The real problem with PRISM is not that you, individually, are going to be targeted. It is that the tools have been put in place to subvert the political process by personally targeting anyone with views that are inconvenient for those of influence. These tools may be being used fairly now, but based on past history, we cannot assume that they will continue to be so.
And the past history to look at is not even that of distant times and places. Take a look at how the FBI under Hoover tried to affect the political process in the USA with COINTELPRO.
I eventually figured it out. Those people didn't matter. They weren't doing anything. Just venting steam.
As soon as someone tried to actually change things, that's when they get bopped on the head.
Most of us aren't activists. But we depend on them to drive change. If they get stifled, we get stifled.
I guess many would suggest that is exactly what we have right now. Just more subtle, opaque, and deniable.
I can't see how anyone who has studied American history could think that what we have now even approaches what existed at the time of McCarthyism. McCarthyism required a level of public acquiescence and homogeneity of thought that could only exist under the threat of Soviet domination and nuclear holocaust. The bogeyman of terrorism doesn't have nearly that kind of grip on the public consciousness.
Heck, just look at the wars that were justified by the two fears: Korea (36,516 Americans dead) and Vietnam (58,209) versus Afghanistan (2,229) and Iraq (4,488). Not to minimize the causalities of those wars, but if you can measure the power of a scary idea by the number of U.S. soldiers that die before the public puts a stop to the war, then there is no comparison between the specter of communism versus the specter of terrorism.
So your credit card, supermarket, gas card, library card, debit card, pharmacy card, prescriptions, public records (home and auto ownership, license tags, taxes, school records, etc.) are all Hoovered (as in "J. Edgar Hoover") up and ready for analysis. This is tied into your state's automobile licensing system: police cars have scanners that incessantly search for all license plates in the visible roadway and, for each, perform an automated search for outstanding warrants and criminal history in the state's database.
And if the driver is good-looking and has a clean record, the officer can _still_ force a search of state records to retrieve addresses, phone numbers, etc. so he can stop her, talk to her and then optionally, hit on her later at his convenience ("What a small world, what are the odds of us meeting again! Must be fate.").
About 200 miles later, not speeding, she's pulled over again. As the officer approaches she says, "What did I do wrong?" He replies, "Nothing, but I heard that you've got the most amazing cookies!"
This is simply not true, rather a cobbled together bit of psychobabble.
Okay... I have absolute knowledge a freight train is coming towards me and I'm tied to the rail. I clearly do not therefore have absolute power to change the outcome.
The government could likewise know everything and not be able to stop a bad outcome ( say their overthrow ).
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Nicolae Ceaușescu had an impressive surveillance state... it didn't stop him being shot ( in the street? ) along with his wife
If I have absolute power I am NOT going to end up tied to a train track with the Secret Service strangely absent.
The point in this article is that if we are digitally dependent being off the grid, or using an encrypted grid, IS information that can be used to stop an overthrow. You can't be an unstoppable force if you can't coordinate and organize.
> The point in this article is that if we are digitally dependent being off the grid, or using an encrypted grid, IS information that can be used to stop an overthrow. You can't be an unstoppable force if you can't coordinate and organize.
Well then why didn't the author just say that? Rather than padding his point with psycho-babble ?
I thought we weren't creating lame scenarios where the actual rules don't apply.
The point is, you should never allow a president or a group of people, to get even close to that much power, if you're going to need a revolution to stop it later.
1) If the Government has a problem with you, then a few IM chat records and your pr0n site subscription history will be the least of your problems.
Previously 'undesirables' would be tailed by agents or a private eye.
2) They can simply frame you. Child pr0n planted on your computer somehow, hell even your best friends / wife would disown you.
3) Is "recording more" either "finding needles" or just "making the haystack bigger" ?
Heh, and if they are pure, clean and perfect, who the hell do they represent?
If they know it about us, we should damn well know it about them.
It is meaningless out of context.
