Category Archives: Megalomania

For some, power and corruption just aren’t enough.

Dim Awareness of “a grave sense of betrayal” on Snooping

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This post is available in audio format as a DayPage from Radio InfoWeb…

 

In reporting found in today’s New York Times (found at the bottom of an article entitled “Momentum Builds Against N.S.A. Surveillance”), I found the following:

Ms. Lofgren [Zoe Lofgren (Chairman of House Ethics Committee 2009–2011)] said the White House and Democratic and Republican leaders had not come to grips with what she called “a grave sense of betrayal” that greeted Mr. Snowden’s revelations. Since the Bush administration, lawmakers had been repeatedly assured that such indiscriminate collection of data did not exist, and that when targeting was unspecific, it was aimed at people abroad.

In its understated, and sometimes blundering way, the Times, if not Ms. Lofgren, has put its finger on what I believe to be the heart of the issue. The “sense of betrayal” is the bottom line of public sentiment from all quarters. Even the most paranoid among us couldn’t have imagined in 2001 or 2002 the extent of surveillance that would emerge post 9/11. However, concern about privacy issues was considered “fringe” until Edward Snowden’s documentation made it hard for the government to continue its denials. The Emperor’s New Clothes had been revealed. The “mainstream” was now forced to come to grips with an issue they’d been in denial over for the past decade or so.

The American public wants to believe the lies the government pours forth in an unending stream. They have an investment in their government, and thus want to believe it is a good one. But, wishing for a thing does not make it so. Americans have a great resistance to seeing the corruption, greed, and criminality in their government. It takes a strong case to shine through the smoke and haze, and it appears that Edward Snowden’s released documents finally made the case that will turn the tide of opinion of the American public.

Still, buyer’s remorse looms large in America’s consumer society. Americans may still choose to blindly embrace their corrupt and nearly bankrupted government rather than face the truth with all its consequences. Should that happen, there will come another tide, and then another. The rising waters of accumulated megalomania and neglect are drowning the current generation of despots. What will replace them?

Leaker Crackdown: Govt Employees Told to Tattle on Coworkers

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From DemocracyNow! Filed under: “War on Truth” “War on Freedom” and “War on Citizens”

As the media focuses almost exclusively on Edward Snowden’s possible whereabouts, more details on the Obama administration’s crackdown on whistleblowers have come to light. A new investigative report has revealed the administration’s crackdown on leaks extends far beyond high-profile cases like Snowden or the Associated Press, to the vast majority of government agencies and departments — even those with no connection to intelligence or national security. For nearly two years, the White House has waged a program called “Insider Threat” that forces government employees to remain on the constant lookout for their colleagues’ behavior and to report their suspicions. It targets government officials who leak any information, not just classified material. All of this leads McClatchy to warn: “The [Insider Threat] program could make it easier for the government to stifle the flow of unclassified and potentially vital information to the public, while creating toxic work environments poisoned by unfounded suspicions and spurious investigations.” We’re joined by the reporter who helped break the story, Jonathan Landay, senior national security and intelligence reporter for McClatchy Newspapers. Landay also discusses his reporting that revealed how drone strikes carried out in Pakistan over a four-year period ran contrary to standards set forth publicly by President Obama.

We Have Met the Enemy, And He Is U.S.

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In purely tabloid terms. Doesn’t anyone get the connection between the IRS scandal and SnooperGate?

Democracy can’t function in a surveillance society. As long as we are flawed human beings, someone, or many people, or a whole organization, will abuse the information collected for its benefit. The War on Citizens is just getting started.

This is the lesson we can learn from Edward Snowden.



From WikiPedia…

Probably the most famous Pogo quotation is “We have met the enemy and he is us.” Perhaps more than any other words written by Kelly, it perfectly sums up his attitude towards the foibles of mankind and the nature of the human condition.

The quote was a parody of a message sent in 1813 from U.S. Navy Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry to Army General William Henry Harrison after his victory in the Battle of Lake Erie, stating, “We have met the enemy, and they are ours.” It first appeared in a lengthier form in “A Word to the Fore”, the foreword of the book The Pogo Papers, first published in 1953. Since the strips reprinted in Papers included the first appearances of Mole and Simple J. Malarkey, beginning Kelly’s attacks on McCarthyism, Kelly used the foreword to defend his actions:

“ Traces of nobility, gentleness and courage persist in all people, do what we will to stamp out the trend. So, too, do those characteristics which are ugly. It is just unfortunate that in the clumsy hands of a cartoonist all traits become ridiculous, leading to a certain amount of self-conscious expostulation and the desire to join battle. There is no need to sally forth, for it remains true that those things which make us human are, curiously enough, always close at hand. Resolve then, that on this very ground, with small flags waving and tinny blasts on tiny trumpets, we shall meet the enemy, and not only may he be ours, he may be us. Forward! ”

—Walt Kelly, June 1953

At Last, Illegal Government Surveillance Story Gets Legs

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[Text of VO for audio below] “It’s out”, as the BBC has put it. That’s an odd thing for me as I’ve been reporting on this for several years now. So,it feels just a little bit CREEPY that suddenly this story is “out” at this late, late date. It smells of disinformation or psyops. Not to mention politics. So, I’ll step away and let the BBC tell us what they say know at this time… (Monday morning, June 10th).


