Tag: 1984 was a Warning not a Blueprint

The Most Effective Tracking Devices Every Conceived

Many conspiracy theorists believe the a secret shadow government is plotting to forcefully insert tracking devices into every person on Earth. This theory is absurd because so many people already carry around a personal tracking device voluntarily, it’s called a cell phone. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has put together a rather useful map that you can use to see how police in your state are using cell phones to track individuals:

In a massive coordinated information-seeking campaign, 35 ACLU affiliates filed over 380 requests in 31 states and Washington, D.C. with local law enforcement agencies large and small to uncover when, why and how they are using cell phone location data to track Americans.

Sadly no data for Minnesota currently exists but there is data on many other states.

Tools Big Brother Only Dreamed Of

1984 was an interesting novel. Not only did it serve as a warning of what might be (and what actually manifested) but also hypothesized on some of the technologies that would be used by the state to keep an constant eye on the people. Everything from thought police to telescreens were used to keep tabs on those living in Oceania. Today technology has advanced and the state has tools that Big Brother could only dream of:

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation has begun rolling out its new $1 billion biometric Next Generation Identification (NGI) system. In essence, NGI is a nationwide database of mugshots, iris scans, DNA records, voice samples, and other biometrics, that will help the FBI identify and catch criminals — but it is how this biometric data is captured, through a nationwide network of cameras and photo databases, that is raising the eyebrows of privacy advocates.

Until now, the FBI relied on IAFIS, a national fingerprint database that has long been due an overhaul. Over the last few months, the FBI has been pilot testing a facial recognition system — and soon, detectives will also be able to search the system for other biometrics such as DNA records and iris scans. In theory, this should result in much faster positive identifications of criminals and fewer unsolved cases.

Imagine what combining the Federal Bureau of Investigations’s (FBI) new facial recognition technology with New York City’s spy network will do. People walking down the street can be easily identified and any criminals, which every one of us are, can be detected and state goons dispatched to the offender’s location.

It’s sad to see George Orwell’s warnings going unhindered.

Big Brother is WWWatching You

There is a really good series on YouTube call The Rap News. The series consists of very well done videos discussing actual consequences of current news stories in a light hearted manner. Needless to say the latest video covers the surveillance state and fucking nails it:

The Internet is the last place where a truly open exchange of ideas can occur. Technology makes it too easy for the state to track down printing presses and radio transmitters so those options are no longer available. On the other hand the Internet is a global communication system where users can remain anonymous so long as they use the right tools. Yet the state continues to legislation the Internet, trying to kill it as they know it’s a threat to their power based. We must keep the Internet free of state intrusion at all costs. If we lose it we’re truly sunk because then the state will be able to have almost complete control over everything being said.

Let’s heed George Torwell’s advice.

Getting Things Done

If there’s one thing the United States is good at it’s killing people overseas:

29 dead in a little over a week. Nearly 200 gone this year. The White House is stepping up its campaign of drone attacks in Yemen, with four strikes in eight days. And not even the slaying of 10 civilians over the weekend seems to have slowed the pace in the United States’ secretive, undeclared war.

But remember, they hate us for our freedom.

Bang Up Job America

Obviously the Middle Easterners hate Americans for their freedom:

A U.S. drone strike targeting al Qaeda suspects in Yemen killed 13 civilians, including three women, three security officials in the restive Middle Eastern country said.

A United States drone killed 13 civilians and didn’t even manage to hit the target. Let that sink in for a moment, 13 innocent individuals were snuffed out by a United State drone. How would the average American react if 13 innocent people in their country were killed by a Yemen drone strike? They would probably demand war with Yemen as payback. Guess what? People in the Middle East aren’t any different than people in America, when their fellow people are murdered they want to make those responsible for the murders pay.

What compounds the issue is the reaction:

“This was one of the very few times when our target was completely missed. It was a mistake, but we hope it will not hurt our anti-terror efforts in the region,” a senior Yemeni Defense Ministry official told CNN. The official asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Yup, that’s it, the strike was merely a mistake. The only thing that’s actually important, according to the sociopath quoted, is that the anti-terror efforts in the region aren’t hurt.

