Qik is gone

Well of course a lot of people don't even know Qik ever existed. But here's what it could do .... you installed it as an App on your smartphone, and it could be started immediately to use your smart camera to record and upload streaming video and send it right away to a remote source. Providing of course, that you could make a 3G or 4G or wireless connection to that source.
Very nice.
What applications could that be used for?  Well if you were out fishing and caught that big one just as your boat started to sink! You'd had proof, if you ever made it to shore, of that huge fish!
Or that guy ran into your parked car and you saw it and he just backed up and drove away! Aha, evidence for your insurance company! Or even you frolicking with your dog who ate your camera!
Hmm, ok, good App. What else?

Same thing?

Well ..... er .... it seemed like some so called activist people used Qik to record confrontations with the police. Like protesters being pummeled with Billy clubs. Or the police doing an illegal roadblock. Or just those kind of beatings you see by frustrated fatty Officer Psycho that maybe you've already seen on You Tube.
Many of those might have been recorded by Qik. By positioning it on your main page of your phone, it was instantly available for use. With a quick click.
Dangerous App. And you know the police are not fond of being recorded at work!
In many cases the police have been recorded during activities that were later found illegal and when they charged the Qik operator, the courts threw out their argument that openly recording the police at work was illegal. Sorry but First Amendment rights took priority in almost every case. (Concealing your filming was a different matter and should be warned against.)

So my point is that this fits into my own theory from years ago, when the US government had that secretive meeting with Bill Gates, and threatened to break up Microsoft into three separate companies, run by whomever instead of Gates. His baby! That is when I suggest that Microsoft came under the careful and secret guidance of the NSA! And in the recent years we all know what is going on with the NSA and Microsoft software. Backdoors into software etc.

So Microsoft bought Skype. Your recording and communications with relatives or others across thousands of miles instantly were available to the corporation. Kind of something that NSA would want to control. Even if Microsoft didn't. Microsoft could capably set-up their own Skype kind of software, but that wouldn't get them all those Skype USERS already signed up. To tune into and watch what they were doing.

So along comes Qik, doing what no law enforcement agencies wanted them to do, and someone from that shadowy realm, takes action. Microsoft does what it is told. Just buy the competition and shut it down! It happens in business all the time. Microsoft bought Qik for 100 MILLION dollars, and garnered over 5 million current users!
And now has simply shut it down. One less thorn in the side of certain agencies that find real laws and the US constitution nothing but an irritant. In the case of Qik, it was the streaming video that was the problem, by recording as it happens, all that action went right to a remote source and even if the police took away your phone, or deleted the file as they are so wont to do, the evidence of what they did was already gone. Into the ether or the sweaty night to emerge again on social media!  Incriminatingly. Go-Pros are great, but they can be smashed and their evidence lost forever.

So by just spending a measly 100 million And we know the NSA has 100 mil to spend every day of the week .... (As a matter of fact, no one actually knows how much the NSA has to spend) to get that certain patented software built into Qik, and toss the remainder of the codes into the junk bin, the competition is shut down, like companies often do, in this case the competition, as it is emerging through the democratic world, is we the people.

Us.

You and me.

The world is spinning faster folks, pay attention.




But there is still Bambuser.

Microsoft/USGovernment

 

Was I right or was I right?

New documents revealed today from Edward Snowden, show that Microsoft corporation colluded with the FBI to bypass encryption within Outlook. Allowing them to see and read everything you ever sent through Outlook email!
I LIKE saying I told you so ...
And here is a post I wrote here on Bitches & Belches in March, 2010 - and yes, I'm still wearing that tin hat you all laughed about.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Monday, March 15, 2010

