Let me see if I get this right: Three letter agencies refuse to work in compliance with the Constitution and pre-Bush era FISA law... where few people can remember why the original FISA was passed (look it up, it has everything to do with illegal three letter agency data collection on US citizens during the early to mid-20th century, very much like what we're facing now)... where people forget that NSA lawyers were directed by Darth Cheney to find every means of justifying to the secret court (what? a secret court in America? really???) four (that we know so far), count 'um, four illegal spying programs... which the aforementioned secret court accepted with few, if any limits!... so Baby Bush could wave a court signed piece of paper that granted his illegal spy programs legitimacy... and that anti-American "socialist" Obama continually supports... where citizens of the Formerly Great Country of the USA demand safety in nearly gleeful exchange for freedoms... and not one single person involved in these clearly illegal activities has been put on trial... while the US Government hunts those who might reveal aforementioned illegal activities...
Problem? What problem? Oh. Right. Ice cold Busch and NASCAR await. Gotta go...
...Viewing science and technology as the key to economic development and international competitiveness, the government of the People’s Republic of China
(PRC) has launched a comprehensive effort to become an innovative nation by 2020 and a global scientific power by 2050. China’s effort will draw significantly on the resources and planning role of the state, whose national science programs have long made targeted investments in research and development (R&D) efforts in areas deemed critical China’s economic and military needs...
Additionally, this could shed further light on the topic - State Council, Guojia Zhongchangqi Kexue he Jishu Fazhan Guihua Gangyao (2005 - 2020) National Medium to Long - term Plan for the Development of Science and Technology (2005 - 2020), February 9, 2006. http://www.gov.cn/jrzg/2006 - 02/09/content_183787_2.htm
I agree that America needs to wake up to more than corporate "profitability" that has enabled the transfer of manufacturing, product development, and intellectual property into China. China clearly knew what they wanted when they opened it's doors to the West and enabled US corporations to fill America's shelves with cheap goods. It is only a means to a much bigger end for China and it is coming at a very steep cost to the common citizens (ie: labor, engineering) in America.
The same goes for China. Industrially, they're getting to where the US was in the mid-1800s. Their space technology is in the 1950s, and early 1960s. Socially, they're pre-1750s in many ways. Militarily, they're in the 1910s, at best
I certainly hope that you are NOT an American.
If you are, please, I beseech you, please WAKE THE FUCK UP.
America is in a steep decline, and the rate of decline has quicken in the past 2 decades.
And America's decline is in stark contrast with the rapid growth of Brazil, India and China.
Why is it that taxpayer money can be used to bail out corporations and banks while not lifting a finger to help "We the People"? _And_ to "forgive" or write-off billions in unpaid debt? I'm shocked the CEO's and corporate officers who drove those companies into the ground haven't been lynched by the citizens of your country.
... which leads me to once again wonder if the bottom 99% in America will ever wake up to discover they have a comment interest and see how powerful they can be when acting together... but that's a topic for another time...
I think this is too simplistic. You can replace every single president, senator and congress-critter in Washington and you'll have the same outcome as you're faced with today. The reason is that members of three letter agencies feel, with all their bleed'n-red-Amerikan-hearts that they are responsible maintaining "continuity". They don't care which political party is in power. They know politicians will come and go.
I think you're very close with your inclusion of generals on your list of those needing to be replaced. Broaden that a bit to include anyone who can set policy and direction without public review and oversight , and I think you'd have something to work with.
Which is the reason behind my ongoing snickering over a recently/.'d article that described how "hurt" NSA employees are that Obama has not paid them a personal visit. I can't imagine who died and left them in charge, but in charge they definitely feel. Think about it from my perspective and the underlying meaning of their being "hurt" might take on new weight and meaning.
No the problems start at the top, Senators, Presidents, powerful Congressmen, generals...
I agree. You are, indeed, a god!! You've hit the proverbial nail right on the fucking head!!!
The surveillance revelations so far have been scary, sinister, infuriating, offensive. But this one? This is just... sad.
OK, bad guys could potentially use the in-game comms functions on X-Box live to plans their nefarious deeds, but do we really need to be paying teams of people to go into the games and play them all day long? If they really need to snoop on that shit (they don't) then couldn't they just hoover up all the conversations and analyse them offline like they do our emails, phone calls, texts etc? What additional benefit does having someone actually in the game world offer? Are they worried that somewhere out there a virtual ogre and elf controlled by kiddie-porn-terrorists are communicating in avatar sign language or something? This is fucking ridiculous.
