Dear journalists, it's time to drive the rats out of America. It is your responsibility as the fourth branch of government to open the curtains, let in the burning sunlight, and exterminate the vampire roaches. Show no mercy, and provide no harbor. Your job is only done when you die exhausted from seeking out the source of the constant stink of corruption. Make people understand complex matters of corruption, do your jobs, do what you wanted to be.
That said, it looks like the Sacramento coroner does in fact employ at least one forensic pathologist, so that lends a little more credence to the finding. Also, in these high profile cases there are often quite a few witnesses to the autopsy, which makes it more difficult to squash evidence.
And, yes, there are plenty of stories of people surviving a gunshot wound to the head, even remaining conscious.
(Transmetropolitan, if you enjoy cyberpunk + gonzo journalism, highly recommended)
It would be a great plot for a movie: Snowden et al, were given fake information to lead the world to believe it was being surveilled, eliminating a lot of bad behavior.
This already exists... and has for thousands of years. It's called "religion." ;)
Potentially saving the government a lot of money in the process. Money, which in the movie of course went to private hands of evil politicians and businessmen instead of being saved. As the plot develops, the protagonist slowly uncovers the evidence of that widespread conspiracy and in the climax (after enough scenery porn and helicopter chases to justify the budget for 3D version) heroicly exposes corrupt actors for what they are to the entire world. Cue in happy ending and closing credits, as behind them the whole world tears itself apart in a yet another case of Hollywood not thinking through the morality and consequences of protagonist's actions.
I'd definitely go see that movie.
Nah, I'd go regardless.
You can blackmail all those in positions of power (politicians , judges, etc) into doing what you want? Who cares what the rest of the population (those low-life sheep) think.
(This is what most likely goes on in their minds.)
However, I don't actually believe it. This assumes competence above and beyond reasonable suspicion. It's much more believable that security was really just very poor. At some point somebody might have done a little less than possible to let him go, but that's about as much as I'm willing to believe.
In addition to embarassing the American political establishment, Snowden revealed JTRIG; he revealed acts of industrial and political espionage; and he revealed the undermining of public cryptographic standards by government henchmen. This to me is the big one, and it's why it's so unlikely for Snowden to be a limited hangout.
Prior to Snowden, if you weren't being paranoid, you were just sticking your head in the sand. You would be exposing yourself to the risks of parallel construction, backdoors in hardware, sabotage of public cryptographic standards, and the manipulation of online discourse if Snowden hadn't given people like me the power to credibly parry critics who are all too quick to discredit with terms like "troll" and "conspiracy theorist".
Snowden showed James Clapper to be a criminal, too. And the IRS claiming its own electronic paper trail of criminality could be somehow "lost" in this age of pervasive surveillance lends credibility to the idea of there being a clear divide between those who are above the law, and the rest of us. The Rulers and the Ruled.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2013/12...
The surveillance people have a saying. To find a needle in a haystack first you need a haystack. But you don't want a bleeding haystack, you just want the needle -- and now you've put a haystack on top of it. Now all the good guys are developing and using anti-surveillance methods.
The bad guys were already assuming they were under surveillance. They aren't being deterred by surveillance of everybody else, they're just getting access to new tools developed by the good guys, and are aided by the fact that anti-surveillance methods are no longer suspicious.
A standard play these thugs often set up is a single intricate surveillance incident where the mark knows they're being watched very closely, then do another one much later on. This is intended to leave the victim in a state of constant paranoia during the majority of the times they're not being watched. It takes a lot of self-control to remain calm most times when this one's used against you.
Another technique when the surveillers have less control is the fatwa. I was in Hong Kong about 12 years ago on a ferry from some outer island when one (a young Australian-sounding male) of two people talking a few seats behind me suddenly said to the other (a young North American girl) "There's some people back home who want to know where in the world that guy up there is at all times. I better ring this in." He then talked loudly on the phone giving some details about me. The girl he was with had an embarrassed expression on her face like she couldn't believe what she was hearing. This all happened while I was moving from Melbourne (Australia, not Florida) to China to live. Unfortunately, that surveillance fatwa against me seems to still be in place over a decade later, and those who issued it are even willing to nudge along local people in China to use methods that would be illegal back in Australia/NZ.
Perhaps good news is that those in control of the surveillance always use intermediaries to hide themselves, and most intermediaries have a need to show off rather than hide themselves. By doing things like talking to yourself or "to God" a lot out loud within hearing of where bugs may be, changing what you say for different locations, you can often find out something about probable actors involved when stuff you've said comes back to you.
