This has always been intuitively clear. Now, there is mounting empirical evidence proving it.
A newly published study from Oxford’s Jon Penney provides empirical evidence for a key argument long made by privacy advocates: that the mere existence of a surveillance state breeds fear and conformity and stifles free expression. Reporting on the study, the Washington Post this morning described this phenomenon: “If we think that authorities are watching our online actions, we might stop visiting certain websites or not say certain things just to avoid seeming suspicious.”
The new study documents how, in the wake of the 2013 Snowden revelations (of which 87 percent of Americans were aware), there was “a 20 percent decline in page views on Wikipedia articles related to terrorism, including those that mentioned ‘al Qaeda,’ ‘car bomb’ or ‘Taliban.'” People were afraid to read articles about those topics because of fear that doing so would bring them under a cloud of suspicion. The dangers of that dynamic were expressed well by Penney: “If people are spooked or deterred from learning about important policy matters like terrorism and national security, this is a real threat to proper democratic debate.”
As the Post explains, several other studies have also demonstrated how mass surveillance crushes free expression and free thought. A 2015 study examined Google search data and demonstrated that, post-Snowden, “users were less likely to search using search terms that they believed might get them in trouble with the U.S. government” and that these “results suggest that there is a chilling effect on search behavior from government surveillance on the internet.”
The fear that causes self-censorship is well beyond the realm of theory. Ample evidence demonstrates that it’s real — and rational. A study from PEN America writers found that 1 in 6 writers had curbed their content out of fear of surveillance and showed that writers are “not only overwhelmingly worried about government surveillance, but are engaging in self-censorship as a result.” Scholars in Europe have been accused of being terrorist supporters by virtue of possessing research materials on extremist groups, while the British Library refuse to house any material on the Taliban for fear of being prosecuted for material support for terrorism.
There are also numerous psychological studies demonstrating that people who believe they are being watched engage in behavior far more compliant, conformist and submissive than those who believe they are acting without monitoring. That same realization served centuries ago as the foundation of Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon: that behaviors of large groups of people can be effectively controlled through architectural structures that make it possible for them to be watched at any given movement even though they can never know if they are, in fact, being monitored, thus forcing them to act as if they always are being watched. This same self-censoring, chilling effect of the potential of being surveilled was also the crux of the tyranny about which Orwell warned in 1984:
There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You have to live — did live, from habit that became instinct — in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.
This is a critical though elusive point that, as the Post notes, I’ve been arguing for years, including in the 2014 TED talk I gave about the harms of privacy erosions. But one of my first visceral encounters with this harmful dynamic arose years before I worked on NSA disclosures: It occurred in 2010, the first time I ever wrote about WikiLeaks. This was before any of the group’s most famous publications.
What prompted my writing about WikiLeaks back then was a secret 2008 Pentagon report that declared the then-little-known group a threat to national security and plotted how to destroy it: a report that, ironically enough, was leaked to WikiLeaks, which then published it online. (Shortly thereafter, WikiLeaks published a 2008 CIA report describing — presciently, it turns out — how the best hope for maintaining popular European support for the war in Afghanistan would be the election of Barack Obama as president, since he would put a pretty, popular, progressive face on war policies.)
As a result of that 2008 report, I researched WikiLeaks and interviewed its founder, Julian Assange, and found that the group had been engaging in vital transparency projects around the world: from exposing illegal corporate waste dumping in East Africa to political corruption and official lies in Australia. But they had one significant problem: funding and human resource shortfalls were preventing them from processing and publishing numerous leaks. So I wrote an article describing their work, and recommended that my readers support that work either by donating or volunteering. And I included links for how they could do so.
In response, a large number of American readers expressed — in emails, in the comment section, at public events — the fear to me that while they supported WikiLeaks’ work, they were petrified that supporting the group would cause them to end up on a government list somewhere or, worse, charged with crimes if WikiLeaks ended up being formally charged as a national security threat. In other words, these were Americans who were voluntarily relinquishing core civil liberties — the right to support journalism they believe in and to politically organize — because of fear that their online donations and work would be monitored and surveilled. Subsequent revelations showing persecution and surveillance against WikiLeaks and its supporters, including an effort to prosecute them for their journalism, proved that these fears were quite rational.
There is a reason governments, corporations, and multiple other entities of authority crave surveillance. It’s precisely because the possibility of being monitored radically changes individual and collective behavior. Specifically, that possibility breeds fear and fosters collective conformity. That’s always been intuitively clear. Now, there is mounting empirical evidence proving it.
Correction: May 10, 2016
An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that British libraries refused to house any material on the Taliban. It was the British Library, the national library of the United Kingdom, that refused to house the material.
I love how Glenn Greenwald gets away with evading his role in this sordid affair. In this case by blatantly, but, as always, very carefully, misrepresenting what the Penney study on Wikipedia says. Greenwald claims its supports his contention that the “mere existence of a surveillance state breeds fear and conformity and stifles free expression.”
No. It does not. That is not what Penney argues. As his hypothesis makes plain the focus is not on the “mere existence” but on “awareness”. To quote:
“This case study asks: does the Wikipedia article traffic for the privacy concerning topics tracked decrease after the “exogenous shock” of widespread publicity surrounding the June 2013 revelations? A hypothesis based on chilling effects theory may be stated this way: due to chilling effects caused by increased awareness of government surveillance online, Internet users will be less likely to view Wikipedia articles on topics that raise privacy-related concerns.”
It’s all about “awareness”, not the “mere existence” as Glenn so deliberately and misleadingly claims. And for good reason, as it is because of him that we have that “awareness”, but best not to focus on that. Best just to forget about that and follow Glenn’s interpretation.
Thanks, Glenn and friends, for your participation in the obvious – to anyone w/ two neurons left – US intel psyop/fairy tale that I like to call “Little Eddie Snowden and the Flash Drive of Secrets”.
Not only have you given false hope/security and a new hero du jour to a whole new generations of millennials and Western fake-leftists of all ages, you’ve simultaneously – all good intel operations are a multi-pronged affair – helped instill in the populace at large the fear that everything they do is now under the watchful eye of the omnipotent surveillance state.
No more investigation into topics that are dangerous and scary, right?
Bravo, I say, bravo!!!!
Pierre is not paying you and your super-friends enough for your clever and patriotic work!!!
Huzzah!!!!
Seriously, the only things that I can possibly believe that allows you all to sleep at night are your paychecks and your egos b/c it’s really a bridge too far to think that you’re all just a bunch of unwitting – as opposed to witting – dupes.
Again, Bravo!!!
Great Lord! They are so distressed about “Eddie’s fairy tales”!
First, what the preposterous eff do you care about “the populace”?
Secondly, it seems you see the problem with the populace’ perception of reality not with that “watchful eye of the omnipotent surveillance state”, right?
Luria investigated the minds of mnemonists. I wonder if you have noticed how those “shills” and like-minded individuals invariably act and react in the same predictable manners. Do they train them all in the same schools? (Hmm! How could that be possible since they belong to different eras, countries, political systems, walks of life, …?) Do they use the same textbooks? (yeah, I know about Paperclip, but as a teacher I would find suspect if my students all had so similar answers to a test). Their messages have obviously been canned and their minds mechanically turked to an extent it is hard to tell apart what/who owns/directs whom/what.
At least they seem to be good at hiring their kind after repurposing the Hollywood Principle: Don’t call us, we’ll call you”, into: “we watch all of you and we know who would be a good prospective @ssh0l3 to be easily trained into sucking it up the chain of command, worked into snitches, shills, … ”
// __ GOP Rep Mike Rogers Can’t Have Your Privacy Violated If You Don’t Know Your Privacy Is Violated
youtube.com/watch?v=puLjerDsEA0
~
I would give Rogers some credit for his remark to the effect of people not noticing trees and whole forests constantly being cut down, trees’ roots and soils being poisonously, senselessly and irrecoverably infected … for such a long time on the fact that they actually successful at hiring “good candidates”. Don’t you find amazing that it took so long for “the populace” at large to become aware of what was going on for so long?
Something I invariably and easily notice about those kinds of idiots, regardless of their opinions, is their low substantive/adjective and topical/ad-hominem ratios, as well as their telegraphic style of exposing whatever their minds fart without backing anything.
You could use il Duce’s comments (I have gotten somewhat addicted to them ;-)) to guide you through the reading of the rest of whole articles and comments. I think the Intercept wrong while censoring those purposeful idiots (and some of us while they are at it).
Using corpora research you could easily stratify the comments people post at theIntercept and (my theory is (extending Luria’s ideas) that) those types of comments would show a high syntactic and semantic correlation.
RCL
This is so obvious that it should not need to be said. It is unfortunate that facts indicate the necessity of this statement.
Excellent and important article.
Why, I have the opposite experience, but then I’m paradoxical like that.
Since I learned we are always being collected for later analysis, I have given that sucking sound what it deserves at every opportunity. A load of shite to sort through, and if they find my keys, you can keep them, too, Watson.
I don’t have to employ encryption; I let The Intercept do all my censorship for me. Seriously, you folks take your jobs too seriously. If you ask me, you’ve hardly moved the conversation, much less the goal posts.
You need to employ a positive psychologist to help lift the hopes of all these dope heads. WE ARE going to make Cameron pay for smashing the BB just to keep his peepee out of a slam jam if I have to sell Apples out of my paddy wagon for another fifteen years.
QA 95% complete!
“NEVER GIVE UP! NEVER SURRENDER!”
I am so madly and deeply in love with the Intercept. I know you know what that’s like. We are both at so many of the same Receptions, after all. I dunno, though, maybe it’s better just to keep things at Appetizers and dirty Martinis. I recommend the Purdue chicken next time, though; the Tyson made me a bit ill at that one Shin-dig — remember that one? Or were you not invited? All of that time away must have been mighty taxing. I hope you’re doing alright. I’m sure the regular commenters here have missed you. I’ve personally only commented here in this article, but I’ve seen you around, like, all over the place.
Sorry, you don’t know me. I don’t know you. I don’t plan on replying again. Wouldn’t want you to get the wrong idea. I just noticed you seemed like a fun guy in the archives.
PS: I doubt anything got smashed. That sounds violent.
Dude, all those Amendments to the Constitution are CRAY-CRAY. That 4th one is particularly potent. So overlooked!
I have to admit ,this is something i was doing , i was isolating myself a lot . I learned about these programs last year and i got interested in it. I wanted to learn more about what was going on. Eventually, i learned a lot about their programs and their capabilities by researching them online , on google ,youtube,etc. I am not even from America. But i realised they are collecting information on every internet user. This has scared me a lot. I was not feeling good since then. I do not speak to a colleague much because i am afraid if i talk about these things, he would do the same i.e start learning about these issues online. I don’t know how to tell about these issues to others.
The Earth is dying, as exhaust from enterprise has driven carbonate balance off stability for planet, type M remaining in her Stability, habitable zone range ~Biosphere at Zeroth with life in the universe at large against 2nd law of peace ~ symmetry thermodynamic. SS harmony of the universe is crushed by corp $$ and the mechanic who wants to snap a test of 2C point of danger is inspected.
https://ipsoscustodes.wordpress.com/2016/05/01/theintercept-20160428-new-study-shows-mass-surveillance-breeds-meekness-fear-and-self-censorship-orwells-clarifying-why-letter/
RCL
Orwell: Sorry, I can’t quite make sense of the hell you are living through in your times guys. I still believe there is only one kind of people. The self-serving differences that some emphasize are illusive. So, even if that “1984” title was a bit off, I think, you may find my morally futuristic whistleblowing useful. Politicians have in their own ways, it seems.
I think that I understand better now that gringo media darling, Carl Sagan, who seemed to be a nice and true fellow, but he totally misconstrued my own critical views as if they narrowly referred to Stalinist historical falsification when I was talking about us, people in general. So, don’t forget to read what I myself had to say (barely reformatted, by that RCL guy).
~
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/08/12/george-orwell-s-letter-on-why-he-wrote-1984.html
George Orwell’s Letter on Why He Wrote ‘1984’
In 1944, three years before writing and five years before publishing 1984, George Orwell penned a letter detailing the thesis of his great novel. The letter, warning of the rise of totalitarian police states that will ‘say that two and two are five,’ is reprinted from George Orwell: “A Life in Letters”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Orwell_bibliography
edited by Peter Davison and published today by Liveright. Plus, Orwell’s advice to Arthur Koestler on how to review books (thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/08/15/george-orwell-teaches-you-how-to-review-books.html)
~
To Noel Willmett
18 May 1944
10a Mortimer Crescent NW 6
Dear Mr Willmett,
Many thanks for your letter. You ask whether totalitarianism, leader-worship etc. are really on the up-grade and instance the fact that they are not apparently growing in this country and the USA.
