"Once you start down the road of collecting information on innocent people, it creates the intellectual justification for doing it again and again. From a contracting perspective, this is the proverbial self-licking ice cream cone, a spiral of endless expense."
Not to mention, the more "useless" data you have to sift through, the more difficult it is to get to the actual useful data that you're supposedly Hoovering up all this content to get.
Much more likely that they Hoover up everything so they have a play if you become a problem in the future.
That's funny. I knew someone who said "It's time to Hoove." I think this is getting out of hand, therefore all of those words will be allowed into Webster's soon.
And the next generation hacker will find a way to feed iterations of bad training data to it and it gives new wrong answers (but some of the AI implementations do that now).
Any sorting of data that AI does will reflect the bias (politics) of its programmers. About a month ago I quizzed Grok regarding some covid issues. I got an answer which included a general statement noting its conclusion was based on "reliable sources". So I then asked: "What do you think are reliable sources?" Grok's response: "New York Times, Washington Post, NPR (because of their ethics) and sometimes the Wall Street Journal". Yike! All main stream media--in my opinion all have a strong left wing bias. Since Grok is presumably under Elon Musk's influence, I thought perhaps Grok might have somewhat less of a left wing tilt. Surprise, surprise. It ain't necessarily so. So yes, I think political bias appears to be intrinsic and formulative in AI's evaluation I suspect this bias will become more entrenched as AI is already programming its own subsequent generations. Same infiltration as what happened to Wikipedia. But many times more powerful. HAL speaks to you.
My brother makes it a game to ask AI tools like Grok questions and he keeps asking follow-up questions until the tool admits there is little basis for what it just said.
I kept asking questions and finally Grok either shut down or got tired of me & kicked me out…not sure…impatience may be bred into AI. Too strange. I’d rather talk to my piano.
My whole goal in my online life is to stay off their radar which you wouldn't think would be that hard for a 75yo widow who doesn't travel but I wonder. I love Duck Duck Go and all of their privacy options but I'm thinking that though it's better than nothing, it probably doesn't protect much (just being negative). It did clean my name off the web and dark web though and provided a VPN. I suppose I could unplug everything but that seems kind of stupid. Maybe I should quit commenting (divulging private info) on alternative news sites. Or just burrow underground and live like a mole.
Duck go Duck has an eye rolling amount of left wing progressive bias reflected in a number of the supposed “factual” summaries provided by its snappy little “research assistant”. Its descriptions characterize a number of matters and persons as “far right” -bvery much like what you encounter in Wikipedia. Once again, AI to has been set up to manipulatively apply the term “far right”to berate the legitimacy of even very moderate conservative views.
Find me. We're the same age. LOLOLOL. I am a very positive person and most people living around me are the opposite. I cannot imagine what would interest anyone about a woman my age, which makes me laugh most.
I do believe that unfortunately, with AI, the "sifting" is going to be so much easier, which is why we really have to put up real barriers to this kind of deep state cavity-searching on citizens.
The horse is already out of the barn. I may be a naturally pessimistic soul. Although some are at more risk than others, even as we type out comments today, we all have "predictive" profiles in the ether. They may not seem to matter now, but they are an undeniable resource for many kinds of future fuckery.
I worry about that, about clicking like when el gato malo says become ungovernable. I fear when/if the left gets back in power. There are many who don’t see how corrupt and anti American/human the left is.
Yep. Automated censorship is even worse than the manual kind, because there's nobody actually responsible for it. "Oops, the algorithm messed up" will be the excuse.
Agree. Especially with the likes of Peter Thiel and company at the helm, tech bros united for Trump, and let’s not forget the reams of our personal data collected by DOGE.
I don't worry about DOGE, any more than I ever worried about bureaucrats in general. All of our personal info is already available to any who want to buy it, along with any number of international spy agencies, who collect it just because they can.
I also suspect that if the political winds had been blowing another way, the "tech bros" would have gladly united for Kamala. I see this all as being somewhat inevitable --though I like to fantasize about a president who would try to protect us from these ghouls.
I do not even know where to begin to answer that….how about starting with them kicking out civil servants out of their offices and locking the doors. How about them setting up private servers and leaving with them. How about them not bother to ask those horrible terrible bureaucrats, who happen to get social security checks out to millions of seniors on time, with about a1% error rate, what problems they have and how things could be improved. God, wake up. Civil servants are not your enemy.
