If you have nothing to hide . . . nothing to worry about.

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Re: If you have nothing to hide . . . nothing to worry about

Postby Col Quisp » Sun Jun 16, 2013 3:08 pm

Everybody's got something to hide except for me and my monkey.
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Re: If you have nothing to hide . . . nothing to worry about

Postby slimmouse » Sun Jun 16, 2013 3:48 pm

Col Quisp wrote:Everybody's got something to hide except for me and my monkey.


If my perception of how things go down when we leave this physical plane is anything like accurate, then I can well imagine that under the influence of the irresistable syrum of cosmic truth, individuals such as most here at RI will all be giving ourselves an intensely-focused talking to, if we dont get behind people like Bradley Manning and co in any way we feel we can.

To quote the late great Bob Marley, you cant run away from yourself.

And even though Im pretty certain of my premise personally, anyone who disagrees around here should fully understand the need to lend our support, regardless.
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Re: If you have nothing to hide . . . nothing to worry about

Postby conniption » Tue Jul 09, 2013 12:39 am

FRONTIER INTERNATIONAL

Wednesday, June 26, 2013


NOT LIKING BUT LEARNING TO LIVE WITH SURVEILLANCE

(first published in the SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST, June 26, 2013)

Philip Cunningham says the snoops who doubled as doormen and dorm mates now seem old school

Part of the folklore of being a foreign student in China in the 1980s was that Big Brother was watching, all the time. Very few people had first-hand knowledge, fewer even had proof, but the discomfort, if not fear, was pervasive.

A foreign student in China could easily get the impression that the country was one big spy machine, based on documented tales of abuse that came out of the Cultural Revolution and other score-settling periods, and undocumented, anecdotal tales from more tranquil times - such as "I told my wife on the phone the refrigerator in the hotel room wasn't working and, 10 minutes later, housekeeping came up to fix it"; this sort of story.

The longer one was in China, the more the anecdotal "evidence" piled up, but it was hard to get the big picture. Foreign students would gather in their dorm after curfew and speculate about who the local snoops were: the doorman, or dorm monitor, for example.

My understanding, then, as now, was that the phone was the weak link. To make a call, one had to go through a switchboard, which was as good as a "snitchboard". Public phones were manned by nosy attendants.

Sometimes the blanket of watchfulness was almost edifying, as if the system was benevolent, looking after the public good, protecting people from themselves.

The son of a well-known associate of Mao Zedong would sometimes visit my dorm room at Beijing Normal University to practise English and share a cup of coffee, which I brewed on an electric hot pot I kept hidden, because such appliances were not allowed in the dorm. To reciprocate, he invited me to a private lunch with friends in a suite in the government-run Beijing Hotel, which had a reputation for tight surveillance. As we chatted, our conversation was interrupted by the startling appearance of a rat that scurried across the room.

To see a roomful of former Red Guards trying, and failing, to trap and kill the rat brought to mind Cultural Revolution zealotry. But what really seemed to hark back to that spooky era was the announcement, about a week later, that a nationwide anti-rat campaign was being put into affect. My dorm, like others across the country, was searched, and the hot pot that I kept hidden was confiscated.

During the hectic upheaval of 1989, the spectre of Big Brother took a back seat to Mr Science and Democracy, Lady Liberty and other more charismatic guests, during which time I heard expressions of solidarity from the very gatekeepers in dorms and hotels who I previously had reason to assume were snitching.

Living with surveillance does tend to alter one's behaviour, swinging between paranoia and anger at the stealthy watchers, and a shoulder-shrugging dismissal of its cost, along the lines of "if you are not doing anything wrong, there's nothing to hide". Still, it rankled then and it rankles now, especially with the revelations that the whole planet has become something of a panopticon for US and British authorities.

As a freelance journalist subject to intermittent surveillance by both Chinese and Western security services, I often asked people presumably in the know (diplomats, attachés, statesmen, academics and intelligence officials) about the extent of surveillance on both sides. The answers were vague, but I did get the sense that the kind of spying I had worried about as a student and journalist in China was chump change. There were things going on at a level that insiders could only begin to hint at.

