Orwellian

“Stalin Would Love This…”

"There are dark, unspoken consequences of lists and information gathering. We’ve seen this before. While President Obama dismissed concerns about his administration’s domestic spying operations as 'minor intrusions' on our liberties, the truth is quite different if one actually takes the time to think about the potential implications of such massive data gathering. And can we really be accused of overreacting with the IRS abuse of targeted groups and the government leaks of late? No one but the self-deluded thinks that our data is unfailingly safe and in the hands of the most competent and trustworthy among us." Continue reading →

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National-Security State Toadies Are Guilty Of Hypocrisy On Snowden

"They say that Snowden should have stayed here in the United States instead of fleeing to Hong Kong. They say that if he were a genuine hero, as his supporters say he is, he would have remained in the United States, where the national-security state would have incarcerated him, tortured him, and executed him. Oh? Well, pray tell, national-security state toadies: Where were you all when those CIA agents skedaddled out of Italy after committing felonious offenses in that country? The problem with kidnapping and torture is that they’re criminal offenses under Italian law, which is precisely why those CIA agents got criminally indicted and later convicted and sentenced." Continue reading →

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Steve Wozniak Laments Creating The Tools That Government Uses To Spy On Us

"When Morgan suggested the government would not be able to keep such a close eye on citizens without the work of innovators like him, Wozniak acknowledged: 'I actually feel a little guilty about that – but not totally. We created the computers to free the people up, give them instant communication anywhere in the world; any thought you had, you could share freely. That it was going to overcome a lot of the government restrictions. We didn't realise that in the digital world there were a lot of ways to use the digital technology to control us, to snoop on us, to make things possible that weren't.'" Continue reading →

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FBI: We Were Not Investigating Michael Hastings

"'At no time was journalist Michael Hastings ever under investigation by the FBI,' L.A. Field Office spokeswoman Laura Eimiller told the Burlington Free Press on Thursday. The L.A. Police Department said detectives have concluded no foul play was involved in the crash, also according to Burlington. LAPD spokesman Richard French said detectives did not share with his office the reasons behind their conclusion that the crash was an accident." Continue reading →

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Jacob Hornberger: Replacing The Welfare-Warfare State With A Free Society

"We live under a governmental system in which the president, the military, the CIA, and the NSA now wield powers that the greatest dictators in history have wielded. The powers to assassinate people, to indefinitely detain people without due process or trial by jury, to kidnap and rendition people, to torture people, to subject people to LSD experiments, to invade and occupy foreign countries, to support coups in foreign lands, to install, train, maintain, and support brutal dictatorial regimes, to spy on and monitor the activities of people everywhere. In other words, the dark type of things that Americans used to complain that communist or totalitarian regimes were engaged in." Continue reading →

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Use of Tor and e-mail crypto could increase chances that NSA keeps your data

"Using online anonymity services such as Tor or sending encrypted e-mail and instant messages are grounds for US-based communications to be retained by the National Security Agency even when they're collected inadvertently, according to a secret government document published Thursday. The document, dated July 28, 2009, bears the signature of US Attorney General Eric Holder. It's hard to read the documents and not be struck by the irony that use of these services may subject people on US soil to a much higher likelihood that their communications will be retained by an agency that's supposed to focus on foreign targets." Continue reading →

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New Details on Skype Eavesdropping; Program Started In 2009

"Reread that Skype denial from last July, knowing that at the time the company knew that they were giving the NSA access to customer communications. Notice how it is precisely worded to be technically accurate, yet leave the reader with the wrong conclusion. This is where we are with all the tech companies right now; we can't trust their denials, just as we can't trust the NSA -- or the FBI -- when it denies programs, capabilities, or practices. Back in January, we wondered whom Skype lets spy on their users. Now we know." Continue reading →

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Match.com Founder: Fed Spyware Searching For Bitcoin Wallets

"'I just had a government guy in my office telling me that they have forensic software looking for Bitcoin wallets on your machines,' said Gary Kremen, founder of Match.com and Sociogramics. 'And if they find one, they lock on to you, because statistically, if you were in Liberty Reserve or using a lot of anonymous money, you were probably doing something wrong.' Bitcoins are a virtual currency that can be used to buy and sell a wide variety of products online and in the real world. The currency is transferable anywhere in the world and can be exchanged for real currency at any time." Continue reading →

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Now India Joins The Western Snoops

"India has launched a wide-ranging surveillance program that will give its security agencies and even income tax officials the ability to tap directly into e-mails and phone calls without oversight by courts or parliament, several sources said. The expanded surveillance in the world's most populousdemocracy, which the government says will help safeguard national security, has alarmed privacy advocates at a time when allegations of massive U.S. digital snooping beyond American shores has set off a global furor." Continue reading →

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Edward Snowden and the Wolf Who Cried Plant

"At some point, an emerging police state stops trying to hide or justify its nastiness and starts emphasizing and flaunting that nastiness — although it may do so subtly or indirectly instead of openly. Its minions no longer worry about convincing you they’re right. They’re content to just bully, threaten and scare you into submission. Naomi Wolf’s hypothesis is that the Snowden revelations may be an intentional instance of the latter — perhaps timed to distract attention from the trial of real whistleblower Bradley Manning — rather than an accidental failure of the former. Is she right? I don’t know. But the idea is far from outrageous, and should be taken seriously." Continue reading →

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