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This has been released and is use by almost two dozen federal agencies and now is the first time we're hearing about it? When folks tell us crazy things, like

This has been released and is use by almost two dozen federal agencies and now is the first time we're hearing about it? When folks tell us crazy things, like the government is tracking every place you go and your opinions through your cell phone and social networks, we're supposed to say something like "That's extraordinary. With extraordinary claims, we require extraordinary proof" Then, if they persist, we're supposed to say something like "Such a program would require far too many people to keep a secret. We couldn't even keep the atom bomb a secret. The government is terrible at keeping secrets. Such a claim is just too far-fetched." These are the traditional things taught to people who are supposed to be clear-headed and rational. It's the way we engage crackpots without taking them too seriously. These responses seem to have failed us miserably in the current circumstances. As it turns out, yes, that's what they were doing, and yes, it was extraordinary and required lots of people to keep incredible secrets. But it still happened. These things keep happening in the realm of automated surveillance, both by the government and corporations (and worse, when corps do it and the govt scoops it all up later) that would have been considered completely whacked just ten years ago. The stuff of paranoid fantasies. Our tools of rational inquiry have failed us.

knowaveragejoe 12y ago
Just curious, where is the bit about keeping track of your opinions? Surely it's been proposed(so has everything and the kitchen sink), but that doesn't mean it's effective or useful in any way.
mikegioia 12y ago
You're up against a growing population of people who inherently think that "the government is tracking every place you go and your opinions through your cell phone and social networks" is NOT crazy.
Squarel 12y ago
Tracking of information has been known about since the initial NSA whistleblowers after 9/11 I have not heard a single conspiracy theorist suggest any of the things disclosed by Snowden, and I have yet to see evidence of RFID chips and the government monitoring us through our microwaves, or that Person of Interest is based on a true story. Extraordinary claims still require extraordinary evidence, and that evidence usually comes from someone involved, not from a random blog/site on the internet, or a youtube channel. The one thing everyone misses with this, which is my main concern, is less that the entire NSA/Insert Alphabet Soup here can track me, but that any one individual within these organisations who decides they don't like you for any reason can majorly screw you over. It is not the whole that concerns me, it is the parts.
cryoshon 12y ago
For people paying attention to the evidence, the writing has been on the wall for many years-- enough to build credible, defensible, strong suspicions, at least. Of course, these people have been slandered in perpetuity by the government, who stands to gain stability from the "rationalist" suspicions seeming ridiculous. The confirmatory value of these reveals cannot be understated: a subset of the people who have been much maligned as "conspiracy theorists" were in fact reasonable in their assumptions and correct in their hunches. If these evidence-attenders and conspiracy theorists were maligned as being on the lunatic fringe up until recently and were fully exonerated, what else could they have been right about? This question has the government running scared, scrambling to reassure the public that the now-redeemed former crackpots are still off the rocker, and have nothing else that is relevant to say about things which the public doesn't yet believe. The public failed these conspiracy theorists because they accepted the establishment friendly line that they were kooky-- the public accepted the false associations and intentional counfoundment made between people with legitimate but not mainstream ideas backed with evidence, and various cultish, indefensible fantasy theories like aliens controlling the government, and the moon landing being faked. Thankfully, the public received a gut shot when Snowden went public with the truth. Maybe next time people will listen a bit closer to voices that the government would love to suppress.

knowaveragejoe 12y ago

Just curious, where is the bit about keeping track of your opinions? Surely it's been proposed(so has everything and the kitchen sink), but that doesn't mean it's effective or useful in any way.

mikegioia 12y ago

You're up against a growing population of people who inherently think that "the government is tracking every place you go and your opinions through your cell phone and social networks" is NOT crazy.

Squarel 12y ago

Tracking of information has been known about since the initial NSA whistleblowers after 9/11 I have not heard a single conspiracy theorist suggest any of the things disclosed by Snowden, and I have yet to see evidence of RFID chips and the government monitoring us through our microwaves, or that Person of Interest is based on a true story. Extraordinary claims still require extraordinary evidence, and that evidence usually comes from someone involved, not from a random blog/site on the internet, or a youtube channel. The one thing everyone misses with this, which is my main concern, is less that the entire NSA/Insert Alphabet Soup here can track me, but that any one individual within these organisations who decides they don't like you for any reason can majorly screw you over. It is not the whole that concerns me, it is the parts.

cryoshon 12y ago

For people paying attention to the evidence, the writing has been on the wall for many years-- enough to build credible, defensible, strong suspicions, at least. Of course, these people have been slandered in perpetuity by the government, who stands to gain stability from the "rationalist" suspicions seeming ridiculous. The confirmatory value of these reveals cannot be understated: a subset of the people who have been much maligned as "conspiracy theorists" were in fact reasonable in their assumptions and correct in their hunches. If these evidence-attenders and conspiracy theorists were maligned as being on the lunatic fringe up until recently and were fully exonerated, what else could they have been right about? This question has the government running scared, scrambling to reassure the public that the now-redeemed former crackpots are still off the rocker, and have nothing else that is relevant to say about things which the public doesn't yet believe. The public failed these conspiracy theorists because they accepted the establishment friendly line that they were kooky-- the public accepted the false associations and intentional counfoundment made between people with legitimate but not mainstream ideas backed with evidence, and various cultish, indefensible fantasy theories like aliens controlling the government, and the moon landing being faked. Thankfully, the public received a gut shot when Snowden went public with the truth. Maybe next time people will listen a bit closer to voices that the government would love to suppress.