Good book suggestion

[horseshoe3]

"Last of the Breed" by Louis L'Amour has always been one of my favorite books. With the NSA scandal coming to the forefront, it was brought back to my mind.

The basic plot is that an American test pilot of Native American heritage is shot down in Siberia in the 1980s and captured. He escapes and follows the route his ancestors took back to Alaska. It's a really good read in it's own right, but what made me think of it lately is this: I've always thought L'Amour did a masterful job of capturing the feelings of a society with near complete government control. The paranoia that ran from top to bottom and back up to the top knowing that everyone is a spy and trying to stay under the radar and not raise any suspicions is vividly portrayed. One of my favorite lines is "These days, one need not be guilty of anything. It is enough merely to be suspected."

I think American society is getting very close to that level now. Some of us have always suspected that any number of alphabet agencies are spying on us. The majority chose to believe that it wasn't happening here. Now, noone can plead ignorance. Everyone has to know they are being watched.

[gunDriller]

"Last of the Breed" by Louis L'Amour has always been one of my favorite books. With the NSA scandal coming to the forefront, it was brought back to my mind.

I think American society is getting very close to that level now. Some of us have always suspected that any number of alphabet agencies are spying on us. The majority chose to believe that it wasn't happening here. Now, noone can plead ignorance. Everyone has to know they are being watched.

i don't think everyone is being watched. i think those who have expressed dissident opinions, e.g. G-S.us members, yes, there is a much higher probability that we are being watched.

in general, what the NSA does is vacuum everything up. but they rarely open the "vacuum cleaner" to clean the filter. they store the raw data, and they have engineers who work on 2 things -
* ways to store the data more cheaply, now and 2/5/10/20 years in the future
* ways to access essential data from the big "hairball" of data that they vacuum up.

then they perform a sort of custodial function. e.g. someone at DHS wants info on a list of Americans. NSA collaborates & cooperates by turning over relevant data. if you are on that list, then you are definitely being spied on.

but they can only watch that which creates a digital record. as long as you haven't raised any red-flags, they don't need to have a UAV keeping an eye on you.


short version - yes, we are being spied on. with fvcking UAV's even.

[palani]

i would be interested to find out what the caseload is for the average NSA/FBI/DHS employee. i.e., how many people they are actively watching. open case files, closed case files, back-burner case files.

As a rule I don't worry about those who like to watch and analyze. I prefer to make my notices public in the legal section of the paper. A couple months ago I had an opportunity to post legal notices outside post offices, city halls and federal buildings.

Perhaps it is not important what you do in PRIVATE as what you make PUBLIC.

For example ... if you want to find out if you have a warrant on you call up the local sheriff. I practically guarantee you that they will not give you this information over the phone but might try to get you to make an appearance in person (so that they can exercise it if they have one). This presents a problem if you want to take a vacation out of town for a few weeks. If there is a warrant and it is executed outside your state then you have INTERSTATE FLIGHT TO AVOID PROSECUTION. So why not just post a legal notice 'JOHN DOE FROM 367 STONE ST ALPHA TENNESSEE HAS BUSINESS OUT OF TOWN AND WILL BE RETURNING ON OR BEFORE JULY'.

[Hatha Sunahara]

I just finished watching the German film The Lives of Others. This is a drama set in East Germany in 1985, when the STASI was spying on all the East Germans. This movie gives a good overall sense of the large scale effects of universal spying by the government. I would recommend it to everyone interested in this kind of thing.

What I read here at GSUS and elsewhere in both the mainstream and alternative media are the dangers to individuals. The OP in this thread invites readers to look at it from this perspective. The danger to individuals is certainly there and it is real. It allows the people who have access to this data to usurp an individual's rights. It makes it so you can no longer hold an opinion that runs counter to the interests of the state and to express that opinion publicly. It's essence is that it allows the state to terrorize the entire population by enforcing a uniformity of thinking without room for any deviation. You either love big brother, or you shut up completely. The state can blackmail you into doing whatever they want. They can turn your friends against you. In a state that has this power, you can no longer have any friends. You have to look over your shoulder all the time. You have to watch what you say. You cannot trust anyone because the state will make them speak out against you to avoid punishment. In this movie, the guy in charge of State Security describes how he controls artists. He says they are placed in temporary detention--in comfortable prisons, with no mistreatment, but no contact with their friends or family. They leave them there for 10 months, and then let the aberrant artist go. He says what happens is that after this experience most of them do not produce anything for the rest of their lives. No writing from the writers, no paintings from the painters, no magic from the magicians--nothing. Some of them commit suicide. And he is proud of it. Another interesting thing about the film is that it gives a perspective on the people making a career of running this kind of surveillance on people, and using it to control them. In the last scene of the movie, after the fall of the GDR. the Playwright who was under suspicion meets the minister who did the controlling who reminisces about the good times in the GDR. And the playwright says to him, "And to think that countries are run by people like you."

We have those kind of people here in America, and they are running amok. That is why I consider Edawrd Snowden a hero--for exposing them before they can do irreparable damage to a generation of Americans. For pointing out the large scale dangers to the society of having people like this in charge. We don't need no sinking GDR in America. Anything that puts these people in their place is welcome by me.


Hatha

[Jewboo]

I just finished watching the German film The Lives of Others. This is a drama set in East Germany in 1985, when the STASI was spying on all the East Germans. This movie gives a good overall sense of the large scale effects of universal spying by the government. I would recommend it to everyone interested in this kind of thing....



Watch free HERE (http://www.solarmovie.so/link/show/1308803/)

:)