It's funny how right-wingers can't imagine that someone might actually take their oath to uphold and defend the constitution seriously, and reveal information that is beneficial to the public interest. A vow to protect against enemies, both foreign and domestic, which does involve blind obedience to those currently in power.
It's incredible to assume that Snowden would even have a chance to see the inside of a courtroom. Not when there is an example to be made.
And that bullshit by leftists pales in comparison to the far greater threat from the right; which is far more in favor of FISA court back intelligence agency mass surveillance having unchecked power, far more in favor of civil asset forfeiture, and completely against any consequence for police violating our constitutional rights.
You're going to brush aside the existential threat leftists pose to civil liberties in order to single out R's as the party never to vote for? Sure, seems legit. That aside there isn't much of the above that I disagree with. Let's look at the big picture, though.
Leftists: Authoritarian would-be tyrants that seek the public to be too afraid to utter any opinion or humor that is not preapproved, lest that person's personal life, career, or business goes down in flames. Their purpose is to enforce conformity while preaching diversity, to stroke the flames of infighting with racism and bigotry, and to undermine social norms that are beneficial to a just and free society. The public is divided based on petty grievances both faked or imagined.
Rightwing: Authoritarian would-be tyrants that seek to establish a robber barron society, where corporations and by extension the richest elite hold the reigns of power in society. Their purpose is to make war profiteering patriotic, to make being a wage-slave a badge of honor, and to betray the country's own best interest for the sake of global financial hegemony and the futile goal of extending the power of the petrodollar indefinitely. The public, or peasants if you will, are overly occupied with survival to offer an effective resistance, especially when the alternative seems equally horrible.
Both sides work towards the same goal: a Chinese style authoritarian tyranny where the proletariat are to be unable to offer any resistance to exploitation and they are manipulated into compliance.
You could argue that the right wing is worse. But then the validity of "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable" comes into question as the power of technology advances. At this time the side that makes any kind of revolution impossible through disarmament and criminalizing speech gives me the most concern. At least with those rights, we have a chance.
It's going to be interesting to see if we can actually manage to avoid inescapable tyranny, when the Chinese have already beaten us to it. With the way that leftists keep getting elected that actively seek to make gun ownership and free speech illegal, there's no way to be sure.
The DARPA system utilizes a printer and the tabulator. While there can be extra redundancy with multiple scanners with tabulation, there is only one ballot and thus only one printer. In the system currently enacted, I am the printer, and thus the attack surface has been cut in half. That's an advantage.
Selling votes is a criminal act and those soliciting vote buying leave themselves highly exposed to whistle blowing. I don't find it that concerning.
I honestly can't remember the last time I've seen a billboard with "Vote X get CA$H!", and I've lived in a vote-by-mail state a long time. How exactly does vote by mail make large scale vote buying trivial?
On the other hand, it requires voter registration and a signature on file, with a valid address to receive the ballot. The envelope containing the ballot must be signed and the signatures must match to what is on file. How does that compare to having no voter ID at all, where people can be bussed from polling station to polling station?
Not only are chromebooks nice cheap disposable laptops, but Google apps for education provides a nice enterprise management console for dealing with them that allows for app deployment based on inherited permissions under an OU style hierarchy. Pretty handy when every department seems to have their own suite of special programs, and just dropping the device object into its folder takes care of it.
Then there's browser extensions like Securely that integrate into chrome that serves as web content filtering and keyword detection. Students sexting during class? Yeah, some admin is going to get an email about that.
Not when it is done in good faith to actually facilitate free speech and maintaining protocol for speech to be heard. In that sense, there is a difference between censorship and the moderation that is necessary for the free flow of ideas.
Where censorship is wrong, is when it is done in bad faith, to tilt an otherwise level playing field in one direction or another.
I'll agree that there is no reason to trust Google has any intention to moderate in good faith, at all.
Probably because of the dilution of too many tech sites./. editors don't exactly seem overly tech savy, either.
The mod system and earned public reputation here for posts is great for hosting political debate for tech related matters. The site gets accused of being both a right-wing AND a left-wing echo chamber, so that's good enough for me.
Vote by mail also leaves a paper trail in the form of the ballot. I also find it very convenient to take my time researching the candidates, time that is better spent than waiting in line at a polling station. Personally delivering the ballot to the county clerk on election day also helps ensure it doesn't get 'lost'.
What you are doing is projection. You're blaming others for your own actions as if being a liberal or having liberal media is the problem. The media reported on these kids and if they didn't want to be used for the propaganda they shouldn't have been sent for propaganda.
Because kids going on a field trip to DC and buying souvenir political attire related to the current sitting president while they are there can't possibly be true. There's no way Occam's razor can be applied here, as this was totally a setup.