I must say I believe, or fear, that taking the world as a whole these things are on the increase. Hitler, no doubt, will soon disappear, but only at the expense of strengthening:
(a) Stalin,
(b) the Anglo-American millionaires and
(c) all sorts of petty fuhrers° of the type of de Gaulle.
All the national movements everywhere, even those that originate in resistance to German domination, seem to take non-democratic forms, to group themselves round some superhuman fuhrer (Hitler, Stalin, Salazar, Franco, Gandhi, De Valera are all varying examples) and to adopt the theory that the end justifies the means. Everywhere the world movement seems to be in the direction of centralised economies which can be made to ‘work’ in an economic sense but which are not democratically organised and which tend to establish a caste system. With this go the horrors of emotional nationalism and a tendency to disbelieve in the existence of objective truth because all the facts have to fit in with the words and prophecies of some infallible fuhrer. Already history has in a sense ceased to exist, ie. there is no such thing as a history of our own times which could be universally accepted, and the exact sciences are endangered as soon as military necessity ceases to keep people up to the mark. Hitler can say that the Jews started the war, and if he survives that will become official history. He can’t say that two and two are five, because for the purposes of, say, ballistics they have to make four. But if the sort of world that I am afraid of arrives, a world of two or three great superstates which are unable to conquer one another, two and two could become five if the fuhrer wished it.[1] That, so far as I can see, is the direction in which we are actually moving, though, of course, the process is reversible.
As to the comparative immunity of Britain and the USA. Whatever the pacifists etc. may say, we have not gone totalitarian yet and this is a very hopeful symptom. I believe very deeply, as I explained in my book The Lion and the Unicorn, in the English people and in their capacity to centralise their economy without destroying freedom in doing so. But one must remember that Britain and the USA haven’t been really tried, they haven’t known defeat or severe suffering, and there are some bad symptoms to balance the good ones. To begin with there is the general indifference to the decay of democracy. Do you realise, for instance, that no one in England under 26 now has a vote and that so far as one can see the great mass of people of that age don’t give a damn for this? Secondly there is the fact that the intellectuals are more totalitarian in outlook than the common people. On the whole the English intelligentsia have opposed Hitler, but only at the price of accepting Stalin. Most of them are perfectly ready for dictatorial methods, secret police, systematic falsification of history[2] etc. so long as they feel that it is on ‘our’ side. Indeed the statement that we haven’t a Fascist movement in England largely means that the young, at this moment, look for their fuhrer elsewhere. One can’t be sure that that won’t change, nor can one be sure that the common people won’t think ten years hence as the intellectuals do now. I hope?3 they won’t, I even trust they won’t, but if so it will be at the cost of a struggle. If one simply proclaims that all is for the best and doesn’t point to the sinister symptoms, one is merely helping to bring totalitarianism nearer.
You also ask, if I think the world tendency is towards Fascism, why do I support the war. It is a choice of evils—I fancy nearly every war is that. I know enough of British imperialism not to like it, but I would support it against Nazism or Japanese imperialism, as the lesser evil. Similarly I would support the USSR against Germany because I think the USSR cannot altogether escape its past and retains enough of the original ideas of the Revolution to make it a more hopeful phenomenon than Nazi Germany. I think, and have thought ever since the war began, in 1936 or thereabouts, that our cause is the better, but we have to keep on making it the better, which involves constant criticism.
Yours sincerely,
Geo. Orwell
[XVI, 2471, pp. 190—2; typewritten]
[1]. and [2]. Foreshadowings of Nineteen Eighty-Four.
[3]. Compare Nineteen Eighty-Four, p. 72, “If there is hope, wrote Winston, it lies in the proles.”
~
In the article it’s written about a 2008 CIA report:
“(Shortly thereafter, WikiLeaks published a 2008 CIA report describing (presciently, it turns out) how the best hope for maintaining popular European support for the war in Afghanistan would be the election of Barack Obama as President: since he would put a pretty, popular, progressive face on war policies.)”
But in fact, the linked report it’s from 2010 and doesn’t say about the election of Obama.
How that’s possible? Wrong link or mistake of reading?
Can you post a link please?
I noticed, as well, that the linked report (2008 CIA report) does not correspond to glenn’s description of it’s content…the report is from 2010 and obama was already president…love your reporting glenn, but this deserves a correction or explanation
This article’s illustration would make a good bumper sticker.
Very true Glenn. I’d love to fund a Tor node, just to support the privacy there, but would not think of it with the police storming people’s houses that have them – you know those that fund them are added to a FBI list somewhere as well.
While we know so much from Snowden’s revelations (thank goodness), it doesn’t seem to have resulted in any progress as we’re still falling further and further down the hole (whether its the supreme court giving the FBI more powers to plant malware on peoples systems, or the bill tucked into the budget at the end of 2015 legalizing direct sharing of data with the NSA without any privacy considerations or that expiration of the NSA getting landline phone metadata when it turns out they got landline and mobile phone metadata access in return…)
I often wonder if we lost the future after Obama was elected and made all this surveillance “the new normal” and expanded on it.
Something that kinds of amazes me is how we, most people, have tried to rationalize, sugar coat what is actually going on, trying hard to fool ourselves into believing “it is about metadata”, “it is to protect ‘ourselves’ from ‘terrorism'” (you know: “terrorists hate, kill us because we have a free media” …)
In addition to all data (“anything tangible”) they not only correlate with all other type of data “individually ‘generated’ data” (all we say, to whom, wherever we are 24×7 (who was around us at the moment (the position and orientation in relating to people around you …))), … ), but also index and stratify as to create clusters which can be easily zeitgeisted, I find very troubling in our new types of panoptica that even our medical records, is “legal” part of their purview (as specifically encoded in that “Patriot Act”). How exactly do your health relate to your moral, civic views?
USG: Well, about such issues your “duly elected representatives” can’t “legally” talk about!
Even the Dutch, who, of all those “civilized” folks with imperialistic claims, have been the ones who have at least tried to be “somewhat nice”, “sensical” (the first Western country to pull its troops out of “Operation Iraqi Freedom” without even saying “so long” or giving any kind of explanation to master gringos) have ended up like:
// __ Panopticon
~
youtube.com/watch?v=jqWXWNhfZQg
~
(16:00) … it is mandatory by law to send your (psychiatric) diagnosis to a National Database
~
Dutch citizens are not afraid of their own government, but of gringos bullying the Dutch government into extraditing them to the U.S.
If you see a “rational” way out of madness you tell me what it is.
truth and peace and love,
RCL
One could also suppose then that Snowden’s revelations about the NSA have just amplified this feeling, as there has been no concrete public response to the fact that it’s all out in the open. One big threshold test that has essentially profited the party conducting the surveillance
Wait. Did the US just change its name to Amerussia?
Not Amerussia, Oceania
The only power these idiots have over us is the power we chose to give them regardless. If they want to see what we are all doing online or in our personal lives through SPY GAMES then give them something to SPY on…it’s up to ‘Them’ to decipher Fiction from None-Fiction. These people obviously have way too much time on their hands, watching and creating James Bond reruns…dreaming up ways to infest our over active imaginations with their propaganda. Most of these people live in the Land where bringing Make-Believe is a way of making a living.Power by numbers… Billion + Internet users…should keep these Super Intelligent Fairy Tail Creators busy for a few hours. As they say, Don’t believe everything you see or read…don’t let FEAR dictate your reality. NEWS feeds make their money from spinning stories that capture the Imagination. If the Internet is used properly it will soon render it’s self useless to these people. As for CCTV cameras, best invention ever.
You are WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY wrong. What they are about to do will shock the shit out of you. And strangely enough it is all about power=money=oil=power=money=oil=pow…
And to succeed they only need to Contingency Manage. You set up a system that says “This is Normal” and then you set indicators that say “This is Going Awry” and “This Has Flunked”. Then you sit back and get a couple of SysEd-types to watch for alarms to go off down at GCHQ or the NSA, whatever.
You tweek any “Going Awries” before they become “Flunkeds” and you fix any “Flunkeds”. Simple. With a population of docile morons scared shitless of Ali-Jihadi and Crypto-Commies, shitheads like me stand out like a sore thumb. And just look at the state of Rock and Roll – not one dissenting voice from all those whiny arsed little Protest Boys and Girls of Yore – boy do we need a new Johnny Rotten!!!
If I was any more paranoid than I already dribbly am, I would even suggest The Intercept is an experiment to gauge who are willing to gob off like me and who want to come peep in secret like whoever-you-are-peeping-out-there. But hey, that would just be toooooo creepy coooooooooooool.
Didn’t the Sex Pistols only release one album? Maybe not the best example to use for longevity.
https://ipsoscustodes.wordpress.com/2016/04/30/theintercept-20160428-new-study-shows-mass-surveillance-breeds-meekness-fear-and-self-censorship-natural-biological-imperative/
RCL
Thanks Ricardo. Could have been taken right out of Senator Bernie Sanders Stump Speech! I imagine, an atypical title bout setting, say like in Las Vegas, where the contenders fight it out with paid-off establishment referees (rigged against “The Bern”).
“The (Bernie’s) Main Street slave-wage earners in this corner!” vrs.
“And in this corner, the (Hillary’s) wall street criminals!”
THE “Thriller in Philly” IS comin’! See ya ringside this July, (but probably from my computer.)
The (political) REVOLUTION will be streamed and/or protested LIVE! lol
Glen,
I’m confident most people now know their existence is under 24/7/365 surveillance, and yes, they are modifying behaviors to avoid being tagged.
Has the coup been successful, is it too late; can an effort to undo this Orwellian State succeed ?
Looking at the big picture, I think we need something big, real big, to even think about taking on this destroyer of Liberties and Justice, which means, it is indeed too late.
Take a look at a George Carlin clip on YouTube, particularly “Education in America”, only hilarious because he is speaking, but entirely accurate.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://m.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DAMqJvhmD5Yg&ved=0ahUKEwiwydzitrbMAhXJ2T4KHZ8NDtkQtwIIfzAW&usg=AFQjCNEXo48lAPUh0zDbL1kNZ4HTSIJJeg
Sorry Mel I sent your reply to Ricardo. Oh well.
The only people censoring me is you lot at The Intercept…
A fantastic article. Thank you for highlighting these growing concerns. With the ever increasing censorship shadowing our world of journalism, it’s vital we remain true to investigative reporting. Anything less; submitting to any censorship such as what you have mentioned, is a road to our very own demise, morally and ethically.
Even if you don’t worry about being watched and don’t change your way of life because you are not afraid of consequences for yourself, there is still the fear for the people you love of being affected by what you do.
So you start isolating yourself and stop activities that could be a source of “reprimand”. In this case, how can you fight anything? If you don’t meet others or communicate with anyone you become powerless and unable to change the forces that seek to control the world.
Or you have to choose to live a life alone among others who share the same ideologies/concerns and know the potential danger of organising themselves. And of course staying away from any technology which is potentially surveilled by the NSA or others. Or at least trying to be smarter than the surveillance groups.
That isn’t my comment, How do we tell who is posting what?
I totally agree with you Glen, but I often wonder if it is not the well known fact that you may be murdered or assassinated for reporting against these various thugs and strongmen who call themselves politicians that has not shut down good quality reporting. Who wants their family killed for telling the truth about some fascist bastard, after all? The truth that you might tell never stops them, it only gets you and your family destroyed! We need a way to attack and destroy these heinous bastards that do this , one that protects us from this kind of harm, before it ever really becomes something every journalist will do.
That sounds like a thinly veiled threat .
A thinly veiled threat against whom?
Yo mamma
“thinly veiled” threat, you said?
youtube.com/results?sp=CAM%253D&q=michael+hastings
~
// __ Why Andrew Breitbart, Michael Hastings and Tom Clancy were Murdered.
youtube.com/watch?v=SnqvMgyhgYI
~
// __ INVESTIGATED: Elite Hacker Barnaby Jack Murdered by NSA?
~
youtube.com/watch?v=TjHbQJERoso
~
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_International_phone_hacking_scandal
Death of Sean Hoare: On 18 July, former News of the World journalist Sean Hoare, who was the first reporter to tell of “endemic” phone hacking at the publication for which he used to work, was found dead at his home in Watford, Hertfordshire. A police spokesperson said the death was treated as “unexplained” but not suspicious.[223][224]
~
As we well know and he himself re-explained to us, in a sense “Glen” serves their purposes as well, by showing a prime example to the rest of journalists (the minimal minority of those with a spine left, that is) of what they shouldn’t be doing.
