h/t Instapundit
...There is no form of communication or online activity phone calls, emails, web page visits, Skype, social networks, and so on that the National Security Agency, under its Prism programme, may not follow as and when the fancy takes. It can track users activities in real time. Assuming it has the technical capability remotely to activate lap top cameras, the age of the telescreen has arrived.
#2
Of course the analysis of Mr. Norman is also part of the problem. "Oooops, I was naive, oh well."
See, until this whole things becomes self aware at 2:14 am eastern time August 29th, it is really only a tool. A tool like a hole in the girls' high school shower room, but a tool nonetheless, and subject to how a person does or does not use the peephole before heading off to Porkey's.
Like firearms, this data does not act on its own. A good question would be what are the standard operating procedures, or perhaps more importantly what are the amendment memos.
Emergency dispatchers go to jail for using their computers for personal inquiries. That is because the information gained can be used to ruin a person. Take that weapon, and add on any aspect of the federal arsonal and make it not only legal, but secret, and that is the concern.
Is it a concern, absolutely. A person has the ability to SWAT somebody, or worse. That is why the SOPs are important, because Joe Cog has to perform day to day duties and has to know when a superior must be involved. The SOPs are set by upper management, who is under direct orders by a board of directors of sorts, which will have a CEO. The CEO is supposed to be under the direction of People of Office. I will leave it up to you which is worse: an Administration which is so uninvolved that these powerful institutions are out of control, or that these arms of federal power received orders and the People of Office flat out lie. I think the answer is even more chilling: both.
When the Safety Office yells, "Stop, we have a problem!" everyone stops and listens and acts. When the President goes on national television and names names then goes golfing, he accomplishes both of the bad choices - sets targets then looks like a derilict landlord. After all, how could anyone one mere person control such a vast array of supervisers from the 19th hole talking waffles with Tiger Woods?
Add to that other holders of office of the dominate party calling political rivals users of terrorist tactics. Calling for a perge of other members of Congress. Calling groups of people a hinderance to government. If these were the intention of Booshhitler policies and this administration is above that, why were they not concelled? If those programs were hijacked by rogues then where was the supervision? If the system works as intended, then perhaps TOTUS was picked up in the middle of the night for favorably mentioning Bush policies eight times in two paragraphs.
It goes even further. As more evidence surfaces of collusion with the communications sector, especially heavy democrat donating Silicon Valley, it only seems a small step to consider if the much touted key to victory data collection system used for the Obama campaign would not be information leaked by a rogue government data collector; it would need to be a real time update system. That is, a clone of the NSA program given to the democrat party headquarters located somewhere under the hole 3 bunker. And that would make all those fundraising trips to California more like bill collecting, and Mr. Obama sure seems to do a lot of Fundraising.
So yes, we do have a problem. And now that all of this tyrannical operation is known, and that there is a major operation on to gather all phone and internet communications, one can only wonder about the initial push to connect everyone, especially rural communities, into their very own high speed internet connection, as well as the notorious handout of obamaphones, and even the believes must have doubt about the charities of big government.
#4
Yeah, and with its real time update, why its almost like having a federal soldier living right here in my house.
There were incredible scientific, manufacturing, and military technology advances during the time of the pre-revolution to Constitution. These are not the mere musing of technology by old men drinking cider, it is the applied philosophy of protecting from tyranny, by a people who just enduring decades of robbery, rape, murder, raiding and open war by the at-time most powerful nation on the planet, where the penalty was death for telling the king that the rent is too damn high. And here we are, being threatened with the Wrath of Authority for expressing an opinion. At least the British put on trial the soldiers who committed violence against their own citizens in Boston. Today we get a "well, college kids just can't seem to keep their pants on" showtune.
#5
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has some comments at their website. EFF filed a lawsuit in 2011 regarding NSA surveillance. Here. A 2011 FISC opinion ruled that part of the program is unconstitutional. The Justice Department is pushing back to keep the ruling about what part, classified. It seems that this is still playing out.