Our government is telling us they can't afford basic shit like hospitals and education and welfare, but they can afford to pay dorks to play Xbox all fucking day. I get the feeling some very ballsy gamer put together a presentation to get paid taxpayers' money for playing CoD all day long and hit the jackpot. If there was any justice on this fucking planet we'd all be knee deep in fired "intelligence" agents months ago.
Since when have any of these companies ever cared a whit or a bit for their customer's privacy? Something clearly does not add up here. Must be a publicity stunt and nothing more.
Er. No. Three letter agency spying on US citizens is illegal. Period. Ever read the 4th amendment to your constitution? Perhaps you should.
The logic espoused by the quoted idea is the same as saying if police were to start strip searching everyone without cause, it would be reasonable simply because it always happens.
Standards of "reasonable-ness" in the US and UK are completely screwed up. More importantly, claiming illegal actions "reasonable" does not make them any less unlawful, now does it?
Pretty soon, the argument about whether you have in any given facet of your life a "reasonable expectation of privacy" may take on a whole new meaning.
No, it absolutely will not. People need to get through their heads that just because your rights are violated, that doesn't mean expecting them not to be becomes unreasonable. If someone breaks into your house every day, it doesn't become "reasonable" for them to do so, or unreasonable for you to expect people to stay out of your house.
The logic espoused by the quoted idea is the same as saying if police were to start strip searching everyone without cause, it would be reasonable simply because it always happens.
I hate to see us have to fight this fight, yet again. It appears we need to, once more, remind our government and corporate overlords that what we do and who we are is really none of their business. Just because we pay taxes or give them our hard earned money in exchange for cheap pieces of electronic crap does _not_ mean they have the right to know everything or anything about us.
Reagan’s economic programs, so controversial then and now, generally supported federal science programs... As Reagan’s term went on, however, the rising federal deficits and lower revenues that were the result of a recession took their toll on R&D budgets. Soon, agencies such as the Energy Department, the National Bureau of Standards, and even the National Institutes of Health were looking at budget cuts.
The Regan Revolution went much further than to just corrupt previously publicly owned companies: they mandated that every service that had begun with ownership by the public needed to be privatized; because only the private corporate-world could make money with things like public services, that up until then had been "a drain" on the public purse. 'Privatization would bring an economic windfall from the drudgery and incompetence of publicly owned services. The justification by the Regan Revolution was that Everything Must Earn a Profit, or it should be terminated: The entire idea of society providing anything for its citizens was heresy to any True-Capitalist.
The result was 'The Revolution That Killed Society'. Everything from the buses and the trains, to electricity, natural gas and heating oil, public hospitals, and public health: indeed everything except possibly firefighters and police have been privatized: and now even those two "services" are experimenting with the idea of privatization as well.
The size of government actually increased under Reagan. This has to stand in stark contrast with his stated goals of downsizing government. From the Reagan Budget, we learn that "People around the country seem to understand what no one in Washington will admit: The budget is out of control. The growth of government is out of control...
Lastly, I take no position on Right vs Left in American politics, except to note that neither party works for We the People. Both parties work hard for the monied class. Hence my belief that America has a one party system. It's called the Business Party and it has two factions that conveniently distract America's citizens by providing great theater as they fight amongst themselves. "Liberals" in the US look better than "Conservatives" only in that they don't say stupid things quite as often as the Rabid Right. Neither faction has any idea how to govern for We the People.
To start, the US de-funded scientific research. It had to, in part, because Ronald Raygun privatized many government functions.
To start, the US de-funded scientific research. It had to, in part, because Ronald Raygun privatized many government functions. What was the practical effect? It means that rather than paying managers of a government function a government salary, you now take bids from private companies who have only one interest at heart: To make the managers of the private company rich. The cost of government has risen dramatically thereby. Think I'm wrong? Look at SAIC, Ross Perot and his old company, and all the companies related to war and contracting "security" services (just to scratch the surface). Which is directly related to why America spends well north of 55 percent of it's national budget on war related costs, instead of the less than 25 percent of a national budget that European countries do. So, in a country where people do not like government, don't want to pay any tax, in a country where R&D incentives (first initiated during WWII) are removed, in a country that feels it's OK to send jobs to China (effectively making China's middle class rich and America's poor) you end up being left behind on the ideological, scientific, basic research items.
