The way things are supposed to work is that we're supposed to know virtually everything about what they do: that's why they're called public servants. They're supposed to know virtually nothing about what we do: that's why we're called private individuals.
This dynamic - the hallmark of a healthy and free society - has been radically reversed. Now, they know everything about what we do, and are constantly building systems to know more. Meanwhile, we know less and less about what they do, as they build walls of secrecy behind which they function. That's the imbalance that needs to come to an end. No democracy can be healthy and functional if the most consequential acts of those who wield political power are completely unknown to those to whom they are supposed to be accountable.
The Bizarro Character of the Surveillance Society
Glenn Greenwald on the current state of the surveillance society being constructed by the Democratic and Republican parties:
New Details Emerge on How Tech Companies Are Forced to Enable Government Sying
From the New York Times:
When government officials came to Silicon Valley to demand easier ways for the world’s largest Internet companies to turn over user data as part of a secret surveillance program, the companies bristled. In the end, though, many cooperated at least a bit. . . .
The negotiations shed a light on how Internet companies, increasingly at the center of people’s personal lives, interact with the spy agencies that look to their vast trove of information — e-mails, videos, online chats, photos and search queries — for intelligence. They illustrate how intricately the government and tech companies work together, and the depth of their behind-the-scenes transactions.
U.S. Government Surveillance Programs Are a Threat to the Privacy of Individuals Worldwide
In case you didn't realize it already. From Politico:
The journalist who broke the news that the government is monitoring vast quantities of American phone records is claiming the U.S. is building a “massive” snooping apparatus committed to destroying privacy worldwide.
“There is a massive apparatus within the United States government that with complete secrecy has been building this enormous structure that has only one goal, and that is to destroy privacy and anonymity, not just in the United States but around the world,” charged Glenn Greenwald, a reporter for the British newspaper “The Guardian,” speaking on CNN. “That is not hyperbole. That is their objective.”
Federal Government's War on the Fourth Amendment as Bad as Expected
The U.S. Federal Government under the dictatorship of the Democratic and Republican parties, and in partnership with their corporate allies, represent a grave and direct threat against the people and Constitution of the United States. From the Washington Post:
The National Security Agency and the FBI are tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet companies, extracting audio and video chats, photographs, e-mails, documents, and connection logs that enable analysts to track one target or trace a whole network of associates, according to a top-secret document obtained by The Washington Post. . . .
NSA extracts what it wants, according to the document: “Collection directly from the servers of these U.S. Service Providers: Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Apple.”
Federal Government Caught in Massive Spying Operation
The war on the Fourth Amendment continues. From The Guardian:
The National Security Agency is currently collecting the telephone records of millions of US customers of Verizon, one of America's largest telecoms providers, under a top secret court order issued in April. The order, a copy of which has been obtained by the Guardian, requires Verizon on an "ongoing, daily basis" to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the US and between the US and other countries. . . .
The secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (Fisa) granted the order to the FBI on April 25, giving the government unlimited authority to obtain the data for a specified three-month period ending on July 19.
Under the terms of the blanket order, the numbers of both parties on a call are handed over, as is location data, call duration, unique identifiers, and the time and duration of all calls. The contents of the conversation itself are not covered.
Access to the Internet is a Human Right
In an interview with The Verge, outgoing FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski states that communication over the internet is a "basic right." Excerpt:
The most important thing for people to understand is that the basic rule that people have a right to send information over the internet — even when they are using a wireless device — is part of the framework. If a carrier blocks a consumer's access to the internet, they are violating our rules.
Trojon Virus Continuing to Spread Via Facebook
Just in case you needed to be reminded that you should always be cognizant of the links you click, the New York Times reports on a six year old piece of malware that continues to dupe Facebook users and drain bank accounts. Excerpt:
a six-year-old so-called Trojan horse program that drains bank accounts is alive and well on Facebook. Zeus is a particularly nasty Trojan horse that has infected millions of computers, most of them in the United States. Once Zeus has compromised a computer, it stays dormant until a victim logs into a bank site, and then it steals the victim’s passwords and drains the victim’s accounts. In some cases, it can even replace a bank’s Web site with its own page, in order to get even more information– such as a Social Security number– that can be sold on the black market.
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