Saturday, May 23, 2015

A Potential Silent Ending to a More Significant Time Era

    I am thinking personally of the past impact, over the course of more than a decade, concerning the ending of the Patriot Act and what this has meant.   On the one hand, if you asked any average American what they knew about the Patriot Act and its provisioning of surveillance, they might not be so knowledgeable, and I would admit here even knowing very little of the likely obscurities written into the law providing so much secrecy in so far as the handling of massive spying and surveillance.  On the other hand, I've felt inclined to draw parallels between governmental spying in previous decades, and the at times over social polarities drawn where lines of division between Journalistic press in so far as reporting could amount to more obvious social distinction.  For instance, Hoover style lies and smear campaigns should seem more obvious to people in such a day in conjuring up social polarities.  If it hadn't been for these types of distinctions maybe, the civil rights movement might not have been catalyzed as strongly as it were alongside other social political justice campaigns that came to a head, for instance, in the sixties.  On the other hand, the seeming avoidance in practice and similarity in modern times point to, in my opinion, another sophistication, government manipulation of the press while simultaneously having eroded journalistic press freedoms, for example.  Obviously and where a government won its longevity in the continuance of a program having lost popular support weren't because it had made so much the case in bolstering successes in obvious ways.  It hadn't done much of this, at least it kept information pertaining to actions of programs provisioned from such act hidden away from the American public.  Even if national security related agencies were in fact declassifying information to tout the bolstering of anti terrorism, the clear role if any with respect to the much broader surveillance programs enabled were not supplied, and its amazing that operations could continue largely unquestioned and unabated as it had for as long as it had even likely one should imagine as the most damning parts of secret operations were being revealed and reported on.
    I think in hindsight most Americans in this and potentially future generations will fail to realized the social significance of just what went on in such time era that should seem at times a social netherworld of a twilight zone.  It weren't that we as Americans were hoodwinked by Paris Hilton, New Jersey Housewives, or merely that we might have been cherry picked for some legal entrapment sting that put us in prison for an illegal Jenna Jameson scheme, all in the name of counter terrorism.  It is that we allowed ourselves to be so complicit in the process, in tolerance and continuance of the social distinctions made for the 'rights' and 'wrongs'.  The scope of the patriot act weren't just about counter terrorism, for instance, or when having defined 'suspicion', this could have been as likely in such a time era given to old grandmother looking up the wrong crochet pattern at the wrong time, or personally it seems there could be less 'freedom' given to the dissent of opinions on the matter of opinions.  That is, where social tolerances might have waned so much that anything warranting 'suspicion' were given by the alms of civil social political disagreements.  Here the FBI were secretly given protocols in the reclassification under a new investigation body heading, that is, not merely that evidence with respect to a 'preliminary' versus 'active' investigation but also given to a more nebulous third classification (see also http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/25/us/politics/value-of-nsa-warrantless-spying-is-doubted-in-declassified-reports.html ).  As it turns out, as in the case of CIA interrogation tactics complained about by CIA agents, for instance, interrogating potential 'terrorist' suspects, the information often yielded to the FBI agent were little more than telephone information without any further investigating supplements...as it turns out with 'enemy combatant' detainee interrogation programs, low level CIA officials complained about being in a similar position where little information might have often been provided with respect to such detainee's background, and that much of that might supposedly be revealed through such interrogations.  As it turns out the FBI were given with this third classification of evidence, only vague whereabouts of information concerning what exactly they might be looking for when sifting data coming from say a given telephone number, for example.  The problem here were that a presumption of guilt were supplied without so much reason, and clearly what FBI agents might have been looking for when sifting data from a telephone number was their best guess, or where the failure of dragnet surveillance likely were that likely there might never be any reason given to the phone number that generally went unquestioned in terms of reception for surveillance.  Thus someone's spouse could be found out having an affair, or their children sneaking out in the middle of the night to the parent's unaware could be as likely suspicious as anything that a government had a hand in desiring to know.  There wouldn't under such classification be any particular reason for surveillance other than what might be found and with respect to when surveillance might reasonably exist, anyone's best guess.  Although it may be less clear that any past or previous administration, used in the clearest ways information to smear and slander individuals targeted programs culminating with these attempts and having gathered such information under the auspices of national security.
    The NSA takes the blame, but likely the implication of the Patriot Act's expiration is broader than that, and potentially one should hope it leads to sane undoing of all that were massive breaching of ordinary privacy world wide.

Personal reflections, the lesser known, and conjecture

    I think back reflecting over the times, that security breaches weren't merely another voyeur on the system to parrot what it is that I had said through cryptic social networking interference.  I imagine this likely weren't just another voyeur, or at least where the hand of intrusion might have malicious started an intrusion much deeper than that.  Here somehow, it seems hard for me, for instance, to decouple such a time era marked by cyber bullying where it seems secret conspiratorial social organization between civilians and non civilians should be aligned in some privacy breaching in a nefarious way.   This weren't merely programs or applications incidentally compromised by someone in Europe or Russia for that matter, or more likely such an individual were more likely from the U.S. and maybe exploitation of security here were given as likely from governmental funding that could be linked in some way to the Patriot Act itself.  It were true in the past, for instance, that goonish groups of individuals directed and organized (at the behest of leadership in government) in a way to insinuate themselves in public settings there to disrupt and cause chaos to public demonstrations of one sort or another.  In today's time era, this behavior (although seldom reported about) has shifted as I have imagined it.  If a governmental agency should provide an securities exploitation that makes for giving access by others, it seems all that the others would need were the compliment application interface to further engage in abuse of privacy.  Here the scope of what the Patriot Act facilitated, I believe, went far beyond things like massive dragnet surveillance, but even had so much corporate cooperation to leave security vulnerabilities intact for instance, and arguably more so.  It weren't just that those doing the spying could come across as sick psychopathic and belligerent man children at times operating like electronic poltergeists on one's system, or even that there should clear given distinction between them and say East German Stasi.  If and when this should seem more apparent those doing the spying might have operated worse, because this had involved and made use of American citizenry in doing the spying on other citizens.  If this were true, not only lacking protocol but likely the effect of this were the unleashing of massive abuses in so far as power, tame words, cyber bullying are used here which limit the scope and capacity between goon actors and the shield being provided here for the proxy.  It seems at least in theory these ideas might be bolstered given at times local law enforcement reticence in tackling the matter of cyber bullying, illegal theft and illegal account/domain access which under other circumstance would not be tolerated at all.  That is, breaking and entering clearly labeled and prosecuted under criminal law as anyone else also kidnapping and holding individuals hostage, but with respect to electronic crimes, permission?  Why?