It takes all of about one second to realize what bullshit that claim is. At least, for a rational person. But someone who levels accusations of projection towards those making verifiable observations is probably not rational. It's also not uncommon for the liberal media to blame the victim, and sensationalize in order to profit, not caring if they further ruin the victim's lives. Then here you are, doing just that.
“There is no such thing, at this date of the world's history (1880), in America, as an independent press. You know it and I know it.
There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinion out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job. If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone.
The business of the journalists is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it and I know it, and what folly is this toasting an independent press?
We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes.” - John Swinton, A New York Journalist, from a speech given at a Press Club banquet given in his honor
We? I doubt the public ever had any say in CIA ops, include Project Mockingbird which was used to manipulate our own press. Then the Smith–Mundt Act gets nullified, allowing the state department to direct its propaganda on U.S. citizens.
So why would a foreign power be exclusively using 'false' information to attack our own fake news? If anything, truth is a potent weapon against institutions built on lies and corruption.
Why doubt the truthfulness of the press? Because the one time Trump gets near universal positive coverage, is when he's lobbing missiles at targets in Syria, in the midst of a proxy war where the US gov was actively arming insurgents and islamist fighters. The fires haven't even been put out, and now look who is arguing for intervention in Venezuela, a nation that is sitting on an ocean of light crude.
Point is, if you want to be utterly misinformed and conditioned to believe false narratives, keep your information bubble confined to the sphere of US corporate media.
I appreciate the insightful analysis, and mean no disrespect, but it seems as if it'll only amount to a thought experiment while the political sphere is still flush with cash from corporate donations to super PACs.
Also please consider branching out to alternative subscriber services, such as subscribestar. I didn't find you there.
Meanwhile Tommy Robinson is being dragged back into court again, for the crime of reporting and exposing the corrupt BBC. I wonder how many months of solitary confinement he'll get this time? And comedians like Count Dankula are being unpersoned, made unhireable, and have a target on their back for the crime of edgy humor. All while ISIS fighters are being welcomed back with open arms.
Yes, please, tell us Yanks more about how we should handle free speech and democracy.
Every single US intelligence agency has stated that the interference was targeted, significant, and way more intrusive than in prior elections.
That report brought to you and signed by James "least untruthful" Clapper, and written by agents he personally selected. You know, the same way the public was told of Iraq's WMDs.
I think it's naive to underestimate the effect Russia had on our elections. Doing so will leave us vulnerable to additional attacks
Sure, what's not to like about that idea. Not only can you argue for more censorship, but you still get to accuse everyone critical of leftist propaganda as being a russian troll. Certainly that makes the job easier of David Brock shills.
Sure, as long as you ignore the pile of indictments.
Oh no, we can't ignore that. A pile of scalps for propaganda as a result of this fishing expedition was a major feature of the Mueller investigation. Does the term 'Potemkin village' mean anything to you?
Most of that is even true, expect for the fact that it makes a mountain out of a molehill. For the upteenth millionth time, correlation does not mean causation.
So why the frantic handwaving about 'viral' Russian memes and articles that noone can seem to provide examples of? Because when the actual evidence of Russian activity is examined over the course of several years, it barely shows any uptick at all.
Meanwhile hundreds of millions of dollars were being pumped into NGO's who run their own troll farms, and whose sole purpose is to push out maximum disinformation and propaganda, while being backed by a news media that is undeniably biased. This happens to be the exact same group that is now pumping out the russian interference narrative. What a coincidence.
He was a math prodigy at one time, but maybe he also a prophet. Perhaps Kaczynski had a vision of those approved by the leftist establishment with their blue checkmarks spreading messages portraying children being fed face first into woodchippers, for the crime of wearing the attire of their ideological enemies. Perhaps he became aware of how ordinary people would have their livelihood and reputations destroyed at the hands of leftist hate mobs, for the crime of having the wrong opinions. Perhaps he envisioned a future Berkeley leftist professor smashing people's heads with bikelocks for simply trying to engage in peaceful political speech.
Perhaps he envisioned all these things and more, and how technology would be used for inescapable mass surveillance or otherwise abused, and this is what drove him into madness.
Perhaps we could learn something from him, and that's what concerns you.
Slashdot Mirror
It's funny how right-wingers can't imagine that someone might actually take their oath to uphold and defend the constitution seriously, and reveal information that is beneficial to the public interest. A vow to protect against enemies, both foreign and domestic, which does involve blind obedience to those currently in power.
It's incredible to assume that Snowden would even have a chance to see the inside of a courtroom. Not when there is an example to be made.