Play Audio		 Play http://daypage.net/ar/DayPage~2013-06-10~Snowden_Outs_Self_-Long-.mp3

[BBC story treatment…]
An interesting angle on this story was reported by Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! this past Friday… details of a project named “Prism”, here’s a clip from her news program; edited for brevity… despite that, it does go on for about 12 minutes…

[Amy Goodman clip with Glenn Greenwald]

Well, as I’ve said, I’ve been reporting for some time about how the NSA is collecting EVERYTHING: EVERYTHING, as an outgrowth and expansion of it’s Office of Total Information Awareness. The information is being stored at a growing number of sites. Like the nations’ garbage dumps, the NSA’s collection of “everything” is growing as fast as they can build giant sites — like the one that just opened in Utah — to hold it.

[Credits]

Clips from the BBC and Democracy Now! were edited for time, and for today, that’s DayPage, a morning segment from Radio InfoWeb’s main stream. Listen to the awesomeness of Radio InfoWeb at http://radio.infoweb.net. Email us [listen to audio for email address], call us and tell us in your own voice how you feel about this. Text us. That number is: [listen to audio for phone number]. Facebook us: facebook.com/radioinfoweb – tumblr us at radioinfoweb.tumblr.com – we tweet @radioinfoweb – once again that number is [listen to audio for phone number – it’s not on the web so put that in your contact book. I’ll be back tomorrow with ANOTHER DayPage.

NSA Snoops Verizon? That’s All? Not.

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Huh? The “news” that the NSA is collecting domestic call data from Verizon is disturbing? How retarded has the press become?


Play Audio 		Play http://daypage.net/ar/DayPage~2013-06-07~24hrs_into_Snowden_Revelations.mp3

So, what kind of psyop is this? This feigned outrage about this one small incident among the literally tens and hundreds of thousands of other incidents of the government overreaching in its illegal surveillance of innocent citizens. It would appear that it’s an effort to downplay the extent of illegal surveillance to the remaining few ( less than 5% according to recent polls) who have blind faith in government.

Will the whole thing implode? It just might. There does seem to be a bi-partisan stirring over overall discontent with the ever growing degree of illicit domestic surveillance. But that’s not surprising. What’s surprising is just how far this whole thing has gotten.

Don’t forget, dear reader, these are YOUR dollars that are being spent to spy on you. As long as you’re OK with spending that money on having the government spy on you, they’ll continue to spend it.

Perhaps I’m missing something. Are you so taken with your reflection in the mirror, the primping and posturing and posting on Facebook, that you are flattered by being spied on? If so… how sad.

 

Americans: Monkeys in Cages

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Today is the day America ended. We didn’t quite get to finish our 237th year.

If there was any doubt that freedom in America had already ended, and been converted into a totalitarian surveillance state, those doubts must have been erased in any rational mind with the announcement on April 19th, 2013  that “Boston is in lockdown today”. Citizens were warned to “stay inside, avoid movement, and keep doors locked” while a door-to-door search was to be conducted for suspects associated with the Boston Marathon bombing.

I grew up at the end of the Cold War. Americans were proud to distill the difference between America and those Rat B*st*rd Communists as: “We would rather let one hundred guilty men go free than imprison an innocent man; Communists would rather imprison hundreds of innocent men to get one guilty man”. By that measure, welcome to the United Communist States of America.

A lot has happened since the 50’s: loss of innocence. But more importantly, loss of freedom. The world has been turned on its head, and we have become the very sort of state we fought World War II to save the world from.

Just whose fault is it? The system is easy to blame, but it’s a system we allowed to evolve as it has. It doesn’t take much soul-searching to understand how it happened. The People are to blame. And, if this grave injustice we have done to ourselves is ever to be righted, it is We The People who must do it; once again overturning tyranny and the forces opposing Freedom. We must end The War on Citizens currently waged by the Federal Government.

Six Strikes – The Details

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This blog entry is being actively updated. Check back if this is of interest to you!

This week and last week, “Six Strikes” (the “Copyright Alert System”) went into effect with the “big five ISP’s”: AT&T, Verizon, Time Warner, Cablevision and Comcast. It’s the latest plan-of-action for the folks in Hollywood and elsewhere who have been trying to curb piracy without much success. Until recently, the Big Club was used: Lawyers and lawsuits. Now, instead of the “big stick”, a “small twig” is being used. But it’s very insidious. The plan follows the playbook of the U.S. Government: Pay the telecom companies to turn over their customer usage information, and have them act as cops on your behalf (also for a fee).

Here is the promotional video describing the program. If you like having your intelligence insulted, you’ll LOVE this! The video glosses over many of the disturbing aspects of the program.