'Not to mention, the more "useless" data you have to sift through, the more difficult it is to get to the actual useful data that you're supposedly Hoovering up all this content to get.'
Not defending this practice, of course, but do you know of a case where this stuff has resulted in a tragic miscarriage of justice, or is it mainly just a waste of time and money that distracts our professional spy community from more productive activities? I mean, it would seem that ferreting out something politically useful from all that "hoovered up" data would be like finding a needle in a haystack. How do you even know what you're looking for?
Maybe some of us have experienced this. That gf/bf who doesn't trust you, and after you break up you find out they've had a year-long relationship with someone else. To me, it's always a "tell" that someone is not being entirely truthful and actually doing what they are accusing you of doing, if they accuse you of cheating.
Meanwhile, Hassan Piker can be interrogated at the airport for speaking out against Israel. So really, what's changed? It's great that one minor intrusion on our freedoms has been officially ended. The lion's share will not be touched, and certainly Matt Taibbi will not lead the charge.
"Leads the charge"? Have you heard him mutter word one about the mass arrests of pro-Palestine activists in England? (Oh sure, he's all over Graham Lineham, but what about people fighting a genocide?) He has been utterly mute on the mass slaughter of reporters in Gaza, said nothing about the McCarthyite hearings against university presidents who offended Israel, said barely anything about Mahmoud Khalil, Rümeysa Öztürk and others who have been targeted by this administration for daring to excercise free speech, and his list of lip-zipping goes on. (Do you think Matt will ever address the ICE/ National Guard blitzkriegs, even as people are starting to shoot back?)
Matt isn't leading the charge on anything. He is a goddamn fair-weather friend on free speech. Anything that comes close to confronting the Trump cult, he avoids.
Matt is a journalist who covers the topics that interest him most, or that he feels are important to his readers.
Do you bitch when sportswriters don't weigh in on elections? How about TV weather people on the local news--do they need to have an opinion on minor league hockey?
If you want non-stop Gaza, there are surely places for to drink your fill.
It appears you may be one of the idiots who are afraid Matt has gone over to the dark side, piss off and troll somewhere else. Or fly on a broomstick. I've been reading the guy for 20 years, and his views haven't changed much.
The surveillance itself is the new reality. We the People still have control regarding WHO is in control of it, and how it's used. That's what populism is. And that's why government officials and media hate populism so much. They've lost some of their grip on power, and their tears nourish my hope.
If surveillance is "the new reality", then brother, you can stop trying to console yourself with delusions that "We the People" are somehow in control of it. No one in government is crying, They are more powerful then ever, and the "people"s faith in jerk-offs like Trump giving them their power back is yummy yummy in their tummy.
It is sad to think how much democracy and transparency was lost after 9-11. Not that things were excellent prior. Both “parties” have embraced these idiotic back-sliding policies. Now it seems a race to see which one can better trample the Constitution.
"Morally, all this information-gathering reverses the natural political order, giving elected officials undeserved and unearned power over their bosses – the voters. These programs all need to be reevaluated. A lot of them have to go. People who lie about them in this chamber need to be fired."
Worse than that, it gives the information gatherers control over politicians, more dangerous than the corporate/government partnership of fascism. How many more 20 page contracts of fine print must be agree to with less than zero negotiating power?
Welp, we did give up, and Matt certainly will never lead the charge to get those liberties back if it means getting on the bad side of MAGA. (Do you think he wants his next appearance before Congress to include rough treatment by BOTH parties?)
I knew when they passed the Patriot Act that it opened up the door for abuses of our individual rights. All in the name of protecting us. That should have sunsetted but still to this day congress votes to keep parts of it alive
If I remember correctly Tulsi herself was grilled on her position on this kind of surveillance?
Yes, the formal name is "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism." Obama extended it in 2011.
No, of course not. But I am tired of these subtle blowjobs from Matt for Trump and the MAGA party as if they represent some real reformist agenda towards surveillance. They are bigger scum than anyone that preceded them, and deserve no kudos.
Lesbian feminist Marxist hustlers (now the DEI) and their friends in the "why can't we just kill men" MSM began the open malicious destruction of lives and careers way back in the 60's. As Paul Simon said:"Someone could walk into this room and say--...' you're life is on fire..it's all over the evening news about the fire in your life."