Europe has it's own financial problems right now. It did three things. First, it allowed Germany to become not only the bankers of the EU, but to become the economic powerhouse of the EU as well. Second, many EU countries bought a ton of AAA-rated US mortgage packages that turned out to be junk. Take a close look at which countries bought what and you'll see the effect I'm pointing out. Third, the EU tried to grow their economy by doing what the US and UK did; make cheap loans available as a means of boosting production. Bad move, right? Credit bubbles seldom last forever. Look at what it did to Spain.
Which leads me to this: First world nation's governments are deeply involved in "realpolitik", and are no longer paying attention to the ideologies on which they were founded or the ideologies of science as it might relate to industry. In the US and UK this means enabling corporate and banker greed. On mainland Europe, this means getting wrapped around the axle of competing political interests.
...What the heck happened to the usually technologically more advanced societies of the Western countries ?
Asia is playing catch up very very fast, and before long, they might even get ahead of you guys !
So... America as an open, strong democracy that liberates people to express their highest ideals, to be allowed live their lives as they see fit, and is a force of good around the world is... what?... a lie?
There seems to be quite a gap between what people believe about America and reality. Maybe somewhat enlightened people in the US are coming to understand reality, but, no matter how many people have awoken, this is not the America I thought I grew up in. The citizens of that formerly great country remain too complacent for any true, lasting change to take place.
"Land of the Free?" I think not. "We're number One?" Only in per capita incarceration rates and military spending. "Hey, look! It's a Wookie!!" Ya, right. Go back to sleep.
To me it's a mark of reality to understand we absolutely need people like Snowden, Manning, and Assange, as well as writers like Hersch, Greenwald, and Schneier.
After 30 years working in software engineering and program management, I was turfed. The company I worked for had been acquired by a huge rollup company. We all knew what we coming, and come it did.
I survived eight layoffs and got caught in the ninth, four years after the takeover. This, even though I helped bring the kinds of technologies and software engineering talent that helped generate hundreds of millions of dollars a year in bottom line revenue.
In my case, the company had decided to ship manufacturing (a common "given") and engineering (something that surprised many of us) to China. The only thing the new company was interested in was increasing the value of the "leadership's" stock options. They didn't care what they acquired, just so long as they could strip assets and downsize and ship jobs offshore to fatten the bottom line. They honestly believed that what few jobs that were left in the US could be picked up by young engineers coming out of college. Cheap labor, right? Wrong. Particularly when they don't yet know enough and have no experience in highly specialized electronics and software solutions.
I wish I could find it, but I remember reading a German study that showed us old folks are more productive in a 24 hour work week than new or middle-aged workers working 35.5+hours a week. I know we older folks can really crank out the work, manage and maintain revenue generating business relationships, and can help the rich bastards make even more money than they already are if they'd keep us around, but...
Trans-national corporations, banks, and businesses really don't care how they generate their money and no one, not one single organization is upholding labor law that might, just might, hold these rogues accountable.
I've been looking for a job for over two years now. I can't believe the US job market is as tough as it has turned out to be. We hate to suffer like this, but I feel too old, that I know too much, and I'm too damned expensive for korporate Amerika. Too bad labor isn't organized and won't stand up for each other. It's every person for themselves, or so it seems to me.
... the watcher is watched and finds out they don't like it? Well, well...
I'm in the midst of reading a book on Victorian England. It's interesting to learn a little about how policing came into being. No surprise to me that from the very beginning, policing had nothing to do with protecting and serving anyone but the monied classes. Policing has _always_ been about subduing the restless masses. [Hey! I'm a poet and don't know it!!!]
What am I missing here?
on
Rigging Up Baby
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· Score: 3, Interesting
Why do people "need" these things? Humans have been born and grown to adulthood for, oh, now many hundreds of thousands of years without the aid of monitors? Oh. Wait. I just responded to my own question. Human monitors are no longer valid. That's it! So... _this_ is what happens when you don't want to be with your child... and when you have "better" things to do, eh? Sad. Really sad, if that's the case.
What really scares me isn't that the Americans themselves don't seem to care a lot.