Conspiracy theory 3 ... Microsoft

Do you remember a few years ago the US Government threatened Microsoft under antitrust laws?
Funny how that interest sort of faded. But only for a while. Like they were regrouping somewhere in the cellars of the Pentagon or the NSA or the White House. Down there in the dark among the lizards.
Then the Government came charging back with a fury and threatened to dismantle Microsoft into three separate companies. They feared Microsoft had way too much power because of their monopolistic position in the computer market? That is bad, they said.
But wait, someone might have exclaimed, wouldn't a monopoly be a GOOD thing if a government could use it to control people and identify where they were and what they were saying and doing and thinking? And the road was headed to everyone owning a computer? And wouldn’t those puters most likely have the Windows Operating System? Isn't Windows on 98% of all PC computers with XP, Vista or now Windows 7 OS?
Have you noticed that when you go to a website, and then delete or clear all your cookies, and then go back to that website some time later, they seem to know who you are?
Didn't Microsoft put a unique number into your operating system under the hype that it was a good thing to control piracy of their software? Then under waves of protest from the public they said they wouldn't TURN ON that unique identifying number? Or at least YOU could turn it off? And doesn't your hard drive have a unique number too? Did you know that even your CD burner imprints a unique number onto every CD you burn identifying the actual burner? And your digital camera does the same thing. Even if you steal it from the web, someone can find out who TOOK that picture. And when and where?

Didn't the FBI come out with a sneaky computer spy system called Carnivore a few years ago, that could read the contents of any computer it wanted through your server? Then they changed the name because it seemed too ominous and scary and 1984ish? Funny how the past can scare us.
Carnivore could see every single email you sent to whomever and every word you typed into your hard drive or internet browser? Mostly Microsoft’s Internet Explorer of course. Including every password and user name you ever used in a chat room or discussion forum? And didn't all this happen at about the same time as Microsoft introduced Windows XP? And didn't the US hold these server companies hostage by threatening to shut them down unless they installed Carnivore into their systems without telling anyone? Without telling their customers? You.
Sorry for all these rhetorical questions, but ….

Doesn't Homeland Security and the Patriot Act give the government pitbulls the power to do anything they want without telling anyone about what they are doing? To fight terrorism they say? Hmm.
Isn't Microsoft starting to add things now to updates of its software without making it clear to technical people exactly what those updates are or what they are supposed to do? In Windows Media player some technicians have compared the guts of Media Player 9.0 with Media Player 10.0 and can't find the differences? So why the update?
Would the US government and Bill Gates have made a secret deal somewhere in the shadowy bowels of the Pentagon with all those Gila Monsters to allow Microsoft to continue as one company, so long as the Justice department had access to the Windows Operating System? Wouldn’t proud papa Bill Gates have done anything to avoid the Sophie’s choice decision about his company? His precious family. His birth child.
After all, we all know that starting a company becomes your googly baby, your loving family and you nurture it along the way until it becomes something to be proud of like your son growing up to be famous? And wouldn’t any worried parent have done what he had to do to keep it all together? Bill Gates being no exception?
I don't know ... wouldn’t he?

Er ... would the US government be that sneaky as to threaten Bill Gates into a deal that allowed them to monitor the masses through the most used computer system in the world? Oops, sorry for yet another rhetorical question, but I was there in the sixties.
I have not lost faith. I still believe in the sneakiness of certain humans who want their way. And I understand the vulnerability of parents who fear for their children. And I still know that stealthy power-mongering forces attempt to run the world from the dark side.

They say that when a venomous Gila Monster bites you, he doesn’t let go until sunset. I may even start believing in reptilian shape-shifters.
As the poetic prophet Bob Dylan once said, ‘It ain’t dark yet, but it’s gettin’ there.’

Posted by HelloWall at 7:52 PM

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

appropo to May, 13, 2014 isn't it?
Was I right?
or was I right?

Bad Guys vs Good Guys?

You have to decide who is who?

  Should we just stop free speech and thank the government for looking after us?

Just a muse about exposing information, but why wasn't Robert Novak charged with outing a working CIA agent when he revealed the Valery Plame identity in his newspaper column? Maybe because he, liked David Gregory was already shilling for the government? When does free speech become treasonous? Why are the standards flexible? Why isn't morality part of the equation?

NSA vs Snowden vs You?

Watch a wrap-up of the 2013 revelations about Edward Snowden, the NSA, Glen Greenwald and the reporting news organizations. Then make your own decisions with some knowledge of the events.