Interestingly, none of them shared with me the outrage of being spied on by nannies, doorkeepers and phone operators, which surprised me at the time but which I better understand now. Not only did those in the know know that the US was spying, too, but spying in ways so pervasive as to make China's human intelligence efforts seem laughably old school, almost quaint.

What was also curious was that those with access to the most voluminous information about China seemed to adopt a pro-China stance in public. Indeed, Ezra Vogel's most recent book about Deng Xiaoping takes a surprisingly orthodox line. I also found this to be the case while conducting research at Harvard, where Jiang Zemin during his 1997 visit was so cosseted by Vogel that standard university question and answer was prohibited. That year, I drank sherry with the likes of China's spy chief Xiong Guangkai as a guest of Vogel and his former boss at the National Intelligence Council, Joseph Nye.

Vogel once told me that covering China for US intelligence is like being a professor with a thousand research assistants and the world's biggest database to draw from. Nye was more reticent about his intelligence work, other than to say, "Ezra is my eyes and ears for both Japan and China". Nye, who until recently was accusing foreign cyberterrorists of sending "electrons across borders", has in the light of recent scandals acknowledged that there are "electrons going both ways".

Philip J. Cunningham is a media researcher and freelance writer, whose most recent book about China is Tiananmen Moon

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as Eyes and ears on China prove more pervasive than the spies in our midst
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Re: If you have nothing to hide . . . nothing to worry about

Postby conniption » Sun Jan 19, 2014 5:13 pm

Laudator Temporis Acti

Let's Stop Somebody from Doing Something!

A.P. Herbert (1890-1971), "Let's Stop Somebody from Doing Something!", A Book of Ballads (London: Ernest Benn Limited, 1931), pp. 422-425:

Councillor Busy and Mr. Nose, the Member for Misery Wood,
And the Secretaree for the Societee for Making the Public Good,
Were walking up and down the town with a frown, for everywhere they saw
The bold, bad Britisher doing things which weren't against the law;
And "This won't do!" said Councillor Busy;
"This won't do!" said the Honourable Nose;
"It certainly won't!" said the Secretaree of the S.M.B.P.G.

"Let's stop somebody from doing something!
Everybody does too much.
People seem to think they've a right to eat and drink,
Talk and walk and respirate and rink,
Bicycle and bathe and such.
So let's have lots of little regulations.
Let's make laws and jobs for our relations,
There's too much kissing at the railway stations—
Let's find out what everyone is doing,
And then stop everyone from doing it."

Councillor Busy and Mr. Nose walked on through the summer night,
And a young man looked at his lady friend and suddenly smiled outright;
And he hadn't applied for a licence, or been to the County Hall,
Or made a report at the magistrate's court, or filled up a form at all;
And "Did you see that?" said Councillor Busy;
"Did you see that?" said the Honourable Nose;
"I did see that," said the Secretaree of the S.M.B.P.G.

"Let's stop somebody from doing something!
There's too much smiling in the city.
You don't see me in conversation with a she;
We don't osculate, and why should he?
Send for the Watch Committee!
Let's make the girls wear high-necked blouses,
Let's put microphones in people's houses,
Let's imprison gentlemen who hug their spouses;
Let's find out what everyone is doing,
And then stop everyone from doing it."

Councillor Busy went up to Heaven (from eating too much fruit),
And the Secretaree took an overdose of tea, and Nose soon followed suit;
But they didn't much like the tone of Heaven, for the tone was far too gay.
The angels seemed to enjoy themselves, and the young folk laughed all day.
And "This won't do," said Councillor Busy;
"Did you see that?" said the Honourable Nose;
"No self-control!" said the Secretaree of the S.M.B.P.G.

Let's stop somebody from doing something!
There's too much liberty here,
Constant song is obviously wrong,
Let's get a plainclothes constable along—
Somebody should interfere.
Let's stop love and lollipops and smoking,
Let's stamp out unregulated joking,
We've got noses and they're made for poking,
Let's find out what everyone is doing,
And then stop everyone from doing it."