"Freedom" and "liberty" are abstract concepts to most Americans. The only thing "real" in their lives are their TV, cellphones, and the perception that "We're number ONE!" . They don't call it "programming" for nothing.
Europe has been a prime target of all this and even there the reaction is "meh".
Er... no. There are many responses to the NSA revelations. European business are actively moving away from using Goggle's and other US corporate services because they have confirmation that their data is not secure. European governments are dealing from a much stronger position on trade talks currently taking place. The citizens of Europe (well, at least the ones I've spoken with, and you really should listen to Radio France Info) are well aware of the issues of privacy and they are demanding their governments take action to secure their liberties and freedoms against US spying.
How many USA ambassadors have been summoned to explain and apologize?
US ambassadors have been called by France, Germany, Spain... um, should I continue? Or should I add the British ambassadors that have also been called?
The USA has treated their allies worse than most of Europe would treat their enemies and still nothing came of this. It turns out Europe isn't that different after all....
Huh? Really? Um... just to start... how about explaining how Europe's spy apparatus is structured and deployed and compare it against how the US, Israel, and China deploy theirs? It could make for an interesting study in contrasts and motivations. Then we could move onto how coordination between European and US spy agencies is pretty much on the rocks right now.
Negotiations of any kind are seldom held in a public forum.
What people should be outraged over is the US Government negotiating on behalf of trans-national corporate interests, none of whom have any vested concern in supporting the goals or purposes of nation-states, including the government that is negotiating on their behalf. Which leads to the only and obvious conclusion that not only is the US Government not willing to act in the public interest, it's only concern is in furthering trans-national corporate greed. Period.
I actually wonder why it was secret to begin with.
And I wonder why is there a need to start these treaties like that...
Anyone remember one of the earliest Windows dev kit? The one that came on 3.5inch floppys. I seem to remember there were 20 of the leetle buggers. And it came with a tall stack of pretty useless books too.
After I realized there were three duplicate functions for each and every action, and that the parameter list was different for the three different implementations, I returned to Unix and swore that uSoft had NO idea what it was doing.
... um... perhaps you should read and understand Howard Zinn's "Peoples History of the United States." Failing that, read less verbose, though no less eloquent, Charles Dickens comments from after his 1830's trip through America...
You know, I think there's something to this. In Europe, for example, facts and figures are checked and cross checked. When opposing parties discuss the direction of public policy, they discuss, often from very different ideological points of view, from the same set of facts and figures.
By contrast, in the US, anyone can make up their own facts and figures to "prove" their point. No one can act as a trusted source because no one trusts the opposition's ideological basis for anything. It's all smoke and mirrors. There is no legitimate fact or real world number-based authority over which reality can be argued. In America, highly charged emotional perception is the rule.
My family visited Europe this Fall and were surprised at the level of civility experienced there.
It seems that fear and paranoia drive Americans to give up liberties in trade for some vague promise of security. "Stand your ground" laws and the vast supposedly all knowing NSA wiretapping program are just two small examples of the manifestation of all pervading fear and paranoia.
Other First World Nations have a different balance between liberty and security. It's not that they don't spy on each other. It's not that good people don't die at the hands of bad people. It has to be experienced elsewhere to know that things don't _have_ to be they way they are in the US.
I can't help but feel it has to do, in small part, with basic civility between humans. Too bad America can't/won't follow these better, more secure examples.
Hey. Would ya look at that? Nutella is in the mix! Tasty stuff, that. And I'll bet it'd be a LOT more intelligent at running uSoft than the other names on the short list.
This, to me, is one of the many fascinating things about America. When sh*t like this happens, there is the inevitable question of what kinds of things people can do to change the way things are. Yet, when you talk with people from other countries and you talk about this kind of sh*t, they many times will respond with what they personally are doing to change the way things are.
Come on, America. You're a smart bunch of people. Save yourselves. You really need to figure it out. Seriously. There are at LOT of things that can be done to rein in your out of control three letter agencies, politicians who want to burn the place to the ground, and the greedy bankers and corporate officers who know you'll continue to buy the sh*t they have for sale. Nothing will change until you actually _do_ something. So get with it and _do_ what _needs_ to be done.
... What we need to know is how to defeat them and pull the reins back in and get back in control of those gone rogue agencies that have respect for neither Constitution,Law nor Country...