   In retrospect, I can honestly say that I hope whatever social phenomenon that supposedly seem to have arisen during such late time era is coming to a close.  That it, is the last days of personal intrusions to the scope and extent personally experienced are coming to a close, and this potentially means looking less over the shoulder.  That I should less likely encounter the unusually hostile employee at a local business establishment.  That I should less likely feel having been tailed and followed when having traveled briefly on a given vacation outside the country, or inside my own country tailed and clearly made to feel having been watched by another patron in the bar, whom rudely might have persistently and deliberately engaged in maintaining clear eye contact, or having encountered the classic cloak and dagger repose of the long striding six foot seven man with long dark trench coat tailing you for seemingly little reason, except that somewhere along the line, you did something out of the ordinary post 911 having drawn the suspicion in the first place.   Maybe it were being too American, and having the desire to move out of your home town on a whim without having known really anyone to the city that you relocated too, over a decade ago?   Maybe it were because it were also living in a more popular coastal American city?   Maybe it were that you once played in a Heavy Metal band?  Maybe it were that someone you knew had interests in jewelry design?  Maybe it were that you also had anti war convictions that someone along the lines spurred furthered interests?  It is true I weren't into amassing weapons of any sort and still could care less for guns, and then even if I were a non violent type somehow feeling as though one might have been an emblematic figurehead of sorts.  Maybe most others hadn't noticed so much or pretended not to notice what could be made noticeable.  Any possible personal conversation on this were likely, I should imagine given to reticence, or as likely as comically as this should ironically sound, amid the right wing paranoia chatter, one should hear in so many words someone trying to insist in some manner that 'ideas like that are not only dangerous ones but mean something of a danger of one's mental capacity towards oneself and others.'  Others might have pretended to neither have witnessed what you might have witnessed, or pretended in the sense of saying things like 'why would someone bother with all the expense of doing exactly that?'   Is it harder to respond to this?  Is it hard to say that technology has made spying a much cheaper endeavor than it ever has been?  Is it hard to say that goonish government thugs spied on everyday average American's in the past for little reason at times?  Is it hard to say that spy ware applications can be developed and can be used and that this might not cost a lot in doing so for those engaged in the behavior?  You are told, of course, 'just a peon, like everyone else in so many words...' or that alone should provide little incentive...unfortunately this logic doesn't always hold its weight.  The reasons have been stated.  Its hard to see controversy in this when in previous decades, congress authorized more massive spying for the sake of security.  Its not unreasonable that this logical outcome would result when an event so rare should happen did happen, and a then president warned people that it takes 'just one incident' in reference to a terrorist event...yes and so the world could be potentially ended by a meteorite and less money is spent there, but it is possible, yes that people could actually be paid not only to 'invent' their roles justifying money, but also having 'invented' the role by which massive spying were necessary if the money were there to reinforce the justification by it.  In that twilight zone of a time era, social complicity abounding should be given to in so many words, it weren't right having a different view of things.  As much given to the aim of pretending, bleeding heart liberalism might have balked at times immediately post 911 at the suggestions of operating a 'shadow' government or the contrivances of a post cold war makeshift cheapo bomb shelter suggestions:  duct tape and clear plastic tarps.  Most it seems might have fallen short and silent in going beyond that.  A Moore film encapsulated the absurdities of literally made use of ground operatives infiltrating grandma activist organizations surely, but it hadn't exactly ended there in that immediate post 911 few years thereafter aftermath.  The troubling aspects about all this were that the impression might have been given that things would end under Obama, but Obama's recent attorney general appointee would offer the Neo con/Ne liberal defense of a new revised act, or in other words, the Obama administration could be in so many words a surrogate for continuance in policy making, notwithstanding that he waffled on the Guantanamo prison camps, its not hard to see why.  What Obama has failed to appreciate is that at times, he has seemed to be pretty much a very similar continuance of Bush in many respects to governing this nation, and that he might have amply supplied and having bought more time for all the proponents that should have his administration sounding like the Ford administration at the tail end of Vietnam.  Of course, a little some a little too late, and sounding pretty half ass ed really for dealing with the inevitable which were likely a congressional check in coming.

What likely I hope is learned of this surveillance program in such a time era is how much of a 'circus' it really were, and how much un democratic this country became in the process of supposedly defending itself for what could have been more finely approached in so far as domestic security revisions.  America in such times sold itself down the river in so far as democracy for knee jerk political reactionaries, and especially for those looking to exploit and take of advantage of tax payers in the process, but it were more than that.  I think lives may have been genuinely ruined and lost because of this act and not for the better of the country.  The Patriot Act I think ruined lives not for better security.  I think this should be important in noting. 

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