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Is US Surveillance Technology Propping Up Authoritarian Regimes? (washingtonpost.com)
A senior policy analyst from a non-partisan national security think tank -- and one of their cybersecurity policy fellows -- sound a dire warning in an op-ed shared by Slashdot reader schwit1:
From facial recognition software to GPS trackers to computer hacking tools to systems that monitor and redirect flows of Internet traffic, contemporary surveillance technologies enable "high levels of social control at a reasonable cost," as Nicholas Wright puts it in Foreign Affairs. But these technologies don't just aid and enable what Wright and other policy analysts have called "digital authoritarianism." They also promote a sovereign and controlled model of the Internet, one characterized by frequent censorship, pervasive surveillance and tight control by the state. The United States could be a world leader in preventing the spread of this Internet model, but to do so, we must reevaluate the role U.S. companies play in contributing to it....
On one hand, the United States cares deeply about protecting a global and open Internet... On the other hand, American companies are selling surveillance technology that undermines this mission -- contributing to the broader spread of digital authoritarianism that the United States claims to fight. (This also implicates allies such as Britain, whose companies have also sold surveillance technology to oppressive regimes.) We won't be able to allay this situation until the United States updates its approach to exporting surveillance technology. Of course, this must be done carefully. But digital authoritarianism is spreading, and U.S. companies need to stop helping it.-
On one hand, the United States cares deeply about protecting a global and open Internet... On the other hand, American companies are selling surveillance technology that undermines this mission -- contributing to the broader spread of digital authoritarianism that the United States claims to fight. (This also implicates allies such as Britain, whose companies have also sold surveillance technology to oppressive regimes.) We won't be able to allay this situation until the United States updates its approach to exporting surveillance technology. Of course, this must be done carefully. But digital authoritarianism is spreading, and U.S. companies need to stop helping it.-
Yes.
So, I guess so.
Like many things, technology can be used for good or evil. It's not really the technology that is the problem, it's the regime.
US foreign policy is what's happening in Yemen. So, uh, obviously?
The trick for many of these societies will be to depose their authoritarian oppressors before they get strong AI assistance. It will be a survival-level trait for those that evolve it. Bombmakers have poor sales during peacetime, so this trick is to not focus on the bombmakers but those who can declare war, on outsiders or their own citizens.
http://hawaii.edu/powerkills
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
An alien EMP to planetary scale is the solution to shutdown Internet: from Internet providers to Internet satellites.
Another solution is a solar pulse.
and our Military. And our CIA. And our ruling class. This has been going on that I know of since the early 1900s with a big push in the 80s under Reagan. Even Obama looked the other way while we did it terrible thing around the globe to secure cheap oil and general corporate interests. Meanwhile we all look the other way.
What pisses me off the most is we go down south, destabilize the region, a bunch of actual refugees fleeing violence come up here not "seeking a better life" but seeking to escape the violence we caused and then they're used as a political prop by the same folks who caused the violence in the first place.
This shouldn't work. It shouldn't be this easy to cow an entire population. We should be pissed at what our ruling class is doing and we should be at the polls stopping them. But in all my life we haven't done jack shit.
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Is this a trick question? USA has been helping dictators for decades
No, of course not. Just like the US didn't provide arms and aid to the Shah of Iran or help create SAVAK. Or that time the US didn't provide arms and assistance to a young, up and coming ruler in a neighboring country after all that stuff the US didn't do in Iran went a little pear-shaped. Or like that time the US didn't help a plucky band of freedom fighters in Afghanistan stop their country from pursuing terrible evils (like female education and suffrage). Nope, there definitely never was a time during the latter half of the twentieth century that the United States ever aided and abetted some of the worst, most monstrous assholes and governments across the globe. And I'm definitely sure that since these new technologies are being offered by military defense contractors (or their owned subsidiaries) that there will be no similar patterns of sales and transfers that we definitely did not see in the twentieth century. The United States is nothing but Freedom, Apple Pie, and valiant protection of Human Rights both at home and abroad. The only things we export are Truth, Justice, the American Way, and Coca-Cola.
Is there some reason this needs to be asked?