 

Dirty old men and web teens ...

Evidently Outlook doesn't mind if you contact those pretty young girls, looks like it is even encouraging it here? This is what comes up when I close an Outlook account after reading my email. An invitation to start a Skype conversation with a cute blonde. 

Parents everywhere are frightened out of their wits about their children being preyed upon by web stalkers. So what is this all about? Don't ask me, ask Microsoft, they're the ones who changed Hotmail into Outlook. Now they want to connect your Twitter account to Outlook. And any or all of your other social media accounts.

Makes you wonder why, doesn't it?

Here's why? Because the powers behind the scenes want to track you better, so connecting your Twitter etc. with your Outlook accounts, makes it a little easier for cross-referencing. And the more people on Skype, allows the NSA et al, to use PRISM's facial recognition software to add YOU into their database. In that secret huge new center in Utah. Now you know why Microsoft bought Skype for 8.5 billion when there were no other bidders, and ..... here's the big one, who installed the rogue code of spyware onto it almost immediately.


But are they using young blondes as bait-girls? Hmm, you decide exactly what is being encouraged here.  

#supermultitasker

Send Tweets from the People pane when you connect your Twitter account to Outlook.com.

Connect your accounts

. . . So you can coordinate and contact a girl on Skype and perhaps see her, write on her Facebook wall, message her on Twitter, there's even a pop-up dialogue box inviting her to the beach with you! You get her personal email address and even her Seattle home town with zip code! 
Scary, huh?

Or maybe it's just the NSA wanting to see if you're a dirty old man?

Keep on clicking ....  at your own risk.

Facebook + NSA = same thing.

So Facebook is now tagging you with facial recognition software. And suggesting your friends also tag you - which is actually identifying you to whomever wants to know.
The facial recognition software makes measurements of distance between your eyes, nose, ears and mouth etc. You can identify yourself or if others see a pic of you, they are encouraged to 'tag' you, that is place your name on that picture. Thereby identifying you whether you like it or not. This all builds a unique template of YOU. Whether you like it or not.

Yes you can opt out, but that might be a complicated process. And who can trust these web entities any more. So if a company like Facebook would do it in the first place, and try to make you believe it is for your benefit, good luck trying to explain ethics to them. And we all know by now, or should, that anything Facebook does in relation to privacy, is shared with the NSA. Do you still laugh when someone mentions New World Order? Or One World Government?

Already Germany is about to sue Facebook over privacy issues, and if the Monsanto thing has any traction, other European countries will follow. Europeans know what is it like to be spied upon. And tattled about. North Americans have yet to learn but they may be too naive, skeptical or stupid and too late to comprehend the implications of the problem.

Try telling your friends that facial recognition of them will be added to a 600 million person database in Facebook. And by extension, added to the database of NSA, which is probably 1000 times larger. Yes folks, they know where you are every minute of your life, Google Earth told them where you live, Street View has a picture of your house, and now they see exactly what you look like.

Each day, Facebook users upload over 200 million photos! Into a database already holding 90 BILLION photos. Keep in mind that there are only 7 billion people on Earth, so you can be sure that you are already in there with a memorized, measured, cataloged, identified, face.
And you know that certain people who want to access these databases, will.

The Wall Street Journal takes time to point out NSA's evasions and misleadings. Even PC World, in a review of this process, calls it 'downright creepy', and suggests uploading pictures of trees and cars and tagging them with your own name.
There IS a way to fight back. A small way perhaps, but an even better idea would be to go to virtually ALL your friends' pages, and tag every single picture with a made-up name. Tag Mary Parker as Joe Plumeria. Tag someone's dog with Harvey Black. Tag Harvey Black with the name Phillip White. Tag a black man as Hung Lo. A Chinese friend as Lord Churchill. Databases become useless with misinformation, now you too can take part in a DISinformation campaign. People are already doing it by lying to pollsters.

And some communities in Europe and Asia are setting up their own web communications with networks that DON'T pass through the NSA-Prism siphon upload points to avoid being spied upon. So with enough participation and fortitude, people can at least entangle the spy database into the non recognition of individuals.