# posted by Michael Gilleland @ 6:57 AM
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
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Re: If you have nothing to hide . . . nothing to worry about

Postby conniption » Thu Mar 12, 2015 6:50 pm

Why You Shouldn't Buy The Apple Watch (SPiWatch): Russell Brand The Trews (E273)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O82cKVp7dO8
Russell Brand
Published on Mar 10, 2015

Reaction to the new Apple Watch launch and why we shouldn't be buying it.
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Re: If you have nothing to hide . . . nothing to worry about

Postby 82_28 » Fri Mar 13, 2015 7:22 am

I'm always wrong about this kind of thing -- not really. The apple watch I think is in Zune territory though. They'll sell a few. I just don't see it catching on. Who wants a watch you have to charge daily? An actually cool advent would be a watch where you winded (wound?) it physically and the mechanism inside kept it powered like a proper watch. That would be a true leap in useful tech. But no, it's essentially a piece of trash. At my old bar we had numerous Ipods just fucking laying there in the lost and found. Remember when those things came out? What a revolution! All just forgettable trash now. I wanted to see what was on those plastic encased data centers (playlists and shit), but nobody had an old power cord in order to fire them up. Apple only makes shit to be thrown away and re-bought. Fantastic gig, if you can get it.

But to touch on the "big brother" aspect. Remember about like 13-14 years ago when sensible people were actually up in arms about the proliferation of cameras monitoring you? Now, we take it as a normal thing to have some sort of footage of everything that happens. As recently as 13-14 years ago this shit was unheard of. Now it's just par for the course.

Another thing is who sources the optics in the security footage of like gas stations and shit? Why is it always so grainy? We all have phones in our pockets with far greater resolution.
There is no me. There is no you. There is all. There is no you. There is no me. And that is all. A profound acceptance of an enormous pageantry. A haunting certainty that the unifying principle of this universe is love. -- Propagandhi
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Re: If you have nothing to hide . . . nothing to worry about

Postby conniption » Thu Apr 21, 2016 8:36 am

washington's blog

The Surveillance State Should Be Targeted on Cows


Posted on April 19, 2016 by WashingtonsBlog

By Craig Murray, former British ambassador to Uzbekistan and Rector (i.e. president) of the University of Dundee. Craigmurray.org.uk.

British citizens are now watched by Big Brother more closely than any other people in the world. All activity by British people on the web or on the phone is now monitored and stored. The British government employs more secret police – GCHQ, MI5, MI6 and SO15 – per head of population than Russia. Let me repeat that. The British have more secret police per head of population than Russia. British people are watched on closed circuit television more often than any other people in the world. Under the Prevent programme, “radicals” like me can only speak in universities under monitoring so intense and conditions so onerous that organisers give up, as I can personally witness.

The Prevent strategy provides for informants in every governmental institution who report any expressions of dissent. The UK has effective levels of surveillance – and a far higher volume of intelligence reports on their own citizens – than were ever achieved by the Stasi in Eastern Germany.

But of course, it is all “essential” to protect the citizens from the “threat” of Islamic terrorism, which is a fundamental threat to our existence, right?

So how big a threat is Islamic terrorism?

Since 2000, 57 people have been killed in the UK by Islamic terrorism.
Since 2000, 74 people have been killed in the UK by cattle.
So cows are actually a more potent threat to our personal society that terrorism.

Or more seriously – since 2000, 15,612 people have been murdered in the UK. Of whom only 57 were murdered by terrorists. You have in fact almost a 300 times greater chance of being murdered by someone else than by a terrorist. Indeed you have over 200 times a greater chance of being murdered by your partner, a family member or a close friend, than a terrorist.

The surveillance state has fundamentally changed society in response to a “threat” which is statistically miniscule.

It has greatly increased the power of the state, at a time when the state is both facilitating and protecting the greatest growth in wealth inequality in human history.

That is not a coincidence.

______

3 of 10 comments:

Lincoln • 18 hours ago

January 9, 2014 500 Years of History Shows that Mass Spying Is Always Aimed at Crushing Dissent

**It’s Never to Protect Us From Bad Guys**, No matter which government conducts mass surveillance, they also do it to crush dissent, and then give a false rationale for why they’re doing it.

http://www.washingtonsblog.com...




