Rotten Apple

Do you remember when Apple Corporation wowed the world with its creativity -  thirty years ago?  When APPLE introduced the Macintosh computer it managed to strike just the right note with its television ads - spoofing George Orwell's prophetic novel NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR.    Apple's vintage ad is archived on You Tube   here.

Now it  2013, and thanks to one one man's heroism...   not Winston Smith,  but Edward Snowden,  we now know for certain that APPLE  and YOU TUBE  are both  willing accomplices in ongoing multi-billion dollar American surveillance programs.  Echelon,  PRISM... take your pick.   In its paranoia the U.S. government insists upon monitoring everyone, everywhere and the White House frequently uses its reservoirs of secret knowledge to intervene in the day to day affairs of the entire planet  (not to mention remote control murder with drone technologies).  How Orwellian is that?

This morning in THE WASHINGTON TIMES   I see this:

An extract from the article:

"Dr. Karl Albrecht, author of more than 20 books, claims there are only five basic fears which include sub-categories for all human fears which he describes as an anxious feeling caused by our anticipation of some imagined event or experience. However, it could easily be argued fear is the realization of an impending event or series of events with a foreseeable, fearful conclusion based on history and experiences. The fears listed (in no special order) by Albrecht are

1. Fear of ceasing to exist via annihilation, aka fear of death

2. Fear of mutilation such as losing our body parts or becoming incapacitated

3. Fear of separation which includes abandonment, rejection, unwanted and disrespected. Albrecht also uses the term a “non-person”, essentially an Orwellian adjective.

4. Fear of shame, humiliation, and loss of self- integrity, lovability and feeling worthless.

5. Fear of loss of autonomy, where one feels restricted, paralyzed or feels controlled by circumstances."

Fear is of course a major tool employed by any Orwellian state. Control people by manipulating their worst fears.  Of course the Intelligence Community labours under its own self-induced  fears -   

 1) the fear of losing its multi-billion dollar funding

 2) the fear of losing the ear of the President and the ruling elite

 3) the fear of public disclosure of their unwarranted violations of our liberties

You can read  the Paul Mountjoy  article  "ORWELLIAN AMERICA"  here  (STORY). 

"PUBLICITY THE REMEDY"
This article was published over 100 years ago, but it could have been written this morning.

"Publicity is one of the most popular remedies for all abuses and grievances in the state."   NEW YORK SUN.

"Now the only history men really care about, that of their own times, is spread before the world."  NEW YORK SUN

 In George Orwell's novel  NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR,   the "Prols" have no knowledge of history, and cannot even remember the events of their own childhood with any degree of certainty.  In the novel, all unauthorized memories -  books, letters, photos, films - had to be physically destroyed - BURNED.  Today human records, and human lives,  are deleted with a twitch of the finger.

Edward Snowden - Warns Americans of "Turn-key Tyranny"

Sadly, it is confirmed.  The American people now tacitly support and fund an oppressive state apparatus the like of which was first described by George Orwell in his prophetic novel NINETEEN EIGHTYFOUR.  America's government is the beast Orwell warned us of -  until now just a catch phrase or just as often a metaphor of a Dystopian future - "BIG BROTHER".  And as such, America now constitutes an active threat to precious civil liberties  in EVERY COUNTRY on this planet. They have forgotten that without genuine PRIVACY, Freedom is a meaningless slogan.

I am stunned to have lived to see such a dark era unfolding, and for the first time in my life I begin to fear Americans.  I was one of those who who cheered for America, since the Viet Nam and Apollo era.  I wept for America and Americans after the 9/11 attacks.  Now I fear them, and I finally understand why so many others have.  Canada is no haven against what the NSA-CIA-FBI-WhiteHouse are perpetrating with impunity.  Our "lesser" governments cannot stand up to America's aggressive culture and politics.  We all just got the bulletin.   "America is at large, self righteous, paranoid,  armed and dangerous."


"We will leave no cigarette butt behind!"
The morning after Edward Snowden stepped out of the shadows and voluntarily identified himself as the whistleblower who CONFIRMED what we already suspected, but couldn't prove - (the U.S. Intelligence agencies are a rogue Frankenstein monster - the only apt metaphor) -  I tuned into network news to sample the official response. FOX was not asking "Is it true?"  Their question was "Is it effective?'  I listened to only two interviews before turning off the big screen, in disgust.  In one self righteous statement, a former NSA Director  [Gen. Michael Hayden] admitted it was all TRUE, but John Q. Public shouldn't worry, because the NSA's only target is "America's Enemies".  Blather simplified -  The sheeple have nothing to fear, because the shepherd is only hunting wolves.  He would never kill critters in his own fluffy flock.  After all, the shepherd devotes his life to their welfare  .... not the meat business.