“Gang stalking” – also known as “organized stalking” – is a slang term for a set of tactics used in counterintelligence operations involving the covert surveillance and harassment of a targeted individual. The goal of such operations – in the parlance of counterintelligence personnel – is to “subvert” or “neutralize” an individual deemed by a government agency (or corporation) to be an enemy.
The preachment as presented was only pretending to be aimed at me, but was actually aimed at others. What I was being told was "My blog is bigger than your blog, our budget is bigger than your budget", a message given many times via CBS, ABC, Fox, etc over the past few years. The actual preachment line is for certain TV viewers, especially in places like Australia and China, saying it's OK to target me because I treat other people like pawns. This latest fatwa-style call to arms is of a similar method to many previous ones for surveillance like the one that came from Melbourne Australia 12 years ago which I mentioned 3 comments up in this thread.
The preachment relies on erroneous assumptions of course. I never liked fighting other people, prefering instead co-operation and group activities like bush hiking (tramping) and camping, but I've since learnt that a more appropriate line instead of Harold Finch's is one by Leon Tolstoy: "You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you". I've been attacked in various psychological ways over the past few decades, which I now recognize as being a formulaic and ongoing operation by some people to wear me down, originating in New Zealand but spreading to Australia and the U.S. These are the people the Groovy/Grails managers got into bed with when I first started to respectfully work my way into that community. And I've since learnt I have to respond to war with war, using many varied tactics such as timing bait comments with a 2 month lead.
Another erroneous assumption in that preachment is that I use other people like pawns. I don't know any other people very well, and if I make an effort to build relationships with others, sometime down the line they'll start to experience anonymous harrassment in an apparent attempt to get to me. Warning someone that this might happen isn't sufficient because a warning is only words, and they wouldn't really know what I was talking about until it starts happening to them. I know this because 20 years ago someone in NZ said the same to me about himself and I had no concept of what they were really saying. I wouldn't want to ever knowingly be the cause of this to be in someone's future. It's the sociopaths behind these fatwas, who hide themselves behind layers of intermediaries, who are the real users of other people. I'm fighting the war as a lone guerrilla.
Anyone involved as an intermediary in some action against me should realize that the reason they're being given is just a cover story to make their handlers look like "good guys". I know far more names of people involved than the very few I've mentioned on my blog but only wanted to name and shame the sociopath puppeteers, not their pawns, because the intermediaries "know not what they do". The only smart response by someone to a fatwa to fight me is to refuse to take part, but of course that might also suit the sociopaths now that I'm "losing" as a result of their previous attacks.
Counter-terrorism is a real motivation, but unfortunately the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
But the people that designed it would have designed something that actually helps fighting terrorism if that was the goal.
1. People are self-censoring dissenting views in regular conversation outside of people they trust
2. People are self-censoring dissenting views in written communication
3. People are self-censoring their own minds as a result of #1 and #2
4. Dissenting communications and dissenting thoughts are reduced in frequency, leading to a snowball effect as ideas are more and more suppressed
I used to be able to hang out with nerds and I could reasonably assume that no one around would be so scientifically illiterate as to believe that a person thrown out an airlock would freeze solid in two seconds flat. Everyone would know what "frequency response" was and be able to apply the concept. Now, a lot of "nerds" will just pattern match that as an "audio-woo" word and shut their brains off, yet you can ask them about the Fourier Transforms they studied as an undergrad. It's like we're the version of Brasil Richard Feynman visited. <http://v.cx/2010/04/feynman-brazil-education> Most importantly, I could hang out with "nerds" and assume that the vast majority of those around actually knew how to think and apply logic and actually discuss things with people they didn't agree with. Somehow, we've arrived at a state where most people tell themselves they're thinking, but they're actually just parrotting their friends after crudely pattern-matching the conversation. How can I tell? Because it's now very difficult to agree (yes, agree) ideologically with someone but point out they've arrived at their conclusions erroneously. Almost no one actually listens to and really examines facts and logic. They just determine if it vaguely sounds "truthy" in a way that aligns with their politics.
(Worse still, lots of self-identifying "nerds" will use the above process in discussions involving physics!)
