'Sending a message': what the US and UK are attempting to do
theguardian.com
'Sending a message': what the US and UK are attempting to do
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Re: 'Sending a message': what the US and UK are attempting to do
#2Folks, take a step back and take a look what is going on here. When you were a child, would any of you have believed that one day in the early 21st century, you would wake up in a world where your own government spies on each and every single citizen, plus whoever is connected to them in another country, where they send agents to newspapers to oppress the freedom of the press?
I mean, isn't this almost surreal? Like a cheap sci-fi novel has become reality?
Who's the real terrorists in 2013? I for one am more scared, appaled by what has been bubbling to the surface every week, almost every day since Snowden.
Re: 'Sending a message': what the US and UK are attempting to do
#3Virtual-Notary.Org hereby notes that on
Date: Wednesday August 21, 2013 08:11.29 EDT (UTC-0400)
a random drawing in the range [1, 100000], inclusive, based on a hardware source of true randomness, yielded the following decision.
Random Value: 85108
24:2 And they found the stone rolled away from the sepulchre.
24:3 And they entered in, and found not the body of the Lord Jesus.
24:4 And it came to pass, as they were much perplexed thereabout, behold, two men stood by them in shining garments: 24:5 And as they were afraid, and bowed down their faces to the earth, they said unto them, Why seek ye the living among the dead? 24:6 He is not here, but is risen: remember how he spake unto you when he was yet in Galilee, 24:7 Saying, The Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again.
24:8 And they remembered his words, 24:9 And returned from the sepulchre, and told all these things unto the eleven, and to all the rest.
24:10 It was Mary Magdalene and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, and other women that were with them, which told these things unto the apostles.
24:11 And their words seemed to them as idle tales, and they believed them not.
24:12 Then arose Peter, and ran unto the sepulchre; and stooping down, he beheld the linen clothes laid by themselves, and departed, wondering in himself at that which was come to pass.
Re: 'Sending a message': what the US and UK are attempting to do
#4Folks, take a step back and take a look what is going on here. When you were a child, would any of you have believed that one day in the early 21st century, you would wake up in a world where your own government spies on each and every single citizen, plus whoever is connected to them in another country, where they send agents to newspapers to oppress the freedom of the press? I mean, isn't this almost surreal? Like…
The US and UK governments among others are textbook terrorist states at this point.
The war on terror rhetoric is plain pathetic now. Any self defence measure taken by citizens would be classified as terror by these governments now.
Re: 'Sending a message': what the US and UK are attempting to do
#5Folks, take a step back and take a look what is going on here. When you were a child, would any of you have believed that one day in the early 21st century, you would wake up in a world where your own government spies on each and every single citizen, plus whoever is connected to them in another country, where they send agents to newspapers to oppress the freedom of the press? I mean, isn't this almost surreal? Like…
I honestly believe that the "morals" (for lack of a better word) of the UK government haven't actually got any worse over the last 50 years or so - what has changed is that now technology allows so much more so they are quite happy to do it.
For example, in the 1980s there was an almighty fuss because an excellent journalist found out that the UK government had wasted vast amounts of money on a failed spy satellite project - that had Special Branch raiding magazine offices and occupying the BBC offices in Glasgow:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zircon_affair
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duncan_Campbell_%28journalist%2...
[NB I can strongly recommend Duncan Campbell's "Secret Society" series from 1987 - some of them are on YouTube and they really are scary/tragic - a lot of his concerns are rather prophetic.]
Re: 'Sending a message': what the US and UK are attempting to do
#6I could sense anger wash all over Mr.Greenwald again, as he typed that one out (which might have resulted in the typo I noticed "...They threatened the Guardian with prior restrained(t?) and then forced the paper to physically smash their hard drives in a basement..."). Heck, I was upset just reading it.
Re: 'Sending a message': what the US and UK are attempting to do
#7"Here is David Miranda explaining to BBC what it's like to be forced to turn over your passwords to security agents who have detained you under a terrorism law, so they can troll through your emails and Facebook account and Skype program while you are detained. Just watch that short video and judge for yourself."
As I read this I tried to imagine how to reset my digital life, now that all my passwords are exposed. You just about have to become a brand new person, and abandon every account you currently have. Any change to a current account would be observed by the NSA and GCHQ. To the extent that this guy had any privacy or security at all, he's screwed for the rest of his life.
Re: 'Sending a message': what the US and UK are attempting to do
#8Oh they're sending a message alright. I'm just not sure it's the message they want to send.
Re: 'Sending a message': what the US and UK are attempting to do
#9The policy of intimidation is working - it doesn't matter if the NSA/GCHQ really do have the technology which is actually capable of performing this scale of surveillance - something which I'm entirely unconvinced of, incidentally - they are spreading fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) and being quite successful at it too. Are they capable of trawling so much data to the depth that is claimed? Probably not. Are they capable of intimidating individuals with wide reaching knock-on effects including among the general public? Absolutely. So which method is having the most impact? The threat is far more effective than the reality. Make people scared - it saves you having to actually do anything.
Re: 'Sending a message': what the US and UK are attempting to do
#10Folks, take a step back and take a look what is going on here. When you were a child, would any of you have believed that one day in the early 21st century, you would wake up in a world where your own government spies on each and every single citizen, plus whoever is connected to them in another country, where they send agents to newspapers to oppress the freedom of the press? I mean, isn't this almost surreal? Like…
Well, I can say that if Osama bin Laden "hated our freedom," then... well... 9/11 worked, and he won.