Funny how we loved Bill Gates for building Microsoft into a communication giant. And when he was threatened with the dismantling of Microsoft by the US Government for being non competitive, and they were about to split Microsoft into three separate entities, but Gates attended secret meetings, and thereafter everything continued along as usual. Leading many to suspect those threats from the Government were only a sneaky way to get Gates to comply with sneaking government software codes into Windows, so-called 'backdoor access', with tattle-tale info on what YOU were just doing on line. Or lose his baby. Remember the Windows unique identification number? Well your hard drive still has one.
And now Mark Zuckerberg, the brash and somewhat arrogant founder of Facebook, after cashing in big time, has restructured the social site with antisocial behavior to tattle on you? Tattle is perhaps too light a word, whisper might be better.
And the shadowy people in Forte Mead, Maryland, anonymous behind the black glass of NSA are grinning with glee as everyone plays the Facebook game. 
 

So here I am, tag me as Scottie MacDuff. 

I'm heading to my yurt on the sandy steppes of Mongolia, no facial recognition there.  
But I will be tagging the the yaks as horses and the goats as camels, just in case.

Welcome to Amerika

This map appeared during a presentation by Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein about the NSA at a Senate Judiciary Committee meeting. 
It seems now that America considers Canada as just another part of the USA Homeland. We knew that already though, right? It looks like Greenland is a part too but they cleverly covered rebellious Iceland. (not sure how Denmark feels about Greenland's inclusion)

It was also recently revealed that NSA paid GCHQ, Britain's equivalent spy agency, 150 million in hush-hush money to influence British intelligence gathering operations. So can we assume that Britain is also now part of the USA? 
Africa and Australia don't get a color.

So now that we are American citizens too, where do we go to get those benefits Americans get so much of?
Um .... what were they again? 
Oh. No healthcare, you say? Ah yes, they consider it a good thing not to have it, don't they?

Should we begin referring to the Homeland as der Fatherland?

Just a little something ...

.... that you may find interesting. When you sign IN to your Facebook account, do you always sign OUT when you leave?
So while you are ON your Facebook account, that you have already given them masses of private info about yourself, which as you know, can be cross-referenced with your 'friends' on Facebook by anyone who has access to Facebook. So because the NSA has literally ALL of that info easily available to them, they can find out virtually anything about you from you actually posting your private thoughts!

But look at this, when you sign into Facebook, you are Mary Smith, for instance, you do some reading and say hi to your friends, and tell them your day so far. Then, you click on to doing other things on the web.
BUT, did you sign OUT before moving on?

Otherwise you are still signed IN to Facebook, and every site you visit, you are doing that as Mary Smith! And may be tracked from website to website! Including any comments you make on those other websites! Scary huh?


Don't forget you gave Facebook all those options when you signed up.



Get back under your bed, they're watching you too!

SIGN OUT!

Send Grandma a message?

Just because Grandma lives down the block doesn't mean your message doesn't go elsewhere first.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A brief overview of current data routes ...

Mapping How Data Travels

As your data moves, it leaves behind information about where it has been. You can learn where your data travels using a tool called Traceroute. IXmaps collects traceroute data generated by volunteers and then geolocates that information in order to map how internet traffic actually travels the globe. The IXmaps database has thousands of routes that you can explore.
There are lots of ways for you to explore the IXmaps database. You can see traceroutes from your country, see traceroutes from from your city, see 'boomerang' routes, or learn how to perform a custom search.
Interested in where your data packets travel? Download and run our TRgen application, then explore the IXmaps database to see your results.