Innocence/evidence be damned, trial by press hysteria, stilted kangaroo court, whisper campaign, anonymous phone call complaint and when the target proved innocent it made no difference at all. How many Universities paid huge settlements to men whose lives and careers were destroyed--because "he made me feel uncomfortable". Electronic Salem witchcraft poisoned the American psyche, installed the political snitch and got paid to do it. How? They used crazy people and tax treasure.(The manufacture and exploitation of crazy people is an industry.) The MSM and spook land saw that the grift worked and said "why not".
"Back in the 60's" Tricky Dickie and staff couldn't find a way to throttle White anti-war protest and stop the Black civil rights movement so they invented the "drug war". Overcharged and booked criminal conspiracy and mass arrests, when open murder (Fred Hampton/Gary Webb) wasn't required, laid the ground work for the surveillance state intrusion into private citizen life and finance. How'd they do it? Compromised informants (Whitey Bulger) and tax treasure? (Did the "drug war" get murky? Well yes!! Who was dealing what to who?-- Gang culture and values is prison culture. Black youth violence today is the result of the drug war and the prison industrial complex.)
Meanwhile--(guess who?)--the MSM got their "nasty little fingers in every bodies pie" and gladly put the hatchet to anyone D.C. political surveillance deemed a threat. Heads rolled on demand and when state propaganda/spook land needed a voice the MSM was there. Why and how does the beast survive? Tax treasure.
Throughout this sorid little story polished (sometimes not so polished) little grifters cast their grasping little shadows across the lives of hard working Americans, looted their economy and stole everything they could get their hands on. Electronic shadow villains from East to American West abound. Silicon Valley, the D.C. "Swamp", the MSM, monopolizing Private Equity perps and the biggest canker sore of all, a surveillance machine that designates concerned parents terrorists and puts sniffer dogs on sane American political voices. And, turn over the dead on Fentanyl corner, boarded up downtown, car jacked, working two jobs, buying food on credit so my children won't starve, herd management, keep you're f'kin mouth shut rock and behold, the Gerogie Soros NGO, CCP, Billy Gates euthanasia center, Green New Deal Al Gore, EU/Brussels billionaire Davos snake pit.("Perpetual crisis and war for thee. Never for me")
Gee--How does that grift keep breathing? Tax treasure.
Remember how we all felt on 9/12. A couple of non military Muslim activists killed about 3,000 American civilians and brought down the symbols of our financial power of the US. How could this happen?? How did we miss this?? We wanted the government to keep is safe!! We forgot that freedom comes with risk. We just wanted to feel safe. And we gave up a lot of our freedoms to let the government do that. We have to fix it now!!
This is a "why does the dog lick his balls?" situation - they have too much power and are dumber than mutts. Fire all the bosses and let the agents do their jobs instead of checking for skid marks. For real! Great work, Matt!
Tulsi explains it in an interview, I think with Rogan. She was high up in the DNC, when she voiced opposition to Obama on some military action. Which ended her career with the democrats.
Which goes to show you, its difficult to slip a cigarette paper between Ds and Rs. The D-R battle in the press is all political FakeBe.
A government that commands so much of our personal information might even send IRS agents to the door of someone testifying to Congress -- to make sure we know who's boss.
"The government spent $200 million a year following up to 50 people a day for a program that in its history never once led to an arrest, or thwarted a single criminal act."
Excellent example of our tax dollars at work! Ain't government great!!??
We the People need to ask what do we need a central government for?
One of the wisest founders no one knows about is Robert Yates (aka) Brutus – who predicted ALL the corruption we see today. When compared to Alexander Hamilton (who said a bill of rights is not only unnecessary but dangerous (Federalist #84 and argued against term limits), it’s very apparent we should have amended the Articles of the Confederation and not created a powerful central government further away from the people.
Thanks Dave, true, but we know data is being gathered, so the police are "not so secret" anymore.. I was thinking like credit score reporting, but would be:
who/agency is gathering my data?
what did they get on me?
as a stretch, how can this data gathering be blocked,
I won't buy a new car because ever since about 2011, they're all connected to the internet. Not only do cars hoover up data which the automakers can then sell to anyone (including government agencies!), they also have the ability to "update" the software that runs many (if not most) of the systems in your car without your permission, consent, or even knowledge. Oh, and if you financed your car, the lender can shut your car down if you've been missing payments.