The Warning Letters

So far, few details have emerged about how Six Strikes will be implemented. However, ARS Technica has obtained copies of the 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 5th letters Comcast says they will send out. Read more in their excellent article on the subject. The Comcast letter are extremely vague, and do not provide any identifying information about what the recipient is accused of sharing.

For users of peer-to-peer networks, the impact seems to be as follows. Seeders will be targeted and leechers, for now, apparently, will be left alone. This strategy seems to be oriented toward demoralizing (pun intended) the bit torrent folks without getting punitive toward leechers (which would cause an uproar).

In fact, the whole Six Strikes effort seems focused entirely at bit torrent users, and seeders as a subset. The detection mechanism appears to be infiltration of bit-torrents, enabling the “police” to join torrents and then extract IPs of seeders. The “police” would then notify the ISP, and leave it up to the ISP.

How the Surveillance Society Happened

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Day Page for March 1st, 2013 – Lovin’ The Surveillance Society – Abstract:

Hey kids, it’s Day Page for Friday, March 1st – with the ides of March ahead of us, and the first week of Day Page behind us, I’d like to visit one of my favorite topics… NOT! I’ll get right to the point: The government is taking our money, in the form of taxes, and using that money to pay domestic telecommunications companies to spy on us! It’s game over, and we lost. Here’s how it happened. What are you going to do about it?

Information Source(s):

http://jurist.org/paperchase/2011/12/us-appeals-court-upholds-telecom-company-immunity-law.php

Day Page is getting its’ own website:  http://daypage.net

Hell Hath No Fury like the U.S. Caught Red-Handed

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The Assange drama continues, with U.S. puppet Great Britain threatening to throw diplomatic treaties out the window to satisfy the rage of the U.S., caught red-handed, and now acting like a woman scorned.

The behavior of the U.S. with respect to Wikileaks has been shameful and an embarrassment The U.S. has spun out of control and become megalomaniacal. Even corrupt politicians know that when you’re caught in the act, you’ve got to come clean if you want a future with the American people. Our government acts as if it were a vindictive and petty god; alternatively as a small child that’s not getting its way and having a tantrum. No wonder there are bumper stickers everywhere: “I love this country. It’s the Government I’m afraid of”.

Haven’t we grown beyond the need for evil state secrets, abuse of our neighbors and partners, and lies as a way of conducting business? Wikileaks only proved what many of us had suspected, and the Government isn’t denying it. How could it? Instead of apologizing, saying it’s learned from its’ mistakes, and pledging to turn over a new leaf, it’s acting like an enraged petty dictator in denial (sound like anyone we know?), empaneling secret grand juries, putting out secret death warrants, and strong-arming nations in futile and unseemly attempt to punish those who have exposed its’ unseemly behavior. As long as the bad behavior continues, the U.S. will continue to see a rapid erosion of respect from the International community. Unless, of course, it confuses fear with respect.

They Can’t Hide Their Prying Eyes

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A friend of mine described his recent hiring experience with a medium-large corporation. Normally, in these times, getting a good job with a “good company” should be a cause for celebration. But my friend felt sick to his stomach, and was shaking with fear, and mainly, loathing.

He had been required to fill out a form called a “request for background check”. The title made it sound like it was something he wanted, not something he was being forced to do. While the company insisted it was not required, they did say that if he didn’t fill it out, he would not be hired.

The form had a lengthy disclaimer section, in which it clearly stated that all information received in the process of the background check would be shared with the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Treasury Department, the Internal Revenue Service, and the litany of federal bureaucracies went on.

It didn’t take much research to determine what this was about. It is more invasion of privacy by the government, and a technique by which a citizen’s right to privacy can be (further) circumvented by “sharing information” between “consenting parties”.

What’s amazing about the information I’m receiving on the government’s attempts to fulfill the mandate of the officially denied “Total Information Awareness” program is that it seems the government is not satisfied with having just one copy of a piece of information: they want multiple copies! When you look at the broader picture, it’s as if the government is suffering from an OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder), or hording disorder. They are spending fantastic amounts of (deficit) money collecting the same information over and over again. It’s not just destructive economically and ethically, it’s psychotic behavior.

To put this in perspective, the information is being collected to “protect us from terrorists”. My regular street-check shows that the only party afraid of terrorists is the government, and most of the people on the street find the government’s obsession with terrorism a joke. Most people have already figured out that if terrorists wanted to strike America, we’d have suicide bombers blowing themselves up in malls and fast-food restaurants all over. Few of the people in my street checks believe the government is competent to prevent terror attacks. To the contrary, they don’t credit the government with the capability of doing anything but wasting time and money. Any “shoe-bomber” type terrorist interventions are credited to alert citizens, Airlines, and the like. And, such incidents always have the mark of lunacy about them; the grand schemes are always attached after law-enforcement gets involved.

The picture that is rapidly emerging is one of a corrupt bureaucracy that has run amok, and threatens to be crushed under the weight of the excessive and redundant information it is collecting and hording about its citizens.

Given the degree of invasiveness being reached we can only hope that the self-induced crushing begins soon.

[this article has received the new tag: “The Lockdown of America”]