Slashdot Mirror
Let me see if I get this right: Three letter agencies refuse to work in compliance with the Constitution and pre-Bush era FISA law... where few people can remember why the original FISA was passed (look it up, it has everything to do with illegal three letter agency data collection on US citizens during the early to mid-20th century, very much like what we're facing now)... where people forget that NSA lawyers were directed by Darth Cheney to find every means of justifying to the secret court (what? a secret court in America? really???) four (that we know so far), count 'um, four illegal spying programs... which the aforementioned secret court accepted with few, if any limits!... so Baby Bush could wave a court signed piece of paper that granted his illegal spy programs legitimacy... and that anti-American "socialist" Obama continually supports... where citizens of the Formerly Great Country of the USA demand safety in nearly gleeful exchange for freedoms... and not one single person involved in these clearly illegal activities has been put on trial... while the US Government hunts those who might reveal aforementioned illegal activities...
Problem? What problem? Oh. Right. Ice cold Busch and NASCAR await. Gotta go...
Serious students of PRC policy in regards to the role of science and technology need to read China’s Program for Science and Technology Modernization: Implications for American Competitiveness . In particular...
Additionally, this could shed further light on the topic - State Council, Guojia Zhongchangqi Kexue he Jishu Fazhan Guihua Gangyao (2005 - 2020) National Medium to Long - term Plan for the Development of Science and Technology (2005 - 2020), February 9, 2006. http://www.gov.cn/jrzg/2006 - 02/09/content_183787_2.htm
I agree that America needs to wake up to more than corporate "profitability" that has enabled the transfer of manufacturing, product development, and intellectual property into China. China clearly knew what they wanted when they opened it's doors to the West and enabled US corporations to fill America's shelves with cheap goods. It is only a means to a much bigger end for China and it is coming at a very steep cost to the common citizens (ie: labor, engineering) in America.
The same goes for China. Industrially, they're getting to where the US was in the mid-1800s. Their space technology is in the 1950s, and early 1960s. Socially, they're pre-1750s in many ways. Militarily, they're in the 1910s, at best
I certainly hope that you are NOT an American.
If you are, please, I beseech you, please WAKE THE FUCK UP.
America is in a steep decline, and the rate of decline has quicken in the past 2 decades.
And America's decline is in stark contrast with the rapid growth of Brazil, India and China.
Why is it that taxpayer money can be used to bail out corporations and banks while not lifting a finger to help "We the People"? _And_ to "forgive" or write-off billions in unpaid debt? I'm shocked the CEO's and corporate officers who drove those companies into the ground haven't been lynched by the citizens of your country.
... which leads me to once again wonder if the bottom 99% in America will ever wake up to discover they have a comment interest and see how powerful they can be when acting together... but that's a topic for another time...
I think this is too simplistic. You can replace every single president, senator and congress-critter in Washington and you'll have the same outcome as you're faced with today. The reason is that members of three letter agencies feel, with all their bleed'n-red-Amerikan-hearts that they are responsible maintaining "continuity". They don't care which political party is in power. They know politicians will come and go.
I think you're very close with your inclusion of generals on your list of those needing to be replaced. Broaden that a bit to include anyone who can set policy and direction without public review and oversight , and I think you'd have something to work with.
Which is the reason behind my ongoing snickering over a recently /.'d article that described how "hurt" NSA employees are that Obama has not paid them a personal visit. I can't imagine who died and left them in charge, but in charge they definitely feel. Think about it from my perspective and the underlying meaning of their being "hurt" might take on new weight and meaning.
No the problems start at the top, Senators, Presidents, powerful Congressmen, generals...
I agree. You are, indeed, a god!! You've hit the proverbial nail right on the fucking head!!!
The surveillance revelations so far have been scary, sinister, infuriating, offensive. But this one? This is just... sad.
OK, bad guys could potentially use the in-game comms functions on X-Box live to plans their nefarious deeds, but do we really need to be paying teams of people to go into the games and play them all day long? If they really need to snoop on that shit (they don't) then couldn't they just hoover up all the conversations and analyse them offline like they do our emails, phone calls, texts etc? What additional benefit does having someone actually in the game world offer? Are they worried that somewhere out there a virtual ogre and elf controlled by kiddie-porn-terrorists are communicating in avatar sign language or something? This is fucking ridiculous.