At least, we have brought our fight to a tie. There is this Spanish saying: “la mentira corre cien años y la verdad la alcanza en un día (lies may run for hundred years; yet, truth will reach them in a day)”
We have to make them “keep running” by never, ever accepting their b#llshtt!ng rule. They “self-evidently” saw as their “patriotic” right, to operate for good from a
~
// __ The Internet’s Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz | full movie (2014)
moviemaniacsDE
youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ
~
RCL
Politicians “self-evidently” saw as their “patriotic” right, to operate good from a Über-Physical, Über-Moral, Über-“responsible” realm when in fact there isn’t such a thing in reality
RCL
I apologize. You are all much smarter than me obviously. I will be more careful with my comments. Here how dumb I am, I wrote this,lol.
I can imagine the conversations of rich people. “We cannot have revolution, look what happened to France! The poor went wild, killing thousands (those ignorant savages!)”. To this I would say, We are a much more civilized society. I myself think an Amnesty would be the only solution. No revenge, poor mobs of people attacking your fine estates. We will not Jail you as you have done to us.
Amnesty for all. A new start. People, regular people were supposed to go into politics as their civic duty, not as a career!
Do modern day archivists need to be tortured – like archivist Winston Smith of Orwell’s 1984 – to ensure compliance with requirements? British Libraries UK London sell fake archives of newspapers published – news articles published have been erased or altered for the now fake archives. https://rjrbtsrupertsfirstnewspaper.wordpress.com/2015/07/27/australian-government-law-enforcement-and-news-media-corruption-in-brief-ref-sbsa-bankruptcy-6/ The BBC knows that UK PM Cameron is aware of the evidence of British Libraries UK London fake archives of newspapers that assist to conceal crimes and corruption.
IMO, the NSA is way past all those “possible”, “as if”, “potential” kinds of concerns
Sorry, Mr. Orwell, that part you didn’t get quite right. Nowadays, we don’t even have “darkness”. They, quite literally, know every thing about you since you are born, including whether you are sitting or standing while in the bathroom even if pitch dark in addition to “your sh!t” since they know exactly what you have been eating and drinking lately; even our DNAs.
Orwell: Our DNAs?
Oh, sorry! DNA is the stuff of inheritance. Imagine Nazi Germany would have managed for all of us to speak German, love marching in locked step, love public displays and have blue eyes by now. Well, they didn’t get that far, or, who knows? probably they are past that. All we eat is basically Nazi food. Our lives are being directed from Oceania and we, the proles, …
Orwell: Oh, the proles! Are those still around? Then there is hope …
Actually even though politicians have worked hard at using your writings as a manual for government they couldn’t quite get it right. Well, you know politicians! They would mess with anything that can move on its own. The upper-class Inner Party, elite are way less than 1% …
Orwell: Great Lord! Are you going to complain about just a difference in 1%? Besides, do you have a clue of what dystopian allegories are?
… and now we don’t have that middle-class Outer Party sort of thing. Actually it is more like the inner party elite are the second tier people and the first tier is comprised by computer algorithms.
Orwell: Computers algorithms?
Excuse me, Mr. Orwell, there were computers in your time! Don’t Bletchley Park and Alan Turing sound familiar to you?
Orwell: Not really! What sort of things are those?
Another thing they couldn’t get quite right is that even though, we, the proles, have managed to keep our names for now, instead of openly using coded tags as names, “terroristic potential indexes” (TPIs) are secretly assigned and kept secret from us. Sure they are, they can get to the point there are no Winston Smiths or Julias left among us. This is what I have heard anyway. I am not so sure about what they mean anyway …
Orwell: there are always going to be some “anomalies”, they can’t possibly control every single thing … It would be too many diaries to read, too many words to watch out for the ministry of truth …
“Ministry of truth”? Oh, the ones who made “simple” songs for us the proles? Now we have rap, which are just fine for 4 year olds, in fact, children don’t even have children songs anymore. We are just fine with not having to memorize or think about anything that can’t fit in … just one short line
“Diaries” … I think I read that word when I was in primary school in a book from grandmas time. She explained to me that it was some sort of “private” “journal”, but I couldn’t quite make sense of it. Even though I love her, grandma likes to use all those French words.
Orwell: French words, you said?
What was really going on with those silly encounters of Winston Smith and Julia? What did they really want? Oh, Mr. Orwell I have got to …
Orwell: Hello?
~
Borges in his insightfully scathing literally critique: “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote” makes fun of trying to “recreate” literature, but I wonder if we should reread, reanalyse what we thought of as being dystopia less than a generation ago.
RCL
Orwell: Hello?
Orwell: Sorry, I couldn’t quite make sense of our conversation. It felt like too much was getting lost in translation. Probably due to Doublethink and Newspeak being ingrained in our sub-, unconscious? It, however, kept busying my mind. I think I have somehow dug it out of it.
Please, excuse me, for not following every idle gossiping and nuance of British culture. Ironically, thank to British imperialism, I am not British British, so to speak. In the sense that I did never quite mind, let alone take seriously that kind of “Rule the world or die trying! Long Live The Queen” [email protected] (it seems to be the case with all “unpatriotic” British fellows people truly love: Chaplin, Lennon, …). I was born in India, spent too much time overseas working for “your majesty”, which I have to be thankful of, since that let me see humanity in a totally different light. Even though I was her majesty’s servant I took it upon myself becoming a moral whistle-blower to humanity at large.
Yet, I was very much aware on many counts of how important was the telegraph to keep subjugated such a large amount of so diverse and different people. Do they still believe technological sh!t and monies are the answer to all things “pure and holy”, as they used to?
I am still very confused, what exactly is that “terroristic potential index” you mentioned? How on earth could everyone’s move and their shadows be actually watched 24×7 as “potential terrorists”? Isn’t terrorism what the British crown was doing to their subjects? and, sure, technology must have kept going, but how could two-way telescreens be carried by every person?
I kind of have a sense of what those “computer algorithms” might be, even though to me spying primarily is a people-to-people thing, but I am not so sure. I am still curious about the proverbial question when it comes to those sorts of things, who (or what?) exactly is watching the watchers?
Please, clarify that to me. Are those “computer algorithms” the encryption things they were saying won the war against Nazi Germany? When it was Nazis and those pesky “pro-Russia” Russians viscerally bombing their minds out of their @ss and it was essentially Russians who won the war for us, losing 27 million of their own (16%, that is 1 out of 5, of their pre-war population)? Do they actually believe it was those things who, (which?) won the war? What do they mean? How could they even say that?
That O’Brien got me through my own hopefulness and because I was tormenting myself to exhaustion by reminding myself that 2 + 2 = 4 (not 5 or 37). Could you let me know to which extent he’s got his wish?
O’Brien describes the Party’s vision of the future:
There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always—do not forget this, Winston—always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever. —?Part III, Chapter III, Nineteen Eighty-Four
By the way, what happened to that essay I wrote letting people very clearly know I wasn’t kidding at all, nor was I exclusively taking about Stalin era “freedom-hating” lowlifes?
Orwell: Hello? Hellooo?
Orwell: Please, let me relay along some worries Winston Smith has been having qualms about ever since:
That O’Brien got me through …
RCL
The public has no idea of what is really going on behind the scenes. There are now secret organizations with the power to read the human mind remotely, and to influence the thought patterns of any individual. Yes, yes they can do that.
They can also interrupt the sleep, hurting the brain and mutilating the soul. Nobody believes the victims, no matter how hard they cry for help. The targeted individuals become jobless, homeless, and many time institutionalized.
There is absolutely zero privacy. Your brain emits information at all times, and this information has been decoded and is intercepted in real time.
I am an engineer, and I have become a target in October 2013, after a nefarious event.
Unfortunately this horrendous crime will continue, because no one believes this technology exists. Those who are being tortured this way have to live through this nightmare every day and night, knowing they can do absolutely nothing about it.
I’d like to say how I feel about this but I’m afraid to.
Submission accomplished.
Of COURSE it does! Why did you think they do it? That’s why they let us know they’re surveilling us!
Well, Millennials are waking up to the fact we are in a form of Oligarchy and our Democracy is in a shambles. It seems we are also in a type of police state also. Democracy be damned as long as a few criminals can be rounded up.
I read somewhere that so-called Millennials in rich countries have mostly authoritarian, anti-democratic beliefs… I think it was an article in The Guardian, last year. If this is changing, I suspect it’s not due to Facebook or Twitter (two closed systems), but to the harsh reality of having to struggle to earn a living, harder now than 20-30 years ago…
We all thank you, Glenn, Laura and Ed Snowden (and others) for unveiling the mass surveillance beast that every second, vacuums every shred of humanity’s ephemeral experiences. Several years prior to “Citizen 4″, Oliver Stone (and others) produced the documentary, “The Untold History of the United States”. This September , Oliver brings to the big screen “Snowden”. Not to your surprise, as you, and others are in it!
I’m hopeful that it will be a thriller that excites a sense of honor back into those who over-use their claim of “pride”, while often sleep-walking through a commodified, mind-numbing, consumer isolation. Scares the bejeezus out of me and EVERYONE ELSE who’s noticed that now the “tail wags the dog”. The surveillance state makes today’s life, surely without a doubt, just a stage rather than a joyful adventure, as Shakespeare made clear: [We citizens] “Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”
Will “Snowden” re-awaken any of humanity’s remaining survival instincts? What does Slavoj Zizek think, me wonders, lol!
It is practically the RULE that contacts, donations, affiliations that are innocuous when initiated can and do become suspicious after the fact. Membership in the German-American Bund or Japan-oriented societies BECAME a basis for investigation/prohibition only on December 8, 1941. Likewise affiliation with the Communist Party USA, only not quite so suddenly.
Of course, posting on THIS site puts my name on ready lists, too. I know it, and herewith deny everything that I will later (under torture) admit to. And none of those other people whose names I will give out did anything, either.
Thanks you for standing up N Joseph Potts AND (with advance notice…) disavowing every lie false patriots might suborn or elicit from you under physical or psychological duress. I call the top bunk…
In the case of the CP-USA, every other member was an FBI informant. For the Klan, the ratio is even higher! We have had agents informing on what turns out to be another agent for many decades now.
Wow, my original post finally showed up through the government sensors. Take note commenters. My 2:57pm post yesterday finally showed up here on this thread by 11:47am today.
Glenn, please see my links from 2:57pm that might be of interest regarding encryption, security and privacy of smartphones.
Are you so amazed about that? Since then have been using the Internet? ;-)
BTW, based on what I have been noticing for a long time (almost since day 1), theintercept -may- be playing its part in that. They are not being 100% clear, honest about their own handling of posts.
As they say: “it is as good as it gets” (so, don’t expect for things to be better)
RCL
There’s no such thing as security and privacy on a smartphone. Stop using a smartphone and take the battery out of your dumb phone unless you’re making a call. Better yet, don’t carry a mobile at all. Try POCSAG if you must stay in touch — as in a pager.
The reference in the article to ‘British libraries’ is incorrect. It was actually The British Library (a bit like the Library of Congress) who declined to stock the Taliban documents because they didn’t want the material to be available to would-be terrorists. Read their press release.
There are some interesting points in the article but this bit is very misleading.
It’s also why press (and blog site) coverage of the subject needs to be fact-based and not sensationalist. It would be a pity if anyone worried about the ‘surveillance state’ on the basis of exaggeration and supposition.
No longer will they use sticks and stones, swords and shields, guns and bombs, but words and ideas. Its a new battlefield and the war is in the mind.
The Nazi “surrender” was merely a shadow play. The Nazis won the Second World War. Why do you think we’re under a national security state now?
Fantastic observations. I’m glad you’re on the wall Glenn.
I first started reading this and thought it is an article about a new research. Then I get to the Bentham portion and thought it is about a history-of-idea style work about surveillances. Then I realize it is a bit like an editorial. It’s all of the above it turns out.
I didn’t know that electing Obama was part of the plans by the way.
Dear Citizens of the World:
Things are all working out according to plan.
We are extremely happy and grateful to you for participating in this takeover by being afraid, meek and self censoring. Please keep up the good work as we continue to completely destroy the (place name of country here) rights, constitutions, privacies, education, health care, climate, water, soil, food, infrastructure and finally your entire civilization.
Thanks again!
Sincerely:
The New World Order.
We couldn’t have done it with you!
Fin
You do understand that new world order conspiracy theorists like Alx Jones, They are tools of the Elites, they are there to spread disinformation. The elites love 911 conspiracy guys because it keeps people that love this kinda shit looking at the wrong thing.
To those commentators who like Sanders I would like to point out what Chomsky and many others have said. BERNIE SANDERS IS NOT A RADICAL he is a main stream FDR democrat.