Tracking Internet Surveillance

This is traceroute #1859. TR1859 shows data packets travelling from a home computer in Toronto to the San Francisco Art Institute's website. Along this route, we see that the data passes through a known NSA surveillance site, AT&T's internet switching facility in San Francisco, located at 611 Folsom Street.At this site, a splitter cabinet has been installed to divert a copy of all gateway traffic to NSA computers for inspection.
The NSA is strongly suspected of having installed 15-20 similar spy rooms at other locations across the United States, including Los Angeles, New York and Chicago. The IXmaps database contains hundreds of routes that pass through both known and suspected NSA suveillance sites. See more routes that travel through NSA surveillance sites
See a summary of the evidence supporting our claims regarding the NSA

Canadian Network Sovereignty

This is traceroute #3381. TR3381 shows data packets travelling from a home computer in Toronto to a local news and entertainment website. Along this route, we see that packets that begin and end in Toronto, pass through Chicago, a suspected NSA surveillance site.
As a result of many technical, economic and policy choices made principally by private corporations, Canadian internet traffic is often routed through the US, even when both origin and destination are within Canada. These "boomerang routes" prompt concerns regarding Canadian network sovereignty, since Canadians' packets passing through routers in the US are subject to US interests, such as surveillance under provisions of the USA Patriot Act or the NSA's warrentless surveillance program described elsewhere. The IXmaps database contains hundreds of examples of Canadian boomerang routes.

Fait accompli?

..... an accomplished thing already done: The enemy's defeat was a fait accompli long before the formal surrender. 

Well, we have not surrendered quite yet, but a lot of people are beginning to believe efforts are futile if they want to continue believing in privacy and even democracy at all. PRISM seems to defeat any efforts toward privacy in communications. And so far it looks like democracy on the web is over. Using the simplest software from Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, AOL and Facebook betrays everything you do, say, type, phone, send, record, talk, email, message, what else is there? 
 
PRISM is collecting data on all of us. We know that, and many in the know suggested this a long time before Edward Snowden revealed anything. Bush and Cheney were running the US government when it came into being, of course we suspected foul play. Bush secretly okayed the NSA to do whatever it wanted to do! Using FISA, (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) and then the secret court of FISC. (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court)
Barack Obama has continued and expanded that nefarious role of the POTUS.

So you could have been surveilled, been to court, and convicted of something dreadful already! We said democracy was dead, didn't we? 

As of April 2013, PRISM is said to allow the organisation to "receive" emails, video clips, photos, voice and video calls, social networking details, logins and other data held by a range of US internet firms, namely companies as: Microsoft and its Skype division; Google and its YouTube division; Yahoo; Facebook, AOL, Apple and PalTalk.

So what still isn't known?

Security researcher Ashkan Soltani has posted a blog saying there are still five key unanswered questions about Prism:

• How effective is the "51% test" at preventing US citizens' records being swept up by the NSA?
• Are the tech companies trusted with knowing who the potential targets of the NSA investigations are?
• What systems are in place to ensure NSA officials do not overstep their boundaries?
• Bearing in mind Skype has previously denied making changes to its system to "provide law officers greater access", how are its voice calls being intercepted if indeed they are?
• What steps have been taken to ensure third parties cannot intercept the information? 

Then we are being asked to trust that the info we have already, CAN be trusted. What they are forgetting or at least not acknowledging, is that we NEVER have trusted the US agencies to tell any truths since 9-11.

 

pretty picture, ugly data

One more unanswered question: Whose side is PRISM on?

 

What exactly is PRISM?   -  explained

pgp software download  -  Pretty Good Privacy

conspiracy-theory-microsoft  -  I told you so



 

While we're on the subject ...

VERY important reading. Even if you think you don't care, or you're not doing anything wrong.

This was published by Eric Limer on Gizmodo, 22, June, 2013.  Don't be afraid, read it!

exactly-how-the-NSA-is-getting-away-with-spying-on-us

My Pericles quote on the sidebar is apropo.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Your Personal Web

I wanted to tell you about my web browser and how, through managing the settings of it, I hope to have a little privacy on my web meanderings. 
But first ....

We have the huge furor right now of the NSA and other secretive agencies monitoring and reading your private files, searches and web activity. Unless you live on another planet you know about this. You can't call mother-in-law a bitch in an email to your sister without the possibility it could come back to haunt you! Just like she haunts your marriage! 