TKList • 21 hours ago

What makes governments dangerous? Power.

What does government surveillance do? Increases government power.

"You have nothing to worry about if you have done nothing wrong."

That depends on who is defining what is wrong and what is right.


Are political opponents doing something wrong?

Are unfavorable news reporters or agencies doing something wrong?

What happens when the President (any President) or his devotees, who can find out about anyone in the US, does not like someone and decides to do something about it; whether it be political or personal?

Government officials seem oblivious that the potential for abuse from these programs is astronomical. We can not have government surveillance that in the hands of less than desirable government officials (which is most of them) can silence or destroy dissenters and political opposition.

We already have a safe that can not be unlocked even with a Judge's order, it is our mind. Governments have not had a master key or backdoor key to our minds since the beginning of time and we as a species have still managed to survive and multiple.

It is not about why they pass such ridiculous laws or the purity of their intentions, it is about what some future demented politician might use these laws for.



Michael McNew • a day ago

The problem is that the powers-that-be are not doing this surveillance program to protect the public but rather to condition them. If you know that you are being watched "for your own good" it will obviously affect your activities. Ask yourself, have you, in a regular internet discussion on social, political or economic policy thought to yourself, prior to posting a comment, "Should I actually post this? Who is recording this?". That is the end result that threatens to stifle commentary and works to build a society that is a far cry from what it was just twenty years ago. http://michaelcross.net/2015/1...

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Re: If you have nothing to hide . . . nothing to worry about

Postby divideandconquer » Thu Apr 21, 2016 3:34 pm

Lucky for our demented overlords, technological advancement has far outpaced popular understanding but I'm still amazed at the people who still warn us of the possibility of a Stasi or "1984" society. Are you kidding? Our society today makes the Stasi Surveillance state look quaint by comparison, considering the existence of unlimited technological, not to mention, the legal means to plug into whoever they want for whatever reason they want, like posting your opinions online ...and then there are the indoctrinated, distracted, consumer masses who literally feed this beast willingly, as I'm doing right now
Some might say, "well, comparing our society to East Germany is disrespecting the victims of that totalitarian government...where are all of these victims today?" Well, given all the secrecy in the name of "national security", the Patriot Act, national security letters where the subject of such a letter is not able to tell anybody including their lawyer that they have gotten one, etc., not to mention the compliant corporate media who only exposes what they're told to expose by the powers that be, we'll never know the number of people who have been victimized.
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Re: If you have nothing to hide . . . nothing to worry about

Postby Luther Blissett » Thu Apr 21, 2016 3:59 pm

82_28 » Fri Mar 13, 2015 6:22 am wrote:
But to touch on the "big brother" aspect. Remember about like 13-14 years ago when sensible people were actually up in arms about the proliferation of cameras monitoring you? Now, we take it as a normal thing to have some sort of footage of everything that happens. As recently as 13-14 years ago this shit was unheard of. Now it's just par for the course.

Another thing is who sources the optics in the security footage of like gas stations and shit? Why is it always so grainy? We all have phones in our pockets with far greater resolution.


I wonder if there's a standard operating procedure to apply a "1980s gas station filter" to all surveillance video released for public consumption. Because come to think of it, when I witnessed that CCTV facial recognition technology in action, the resolution was about "television news" quality.
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Re: If you have nothing to hide . . . nothing to worry about

Postby divideandconquer » Thu Apr 21, 2016 8:16 pm

82_28 » Fri Mar 13, 2015 6:22 am wrote:

But to touch on the "big brother" aspect. Remember about like 13-14 years ago when sensible people were actually up in arms about the proliferation of cameras monitoring you? Now, we take it as a normal thing to have some sort of footage of everything that happens. As recently as 13-14 years ago this shit was unheard of. Now it's just par for the course.

Another thing is who sources the optics in the security footage of like gas stations and shit? Why is it always so grainy? We all have phones in our pockets with far greater resolution.


