On Internet Searches: Big Brother is Watching You

George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984 looks increasingly prescient as evidenced by the slippery slope transformation of the US into a police state.

From Simon Black of the Sovereign Man:

In any discussion about privacy, there’s invariably someone who says, “Well, if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.”

What a bunch of baloney. This may be one of the most ignorant statements ever uttered yet it’s held by a wide majority of people who still trust their governments.

Yesterday the Guardian newspaper published yet another example of why this thinking is completely fallacious.

On Wednesday of this week, Michele Catalano and her husband, both residents of Long Island, were greeted by a knock at the door by a counter-terrorism task force.

Apparently their Google searches had aroused intense suspicion. She was looking for pressure cookers online. Her husband was searching for backpacks.

Ordinarily those two items would seem completely harmless. But in such an absurd, security-conscious world where finger-nail clippers are considered deadly weapons, a pressure cooker and a backpack are viewed as vital tools in a terrorist’s toolkit… practically WMDs.

And so, Big Brother’s crew of six government agents arrived to the family’s home with weapons in holster, and their vehicles tactically positioned to block any exit from the premises.

The husband was questioned, and the agents searched the house looking for any other terrorist clues.

And in their conversation, the agents proclaimed that they do this “about 100 times a week.”

Apparently this is what passes as a free society these days, where even the most harmless online interactions end up being scrutinized by armed agents.

And thanks to a never-ending and expanding apparatus of online surveillance, governments have the means to monitor… almost everyone.

Of course, they want us to think that we have nothing to fear as long as we have nothing to hide. But a rational, thinking person has got to see the writing on the wall at this point and realize how out of control the police state has become.

Remember, there are a number of ways to safeguard your web browsing, search experience, email, and phone calls. And we’ve put a lot of great resources together for you in this free guide, something that we call ‘How to give the NSA the finger.’

In the 1984 novel, when asked by a skeptical Outer Party member (Winston Smith) to a Inner Party official (O'Brien) on how Power is used to control others, the latter's reply: (bold mine)  (quote from Thirdworldtraveler.com)

By making him suffer. Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? Power is in inflicting pain and humiliation. Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing. Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating? It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined. A world of fear and treachery and torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but more merciless as it refines itself. Progress in our world will be progress toward more pain. The old civilizations claimed that they were founded on love and justice. Ours is founded upon hatred. In our world there will be no emotions except fear, rage, triumph, and self-abasement. Everything else we shall destroy- everything. Already we are breaking down the habits of thought which have survived from before the Revolution. We have cut the links between child and parent, and between man and man, and between man and woman. No one dares trust a wife or a child or a friend any longer. But in the future there will be no wives and no friends. Children will be taken from their mothers at birth, as one takes eggs from a hen. The sex instinct will be eradicated. Procreation will be an annual formality like the renewal of a ration card. We shall abolish the orgasm. Our neurologists are at work upon it now. There will be no loyalty, except loyalty toward the Party. There will be no love, except the love of Big Brother. There will be no laughter, except the laugh of triumph over a defeated enemy. There will be no art, no literature, no science. When we are omnipotent we shall have no more need of science. There will be no distinction between beauty and ugliness. There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always-do not forget this, Winston-always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face-forever." 

Big Brother is Watching You

Edward Snowden statement: "It was the right thing to do and I have no regrets"

In Moscow, whisteblower Edward Snowden lashes back at the US government.

From the Guardian (hat tip lewrockwell.com)

Full transcript of the statement made by Edward Snowden, in which he accepts all offers of asylum he has been given

Statement by Edward Snowden to human rights groups at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport, posted by WikiLeaks:

Friday July 12, 15:00 UTC

Hello. My name is Ed Snowden. A little over one month ago, I had family, a home in paradise, and I lived in great comfort. I also had the capability without any warrant to search for, seize, and read your communications. Anyone's communications at any time. That is the power to change people's fates.

It is also a serious violation of the law. The 4th and 5th Amendments to the Constitution of my country, Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and numerous statutes and treaties forbid such systems of massive, pervasive surveillance. While the US Constitution marks these programs as illegal, my government argues that secret court rulings, which the world is not permitted to see, somehow legitimize an illegal affair. These rulings simply corrupt the most basic notion of justice – that it must be seen to be done. The immoral cannot be made moral through the use of secret law.

