The latest lefty flap is over the sudden realization that the government is WATCHING us.
C’mon…
This is not news. folks.
SusanD commented on SusanHu’s diary regarding this ( “I Spy” Rants and Demands):
My answer to her continues below.
SusanD…
You and all the others who are so outraged and surprised by this simply have not been looking. This sort of surveillance has been mainstream spook business as usual for 40 years or more. How can you have missed it? Computerization has made this a simple act. The main reason it has gotten bigger is simply because it has gotten progressively easier to do and the resultant information has gotten both easier to store and easier to retrieve as our computer capabilities have increased
The F.B.I., the C.I.A., the N.S.A., the I.R.S…..ALL the little alphabet soups have data on all of us.
This practice has taken a LITTLE step out of the shadows because there are forces within the PermaGov that feel that it is necessary to take down this administration at the present time, and this is a convenient way to do so. The whole neo-con thing has taken a step or two over the line, and they are getting pinned for it.
But what line IS that, exactly, and who draws it?
Once we this internal PermaGov war is resolved…hopefully by the left wing of the right wing instead of its current right wing which is now in power (Take your victories where you can get them, if you know what’s good for you.)…all the little cyberfunctionaries will be back at work. Hard at work, gathering data.
On YOU.
Bet on it.
And if you think that the “Freedom of Information” Act is going to help you, I’ve got a number of bridges to sell you, because you cannot access information from agencies (or their subdepartments) that YOU DO NOT KNOW EXIST.
Every time you acquiesce to this…every time you fill out a salary form with your “Social Security” (THAT’S a knee-slapper, ain’t it? Who says the government has no sense of humor?) number on it, every time you register to vote or buy a weapon or get ANY kind of license or even drive your goddamned car through an automatic toll machine or make a bank transaction or get on a plane or…hell, if you have publicly stated your opposition to what is going on here, every time you step outside of your house on a clear day or log onto the internet with your computer to look up some toys for your children or denounce George Butch or see if it’s going to rain…YOU ARE BEING DATA LOGGED.
It’s a brave new world, and there is not a GODDAMNED thing that you can do to stop it.
And I will guarantee that once this little brouhaha is over…once they lame duck or get rid of or otherwise neutralize ButchCo somewhat…it will be business as usual all over again.
Orwell didn’t have a CLUE as to how serious things were going to get, because he could not imagine the power of computers.
It’s deep, Susan.
And it is EVERYWHERE.
Bet on it.
if there is any hope at all…hope of privacy, hope of not being forcibly Borg-ed into some giant hive of lockstepping, clomping peons…it is that the people who do these sorts of things are so unimaginative, so line level dull, so stupid and so incompetent that they will fuck the whole thing up and it will eventually get so that trying to retrieve data on ANY of us it will be like trying to get inventory help in a mediocre chain superstore like Home Depot.
Q-“Excuse me…do your stock plumber’s tape?”
A-“Duuuuhhhh…maybe it’s in aisle 3. Or 4… Plumber’s tape? Issat what plumbers use?”
Or
Q-“Excuse me…I need some information on Arthur Gilroy.”
A_”Duhhh…how d’ya spel dat? Aurthpr Giulwoy? I can’t seem to FIND it…”
Let us pray.
That mediocrity once again collapses like the overstuffed, weak colon full of too much shit it so often resembles.
Let us pray.
Because if it doesn’t…we are in TROUBLE.
Later…
AG
Yes.
You are under surveillance.
Step AWAY from your mind.
Dare you recommend so dangerous a diary?
Will a given “4” turn up the magnification on that stationary satellite hovering above your house?
William Burroughs’ definition of a paranoid.
“Someone who is in possession of all the facts.”
Yup.
Johnny Cash’s definition of bravery.
“I don’t care if I DO die do die do die do die do die do die do die…”
C’mon…take a chance.
Maybe they won’t notice.
THIS time…
Live big.
Sensei Morihito Uyeshiba’s recommendation. (The founder of the amazing martial art called Aikido);
“Stand tall. Present a big target.”
(Of course that only works if you have some chops and your ki is flowing. Otherwise…hunker down and wait for the coming cyber-apocalypse. Your choice.)
AG
Maybe we should change Stachel Paige’s “Don’t look back, something might be gaining on you” to “Don’t look back, something might be watching you.”
Typo alert: That should be “Satchel” above.
Wouldn’t want one of the greatest pitchers of all time to be slighted by my errant fingers.
Indeed.
His old buddy Stachelmouth might get pissed off.
And y’know…HE was some kind of saint.
AG
It’s worse, check out this breaking story at ePM, I’m sorry to post and fly, but you HAVE to read this.
Cherthoff and Bush are at it under the guise of Homeland Security and Congress is about to buy off:
http://scoop.epluribusmedia.org/story/2005/12/17/15565/877
ha!
