Politics: Surveillance

Why is it even important… and why should I care? I’ll get to the why…

Spy vs Spy

Spy vs Spy

Recently the Dems and GOP have been fussing about what is or isn’t spying. It doesn’t take exceptional intelligence to figure which side has staked their position in the debate in the Land of Dumb… Is it spying or surveillance? That seems to be the crux of the debate.

SPY ∙ verb

  • work for a government or other organization by secretly collecting information about enemies or competitors.
  • observe (someone) furtively.
  • discern or make out, especially by careful observation.

SURVEILLANCE ∙ noun

  • close observation, especially of a suspected spy or criminal.

Is there really a difference? Is any difference enough to matter? If not, then what is at play?

You can decide. I think the important part is in seeing who takes which position on the spying/surveillance issues. The positions seem to come down to two opinions. One is it is OK because it was Trump, meaning we can spy on whoever we want for whatever reason. And another is it is never OK to spy on an American citizen until a judge decides a person is likely committing a crime.

We depend on judges to decide on the evidence of a crime being or having been committed, responsive. Fishing expeditions are not allowed, preemptive. It is totalitarian governments which surveil a person that opposes them until they catch them doing something wrong. Free republics respond to crime. Totalitarian dictatorships and other fascists act preemptively on what they consider possible or who they want to target.

Corporate spying is now exceeding anything fascist governments have ever dreamed of being able to do. Their target… you. Why does that matter?

Brietbart (Right-wing) is receiving leaked material from Facebook… employees… insiders… someone. Facebook builds lists, EXCLUSIVE: More Names on FACEBOOK ‘Hate Agents’ List Revealed. Are you on a list? What does that mean for you?

The Intercept (Left-wing) in an investigative piece, Thanks To Facebook, Your Cellphone Company Is Watching You More Closely Than Ever reveals even more details of how you are personally surveilled. They can and do decide your financial viability based on what they observe.

If they were just using the information to provide targeted advertising, making sure you see the stuff of interest to you, that wouldn’t be much of a problem. But, it is going way beyond that. The new marketing strategy is to decide who to talk to and how to control what they see. That is sort of what targeted advertising is about. But, in Facebook’s case, it becomes a matter of which subjects get de-boosted (downranked) based on the author and the subject. If you don’t meet Facebook’s political criteria, they isolate you and what you can see and say (think in the sense of who sees what you say). Whole areas of news, information, entertainment, and social connections are never sent your way or your efforts to contact people vanish in the realm of lost bits.

In the book Rape of the Mind, basic interrogation techniques for mind control are covered. A primary tool is isolation. The more one knows about the techniques of propaganda, crowd control, and thought control the more it appears that various groups are running agendas and employing the techniques to implement the agenda. Politicians are obviously interested in thought control and control of information.

You are the target. Which political party is at the forefront of the effort to support spying for control? If you are NOT finding it hard to decide, you aren’t watching enough diverse news reporting.

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