The equipment and integrated security systems used to detain Olympic protesters will remain long after the Olympics, to be used, many fear, on China’s own population. And some of the biggest beneficiaries of this surveillance boom are US hedge funds and corporations, including Cisco, General Electric and Google.
Now wonder GE has that huge ad campaign.
One thing I'm realizing that this Olympics is showing us is that, YES, it is possible for a government to effectively contain all resistance. Thank God for Democracy.
Today a new article in WaPo exposes Bush's latest tactic to bring the US closer to a true police state:
The Justice Department has proposed a new domestic spying measure that would make it easier for state and local police to collect intelligence about Americans, share the sensitive data with federal agencies and retain it for at least 10 years.
We're talking about local and state police, not some federal agents. And yes, that was "intelligence collecting", spying, not just enforcing the law. And what stringent safeguards, what conditions are in place to protect our real or imagined freedoms?? All the police need is "reasonable suspicion". Ah, yes, that wonderful and accurate cornerstone to prevent abuse: it's up to each officer's own renowned instincts, his "suspicion".
I was driving home from work last night when I heard an advertisement for the Barracuda Message Archiver.
Now, I wasn't dumb enough to believe that the e-mails I send and receive at work don't ultimately end up in a grand archive - in fact, the warning that precedes every workday letting me know that anything created or submitted by this computer is their property (good thing none of this gets published :-) disabused me of the notion that I could delete an e-mail a long time ago.
But it's the sales line of this product that spooked me.
The Barracuda Message Archiver provides everything an organization needs to comply with government regulations in an easy to install and administer plug-and-play hardware solution.
After reading Spencer Ackerman's short piece today entitled "No More Voices Behind My Back" a few things came to mind that I would like to discuss. Emails and phone calls with people in Middle Eastern or Southern Asian nations could cause the government to secretly and negatively focus attention on innocent parties. Ackerman writes, makes and receives such emails and phone calls because of his work in journalism. The scrutiny of his communications would undoubtedly take place at a higher level, and from more directions, than the scrutiny of domestic communications. Having said that, and keeping in mind that I still consider all such spying illegal under the Constitution of the United States, political and rights activists here in the United States have plenty of reasons to worry about Bush's Big Brother policies.
Naomi Klein, duly lauded for The Shock Doctrine, has an article in Rolling Stone about China, the Olympics, and the new police state. It's fairly long, so I'm going to excerpt a paragraph or two and strongly encourage you to read the whole thing.
It looks like Americans' 4th Amendment rights stop at the border. The Washington Post's Ellen Nakashima has a report today that a wide range of electronic devices may be seized by customs and immigration, searched, kept indefinitely, and shared with other government agencies.
By Michael German, former FBI Special Agent and ACLU Policy Counsel
Since its inception 100 years ago this week, FBI has been assigned with an increasingly difficult task: protecting the public welfare in a free and democratic society.
Throughout its history, the FBI has achieved moments of glory and succumbed to periods of shame. At its best it has achieved some praiseworthy accomplishments – the enforcement of civil rights, significant disruption of organized crime, and the arrest of violent criminals. But at its worst, it has resembled a force of "political police" targeting those who seek change, whether in the Palmer Raids, the Red Scares, or in the widespread abuses of COINTELPRO and surveillance of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr and other nonviolent activists.
But wait, I said I was going to post reviews of movies relevant to what's going on in our country vis-a-vis politics, etc.
Well, one of the interesting things about being a film critic is seeing how filmmakers contextualize our post 9/11 politics, neuroses, and paranoias into popular entertainment.
The Dark knight is just the latest to show those influences.
WaPO reports that Maryland police infiltrated and spied upon peace and death penalty abolition groups in 2005. The information the cops gathered was apparently sent to other law enforcement agencies. No crimes were alleged to have been committed by the activists.
That crushing sound you hear is the crumbling of the First Amendment.
Sean Tevis was sick and tired of his state legislature representative in Kansas, an anti-evolution, anti-abortion, anti-gay, pro-surveillance nutjob named Arlen Siegfreid (tell me THAT name doesn't sound evil). So Sean put his name where his mouth was and decided to run against the guy. And he needs your help.