I believe in the principle declared at Nuremberg in 1945: "Individuals have international duties which transcend the national obligations of obedience. Therefore individual citizens have the duty to violate domestic laws to prevent crimes against peace and humanity from occurring."

Accordingly, I did what I believed right and began a campaign to correct this wrongdoing. I did not seek to enrich myself. I did not seek to sell US secrets. I did not partner with any foreign government to guarantee my safety. Instead, I took what I knew to the public, so what affects all of us can be discussed by all of us in the light of day, and I asked the world for justice.

That moral decision to tell the public about spying that affects all of us has been costly, but it was the right thing to do and I have no regrets.

Since that time, the government and intelligence services of the United States of America have attempted to make an example of me, a warning to all others who might speak out as I have. I have been made stateless and hounded for my act of political expression. The United States Government has placed me on no-fly lists. It demanded Hong Kong return me outside of the framework of its laws, in direct violation of the principle of non-refoulement – the Law of Nations. It has threatened with sanctions countries who would stand up for my human rights and the UN asylum system. It has even taken the unprecedented step of ordering military allies to ground a Latin American president's plane in search for a political refugee. These dangerous escalations represent a threat not just to the dignity of Latin America, but to the basic rights shared by every person, every nation, to live free from persecution, and to seek and enjoy asylum.

Yet even in the face of this historically disproportionate aggression, countries around the world have offered support and asylum. These nations, including Russia, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Ecuador have my gratitude and respect for being the first to stand against human rights violations carried out by the powerful rather than the powerless. By refusing to compromise their principles in the face of intimidation, they have earned the respect of the world. It is my intention to travel to each of these countries to extend my personal thanks to their people and leaders.

I announce today my formal acceptance of all offers of support or asylum I have been extended and all others that may be offered in the future. With, for example, the grant of asylum provided by Venezuela's President Maduro, my asylee status is now formal, and no state has a basis by which to limit or interfere with my right to enjoy that asylum. As we have seen, however, some governments in Western European and North American states have demonstrated a willingness to act outside the law, and this behavior persists today. This unlawful threat makes it impossible for me to travel to Latin America and enjoy the asylum granted there in accordance with our shared rights.

This willingness by powerful states to act extra-legally represents a threat to all of us, and must not be allowed to succeed. Accordingly, I ask for your assistance in requesting guarantees of safe passage from the relevant nations in securing my travel to Latin America, as well as requesting asylum in Russia until such time as these states accede to law and my legal travel is permitted. I will be submitting my request to Russia today, and hope it will be accepted favorably.

If you have any questions, I will answer what I can.

Thank you.

Video: In 1984 The Prescient Ron Paul Warned of US Government Computer Surveillance

Something special with 1984? 1984 was the title of George Orwell's classic book about big brother dystopia.

In 1984, a video of Ron Paul's speech at the US house of representatives admonished of the use of computer or electronic surveillance by US government to attack on civil liberties. 

The latest whistleblowing of former insider Edward Snowden on the massive NSA spying serves as a validation of Ron Paul (hat tip Zero Hedge)

NSA Spying sends George Orwell’s 1984 Books Sales Soaring; The Age of the Leakers

Whistleblower Edward Snowden’s expose of the NSA’s spying on Americans has sent sales of George Orwell’s 1984 soaring.

From the Bloomberg:

Sales of George Orwell’s novel “1984,” featuring a futuristic totalitarian state, jumped on Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN)’s website following reports of a classified program that lets the U.S. government collect personal data.

One edition of the book, which was originally published in 1949, moved to the No. 5 spot on Amazon’s Movers & Shakers list, which tracks dramatic increases in sales volume over a 24-hour period. That makes it the 125th-best-selling book on the site, an increase from its previous rank of 7,397.

The sales gains come after the revelation of a top-secret electronic-surveillance program that allows the National Security Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to access data from audio and video chats, photographs, e-mails, documents and connection logs from the biggest U.S. Internet companies. The Washington Post and the U.K.-based Guardian reported the program’s existence last week.

Orwell’s novel portrays a dystopian society where individuals are monitored through ubiquitous television screens and overseen by a leader called Big Brother.

