No Place To Hide

[indigobusiness]

When you go to work, stop at the store, fly in a plane, or surf the web, you are being watched. They know where you live, the value of your home, the names of your friends and family, in some cases even what you read. Where the data revolution meets the needs of national security, there is no place to hide.

http://www.noplacetohide.net/

[dweller]

1. oy!

link to the book, not the article, locks my firewalls with High rating hits.

ironic isn't it.
dp

edit: could just be my end tho...and a healthy dose of paranoia.

[indigobusiness]

2. yes

source?

[dweller]

3. sorry, had to boot twice after link

and that wipes my log. Not going back there.

i'll edit my other post, since this could be my machine and not the link.

just suspicious that the book link would lock me up.
dp

[indigobusiness]

5. So sorry. Glad you pointed that out.

This is a drag deluxe. This subject really jacks me up and makes feel that the threat is real to the basic fabric of our founding principles.

Sorry you had problems.

[bemildred]

4. Why should I hide? These security voyeurs can bugger themselves.

More seriously:

1.) It is one thing to collect a big pile of data (easy) and another
thing entirely to do something interesting or useful with it (hard),
ask Google.

2.) Books like this always annoy me a bit, even though they have a
valid point. We don't need to fear these morons, we need to unelect
their asses and put some people in office with a decent respect for
the rights of a free people.

3.) The intelligence services of the US have not exactly covered
themselves in glory with their recent accomplishments. It's fairly
telling that the one group they are collecting plenty of information
on are Americans.

[indigobusiness]

6. The aspect that concerns me is the erosion of constitutional protections

of the individual. And, like I said above, the undoing of the basic fabric of our founding principles. I'm reminded of the phrase: "...all enemies, foreign and domestic".

[bemildred]

7. Well, I agree, but that is far from new.

The government has been in the habit of doing whatever it thinks
it can get away with almost since the founding of the Republic.
The problem is that our political culture is so weak they get away
with it. Until you fix that, little else can be expected to change.
That's why I like Dean and his grass roots ideas, but I think grass
roots activity on the "right" would be just as good. Imagine enraged
libertarians threatening the Repuke party bosses. That would be very
good for our Constitutional protections.

[indigobusiness]

8. We are at a hypercritical nexus in our rush into the future.

We have never before been so enabled and encumbered by the contemporary toolbox of technology. The narcolizing distractions have made for a less vigilant and alert electorate, which is all we have to safeguard us. The mindnumbing power of propaganda has elevated the likes of Limbaugh to high-priesthood. Tell me we aren't on the brink...

Have you seen those man-on-the-street-intvws by Leno? Basic questions of American history are beyond most Americans. Most Americans couldn't pass the immigration test for citizenship.

Taking liberty for granted is the surest way to lose it.

[bemildred]

10. True, but they are not all of us, nor have they ever been.

It's not that I support this sort of data collection and surveillance,
it is pernicious and unconstitutional. I am talking about what I see
as the right way to address these crimes, which is politically, as we
did in the VietNam era. Much progress was made in those times and we
benefit from that progress now. We can do it again. We are on the verge
of taking back control of the Democratic Party, and the Republicans
have grave problems of their own.

[indigobusiness]

11. The problem I see is the ground lost

due to apathy.

We seem like a Rip Van Winkle society that will soon wake up to an unrecognizable world.

[bemildred]

13. Yes, I think that's where we see things differently.

I think we are well ahead of where we were when I was a boy in the
50s and 60s in terms of civil and constitutional rights. It is true
that these swine want to reverse that, but it is also true (IMHO) that
much of this shit they are trying to pull is as easily seen as signs
of weakness and rear-guard defensive measures. That is not an argument
for complacency, but for finishing the job and throwing these assholes
in the dustbin of History for good.

But it is not that I think your concerns are not well founded, they are.
I think we disagree about the political strength of these weasels is all.

[indigobusiness]

15. Your points are well-taken.

We certainly have gained ground in some areas, but lost some, as well.

We do not possess an anywhere near the fire-in-the-belly we had in the 60s. There is nowhere near the tide of coherent commitment that those ostensibly ragged times were made of. Behind the zany psychedelia, there were mature and relevant and timely ideas being spawned. The human rights struggle had form and content. I find it frightening that we find ourselves no further along the road to solutions than we are today.

Never underestimate the power of concentrated evil. It is an organic force beyond the personification of mere weasels. It springs from a built in polarity of the human spirit.

[bemildred]

16. And yours are too. nt

[mattclearing]

9. No Need to Hide, Nothing to Fear.

They may know what we do, but they can't do anything about it without bringing a massive backlash.

I support efforts to account for government intrusion and secrecy, but the way you've posted this is kinda melodramatic.

If it were that bad, we wouldn't be here talking about it, and you wouldn't be able to link to that website.

I do think that the government's privacy needs should be directly linked to our own.

That is, if government is allowed to know what goes on behind closed doors in our homes, we should be able to know what goes on behind closed doors in the White House, Pentagon, etc.

A truly open society works both ways, wouldn't you think?

[indigobusiness]

12. But so much cruelty is done behind closed doors

and underneath the radar. The individual is easily crushed.

I've always been in favor of open govt. So much criminal, unAmerican activity is swept under the rug by bogus claims of national security.

[mattclearing]

14. Particularly by this administration.

Every administration is guilty of this kind of thing to some extent, but this one is the most shameless and the least interested in civil liberties by far.

Like defense of the 2nd Amendment allows for a full attack on the other nine original amendments.