Go ahead, explain to me how the Middle Easterners hate America because of its freedom and not because of the mind boggling number of hellfire missiles it rains down upon them.

Nothing Surprising Here

Try to at least pretend to be shocked by this evidence that demonstrates collusion between the New York Times and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA):

But what is news in this disclosure are the newly released emails between Mark Mazzetti, the New York Times’s national security and intelligence reporter, and CIA spokeswoman Marie Harf. The CIA had evidently heard that Maureen Dowd was planning to write a column on the CIA’s role in pumping the film-makers with information about the Bin Laden raid in order to boost Obama’s re-election chances, and was apparently worried about how Dowd’s column would reflect on them. On 5 August 2011 (a Friday night), Harf wrote an email to Mazzetti with the subject line: “Any word??”, suggesting, obviously, that she and Mazzetti had already discussed Dowd’s impending column and she was expecting an update from the NYT reporter.

[…]

Here we have a New York Times reporter who covers the CIA colluding with its spokesperson to plan for the fallout from the reporting by his own newspaper (“nothing to worry about”). Beyond this, that a New York Times journalist – ostensibly devoted to bringing transparency to government institutions – is pleading with the CIA spokesperson, of all people, to conceal his actions and to delete the evidence of collusion is so richly symbolic.

The relationship between the New York Times and the US government is, as usual, anything but adversarial. Indeed, these emails read like the interactions between a PR representative and his client as they plan in anticipation of a possible crisis.

None of this surprises me as I’ve read Legacy of Ashes and therefore am well aware of the marriage between the CIA and popular news sources. It’s not unusual for the CIA to recruit individuals working at news organizations. Once recruited the CIA will sometimes feed these employees false stories, controlled stories, or other information they want made public (usually as a means of supplying other countries with false information). To find evidence of a New York Times employee collaborating with the CIA is entirely unsurprising.

Let’s Blame the Anarchists Again

Once again the state is trying to justify the tens of millions of dollars being spent on security at the Republican National Convention (RNC). As expected the state has chosen anarchists to be its boogeyman:

The FBI and police warn, in a vague, but ominous sort of way, that anarchists and other “extremist” folks are planning scary things for the upcoming Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida.

Now, is there a good chance that when thousands of people, including some of the radical political persuasion, gather, some not okay property damage will happen? Of course. However, is there an even bigger chance that the rumored threats, which this time ’round include anarchists using improvised explosive devices and “acid-filled eggs” are wildly overhyped? Definitely.

It’s kind of funny how the state sets anarchists up to be the evildoers at political conventions even though the real evildoers are inside the convention itself. While a handful of anarchists may be going around causing mischief the politicians inside are trying to nominate a warmonger, anti-rights, corporatist, monster for the presidential race. Even if the anarchists did what the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) is warning of their actions will be absolutely minor compared to Romney’s if he becomes president. Under Romney’s rule we will likely see more bailouts, more wars, and more of our rights eroded away. Perhaps the FBI should be warning about the actions of the politicians at the RNC instead of the anarchists outside.

Be On the Lookout for FBI Agents Distributing Eggs

The Republican National Convention (RNC) attracts people from all walks of life. You have the hardcore Republicans, the Ron Paul advocates of liberty, anti-war protesters, and even anarchists. As usual the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) is trying to pin potential violence on anarchists and it looks like they have revealed their plan to incite violence:

The joint bulletin, titled “Potential For Violent or Criminal Action By Anarchist Extremists During The 2012 National Political Conventions,” says anarchist extremists likely don’t have the capability to overcome heightened security measures set up by the conventions themselves. In addition, Tampa Police Chief Jane Castor said Tuesday that fences have been established around “some of the more attractive government targets.”

Instead, extremists could target nearby infrastructure, including businesses and transit systems, according to Wednesday’s bulletin.

The bulletin mentions possible violent tactics anarchist extremists could employ, including the use of molotov cocktails or acid-filled eggs.