I’m shocked, shocked I say.
nice diary. Does it self destruct after a set amount of time?
It’s already cached, archived, and burned off to at least a thousand different locations…
Big money and tremendous power in those enterprises.
I assume Tim Spicer thanks us all for our participation and gullibility.
Big money and tremendous power in those enterprises.
I assume Tim Spicer thanks us all for our participation and gullibility.
Kinda doubt it. My experience is that folks like that never get around to feeling gratitude for anything, or even for actually noticing that the peasants are individuals…..
No.
it just keeps going and going and going and going…
Diary as irish prizefighter.
There WAS however a rumor going around at one time that I would.
Didn’t happen, though.
AG
Sorry…hit the wrong button.
Reposted above.
(Commenter like punchrunk Irish prizefighter.)
AG
No.
It just keeps going and going and going and going…
Diary as Irish prizefighter.
Although there WAS a rumor going around at one time that I would.
Didn’t happen, though.
AG
No.
it just keeps going and going and going and going…
Diary as irish prizefighter.
Although there WAS a rumor going around at one time that I would.
Didn’t happen, though.
AG
And the difference between the US gov engaging in this kind of behavior and say someone on a high-profile liberal blog going out and googling the shit out of someone’s name then posting “sensitive” information, making libelous, defamatory claims about that person…
The difference would be what? The fact that the google sleuth doesn’t have the power to incarcerate based on the information gathered through this type of surveillance?
You are right.
There IS no difference.
Except one of degree.
Y’see…the government has an iron fist inside of that information gathering velvet glove.
The average liberal blogger can probably give you a rendition of its favorite song, but the Feds can rendition your ass to Upper Czechoslavganistan, where it can then torture you until you wouldn’t recognize your mother from a hole in the jaihouse wall.
Plus, to the feds, “Google” is an info gathering weapon roughly akin to a light rubber band and a spitball. They are into shock and awe sized “search engines”.
Some of whom have names like “Mike” and know of many ways to kill a person.
Sorry, starkers, but…what is the point of this comment, again?
We are fighting a totally defensive information battle here, withseverelylimited resources.
And yes…people sometimes go overboard.
SOME of those people are no doubt moles, and some are just flat out assholes.
And many are just scared so shitless by what they see happening here that they tend to lose their better judgment.
And…
Where’s the beef?
We ARE human, y’know.
Which is quite possibly more than should be said of many of our domestic enemies.
The truth is a civilian, and you know what they say about civilians in wartime…
“And assorted other casualties…”
Later…
AG
“Sorry, starkers, but…what is the point of this comment, again?”
The point of the comment: basically what you are saying with this diary is “no shit sherlock, they never stopped spying on ‘us.'”
A point well-made, and I agree with the “wake up and smell the coffee-tone”.
So, duh, the fucking reichwing is up to the same old tricks it’s been up to forever.
My point: the shit “trickles down” and the behaviors carry over to the entire populace; the left wing engages in the very same shit, often subconsciously, but refuses to take a critical look at its own behaviors.
My point, as always: yes, this is the shit the reichwing does. It never surprises me and I expect it–from them.
But the left is–increasingly, and in very alarming ways–mimicking these behaviors. This concerns me much more than the fact that the reichwing is doing it–especially since I get the feeling that the left is unaware of the way fascist behaviors, fascist tactics, fascist language and fascist thought is infiltrating the ranks of the left. And the very fact that even suggesting that this is the case is so controversial is itself evidence of the fact that it’s happening: one of the big problems with the reichwing is the fact that it is loathe to any form of criticism and is utterly incapable of any form of SELF-CRITIQUE.
Again, I go back to Pinter’s Nobel Speech: the lack of self-criticism is a major, major problem in this country, and it is as much of a problem on the left as it is on the right. And yet, especially as fascism bears down on us like a mack truck, it is utterly crucial that we remain vigilant and engage in a sort of “self-policing” of our habits, our behaviors, etc. and recognize the way that this crap is “rubbing off” on us.
It is happening (but the left is engaging in the very thing Pinter also critiques, i.e. saying it isn’t happening even as it is happening!)
Failure to acknowledge this reflects a complete and total misapprehension of the way fascist propaganda works to eventually consume the entire society–the left is now engaged in a process of helping things along; my thesis is that the left is UNAWARE of that, that is, that it is engaging in this sort of behavior unwittingly–but that doesn’t mitigate the damage and the way it is helping to feed the flames of fascism.
I think the REAL question here is…how “real” the so-called left really is.
I find myself so far to the “left” of most of the posters on these blogs that I begin to get disoriented after a while.
Like maybe I hit the wrong button and ended up on some quasi-military think tank site.
Really.