The great hero of the US “left” was no hero at all he did what he did to “save capitalism” and the influence of the great fortunes which he ignored on purpose (as did Keynes) simply put things back to the way they were and far worse in the blink of an eye.
It was the “liberal” Lindon Johnson who prosecuted the near genocide of the Vietnam war. It is the “liberal” Obama bombing 7 nations.
In short, our real enemies are the US politicians who claim to be on the side of the people.
It has become absurd to suggest that ANY principal of the enlightenment is in any way honored by the Imperial US.
There is no democracy in the US and those who claim there is or who act as if there is are living in the same delusion as the climate deniers.
The “deep state” loves the US “liberals” as noted in the article Obama the “liberal” puts a happy face on imperial aggression and the US’s aggressive quest for global domination as stated by the Pentagon: “Global full spectrum domination”
A nation where Hillery Clinton is thought of as “liberal” while holding some of the most extreme views on the use of US military power to rule the world.
ALL US political institutions are deeply corrupt and half measures of electing “liberals” are deeply misguided. The enactment of more laws – which are simply ignored by power – will change nothing, engaging the US empire at an election and expecting “change from within” is totally discredited.
The owners of vast wealth who’s fortunes now are greater than the British Empire at its height or the US after WWII. They are our real enemy, Obama like all the US “liberals” serve these oligarchs.
US constitutional government has failed in its duty to its citizens and its government is now a transnational empire of great strength which intends to dominate the glob.
Only by dismantling the great and especially the great dynastic fortunes and neutralizing their power can possibly be effective and most people don’t even know who the real enemy is.
Tyranny only works if they can convince the majority not to fight for their rights. Tyrants and dictators count on that.
There is a very simple way to nullify that is for enough people to stand up.
I would guess you could nullify the NSA surveillance of emails by a few individuals set up spam operations that went to or through targeted places, that contained words or phrases that are targeted and were addressed to individuals that had names similar to those that are targeted.
If it was a large enough and sophisticated enough effort, the NSA would have to waste a huge of time money and effort just filtering spam.
Thank you for standing up Patrick Mcneal.
1. Buy some cheap, pre-paid cell phones.
2. Hand them out to winos and hoboes. They will sell them. This may not accomplish any grand purpose, but it does muddy things up a bit.
A few things:
1. You are being surveilled by Artificial Intelligence programs so the comforting idea that there aren’t enough resources to monitor everybody all the time is probably false. You might argue that they can’t do it very well, but that brings up other issues i. e. you are mistakenly put on a government or corporate watch list.
2. Government lists have grown somewhat. US kill lists, no-fly lists, and terrorist watch lists are well known, but what about no-hire lists? America has a history of blacklisting people believed to be politically subversive. You could find yourself blacklisted or put on a Corporate no-hire list for opposing TPP or boycotting Israel.
I’d like to see a list of lists.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZwsbNn1g5k
I am not so sure if it matters that you may have been “mistakenly” blacklisted or the reasons why, but I found that letter in the mail as a response of an application to work for the U.S. Census Bureau:
https://hsymbolicus.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/fbi_bad_nigger02.pdf
I have been noticing weird happenings and issues, hard to prove based on plain statistics, rhyme or reason. Like you are a fully bilingual Math and Sciences teacher already with a Master’s Degree as a Mathematician/Physicist and licensed to teach; yet, you can’t find a job in NYC … ;-)
They don’t even need to tell your employers not to hire you outrightly. They go and tell them to watch out for, try to “talk to” that “good for nothing niggah” …and employers even though some may know about the ways of the police in NYC, they may not need the extra attention from them and hassle so guess what would happen to your application?
At least here in NYC, they have “SR(?)” (“shared responsibility ‘what’ do they call them?”) in all workplaces which are being “monitored” by those “fusion centers”. Since other people tend to be busy, they usually enlist “‘security’ officers” and janitors to harass you. They certainly get “creative”. While working at CUNY (something I invariably notice is that the harassment gets worst in colleges and universities) they assigned me to work in media classrooms which had to be locked at all times (in both buildings, even though I didn’t need them (other people did)) and in order to use them (based on my schedule, which they most probably set up). I had to ask them every time …
Of course, they did that to make me talk to them but every time I acted like it was the first time I saw them and kept verbal exchange to the very minimal (no smiles, no extra nothing, every time a cold start), repeating the same phrase all over again if needed (even going like, “excuse me?”, when they tried to get conversational, friendly). They, seemingly in response, started to not open my classroom even if I would get there with minimally 15 min in advance to do my best at trying to get them to open those classrooms. I asked to use the other empty classrooms … then with my students and I went into them and started the class. The janitors would turned off the lights in the room from their relays closets …
My adult students were very angry about it. They could very obviously see they were doing it on purpose (janitors would even laugh about it) and some of them enraged went to the complain to my supervisors (housed 3 blocks away) who would show up explicitly wondering “why is all of this happening?” … They never got a direct to their faces answer, but CUNY never gave me the magnetic personal tag (they give all teachers so they are open the classrooms they need to use), because “my security clearance wasn’t through yet” (of course, without telling you why or when or what or nothing). Of course, even if (based on students improvement and attendance, as well as their own class observations) you are an excellent and caring teacher who would even offer 24×7 unpaid attention to your students via email, they didn’t rehire me for the next semester or ever again … CUNY is a large conglomerate of colleges and universities in NYC.
In my current workplace at least 6 teachers have “tried to become ‘friends’ with me” (people, try to conversationally engage you in awkward, private, “tell me about this” ways). The other 3 in the Math department (she refused to do such a thing, our head is a bit hesitant about doing such things in general even though he isn’t specifically friendly or unfriendly towards me, the other one has even called me “@ssh0l3″ while trying to make me talk to him; an ELA, an ESL teacher and an art teacher). They also have people who smell, walk, meow, purr … like police who even show up in legally private meetings (where we discus stuff about our special ed students) or in your classrooms while you are teaching and just observe you (without saying who they are or anything (school admin doesn’t tell you either, as they would always do when we are visited even by themselves)) …
One of those funny sounding wordings they use is “non-confrontational”. I would let you see to the extent that adjective is right and proper.
RCL
to TIs out there (sorry, Mona) for whom this is daily life. You must be clear about a number of things:
1) what they want is to play you (even if angrily)
2) they invariably act in shadowy, unclear ways with a sense of silly urgency “as if you knew where they are coming from” and should react to it
3) they try to engage you privately
4) they get paid monetarily and socially for what they do,
5) so, they won’t ever back down
What you would do is, after you let them know you are “aware” about it all in their own ways without saying anything specific in order not to invite any kind of back and forth:
1) not mind their b#llsh!t (I even walk past them without making eye contact paying any attention whatsoever to them (believe me at some point they become like flies, garbage bins to you))
2) act as if you could not even make sense of their actions, as if you were asking from an explanation (what, how, from whom, where do -you- know about me?)
3) not ever share any kind of personal information with those types of folks. Reply to their points when they give you a good, comfortable occasion, but not to them directly, openly and in documented ways, say, via email cc’ing your supervisors with a general, philosophical tone
4) make sure that they can’t get a raise from you based on “results” even if they can keep their jobs forever.
5) so, don’t get angry. Once you know they are idiots who don’t seem to have anything better to do with their lives you will not mind them at all
In the case of that @ssh0l3, he said that to me in a teachers’ lounge and at least 10 teachers heard him. They were more shocked than I was offended, since I could not understand why he was asking me angrily for his attention at this very moment. He even said that to me in front of our supervisor after she had said to me to serve as a scribe for a student who had a cast on his hand. He wrongly thought he was being made responsible for a mistake that I let slip into an exam (he then realized he was wrong). He got my attention that time, I went up to him publicly after I finished proctoring the exam, but he started to play stupid (what do you mean?) not only to me but our supervisor who did not accept his kind of stupidity. He started denying what he had said so every body took it as if he suffers from echolalia ;-)
RCL
I get it. Most people don’t want to be an Enemy of the State. But this kind of fear or political reservation smacks of fascism in a country that is supposed to be a democracy with a written policy of free speech. What this article shows me is how far down the rabbit hole we have actually gone. With the availability of information at our fingertips, it is easy to imagine that as we sink deeper into this morass of political corruption, more and more restrictions will curtail our true thoughts and actions. Bravo to the Millennials, who because of their youthful fearlessness and lack of personal baggage, are not more willing to take the gamble of speaking out against the Establishment and putting their words and actions into play.
Thank you for stading up Kathleen Minnix.
Okay, but let’s be honest. We are way past just the illusion of being monitored.
In a regular day the average citizen breaks some law/notice/ordinance several times. From speeding, to jaywalking, to “illegally” connecting to unsecured wireless network.
The problem is that our “handlers” have long influenced the laws on the books to the point that people can be LEGALLY disappeared simply on “suspicion” of terrorism.
Generally I don’t have anything to fear because I fit in a fairly square box, but the problem is when basic rights are slowly eroded eventually you find that they don’t exist at all anymore.
But what does the box say?
The “surveillance state” is based upon the same psychological
manipulations as every organized religion.
Herding large groups of people into masochistic submission
and constraints, both psychological and physical,
for the benefit of a very clever sadistic minority.
The illusion of “salvation” from the “evils” of nature and insecurity
is the lie that drives this perversity.
Ah wait, isn’t this the insidious mechanism used by Borderline Personality Disorder? One establishes a declared threat and then he/she/it keeps bullying and terrorizing everybody in its name. Harsher and harsher. The more it’s allowed, the further it goes. What’s bewildering these days is how masses of moronic people use the term “terrorism” to play havoc in an online polemic, to instill terror to others or end a discussion. Most of us, we are a bunch of moronic creatures, enslaved by our own lack of desire to find and live the truth.
GG, all my respect and admiration for you!
I heard a very smart man say something like this to the question “are americans stupid?” Look at sports, common people have vast knowledge of teams and the strategies. People are not dumb. They are indoctrinated.
Quite similar. But I’d also argue that this level of surveillance, on a grand scale, individually and in bulk, *IS* terroristic — far more than any bomb could ever hope to be.
They can’t help themselves. The addiction to surveillance breeds on itself.
Aside from the issue of controlling the population, I like to think that some of the proponents of surveillance have the best of intents. Same with some members of Congress, and citizens who approve of these activities.
They can always make the case to themselves in hindsight that ‘If we only had more information about this individual, we could have stopped this before it started’. Perfectly plausible even though untrue, and unfortunately this line of reasoning has no end point.
That’s the real problem. They didn’t allow democracy to be the circuit breaker. They didn’t involve us in that conversation, they didn’t allow us to set the limits, or to surveil their activities.
So except for journalists and Wikileaks-style organizations, we are now on this one-way Orwellian road.
Thank you for standing up Dan Campbell.
Greetings TI’ers:
Just in case someone hasn’t seen this: “Exit” from Jean Michel Jarre and Edward Snowden!
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/apr/28/edward-snowden-jean-michel-jarre-song-exit
thanks, that was a cool video
It is commendable that Glenn, and I must say on numerous occasions already, not only is touching but digging into this multi-faced and multi-layered issue and warning of severe consequences for journalism and also about devastating direct impact on journalistic audience, namely all of us.
Very few journalists openly admit that they themselves have to face this, what amounts to moral issue of individual freedom and courage to pursuit objectives of truly public good regardless of now quite probable severe consequences may be as a result of shameless abuse of the rule of law for political and financial ends by usurpers of the power most of us are living under.
But that’s exactly how detrimental impact of such a panoptical reality really is. And Glenn’s choice to go open with it and dig into it is the only way for any journalist to stay true to their readers.
Leaving those issues of personal biases, survival concerns, career considerations etc., as a matter of private, secret, individual judgment, which many MSM journos elect to do with horrible consequences of lost credibility, is a wrong judgment and only will fuel suspicions which are part of the mechanism of control of people’s worldview and their acts, an ultimate goal of the surveillance state.
Before we click on The Intercept bookmark, definitely neither you and me want to think about what Glenn did, wrote or said in media last night that would make him a subject to surveillance (more then he already is) and hence myself as a reader/commenter of his column would be somehow indicated in the “conspiracy” .
This kind of thinking is an utter absurd and anybody who pushes it is nothing but a tool of the surveillance state himself/herself.
The threat to little liberty and little freedom we have can only be fought by counterattacking with massive freedom and massive liberty not by limiting it even further.
