Check out my take on the hilarious spectacle of the CIA and the Senate Intelligence Committee spying on each other at the same time. An excerpt:
The end of privacy, it turns out, is having positive effects. If there are embarrassing photos of and/or factoids about most people on the Internet, for example, then they’re de facto not a big deal — and thus no longer something to be ashamed about.
Privacy is the midwife of shame. Let a million nudie selfies upload forth!
Another laudable side benefit of the guvmint’s attempt to know everything about everyone all the time: It’s funny.
5 Comments.
The Big Shots abhor privacy, so let’s let them have a drink from a fire-hose of nudity.
Naked parades this summer! Fun for everyone!
Glenn, actually, that’s a really brilliant idea. Count me in.
Exactly Ted, and the end of privacy has pretty much come around full circle in every way. Add to the NSA, CIA and other governmental intelligence agencies all the personal information that most people have happily submitted (sometimes with filling out ‘surveys’ to get free services or a gift, and you have a situation where data-mining companies have big dossiers on your personal likes and dislikes, your political opinions and the particular issues that are of importance to you. They know what illnesses you may have, where you like to go and do in your free time – and more – all of this together with the record of your communications to other people, where you have been and possibly, where you are this moment.
Have you watched the US TV-Series “Person of Interest”?
Ahhhhhh … the secret police. It appears to be the case that their very abundance and ubiquity are now making staying clandestine difficult for them. As one who has been phone-tapped, surveilled, tracked by the FBI for anti-war and civil rights activism in the 60s, anti-nuke operations in the 70s, and the occupation of a local congressional office in the 80s, etc. etc. I can only say the death threats, rifled mail, and arrests happened routinely. It got to the point that we would take a moment at our meetings to “welcome” the secret agents, telling them we assumed that they were there and that we hoped that they might learn enough at the meeting to come over to our side. Friends, family called us paranoid for our certainty that surveillance was intense and constant; we however joked that “If they don’t have a file on me, I want to know what the hell they’re doing with my tax money.”
These days we are seeing the results of opportunities lost. We did not act. Iran-Contra was run out of the basement of the White House, and Reagan was able to stumblemumble his way out of it, while that fascist Oliver North is revered as a commentator and political analyst though he should be locked up for war crimes. What was a prime moment to purge the right’s secret intelligence empire devolved into a he-said she-said daily soap opera on national TV. No doubt the intelligence apparatus was emboldened by their ability to escape responsibility for their perverse acts. Today, the massive intelligence complex involves millions of people whose livelihood depends upon your subjugation to their invasive actions.
Just…an excellent comment. Reagan; “I still think Ollie North is a hero.” It was a critical turning point. It seemed tough for people to grasp the facts, though they seemed simple to me. Arming hostage takers and paramilitary murderers? Oh and outlawed by Congress? How hard is this shit? But Ronnie and Ollie are just so LIKEABLE.