Our government is telling us they can't afford basic shit like hospitals and education and welfare, but they can afford to pay dorks to play Xbox all fucking day. I get the feeling some very ballsy gamer put together a presentation to get paid taxpayers' money for playing CoD all day long and hit the jackpot. If there was any justice on this fucking planet we'd all be knee deep in fired "intelligence" agents months ago.
If I had mod points you'd be a god.
Woudl you settle for an "atta' boy!"?
Your tax dollars at work! And aren't y'all proud? Gotta love America. Anything is justifiable there. Sad. Really sad.
Since when have any of these companies ever cared a whit or a bit for their customer's privacy? Something clearly does not add up here. Must be a publicity stunt and nothing more.
Er. No. Three letter agency spying on US citizens is illegal. Period. Ever read the 4th amendment to your constitution? Perhaps you should.
Yes, it is. Gone through an airport lately?
Thank you. That's exactly it, isn't it?
What else is there to say.
Exactly!!! Well illustrated points.
Standards of "reasonable-ness" in the US and UK are completely screwed up. More importantly, claiming illegal actions "reasonable" does not make them any less unlawful, now does it?
No, it absolutely will not. People need to get through their heads that just because your rights are violated, that doesn't mean expecting them not to be becomes unreasonable. If someone breaks into your house every day, it doesn't become "reasonable" for them to do so, or unreasonable for you to expect people to stay out of your house.
The logic espoused by the quoted idea is the same as saying if police were to start strip searching everyone without cause, it would be reasonable simply because it always happens.
Stop that.
Indeed. Privacy does _not_ equal paranoia.
I hate to see us have to fight this fight, yet again. It appears we need to, once more, remind our government and corporate overlords that what we do and who we are is really none of their business. Just because we pay taxes or give them our hard earned money in exchange for cheap pieces of electronic crap does _not_ mean they have the right to know everything or anything about us.
... so how do your comments square with the following?
From Chemical and Engineering news -
Reagan’s economic programs, so controversial then and now, generally supported federal science programs... As Reagan’s term went on, however, the rising federal deficits and lower revenues that were the result of a recession took their toll on R&D budgets. Soon, agencies such as the Energy Department, the National Bureau of Standards, and even the National Institutes of Health were looking at budget cuts.
Further, from "The Revolution that Killed Society", we read...
The Regan Revolution went much further than to just corrupt previously publicly owned companies: they mandated that every service that had begun with ownership by the public needed to be privatized; because only the private corporate-world could make money with things like public services, that up until then had been "a drain" on the public purse. 'Privatization would bring an economic windfall from the drudgery and incompetence of publicly owned services. The justification by the Regan Revolution was that Everything Must Earn a Profit, or it should be terminated: The entire idea of society providing anything for its citizens was heresy to any True-Capitalist.
The result was 'The Revolution That Killed Society'. Everything from the buses and the trains, to electricity, natural gas and heating oil, public hospitals, and public health: indeed everything except possibly firefighters and police have been privatized: and now even those two "services" are experimenting with the idea of privatization as well.
The size of government actually increased under Reagan. This has to stand in stark contrast with his stated goals of downsizing government. From the Reagan Budget, we learn that "People around the country seem to understand what no one in Washington will admit: The budget is out of control. The growth of government is out of control...
Lastly, I take no position on Right vs Left in American politics, except to note that neither party works for We the People. Both parties work hard for the monied class. Hence my belief that America has a one party system. It's called the Business Party and it has two factions that conveniently distract America's citizens by providing great theater as they fight amongst themselves. "Liberals" in the US look better than "Conservatives" only in that they don't say stupid things quite as often as the Rabid Right. Neither faction has any idea how to govern for We the People.
Nice theory, but doesn't agree with reality...
To start, the US de-funded scientific research. It had to, in part, because Ronald Raygun privatized many government functions. What was the practical effect? It means that rather than paying managers of a government function a government salary, you now take bids from private companies who have only one interest at heart: To make the managers of the private company rich. The cost of government has risen dramatically thereby. Think I'm wrong? Look at SAIC, Ross Perot and his old company, and all the companies related to war and contracting "security" services (just to scratch the surface). Which is directly related to why America spends well north of 55 percent of it's national budget on war related costs, instead of the less than 25 percent of a national budget that European countries do. So, in a country where people do not like government, don't want to pay any tax, in a country where R&D incentives (first initiated during WWII) are removed, in a country that feels it's OK to send jobs to China (effectively making China's middle class rich and America's poor) you end up being left behind on the ideological, scientific, basic research items.