Dumb your words down please, I am a member of the uneducated Proletariat.
tyty
“the entire history of ancient and modern states is merely a series of revolting crimes….there is no horror,no cruelty,sacrilege or perjury,no imposture,no infamous transaction,no cynical robbery,no bold plunder or shabby betrayal,that has not been or is not daily being perpetrated by the representatives of the states,under no pretext than those elastic words, so convenient and so terrible : ‘for reasons of state’….” (Michael Bakunin)
Of course. I’ve always assumed that the government could see anything I write online, including my emails (which should be private), so I often don’t say what I really think. Anyone with any sense does this unless they’re willing to become martyrs. We live in a police state and situations like this won’t change until we overthrow that police state.
Bernie Sanders wants a political revolution. I support Bernie Sanders.
Me, too. I’m with him, up to the nomination. And further, if he goes independent.
However, Sanders hasn’t committed to pardoning any whistle blowers. He basically paid lip service to the issue.
There are candidates on the ‘other’ side, both 2016 and 2012, who explicitly promised presidential pardons, and thought Snowden should get a medal.
Thought this would be of interest…. Hope all is well…Judith
Glenn, when it finally appears on this thread, please see my 2:57pm post. Any help from other commentors on pointing Glenn to the post is greatly appreciated. It should appear just before Musefish 3:20pm post by tomorrow.
Thanks
I’m sorry, but this makes no sense. Greenwald just randomly throws it out there that he’s adopting a child and then expects readers to make sense of, literally, dozens and dozens of words above? I think not. It’s going to take me a long time to process this. I think I have jealousy issues with the new baby that I need to work on. Why is he talking about this ‘surveillance’ stuff? Really.
Perhaps wallstreet is worried that Americans will soon realize the size of the robbery. and about the growth fraud. and about the new economic design to replace the current system. After all, wallstreet has abandoned mainstreet. Wallstreet will not put one dime into mainstreet unless they can own public resources.
That’s how thieves with power operate – like organized crime. And maybe they need a little help listening in on everyone so they can understand the contempt that Americans have for them.
It’s a game of keep away. In order for money to have value, they have to have it and you have to need it. This is part of what gives money its value, the fact that people will do anything to get it. They can print it out of nothing, but average people have to sweat bullets just to pay rent.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKUaqFzZLxU
I think you meant to respond to someone else’s comment, unless possibly Glenn is adopting a hedge fund manager from Wall Street.
I find your comments strange Barabbas, Are you Alex Jones incognito?
This book is indispensable:
http://www.amazon.com/How-Talk-Kids-Will-Listen/dp/1451663889
Sounds like he’s (a) signing a child up for a lifetime of intense surveillance and intrusion into its personal life while simultaneously (b) increasing the likelihood of him never ever ever being willing to take a large risk ever again. People change when they have kids. I’m not saying he shouldn’t do so, but I am suggesting that it’s probably selfish of him to consider doing so given the hell that kid is going to wind up having to deal with growing up. The problem of course isn’t with GG, the problem is with the governments that make this true. Sorry, GG, I mean no offense. I do wish you happiness. And noone, least of all me is suggesting you sacrifice anything for anybody… but I’m wondering if you’ve really given thought to that aspect of things. Yes, I realize the irony of asking this question in this particular article’s comments. But I’m not sure any child you adopted would ever have peace, either, and I’m not sure that that shouldn’t be something to consider for the child’s sake (not yours). Whatever the case, I *DO* wish GG the best. But Nic, I’m not sure I’d be jealous of the level of intrusion that child is going to likely experience for the totality of its life. :(
Point of information – ‘The British Library’ is not the same as ‘british libraries’ – and it makes the story even more chilling. But to get the facts right, this was not a generic concern among libraries in the UK, but a high level concern from the central repository of all published materials.
Im amazed, why its not the other way around?. why would people believe they are doing somehting wrong?
It’s not about people believing they are wrongdoing, it’s about the government that would consider wrongdoings. I like the example of scholars or libraries refusing to possess anything related to the Talibans.
A book or documents that helps others understand certain things is not something wrong, but on that case the government would disagree, labeling such person as supporter of terror.
What I’m wondering now is how to make mass surveillance useless for the government? By acting like we are not watched? Demanding more transparency on these issues?
Show all your friends/family this video documentary.
it’s a start
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlHDIDVrNpI
Absolutely correct. The only thing that shocks me anymore is how people — the overwhelming majority — fear being watched and/or overheard and reported to superiors and security. This fear also applies to people who might otherwise sign petitions or get involved in group discussions; fearing that somebody in power is, through their agents, recording what you sign or write, watching who you talk to, or having your picture taken via smart phones, etc. while you are participating in or saying something contrary to what are deemed the wishes of whatever authority you don’t necessarily like because of their actions or lack of action. I take great pride in being blacklisted — it’s a badge of honour and I announce it as such because it is not only freedom but if enough people do it (rarely, very rarely) it forces change no matter how small. Remember, it is just a start.
If you are (still) afraid to act freely, you are no matter how much stuff you own, a nothing: less than a fart in a hurricane.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, —That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Yep…….I am with you Rudy! I think what shocks me [still] the amount of people who simply don’t give a rat’s arse about anything.
Thank you for standing up Rudy Haugeneder.
So, the new study shows that surveillance breeds self-censorship, fear and meekness. In other words, it’s working…
“Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious”.
“We are the dead,” said Winston.
“We are the dead,” echoed Julia.
“You are the dead,” said an iron voice from behind the wall…
oh yes. Did i mention the dangers of surveillance with regard to business and employees subcontracted to spy on you are a threat to every business because these contracted employees will sell your business info to competitors or worse?
no.
example.
http://www.forbes.com/forbes/1998/0706/6201080a.html
it will get a lot worse unless the spy agencies are closed down.
spying on people is the operation of predatory animals, not humans.
Interesting to note that in the Albany, Schenectady and Troy N.Y. area our local transit authority, the CDTA’s marque alternates its particular destination with these two lines. SEE SOMETHING SAY SOMETHING. A shade of things to come.
That link doesn’t work Barabbas
You essay, Glenn, is very timely and well argued. Thanks again for being with us.
Glenn wrote “…Specifically, that possibility breeds fear and fosters collective conformity.” And yes “their surveillance breeds meekness, fear and self-censorship.”
They have even done worse like, scourging, a crown of thorns, nails through the hands and feet, left suffering on a cross with a final spear thrust in the side, and all it accomplished was that the Empire crucifying him eventually turned Christian.
Too much nor too little privacy cannot be tolerated by the human species, so they may by this grave violation of our privacy, effectively thrust the spear in our side that will eventually be what turns the Empire over to the people.
Glenn wrote “…Specifically, that possibility breeds fear and fosters collective conformity.” And yes “their surveillance breeds meekness, fear and self-censorship.”
They have even done worse like, scourging, a crown of thorns, nails through the hands and feet, left suffering on a cross with a final spear thrust in the side, and all it accomplished was that the Empire crucifying him eventually turned Christian.
Too much nor too little privacy can be tolerated by the human species, so they may by this grave violation of our privacy, effectively thrust the spear in our side that will eventually be what turns the Empire over to the people.
Speaking of governments looking for chilling effects, try this one:
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-04-27/maine-pot-initiative-makes-ballot-overcoming-sloppy-signature
The Maine Secretary of State’s office, just to be thorough to make sure canvassers were really eligible to collect signatures, got a canvasser’s employment history. Then they went and contacted his landlord. You know, just to be sure.
They could not, however, be bothered to ask the notary whose signature they were concerned might be forged whether he really didn’t sign off on those pages with 17,000 signatures before trying to throw them out.
New Study Shows Mass Surveillance Breeds Meekness, Fear and Self-Censorship is like saying New Study Shows Stop signs at many corners breeds cautiousness, driving insecurity and Self-monitoring in driving situations.Duh.
Everyone self-censors, if they didn’t we would be a herd of shit spewing, horny, cursing, assholes. Not that we aren’t already, but the amount of un-censored opinion is only rabid because of social media and the internet platform to heave our guts. If your talking about saying something threatening, politically, violently, sexual, etc. well that goes on in all arenas. This is making an issue where there is none, there was always someone watching and reporting what you said since the Salem Witch days and McCarthyism, till now. Having people think narcissistically, that what they say really means a damn thing to the government is another. Its a fine line between sticks and stones can break my Instant message tones, and names that will never hurt me. Still have to prove that you were serious in what you are saying to be areal target of surveillance.
Hi there Mr. Clapper. May I call you “James?”
May I call you Mona Comey??
You can always spot a traitor to the human race. You can always spot a zionista predator looking to keep his herd of captives from wandering off. You can always spot a thief who wants to rob you.
These evil types will insist that you are a willing victim willing to pluck yourself and bow to their request as if to say “you are my captive and you will do as i say and work for me”.
Spies are really predatory voyeurs who want to stalk you so they can have power over you in favor of the predatory thieves they work for. These types are not really human but more like sick animals who bite.
Wallstreet fears Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. No wonder. These are two persons who aren’t for sale.
If the awareness of incessant surreptitious tracking of ones online activity results in the panopticon effect, then it only stands to reason that a lack of awareness is warranted. “Asymmetrical surveillance” is merely the necessary equivalent of asymmetrical warfare (war by proxy) used in the global war on terror abroad. As it would be highly impractical and very costly to monitor the behavior of every citizen, it only stands to reason that paranoia-driven self censorship is the most cost effective solution to the the radicalizing (self-liberating) effects that naturally result from a burgeoning awareness of truth. This having been said, I can envision the day when certain “anti-establishment” alternative news outlets will be tasked with promoting the panopticon effect by making appeals to those who cannot readily surrender their innate sense of self out of consideration for the advancement of the “common good” (common good (def): a euphemism for the global marketplace) for the purpose of identifying such incorrigibles (via their required email address). Hence, the additional need for social readjustment akin to that provided to dissidents by Soviet-style psychiatric science is clearly warranted (see: Letter Details FBI Plan for Secretive Anti-Radicalization Committees). Clearly scientific socialism is the intelligent solution to self-centered, anti-social behavior.
not a problem. With the word association brain research going on by scientists mad against the madness of not knowing enuf stuff, rest assured the solution for all social ills is in development phase as we speak. Trials for the medicine will be fast tracked and guaranteed FDA approval.
The tradmark name for this miracle product would be STEPFORDAZON
And then there was 9-11….
SCOTUS issued a rule change, and if Congress doesn’t act on it, TOR users will have their systems hacked, and their houses searched. (I suspect also, that if houses are searched, the Feds will use RICO to take property also.) An Orwellian nightmare. Its in an article from today’s Intercept:
https://theintercept.com/2016/04/28/supreme-court-gives-fbi-more-hacking-power/
I self-censor all the time. What is frustrating is that it is writing, expressing myself, which provides what I consider a therapeutic and safe response to what is so obviously wrong (mass surveillance without cause or warrant, among other things).
I don’t want to be labeled or tagged or blacklisted, but I do need to express my frustration and my own futile attempts at resistance through the written word. While this seems like a good expressive outlet, I am flummoxed that my government would perhaps label and tag me as a dissident, etc.
Yes, it’s a given that we are all surveilled by our own government without cause or warrant, but why? I don’t buy the terrorism lines in totality, as the statistics don’t bear out the size and scope of the programs. Who is driving this and why?
In closing, I have no illusions that everyone who visits TI and comments here is ‘flagged’ in some way, given the nature of GG’s fabulous relationship with the NSA vis a vis Snowden. To this I can only say, I think it’s important and critical to our democracy that citizens openly share their thoughts and ideas, even if they are dissonant and challenging.
Glenn,
For your perusal regarding how pinpoint surveillance might be in the Mobile Era.
See P.8 Bio of Mathew Howard who sits on the board at MOBL
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1470099/000155837016004942/mobl-20160623xdef14a.htm
From In-Q-Tel website
https://www.iqt.org/iqt_portfolio/mobileiron/
As for Google encryption of the Android system and Lollipop….well, MOBL supports Lollipop, ergo, so does In-Q-Tel.
https://www.mobileiron.com/en/company/press-room/press-releases/mobileiron-delivers-support-android-50
This post took 21 hours to arrive at The Intercept thread. I have been checking since yesterday at 3pm for it’s arrival. It has now showed up at 11:47pm today.
Glenn, can anyone from your IT department confirm when it passed through your servers to disprove this was a technical issue at TI end?
Thank you Glenn for emphasising one of the most important aspects of human development on the planet today!
America was a young and open country which fostered some or most of the greatest talents the world has known. The reason for this is because the American Declaration of Independence created an operating environment for personal development. That environment is almost gone.
Laws, Laws and more Laws. Since WW2, that operating environment has been increasingly constrictive to becoming a “where do you fit in” environment whereby humans must now fear criticism, jail, fines and homelessness unless one gets legal explicit permission and cover for what one wants to do. Needless to say, the “Fit In” is quickly mutating into a “Permission First” environment. In part this constrictive environment is fueled by fear of safety.