I'm a musician, avocationally. I have a pair of Etymotics earplugs that have much flatter frequency response than the foam ones. (Well relatively. Most frequency response graphs of things one puts in or over ones ears don't really look all that "flat." <http://www.etymotic.com/er20.html> No, I don't work for them or know them.) I wear these as a means to control volume in situations where I wouldn't otherwise be able to, but still need to hear things clearly, and they work. As a result, I've had occasion to answer questions about them in public places like conferences in the Bay Area, and I've noted a few condescending and smarmy responses, as well as a "I don't know what that is."
(EDIT: Seems like you're pattern-matching me a bit, based on "stuff you saw on the Internet." However very big changes in frequency response can make big, measurable and predictable differences, even in how well one can understand speech. I've had occasion to undo naive sound-person's adjustments to bring out bass and treble, but as most speech information is carried in the "midrange" frequencies, this makes announcers less comprehensible.)
(Fellow Etymotic user here)
We should note, however, that the writers surveyed were all affiliated with the group doing the surveying, PEN, which is a writers' group devoted to the defense of free expression. These respondents can probably be expected to over-report the chilling effect, somewhat.
Again, though: none of this is to say that we should not be very concerned about state surveillance. We should be.
The biggest myth perpetrated by the US government is that they are in control of the country. That illusion must be protected at all costs. The government nibbles around the edges and catches a few criminals(<20%) but by and large the country is relatively safe internally not because of the police but because most citizens are good people.
People aren't particularly good. Scourges like say bribery or spousal abuse are rife in much of the world, and commonplace among the populace. In places where they have been nearly eliminated, government has played an enormous role. Not because they catch all the bad guys, but because imposing and enforcing law creates social norms that affect the behavior of ordinary people. Someone in Pakistan isn't more likely to beat his wife than someone in the U.S. because he doesn't understand it's bad or because he isn't worried about getting caught. It's because the relative certainty of enforcement in the U.S. undergirds and sustains a social norm that makes wife beaters into pariahs.[1]
Moreover, murderers and the like aren't the biggest threat to society. What matters are organized groups exercising violence. A small armed group can terrorize a large population, as is demonstrated time and again in places like Pakistan or Iraq. To suppress such groups the government not only has to catch them, but make the retaliation so swift and inevitable that only the irrational would try to bypass the ordinary social and legal structures with force. And the government is very effective at doing this.
[1] This is, incidentally, why there are special laws against e.g. hate crimes, even though assault is already illegal. The generic social norm against assault isn't strong enough to protect a targeted group, and a new law can create a more powerful social norm to compensate.
This phenomenon is also evident in the discrimination context. People didn't just become better and less racist in the last 50 years of their own accord. Laws like the Civil Rights Act catalyzed the change by imposing new social norms. When discriminating in the workplace became illegal, people who discriminated became "bad people" which forced changes in behavior that have little to do with what percentage of people were caught.
Look at the history of urban conflict -- it's virtually impossible even for a high-tech military actor like the USA to effectively police a dense urban area without incurring unacceptable civilian casualties that would further radicalize the population.
You can nuke a city, sure. That's easy. But policing a dense city of millions of people even with heavy surveillance and military force is damn hard.
If most people weren't basically good, we would indeed live in a lawless hellhole.
No, it's probably because they have unproductive economies, which of course can be caused by numerous things.
I imagine they look out for people of their own tribe, but that kind of tribalism does not exist in the US. The point I rebutted was about population control. A good example is the federal governments inability to stop the legalization of pot. They absolutely oppose it but can do fuck all.
There's still a strong division into Blacks, Hispanics, and Whites in the US in most socio-economic settings.
It's policing by consent. Any time we've had enough that's it. We have to keep believing that otherwise we are enslaved.
Also, I think that what the sibling comment says about resource scarcity is certainly a more reasonable justification for why there is relatively little internal strife in the US compared to other countries. What makes "citizens" or all American residents any better people than the residents of any other country?
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/01/the_comparati...
The 9-11 attacks were profoundly disruptive in economic and social costs. Just in direct costs like buildings being knocked over, air travel being stopped, being not being able to get to work, was 200 billion dollars.
That's a little less than the GDP of Finland wiped out in one attack.
That is not to mention the cost of fighting the war on terrorism. All in it probably cost 5 Trillion.
You could say, hey, we didn't need to fight the war on terrorism. But the attacks were world changing events for the US. They caused fear, anger, confusion, and a need for revenge.
Whether it is rational or not, nobody is going to work in a skyscraper if every 20 months one gets knocked over. Just look at Israel and Palestine for what happens to cultures who expect terrorism (on both sides). It is caustic to a free society.