So because of these NSA scandals, various talking heads, political and even military are saying it ain't so. Reassuring?  No.
Usually, on careful listening, you'll hear these experts tell you they need a court order to listen in to your phone chat. But that court order is obtained from a SECRET court. (FISC) And it may be true, but no reporter I have watched zeros in to the differences between a phone chat and web searches, emails, social media posts, blogs or other internet activity. 
My understanding is that under the Patriot Act, FISA, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the NSA or Homeland Security need NO court order or warrants to read whatever you do on the internet through your web servers. And your ISP, under that post 9/11 law, MUST turn over data to them and CANNOT tell you that you have been inquired about.

[And this makes one wonder if SIRI users are under scrutiny without a warrant to their voice messages because they go to a cloud base for decryption into digital and text before forwarding to the intended recipient. So it is no longer a phone voice message, but text, and subject to peeking without that legality?] 

There are several choke points on the World Wide Web in North America that virtually ALL information travels through. And in virtually all of those points, a certain government agency has installed splitters that siphon off copies of everything going through the web. To and from virtually everywhere in N.A. and beyond.
So your Facebook posts, Tweets, emails, websites, searches and everything else you do while connected are available for scrutiny. This is what the panic is all about from Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Verizon, AT&T, et al. These companies have been made to look like they are betraying your privacy. Why? Because their search engines store whatever you search for, and browsers record and store whatever you do on the web. Like where you go. How often, how long you stay there, and perhaps what forms or info you pass into that website. All browsers do it and it remains on their servers.

Is there any hope of keeping your web thoughts and travels private? Maybe a little. So to get back to the settings feature of the Chrome web browser, and others, you CAN change a few settings so the movement of your info is not under automatic review.

In Chrome,  they want you to sign up and sign in to see your page as do Microsoft and Firefox. By having a home page, your interests are revealed as you set it up. I know, you have nothing to be afraid of, you're not a terrorist. But you can use the speed of Chrome without having a home page. Signing up is the usual process of telling them everything. 

Look at the settings in the Chrome browser - 

Sign in - just don't.
On startup - your choice.
Appearances - do you really need a theme eating up bandwidth? The others are your choice.
Search - now we get critical - You can set your preferred search engine here, from Google, Bing, Yahoo, CNN etc. And under Manage Search Engines, you can add any other search you would like to use. Two that are secure, are ixquick, and DuckDuckGo. To add either of these or others to the mix, you need to put in the correct URL for them. These two search engines, simply do not store your search requests, and should they be asked to reveal them, they have nothing to share with anyone who may be interested.  (in contrast, you may have searched two years ago for something on Google and it could be still there!)
The key to a secure website is the https:// instead of the http://.

Users - this goes to whomever you were when you first downloaded and started the browser. In the case of a PC and Apple, your Microsoft Internet Explorer and Safari were already there, with settings. And you should have lied to begin with. Your true information and identity is NOT necessary for you to surf the web. You COULD delete the present user and do a whole new one. A nom de guerre if you like, a safe pseudonym. (But remember that you do have a unique ISP number) However you can change the default settings in MSIE and Safari easily.
Default browser - up to you, might as well be this one if you are making all these changes. 
Privacy - ah, this is the one, look at those buttons. Content Settings are more about cookies. You could disable the setting of cookies but that would be a hassle and slow down everything. Better to instruct your browser on what to do and the search facility NOT to save anything. 
But the buttons below could betray you too, they are probably already checked. Use a web service to resolve navigation errors, you are basically sending out your search requests to a third party, who then CAN save it somewhere. Same with prediction service and automatically send usage statistic to Google. Really?

I only have Enable phishing and malware protection checked.

Passwords and forms - Wow, did you ever fill out a job application on the web? Mmm juicy information probably still on your ISP server!  (if you have your own domain name, you can go to your host and see the info)
Further down we have HTTPS and SSL. And investigation of this one leads to a part where the words authority and trust are used a lot. Well I never trust authority, so you probably need someone smarter to tell you what these actually do. But keep in mind that the programmers who invented all these inherent programs were only trying to help you have a seamless web experience. Nothing nefarious. It's only that others could use the information too. And do.
Google Cloud Print - Well, it seems to me that the whole idea of so called cloud computing has come under suspicion with the latest revelations on surveillance and monitoring. I can't believe that companies trust their private information outside of their own computers, just to use the newest program updates. And companies must now consider that if leaks to media can happen for ideological reasons, then leaks to other companies can happen for money.
System - UNcheck that first box, that says continue running background apps when browser is closed unless you want your computer still doing stuff even when you're back to your FreeCell game.  