The world has been here before but on much smaller scales. Somehow we have figured the mere size of human presence has changed the limitations of the past. This is a mirage because size does not change the nature of human relationships and networking. And given the size and power of corporations, it is becoming a “Dont call us, we’ll call you” system for survival.
The fostering of humans as individuals in America has given way to gangsterism. This includes street gangs, political gangs and corporate monster gangs. Gangsterism works for wolfpacks and insect colonies, not humans.
It is actually a federal crime (Title 18 Criminal Code) that can carry prison time for government officials or contractors to censor or intercept anything without an individual judicial warrant.
Currently there just aren’t any agencies to prosecute those violations of federal statutes but hopefully that will change very soon. So censorship that happened years ago could still be prosecuted.
18 U.S. Code § 2518
is this the applicable statute?
hell, i’ve held back on may occaasions for that very reason. i’ve been a long time reader of antiwar.com and found out the government had “requested” the site hand over a list of its visitors. i used to donate to the occasional palestinian cause or website but 86ed that long ago. ditto support for many other sites that might not be deemed “kosher” by those deciding how much free speech we’re “allowed” to have.
thank goodness for tor and other anonymizing gadgets. too bad a lot of people that could benefit from them either don’t know or can’t be bothered.
I quit going to antiwar.com for that very reason.
Unfortunately, pre-employment and current employment surveillance of personal social media accounts is a live issue.
Sock puppets follow up on Twitter. API aggregates corner your connections. So it’s not just government that’s a concern, but they use virtually the same tools and information.
The good news is that UX, GUI or good user interface controls [would] give people a lot more control over their information. A service like Twitter would vastly improve if you could immediately boot people you don’t want following you or forever dismiss surveillance accounts from Big Data firms conducting invesigative consumer reports.
How I made peace with some of this is by presenting employers with my own Terms & Conditions notice of applied consent in contract phases. This means I present anyone who asks me for a background check with my own conditions of use of consumer report information or else, no consent. My personal information becomes a trust (financial, social etc.) Going forward, anyone who gets a hold of it needs to be qualified to manage that as a trust.
To date, it’s been that slavery-like one way street with “free” offerings from companies. It’s not free. Social media is getting more than their pound of flesh in the Faustian bargain. If they want to even up the exchange, content owners need more access, tools to manage their trusts themselves and to be able to negotiate a ToS agreement before they hit SUBMIT. They also need to assert more responsiblilty with what they have. Otherwise, looks at what happens when an asshole like Kanye West at Tidal gets a hold of your Pii? That’s your future, if you don’t qualify the banks that hold your data.
A slight correction: It’s not British libraries that are refusing to house material on the Taliban, It’s The British Library, the national library. It’s one thing for a local library to be a bit unsure about housing such material, it’s quite another for the national library, a major centre of academia; after seeking legal advice too!
The BBC knows that UK PM David Cameron is aware of the evidence of fake archives of newspapers [largely imported from Australia] being sold by British Libraries UK London [also sold by Australian state and national public libraries]. News articles published have been erased or altered for the fake archives. Crimes & corruption of Australian national significance relating to events in Adelaide [city] South Australia [state], where Rupert Murdoch began his media empire with the first newspaper he ever owned, are concealed by the false records. https://rjrbtsrupertsfirstnewspaper.wordpress.com/2015/07/27/australian-government-law-enforcement-and-news-media-corruption-in-brief-ref-sbsa-bankruptcy-6/ British Libraries UK London is as untrustworthy as Australian public libraries, law enforcement authorities, Australian & UK politicians, governments and news media.
Is there a need for studies on this topic? The recent history of Eastern Europe is an excellent historical case study. It hasn’t been more than 2 decades since its sunset, which means that millions of Eastern European people who lived under a surveyance system are still around and well alive. They would consider it laughable that you need some studies to prove that fear surveyance instills conformism and all other sorts of twisted human behavior. Books and books have been written on this topic, with real events and real subjects – alas not in English though. It has always bothered me that Greenwald never refers to that system in his writings about this topic – not even in the book “Nothing to hide.” The West writes for itself it seems.
All these tactics are based on the work of Paul Johann Anselm von Feuerbach, a German constitutional lawyer and founder of the theory of psychological coercion, described in his book “Betrachtungen über die Oeffentlichkeit und Mündlichkeit der Gerechtigkeitspflege”. In it he described how the mere idea of being observed changes a society according to the needs of its rulers.
He coined the phrase:
“Who has nothing to hide,
does not avoid the observation,
and who shuns the observer,
will do,
that he has nothing to hide.”
http://laemmerbiss.blogspot.de/2015/06/angewandte-theorie-des-psychologischen.html
I’ve read everything I could find by GG since I became aware of his column at Salon in 2007. I fell in love with his thought process, courage & writing style (!). That said, the argument that “entities of authority crave surveillance…precisely because…the possibility of being monitored…breeds fear and fosters collective conformity” is one of the most bizarre I’ve heard him make (though of course not for the first time).
I wasn’t aware that “entities of authority” love Greenwald & Snowden. I thought they hated them. But if Glenn’s theory were operative, he & Ed would have been their heroes by decisively playing into their hands by making the mind-boggling extent of surveillance known to a largely innocent & unsuspecting (except for The Terrorists, of course) world. Sure, people intuited that contributing to WikiLeaks might get then into trouble, but not much else. Clapper & Hayden would love Glenn.
But they hate him because depressing the public mood is not what they’re interested in. They know that in our neoliberal increasingly unequal society there’s eventually going to be big trouble. Their funding rationale depends on assuring authorities that they’ll help control the trouble when (or ever before) it happens by keeping files on everyone. Meanwhile they’ll promote trouble here & there just to remind people of the potential threat. They want people acting out or going to WikiLeaks so they can keep track of them.
They hate Glenn because “forewarned is forearmed.” The people who might cause trouble might become aware & take precautions. The PTB might not know who they are & what they’re doing! The Apple matter & other encryption efforts show how important Glenn & Ed’s work has been. More power to them. But “collective conformity” is kind of a joke. When we find that the multi-billion dollar porn industry (with which they’re going to blackmail us) has been severely impacted by Snowden’s revelations, then this idea will have much more credence.
It is ironic that Mr. Greenwald and Mr. Snowden have done more than anyone to cement the power of the surveillance state. However, there is a natural law that the consequences of any action are always equal and opposite to those intended, so it’s not really surprising.
you know when to quit reading when they start out praising Greenwald followed by a , BUT
You people have seen nothing, I mean nothing compared to the potential of this story:
http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/04/27/475871745/scans-show-the-brain-groups-words-by-meaning
Unfortunately, it seems that somehow fMRI has finally gotten the upper hand and spies can zoom in on individual word associations. For example, they could work a long list of common names, including suspect names, into some text, and the subject being scanned will light them up on different parts of the brain. Then they read off a list of words like illegal, secret, underground, hush-hush, revolution, and so forth and see which ones are near the suspects. And of course it will go better for a suspect if “lies” and “al-Sisi” are not close together in their brains, or “truth” and “Morsi”, etc.
We’re talking about a chilling effect of actually being prosecuted/persecuted for a thought crime, rather than a reading crime.
I would like to see The Intercept put together something about this and have it published in “fixed form”, just in case there’s a chance the bastards forgot to patent something out of these ideas.
I think you are missing the point. This study shows something about how brains work, not what individuals think.
Look at those maps. They aren’t all the same. There is a similar framework, but there are differences. People usually group certain kinds of terms that come up in a related context, for example, “violent” terms. But do you classify “police”, “BATF”, “Hillary Clinton” as violent? That I think will turn out to have some individual variation.
how the brain groups words by meaning is meaningless science.
How do i know that? I cannot tell you but believe me, these brain science frankensteins are tinkering with circuit boards and not what matters. They are just curiousity bugs with a job and illusions of idiots delight.
mark my words-
It is all in the “eyes”.
And the “eyes” have it…
More like this…
That’s nothing compared to what is possible right now. The “public” knowledge is decades behind the secret technology available to certain organizations. They can read minds from a distance. I have no idea if they use electromagnetism or something new entirely, but this is happening, right now, to lots of people.
This has been long-funded by DARPA. Publicly. And I agree it’s awful.
This is the end of civilized society. Civilized society means there is a written rule of law that both citizens and government officials follow (ex: Constitution, statutes, ordinances). The premise is: citizens that violate those rules are penalized and those that comply with the written rules aren’t.
Today citizens are punished for violating UNWRITTEN and UNADVERTISED rules, determined by individual bureaucrats on a case by case basis. Maybe you don’t attend church or you attend the wrong church. Maybe the bureaucrats doesn’t like your legal First Amendment exercises. It would be akin to being ticketed for driving 65MPH with a posted 70MPH speed limit – it makes the government itself illegitimate.
For example: Virginia’s “Fusion Center” (state blacklisting centers) used “terrorism” authorities to blacklist 100% of African-American college students at all-black colleges – FOR LIFE. Based on written laws there was no crime and no wrongdoing. Other state Fusion Centers have blacklisted environmentalists, LGBT citizens and other legal groups – FOR LIFE. In other words a student at a Virginia black college could be punished 20 years from now by Interpol (international police) if they were to travel to Europe – not based on any crime or any wrongdoing.
The bright spot in all of this is, as bureaucrats become more arrogant and more bold in penalizing the non-crimes and non-wrongdoing of their employers – the American people – more voters will find out about it.
You simply can’t have a legitimate government that punishes citizens that “comply” with the written rules and simultaneously rewards law breakers. This uncivilized model will eventually collapse from it’s own corruption while destroying many innocent Americans along the way.
This is the end of civilized society. Civilized society means there is a written rule of law that both citizens and government officials follow (ex: Constitution, statutes, ordinances). The premise is: citizens that violate those rules are penalized and those that comply with the written rules aren’t.
While I share and empathize with your outrage over our current predicament, I must disagree that the lack of broad, even-handed submission to a set of rules is the defining characteristic of the end of civilization.
If that were true, then we would have to accept that states as variable in their government as North Korea and the United States are no longer within the aegis of “civilization”. Indeed, we would have to except a radically large percentage of historical civilization – if not all of it in its entirety – if we accept your definition.
The unfair application of law has been a prime component of civilization as any superficial but honest examination of history reveals. Was feudal Europe civilization? How about imperial China? Russia? Japan? I would argue that they all represented civilized societies but all were examples of unfair application of law as well. I’m actually hard-pressed to point to any human endeavor that hasn’t exemplified this (though I welcome suggestions from others because I’d like to think us capable of such evolution).
You are correct that this is illegitimate governance and, as history has also shown, the struggles against such governance are a part of history as well. But wherever you have power you will have humans who seek to use it to their own purposes and those purposes will include vast exceptions for them and their own.
As for the future of civilization, everything is, of course, intertwined, but it will most likely undergo a great degree of destruction at the hands of Mother Nature who is not kind to any of her creatures who choose to try to stand outside the natural rules she imposes on her planet. But that won’t be a direct cause of a given sociopathic application of something as simple as the Rule of Law. It will be because we have allowed greed and our own short-sighted nature supremacy.
Pedinska,
If you haven’t seen it, check out the movie “Animal House”. In the movie the college’s justice system invented a new legal term “Double Secret Probation” – violating secret rules that nobody knows existed.
After 9/11, the justice system portrayed in the movie is far superior to the real life justice system today in the United States. In the movie at least they received a trial with a Kangaroo Court.
Today the U.S. perpetrates lethal blacklisting programs here at home to U.S. citizens and throws people in Guantanamo without charge or trial. Most Gitmo detainees (about 86%) were never even near a battlefield or have any culpability in any terrorism.
This is no game – innocent Americans are destroyed by this “Animal House-Light” justice system. It’s embarrassing for our image around the world as well.
If it happened to your children or loved ones, you might take it more seriously.
First, you know nothing about Pedinska, including what she or her loved ones have personally suffered.
Second, it’s absurd to post histrionics about “the end of civilization.” Her reply to you is reasoned and reasonable, as well as correct. If you think this kind of secret law and surveillance hasn’t happened before, including here in the U.S., you are ignorant. Please Google COINTELPRO.
It said “civilized” society not the end of society.
it is the end of individualism and the beginning of the insect colony.
You have no idea how right you are. There is now secret technology that enables synthetic telepathy. People can connect to your brain remotely, seeing what you see and hearing what you hear, including your thoughts. They can also transmit voices, images, and feelings to your brain.
Yes, I know how far fetched this sounds for someone who has never experienced this, but I am living this nightmare every day of my life, and I know. There are thousands of people complaining about this all over the internet.