Check out the front paged Patrick Lang diary Something Wicked This Way Comes for more on this. Now Col. Lang has a right to his viewpoint…he sure as hell earned that right, correct, incorrect or somewhere in between…but something is happening in the Muslim world that is well beyond such simplistic terms as “the Beast”.
And references to Stephen King pop novels.
Implicit in the debate about the actions of the U.S….left OR right, pretty much…is a predecided attitude that goes something like this. “We are right, and we are superior.” The only real PROOF of the West’s superiority being its (historical) military supremacy. Which, like that of Britain during the American revolution, is largely proving to be a myth given the conditions of this particular war. I mean, we can kill ’em all and let God sort them out, but…I thought that reliance on “God” was part of the problem. The arguments are only a matter of which TACTICAL decisions we should make regarding how we are going to go about our holy (Sorry…there’s that meme again) task of lifting the world to our level.
Another revolutionary leader of a bunch of so-called “primitives”, Mahatma Gandhi, was once asked what he thought of Western Civilization. He replied that he thought it would be a very good idea.
Left, right or center, most of America is fast asleep. Almost totally WITHOUT anythhing resembling a “civilization” barring the many contributions of various refugee groups who came here, dropped off their load of culture and then (if they were white enough) disappeared into the mall-ridden mainstream.
There IS a culture in the Middle East. A many headed one. It has 1000s of years of roots, and it is alive enough so that any number of people are ready to blow themsllves up to defend it. We must not underestimate the sophistication of those leading the Islamic movement, either. They are not all blind shiekhs preaching Hellfire or Paradise at the head of a harem of eternal virgins.
And yet here on this very blog…FORGET about what’s going on over at Big Orange or in the rest of the media…we see piece after piece about the new Red Menace.
Those rough BEASTS, come unshackled in the deserts of the Middle East and slouching towards Paris, London, Bethlehem (PA) and points north, south, east and west as we speak.
There’s an old radical joke. Goes like this.
Q_What’s the difference between a Democrat and a Republican?
A-Nothing.
You are what you eat.
Maybe.
But you are how you ACT, as well.
Same on both sides of the aisle, pretty much.
The right wing of the right wing versus the left wing of the right wing.
Business as usual.
Good luck.
AG
The American left is pretty much defunct. What passes for “liberal” or “left” wing in this country would probably be classified as slightly (in some cases DRASTICALLY) to the right of center in many other industrial nations (of course, I’m basing this on ten years’ experience living and working in Germany, where I was also elected to public office for a brief time in the mid-eighties, on a “far left” ticket).
It’s a problem, a big one.
I remember during the “election campaign,” reading a comment somewhere from a man in Scandinavia, who pointed out that of the Democratic Party candidates, the one considered the most “left,” so much so that he was declared “unelectable” even before the primaries, would be considered several degrees to the right of the most right wing candidate in his country’s most recent election.
If the US ever gets a “left,” you will know.
As odd as it may sound for someone of Native descent, philosophy and persuasion to argue in FAVOR of “Europeanism”, I think that Americans (and especially Euro-Americans) would be better served looking to their own “source” culture in Europe than attempting, as so many of them do, to expropriate the trappings of American Indian culture as a way of “fixing” some of this country’s political, spiritual, psychological and economic problems.
William Greider published a book in 1996 (?) called “One World Ready or Not: The Manic Logic of Global Capitalism”. In it he offers a rigorously systematic analysis of many of the socio-economic and political things about Western Europe (Germany in particular) and Japan that worked very well from WWII through the eighties to sustain relative peace and prosperity for majority populations in these countries. He discusses the way American corporate structures are destroying these things–rapidly and systematically. This affirms and confirms my own experience living in Germany 84-93, then coming back here and, for the past 12 yrs, watching the way most of the things that were GOOD about German socio-economic-political structures are being systematically eroded by the invasion of American culture.
Things like 6 wks paid vacation, complete medical coverage for everyone, strong labor laws preventing corporations from fucking with workers (including laws strictly regulating salaries commensurate with education and strictly regulating the terms under which employees may or may not be “laid off” i.e. downsized), no tuition fees for college education, etc. etc. etc.
As all these things begin to conform to the American model, there is a tendency for people to forget they ever existed (and, until the advent of the internet, most Americans were not even AWARE of the differences, and many still to this day are ignorant of the benefits to society in the social-market economy [**NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH SOCIALISM OR COMMUNISM**])–before long, the whole world may be going broke over their heart attacks and worrying themselves sick over second hand smoke while kids continue to go on shooting rampages in schools! Yo. It’s the American way. Hoorah!