(mask of British renegade Guy Fawkes)

I am reminded of the movie  V-for Vendetta  which looks apropos on the theme of neutralizing of the tyranny of Big Brother.

Nonetheless, the Snowden-NSA episode exhibits the shifting of the balance of power of media and whistle blowers which has been undergirded by the information age.

Austrian economist Gary North calls this the age of leakers:

Edward Snowden is now the talk of the town — and the world. His story on the NSA’s PRISM spying system has given exposure to a story that NSA expert James Bamford had exposed in 2008, but which no one in the mainstream media bothered to promote.

Snowden went to the Washington Post first, but when the Post waffled, he dropped them and went to Glenn Greenwald, a pro-civil rights lawyer who lives in Brazil and writes for The Guardian, a British newspaper/website. Greenwald wrote up the story as Snowden gave it to him, thereby scooping the world. He gets 100% credit, as does The Guardian. The Washington Post gets also-ran status.

These days, a leaker with a story can get his story out his way. There is always a journalist somewhere who will run it. If it’s in a major publication, which The Guardian is, the story will get coverage.

A leaker no longer has to do it anyone else’s way. He can do it his way.

This has put governments on the defensive. Because the Web acknowledges no borders, a story gets picked up and sent around irrespective of where it was published. The Guardian does not operate in the USA. It is not in the shadow of the U.S. government. It owes the U.S. government nothing. It is not dependent in any way on the U.S. government. So, the Administration’s spin-meisters have no leverage over The Guardian.

This is the age of the leakers. They can get their stories out to the public by doing an end run around their nation’s fearful mainstream media.

There are no more national gatekeepers. If a newspaper reporter wants a scoop, he will have to do it the leaker’s way — otherwise, he will be an also-ran.

The above only exhibits of the erosion of mainstream media’s centralized control over information and likewise political power.

The age of the leakers include Wikileaks and the Anonymous and myriad forms of social media.

Ron Paul on Government Spying: Should We Be Shocked?

Given the furor over the NSA spying exposé by whistleblower Edward Snowden, former US congressman Ron Paul says that spying is supposed to be expected from an increasingly desperate government. 

From the great Ron Paul (Ron Paul Institute)

Last week we saw dramatic new evidence of illegal government surveillance of our telephone calls, and of the National Security Agency’s deep penetration into American companies such as Facebook and Microsoft to spy on us. The media seemed shocked.

Many of us are not so surprised.

Some of us were arguing back in 2001 with the introduction of the so-called PATRIOT Act that it would pave the way for massive US government surveillance—not targeting terrorists but rather aimed against American citizens. We were told we must accept this temporary measure to provide government the tools to catch those responsible for 9/11. That was nearly twelve years and at least four wars ago.

We should know by now that when it comes to government power-grabs, we never go back to the status quo even when the “crisis” has passed. That part of our freedom and civil liberties once lost is never regained. How many times did the PATRIOT Act need renewed? How many times did FISA authority need expanded? Why did we have to pass a law to grant immunity to companies who hand over our personal information to the government?

It was all a build-up of the government’s capacity to monitor us.

The reaction of some in Congress and the Administration to last week’s leak was predictable. Knee-jerk defenders of the police state such as Senator Lindsey Graham declared that he was “glad” the government was collecting Verizon phone records—including his own—because the government needs to know what the enemy is up to. Those who take an oath to defend the Constitution from its enemies both foreign and domestic should worry about such statements.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers tells us of the tremendous benefits of this Big Brother-like program. He promises us that domestic terrorism plots were thwarted, but he cannot tell us about them because they are classified. I am a bit skeptical, however. In April, the New York Times reported that most of these domestic plots were actually elaborate sting operations developed and pushed by the FBI. According to the Times report, “of the 22 most frightening plans for attacks since 9/11 on American soil, 14 were developed in sting operations.”

Even if Chairman Rogers is right, though, and the program caught someone up to no good, we have to ask ourselves whether even such a result justifies trashing the Constitution. Here is what I said on the floor of the House when the PATRIOT Act was up for renewal back in 2011:

“If you want to be perfectly safe from child abuse and wife beating, the government could put a camera in every one of our houses and our bedrooms, and maybe there would be somebody made safer this way, but what would you be giving up? Perfect safety is not the purpose of government. What we want from government is to enforce the law to protect our liberties.”

