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2 months ago
The Secret Government - PBS 1987, Bill Moyers
presidents have always grabbed for more and more power. and they have always wielded more power than they are constitutionally alloted. but there is an element in our national government that should concern us all. there are forces at work that we know nothing of, that congress has no oversight of, and that operates above, behind, and below the law. as the codification of our loss of liberty comes to light, one is forced to wonder what is happening that we do not see? previously, so much of the covert actions taken by our government was aimed externally. now, it has turned on us. we are being spied on, files are being created, we are being listed and labeled, and the apparatus to know everything we communicate and to know every action (purchase, travel, associations, relationships, habits, beliefs, thoughts) is growing.social networking site face/book wants more and more information about us. where we went to school. who our friends and how we know them. where we work and worked. who are relatives are - and to what end. not only are we being asked to supply this information ourselves, but now our friends are being asked to supply this information about us, so we lose control of just how much information is out there. they use facial recognition software to identify us in photographs, and even to identify unknown persons, presumably those without face/book accounts. there is even a way to log every step you take and everywhere you go and with whom you were there.
we are asked what music we like, what books we read, what films we see, and what organizations interest us. and, what we are not asked, we volunteer in status updates - communicated to friends and family (but to whom else?)
ostensibly this information is gathered and catalogued and computed and analyzed in order to more effectively market to us. the site follows us around the web, knows what we are reading and what we like. visit a site and it will tell you what your friends have liked and forwarded. what to government appartuses can’t get, we willingly supply with no concern about just where all this information is going and how it can (or will) be used. i, too, fell victim to the fun of it before i seriously thought of the implications of it all.
if the government ever decided to come for you, and they had access to all the volunteered information on face/book - they know all your haunts, all our habits, and practically everyone we have ever known, and therefore are likely to run to in order to evade them. we are no longer allowed web anonimity. practically every site we visit asks us to register; meaning given them your email address and identify yourself.
the web is not the only entity that gathers and maintains information about us. the stores we frequent offer us club cards, which catalogues our purchases. those without these cards often ask for our phone number or our zip code. this information is going somewhere, but they never tell us where and why, and who has access to it all. practically every step we take outside our homes is recorded on security cameras. our phone calls and emails are all being filtered through government intelligence gathering agencies - in the name of homeland security and the war on terror.
as those who tweet or email or log on face/book anything politically incorrect knows, your messages can instantly become national news. screen captures permanent preserve even what has been deleted. we don’t give it a second thought as we are more concerned about the message than the way in which it is exploited to ‘out’ racists or homophobes. and the litany goes - if it was meant to be private, it should not have been posted. but the exact same thing happens with voicemails, when the recipient has an agenda that will be served by making a private comment intended - for specific ears - a very public embarrassment. remember what happened when alec baldwin made some awful comments in a message to his daughter? it’s doubtful that it was she who sent the tape to the press.
it’s come to light that law enforcement sometimes attach tracking devices to the vehicles of ‘persons of interest’ - and their justification is that the car was parked on a public street. everyone seems to have a video camera these days, and these are sometimes very useful as citizens become part of the fourth estate and make a record of what is happening across the country. these same citizens are being charged with crimes when they point those cameras (and the embed microphones) at law enforcement officials. old wiretapping laws are being used to charge citizens for recording the actions of public servants, working for and paid by the taxpayers, out in public in the performance of their duties. what is caught on tape is often abuses of power, unlawful intimidation, and use of excessive force. and yet, it is the citizen that is being brought up on charges.
these are scary times. and the trends point to things getting worse and worse. never in my life have i wanted more to be wrong. but everything in me is screaming that we as a nation of citizens are in trouble. our constitution is under attack, the people are under attack, and our government, banks, and corporations are to be feared.
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