As more and more Americans become “hip” to these realities, we see an increasing tendency on the part of BushCo to RESTRICT communication between Americans and others in the western world (I think this part of the scare tactic behind the air marshall’s shooting of the “disturbed” man–for god’s sake don’t get on a plane and go live somewhere else where you might discover that the “american way of life” in NOT necessarily the best in the world, and the only alternative is not living under strict communist rule: geez there are even some places in the world where you can drive your fucking Mercedes 150 miles an hr without getting a speeding ticket, where you can light up a joint in a public restaurant without getting 5 to life and if you happen to get sick you won’t end up bankrupt–shit, you won’t even lose your JOB because your employer will be forbidden by law from firing you for being SICK). I think the same scare tactic may be behind the “surveillance”–don’t exchange ideas and thoughts with those Europeans, America, we don’t want you getting any funny ideas in your heads!
Anyway, end of rant.
is, it seems to me that while both US and European constitutions owe much to the Great Law of the Iroquis, while Europe has increasingly over the last couple of centuries moved more toward the basis of the existence of the Great Law, namely that the whole purpose of having a chief, a tribal council, government, whatever you want to call it, is to benefit the citizens as an inclusive whole, whereas the US has steadily moved away from that principle and increasingly regressed toward the older feudal system of Europe, where the purpose of a government is to benefit the King and the lords, the lords in the US’s case being large corporations, especially those in the defense and energy industry.
(Once again, I say to those who would strive for the BooMan Tribune Longest Sentence Award, eat my dust.)
you’ve earned that award…) 🙂
See, toldya (thanks for checking the math, it’s not exactly my strong suit!) lol.
oops. Misinterpreted that cabingrl…my sentence was longer, 164. 😉
You know my line about that dontcha?
Goes back to a joke one of my first English profs told about this Texan who got a scholarship to Harvard. He arrived on campus and asked this guy in a pin-striped suit: “Can you tell me where the library’s at?”
Suit says: “This is Haaaaaavard, and at Haaaaaavard we don’t end our sentences in prepositions.” Texan says, “OK, can you tell me where the library’s at, asshole?”
At the same time, I was taking a comp class with this Bulgarian prof who made us write grammatically correct sentences with a minimum of 500 words.
I’ve since come to specialize in “500-word sentences ending in prepositions.”
Judging from the latest studies on adult literacy in this country, it’s no wonder I’m not rising to the top of the best-seller lists with this strategy.
Fuck em if they can’t take a joke, eh? 😉
OMG, my head is spinning…how could I have missed that 164-word cry for editorial help? 🙂
Wait a minute: I am the editor. 😉
but I will have to insist on a comfortable chair as the playing of all your 17 or so national anthems will encroach on my nap time.
Careful, dear, I did a word count: gotcha beat by about 40 words! (beginning with “as more and more Americans …”. heh. 😉
And no, I don’t want you to eat my dust: I respectfully request that you get your ass in here and clean up the mess you keep making on my keyboard and screen.
But I don’t think we disagree: you’re totally right in what you say and I agree 100%.
Sad, isn’t it, the way this just confirms it: Europeans do everything better, they’re even the “better Indians.”
My concern probably mirrors your own (probably because we both find ourselves to the left of most “liberal” bloggers)…
I see all the handwringing and (deserved) uproar over the wiretapping without a warrent and I wonder how much uproar there would be if it was Bill Clinton or Al Gore or John Kerry engaging in such acts. I guess my main fear is that, while the Bush years may wake up a certain number of Americans to the neocon menace, it also makes us compartmentalize bad things (or evil, as GW would call it) as represented by BushCo when, in fact, they are part and parcel of our so-called democracy. And have been for some time. Will people continue to worry about the proliferation of anti-democratic organizations and agreements like the WTO, GATT, etc? Or will they go,”Gee whiz, we got a Dem in the White House so everything is great”?
Well we’ve seen our share of “local fascism” to use old Ann Coulter’s terminology the last few hours here. I think you have hit on something quite important about how fascist tendencies have definitely become such a part of the American Zeitgeist that they’re just second nature, even to those who are supposed to know better.
Both behaviors may be wrong but they aren’t equivalent. The blogger is limited to what is available in open source while still assuming a reasonable right to privacy in a public place. The exception can be made to the use of purchased information but that is rarer.
The government-private industry partnership is gathering minute details of our private life and intruding into the area where an assumed greater level of privacy is reasonable.
Sorry, all…
I think there is some kind of computer glitch going on.
And on an on and on and on…
I ask you…we have computers that can track a mite on a rat’s ass through a crowded chickencoop.
But we can’t get together some software that allows you to edit or eliminate a comment on a diary?
What is up with THAT!!!???
AG
I hate it when those pen-trap servers burp like that.
I wonder how many other places it goes to in duplicate? I’d be happy if they would just improve the keylogger software so it doesn’t bog down the system so bad.
Yes, the “dismantling” of COINTELPRO didn’t mean they stopped spying ons only that they had to start using more hidden methods, like Echelon…
http://mediafilter.org/caq/echelon/
It’s not so much the spying as it is they confuse dissenting opinion with credible threat.