Sure they’re able to do some of that stuff for real now. In labs. Fully documented.
If they can reconstruct what your eye is actually seeing (which they can) in an academic or google lab (letters numbers lanscapes) all wired up (and inform the public) one must at least wonder about how a wide variety of our DODs DARPA NSA IARPA full spectrum remote wireless capabilities are coming along (about which they have failed to inform the public).
With this crowd you need either verified documents or the testimony of recognized authorities. Which, in my humble opinion, is as it should be.
@ RB
Actually you shouldn’t accuse Pedinska about not comprehending or appreciating the seriousness of exactly how unjust the rule of law can be, and how unjust those who enforce it can be. Because he/she knows has first hand experience with both.
That’s why unless you know somebody personally you shouldn’t go around accusing people on the interwebs of not understanding or taking seriously something that they in fact do, particularly as a rhetorical device or because you don’t/can’t respond to the merits of his/her argument directly.
Because he/she knows has first hand experience with both.
Thanks rr (and Mona). It’s ok to let folks know I’m a woman. I’ve been standing up as such for far too long here and elsewhere for anyone to labor under pretenses, even those that are heartfelt and well-meaning. :-)
If it happened to your children or loved ones, you might take it more seriously.
I was not making light of your contribution. To the contrary.
It has happened to my loved ones. If you’d been reading Greenwald for any length of time you’d know that because I’ve shared the fatal details here and the years of futility in seeking justice.
The ONLY part of what you wrote that I disagreed with was that the lack of even-handed compliance with Rule of Law would be the end of civilized society. Perhaps I bolded the wrong bit.
Civilized society has thrived across the centuries with demonstratively enormous gaps in even-handedness in application of law. So, unless your point is that we have not yet attained something one could call civilized society then, demonstratively, such lack will not, in and of itself, be the end of civilized society.
It’s a foolish mistake to presume to know the history of a given commentator here. Especially if you’re relatively new to these realms.
I actually said “civilized” society based on a written rule of law, not the end of all society.
Growing up during the Cold War teachers, parents and leaders used to brag about our rule of law, checks & balances, fair trials, due process and our independent judiciary being the best in the world. That ended on 9/11 and has never been restored.
It ended a long time before 9/11, it just ended for white people on 9/11.
Well played.
Thank you! That one liner set the account straight!
RCL
I actually said “civilized” society based on a written rule of law, not the end of all society.
Yes. And I quoted you. Accurately. I actually cut and pasted it into my comment so I don’t know why you persist in trying to say I misquoted you. I didn’t. Please, scroll up and look again at what I quoted. You made a flat statement about “civilized” society that was just incorrect based on the actual, historical record.
Growing up during the Cold War teachers, parents and leaders used to brag about our rule of law, checks & balances, fair trials, due process and our independent judiciary being the best in the world.
Yes. I grew up during that time and recall being fed that pablum as well. They were wrong. The civil rights movement, among others, should have disabused you of the notion of evenly applied law if nothing else did. They were force feeding the same sort of exceptionalism that we get from our leaders today. It was wrong then and is wrong now.
The ‘changes’ you perceived after 9/11 were already happening, they just gained horrendous momentum spawned by opportunity and the false urgency everyone everyone felt under the weight of irrational fear drummed up by those in government who chose to take advantage of an opportunity they’d long been yearning after.
Truly, you and I have no quarrel here. You are getting hung up on my objection to a semantic posture you put forth. Nothing more. I’d like to set that aside because I agree with other comments you’ve made in this thread.
Fixed that for you.
Pedinska,
I do apologize that it has happened to you and it has with my family.
The frustration in the United States is that the U.S. Department of Justice is supposed to be the agency protecting Americans constitutional rights and preventing CoinTelPro style blacklisting but the DOJ is actually driving the blacklisting – not policing it. The DOJ and DHS “deputize” state and local officials using state “Fusion Centers” to penalize political speech and other legal First Amendment exercises. In past decades the DOJ criminally prosecuted state and local officials that did this, today they fund it with federal tax dollars.
There is no federal agency today that enforces federal “color of law” statutes to prevent or deter CoinTelPro style blacklisting – even though these practices have violated existing federal statutes for nearly 15 years. Congress also refuses to create a federal agency that will enforce federal law or defund Fusion Center blacklisting.
Many civil libertarians righly criticized the Bush Administration but it appears Obama will make these unconstitutional programs permanent. That is the frustration. Sorry about your situation.
There is no doubt whatsoever that Obama has normalized much that hadn’t been before. I share your frustration on that entirely. The open manner in which it is now being done is different than how things were handled in the past. No doubt things are escalating.
No worries on the other bits. We just sort of misread each other. :-)
Well stated.
Do you think there is a natural, biological imperative that will arise within the collective human family that would have the mass of humanity rise up and crush the cancer of greedy, aberrant people and organizations (government)? I mean the question sincerely. History seems to bear this out.
Some would call it a revolution, perhaps worldwide, but from a biological-evolutionary perspective I wonder at the human organism’s proclivity to protect itself from what is obviously harmful.
Don’t know.
I’ve never lived through a revolution. Then again, neither had others who’ve come before….until they were.
Even though, as Pedinska points out, most of our history has been plagued by political manipulation and abuse, not by rationality and moral, human behavior, I would agree with you, RB. New types of control and repression, which were considered dystopia less than a generation ago and things only “freedom-hating lowlifes” would do, have been institutionalized in the most quiet way. I always thought that instituting a police state and controlling the populace to that extent was only possible in a land ruled by an outright dictatorial government not in a country ruled by “freedom-loving”, “good Christian” people. To me that is a most morally logical (and even Anthropological) statement, my intention is not being offensive. I am truly amazed!
Chomsky doesn’t see it that way (he is the opinion that protest during the Vietnam war era weren’t that massive and conscious as we would like to believe), but maybe it is that people’s smarts and honesty is degrading as a whole (probably from being condition to read what fits in the screen of a cell phone?), so they don’t see what the big deal about “freedom”, “basic morality” … and all those sophisticated issues is about. Most people nowadays simply can’t bother with the “gymnastics” required to scroll down a page and read a whole paragraph. No wonder they can’t make sense of the U.S. Constitution (Ach, what is that thing, too much scrolling!)
The Catholic Church, as an example, had the integrity to articulate and publish to the four winds their Index Librorum Prohibitorum, which they had the spine and brain to mind to the section and paragraph of each published book. Contrary to what people now are willing to believe the inquisition was a very open, I would even say carnavalesque, institution. No FISA courts and such bullsh!t. I grew up in a country were police do repression in the open (police even summons you to discuss their repression plan face to face) and include preposterous clauses in their “legal” code which would make anyone laugh about, but the affected people. However they did punish abuse:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/21/raul-castro-demands-return-guantanamo-bay-obama-visit#comment-71030757
I would recommend to everybody to visit German museums (one of my best known hells and yes, these guys own their own collective consciousness and history). Then visit, say, an Indian museum in the U.S. and you will notice something that is more than half way off.
I remember once they wanted to raise the retiring age and the bill couldn’t be passed as law, because that would have meant that “black folks in the U.S. would have had to work their whole lives in order to retire” ;-). Now, is the endemic disparity in “‘the’ land of ‘the’ free” still that defining? Funny thing is that that kind of disparity you can’t even find in people living in Stalin’s gulags compared to exemplary Soviet citizens. However, “U.S.A., U.S.A., team U.S.A. is always best!” …
At least in those not so distant times our rulers had the decency to be explicit and open about their b#llsh!t. They were not pretending and were honest about it in an articulate way. This is something peculiar about repression in the U.S. the degree of b#llsh!ting pretentiousness, which irrationality at times seem pathological in a collective scale. It seem people more and more are losing their senses.
RCL
Well stated.
To the devil with Chomsky.The overrated Zionist confuser said he’d vote for the hell bitch.
Jesus f*cking Christ.
Chomsky a zionist? HHAAHAHHHA Chomsky is 1 of the 10 best people that ever lived. And he still kicking ass at 90 yo.
Interesting and revealing thread for this particular discussion board.
Cointelpro JTRIG style Fusion Center tactics out in the open.
Note to Mona: I guess EVERYONE is Hugo Chavez NOW?
Inconsistent enforcement drives everyone crazy.
Or as I like to say:
“Big Brother is Watching. Let’s KEEP HIM ENTERTAINED.”
as a story writer i could imagine a scene of popular rejection of the spy guys. Imagine a flood of nonsense useless posts and conversations in absolute jibberish. Mountains and floods of jibberish filling the databanks awaiting digestion. And the subsequent army ants looking for the meaning in the jibberish and trying to break the code.
and then the endless reams of printouts with the line
DOES NOT COMPUTE
@Skip Mendler, @Barabbas –
I LOVE THIS!!! And I really needed a smile today. so here is my contribution:
####^^%%%*****(!!~~~~~~##@@@@%%%%%^^^++????~~$$$$%%^^^^&&&&&&**))
Love, feline16
I am sorry to let you know that that is not likely to work. This is very easily parsed out syntactically. What we should do is not flood them at once, but constantly send barely sensical disinformation, which makes them have to think, mind “you”
RCL
Dear Big Brother,
Can you see how which finger I am holding up?
Love,
Skip
Actually, if you haven’t invested in a set of these, or created a home made equivalent, then they could if they wanted to (according to Snowden):
https://supporters.eff.org/shop/laptop-camera-cover-set
i recently had some facial surgery.
This is what i look like now.
A Medieval European Royal Court would have wooden heads protruding from the walls, high above, in the main hall. Each head, with staring eyes, was positioned behind each seat at the table. This was to demonstrate to courtiers the walls have eyes and ears. In other words, the King’s spies were always behind the walls. Obviously not every wall would have a spy behind it at all times, although that was not impossible, but you never knew when the viewing holes or listening trumpets would be in use.
Glenn Greenwald
I used to have the TED app on my phone to listen to somebody unexpectedly. I would click on the presentation randomly and hope for the best. Until I had yours. I have never heard about you and that was one of the reasons I liked so much. It was fresh, full of integrity and courage. I knew all that detailed explanation about surveillance is real, however I never saw a person talking about it so passionately. You are a very intelligent and obstinate person. We need more people like you in the world. I recently started to follow your writings among others I trust. Thank you for your impeccable work.
Welcome to my beautiful city! I am there in my heart. Your work and ethical values made you a real citizen in Rio de Janeiro.
Recentemente acrescentei à preciosa lista bibliográfica das personagens mais dignas da história e da literatura do Brasil, em particular, e do mundo mais um nome: Glenn Greenwald. Todos famosos aos olhos de minha filha.
Parabéns por sua sanidade histórica!
Take care!
Leila
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ds6-o4gomRc
Perfect antidote to the serious nature of this article.
The bad news is that everyone is on the kill list (or disposition matrix for those who like military jargon). The good news is that most people are well below the red cutoff line. I understand that some people are reluctant to engage in activities which would bump them up the list (reading The Intercept or accessing Wikipedia articles on the US Constitution). But the truth is: these won’t get you anywhere near the cutoff line (unless by bad luck, you’ve also inadvertently responded to the wrong person on social media).
So people should relax and indulge themselves with a mild criticism of government from time to time. Nineteen Eighty Four took a pessimistic view – but we shouldn’t allow one novel to define the surveillance state.
Cutoff line? kill list? Spread that fear dude!
And maybe those who remain “normally” outspoken will by comparison seem more extreme, making unwitting targets of themselves. (marginally speaking)
Interestingly–
Meekness, fear and self-censorship breeds mass surveillance.
It’s a vicious spiral.
Well Said!
Ha! Well, I think it’s beyond ‘rational’ and approaching a near certainty the gov. has been/is monitoring your ass, Glenn. And Snowden, to the extent that they can (and any passerbys who just happened to be named “Snowden” through no fault of their own.) .. and your whole crew (idk about Micah, he’s pretty slick.).
They probably bought your book ‘How Would A Patriot Act’ … but haven’t read it yet.
That’s not going to work for ISIS or anybody else, Glenn. This is the Twenty First Century. ..
At least Greenwald is positively contributing, through this website and his articles. But you? You just come across as a negative little piece of shit.
Oh dear, that was quite a leap. Bah is a great guy. Not a POS at all.
Have to agree Mona.
Deschutes knee jerked harder there than a mortally wounded chickens wings a flappin’.
bah’s the furthest thing from any sort of excrement of any pole or quantity.
Oh, idk, maybe if I held my nose … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSq4f5q4TnY
But “negative”? … that’s unseemly!
