If there are any of you left that STILL can't see that the object here is nothing more than control

[sibelian]

then I really don't know what to say to you.

They aren't establishing data networks about you for anything other than GETTING THE DATA. It's nothing to do with terrorists. they are doing it because it provides them with a generalised advantage OVER YOU.

They want to mould the populace into something more docile and easily manipulated. That's it. Why?

It makes life easier for them.

There's nothing particularly sinister about it from their point of view. They have no particular intention to cause any disturbance for YOU. They wan't to make their own lives simpler, that's all.

The question isn't whether or not your are "safe" or "unsafe", that's a fricken chimera. The likelihood of any particular person being killed violently by a nasty creepy "terrorist" or a nasty creepy "criminal" or, (GASP!) a nasty creepy GOVERNMENT SPONSORED GOON in ANY of the Western democracies has remained ROUGHLY THE SAME through the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st.

The question is whether you are in a position that satisfies YOU or a position that satisfies SOMEONE ELSE.

It doesn't MATTER whether or not some other person has some "reasonable cause" to do things with your personal information - it ISN'T THEIRS. It's YOUR PROPERTY.

[graham4anything]

1. I used to go to nice concerts where I worked...til the WTC came down. Now, no more concerts

Saw Davy Jones perform there for free.
Now of course, no more Davy Jones either (sigh).

[NYC_SKP]

2. Yes, of course, this is true. It's genius, this new capacity to gather data of all sorts.

I remember being shocked 20 years ago when applying for life insurance that there was a medical information database, and they wanted me to sign off on allowing my data to be shared.

These days there's no escaping it. You share or you'll get no care.

Same with cellular agreements and ISP terms, just surrender unless you want to live without it all.

And it wasn't always this way, not by a long shot.

Do you remember before there was Google, searches were fast and direct? Then came Google, which was fast, then came Google with embedded Google analytics and it's all slowed down now because they're gathering data.

For some, it's convenient that Amazon, for example, knows your tastes and interests, but when you do a single search for Nikes on Monday and then on Friday all these sidebars flash Nike ads at you, it's a little unsettling.

LOL at non-star DUers who complained about purple dildo ads popping up on the home page.

The ads that pop up are based on your browser history.

[Cooley Hurd]

3. ...and all of it put into place by corporatists who only want your money.

When does one finally say ENOUGH?

[NYC_SKP]

4. It's like a virus, like herpes, once you have it you have it forever.

Unless and until the body politic and corporate dies and is replaced with something else, nothing will cure it.

[sibelian]

11. Well, I don't know about that.

The protections against this kind of snooping WERE in place once upon a time, through being PUT in place. They can be put back. The political will is what's needed.

[Shankapotomus]

5. And when their term in office ends

how does that make life easier for them? For their children and family?

Not condoning violating privacy but it seems not even "they" are immune to this. So, as the President alluded, how is it an advantage to anyone? it leaves no one immune. It's scope literally envelops everyone. So I say: no conspiracy.

I just find the "Us against Them" meme lacking in this case.

[sibelian]

8. It's not a conscious process...

In a sense it's an "evolutionary" process.

While they are in the driving seat they need to make their lives easier, so... little by little... incrementally... they do. That's all.

You don't need Big Brother to create a surveillance state, you don't need Hitler to create fascism. These things grow by themselves, incrementally. That's why you have to stand your ground in the little battles as much as the big ones.

[Decoy of Fenris]

6. On control (Power):

“Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from the oligarchies of the past in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just around the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now you begin to understand me.”

[blkmusclmachine]

7. We're all Germans now.

[randome]

9. Point to one person who has been harmed by this.

And this is the 21st century, already.

[hr]
[font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font]
[hr]

[sibelian]

10. No. I'm not going to.

I don't care whether or not anyone's been harmed. As you would have been well aware, dearest randome, whom I ordinarily adore, if you had read I what had posted properly!

It's of no consequence whether or not anyone has been harmed.

"GIMME YER SHIRT!"

"Gulp! OK sir!"

"SWEET!"

"Hey! Don't take his shirt, you big old meanie!"

"Why not? Who has been HARMED?"

See?

[randome]

13. I might miss my shirt but I don't miss my metadata because it's just copied somewhere.

And it's stuff I have no use for. That doesn't mean I'm going to cheerlead the government into collecting data whenever it wants but I don't really care about my phone metadata.

This comes close to crossing a line, I'll admit, but I don't think it's quite there.

And at the risk of sounding sappy, I enjoy your posts, too!

[hr]
[font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font]
[hr]

[HiPointDem]

12. kr

[Skidmore]

14. So are you ready to dump all your electronic doodads?

Seiriously. You are still connected to the electronic universe otherwise we wouldn't be witnessing your rant.

Technology is a two-edged sword. It can cut both ways. Such a brave new world that has been created. There are a quite a number of technologies throughout history which have had changed civilization, from the invention of the wheel on down to splitting the atom to the brave new frontier that microelectronics offers. It's too late to do away with the technology. What is left is defining how it is permitted to be used.

Whoever "they" may be, the technology of the era always creates the dynamics for the possibility of someone to control.

[sibelian]

15. My doodads are carefully used.

and in any case, the the data-mining isn't really the fault of the doodads, it's the fault of the people doing the mining.


"Whoever "they" may be, the technology of the era always creates the dynamics for the possibility of someone to control."

Yes, that's true. And it's the scale and reach of such technology that determines the likely characteristics of those seekign to sit in the driving seat. There are many political forces at work in the world and some of the are opportunistic rather than principle-driven.