Yesterday it was revealed that that the current US ("I've Got Israel's back") administration leaked to the media the specifications for the heretofore-secret US-Israel installation for Israel's Arrow 3 missiles. It was quickly called just another leak from an administration already reeling from leaks; someone apologized. But it was more likely a deliberate decision -- by someone. The constellation of players in the administration now contains a heavy contingent of those determined to bring "peace" to Israel. "Peace" is defined as the creation of the State of Palestine under whatever circumstances they can, and the operative question is how to bring Israel in line.
Leaking military secrets is actually the second step in the process -- first was Secretary of State John Kerry last month positing the absurdity that because Israel is successful, democratic and increasingly energy independent, Israelis do not care about peace: "People in Israel aren't waking up every day and wondering if tomorrow there will be peace because there is a sense of security and a sense of accomplishment and of prosperity."
The implication that Jews care more about money than peace comes ever so close to anti-Semitic caricature.
But only, deniably, some-of-my-best-friends-are-Jews close. Because our Israel policy is being run by The Smartest Men In The Room, none of whom could possibly be Jew haters.
#2
"People in Israel aren't waking up every day and wondering if tomorrow there will be peace because there is a sense of security and a sense of accomplishment and of prosperity."
With the mooslim world in "arab spring" free-fall and violent upheaval nearly everywhere throughout the ME, he blames the Jew for a lack of peace? I so wish Kerry and the regime could come up with some new material and trash those Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei talking points.
Daniel Pipes of the Middle East Forum (where I am associate fellow) replies this morning to Bret Stephens June 3rd Wall Street Journal column, The Muslim Civil War: Standing by while the Sunnis and Shiites fight it out invites disaster. The Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, when the Reagan administration quietly encouraged the two sides to fight themselves to bloody exhaustion, did America no good, Stephens argues:
In short, a long intra-Islamic war left nobody safer, wealthier or wiser. Nor did it leave the West morally untainted. The U.S. embraced Saddam Hussein as a counterweight to Iran, and later tried to ply Iran with secret arms in exchange for the release of hostages. Patrolling the Strait of Hormuz, the USS Vincennes mistakenly shot down an Iranian jetliner over the Gulf, killing 290 civilians. Inaction only provides moral safe harbor when theres no possibility of action.
Today, he adds, there comes the whispered suggestion: If one branch of Islam wants to be at war with another branch for a few years or decades so much the better for the non-Islamic world. Mass civilian casualties in Aleppo or Homs is their tragedy, not ours. It does not implicate us morally. And it probably benefits us strategically, not least by redirecting jihadist energies away from the West. This is not a good thing for the West, but a bad thing, he concludes. Pipes and Stephens are both friends of mine, and both have a point (although I come down on Pipes side of the argument). It might be helpful to expand the context of the discussion.
I agree with Stephens that it is a bad thing. It not only a bad thing: it is a horrifying thing. The moral impact on the West of unrestrained slaughter and numberless atrocities flooding YouTube for years to come is incalculable, as I wrote in a May 20 essay, Syrias Madness and Ours. If Syria looks bad, wait until Pakistan breaks down. The relevant questions, though, are 1) why are Sunnis and Shiites slaughtering each other in Syria at this particular moment in history, and 2) what (if anything) can we do about it?
#3
These people want to kill each other. They don't mind killing civilians--some may consider it a perk--and this means they won't stop because somebody tries to talk nice.
You stop them by killing them--one side or the other--until the survivors quit. Given their level of motivation, nothing else will work.
Then the other side starts killing the ones who quit first.
Currently, it looks as if Assad will be the one to come out on top, whereupon he will be able to continue the other side without the fuss of fighting.
So the question is whether we--who is this we?--can kill enough of one side or both sides to get them to stop without killing more of them than they would kill of each other if left alone.
This will, of course, get Americans killed, give the dems another war to lose--they can't help it, it's what they do--and more excuses for other Muslims to attack us.
But, if we weren't lucky, even worse things would happen. See the Balkans ca 1914.
Posted by: Richard Aubrey ||
06/08/2013 12:52 Comments ||
Top||
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
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Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
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Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
