As mysterious balloons and identified flying objects have us looking up in the sky, we are being distracted by a world of serious, pressing matters down here on the ground. There’s nothing new about spying or probably even this generation of surveillance balloons. Nor is there anything new about humanity’s unwillingness to roll up its collective sleeves and get to work on the real threats to our security.
Hillary Clinton’s main campaign argument is that Donald Trump is dangerous, and that she’s not Trump. Election after election, Democrats have been urged to choose the lesser of two evils rather than a candidate whom they can vote for enthusiastically. Will this tired old sales pitch work again?
Publication Date: August 25, 2015
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As many as 1.4 million citizens with security clearance saw some or all of the same documents revealed by NSA contractor Edward Snowden. Why did he, and no one else, decide to step forward and take on the risks associated with becoming a whistleblower and then a fugitive? Rall’s all-comic, full-color biography delves into Snowden’s early life and work experience, his personality, and the larger issues of privacy, surveys the new surveillance technologies being deployed against the American people, and the recent history of government intrusion. Rall describes Snowden’s political vision and hopes for the future. The book tells two stories: Snowden’s and a larger one that describes all of us on the threshold of tremendous technological upheaval and political change.
Snowden is a portrait of a brave young man standing up to the most powerful government in the world and, if not winning, at least reaching a stand-off, and in this way is an incitation to us all to measure our courage and listen to our consciences in asking ourselves what we might have done in his shoes.
Current Events/Biography, 2015
Seven Stories Press Paperback, 5″x7″, 224 pp., $16.95
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Between the NSA, license plate scanners and skies full of drones, there will soon be no place for anyone who opposes an oppressive dictator to hide. So it’s only a matter of time before someone exploits these new technologies.
Amazon has acquired a patent for “anticipatory shipping,” a system that predicts your future purchases based on previous buys, site searches, and how long you linger on a particular item. Then they ship the item to a warehouse nearest you before/in case you order it. In the future, they may even load it on a truck before you click “buy.”
Days after Congress comes close to banning the NSA’s recently revealed program of spying on Americans, the NSA says Al Qaeda is planning to attack the US – and that they found out using the program that Congress was about to ban.
Nordstrom department store experiments with creepy tracking software, is transparent about it, and stops it upon request. Why do we expect less in the non-Nordstrom world?
Orwell’s Nightmares Come True — But Who Cares?
Another horror no one will care about: the government is spying on your snail mail.
The New York Times timed the release of the story so that it would come and go without notice: on the Fourth of July, when no one reads the paper or watches the news. But buried beneath a puffy lede is yet another privacy-killing whopper. After 9/11, the Times reports, the U.S. Postal Service created something called the Mail Isolation Control and Tracking (MICT) program, “in which Postal Service computers photograph the exterior of every piece of paper mail that is processed in the United States — about 160 billion pieces last year. It is not known how long the government saves the images.”
Just a wild guess? How about: forever?
“Together,” the paper continued, “the two programs show that postal mail is subject to the same kind of scrutiny that the National Security Agency has given to telephone calls and e-mail.” Any government agency — the FBI, local police, etc. — can request mail cover data. As with the rubber-stamp “FISA court,” the USPS almost always says yes to these outrageous mass violations of privacy.
From George Orwell’s “1984”: “As for sending a letter through the mails, it was out of the question. By a routine that was not even secret, all letters were opened in transit.”
“It’s a treasure trove of information,” the Times quotes former FBI agent James Wedick. “Looking at just the outside of letters and other mail, I can see who you bank with, who you communicate with — all kinds of useful information that gives investigators leads that they can then follow up on with a subpoena.” Your finances. Your politics. Your friends.
No doubt about it, the dystopian vision laid out by George Orwell in “1984” is here.
Thanks to NSA leaker Edward Snowden, we’ve learned about the previously top-secret PRISM program, in which the U.S. government “collects the e-mail, voice, text and video chats” of every American to be stored in a $2 billion data farm in Utah, as well as sweeping telephone surveillance by Verizon and other telecommunications companies on behalf of the NSA. According to NBC News and other sources, “every single phone call made in the U.S. has been monitored by the U.S. government.” And not, merely, as President Obama and his media shills keep saying, “just” (!) the metadata. Under ECHELON, they listen in to “all telephone, fax and data traffic,” record it, and store it.
From “1984”: “There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to.”
Yes they can.
The dominant eavesdropping technology in “1984” was a device called the “telescreen.” Installed in every home and workplace as an outlet for government propaganda, Orwell’s telescreen “received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it, moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard.”
