Drudge: Spy satellites watch Americans from space

wrote:

In any case, the military's growing control
of the global information environment following Vietnam has becomd
nearly total with the result that it seems quite reasonable to believe
the government might fake information to 'solve' crimes.


We know that the FBI crime lab did that on occasion.

This concern can be addressed somewhat by technical cleverness. It
cannot be reversed however without some sort of organizing principle
that permeates all society and changes people's hearts. Sort of like
living in a town where no one locks their doors because the thought of
needing a lock on one's door doesn't even enter anyone's mind. The
moment that is lost, it is difficult or impossible to regain.



Around 1965 in Jamestown, North Dakota.

So, we are very much on a slipperly slope with no easy way back.

Those who believe we never set foot on the moon would gleefully take
your idea a step further Pat. They'd say we could fake the launching
of a super-duper satellite network and convince everyone such a network
exists. Then, we could use the download center, and image processing
center to fabricate evidence as needed. That would have the same
effect without all the cost.



This reminds me of the movie "Wag The Dog" and their fake Albanian war.

In many ways we are a culture in decline. Otherwise your suggestion
wouldn't be understandable to most. But it IS EASILY understandable to
all, and that's the point, even if no one buys it.



Oh, I think trumped-up evidence has probably been with most cultures
from day one of their existence; remember the Federalists and their
Alien And Sedition Acts?
We're seeing take two on that nowadays.
What amazes me is that we learn that all those conspiracy theorists on
late night radio were right, that the NSA was indeed keeping track of
everyone's phone calls...and hardly anybody seems to care. You'd think
that they would be marching on NSA headquarters with torches to burn the
place to the ground, but most people just take it in stride.
Democracy? Individual rights? Apparently a nice, but obsolete, concept.

Pat

wrote:

About the x-ray vision thing, the satellite network need not have it.
The satellite network, if its ever developed, would only be an adjunct
to a far greater intelligence gathering network, which would include
creating a mirror of all the CATV, cell phone, telephone, fax,
financial transactions, legal transactions, and internet traffic - and
sift through that for patterns of activity and attaching each data
stream to each individual. Then, modelling the individual's personality
based on the data stream produced and predicting that person's future
traffic patterns. This would be done for all people simultaneously.
This could be added to with a multi-billion dollar program that would
do deep psychological profiling of all criminals - not to improve or
change them - but to understand them, how they think, and then model
them, and find those people out in society who are close to them in
their innermost thoughts. We could then enter phase 2, which would do
longitudinal studies of the entire population, which would give us how
memes and ideas play on one another to create changes over time. Then,
in phase 3, we could arrest people right at the moment of committing a
crime. And when we got very good at it, we might even push it at the
urging of a latter day Ann Coulter who would ask why wait if 100% of
the criminals have this pattern of activity blah blah blah... push it
to the point of arresting people we could predict would commit a crime
at some point in the future with near certainty. Then finally phase 5,
the reaction of society to the efficient eradication of the
contribution of all those folks to society who are efficiently
identified with the resulting disruption of things, and things getting
progressively worse - even while the system that was going to fix
everything works better and better. As we learn that the fault is in
ourselves, not our systems.



The horrible thing is that you can actually see all of this happening
too, can't you?
Yup, we probably do indeed get arrested for "thought crime" somewhere in
the fairly near future.
We lose three thousand citizens in a terrorist attack, and we promptly
roll over and become a totalitarian state.
Somebody should give a little talk from one of the military cemeteries
in Europe, where there are far more than three thousand Americans dead
who gave their lives to stop a totalitarian state from gaining power
over the world.
I think we are presently betraying their sacrifice.

Pat

Scott Hedrick wrote:

Whatever he deems necessary as Commander in Chief. Thank God the voters were
intelligent enough to not let Kerry be President.


Yeah, you wouldn't want a military man in that sensitive position-
anything might happen!
Why Iran or North Korea could start developing nuclear weapons and Kerry
would have just let them get away with....oh, sorry. :-D

Pat

Scott Hedrick wrote:

They couldn't be going better. Being popular is not necessary to be a good
President.



If this is good, God help us when bad comes along.

Pat

Pat Robinson wrote:

Scott Hedrick wrote:

They couldn't be going better. Being popular is not necessary to be a
good President.

Wow, fascism is indeed thriving in America.

If this is good, God help us when bad comes along.

Right, put your faith in God, not science!

http://cosmic.lifeform.org

Fed, are you a country-club Republican, or a trailer-trash Republican?

Pat Flannery wrote:

:Scott Hedrick wrote:
:
:Whatever he deems necessary as Commander in Chief. Thank God the voters were
:intelligent enough to not let Kerry be President.
:
:
:Yeah, you wouldn't want a military man in that sensitive position-
:anything might happen!

The idea of characterizing Kerry as "a military man" is simply
preposterous.

I guess some people learn nothing at all from past lessons....

Hint: His focus on his short military service to the virtual
exclusion of everything else is part of how he managed to lose the
election.

--
"Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar
territory."
--G. Behn

richard schumacher wrote:

:Fed, are you a country-club Republican, or a trailer-trash Republican?

Richad, are you a pinko-commie Democrat, or a conspiro-wacko Democrat?

In article , Fred J. McCall
wrote:

:This information isn't publicly available. There's a difference between
:something that might perhaps be available to a clever and unscrupulous
:marketer, and something that's available to the *public*. It's not public
:information unless it's available (legally) to anyone (perhaps after
ayment of a suitable fee or after undertaking significant effort).

But it's still commercially available. Nobody has said the government
collected this data.

So, for example, AT&T would be willing to sell me the complete phone
records of the quailtard ranch where Dick Cheney shot a guy in the
face? That would be mildly interesting, and certainly worth whatever
the going rate would be.

When and in what order did they call the lawyers, the guy who knows how
to discreetly dispose of a body, the medics, the guy who knows how long
to wait before calling anybody with access to a breathalyzer, the
police, the President, the press secretary, the press?

Commercially available would mean that curiosity and a credit card
could find out. Now I haven't actually asked AT&T's Social Espionage
Department for a price list, but I doubt that they would provide me
with that information.

--
David M. Palmer (formerly @clark.net, @ematic.com)

"David M. Palmer" wrote:

:In article , Fred J. McCall
wrote:
:
: :This information isn't publicly available. There's a difference between
: :something that might perhaps be available to a clever and unscrupulous
: :marketer, and something that's available to the *public*. It's not public
: :information unless it's available (legally) to anyone (perhaps after
: ayment of a suitable fee or after undertaking significant effort).
:
: But it's still commercially available. Nobody has said the government
: collected this data.
:
:So, for example, AT&T would be willing to sell me the complete phone
:records of the quailtard ranch where Dick Cheney shot a guy in the
:face? That would be mildly interesting, and certainly worth whatever
:the going rate would be.
:
:When and in what order did they call the lawyers, the guy who knows how
:to discreetly dispose of a body, the medics, the guy who knows how long
:to wait before calling anybody with access to a breathalyzer, the
olice, the President, the press secretary, the press?
:
:Commercially available would mean that curiosity and a credit card
:could find out. Now I haven't actually asked AT&T's Social Espionage
epartment for a price list, but I doubt that they would provide me
:with that information.

Hint: You can't get single specific phone records (and that's not
what the government is accused of getting, either).

Just how do you think marketing companies get all their data, David?

--
"Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the
truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong."
-- Thomas Jefferson