Michael Hayden - the Generalist. "We will leave no cigarette butt behind."

The second interviewee, a Republican Senator no less, [Ron Johnson] blathered on about privacy being a "non-partisan issue",  he farted... or maybe it was just a dramatic pause, and then started droning on about the same horse-shit ... "America's Enemies" and the need for powerful tools to catch the bad guys.   And the Republican's claim to in opposition to the current regime??  Bullshit. The Republicans are just waiting their turn to govern and to surveil the American people.  

So  folks...  we now have official confirmation: In the U.S.A.   PRIVACY  IS NOT A FREEDOM.    PRIVACY  IS A PRIVILEGE  and that privilege has been rescinded by the American Financial-Political elites. Rescinded  Permanently.  The social policy wonks have always alleged that poverty reduction would eliminate violence and class hatred in America.  In the 21st Century the underclass and the middle class will be monitored and controlled by the elites, and resistance to digital oppression will be spectacular and very unpredictable.

Since it was THE GUARDIAN which broke this story, and not one of the self important American news agencies,  you should follow the GUARDIAN as their story unfolds. To read the initial report, click on -  THE WHISTLEBLOWER BEHIND REVELATIONS OF NSA SURVEILLANCE. You should also watch  Edward Snowden's interview in its entirety, not chopped up for the butcher's hook - as it was done by CNN yesterday.  PRISM WHISTLEBLOWER.  Don't let the news flak-crews tell you what he said, as they in fact shoot him down for the Administration.  Give the man his due, and listen to what he has to say.  We can only hope that BIG BROTHER doesn't have Mr. Snowden killed.

"TURN-KEY  TYRANNY"

China has a hero who symbolizes unarmed resistance against state oppression -  "Tank Man".
Now  America has  Edward Snowden.  But methinks they're just too stupid to understand the lesson he is sacrificing his life to offer them.   And Mr. Snowden's greatest fear?  That in a few weeks time,  after all the headlines have been deleted from the news websites,   "Nothing will change."  The reality of  American Global Surveillance will be,  he says,  "turn-key tyranny" at home.   The last two minutes of the Snowden interview are KEY to his message.  Listen to what the man has to say.  And if you have any sense, start boycotting their control technologies.

THE ENABLERS  

Contrary to the childish musings of sycophantic scrunts like  CNN's Wolf Blitzer, (who when told by a CNN sniffer that Mr. Snowden had donated $500 to the Ron Paul campaign, looked into the camera and expressed disbelief -  "scary stuff").  Snowden has released no details whatsoever on specific government crimes, though his head is stuffed to bursting with details on specifics. What he has released are further details of the extent of PRISM capabilities (already detailed on the CRYPTOME website) and shown us screenshots of from a Powerpoint presentation which implicates just about every important U.S. software, Internet and Telecoms provider.  Your PCs, phones,  TVs,  Fax machines, onboard GPS units .... hell maybe even your game console, are all being used to keep you and your children under surveillance - 24/7.  How? Well the U.S. government has installed stand alone servers and data storage inside the premises of cooperative corporations. The equipment diverts the data stream to Federal storage facilities, where it is permanently archived and will reside long after some of these corporations have gone out of business.  The Feds can claim they are not tapping directly into privately owned data streams,  and the corporations get to promise (fingers crossed) the gullible public that they do not assist in Federal/State/Local  spying on the innocent population.

This screen details the complicity of the Internet Service Providers who relay ALL details about their customers to NSA on a daily basis, and who consistently issue lying press releases which do nothing to cover their tracks.

And finally a screenshot (below) which lists some of the corporations which spy on the World's citizens at the behest of the United States government.   They include  Google,  Yahoo!, Facebook, You Tube  Skype, AOL, Apple and many more.    These screenshots are the only physical evidence (so far) that Mr. Snowden has crossed his employers as they clearly read "NOFORN" - NO FOREIGN NATIONALS.  The Brits working at The Guardian newspaper are "foreign".    As a Canadian, I have always considered Americans to be my cousins.  Their culture was my culture.  Unfortunately, they are looking more and more "foreign" to me every day.  It  is time the Canadian government (if it still capable of thinking in terms of National Sovereignty) started to take concrete measures to protect us from the contagion of U.S. paranoia and U.S. vindictiveness.  We should start by making Edward Snowden an Honourary Citizen of Canada.  I so nominate.

Mr. Snowden distributed 41 explanatory screenshots, but only a half dozen were published.  The response over the past 48 hours shows us the media are completely cowed.