THE AGE OF SURVEILLANCE---There is no going back.

[kpete]

THE AGE OF SURVEILLANCE
By David Shribman

..........................

............ the capacity to link information and to share it widely also was the capacity to learn what information individuals possess, what links individuals have, what communications individuals conduct. It is the capacity, in the language of a long-ago age, to look at people's library cards, to ransack their garbage and to make guilt-by-association a federal crime. It is the capacity to give companies, governments and individual citizens the tools that J. Edgar Hoover sought -- and the megaphone that Joseph R. McCarthy possessed.

There is no going back, of course. We cannot un-invent the computer, nor the cellphone, nor the capacious abilities we have to communicate -- and to be surveilled. But we can be aware that we are living in a perilous age where our tools are also our minders and, sad to say, where our leaders see threats to our civil liberties in the narrowest possible way, when they should instead see those threats in our laptops, thumb drives and iPhones.

Linger long enough at the Ford Museum in Grand Rapids and a tape of an entirely different sort will cycle through, and if you listen carefully you will hear the president say:

"There will be no illegal tappings, eavesdropping, buggings or break-ins by my administration."

Who dared during his term in the 1970s to think that President Ford might someday be a figure of nostalgia, and wisdom?


Much more:
http://news.yahoo.com/age-surveillance-050319152.html;_ylt=AtK4GMO0kEuDrMcEQz9GkLpTaQ8F;_ylu=X3oDMTVxOHVyMWNpBGNjb2RlA2dtcHRvcDEwMDBwb29sd2lraXVwcmVzdARtaXQDQXJ0aWNsZSBNaXhlZCBMaXN0IE5ld3MgZm9yIFlvdSB3aXRoIE1vcmUgTGluawRwa2cDZWMxZWNlYzAtYzRkNS0zMzVlLTkzZmYtMjY3YTYxZGNmYTVmBHBvcwMyBHNlYwNuZXdzX2Zvcl95b3UEdmVyAzEwNmUwZTgzLWU2NGItMTFlMi1iZDU3LTI1M2ViYzgyNjViMA--;_ylg=X3oDMTBuZ2U5YTJhBGxhbmcDZW4tVVMEdGVzdANRRV9UZXN0;_ylv=3

[The Straight Story]

1. Let's have state run intelligence agencies that track the fed emails/calls/etc to keep it fair then

Yeah, for some reason I think they would not be happy when their data is seen by others. Even if they say they trust states to hire the right people to examine it all.