The US:
* Sometimes arms and/or funds their rise to power
* Recognizes them when they form
* Backs them diplomatically
* Puts bases in their territory, which makes it difficult for opponents to invade and for popular uprisings to overrun government forces
* Sells them weapons
* Helps train their military and counter-insurgency forces
* Shares intelligence with them
* Has its clients do some of the above, or at least - fail to attack them and withhold support from their opposition
Isn't that enough?
It's not even a meaningful question, it's more an example of a bad attempt at linguistic programming.
Take a look at what it implies
1. Technology has a moral aspect in and of itself
2. The U.S. has a monopoly on any given technology
3. That it's actually possible to control the flow of technology (hint we can't even stop drugs or illegals from coming into our own country)
4. That it should even be our business what end users do with products.
The arrogance the above is astonishing even for what normally pops up here.
If the above hasn't started the gears spinning in your head about this try the following.
1. Is U.S. surplus food production propping up authoritarian regimes by making it easier to feed their people ?
2. Is our attempt to use more renewable energy propping up authoritarian regimes by creating demand for resources we won't produce ourselves ?
3. Does the u.s. manufacture of screwdrivers prop up authoritarian regimes since they use them to maintain their infrastructure.
Then there is the implied idea that somehow authoritarianism needs 21st century technology and hasn't been around since the time of Uruk and most likely long before that.
the USA is the biggest arms dealers and warmongers in the world, been that way for a long time
https://i.imgur.com/o4dydAI.pn...
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
The bases get planned.
The police and security services get to go to the USA to get extra education.
US experts arrive to support police and the military with US methods.
The nation has to buy into US tech.
The amount of authoritarianism stays the same, the ability to buy into US tech and use US police/mil methods is all that matters.
All the USA wants is the hearts and minds of that nations mil, security services and police.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Of course the USA supports an internet that allows them to spy on other nations easily... DUH
And if you buy enough weapons from the USA, it will support that regime , money beats morals.
There's not a single government on earth that doesn't desire surveillance and population control technology for itself. Even the governments that criticize it publicly probably use it privately. And governments that embrace it openly are willing to sell it to others, in part because it increases their own spying capabilities.
Trying to control the spread is pointless. You're better off directing that effort towards defensive technologies.
Since all the software etc mostly comes from the private sector, post career folks go and work as expats in other countries, representing either themselves or the same private sector companies. I was in one country with ex-CIA folks and Russians working together, building the capacity of that country. One that has fairly close ties with the USA.
When HASN'T the US propped up authoritarian regimes?
I run a remailer, a bitmessage node, a tor node, and an i2p node. Four things the government can't crack. So why all the worry and hype? There are plenty of secure communications out there to protect people, including several chat programs.
that's where the real power is. What the politicians and when they get scared. There's only one thing that frightens them: being primaried. AOC shows us it can work, but you've got to be there.
Also, and I keep saying this when voting comes up (or I'm just pissed at politics): vote for candidates who refuse corporate PAC money. Right now that means Democrats, because these guys are the only ones I know of who make it a point to refuse corporate PAC money. I don't know any equivalent on the GOP side.
Finally, I think we're pretty much stuck with left wing politics if we want to solve these problems. At a minimum Universal Healthcare and Universal College. We need a healthy, well educated population, and to be blunt right now the right wing (whether they call themselves Dems or GOPpers) opposes those things.
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France actually started the engagement in Libya, if you learn to read. The US and UK came later in a show of solidarity. Not that it changes a lot, but Obama wasn't the actor in Libya you're stating him to be. Learn to read.
BTW, I hold Obama accountable for the expanded drone strike program which, while more effective than boots on ground, killed a lot of innocent people on dubious authority and intel. That was something he might have limited.
But he would have done so at his political peril, because during that entire time, the "threat" of islamic terror was #1 talking point on Fox despite the actual math showing cheeseburgers and freeways would kill us all, really.
Yet to be upset about this or other Obama "abuses" is to forget about the Nixon, Reagan, Bush, and Bush regimes and their incredible, truly unConstitutional and illegal actions you now trod right over to blame Obama for.
You're a moron making a dishonest argument for politics instead of veritas.
To US IT Workers & US Public in General:
Notice & realize some ANTI-GOVERNMENT PEOPLE always keep trying hard to manipulate you into becoming an enemy of your own government!!!