So. You're not a terrorist, you have nothing to hide. You're not in the 80% of web users who surf porn. You have no opinion about HSBC laundering crime money. It's only your crazy Uncle Harry who sent you a note that could incriminate you about believing two planes could crash on the same day without leaving crash evidence. And when you searched for IMDB as the Internet Movie DataBase and you typoed BDSM by mistake, you got out of there right away though, didn't you? Well, didn't you?

Wait, you say you joined facebook a year ago? OMG, forget everything above and just go hide under your bed.  Too late for you.

NSA's Utah data center

And none of this will help you if 'they' come looking for you. Maybe give you enough time to get out the back door and halfway down the lane .... Michael Hastings never had a chance.



Try not to scream, you'll wake all those other people who have nothing to hide and are sleeping peacefully.



 

You need to download any of these and install into your browser -

ixquick safe search 

duckduckgo.com

startpage search 

You need to go here to scare yourself -

NSA cyberspying

Utah spy center

Tell Canada to quit spying on you! Sign here ...

secretspying

Conspiracy? No no NSA!

Here's the way some people think. 

The US uses Seal Team VI to go into Pakistan to get Osama bin Laden. They fly in with stealth helicopters, storm the compound and find Osama watching TV and kill him. That's their story and they're sticking to it.
There are pictures of some guy with his back to you placidly watching TV, probably American Idol. The guy in the pic seems to be the same photo double they used a couple of years ago to impersonate bin Laden. Not many people believe the picture was of him then and don't now.
And many believe that if they did get bin Laden in a sneaky raid there would be hundreds of pictures to document the operation. Pictures of the dead terrorist, the house, other rooms with communications tech from what is said to be a Command Center. Maybe even a pic of some of the medical equipment he needed to enable his regular dialysis. 

bin Laden or been wrong again?

Then the stealth team buries the body at sea in another secret operation, to prevent martyrism of the burial site of course. Again no pictures. 

Seal Team VI is celebrated, along with President Obama, for getting the world's most wanted terrorist. Mission accomplished, to use a familiar Presidential line.
Except, that a lot of folks believe President Clinton had already killed Osama bin Laden in Tora Bora several years ago when he sent cruise missiles into the caves the Saudi Prince was supposedly hiding in! 
No one heard or saw a reliable sign of bin Laden since that targeted raid. In spite of the picture of that fat-head guy posing as Osama a few years later when the need to keep the bogey man alive became evident and they tried to make a credible video.  

So now come the revelations about NSA snooping. And we have one family who had a son on Seal Team VI. This family says they criticized the military for the loss of 38 lives and Seal Team VI soldiers (including their son) in a very suspicious helicopter crash in Afghanistan. That criticism resulted in them being targeted and surveilled by NSA. So they are suing the US Government.

The alleged surveillance violated the plaintiffs' right of freedom of association by making them and others weary and fearful of contacting other persons and entities via cell phone out of fear of the misuse of government power and retaliation against these persons and entities who challenge the misuse of government power. To paraphrase the reasons for their lawsuit.

Remember that only your telephone communications need a court order, the Patriot Act already covers your email and other internet activities, without a court order, and in its wisdom, forbids your ISP to even TELL you you have been scrutinized by the NSA, under penalty of law. So Verizon, for instance, HAS to give out information about you while keeping the very inquiry secret from you. 

So haven't we seen this scenario in TV gangster movies hundreds of times? The bad guys get other bad guys to kill someone, then we learn they never trusted the perpetrator bad guys not to eventually talk and so they engineer their deaths too. 
Neat and tidy, dead men don't talk. Or point fingers. Or write books. Or whistleblow. Or testify.

The trouble is they're all supposed to be the good guys!