Posts Tagged ‘news’

#Google and the #NSA Sitting in a Tree; S-P-Ying on You & Me

Posted: May 10, 2014 in Anarchy Journal Constitutional
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by @anarchyroll
5/7/2014

The last year has been full of vindication for all those paranoid schizophrenics out there.

We now know that not only has the NSA essentially been getting all the data on the internet and storing it, which is bad enough, but it came out this week that they weren’t using a back door but rather have the keys to the front of anything and everything Google. Which is basically everything that isn’t Apple.

The paranoia about what is done with our information is done online is spreading, and why wouldn’t it? It has also been found that our search engine uses and habits have changed in the wake of the NSA leaks.

I suppose I should think that unlawful spying is unlawful spying regardless. But something, and I’m not sure what exactly bothers me more than Google has been in on it the whole time. Call it naivety, and you’d probably be right or the other thing to call it is a natural reaction to massive trust violation.

This is why those agreements we have to sign before signing up for anything for free online is so long and in such small print I suppose. Fill it with loopholes so there is no legal obligation to not sell the information of every customer to a data broker or give it to Uncle Sam. What about the moral obligation? Oh, there’s that naivety again. It’s business, who has time for morals?  After all, what could be more moral than listening to one’s government?

It is sad how much Google is able to justify what they did to themselves. I suppose that there is a strong correlation with trust violation and monetary profit, not just these days, but basically since currency became the currency of the world. The amount of flagrant Big Brother going on with the NSA and telcoms physically weakens me. It makes me feel like not writing. All the more reason to write. The quality may not be on par, but if anyone learns about what is going on through my writing then it’s worth it.

Great news sources that stay on top of the NSA are: The Intercept, The Guardian, Al Jazeera, and The Verge.

 

#ClimateChange: An Epic, Disaster Movie Come to Life

Posted: May 8, 2014 in Frackishima
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frackishimalogo1ajclogo2by @anarchyroll
5/7/2014

I guess I’ll be old enough to say that I remember when the effects of climate change and global warming were futuristic threats.

But that was so 1990s and early 2000s. Climate change is here. Climate change is now. Climate change is an immediate and direct threat to the human race.

Global warming has become the paradigm with which we view the majority of the large-scale problems of the world. Why is that? Because the effects of global warming can no longer be ignored. It is touching every corner of the world in one way or another. Droughts here, hurricanes there, typhoons on this side of the planet, wildfires on the other. These natural disasters have existed for a long time, but because of climate change, all of the above are stronger and more devastating.

We are entering no turning back territory and things like fracking and the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan certainly aren’t helping anything. Nuclear power and fracking are putting climate change on fast forward.

Although that seems to be what the climate change deniers want. They seem to think the planet is going to hell anyway so why bother trying to save it? I have also noticed a very strong correlation between climate change deniers and those who are religious. After all, if there is an all being, all-knowing creator living above the clouds, it will save the planet before we run out of drinkable water right? Before the seas rise up and wipe away all life, we’ll all be saved right? Maybe just the ones who build an arc. Human beings are tribal people. The human mind is quite the labyrinth. But it is time to realize that we are all in this together whether we want to be or not. That whether one believes in science or in religion, that we are tasked with saving ourselves, not waiting for a hand to swat away rising CO2 emissions.

What we need is more than just compost heaps, organic farming, and hybrid vehicles. We need those in power, those with money, those in charge to set forth very large-scale changes. We need the leaders to lead. We can bicker at each other all we want about using reusable shopping bags and air conditioning, but when those who we have elected set a green agenda for the masses to follow, then and only then will we as a race be able to see a light at the end of the tunnel that isn’t from a 10,000 mile wide wildfire.