So they can tell the public whatever story lies they want to tell.

Meanwhile...

DARPA shows off 1.8-gigapixel surveillance drone, can spot YOU terrorist from 20,000 feet

DARPA and the US Army have taken the wraps off ARGUS-IS, a 1.8-gigapixel video surveillance platform that can resolve details as small as six inches from an altitude of 20,000 feet (6km). ARGUS is by far the highest-resolution surveillance platform in the world, and probably the highest-resolution camera in the world, period.

ARGUS, which would be attached to some kind of unmanned UAV (such as the Predator) and flown at an altitude of around 20,000 feet, can observe an area of 25 square kilometers (10sqmi) at any one time. If ARGUS was hovering over New York City, it could observe half of Manhattan. Two ARGUS-equipped drones, and the US could keep an eye on the entirety of Manhattan, 24/7.

It is the definition of “observe” in this case that will blow your mind, though. With an imaging unit that totals 1.8 billion pixels, ARGUS captures video (12 fps) that is detailed enough to pick out birds flying through the sky, or a lost toddler wandering around. These 1.8 gigapixels are provided via 368 smaller sensors, which DARPA/BAE says are just 5-megapixel smartphone camera sensors. These 368 sensors are focused on the ground via four image-stabilized telescopic lenses.

The end result, as you can see in the (awesome) video above, is a mosaic that can be arbitrarily zoomed. In the video, a BAE engineer zooms in from 17,500 feet to show a man standing in a parking lot doing some exercises. A white speck is a bird flying around. You can’t quite make out facial features or license plates (phew), but I wonder if that would be possible if ARGUS was used at a lower altitude (during a riot, say).

ARGUS’s insane resolution is only half of the story, though. It isn’t all that hard to strap a bunch of sensors together, after all. The hard bit, according to the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), is the processing of all that image data. 1.8 billion pixels, at 12 fps, generates on the order of 600 gigabits per second. This equates to around 6 petabytes — or 6,000 terabytes — of video data per day. From what we can gather, some of the processing is done within ARGUS (or the drone that carries it), but most of the processing is done on the ground, in near-real-time, using a beefy supercomputer. We’re not entirely sure how such massive amounts of data are transmitted wirelessly, unless DARPA is waiting for its 100Gbps wireless tech to come to fruition.

The software, called Persistics after the concept of persistent ISR — intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance — is tasked with identifying objects on the ground, and then tracking them indefinitely. As you can see in the video, Persistics draws a colored box around humans, cars, and other objects of interest. These objects are then tracked by the software — and as you can imagine, tracking thousands of moving objects across a 10-square-mile zone is a fairly intensive task. The end user can view up to 65 tracking windows at one time.
ARGUS-IS, surveying Quantico, Virginia

ARGUS-IS, surveying Quantico, Virginia. Click to see a much larger version.

According to the video, which is from the PBS Nova TV show, the ARGUS system in its entirety produces one million terabytes per day — all of which is stored by the Army for future use. We’re a bit skeptical about PBS’s crazy figure (a million terabytes is an exabyte), but in theory most of that data is actually meta data — the coordinates and other identifying features of the thousands (millions?) of objects being tracked by ARGUS.

Boeing A160 Hummingbird helicopter, with ARGUS-IS attached belowThe original goal was to deploy ARGUS in Afghanistan, but that never came to pass. It isn’t entirely clear what ARGUS’s future is; it was meant to be mounted on Boeing’s high-altitude A160 Hummingbird helicopter (pictured right), but the chopper has since been scrapped. If ARGUS is to be deployed, it will most likely be strapped to the underbelly of a Predator drone. Where it will be used, however, with the war in Afghanistan apparently winding down, is another question entirely. Its efficacy in a military setting would be unsurpassed, but it’s easy to imagine how ARGUS could be used here at home in the US, too.


And this is declassified ..imagine what they have under wraps.
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Re: If you have nothing to hide . . . nothing to worry about

Postby conniption » Wed Jan 27, 2021 11:01 pm

Watched the following video today and thought of this thread. Nostalgically read through the comments and am actively missing you all very much. (and in case you didn't know, or forgot - Username = conniption.) Wishing you all well.