And that bullshit by leftists pales in comparison to the far greater threat from the right; which is far more in favor of FISA court back intelligence agency mass surveillance having unchecked power, far more in favor of civil asset forfeiture, and completely against any consequence for police violating our constitutional rights.
You're going to brush aside the existential threat leftists pose to civil liberties in order to single out R's as the party never to vote for? Sure, seems legit. That aside there isn't much of the above that I disagree with. Let's look at the big picture, though.
Leftists: Authoritarian would-be tyrants that seek the public to be too afraid to utter any opinion or humor that is not preapproved, lest that person's personal life, career, or business goes down in flames. Their purpose is to enforce conformity while preaching diversity, to stroke the flames of infighting with racism and bigotry, and to undermine social norms that are beneficial to a just and free society. The public is divided based on petty grievances both faked or imagined.
Rightwing: Authoritarian would-be tyrants that seek to establish a robber barron society, where corporations and by extension the richest elite hold the reigns of power in society. Their purpose is to make war profiteering patriotic, to make being a wage-slave a badge of honor, and to betray the country's own best interest for the sake of global financial hegemony and the futile goal of extending the power of the petrodollar indefinitely. The public, or peasants if you will, are overly occupied with survival to offer an effective resistance, especially when the alternative seems equally horrible.
Both sides work towards the same goal: a Chinese style authoritarian tyranny where the proletariat are to be unable to offer any resistance to exploitation and they are manipulated into compliance.
You could argue that the right wing is worse. But then the validity of "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable" comes into question as the power of technology advances. At this time the side that makes any kind of revolution impossible through disarmament and criminalizing speech gives me the most concern. At least with those rights, we have a chance.
It's going to be interesting to see if we can actually manage to avoid inescapable tyranny, when the Chinese have already beaten us to it. With the way that leftists keep getting elected that actively seek to make gun ownership and free speech illegal, there's no way to be sure.
The DARPA system utilizes a printer and the tabulator. While there can be extra redundancy with multiple scanners with tabulation, there is only one ballot and thus only one printer. In the system currently enacted, I am the printer, and thus the attack surface has been cut in half. That's an advantage.
Selling votes is a criminal act and those soliciting vote buying leave themselves highly exposed to whistle blowing. I don't find it that concerning.
I honestly can't remember the last time I've seen a billboard with "Vote X get CA$H!", and I've lived in a vote-by-mail state a long time. How exactly does vote by mail make large scale vote buying trivial?
On the other hand, it requires voter registration and a signature on file, with a valid address to receive the ballot. The envelope containing the ballot must be signed and the signatures must match to what is on file. How does that compare to having no voter ID at all, where people can be bussed from polling station to polling station?
When attendance is mandatory, it guarantees a portion of those will have no interest in learning.
Not only are chromebooks nice cheap disposable laptops, but Google apps for education provides a nice enterprise management console for dealing with them that allows for app deployment based on inherited permissions under an OU style hierarchy. Pretty handy when every department seems to have their own suite of special programs, and just dropping the device object into its folder takes care of it.
Then there's browser extensions like Securely that integrate into chrome that serves as web content filtering and keyword detection. Students sexting during class? Yeah, some admin is going to get an email about that.
Censorship of any kind is wrong.
Not when it is done in good faith to actually facilitate free speech and maintaining protocol for speech to be heard. In that sense, there is a difference between censorship and the moderation that is necessary for the free flow of ideas.
Where censorship is wrong, is when it is done in bad faith, to tilt an otherwise level playing field in one direction or another.
I'll agree that there is no reason to trust Google has any intention to moderate in good faith, at all.
Probably because of the dilution of too many tech sites. /. editors don't exactly seem overly tech savy, either.
The mod system and earned public reputation here for posts is great for hosting political debate for tech related matters. The site gets accused of being both a right-wing AND a left-wing echo chamber, so that's good enough for me.
What? You don't trust Google and their black-box algorithms to regulate speech on the internet? What could possibly go wrong?
In Amimojo's 'free democracy', the telescreen only has one channel, and if you turn it off Antifa shows up at your house.
Which is why you can set the message threshold to whatever level you want. You're not going to find many GNAA posts at +1 or above.
Or are you talking mostly about 'trolls' that you disagree with?
Vote by mail also leaves a paper trail in the form of the ballot. I also find it very convenient to take my time researching the candidates, time that is better spent than waiting in line at a polling station. Personally delivering the ballot to the county clerk on election day also helps ensure it doesn't get 'lost'.
It probably was a 'misconfiguration' that leaked data and passwords, and it took the duration of the outage to update and deploy the code worldwide.