It is hard to tell how low the risk of terrorism is in a vacuum. There are certainly enough suicide bomb volunteers and other jihadists. Crossing the US border is pretty easy.
Some amount of intelligence is needed to make sure nobody is plotting something big.
What little terrorism actually exists is caused by the US government's own actions. So not only do we pay taxes to create terrorists with our sociopolitical skylarkings, we pay taxes to "fight terrorists" that are created by it. On top of this we all get spied on in the process.
I smell a raw deal.
No wonder there are so many "terrorists."
We have to ask ourselves - what is the goal of terrorism? It's to force your target to do something you want (a political action) or totally waste resources. Civilian deaths are just collateral damage, means to an end. The 9/11 attacks scared the entire west to the point of insanity, made it waste money on wars and turn themselves into police states. If the terrorists' goal was to damage "our freedom", they most certainly succeeded - thanks to what can be only described as a severe immune overreaction on a societal level.
The right way to deal with such terrorist attacks is to mostly ignore them, and don't get yourself scared. As a terrorist, you have no reason to fly stuff into buildings if you know it won't buy you anything.
[0] - I can now forget my visa.
The idea was to get the US to just leave the middle east. And that was a pretty epic failure on Al Qaeda's part. The US is up the middle east's ass a lot further now than then.
Also "they hate us for our freedom" is some dumb Bush era idea. Al Qaeda doesn't hate America for our freedom. Al Qaeda explicitly explained why they hated us. 1) Troops in the Arabian peninsula, 2) support of Israel, 3) blockade of Iraq.
All that it has bought them is death. Their goal was to take down the US and it tremendously backfired, but we kind of squandered that goodwill. If they want to make money they kidnap Europeans who they know will pay the ransom.
> If they want to make money they kidnap Europeans who they know will pay the ransom.
That's not terrorism, that's garden variety kidnapping for ransom.
Second, this is an excellent answer.
If the government wants you to give up your civil liberties and uses the threat of a terrorist attack to get you to give them up, then they have become terrorists as well. However, I don't know if that is the explicit goal or not or just the outcome of a grossly over exaggerated response. I do know if someone wants to get their way they usually just say "terrorism" or "children."
Terrorist attacks are rare. Humans are terrible at evaluating risks.
I'm leaning towards the second. Governments, especially democratic, are complicated systems, and as such a collective failure resulting from many small actions guided in various forms of self-interest seems much more probable than a grand conspiracy. I believe that the US terror actions abroad are just that outcome of a grossly exaggerated response, a failure mode the Government can't find a way to get out of.
As distasteful as secret courts are, even they might be workable if everything becomes open after a certain time expires.
Don't create enemies (by invading foreign countries, putting lackeys in power to get their resources and messing with their politics) in the first place.
Worked wonders for most countries...
Besides, it's not like "terrorism" is some constant in societies. With the exception of nutjobs, organized terrorism is a response to specific political circumstances and relations between countries. You don't see any terrorism between the Swiss and the French. But there has been between the Irish and the British, for the well known historical reasons. Or in Spain with the Basque countries. Or in the Middle East / Latin American.
It's a political issue, and can be solved at that level, not some natural force that we no other mean to stop except to always be prepared for it, like earthquakes.
Hell, I bet we'd save money.
To reiterate, the design of surveillance is population control,no more or less; terrorism is merely an excuse for technological implementation that was desired since time immemorial by the powers that be.
Now, onto the implications that the NY Times was too friendly to state:
1. People are self-censoring dissenting views in regular conversation outside of people they trust
2. People are self-censoring dissenting views in written communication
3. People are self-censoring their own minds as a result of #1 and #2
Therefore,
4. Dissenting communications and dissenting thoughts are reduced in frequency, leading to a snowball effect as ideas are more and more suppressed
In terms of the scope, while the poll was only of writers, it seems as though the majority of writers consider themselves to be victims here.
I think it's safe to say that the implications I listed are also applicable to other segments of the population-- most importantly, the segments of the population that are the usual hotbeds of dissent, because they are more likely to be paying attention to advances in government power which would create a chilling effect.
The chilling effect produced by the endless rounds of disclosure of government abuse of surveillance is probably not going to go away anytime soon. Unfortunately, self-censorship is one more nail in the moribund democracy here in the US. Keep in mind that even if a person does not self censor, the mainstream media (which should now be understood as including major internet news hubs such as reddit) will likely prevent off-narrative news from spreading.
So, what's the solution? I don't know. Still waiting on a hot new SV startup to "disrupt" the surveillance state.