Caring Therapy Approaches and What is Happening to America?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXTSPgxN7TQ

Jan 25, 2021
Peter Breggin MD


Peter Reznik LCSW, PhD immigrated to the United States from Russia. He has “toolboxes” of approaches, often involving imagery and often involving integrative mind-body approaches. He also has great wisdom and he’s very caring. He provides fascinating vignettes of how he works and we discuss how I might deal with a similar person. We also share thoughts about what is happening in America right now, especially with the banning of the President Donald Trump by the social media, which is a tragic step toward a totalitarian state. Peter comments on the basis of his similar experiences in the Soviet Union. This is a thoughtful and inspiring exchange that could add to your understanding of life.


I suspect Peter Breggin will have to be bumped from youtube, as well. I mean...how dare they talk about forgiveness and health, alternative therapies and all that disinformation/misinformation... terrorist talk.
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Re: If you have nothing to hide . . . nothing to worry about

Postby conniption » Sat Jul 03, 2021 9:59 am

off-guardian

Inside Biden’s new “domestic terrorism” strategy

Kit Knightly
Jul 1, 2021


Following the (completely contrived) Capitol Hill “riot” on January 6th, Joe Biden made it clear – or rather, the people that control Joe Biden made it clear – “domestic terrorism” was going to be a defining issue of his presidency.

Indeed, in an act of startling prescience, the incoming administration had been talking about a new “Domestic Terrorism Bill” for well over three months before the “riot” happened. The media had been calling for one for at least six. Major universities were writing papers about it.

It’s funny how often that happens, isn’t it?

I wrote at the time that the Capitol Hill “riot” could prove to be America’s Reichstag Fire – a fake attack, blamed on an invisible enemy and used to rush through restrictive legislation and emergency powers. A 9/11 sequel, extending the Patriot Act franchise.

Now, just a few short months later, the Biden White House has released their National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism. Let’s take a look inside it, shall we?

So, what is “domestic terrorism”?

The first thing to say about the “strategy”…is that it’s not really a strategy. It’s more of a mission statement or even a press release. It hits talking points, but not real policies. Its watchword is “vague” – in both definition of the problem and proposed solutions (with a couple of noteworthy exceptions, but we’ll get to that.)

For starters – who or what IS a “domestic terrorist”?

Well, their answer to that is, essentially, potentially anybody. They’re not identifying any particular ideology or cause or group – but rather EVERY ideology cause or group. I wrote, back in January, that any definition would be kept intentionally loose, and the strategy does not disappoint.

The cause of “domestic terrorism” can be racism, religious intolerance, environmental protest, anti-government feeling, animal rights, anti-abortion campaigners, “perceived government overeach”, “incel ideology”, “anti-corporate globalization feeling” or a mixture of any of the above.

“Domestic terrorists” may espouse violence or they may not espouse violence. They may work in groups, or be loners, or be loose associations with no organizational structure. They can be left wing or right wing, religious or secular.

They can be anybody who thinks anything.


There is a lot of entirely intentional vagueness here. Again and again, we are told that “the domestic terrorism threat is complex, multifaceted, and evolving”. They are keeping their options open.

Don’t expect ANY specifics on who is a “domestic terrorist” until AFTER any legislation is passed. That way, the great American public can insert their own personal bugbear into the ellipsis (and then be taken completely by surprise when it turns out the new laws apply to everyone).

That said, there have been some clues as to the kind of person that might be the target of any new anti-terror legislation.

In the Washington Post, in February this year, California State Senator Richard Pam wrote:

Anti-vaccine extremism is akin to domestic terrorism


He wasn’t alone, on this side of the Atlantic the head of the Metropolitan Police’s counter-terrorism unit “called for action against coronavirus anti-vaxxers”.

Even this document makes insinuations on that front.