What you are doing is projection. You're blaming others for your own actions as if being a liberal or having liberal media is the problem. The media reported on these kids and if they didn't want to be used for the propaganda they shouldn't have been sent for propaganda.
Because kids going on a field trip to DC and buying souvenir political attire related to the current sitting president while they are there can't possibly be true. There's no way Occam's razor can be applied here, as this was totally a setup.
It takes all of about one second to realize what bullshit that claim is. At least, for a rational person. But someone who levels accusations of projection towards those making verifiable observations is probably not rational. It's also not uncommon for the liberal media to blame the victim, and sensationalize in order to profit, not caring if they further ruin the victim's lives. Then here you are, doing just that.
Really, they are all best described as 'opportunist'.
“There is no such thing, at this date of the world's history (1880), in America, as an independent press. You know it and I know it.
There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinion out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job. If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone.
The business of the journalists is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it and I know it, and what folly is this toasting an independent press?
We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes.” - John Swinton, A New York Journalist, from a speech given at a Press Club banquet given in his honor
We? I doubt the public ever had any say in CIA ops, include Project Mockingbird which was used to manipulate our own press. Then the Smith–Mundt Act gets nullified, allowing the state department to direct its propaganda on U.S. citizens.
So why would a foreign power be exclusively using 'false' information to attack our own fake news? If anything, truth is a potent weapon against institutions built on lies and corruption.
Why doubt the truthfulness of the press? Because the one time Trump gets near universal positive coverage, is when he's lobbing missiles at targets in Syria, in the midst of a proxy war where the US gov was actively arming insurgents and islamist fighters. The fires haven't even been put out, and now look who is arguing for intervention in Venezuela, a nation that is sitting on an ocean of light crude.
Point is, if you want to be utterly misinformed and conditioned to believe false narratives, keep your information bubble confined to the sphere of US corporate media.
I appreciate the insightful analysis, and mean no disrespect, but it seems as if it'll only amount to a thought experiment while the political sphere is still flush with cash from corporate donations to super PACs.
Also please consider branching out to alternative subscriber services, such as subscribestar. I didn't find you there.
Meanwhile Tommy Robinson is being dragged back into court again, for the crime of reporting and exposing the corrupt BBC. I wonder how many months of solitary confinement he'll get this time? And comedians like Count Dankula are being unpersoned, made unhireable, and have a target on their back for the crime of edgy humor. All while ISIS fighters are being welcomed back with open arms.
Yes, please, tell us Yanks more about how we should handle free speech and democracy.
Every single US intelligence agency has stated that the interference was targeted, significant, and way more intrusive than in prior elections.
That report brought to you and signed by James "least untruthful" Clapper, and written by agents he personally selected. You know, the same way the public was told of Iraq's WMDs.
But hey, if appeal to authority matters so much, what does a former ambassador to the soviet union have to say about the matter?
I think it's naive to underestimate the effect Russia had on our elections. Doing so will leave us vulnerable to additional attacks
Sure, what's not to like about that idea. Not only can you argue for more censorship, but you still get to accuse everyone critical of leftist propaganda as being a russian troll. Certainly that makes the job easier of David Brock shills.
Sure, as long as you ignore the pile of indictments.
Oh no, we can't ignore that. A pile of scalps for propaganda as a result of this fishing expedition was a major feature of the Mueller investigation. Does the term 'Potemkin village' mean anything to you?
Most of that is even true, expect for the fact that it makes a mountain out of a molehill. For the upteenth millionth time, correlation does not mean causation.
So why the frantic handwaving about 'viral' Russian memes and articles that noone can seem to provide examples of? Because when the actual evidence of Russian activity is examined over the course of several years, it barely shows any uptick at all.
Meanwhile hundreds of millions of dollars were being pumped into NGO's who run their own troll farms, and whose sole purpose is to push out maximum disinformation and propaganda, while being backed by a news media that is undeniably biased. This happens to be the exact same group that is now pumping out the russian interference narrative. What a coincidence.
He was a math prodigy at one time, but maybe he also a prophet. Perhaps Kaczynski had a vision of those approved by the leftist establishment with their blue checkmarks spreading messages portraying children being fed face first into woodchippers, for the crime of wearing the attire of their ideological enemies. Perhaps he became aware of how ordinary people would have their livelihood and reputations destroyed at the hands of leftist hate mobs, for the crime of having the wrong opinions. Perhaps he envisioned a future Berkeley leftist professor smashing people's heads with bikelocks for simply trying to engage in peaceful political speech.
Perhaps he envisioned all these things and more, and how technology would be used for inescapable mass surveillance or otherwise abused, and this is what drove him into madness.
Perhaps we could learn something from him, and that's what concerns you.