Acid-filled eggs? Really? If that’s what the FBI is planning to distribute I’ll give them points for doing something different at least. Yet this should serve as a warning to attending protesters, if somebody dressed as an anarchist is walking around, passing out eggs, and encouraging people to throw them don’t take them up on their offer. In all likelihood that person is an FBI agents who is attempting to incite violence so his agency can swoop in and save the day from the problem they caused.

Witch Hunt Failed to Find Any Witches

The New York Police Department (NYPD) have been performing witch hunts for terrorists since 9/11 by spying on Muslims. After spending more than six years secretly spying on every Muslim they could find NYPD failed to find any witches:

In more than six years of spying on Muslim neighborhoods, eavesdropping on conversations and cataloguing mosques, the New York Police Department’s secret Demographics Unit never generated a lead or triggered a terrorism investigation, the department acknowledged in court testimony unsealed late Monday.

The Demographics Unit is at the heart of a police spying program, built with help from the CIA, which assembled databases on where Muslims lived, shopped, worked and prayed. Police infiltrated Muslim student groups, put informants in mosques, monitored sermons and catalogued every Muslim in New York who adopted new, Americanized surnames.

I know this will come as a shock to many Americans who believe the state’s lies about every communist Muslim being a threat to liberty terrorist but for those of us that actually look beyond the state’s propaganda the result of NYPD’s witch hunt aren’t at all surprising. A vast majority of Muslims are everyday people who wish no harm on their fellow man. Condemning every Muslim for the actions of a handful of extremists is no different than claiming every Christian is a murdered because of the Crusades.

It’s doubtful that NYPD will cease spying on Muslims although they may begin weighing Muslims to see if they weigh the same as ducks.

You Keep Using That Word, I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means

Collectivists like to throw around words such as bourgeois, proletariat, exploitation, etc. One of the most interesting words they seem to enjoy haphazardly tossing here and there is nationalize. In the eyes of collectivists nationalizing businesses will make them more “socially responsible” by transferring ownership away from a single or handful of wealthy individuals to the public. What actually happens is that the ownership is transferred from a single or handful of individuals to a single or handful of individuals. Nationalization transfers ownership from private individuals to the state, which is why this article in Slate is so incredibly stupid:

Over the last several years, Facebook has become a public good and an important social resource. But as a company, it is behaving badly, and long term, that may cost it: A spring survey found that almost half of Americans believe that Facebook will eventually fade away. Even the business side has been a bit of a disaster lately, with earnings lower than expected and the news that a significant portion of Facebook profiles are fake. If neither users nor investors can be confident in the company, it’s time we start discussing an idea that might seem crazy: nationalizing Facebook.

Let me see if I follow the author’s idea. Facebook has been performing poorly compared to expectations and, in general, behaving badly. The solutions to this problem is to prop Facebook up by nationalizing it. Interesting. Here I thought the best way to deal with a problematic company was to let it go broke and fade into the irrelevance of market failures. If the author’s accusations are true then Facebook is misallocating resources that could be put to more productive uses, shouldn’t we allow those misallocated resources to be freed so that they could be used to provide services that people actually want? Wouldn’t it be wrong to force everybody to continue giving Facebook resources as since shown a propensity to use those resources poorly?

Let’s see what the author has to say:

By “nationalizing Facebook,” I mean public ownership and at least a majority share at first. When nationalizing the company restores the public trust, that controlling interest could be reduced. There are three very good reasons for this drastic step: It could fix the company’s woeful privacy practices, allow the social network to fulfill its true potential for providing social good, and force it to put its valuable data to work on significant social problems.

What? Excuse me, I need to get some Aspirin to continue with this post.

In Odin’s name, where does the author come up with the idea that nationalizing Facebook would fix the company’s woeful privacy practices? The the fuck is “social good” and how does nationalizing help Facebook provide it? What significant social problems can Facebook work on after being nationalized that it couldn’t work on before?

