Monday 10 June 2013

They May Be Watching

So, it turns out that your average tin-foiled lunatic Illuminati-obsessed conspiracy theorist might not be so crazy afterall. In a show of faith to the conspiracy nuts out there, the American government has decided to throw them a bone and start monitoring everyone's Internet and phone activity.

In a series of superb articles that arose in the Guardian, and subsequently other American publications, it would seem that the NSA (Nosey Spying Assholes) have been collecting vast amounts of data on millions of American citizens, plus folk overseas.  The reports suggest that the NSA has unlimited access to vast amounts of calling data from Verizon, including caller ID's, call length, frequency, and if you have one of those impractical cord phones for kitsch value.

Not only that, a leaked Powerpoint document (I know) suggests that the government have a special agreement with many internet companies called PRISM. PRISM encompasses some of the biggest tech giants such as Microsoft, Apple, Google and Facebook, and gives the NSA a backdoor to search through their customer data at will. Shopping for terrorist associates will be as easy as buying something off of Amazon for an NSA employee.

Government conspiracy or Pink Floyd album?


This is done under the pretence that it's all about catching terrorists. When they catch one of these plots before it blows up (so to speak), they do a fantastic job of publicising it. The government wants you to think that these measures are working, so they make sure the public is aware on a massive scale. This way it'll be easier to pass legislation to give them more power over your personal data.
Considering that these reports only surface once or twice a year, is it really worth datamining all this information to protect us from so few terrorists? Even if left unchecked, fewer people would die from terrorism than from sharks throwing coconuts at us on the toilet, or whatever the popular comparison is.

It isn't a new thing either. This programme began under Bush, but continues under the current administration. Both major parties want this. It's a situation that the American people cannot vote their way out of.

As an English guy, why am I so concerned about the Internet history of the average American citizen? Why does it matter to me whether the government watches Hank from Idaho watching 2 girls 1 cup on repeat for three days solid? Well, Britain has a "special relationship" with the States in that, after giving America a blow job, Brtain stays on it's knees and allows itself to become a footstool. We share (I mean hand over) vast swathes of information to America as a show of good faith.

This weekend, foreign secretary William Hague, the least contentious politician in a barrel of corrupt monsters, appeared on TV to remind us that we are not being watched by our government and that any intelligence gathering is always done in strict compliance with the law.

Britain's delightful foreign affairs hobgoblin, William Hague


That's fine, but how is that any different to what's happening in the US? Everything that has happened is in full compliance with the law. Technically, by law, the companies involved in PRISM are required to outright lie about their role in the operation, and even deny its existence. This makes it very difficult to believe that our government aren't doing the same or allowing the NSA to work here also.

It's easy enough to dismiss this and say "it doesn't matter to me, I have nothing to hide". That's great, thanks for reassuring us, but I doubt even 0.5% of those who have been studied and spied on so far have ever thought about commiting acts of terrorism. Terrorism is being used as an excuse to let the government study everyone with a microscope and infringe more and more on our lives. On the other hand, it's extreme to claim that we're living in an Orwelian police state, but privacy is a basic human right that we shouldn't give any ground on. The government doesn't need to know the extent to which I call sex lines in a single week, nor does it need to know that I named my main desktop PC "poop pants1" in a fit of childishness. I would be more pleased if my tax money paid for schools, hospitals and other such civic buildings, rather than cataloguing my online conversations about biscuits.

So what's the solution?  Well first, you need to take a roll of tin foil and begin wrapping it around your head.  Afterwards?  I don't know, an online petition of some sort?  What do I look like, a man of action?  I'm a man who complains. I'll let you lot do all the campaigning.

23 comments:

  1. I think the worst things Hague said are "If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear." and that he wants such a system for us. I am really tired of that line and I absolutely hate it. I've been trying to spread the word myself about this NSA and PRISM stuff and there are people who don't really care and damn they annoy me.

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    1. Exactly. That line of argument tries to villanise anyone who values their privacy.

      I also hated that he "could neither confirm nor deny" the lengths at which Britain goes to in it's intelligence gathering. That's a massive question dodge if ever I've heard one.

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  2. This is why I support the online hackers, Anonymous, well, this and a crippling fear of people who know more about computers than I do (that includes my grandparents and they have dementia). After reading this I wonder who would want to work for the NSA? You have to sit there and sift through people's call records? I don't look at my own call records. You know that a minimum of 50% of their time is spent stalking ex-girlfriends.

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    1. They have some incredibly complex algorithms and servers to crunch through all the data and look for patterns. There will be human work involved, but it's only after the machines have narrowed down the data to a few thousand key people.