Which is a government democratically elected by the US public & only exists to serve US public!!!
Always keep in mind:
W/O government you would not have a job!!!
W/O government there would not be hospitals/schools/...!!!
W/O government you would not officially own anything!!!
W/O government there would not be police to protect you from any criminals/gangs!!!
W/O government there would not be military to protect you from public uprisings & foreign invasions & disasters!!!
Do not allow yourselves to be manipulated into becoming an enemy of your own government!!!
(You can always easily recognize ANTI-GOVERNMENT PEOPLE works/texts/docs by noticing phrases like "Government Surveillance/Spying" etc!)
... to prop up authoritarian regimes.
Bullshit. I flew the first day the French flew against qadaffi.
> Show up at your primary
> that's where the real power is.
In the USA, both major party primaries are rigged. The DNC rigs the votes rather directly--not only via super delegates--as Bernie can attest, whereas the RNC uses a vote-splitting strategy wherein they introduce candidates to siphon votes away from the intended winner, using the spoiler effect of simple majority voting along with careful polling to rig the vote. This got even crazier last time because the DNC had it's "Pied Piper" campaign to promote the candidates they thought were the absolute worst (like Trump) very early on with the belief that they would be easier to defeat, which meant that Jeb didn't win like the RNC wanted him to. Then in the end, the DNC's rigging and concentration of all the party funds to prop up their own least-popular but vastly powerful candidate backfired on them and threw the US government into chaos and undermined their own influence badly.
Unfortunately, this means that your primary vote doesn't really matter and the Green & Libertarian parties are also partially infiltrated to leave them as controlled opposition that can be used to siphon votes via the spoiler effect. Don't get me wrong, I still vote in the primaries, I'm just not crazy enough to think that it matters that much, because the real question isn't whether my vote counts, but who counts the votes. And I don't exactly trust any of them.
"Is Surveillance Technology Propping Up US Authoritarian Regimes?"
Saudi Arabia is already surrounded by a hostile nation: itself.
It's sure doing a great job propping up the corrupt regime of sleazebag fraud trump.
They do it anyway. It's their right as sovereign nations. Now, is it beneficial to the future of those countries, to global economy and stability? That's a different question. Now onwards to wait the resurrection of the specter of digital and economic imperialism in this discussion. It will happen at any time now, just wait.
Not only "technology" but the US is exporting cars (propping up dictators), guns (propping up dictators) and fossil fuels (you guess it: propping up dictators). We need to stop all of our exports!. There's the service sector: medicine - used to prop up dictators, finance - used to prop up dictators, even religion (which we DO export) is propping up dictators. Oh, and look at the food we sell (and give) to countries like N. Korea. Need to stop that, too. What a moronic post.
It would be nice if someone were to start a wiki of what to do for each case, with links on key concepts that go deeper to elaborate.
A lot of people want to do something but don't specifically know what they, in their unique position, can focus on, and how it will facilitate things moving forward.
But thanks for going on at length to demonstrate what a used up piece of shit looks like!
You forgot the decades of runaway gerrymandering by Republicans to the point where it's now 1 Republican vote carries the same weight of 7 Democrat votes because freedumbs! JUST like the Founding DADDIES wanted! BIGLY!!!1!
Yup, and you plopped out of the web's asshole right on schedule to prove it.
its always about the money first.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Formerly a terrorist organization removed from the list in 2009. A suicide bombing socialist organization with tacit support of the West simply because they are against the current Iranian regime. A regime I might add that was radicalized into its current form by British and American overthrow of the fledgling Iranian democracy that was planning to socialize British Petroleum's facilities in the country so that they provided profit to Iran's people instead of to a foreign hegemony.
American and the West's beliefs in freedom, democracy, and equality between all are quite malleable in the face of the almight dollars of profit, and even groups who should be politically or ideologically offensive to the very moral foundations of the countries will be openly supports if it forwards the goals of the entrenched interests of the corporations, wealthy or influential individuals, and corrupt amoral political establishment.
Go read up on the Opening of Japan.
And prior to that I believe the US was involved with the Barbary Pirates in some way. I forget if we were hunting them or supporting them to harry European powers. America has been fucking shit up across the world since very early in its history as a country.
We heard you're thick but...