9 ms·

I think this is a good fodder for some really inquisitive investigative journalism as I doubt very much that defenders do not receive perks and kickbacks from e

I think this is a good fodder for some really inquisitive investigative journalism as I doubt very much that defenders do not receive perks and kickbacks from establishment that disperses 550BILLION dollars to private contractors from taxpayers coffers to break laws, destroy constitution and make to orwellian state. Being more paranoid than less I have a inkling that this system is being installed and police is being armed because it is known that if economy collapses, these will be instruments to quell dissent and literally destroy (imprison and/or execute) opposition - of those who might well lead the revolution. Economy is doing good, but the external debt is mindboggling those who are in the place of power might know what we don't.

mtgx 13y ago
The scary part is that they're developing capabilities and organizing in such a way that they will be able to stop dissidents and protests before they even go out to protest, thanks to the NSA mass spying and the so called "fusion centers" with the DHS and police. They were already used against Occupy protests. At the next protest they will be much more organized and have much better capabilities to track who intends to go to protests or even who's "inciting" protests online. Think that case with the German who said on Facebook that they should visit the new NSA center in Germany, and the police visited him before he got a chance to do it. That's what we're really talking about here. If you think that developing such capabilities to stop protests is a little too paranoid for you to digest, do you really think they wouldn't do this if there was another massive protest against the banks, with the excuse that they're protecting the nation against an economic crash or whatever? The last time around, they arrested people for trying to close their bank accounts, and they weren't even that many. Let's just say that if this was an Intrade bet, I would be in favor of it happening.
- zero_intp 13y ago
  This is the scary truth. I am familiar with aspects of an intelligence project that has as it's duty not just an internet archive, but a sweeping back-tracker to identify the source and time-start of rumors or repeated phrases and memes. I suspect it has access to all email and IM in addition to a simple web-crawler. The architects are liberal ex-hippies who just do not understand that they are building the framework for totalitarianism. I think there are a lot of us who just like playing with toys and do not evaluate the ethical ramifications of their actions.
  - smokeyj 13y ago
    > The architects are liberal ex-hippies who just do not understand Money seems to have that effect.
- sp332 13y ago
  I never understood people who said that the internet was a way to reduce the abuse of power by governments or corporations. They are good at wielding power, and many of them don't have any trouble adapting to the internet. They may be a few years late to the party, but the internet gives them the same power as it gives everyone else, and they have a head start on power.
  - venomsnake 13y ago
    Currently I am busy overthrowing my government in my spare time. And no - they do not get the whole net thing. Few outside of IT and over 40 do. The internet is not just tech - it is almost a worldview. Governments don't deal well with satire, irony and cynicism.
    - sp332 13y ago
      You don't have to share the worldview (or drink the internet koolaid) to track everyone, search all the public data people post about themselves, mine location data attached to images, hire sockpuppets to promote yourself or smear your enemies, etc.
rayiner 13y ago
Yes, because you can't have anything but a staunchly civil-libertarian point of view without being a sell-out who is receiving kickbacks from private contractors... Has it maybe occurred to you that e.g. Pelosi and Hoyer, whose lives were defined by the Cold War, have maybe a different view on life than the HN readership, who were mostly children when the Soviet Union collapsed?
- Zigurd 13y ago
  My family arrived here as refugees after the war, and I grew up acutely aware of the threat of the Soviet Union. Maybe that's why I am also aware that no threat that's within three orders of magnitude of that exists today.
  - crusso 13y ago
    "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." The folks looking to increase their power at the expense of the citizenry are relentless. They spend their nights and weekends thinking up new ways to be more dominant. As citizens, we can't expect to combat their never-ending efforts with luke-warm responses or apologetics for our favorite political leaders. When it comes to privacy/liberty/freedom, the only reasonable response to government incursion is a strong and unequivocal one.
- cobrausn 13y ago
  NSA programs similar to the latest (broad interception of specific types of communications) were defunded and shut down during the height of the cold war. They had more to be afraid of than we do and still weren't willing to give the NSA this much power. Also, before we go there, yes I am aware they also did a lot of other horrible things, but we're talking about the NSA and their activities as related to the fourth amendment right now.
  - rayiner 13y ago
    Source?
Zigurd 13y ago
It probably isn't only a matter of outright corruption, but also of a form of systemic corruption: You don't get selected for congressional committees covering defense and intelligence matters if you are fundamentally skeptical that we still need Cold War-scale mechanisms and new, super-intrusive surveillance at mass scales. In other words, there is nobody telling them it's wrong and to stop. That's all outside their universe.
- saalweachter 13y ago
  I think it's even worse than that. If the idea that maybe we don't need all this militarism and surveillance does make it through the layers of filters protecting Congressmen from reality, there is a general attitude that people saying these things are naive hippies, and that the fearless Congressmen are the 'grown ups' who can make the 'tough decisions' to spend trillions of dollars on defense and violate the odd civil liberty to 'keep America safe'. It's not just that they can't hear the critics, it's that when they do hear the critics they feel smugly superior to them.
  - mhurron 13y ago
    What you say as protecting congressmen from reality, I see as the view of the nation. I would say the majority of the US have the general attitude that only naive hippies have a problem with this and the real grownups see this as the need that it is. The reality is that the people seem to want this. That is the reality Congress works from.