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  3. It must be a boring job, but the rewards are there. The guy who blew the lid on this whole thing was a contractor being paid $200,000 a year. He gave up his job and his security (he's emigrated to Hong Kong) to expose a morally corrupt system. I can only imagine others don't because of the financial rewards.

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  4. "Umm, hi, NSA headquarters?"
    "Yes?"
    "There's two guys at my house. One of them is looking through my computer, and the other is sifting through my toilet to see what I ate last night."
    "Oh, that's okay. It's in full compliance with the law."

    Joking aside, as a writer, this horrifies me. For example, we wrote a book about zombies, so I had to look up graphic stuff about what happens to a person when they get killed in certain ways. Or I had to look up what human flesh tastes like. Or I had to look up bombs for an explosion that takes place. Should I expect someone knocking on my door, looking for a murderous cannibal bomber? At what point can a person's Internet history be used against them, and how do they put it all in proper context?

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    1. They can't. It's like that guy who was arrested for joking about blowing up an airport on Twitter. Sure it was a bad joke, but anyone reading the discussion would have realised that the guy didn't mean it.

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  5. The "if you are a law-abiding citizen, then you have nothing to fear" is a bullshit line. It's a line that is used time and time again by governments and organisations who want to impede on our rights, but make it look like they are doing it for our own good. Unfortunately, it's a line that people are easily buying into. In a lot of comment forums, people recite exactly this.

    People who are asking for privacy are not people who have something to hide. It's people who know that this invasion of privacy and government monitoring can be easily taken advantaged of.

    All this reminds me of the poem "Hangman", by Maurice Ogden. It's about a hangman coming into town and hanging people one by one, without any explanation. The person in the poem doesn't mind, or stand up to the hangman, because the hangman is not coming after him. But at the end, the hangman does come for him, when he is the only person left in the town, and there is no one to stand up to the hangman.

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    1. It is frightening how many people think it's okay that the government does this. The story hasn't been that huge over here because it's not in our country (yet) and people are more concerned about Prince Philip's hospital visit.

      I'll have to read that poem.

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  6. Hell, I'm down for a revolution, I suppose. Not exactly sure how to start one. I guess all it would take is [This comment has been determined to be an act of terrorism. The NSA had motioned to asassinate computer-user Chiz. We thanks you for your cooperation].

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    1. Chiz? CHIZ?! What have they done to you man?

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  7. Its a shame that the general populace won't, or can't do more to stop government from invading our privacy and generally making us feel terrified of where this planet is headed. If there are any government officials stalking me right now, I would like to kindly inform them that they can fuck off, as they aren't helping anyone. I wonder if they will ever actually catch these terrorists that they're wasting abhorrent amounts of time and money on.

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    1. Isn't it funny that the "security" measures are far more frightening than what they are protecting us against?

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  8. I am rather hoping that my blog is being read by as many security forces as possible, mainly to give the Steven Spielberg film Tinker Tailor Rob Z Spy some street cred.

    I have heard rumour that they (the security chaps) have managed to focus in on a group of dead shifty folk using the world of social media, and that they have code named them The Jammie Dodgers. With a code name like that they must be very suspicious. Like the old saying . . . . Better dead than Red (chewy centre).

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    1. When the revolution comes I will use PRISM to track down all the Jammie Dodger deniers and imprison them for their perversions.

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  9. I am taking control and claiming that the US government are simply storing all my pictures of poo, videos of me eating custard creams and random brain farts on file just in case my laptop packs in. I can then send off one of those Freedom of information requests and get all my stuff back for free with a nice letter from Mr Obama.

    Plus - What Rob said! hahahaha

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    1. That would be the world's creepiest cloud storage company ever. Still at those biscuit videos would be safe.

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  10. I don't buy the argument it is for catching terrorists. How many people would it take on a daily basis to go through all that info? Hundreds, thousands? And even if they use some kind of search engine, it seems it would be kinda weak at best.

    I think the reason for gathering all the info is to use against people once they have been charged with a crime and to me that's real scary. It's the idea that an off hand remark could land you in jail.

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    1. I'd say this is exactly it. Should the government ever need to prosecute you, it would have a vast library of offences and out of context quotes to beat you with.

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  11. I wrapped my whole body in tin foil. What do I do now?

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    1. I don't know. I think that's all you need to stop the government mind probes. While you wait, you could pretend to be a robot for the day.

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  12. This why I always surf the internet naked. That'll teach 'em to spy on me.

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    1. That's the spirit. I always surf the net dressed as my next door neighbour. Boy does that guy look at some crazy shit.

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