How the Surveillance State Protects the Interests Of the Ultra-Rich

[marmar]

AlterNet / By Sarah Jaffe

How the Surveillance State Protects the Interests Of the Ultra-Rich
As a global protest movement rises and spreads within the US, expect surveillance tactics honed in the "war on terror" to be used in the defense of wealth.

August 29, 2011 |


In the aftermath of the riots that rocked London this summer, the Conservative prime minister's first response was to call for a crackdown on social networking.

Despite data collected by the Guardian showing a strong correlation between poverty and rioting, the government denied that its brutal austerity policies contributed to the desperation and rage of its young people. A researcher found that the majority of rioters who have appeared in court come from poor neighborhoods, 41 percent of them from the poorest in the country—and 66 percent from neighborhoods that have gotten poorer between 2007 and 2010.

Of course, we don't have widespread rioting or in the US yet. But even at a relatively calm, peaceful protest in San Francisco, Bay Area Rapid Transit shut down cell phone towers in the subway system in order to stymie a mass action planned after another shooting by a BART police officer. (It was the police killing of a young man that kicked off London's riots as well.)

The techniques that were roundly decried by Western leaders when used by Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak against his people's peaceful revolution are suddenly embraced when it comes to unrest at home. Not only that, but techniques honed in the “war on terror” are now being turned on anti-austerity protesters, clamping down on discontent that was created in the first place by policies of the state. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/story/152173/how_the_surveillance_state_protects_the_interests_of_the_ultra-rich/

[bemildred]

1. Surveillance is always about control.

There is no need to watch something unless you are concerned about what it might do, and you want to be ready to intervene. So more surveillance == more concern about control. That is, it's a sign of insecurity. QED.

[blkmusclmachine]

2. Cameras, cameras everywhere:

Who's watching whom???

[w0nderer]

3. a class of working class is being separated

to be the enforcing and watching class

"keep the enemy divided and fighting each other" and they won't bother with the ultra rich

heck some cameras are placed so wrong it's silly

3 cameras with no protective overlap??
kill any one camera and the other 2 can't tell who did it?
offends my sense of tech aesthetics (spelling?)

[bemildred]

4. I would think the cameras would make excellent targets for vandals.

I'll be surprised if they pay for themselves in the long haul.

[w0nderer]

5. naaah ya think they make excellent targets?

where i grew up they put up wireless cameras around the school to prevent graffiti
what happened of course was the graffiti painters put on masks, stole the cameras
hooked up with the tech kids, sold the cameras, bought more paint

[saras]

6. This is what laser pointers were invented for...

A laser pointer will take out a camera, temporarily or permanently, from a distance, or from outside the width of field.

[w0nderer]

8. this was before laser pointers were in circulation

bb guns were in circulation though, so were paintball guns

[Uncle Joe]

7. This is an excellent article.

Social networking sites are considered wonderful boons to commerce as long as they're collecting user data to be turned over to advertisers; but when Twitter or Facebook are used to coordinate protests or send warnings about police to fellow activists, they're suddenly dangers to civilization that must be stopped. And a young activist whose only crime was downloading journal articles from behind JSTOR's paywall to make them available to all faces 35 years in prison and up to $1 million in fines.

While corporations and banks collect data on all of us, they strongly oppose revealing any of their information to the public, even when they're quite happy to spend the public's money. As Bloomberg pointed out in a piece titled “Wall Street Aristocracy Got $1.2 Trillion in Fed's Secret Loans,” information is just now coming to light about how much money was lent to Bank of America and Citigroup by the Federal Reserve back in 2008.

Thanks for the thread, marmar.

[truedelphi]

9. That one sentence tell us everything we need to know about our

Current system of government:

And a young activist whose only crime was downloading journal articles from behind JSTOR's paywall to make them available to all faces 35 years in prison and up to $1 million in fines.

And it should be pointed out that JSTOR had forgiven the guy.

Bankers looting the system from within face no penalties or charges - in fact, one of their own heads up Treasury!