Friday, October 11, 2013

If You Want To Know What I Think.. Ask The Government!




“Do you enjoy violating the Constitution? If so, consider a career at the NSA. We’re interviewing for this position. nsa.gov/psc/applyonline”

Patriot Act author prepares bill to put NSA bulk collection 'out of business'
Exclusive: Bipartisan bill pulls together existing efforts to dramatically reform the NSA in the wake of Snowden disclosures

The conservative Republican who co-authored America's Patriot Act is preparing to unveil bipartisan legislation that would dramatically curtail the domestic surveillance powers it gives to intelligence agencies.
Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner, who worked with president George W Bush to give more power to US intelligence agencies after the September 11 terrorist attacks, said the intelligence community had misused those powers by collecting telephone records on all Americans, and claimed it was time "to put their metadata program out of business".
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/10/nsa-surveillance-patriot-act-author-bill?commentpage=1



 Edward J. Snowden certainly opened Pandora's Box on an international level when he revealed thousands of secret NSA files to a British newspaper.. and thank God he did.

The compilation was beyond what even George Orwell could have envisioned, blow back was global.  The EU threatened to suspend US data sharing. In Germany protestors demonstrated under the slogan "Freedom Rather Than Fear" and demonstrators carried banners saying: "Stop spying on us" and, more sarcastically: "Thanks to PRISM (the US government's vast data collection programs) the government finally knows what the people want".

In India the Free Software Movement of Karnatakaheld a meeting, pointing out that  Indian Central Monitoring System (CMS), which automates surveillance of citizens, is also problematic and must be protested. The President of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff , made the decision to separate from U.S.-centric Internet, and called for summit of governments to discuss internet security in 2014.

Washington DC admitting that they had "misused" their powers is very nice of them. But is certainly isn't enough. And why did it take Snowden to alert the entire world that Big Brother was, indeed, watching us?  

All in all, this has really not been a good year for the Obama administration, but they deserve all the criticism they get. 



Yet here in the United States 50% of those participating in polls thought this degree of invasion of privacy was perfectly acceptable.  That, in itself, is a puzzlement. It quickly became material for comedians.

"With Edward Snowden in Russia, it's only a matter of time before Sarah Palin claims that she can see him.."

"There's a little irony in the government charging Snowden with spying, right?"

"The NSA wanted all of the AT&T cell users but couldn't get a signal."

"The Edward Snowden World Tour continues: Hawaii, Hoing Kong, Moscow. No time given for his arrival at Julian Assange's place at the Ecuadorean Embassy in London."
Even the serious headlines well, made you chuckle.



I am not so worried about NSA. I am worried about the American people:

Americans Sign Petition to Support “Nazi-Style Orwellian Police State”

 After illustrating their enthusiasm for repealing the Bill of Rights, a video shows Americans happily signing a petition to support a “Nazi-style Orwellian police state,” in what easily represents the most shocking footage of its kind to date.
Citing issues with how the government shutdown has impacted the ability of the police to “keep the community safe,” Dice tells San Diegans that there is a need to “increase the Orwellian system.”
“Not a problem,” responds one man as he signs the petition.
“We just want to model it after the Nazi Germany system to keep people safe and secure,” Dice tells another individual.
After signing the petition to “implement the Orwellian police state,” another man responds, “You find the pot of money though,” apparently more concerned about how much a Nazi-style police state would cost than its actual consequences.
“They’re trying to cut the budget by 20 per cent so we just want to make sure that we can model the police state after the Nazi Germany system,” Dice tells another couple who sign the petition, before adding, “Thanks for supporting the police state.”
“We’re going to model it after the Nazi Germany-style police state,” Dice clearly tells another man who signs the petition.
“We need this Orwellian-style system to keep everybody safe,” Dice tells a woman as she is signing the petition, to which she responds, “Yeah.”
The standard bearer for using satirical petitions to illustrate how misinformed Americans really are stretches all the way back to 1990, when it was repeatedly proven that people would sign petitions to ban water, but only if it was renamed “dihydrogen monoxide.” Penn and Teller reproduced the social experiment in 2003 when they were successful in getting environmentalists to sign a similar petition.
However, Dice has proven that some element of trickery is no longer necessary to convince Americans to support ludicrously draconian policies.
He quite clearly spells it out to them on numerous occasions what they are supporting – an Orwellian police state modeled on Nazi Germany.
Dice’s previous videos illustrate how Americans are willing to support just about anything, so long as it is done in the name of supporting Obama or the government, including granting Obama immunity for all crimes he commits while in office, adding birth control drugs to the water supply, and repealing the 2nd4th and 5th amendments to the Constitution while detaining gun owners in concentration camps.
        See video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l02E4cj4Vvo
http://www.YouTube.com/MarkDice  
http://www.Facebook.com/MarkDice 
http://www.Twitter.com/MarkDice  
http://www.MarkDice.com

And, of course, I am worried that I will keep laughing out loud each time I think of the Brazilian Internet vigilantes hacking into NASA web sites to demonstrate against the spying, not realizing that NSA and NASA are two totally different things.

"Some activists decided to protest this US practice but it seems that they picked the wrong target," a specialized blog of the Brazilian news portal Uol said.
"They hacked NASA's web page and left the message: Stop spying on us," it said.
The hackers' message also called on the United States not to attack Syria.
A NASA spokesman confirmed that a Brazilian hacker group last week posted a political message on a number of NASA websites.
 http://technology.xin.msn.com/technology-news/brazil-hackers-mistake-nasa-for-nsa-in-spying-payback-3

Houston, We Have A Problem!

Meanwhile, IC off the Record is having a blast. Joint them at @ICofftheRecord or https://twitter.com/ICofftheRecord
 
Tweets by James Clapper and Gen. Keith Alexander inside your hard drive 

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