mtgx 13y ago

The scary part is that they're developing capabilities and organizing in such a way that they will be able to stop dissidents and protests before they even go out to protest, thanks to the NSA mass spying and the so called "fusion centers" with the DHS and police. They were already used against Occupy protests. At the next protest they will be much more organized and have much better capabilities to track who intends to go to protests or even who's "inciting" protests online. Think that case with the German who said on Facebook that they should visit the new NSA center in Germany, and the police visited him before he got a chance to do it. That's what we're really talking about here. If you think that developing such capabilities to stop protests is a little too paranoid for you to digest, do you really think they wouldn't do this if there was another massive protest against the banks, with the excuse that they're protecting the nation against an economic crash or whatever? The last time around, they arrested people for trying to close their bank accounts, and they weren't even that many. Let's just say that if this was an Intrade bet, I would be in favor of it happening.

zero_intp 13y ago
This is the scary truth. I am familiar with aspects of an intelligence project that has as it's duty not just an internet archive, but a sweeping back-tracker to identify the source and time-start of rumors or repeated phrases and memes. I suspect it has access to all email and IM in addition to a simple web-crawler. The architects are liberal ex-hippies who just do not understand that they are building the framework for totalitarianism. I think there are a lot of us who just like playing with toys and do not evaluate the ethical ramifications of their actions.
- smokeyj 13y ago
  > The architects are liberal ex-hippies who just do not understand Money seems to have that effect.
sp332 13y ago
I never understood people who said that the internet was a way to reduce the abuse of power by governments or corporations. They are good at wielding power, and many of them don't have any trouble adapting to the internet. They may be a few years late to the party, but the internet gives them the same power as it gives everyone else, and they have a head start on power.
- venomsnake 13y ago
  Currently I am busy overthrowing my government in my spare time. And no - they do not get the whole net thing. Few outside of IT and over 40 do. The internet is not just tech - it is almost a worldview. Governments don't deal well with satire, irony and cynicism.
  - sp332 13y ago
    You don't have to share the worldview (or drink the internet koolaid) to track everyone, search all the public data people post about themselves, mine location data attached to images, hire sockpuppets to promote yourself or smear your enemies, etc.

rayiner 13y ago

Yes, because you can't have anything but a staunchly civil-libertarian point of view without being a sell-out who is receiving kickbacks from private contractors... Has it maybe occurred to you that e.g. Pelosi and Hoyer, whose lives were defined by the Cold War, have maybe a different view on life than the HN readership, who were mostly children when the Soviet Union collapsed?

Zigurd 13y ago
My family arrived here as refugees after the war, and I grew up acutely aware of the threat of the Soviet Union. Maybe that's why I am also aware that no threat that's within three orders of magnitude of that exists today.
- crusso 13y ago
  "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." The folks looking to increase their power at the expense of the citizenry are relentless. They spend their nights and weekends thinking up new ways to be more dominant. As citizens, we can't expect to combat their never-ending efforts with luke-warm responses or apologetics for our favorite political leaders. When it comes to privacy/liberty/freedom, the only reasonable response to government incursion is a strong and unequivocal one.
cobrausn 13y ago
NSA programs similar to the latest (broad interception of specific types of communications) were defunded and shut down during the height of the cold war. They had more to be afraid of than we do and still weren't willing to give the NSA this much power. Also, before we go there, yes I am aware they also did a lot of other horrible things, but we're talking about the NSA and their activities as related to the fourth amendment right now.
- rayiner 13y ago
  Source?

Zigurd 13y ago

It probably isn't only a matter of outright corruption, but also of a form of systemic corruption: You don't get selected for congressional committees covering defense and intelligence matters if you are fundamentally skeptical that we still need Cold War-scale mechanisms and new, super-intrusive surveillance at mass scales. In other words, there is nobody telling them it's wrong and to stop. That's all outside their universe.

saalweachter 13y ago
I think it's even worse than that. If the idea that maybe we don't need all this militarism and surveillance does make it through the layers of filters protecting Congressmen from reality, there is a general attitude that people saying these things are naive hippies, and that the fearless Congressmen are the 'grown ups' who can make the 'tough decisions' to spend trillions of dollars on defense and violate the odd civil liberty to 'keep America safe'. It's not just that they can't hear the critics, it's that when they do hear the critics they feel smugly superior to them.
- mhurron 13y ago
  What you say as protecting congressmen from reality, I see as the view of the nation. I would say the majority of the US have the general attitude that only naive hippies have a problem with this and the real grownups see this as the need that it is. The reality is that the people seem to want this. That is the reality Congress works from.