Now, add in the wonderous technology of "self driving" and "autonomous" vehicles, and think of the potential for official or unofficial mischief. Could someone use it to make your car drive off a bridge? The sales people will assure you that of course that's impossible, and we believe them because there's no one on earth more trustworthy than auto dealership sales people.
I'll keep my 2006 car with 150,000+ miles on it until someone will sell me one that's not connected to the internet.
I’m not an anti-immigration proponent, but think about it…in the absence of a well enforced border and a rigorous immigration vetting and assimilation process, the whole of society becomes suspect. And then, government in its duty to its citizens to protect gets license to surveil everyone because who knows what bad actors were let in. It’s a slippery slope from there.
Fix immigration, insist on assimilation and resume teaching love of country instead of distorted Marxist lies and then dismantle the surveillance state.
Just by the by.....the propensity for regular spying, on anyone, is a totalitarian trait.
We saw a great deal of spying -- by the average person -- emerge during the COVID-mania months and years. The British called them "curtain twitchers". Tells you something about totalitarianism being afoot during COVID-mania.
We also saw these everyday spies portrayed in "1984".
And Alienating parents who control their children to hate the other parent will have the kids spy on their innocent mother or father to report back to the controller. Damages the child, of course.
Totalitarians are so prone to spying because they want to determine who is following their narrative and who is not. Those who are not following what they demand will be punished. This is the general principle driving them.
Don't you worry! Trump's gonna get onto rolling back "totalitariansm" any moment now! Pack your bags, Deep State! Trumps'a commin' for you! Yessiree Bob, freedom is on the way! Swamp's a-drainin' faster than you can say "Jeffrey Epstein was a pedophile pimp!" Power is coming back into the hands of the people in three...two... one...
"Once you start down the road of collecting information on innocent people, it creates the intellectual justification for doing it again and again. From a contracting perspective, this is the proverbial self-licking ice cream cone, a spiral of endless expense."
Not to mention, the more "useless" data you have to sift through, the more difficult it is to get to the actual useful data that you're supposedly Hoovering up all this content to get.
Much more likely that they Hoover up everything so they have a play if you become a problem in the future.
Hoover--apt. and witty. I wonder if people say Dyson now.
Or Roomba!
Referring not only to William Henry, but Herbert as well.
Will we call it Comeying?
William Henry Roomba?
That's funny. I knew someone who said "It's time to Hoove." I think this is getting out of hand, therefore all of those words will be allowed into Webster's soon.
Sifting the data will become the job of AI.
It already has. AI may be stupid, but it never gets tired or bored.
And the good news is AI has such high moral standards! /s/
And everyone knows AI Never makes mistakes.
And the next generation hacker will find a way to feed iterations of bad training data to it and it gives new wrong answers (but some of the AI implementations do that now).
Damn, that's NOT a comforting thought to start my day!
Any sorting of data that AI does will reflect the bias (politics) of its programmers. About a month ago I quizzed Grok regarding some covid issues. I got an answer which included a general statement noting its conclusion was based on "reliable sources". So I then asked: "What do you think are reliable sources?" Grok's response: "New York Times, Washington Post, NPR (because of their ethics) and sometimes the Wall Street Journal". Yike! All main stream media--in my opinion all have a strong left wing bias. Since Grok is presumably under Elon Musk's influence, I thought perhaps Grok might have somewhat less of a left wing tilt. Surprise, surprise. It ain't necessarily so. So yes, I think political bias appears to be intrinsic and formulative in AI's evaluation I suspect this bias will become more entrenched as AI is already programming its own subsequent generations. Same infiltration as what happened to Wikipedia. But many times more powerful. HAL speaks to you.
My brother makes it a game to ask AI tools like Grok questions and he keeps asking follow-up questions until the tool admits there is little basis for what it just said.
I kept asking questions and finally Grok either shut down or got tired of me & kicked me out…not sure…impatience may be bred into AI. Too strange. I’d rather talk to my piano.
And then we found out that HAL killed because it had been told lies (given bad training data?).
Already is!
Agreed. I have been thinking that for a long time, only to be informed that I need to be prepared to be left behind if I do not use it.
