snoops created by your side then you can go to your grave under the snoops created by mine.
Most of the people you're ever likely to meet are in totally favor of Big Brother shit. They are cowards, afraid of their own shadow, terrified by every rustling leaf. Big Brother will protect them, and keep them safe from the Bad people and the Different.
The ONLY thing that will change their mind is if Big Brother tries to fuck with their cars. It's the one nerve they have left.
Ask them about speed cameras, or red light cameras, or any of that stuff: It'll have them foaming at the mouth in no time, shrieking about "revenue gathering" and other shit.
Tell them Big Brother plans to track their vehicle usage and they'll merely gripe. But tell them Big Brother will use the data to send automated speeding tickets and there'll be blood in the streets.
"He is a strong libertarian, privacy advocate, and long time Slashdot reader who is not happy about how the NSA and other government bodies are sticking their noses into our personal business. "
That's hilarious. Does he completely ignore that the US government is completely controlled by corporations, i.e. the richest of the rich? You know, the exact people that the Libertarians worship and wish to emulate? PRISM was not designed to keep the government in power. It was designed to keep the rich people rich, and the poor people poor. You know, the logical consequences of unrestricted corporate freedom. And if that's not the Libertarian ideal, then what is?
The only thing worse than a Democrat is a Republican.
He writes about tech and infosec issues but does not have a very deep understanding of them. He sets out writing his piece with his mind already made up. He survives merely because the people who read his column ( politicians and DC area shills ) don't know any better.
Sites like CNET employ no-one who cares about the rights of the sheeple. No, the purpose of CNET is to ensure as many people get their opinion from a mainstream source, so that sheeple NEVER develop the 'dangerous' habit of looking beyond the mainstream.
It is the job of scum like Declan Mccullagh to say "Honest Injun, I'm on you side". Propagandists have to come in ALL varieties. If CNET's goon said "good, I'm glad the NSA spies on you sheeple", readers would immediately give up on CNET in disgust.
Goebbels used to pull his hair out, when he read and heard the terrible output from official Nazi propaganda departments. We know his name today, because HE was the smart, intelligent subtle one who knew that sheeple MUST be controlled with clever psychological manipulation. You MUST appear as their friend. You MUST gain their trust before you attempt to lead them down the dark allies of your desire.
So of course Declan says "I'm on your side, mates, and I don't like this NSA stuff any more than you do." And that ALL it takes for the mainstream propagandists to take control of 95%+ of the sheeple. Sometimes, journalists like Declan Mccullagh are referred to as the 'dingleberries'. This means they are the mock-alternative voice in a publication notorious for promoting the opposite POV. A right-ring rag may employ a famous liberal blowhard columnist as their 'dingleberry' or vice-versa.
The truth about NSA spying is that it is 99.99%+ focused on surveilling the general population. Your masters gain their power from the (passive) support of the sheeple. Your masters have ZERO power of their own. Therefore the sheeple must be kept under absolute control, and any future problem with the sheeple per-empted.
In the USA, at all levels that matter, the sheeple can choose to vote for exactly ONE thing, reducing their choice to no choice at all. The two dominant political parties are the SAME party, with apparent differences being either trivial, or an illusion sold to idiots by mainstream media propaganda. What would happen if the sheeple noticed that Jack Johnson (choice 1) and John Jackson (choice 2) are two faces of the same thing? Yet, at no time in American history has this truth been more obvious. Obama's war mongering, far in excess of Bush, has rather given the game away.
So, the NSA will give feedback on the mindset of the US sheeple in real-time, allowing the propaganda control messages spewed by the TV stations and newspapers to be rapidly improved or re-directed for maximum effect. The NSA will identify emerging grass-roots movements and leaders for 'extermination' or co-opting.
Meanwhile, the NSA gathers blackmail material on people in positions of influence to ensure everyone 'powerful' is seen by the sheeple to pull in the same direction. It's an old old game, simply played with new new technology. But the efficiency that computerised surveillance brings to the game changes everything.
Prior to our age, random happenstance tended to destroy the fortunes of the overly ambitious. Now we cannot rely on this. The monsters behind Obama have the planet in a death-grip, and it will take a miracle to shake them loose.
All we can do as individuals is withdraw our support in a thousand small ways. Stop getting propaganda from mainstream media sources. If you can't be bothered to dig deeper, just give up on the idea of 'news' altogether- you won't miss it. Fight for your kid's rights at school, and yours at work. Make 'bad' changes difficult for those trying to impose them on your life and that of your family. Give some support to those braver than yourself in fighting the system. "You are alone" is the wickedest message your masters ever use to control you.
Bad mouth Bill Gates' NSA spy initiatives, the Xbox One and his universal children database. Demand that your kid's school doesn't beat the kids, use biometric monitoring, RFID chips, or force GM food in the cafeteria. Ensure they are not collecting information on your children for Bill Gates.
Push back wherev
He reports journalism; he doesn't decide corporate policy. You'll find this the same for other journalists. Everywhere.