What most undermines the claims of the Administration and its defenders about this surveillance program is the process itself. First the government listens in on all of our telephone calls without a warrant and then if it finds something it goes to a FISA court and get an illegal approval for what it has already done! This turns the rule of law and due process on its head.

The government does not need to know more about what we are doing. We need to know more about what the government is doing. We need to turn the cameras on the police and on the government, not the other way around. We should be thankful for writers like Glenn Greenwald, who broke last week’s story, for taking risks to let us know what the government is doing. There are calls for the persecution of Greenwald and the other whistle-blowers and reporters. They should be defended, as their work defends our freedom.

Shades of George Orwell’s 1984?

Video: Ron Paul: NSA Seizing Phone Records Symptom of Failure of The State

Former Congressman Ron Paul interviewed by Fox's Neil Cavuto on the intensifying spying by the US government on her constituencies.

Austrian economist Gary North on the public's backlash from the fast expanding Orwellian Big Brother state (hat tip Bob Wenzel) (bold original)

This will in no way reverse the process. The cost of monitoring everyone continues to fall. Economics teaches that when the price of anything falls, more is demanded.

Only one thing can reverse this: budget cuts for the offending agencies. Congress never imposes budget cuts, especially on the NSA (No Such Agency).

Most voters know that this invasion of their privacy is illegitimate. They also know that Congress will do nothing about it. It will hold hearings — maybe even closed-door hearings. But nothing will change.

Nevertheless, headlines like these are always positive. They help lower the public’s assessment of the federal government’s legitimacy. Ultimately, civil government is about power, but legitimacy increases voluntary compliance by the public. Every time the government loses a little legitimacy, it’s positive.

The Myth of the Surveillance Cameras

Mainstream media continues to inculcate upon the public of the supposed public safety expediencies from surveillance cameras.

Steve Chapman at the Reason.org puts into perspective its efficacies.

One cherry picking of instances doesn’t imply effectiveness

There is no doubt that the cameras were a big help this time. But that doesn't mean they are generally a good idea -- much less a crucial tool in fighting terrorism and crime.

Surveillance cameras were originally touted as a strong deterrent, scaring away bad guys fearful of being caught on tape. But these devices have a disappointing record in action. In some places, they noticeably reduce crime. In others, they have the same effect as a potted plant.

In the Boston bombings, the cameras utterly failed in their preventive function. Not only did the bombings occur; they occurred in perhaps the most heavily photographed spot in America that day. Besides the permanent video cameras in operation, hundreds of spectators with cellphones were eagerly capturing the scene.

I’d say that mainstream media has been engaged in deceitful framing or applying selective influence or manipulation of the public through survivorship bias or through selective reporting. In other words, the positive effects from the use of surveillance cameras are being broadcasted, but its negative effects have not been shown. 

The implied goal seems designed to reduce people’s resistance from being monitored.

Security expert Bruce Schneier also shares this view stating that “Pervasive security cameras don't substantially reduce crime”

Next, since cameras are economic goods, they are subject to diminishing returns.

Again Mr. Chapman

Putting video gear in areas that are obvious potential terrorist targets is one thing. Putting them on every corner of an entire city is another. Some places are enviably safe without surveillance, which means any cameras installed there should be color-coordinated, since they will be primarily decorative.

They will fall victim to the law of diminishing returns. If you put out a couple of mousetraps, you may catch some mice. If you put out dozens, you may not catch many more. The second 10,000 cameras won't add nearly as much crime-fighting value as the first 10,000 -- or possibly even the first 1,000.

Of course, once aware, fugitives are likely to move activities away from where these cameras are located, or that they may use various forms of concealment. 

In short, surveillance cameras works from an element of surprise. Take the surprise away, the camera losses its effectiveness. Again human action.

The next is opportunity costs or tradeoff from use of scarce resources.

One drawback is that taxpayers are not composed of cash. Buying a camera costs money; so does maintaining it and monitoring the images it generates. A dollar spent on surveillance video is a dollar that can't be spent on foot patrols, police training, DNA tests or streetlights.