I want to focus on the claim that nationalizing Facebook will improve its privacy practices. As I explained earlier, when a company is nationalized ownership is transferred from private individuals to the state. The state that would gain ownership of Facebook in this case is the United States, the same state that said it was legal to wiretap your phone and track your cellular phone without a warrant. Does that sound like an entity that has the protection of your privacy in mind? I want to emphasize the stupidity the author is advocating:

It would be better to have a national privacy commissioner with real authority, some stringent privacy standards set at the federal level, and programs for making good use of some of the socially valuable data mining that firms like Facebook do. But in the United States, such sweeping innovations are probably too difficult to actually pull off, and nationalization would almost get us there. Facebook would have to rise to First Amendment standards rather than their own terms of service.

Since there are concerns about privacy on Facebook the author wants to put the federal government in charge of enforcing Facebook’s privacy policies. Yes, the same federal government that ruled wiretapping and tracking cellular phones doesn’t even require a warrant. I wonder if the author, fearing babysitters may molest his child, uses the sex offenders registry in the find babysitters.

I’m completely baffled by the author’s claim that putting the federal government in charge of Facebook would require it to rise to Fist Amendment standards when that very same federal government doesn’t itself rise to such standards.

With 80 percent of market share, Facebook is already a monopoly, and being publicly traded hasn’t made it more socially responsible.

No, it’s not a monopoly. Monopolies aren’t defined by arbitrary market shares, monopolies are defined by whether or not competition can freely enter a market. The fact that the state hasn’t made any laws protecting Facebook’s market share, demonstrated by Twitter and Google entering the social networking market unhindered, proves that no monopoly exists. Once again the author makes an accusation that Facebook isn’t “socially responsible” without actually stating what does or doesn’t make a company “socially responsible.”

But Facebook can also make mistakes with political consequences. The company has come under fire for missteps like prohibiting photos of women breast-feeding and suddenly banning “Palestinian” pages at one point. Facebook communications are an important tool for democracy advocates, including those who helped organize the Arab Spring. Yet the user policy of requiring that democratic activists in authoritarian regimes maintain “real” profiles puts activist leaders at risk. And dictators have figured out how they can use Facebook to monitor activist networks and entrap democracy advocates.

But since the security services in Syria, Iran, and China now use Facebook to monitor and entrap activists, public trust in Facebook may be misplaced. Rather than allow Facebook to serve authoritarian interests, if nationalized in the United States, we could make Facebook change its identity policy to allow democracy activists living in dictatorships to use pseudonyms.

Just a second, I need more Aspirin.

How does transferring ownership of Facebook to the federal government stop it from serving authoritarian interests? The United States government is an authoritarian regime.

Nationalizing Facebook would allow more resources to go into data mining for public health and social research.

We must nationalize Facebook to protect user’s privacy by violating their privacy! War is peace! Freedom is slavery! Ignorance is strength! It’s kind of impressive to see an author invalidate almost nine paragraphs of argumentation in one 17 word sentence.

Many academics are finding that big social network data sets can generate surprising and valuable information for addressing social problems—for instance, public health and national security.

National security? I think it’s a well-known fact at this point that the words “national security” are mutually exclusive with “protecting privacy.”

Nationalization could allow us to review the ethical implications of their management decisions.

We’re going to put an entity that assassinates American citizens without a trail in charge of determining whether or not management decisions are ethical? Can anybody explain how that would work out?

I know the author was thinking, “Gosh, nationalizing ownership of Facebook would take ownership away from those evil bourgeois pricks and transfer it to The PeopleTM!” The author must have read a great deal of socialist propaganda and decided the writings about the evils of private ownership were great while the writings about the evils of the United States government could be ignored. Even the most ardent socialist wouldn’t dream of nationalizing Facebook under the current United States regime. Nationalizing Facebook wouldn’t suddenly turn the service into a guardian of privacy, it would merely grant a gross violator of privacy absolute ownership over the service’s data. Facebook wouldn’t be wrenched from the hands of evil bourgeois and put into the hands of The PeopleTM, it would be wrenched from the hands of investors and put into the hands of a state that ceased representing The PeopleTM long ago (if it ever did in the first place).