 

 

US #Government Grants Immunity for #Telcoms that Already had #Immunity

Posted: May 6, 2014 in Anarchy Journal Constitutional
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by @anarchyroll
5/4/2014

I am not old enough to remember a time when Washington DC wasn’t all smoke and mirrors for the elite to create the illusion of freedom. A great example of this is the current effort by the Obama Administration seeking legal immunity for the major telecommunication companies for complying with the NSA’s bulk metadata collection programs. Why is this typical Washington BS? Because the telcomms already have immunity because they were following the law when they complied with FISA court requests. The White House feels the need to request immunity for telcomms because of the multiple NSA reforms that are currently making their way through Congress. But if the Bush Administration wasn’t prosecuted, Gitmo is still open, and no one from Wall Street went to jail after 2008; is formal immunity really needed from Verizon, Comcast, and the gang?

So a sarcastic blog paragraph, is that it? NO. The real story here is in the earmarks. Both supporters and defenders of the NSA are trying to attach hidden bills, add ons, amendments, etc to the various bills to advance their agenda through the back doors of democracy.

This is a problem not just because of how shady earmarks are in principle, but the fact that both sides are doing it threatens to undo any and all NSA reform. Both sides are saying all the right things but are doing very different things when the doors are closed and the cameras are off, what else is new? So keep an eye and an ear on the legislation that eventually makes it to a vote that reforms and repeals the NSA’s various Big Brother programs. Will they do nothing? Go too far? Not far enough? One will have to go beyond the headline and seek out whether there are earmarks and if so what they entail to know the validity and likely the fate of any changes to the NSA’s ability quest to destroy private lives as we know it.

 

#Chiraq Follows #NYC Trend of Reclassifying Murders

Posted: April 21, 2014 in Anarchy Journal Constitutional
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chiraqby @anarchyroll
4/20/2014

The placebo effect is very real and can be very helpful. The placebo effect has no place however when it comes to crime rates. Chicago has started following the trend of reclassifying homicides to tinker with the crime rate statistics in the city. This is being done to make the city’s mayor, Rahm Emanuel look like he is doing a better job than he actually is, and incite a placebo effect in the community that crime is actually going down.

The problem is, that shootings and murders are just as bad or worse than ever. The is a reason Chicago has been nicknamed Chiraq and it’s not just a hip hop marketing ploy.

Some people may not like the nickname, but it will remain as long as shootings and murders are a daily occurrence, especially when the victims are often younger than 23.

It must suck being mayor of a city where more people have died than in either of the two wars the United States has been involved in over the past ten years. Equal parts embarrassing and disgusting. If I was mayor of a city that has been called “a failed state within the U.S border” by VICE and had the city’s bonds downgraded due to “unrelenting public safety demands” by Moodys, I would take drastic action to change course or at least create the appearance of change.

Creating the appearance of change is exactly what Rahm Emanuel and his police departments have done. Following in the footsteps of New York, the second city of the United States has begun reclassifying homicides in an effort to sanitize the crime statistics of Chicago.

Desperate people, in desperate times, will take desperate actions. Reclassifying murder victims as “non criminal deaths” for the sake of appearances and smoother press conferences is despicable. But as long as the violence doesn’t regularly spill into the hyper segregated, white, affluent sections of Chicago then the violence will remain as commonplace as the reclassifying.

I wonder what the breaking point is, or if there even is one. Only time will and a higher body count will tell…

#NSA Admits Under Oath They Lied Under Oath

Posted: April 16, 2014 in Anarchy Journal Constitutional
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by @anarchyroll
4/16/2014

What would happen to you if you lied under oath in a court of law?

What would happen if you lied under oath in front of the United States Congress?

What has happened to anyone in the NSA for doing either? Nothing.

What does that mean? What do you think that means? When a person can admit under oath he lied under oath to not the legislative body of the United States of America.

Whose in charge here? Think about that.

If the NSA can lie under oath without penalty of any kind. Can admit to lying under oath without penalty of any kind. What is there place in the pecking order?

That is what stood out to me about this story. It made me think about consequences. It made me think about power and control.

Those in power, with control, are afforded luxuries that the common person is not. They are allowed to do things that other people aren’t.

Why does the NSA have a $52 billion “black budget”? How is a “black budget” allowed to exist in a democracy?

The go to line on that passé logic is that what the public doesn’t know won’t hurt them. I think that has been proven to be false in the post Edward Snowden era…

 

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