Then there is the issue of the invasion of privacy.

Another is that cameras contribute greatly to the steady erosion of personal privacy. Americans are generally oblivious to this phenomenon because they are oblivious to the multitude of unblinking eyes watching them in the course of a day. If each of us had a little alarm that went off every time we came into camera range, we might be less agreeable to the monitoring.

This is not really just an American thing, but also applies elsewhere as it does the Philippines.

 

Finally promoting surveillance cameras as furtive ploys to establish the Orwellian “big brother’ state that destroys civil liberties.

Cameras may also soften us up for even deeper intrusions. If video feeds are so great, why not add audio? If you can stand being watched whenever you leave home, surely you won't mind if every word is heard as well. And how about a tiny drone hovering over your front door, round the clock -- for the rest of your life?

Enthusiasts for electronic surveillance may say: If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear. But there's a reason people don't live in glass houses.

There is really nothing wrong with the private sector’s use of surveillance cameras, what is wrong is having to politicize them and use these as tools to advance despotism in the name of public safety.

Big Brother now a Reality in the US

The Philippines has a popular reality TV program, called the Pinoy Big Brother (PBB) which is a local version of a foreign reality show.

The basic concept of which is that a select number of participants, who are called “housemates”, live in a camera ubiquitous house and strictly according to the "entertaining" rules of ‘Big Brother’. These housemates competes to survive through elimination rounds, as nominated by Big Brother, where audiences determine the victor, who receives material prizes. Of course, the other implied goal for these participants is to be "discovered" as celebrities.

PBB, according to Wikipedia.org, follows the same premise as its many foreign counterparts around the world: twelve Philippine residents are forced to live with each other inside a house for about 3 months or at least 100 days. (italics mine)

So the sublime message of these shows has been one of generating social acceptability for people to forcibly live under the dictates of a “big brother”, a.k.a despot or a tyrant.

Once people are seduced to the idea of condescension and submission, then the implementation of social policies under a 'compassionate' “big brother” regime becomes easier.

In the US, the city of San Francisco has reportedly started using cameras to supposedly prevent crimes

From the New American,

The United States continues its slow morphing into Big Brotherdom, this time through the use of cameras that predict crimes before they take place based on “suspicious” behavior. The cameras will then summon law enforcement to help pre-empt the crime from taking place.

The Daily Mail (Britain) reports, “Using a range of in-built parameters of what is ‘normal’ the cameras then send a text message to a human guard to issue an alert-or call them.” They can track up to 150 people at a time and will build up a “memory” of suspicious behavior to begin determining what is inappropriate.

BRS Labs, the company behind the camera, indicates that the cameras “have the capability to learn from what they observe.”

BRS Labs President John Frazzini said that the technology involves 11 patents that deal with the camera’s ability to learn.

They are also equipped with the technology to adjust for poor light or shaky imagery, and have a series of “trip wires” that become activated and then alert a human supervisor. The footage is then sent over the Internet to employees with a text message summarizing the details.

“The video surveillance technology we have invented is distinctly and materially different from the simple recognition capabilities found in video analytics solutions currently available from a number of vendors in the physical security market,” Frazzini said in astatement. “Generally speaking, video analytics software receives video data from cameras, and issues alerts based on very specific and narrowly defined human programmed rules that have failed to provide operational value in the video surveillance market. In strong contrast to those limited and deteriorating solutions, the patented technology of BRS Labs does not require any human pre-programmed rules, thereby providing an inherently scalable enterprise class software platform to the video surveillance market.”

The cameras have already been installed in prime tourist attractions, government buildings and military bases, and are now being prepared to be installed throughout the transportation system in San Francisco, including buses, trams, and subways.

According to the company, the cameras will eventually be placed in 12 San Francisco stations, 22 cameras per station, totaling nearly 300 cameras in all.

The San Francisco cameras include a special feature that turns the footage into code before they are analyzed.

The reality is that such measures are designed not really to prevent crimes or terrorism, where policies have always been marketed under the cover of some pretentious public good, but about the slippery slope towards the establishment Big government, if not totalitarianism, for the benefit of the political class and their cronies. Shades of George Orwell's dystopian society of 1984.