Which sounds a lot like the creepy new two-way TV — you watch it and it watches you — for which Verizon filed a patent application in 2011. This TV would target “ads to viewers based on information collected from infrared cameras and microphones that would be able to detect conversations, people, objects and even animals that are near a TV. If the detection system determines that a couple is arguing, a service provider would be able to send an ad for marriage counseling to a TV or mobile device in the room,” reported the blog Fierce Cable. “If the couple utters words that indicate they are cuddling, they would receive ads for ‘a romantic getaway vacation, a commercial for a contraceptive, a commercial for flowers,’ or commercials for romantic movies, Verizon states in the patent application.”
Verizon’s patent was denied. But now Google TV is going for it. The technology exists; it’s only a matter of time before it finds its way into our homes. Anti-privacy tech types point out it’s only to make ads more effective — the same way web ads react to your searching and browsing. But that’s just for now. It isn’t a stretch to imagine the NSA, FBI or other crazy spook outfit tapping into America’s telescreens in order to watch us in our living rooms and bedrooms.
Gotta stop the terrorists! Whatever it takes.
Ah, the terrorists. The enemies of the state. Bush had his Osama; Obama has Snowden. Bugaboos keep us distracted, fearful, compliant. “The heretic, the enemy of society, will always be there, so that he can be defeated and humiliated over again,” the government official goon O’Brien lectures Winston Smith in “1984.” “The espionage, the betrayals, the arrests, the tortures, the executions, the disappearances will never cease.”
They can’t.
Governments rule over the governed either by obtaining their tacit consent, or by crushing potential opponents by making them afraid to speak up. Option two is where we are now.
One horror follows another. At Guantánamo concentration camp, where les misérables of America’s War of Terror languish for year after year, uncharged with any crime, U.S. government goons announced that they will continue to force-feed more than 100 hunger strikers during Ramadan, a month-long holiday when devout Muslims are required to fast. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is trapped in the Ecuadorean embassy in London because he fears extradition to and execution by the U.S.; Ecuador has discovered that some Western intelligence agency planted a bug to watch him. Meanwhile, Edward Snowden has been de facto stripped of his U.S. citizenship, his passport canceled, rendering him effectively stateless. Meanwhile, the megacriminals he exposed — Obama and his cronies — are living large.
Assange and Snowden are no longer important. They’ve done all the damage they can do. But the U.S. will never leave them, or any other enemy of the state, alone. It’s about terrifying potential political opponents into submission.
“Do not imagine that you will save yourself, Winston, however completely you surrender to us. No one who has once gone astray is ever spared,” O’Brien tells Winston. “We shall squeeze you empty, and then we shall fill you with ourselves.”
Enjoy your barbecue.
(Ted Rall’s website is tedrall.com. His book “After We Kill You, We Will Welcome You Back As Honored Guests: Unembedded in Afghanistan” will be released in 2014 by Farrar, Straus & Giroux.)
COPYRIGHT 2013 TED RALL
The Conspiracy to Abolish Cash
For many years figures on the political fringe, especially on the right, have claimed that the government and its corporate owners want to transform us into a cashless society. Their warnings about the conspiracy against paper money fell on deaf ears, primarily because the digitalization of financial transactions seemed more like the result of organic business trends than the manifestation of some sinister conspiracy.
Now, however, those who want to do away with liquid currency are stepping out of the shadows. They talk about increased efficiency and profit potential, but their real agenda is nothing less than enslavement of the human race.
“Physical currency is a bulky, germ-smeared, carbon-intensive, expensive medium of exchange. Let’s dump it,” argued David Wolman in Wired.
Citing a 2002 study for the Organization for Economic Development that states “money’s destiny is to become digital, ” a Defense Department-affiliated economics professor has authored an Op/Ed for The New York Times that asks: “Why not eliminate the use of physical cash worldwide?” Jonathan Lipow urges President Obama to “push for an international agreement to eliminate the largest-denomination bills” and urges the replacement of bills and coins by “smart cards with biometric security features.”
Lipow’s justification for calling for the most radical change to the fundamental nature of commerce since industrialization is, of all things, fighting terrorism. “In a cashless economy, insurgents’ and terrorists’ electronic payments would generate audit trails that could be screened by data mining software; every payment and transfer would yield a treasure trove of information about their agents, their locations and their intentions,” Lipow writes. “This would pose similar challenges for criminals.”
Terrorism is a mere fig leaf. According to the annual “Patterns of Global Terrorism” report compiled by the U.S. State Department, the highest total death toll attributed to terrorism in the last 20 years occurred in—surprise—2001. Including 9/11, only 3,547 people were killed in 346 acts of violence worldwide. Tragic. Obviously. But, in the overall scheme of things, terrorism is not a big deal.
Measured in terms of loss of life and economic disruption, terrorism is a trivial problem, hardly worth mentioning. According to the UN, 36 million people die annually from hunger and malnutrition. Over half a million die in car wrecks—but you don’t hear people like Lipow demanding that we get rid of cars. A more legitimate concern is the “loss” of taxes upon the underground economy, estimated by the IMF at 15 percent of transactions in developed nations.
