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Tim Cook and Other Tech Executives Meet with President Obama to Discuss Government Surveillance
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The government is getting in the way and as a result you're losing money?? No way!
hey...you don't have to send emails, or even talk on a cell phone if you don't want to.
You could even set up you own little island (if you can afford one) and go completely off the grid.
It's so fitting that Apple is helping the world become the exact situation of this commercial (minus the chick with the hammer)
YouTube: video
Well that is what the government wants: obedient slaves under their thumb. The disheartening part about it is the people actually think they're being helped.
None of that is impossible or even difficult. Just stop using these extra luxury products, and spend more time outside and interacting socially with people face to face. Better for ya in every respect anyway.
Once you give up the cellphone, and realize you don't have to share publicly what you're thinking at any given moment, because no one really cares anyway, going back to that self-absorbed BS is pretty unattractive.
I went off the grid for a couple years. It was fun, in a James Bondy kind of way. May do it again, because being undeservedly treated like a criminal leads to resentment, and acting like a criminal.
Cash only, old car, no accounts, pick up internet in coffee shops & restaurants, & there's TOR & whatever else beyond that. It's harder when you own a business, but easier if your business is in Canada.
And how did the government handle the 'threat' during the cold war? Spying, wire taps(legal or not) and data mining.
This collection of data mechanism the government has in place didn't happen overnight.
Bring the SOB a copy of the constitution and remind him of his requirements to uphold and protect citizens rights.
First, to address your last point, all revolutions begin with the voices of discontent. I'm not calling for revolution, but this truth is self-evident. I find your statement of preemptive defeat to be contemptible.
Second, the "I have nothing to hide" argument is incredibly blind to the potential abuses of such power. In an environment where electability trumps leadership when seeking power through public office, narrative rules. When they have logged your every internet search, every email, every phone call, all of the locational data, etc., they can craft any narrative they desire about you and carefully control who is electable and otherwise create ways to silence their opposition.
It's way too much power to be trusted to any government, any administration. Even if you think Obama is trustworthy, how can you trust the 50 administrations that will follow him to not abuse such power? How can he?
You are not unique in this point of view but incredibly niave. Without even considering the sinister side of this surveilance, are you happy that someone else knows what porn you like, knows who you chat with and what you say, knows wether your having an affair or have a problem with pain killer dependency. Nothing illegal here, but not something I want someone else having in order to apply leverage or influence. This is before one starts considering what your buddies do or say, which of course will link back to you through your contacts lists and how that implicates you. If this trend is not stopped there will be a point in your future when, unfortunatly, you might fully comprehend the idiocy of your assertion and realise that you no longer live in a functioning democracy. And if you think that is hyperbole, consider that that is exactly what one of your former presidents J. Carter recently said, although it was barely mentioned in the US media. I suggest that anyone who is still of the opinion that this is a begnin development visit:
counterpunch.org and peruse a few of the pertinent articles. Sorry if this sounds like a pompous paranoid rant, but there it is.
In a perfect world, everyone would be clever, free, able to think by himself and ready to fight injustice. In a perfect world.
Well, no, that's not what I said at all.
I just don't believe that things are anywhere near as bad as the "sky-is-falling" shouters on here and elsewhere would have you believe. I don't feel that my freedom is any more in danger than it was 20 years ago when all my high school friends with their hair hanging down in their face were going crazy about government fascism and saying the exact same types of things people are saying now.
I find it very odd that a news story about some scammer bilking people out of hundreds of millions of dollars barely even raises an eyebrow, but the thought that the government might have a program that might look into some emails of people that might be suspected of something makes people go batstuff crazy.
My original question was how much of your day do you spend thinking about this, or stressing about it? Do you lose sleep over it? Does it dominate your mind when you would rather be enjoying time out with friends? Is it all you talk about when you get together with others? It takes up literally zero (eh, make that the time it took me type this post) of my attention because I think it is so much less of an issue than the tin-foil hat wearers that seem to dominate this thread make it out to be.
Sorry but have you been living under a rock? The Guardian has been reporting on this for a while now. There is a project called X-Score with components with names like Traffic thief and Pinwale. They are monitoring everyone.
They use a field of science called NER or Named Entity Resolution to create structured data from unstructured streams of data. I work in that field but not for the government.
NER basically combines Natural language processing and Signal Analysis/Processing. It can figure out context from data surrounding an item and through well known keywords to define bounds for things like Addresses, names etc.
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How many times do I have to hear or read this verbal piss? If I am not doing anything illegal or harmful, then no one has any reason to monitor me!
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It's so fitting that Apple is helping the world become the exact situation of this commercial (minus the chick with the hammer)
YouTube: video
Being part of this PRISM thing only happened when SJ was gone...
Didn't think I'd be quoted so many times lol.
A lot of you are very knowledgable, and knowledge is power!
However, is your knowledge giving you a piece of mind? What exactly are you guys doing to stop the government's evil ways?
It's great to be informed of all of these goings on, but what are you going to do to get the government to reveal all their secrets?
How are you going to make them be more transparent with the people?
Knowledge is one thing. Action is another.
We're all under control in some way or another. We abide by the laws, follow rules etc etc.
Reading your other post I see you're just trying to push their buttons and play devils advocate. Not gonna dignify you with a response to your questions.
The old naive non-argument. Who defines what's "illegal"? You know, if you didn't do anything "illegal" in Nazi-Germany or under Stalin you had nothing to fear too. Do you know who is in power in 20-30-40 years? No, you can't know that.
And there is plenty you can do ...
The last part of your quote reminded me of a good old 80s song with lyrics that can easily be applied to the current economic situation, as well as fitting for your statement about following laws, rules, authority, etc. What if...
Here they are in there entirety as well as a video of the song.
You don't have to take this crap
You don't have to sit back and relax
You can actually try changing it
I know we've always been taught to rely
Upon those in authority -
But you never know until you try
How things just might be -
If we came together so strongly
Are you gonna try to make this work
Or spend your days down in the dirt
You see things can change -
YES! walls can come tumbling down!
Governments crack and systems fall
'cause Unity is powerful -
Lights go out - walls come tumbling down!
The competition is a colour TV
We're on still pause with the video machine
That keep you slaves to the H.P.
Until the Unity is threatend by
Those who have and who have not -
Those who are with and those who are without
And dangle jobs like a donkey's carrot -
Until you don't know where you are
Are you gonna get to realise
The class war's real and not mythologised
And like Jericho - You see walls can come tumbling down!
Are you gonna be threatend by
The public enemy at No. 10 -
Those who play the power game
They take the profits - you take the blame -
When they tell you there's no rise in pay
Are you gonna try an' make this work
Or spend your days down in the dirt -
You see things CAN change -
YES an' walls can come tumbling down!
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Obama: I want the NSA to have access to everything you can gather with your iphones and ipads.
Tim Cook: I want the ban on our Ipad and Iphones vetoed
Obama: done
Tim Cook: I want the ban on our Ipad and Iphones vetoed
Obama: done