That Deschutes interpreted my remarks as either critical of Glenn’s contributions to a more just and peaceful world, or in some way “negative” (heaven forbid!), … is beyond my ability to rectify, I fear.
*However, it does highlight some of the drawbacks of trying to ‘monitor’ highly complex social interactions for ‘actionable intelligence’ \../
Why would the government be interested in Greenwald’s ass?
I only said the gov. had been monitoring Greenwald’s ass (e.g. they didn’t detain Glenn’s partner, David Miranda, mid-flight at Heathrow airport from reading tea leaves, imo.). I believe their real ‘interest’, however, is in the disclosure of the NSA’s top secret “crown jewels”*. *see the Snowden NSA disclosures for details
fyi ~ there was even serious talk from high-level government officials about indicting Glenn, echoed by David Gregory live on FTN, as a co-conspirator … and Glenn was rightfully concerned about entering the U.S. for some time.
Lindsey Graham has a liking to it?
Looking at the responses, it is great to see that people feel empowered and to not fear… yet I feel that this becomes ingrained into our subconscious without our knowledge, so to speak. I think it becomes sort of second nature and becomes in a way our “behavior”. ..if you know that you “may” be watched, it affects you in some way.
Very true, Have you read Orwell’s 1984 Arlene? It will give you goosebumps. Read the book, Movie not near as good. In 1984, There is the 2 minute hate. Everyone screams at videos of a fake enemy. I liken that to modern sports. We can only be passionate about things of no real importance.
With all due respect, what is described here is so obvious that I fail to see the added value of the Oxford University study or indeed anything new revealed. It is a well-known fact that people living under a dictatorship are scared to death to be caught doing anything against the wishes of the authorities. The same can be applied to the “free” West, although perhaps to a lesser degree but nevertheless limiting/reducing free thinking & expression.
So what’s new under the sun?
Not everyone finds this so obvious. From the referenced paper:
There is more if you care to look
Couldn’t agree more. That’s the basic principle on which dictatorships are designed. Anyone who has lived in one, knows it to her/his bones.
It’s been obvious for a very very long time that White Willow Bark, aka aspirin, is efficacious for all manner of health problems, and that it acts as a handy blood thinner as well, but I’m still glad there’s a wealth of scientific research proving that this is so and discussing its benefits and risks.
Obvious isn’t going to do anything to change things. Proof, however, might, in the right hands, help people know it’s actually *true* not just an old wive’s tale.
We should change the national symbol from the bald eagle to an obese ostrich with its head in the sand while reaching for a Big Mac and TV remote and a bumper sticker across its backside which reads “Patriot”.
Except for the longevity and resistance to cancer, I think Heterocephalus glaber is a much better candidate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_mole_rat
HHAAHHHAHHAHAHAH
@Russ –
Oh yeah, there are lots of sheep in deep denial. Head in the sand ostriches? Probably more apt than we wish…
Look at Britain,with the witch hunt over wishes(Israel in America)and facts(Zionist Hitler collaboration).
The salesman in chief is trying to put another Zionist on the SC,if enough rethugs capitulate to Zion,it will happen,and more Constitutional outrages will happen,bet on it.
The war of terror and all its terrible assaults on our freedom,originated in 1948 in Palestine.
Until people wake up to that hidden in plain sight reality,we will continue to suffer.
Very sad but true.
The current witch-hunt in Britain, as you so aptly call it, is really alarming. Apparently if the fat cats don’t like somebody, especially a socialist, they’ll accuse them of anti-semitism and call it a day.
The terror has to end one day. Everything has a beginning and an end. I am absolutely hopeful that a new dawn will appear at the end of this dark tunnel society is currently going through, and then there’ll be a new and long, long era of peace.
More and more people are waking up now and mobilizing, if not physically then at least mentally. Society has realized that it cannot live in this swamp that Zionists and capitalists have made for us.
“A new dawn” will not just happen. It’s up to us. Chomsky says any change takes dedication and time. The powers that be will not ever willingly change or relinquish their control over us.
Again,Chomsky said he’d vote for the hell bitch.
He’s all talk and no action.
A new dawn,or the sunset of humanity?
“Don’t you dare be afraid; be angry!” — John Raines, Citizens’ Commission to Investigate the FBI
John Raines:
http://www.thenation.com/article/what-i-learned-breaking-law/
?” In conclusion, these then are the five lessons I learned by breaking the law. I learned that:
1) Law is not to be trusted without interrogating its complicity with power.
2) Identity is morally problematic for those enjoying gender, racial or class privilege.
3) A nation that permits itself to be governed by fear will become a poorly governed nation.
4) The arrogance of power will undo its plans for the future when met with persistent resistance. And finally…
5) The anger called hope can overcome despair, create a community of resistance and build a future that seemed impossible. ”
There are two versions in the same article, so I’ll give you both. (They’re very similar.)
? “1) Law is not to be trusted without interrogating its complicity with privilege and power.
2) Identity is morally problematic, especially if you get yourself born a white male of class privilege.
3) A nation that lets itself be governed by fear will become a poorly governed nation.
4) The arrogance of power contributes to its own demise when confronted by persistent resistance, and finally….
5) I learned that the anger called hope can overcome despair, create a community of resistance and build a future that seemed impossible. “
Copied and pasted and I see some stray question marks.
very estute
One wonders if the powers that own the economy, own the unemployment policy, own the ability to falsify values to rob mainstreet, pay the military for wars for profit…. one might wonder if they would prefer Americans to be mere insects in their insect colony methods, independent thinking humans being such a problem and all.
@Anonymous –
Thank you for sharing this. John Raines has GREAT points here; I applaud the courage of him, his wife, and the others who were involved.
We need some hope. We really do.
@Anonymous –
Thank you for sharing this, and forgive if there’s a double post. I don’t think the first went through.
John Raines is so courageous and those are GREAT points. I applaud his courage and that of his wife Bonnie, and the others involved.
And I’ll conclude by saying, we need some hope NOW. We really do!!!
Bruce Cockburn’s 1983, tune Nicaragua described the pre-web CIA mindset ..
“Washington panics at U2 shots of “Cuban-style” latrines
They peek from planes, eavesdrop from ships
Voyeurs licking moistened lips,..”
“Voyeurs licking moistened lips…” has had lasting creepy accuracy.
now when they arrest people for peeping tom, they can take them to the CIA or NSA instead of jail. Certainly looks good on a resume!
Can the government punish you for reading what they don’t want you to read? Can the government punish you for writing what they don’t want you to write?
The 1st amendment says no. But with a government that operates on the foundation of “plausable deniability”, what is to stop the executive branch from engaging in unconstitutional behavior (i.e., punishing writers for writing negative information about the government and punishing readers for reading information that the government doesn’t want you to read) and then relying on “plausable deniability” to escape any and all accountability?
What most Americans should fear the most is “non-confrontational” blacklisting by local, state and federal agencies. You won’t be arrested in an overt manner, it’s the covert activities all of us should fear.
There are currently no government watchdogs to arrest and convict the government bureaucrats and contractors. Even U.S. Supreme Court justices are totally oblivious to how CoinTelPro type blacklisting really works – which is modeled after the communist secret police during the Cold War. Blacklisting is a lethal tactic longterm and can even devolve into genocide (ex: East Germany during the Cold War). The Judicial Branch judges and justices don’t even understand how it really works.
For example: a small business’s phone may stop ringing and emails delayed or intercepted. Employment tampering, which destroys your livelihood, destroys your marriage, reputation and credibility. So even if the nearly 15 years of blacklisting to 9/11 blacklistees ended today, there is lifelong harm to it’s victims without official government apologies and punitive financial compensation.
They can’t arrest you because there was not any crime or wrongdoing, no basis for government involvement. Essentially you will be punished in any manner that prevents an official police report or legal standing in court.
Government bureaucrats, including judges, will do absolutely nothing to make blacklisting victims whole again, unless those bureaucrats risk prison time and financial lawsuits for inaction. Bureaucrats have no problem letting their victims die after decades of torture through blacklisting, they will not do a thing unless forced to do so.
The hallmark of our constitution in the United States is that you are supposed to be able to criticize the government. President Obama is sh#&ing on the U.S. constitution. He is using it as toilet paper.
This is my third attempt to comment. I have turned off my VPN, is that why my comments didn’t go through? Anyway, I just finished Orwells 1984 (A must read), and it describes the WEB exactly, Always being watched.
I learned of Jacob Applebaum(TOR guy) a few years ago. He was targeted and harassed to the point of having to leave his own “FREE” country!
After I found out that Activists were being Spied upon and even actively targeted that my fears and self censorship began. But no more, I am not afraid!!
Great article Mr. Greenwald!
Nah. The software they use here controls spambots by not letting first-time commenters automatically go through. But now that you’ve been cleared for release, your comments should appear immediately.
There’s still an ongoing problem with posting more than one link in a comment. Try to, and the odds are good the comment won’t show up. I’ve never understood why this happens, but it does.
Thanks Mona
Thank you for standing up Chris Sample.
Thank you for your continued work towards this subject. I have been following this topic because it is so important to me. It is true, I find myself a little worried when I research this topic (I am an artist) that I am being watched or surveilled.
I think these studies have already been done long ago, but you are not going to see those results published. So you see when the FBI fights with Apple, it has a long term effect. Each action by the FBI, each speech by Clapper or Hayden, or whoever, helps control the masses. This is why it is so important to shout in response.
Maybe ya’all are afraid of these [redacted] [redacted] [redacted]s in our government, but I’m not! I’m standing up against those [redacted] [redacted]s by speaking truth to [redacted]! So all of you [redacted] lackeys of the [redacted] government better watch out! The [redacted] [redacted] is about to [redacted]!!!
LOL! Better than the Benito today.
Crazy , I just finished Orwell’s 1984 two days ago! I have had the same exact fear since I learned of Jacob Applebaum (TOR guy). To learn that our own government is spying on peaceful activist groups and even actively targeting them. Applebaum had to leave the country! I have always dreamed of being an ACTIVE activist, but truth be told, I AM SCARED.
Didn’t evidence that the sun was coming up tomorrow.
Now the elites will want it even more.
now those in control wll want it even more;
those in control are not “ELITE”;
I would be a little less worried if an “elite” would be in control ; whatever that might be
Forgive me but I’m in paper-grading mode, so:
“The fear that engenders surveillance-caused self-censorship is well beyond the realm of theory.”
stood out.
Good article, Great illustration, I want this as a t-shirt.
You’re right! That sentence is an atrocity. I’ve killed it and surgically brought it back to life. Thanks.
Any thoughts yet on today’s targeted bombing of a Doctors Without Borders Syrian hospital?
About 3 hours ago on Twitter.
https://twitter.com/GGreenwald
@nfjtakfa –
Ah, thanks for the link, but I wasn’t able to find any tweet about it. Not that it wasn’t there, but my conncection was almost frozen and it was very hard to scroll which I did a bit, but didn’t see it.
It was indeed an atrocity, and a lot of the MSF folks are saying it’s becoming all too common. Here’s a link to a report I found in doing a blog post about a hospital bombing in Yemen – from UNICEF on how civilians seem to be increasingly targeted in modern wars:
http://www.unicef.org/graca/patterns.htm
So sad…
That is an atrocity…and it also has nothing whatsoever to do with this particular column.
It’s like asking the author how many stray dogs he now cares for at home.
I expressed those thoughts in my Twitter feed, as nfjtakfa pointed out.
If you’re truly interested in those thoughts – as opposed to making a rhetorical point that turned out to be a failure – you can see them there.
A rhetorical point?? I was asking a question.
You were off topic within the first 10 comments.
From this catastrophe I may never recover.
nfjtakfa answered my question before everyone else made as ass of themselves.
I thought it was a little pissy, too.
In the way-back days, Glenn would have a piece up about that topic as well.
Something changed. Maybe Glenn is being watched more often by his editor, changing his writing.
Thanks for being a voice of sanity.
I’m reminded on a daily basis why I’d rather spend my days with animals not people.
Um, no. Nobody controls what Glenn writes except Glenn. He’s repeatedly made that clear, and he’s damn near the last person who would ever tolerate anything else.
Glenn Greenwald said, “I like to think of it as a fireworks show: You want to save your best for last. There’s a story that from the beginning I thought would be our biggest, and I’m saving that. The last one is the one where the sky is all covered in spectacular multicolored hues. This will be the finale, a big missing piece. Snowden knows about it and is excited about it.”
One might say that those fireworks fizzled. One must at least wonder…
One source:
http://www.gq.com/story/glenn-greenwald-edward-snowden-no-place-to-hide?currentPage=2
walking on eggshells, glass, hot coals
the self fulfilling prophecy strikes again.