Europe has it's own financial problems right now. It did three things. First, it allowed Germany to become not only the bankers of the EU, but to become the economic powerhouse of the EU as well. Second, many EU countries bought a ton of AAA-rated US mortgage packages that turned out to be junk. Take a close look at which countries bought what and you'll see the effect I'm pointing out. Third, the EU tried to grow their economy by doing what the US and UK did; make cheap loans available as a means of boosting production. Bad move, right? Credit bubbles seldom last forever. Look at what it did to Spain.
Which leads me to this: First world nation's governments are deeply involved in "realpolitik", and are no longer paying attention to the ideologies on which they were founded or the ideologies of science as it might relate to industry. In the US and UK this means enabling corporate and banker greed. On mainland Europe, this means getting wrapped around the axle of competing political interests.
...What the heck happened to the usually technologically more advanced societies of the Western countries ?
Asia is playing catch up very very fast, and before long, they might even get ahead of you guys !
So... America as an open, strong democracy that liberates people to express their highest ideals, to be allowed live their lives as they see fit, and is a force of good around the world is... what?... a lie?
There seems to be quite a gap between what people believe about America and reality. Maybe somewhat enlightened people in the US are coming to understand reality, but, no matter how many people have awoken, this is not the America I thought I grew up in. The citizens of that formerly great country remain too complacent for any true, lasting change to take place.
"Land of the Free?" I think not. "We're number One?" Only in per capita incarceration rates and military spending. "Hey, look! It's a Wookie!!" Ya, right. Go back to sleep.
To me it's a mark of reality to understand we absolutely need people like Snowden, Manning, and Assange, as well as writers like Hersch, Greenwald, and Schneier.
After 30 years working in software engineering and program management, I was turfed. The company I worked for had been acquired by a huge rollup company. We all knew what we coming, and come it did.
I survived eight layoffs and got caught in the ninth, four years after the takeover. This, even though I helped bring the kinds of technologies and software engineering talent that helped generate hundreds of millions of dollars a year in bottom line revenue.
In my case, the company had decided to ship manufacturing (a common "given") and engineering (something that surprised many of us) to China. The only thing the new company was interested in was increasing the value of the "leadership's" stock options. They didn't care what they acquired, just so long as they could strip assets and downsize and ship jobs offshore to fatten the bottom line. They honestly believed that what few jobs that were left in the US could be picked up by young engineers coming out of college. Cheap labor, right? Wrong. Particularly when they don't yet know enough and have no experience in highly specialized electronics and software solutions.
I wish I could find it, but I remember reading a German study that showed us old folks are more productive in a 24 hour work week than new or middle-aged workers working 35.5+hours a week. I know we older folks can really crank out the work, manage and maintain revenue generating business relationships, and can help the rich bastards make even more money than they already are if they'd keep us around, but...
Trans-national corporations, banks, and businesses really don't care how they generate their money and no one, not one single organization is upholding labor law that might, just might, hold these rogues accountable.
I've been looking for a job for over two years now. I can't believe the US job market is as tough as it has turned out to be. We hate to suffer like this, but I feel too old, that I know too much, and I'm too damned expensive for korporate Amerika. Too bad labor isn't organized and won't stand up for each other. It's every person for themselves, or so it seems to me.
... the watcher is watched and finds out they don't like it? Well, well...
I'm in the midst of reading a book on Victorian England. It's interesting to learn a little about how policing came into being. No surprise to me that from the very beginning, policing had nothing to do with protecting and serving anyone but the monied classes. Policing has _always_ been about subduing the restless masses. [Hey! I'm a poet and don't know it!!!]
Why do people "need" these things? Humans have been born and grown to adulthood for, oh, now many hundreds of thousands of years without the aid of monitors? Oh. Wait. I just responded to my own question. Human monitors are no longer valid. That's it! So... _this_ is what happens when you don't want to be with your child... and when you have "better" things to do, eh? Sad. Really sad, if that's the case.
What really scares me isn't that the Americans themselves don't seem to care a lot.