What the anti-cash movement really wants is digital totalitarianism: a dystopian nightmare in which the entire human race is enslaved by international corporations and their pet governments. An anti-establishment gadfly like WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange could be instantly deprived of money—and thus freedom of movement—with a couple of keystrokes. (We saw a preview of this when PayPal and Amazon shut down WikiLeaks donation mechanism and web server, respectively.) The high-tech hell depicted by the film “Enemy of the State” would become reality.
It is true that, in a society where every good and service has to be paid for with a debit or credit card, terrorist groups would find it much harder to operate. Don’t forget, however, that today’s terrorists often become tomorrow’s liberators. Anti-British terrorists George Washington and Thomas Jefferson wouldn’t have stood a chance if the Brits had been able to intercept wire transfers from France.
Decashification would establish digital totalitarianism, a form of corporo-government control so rigid, thorough and all-encompassing that by comparison it would make Hitler and Stalin look like easygoing surfer dudes. The abolition of unregulated financial transactions would freeze the political configuration of the world, making it impossible for opposition movements—much less revolutionary ones—to challenge the status quo.
A society without dissent has no hope. Even if we lived in a perfect world where everyone was ruled by wildly popular, benevolent, scrupulously honest regimes—ha!—eliminating the slightest possibility of opposition would lead to barbarism.
We’re already more than halfway to a cashless society. In the U.S. few young adults still use checks. In many countries debit and credit card transactions now exceed those made via cash and checks combined. In 2007 the chairman of Visa Europe predicted the abolition of cash by 2012. Obviously he was wrong. But that’s where we’re headed. The U.K. plans to abolish checking accounts by 2018.
Even if you love your government, don’t want it to change, and think political opponents belong in prison, you ought to worry. As things currently stand, we know the big banks can’t be trusted. Remember when they introduced ATM cards? Banks wanted us to use them so they could lay off tellers. Then they instituted “convenience fees.” Which they have raised, and raised, to the point that taking $20 out of an out-of-town ATM could cost you $5 in fees ($2 for their bank, $3 for yours).
Imagine what your life will look like under digital totalitarianism. Your pay is direct-deposited into your bank account. You’ll pay for small purchases with your cellphone; if you owe a few bucks to a friend you’ll be able to bump your phone against your friend’s to settle up. Nowadays, some corporations allow you to control when your bills get deducted; in the future they’ll demand that you authorize them to do it automatically. What if you have a disputed charge? They’ll already have your dollars, or work credits, or whatever they’ll call them. Good luck trying to get it back from the Indian call-center guy.
As corporate ownership becomes increasingly monopolized and intertwined, your overdue phone bill might be owned by the same outfit as your bank, which would simply take what it says you owe.
The law of unintended consequences is getting a serious workout thanks to digitalization. Motorists in New York were thrilled when the EZPass system allowed them to breeze past lines at toll bridges—at a discount, no less. Then divorce lawyers began subpoenaing EZPass records to prove that a spouse was cheating. Next police set up EZPass scanners on the bridges; if you pass two of them too fast, a speeding ticket is automatically generated. The next step is to eliminate cash lanes entirely; non-EZPass tag holders will soon have their license plates scanned and receive a bill by mail—plus a $2 to $3 “handling” fee.
Think there are too many fees now? If you think you can’t trust banks now, imagine how badly they’ll gouge you when they control every single commercial transaction down to the purchase of a pack of gum. Angry about taxes? When tax agencies can take the money out of your account without asking, they will. Unlike cash, that phone bump to pay your friend will be a trackable, data mineable, fully taxable commercial transaction.
As if the post-2008 economic collapse hadn’t proven that no one is looking out for We the People but ourselves—and then barely so—the digivangelists tell us not to worry, that Big Brother, Inc. will smooth out the rough patches on the road to techno-fascist domination. From Wolman in Wired: “Opponents used to argue that killing cash would hurt low-income workers—for instance, by eliminating cash tips. But a modest increase in the minimum wage would offset that loss; government savings from not printing money could go toward lower taxes for employers.” Sure. The same way banks passed on the savings they earned by replacing tellers with ATMs to their customers.
Americans are skipping into the digital inferno wearing a smile and relishing the smell of their own burning flesh. Countless friends and acquaintances pay all their bills online. “I’m all about using my checking account in place of cash and would love to be able to eliminate cash entirely from my life,” gushed PCWorld’s Tony Bradley recently.
“Give me convenience or give me death” was the title of an album by the punk band Dead Kennedys.
We’ll get both.
(Ted Rall is the author of “The Anti-American Manifesto.” His website is tedrall.com.)
COPYRIGHT 2010 TED RALL
Americans oppose the WikiLeaks data dump of government records, yet have no problem with government agencies violating their own privacy.