In a startling contradiction, after spending five or six pages talking up the “complex” and “unpredictable” nature of “domestic terrorism”, they then make an incredibly specific prediction about a future “domestic terrorist attack”:

Taken from the “Assessment of the Domestic Violent Extremism Threat” (p. 10):

Newer sociopolitical developments–such as narratives of fraud in the recent general election, the emboldening impact of the violent breach of the U.S. Capitol, conditions related to the COVID–19 pandemic, and conspiracy theories promoting violence–will almost certainly spur some DVEs to try to engage in violence this year.


Apparently, the official position of the FBI, CIA, NSA and DHS is that domestic terrorism is a vast cloud of mystery, swirling with unknown and conflicting motivations….but they definitely know when the next attack will happen, and why it will take place..

So what’s to blame?

The evil “domestic terrorists” and “violent extremists” might be widely diverse in their ideologies, social structures, motives and political leanings…but nevertheless, they ALL use the same exact methods of communication, and the same platforms to host their “misinformation”.

It turns out, according to this strategy, there’s really only one thing at the root of all “domestic terrorism”: The internet.

Yes, the vast majority of this “strategy” is focused on the digital world. In only 28 pages of text the words “online”, “social media”, “internet”, “platform”, “encryption”, and “site” occur well over 60 times combined. Here’s some examples:

....................>snip<....................

Only last night, the US Senate voted to create a “select committee” investigating the Capitol Hill riot. This political pantomime will roll on for a few weeks with “shocking testimony” from FBI agents and military intelligence operatives.

They will detail how “misinformation radicalised people online”, alongside admitting they “had knowledge, but lacked the power to act” or that “counter-terrorism forces were focused on foreign groups” and/or lacked “legal authority” to surveil domestic threats. There will be a couple of throwaway admissions, something akin to a “failure of imagination”.


Senators from liberal states will make speeches about how the military/CIA/FBI are institutionally racist because they assumed white people can’t be terrorists, and a few willing uniformed fall guys will look appropriately shame-faced behind their medals.

There will be no real inquest, and no new information. It will be an exercise in reinforcing an entirely fake reality. And the final findings will be that the FBI/CIA/NSA…or whoever…needs more money and power. A new bill (likely already written) will be pushed into the hands of some hip “liberal” politician, who will do a decent job pretending they wrote it.

If there is any noteworthy public objection to the new powers, well then we’ll see another “domestic terrorist” attack. Maybe there’ll be one anyway, just to underline how vital the new bill is. (They’re prepping us already, with the DHS warning about attacks on July 4th and a possible “summer of violence”).

And then, stirring itself to act only at the insistence of the Democrat-controlled Senate, the White House will sign-off on its Patriot Act 2.0.

The final paragraph of the strategy document reads:

This document represents that Strategy – a Strategy whose implementation is, already, well underway.

No kidding.
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https://off-guardian.org/2021/07/01/ins ... -strategy/
conniption
 
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Re: If you have nothing to hide . . . nothing to worry about

Postby conniption » Tue Jul 27, 2021 1:54 am

https://www.france24.com/en/europe/2021 ... h-headache

on edit: ^^^ Sorry about that. Spent the longest time trying to post this article about "the pingdemic" in the UK and for some reason RI kept sending an error message and wouldn't allow the post to go through. grrrrr...

(the link works though)
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Re: If you have nothing to hide . . . nothing to worry about

Postby DrEvil » Tue Jul 27, 2021 4:52 pm

If anyone is using Venmo: check the privacy settings if you haven't. Until recently all your transactions were public by default. They just now changed it so you only broadcast your transactions to your friends.

Why anyone thought that was a good idea is beyond me. Imagine the reaction if your bank published all your credit card activity to the world.
"I only read American. I want my fantasy pure." - Dave
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Re: If you have nothing to hide . . . nothing to worry about

Postby Harvey » Tue Jul 27, 2021 5:31 pm

DrEvil » Tue Jul 27, 2021 9:52 pm wrote:Imagine the reaction if your bank published all your credit card activity to the world.


Might be interesting, if banks, state and everybody else had to aswell...
And while we spoke of many things, fools and kings
This he said to me
"The greatest thing
You'll ever learn
Is just to love
And be loved
In return"


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