"Freedom" and "liberty" are abstract concepts to most Americans. The only thing "real" in their lives are their TV, cellphones, and the perception that "We're number ONE!" . They don't call it "programming" for nothing.
Europe has been a prime target of all this and even there the reaction is "meh".
Er... no. There are many responses to the NSA revelations. European business are actively moving away from using Goggle's and other US corporate services because they have confirmation that their data is not secure. European governments are dealing from a much stronger position on trade talks currently taking place. The citizens of Europe (well, at least the ones I've spoken with, and you really should listen to Radio France Info) are well aware of the issues of privacy and they are demanding their governments take action to secure their liberties and freedoms against US spying.
How many USA ambassadors have been summoned to explain and apologize?
US ambassadors have been called by France, Germany, Spain... um, should I continue? Or should I add the British ambassadors that have also been called?
The USA has treated their allies worse than most of Europe would treat their enemies and still nothing came of this. It turns out Europe isn't that different after all....
Huh? Really? Um... just to start... how about explaining how Europe's spy apparatus is structured and deployed and compare it against how the US, Israel, and China deploy theirs? It could make for an interesting study in contrasts and motivations. Then we could move onto how coordination between European and US spy agencies is pretty much on the rocks right now.
Negotiations of any kind are seldom held in a public forum.
What people should be outraged over is the US Government negotiating on behalf of trans-national corporate interests, none of whom have any vested concern in supporting the goals or purposes of nation-states, including the government that is negotiating on their behalf. Which leads to the only and obvious conclusion that not only is the US Government not willing to act in the public interest, it's only concern is in furthering trans-national corporate greed. Period.
I actually wonder why it was secret to begin with. And I wonder why is there a need to start these treaties like that...
Anyone remember one of the earliest Windows dev kit? The one that came on 3.5inch floppys. I seem to remember there were 20 of the leetle buggers. And it came with a tall stack of pretty useless books too.
After I realized there were three duplicate functions for each and every action, and that the parameter list was different for the three different implementations, I returned to Unix and swore that uSoft had NO idea what it was doing.
... um... perhaps you should read and understand Howard Zinn's "Peoples History of the United States." Failing that, read less verbose, though no less eloquent, Charles Dickens comments from after his 1830's trip through America...
You know, I think there's something to this. In Europe, for example, facts and figures are checked and cross checked. When opposing parties discuss the direction of public policy, they discuss, often from very different ideological points of view, from the same set of facts and figures.
By contrast, in the US, anyone can make up their own facts and figures to "prove" their point. No one can act as a trusted source because no one trusts the opposition's ideological basis for anything. It's all smoke and mirrors. There is no legitimate fact or real world number-based authority over which reality can be argued. In America, highly charged emotional perception is the rule.
... Faux News
My family visited Europe this Fall and were surprised at the level of civility experienced there.
It seems that fear and paranoia drive Americans to give up liberties in trade for some vague promise of security. "Stand your ground" laws and the vast supposedly all knowing NSA wiretapping program are just two small examples of the manifestation of all pervading fear and paranoia.
Other First World Nations have a different balance between liberty and security. It's not that they don't spy on each other. It's not that good people don't die at the hands of bad people. It has to be experienced elsewhere to know that things don't _have_ to be they way they are in the US.
I can't help but feel it has to do, in small part, with basic civility between humans. Too bad America can't/won't follow these better, more secure examples.
Hey. Would ya look at that? Nutella is in the mix! Tasty stuff, that. And I'll bet it'd be a LOT more intelligent at running uSoft than the other names on the short list.
This, to me, is one of the many fascinating things about America. When sh*t like this happens, there is the inevitable question of what kinds of things people can do to change the way things are. Yet, when you talk with people from other countries and you talk about this kind of sh*t, they many times will respond with what they personally are doing to change the way things are.
Come on, America. You're a smart bunch of people. Save yourselves. You really need to figure it out. Seriously. There are at LOT of things that can be done to rein in your out of control three letter agencies, politicians who want to burn the place to the ground, and the greedy bankers and corporate officers who know you'll continue to buy the sh*t they have for sale. Nothing will change until you actually _do_ something. So get with it and _do_ what _needs_ to be done.
... What we need to know is how to defeat them and pull the reins back in and get back in control of those gone rogue agencies that have respect for neither Constitution ,Law nor Country ...