That the advice often given in writing workshop: Write what you are afraid of. It is good advice because it allows you to get past your own fears and figure out what your truth is. It's hard to do, too. Follow me below the fold for a reflection on how to discuss what scares us collectively.
We must not let ourselves be ruled by our emotions alone. FISA did more than sting. It surged, like a poison, to the very heart our American identity. Now we have a clear choice. We can elect a man who, for the most part, is on the side of the Just, a man who is, after all, just a man. A man who makes mistakes. Or we can elect a man like my father, a man who puts self interest ahead of everything else. Everything.
Many words have been proffered regarding the FISA bill this week, and I was actually preparing an analysis of the events when, to my surprise, I received an email that made me alter my schedule completely.
I want to apologize in advance to Danny Medress, over at Democracy for America, for whom I was preparing the analysis; and all I can tell you, Danny, is that this was of such import that the schedule had to be slipped.
That said, presented here in its entirety is the memo I received ...and having read it through, I have to say I feel much safer.
It seems we are at a magic show, and no one is watching the unseen hand. In the case of FISA, the details we know very little to nothing about should be the focus. We know almost nothing about the details of modern spying. And, apparently, neither does Congress.
1.) The FISA Amendments Act allows the USG to capture ALL communications.
2.) That's pretty much all us dummies get to know.
You can leave everything else to the unseen hand, to do the magic, and trust that we have not fallen down the rabbit hole into an up is down political world. OR, perhaps, we should be asking more about the unseen hand and what it is actually doing. Like,
"Where does it all go after the data stream is copied?"
On Openleft.com, Jon Pincus posts a response to Barack Obama's campaign, calling for Obama to Get FISA Right.
Dear Senator Obama,
Thank you for taking the time to respond to us with your post "My Position On FISA" dated July 3rd, 2008. In your response, you pledged to "listen to [our] concerns, take them seriously, and seek to earn [our] ongoing support," and in that spirit, we would like to continue this conversation. We ask that you help transfer our passion and political activism into getting the FISA bill right -- now.
The FBI has an entire army of people whose sole job is to do surveillance. Whether they are tracking a terrorist suspect or mobster or potential spy, the secret isn't about being a master of disguise. Instead, it is all about blending in.
Mobster --> ?? Cheney/Bush? Biggest mob operation in US history. Surely not them. They are immune. Above the law. Ask US congress, to be sure. (no need to capitalize congress any more)
In Thursday's widely ignored framing piece ("Pot & FISA: Linked, but Not How You Think...") about the potentially strange relationship between the campaign for marijuana legalization and the long term implications of the 2008 FISA bill on civil liberties, I speculated that future technologies would magnify the FISA problems of today, many fold.
The article drew the analogy between ways in which the original 1978 FISA failed to anticipate the contemporary digital environment, 30 years later, and imagined that in the digital environment of 2038, another 30 years hence, the same will inevitably occur.
I was so busy writing that diary that I failed to browse my usual geekishly obscure wire services that day. Pity, too, because one item highlighted the problem better than I could have imagined. Check out this gem from the NewScientist.com news service. (more...)
The 2008 FISA bill which will pass the Senate on Tuesday significantly raises the stakes on the Marijuana legalization front, but not for the reasons that might come to mind. Its not about how warrantless surveillance might help them catch drug smugglers, dealers, or users; if only the factors which join the FISA and Pot issues were that mundane.
Actually, it IS all about "how you think" and "what comes to mind" - quite literally. Its about your right to control your own consciousness, and to the privacy of your thoughts. Intercepting your phone calls, emails, and text/instant messaging may be all the rage at the NSA today, but just wait a few years. The next wave of personal electronics will be a lot more "personal" than your iPod, PDA, GPS, or Cellphone is right now.
Regardless of whether or not you personally enjoy the use of entheogens, whether you are Progressive or Libertarian in your politics, the First Amendment implications of the Marijuana debate will directly impact the Fourth Amendment future of all Americans. (more...)