My whole goal in my online life is to stay off their radar which you wouldn't think would be that hard for a 75yo widow who doesn't travel but I wonder. I love Duck Duck Go and all of their privacy options but I'm thinking that though it's better than nothing, it probably doesn't protect much (just being negative). It did clean my name off the web and dark web though and provided a VPN. I suppose I could unplug everything but that seems kind of stupid. Maybe I should quit commenting (divulging private info) on alternative news sites. Or just burrow underground and live like a mole.
Duck go Duck has an eye rolling amount of left wing progressive bias reflected in a number of the supposed “factual” summaries provided by its snappy little “research assistant”. Its descriptions characterize a number of matters and persons as “far right” -bvery much like what you encounter in Wikipedia. Once again, AI to has been set up to manipulatively apply the term “far right”to berate the legitimacy of even very moderate conservative views.
Find me. We're the same age. LOLOLOL. I am a very positive person and most people living around me are the opposite. I cannot imagine what would interest anyone about a woman my age, which makes me laugh most.
I don't know how AI will watch congressmen take bathroom breaks in airports.
I do believe that unfortunately, with AI, the "sifting" is going to be so much easier, which is why we really have to put up real barriers to this kind of deep state cavity-searching on citizens.
The horse is already out of the barn. I may be a naturally pessimistic soul. Although some are at more risk than others, even as we type out comments today, we all have "predictive" profiles in the ether. They may not seem to matter now, but they are an undeniable resource for many kinds of future fuckery.
I worry about that, about clicking like when el gato malo says become ungovernable. I fear when/if the left gets back in power. There are many who don’t see how corrupt and anti American/human the left is.
Yep. Automated censorship is even worse than the manual kind, because there's nobody actually responsible for it. "Oops, the algorithm messed up" will be the excuse.
The algorithm will send the drone….
There's someone responsible, but it adds another layer of difficulty to proving it.
Agree. Especially with the likes of Peter Thiel and company at the helm, tech bros united for Trump, and let’s not forget the reams of our personal data collected by DOGE.
I don't worry about DOGE, any more than I ever worried about bureaucrats in general. All of our personal info is already available to any who want to buy it, along with any number of international spy agencies, who collect it just because they can.
I also suspect that if the political winds had been blowing another way, the "tech bros" would have gladly united for Kamala. I see this all as being somewhat inevitable --though I like to fantasize about a president who would try to protect us from these ghouls.
Then why would they take it?
Who says they "took" anything?
They were allegedly trying to streamline decades-old processes.
Why do you trust DOGE employees less than you trust bureaucrats?
I do not even know where to begin to answer that….how about starting with them kicking out civil servants out of their offices and locking the doors. How about them setting up private servers and leaving with them. How about them not bother to ask those horrible terrible bureaucrats, who happen to get social security checks out to millions of seniors on time, with about a1% error rate, what problems they have and how things could be improved. God, wake up. Civil servants are not your enemy.
Why does a dog lick its balls?
I'm a lot more comfortable with them at the helm than whoever was running the Biden Administration.
Sounds much like Communist China.
I was thinking more like J. Edgar...
'Not to mention, the more "useless" data you have to sift through, the more difficult it is to get to the actual useful data that you're supposedly Hoovering up all this content to get.'
That could explain a lot of the interest in AI.
Not defending this practice, of course, but do you know of a case where this stuff has resulted in a tragic miscarriage of justice, or is it mainly just a waste of time and money that distracts our professional spy community from more productive activities? I mean, it would seem that ferreting out something politically useful from all that "hoovered up" data would be like finding a needle in a haystack. How do you even know what you're looking for?
You don't know -- that's why you take it all.
Then when somebody "interesting" pops up on the radar, you dig through your dirt and publish the worst of it. I'd imagine this happens all the time.
"Show me the man and I'll show you the crime." -- Lavrentiy Beria
Maybe some of us have experienced this. That gf/bf who doesn't trust you, and after you break up you find out they've had a year-long relationship with someone else. To me, it's always a "tell" that someone is not being entirely truthful and actually doing what they are accusing you of doing, if they accuse you of cheating.
Too much hay in the haystack.
Geez Louise...I thought Mr. "Drain the Swamp" was going to take care of this. So much for the Great White Hope of "populism".
Matt did say, "Before Quiet Skies was discontinued by this administration..."
Meanwhile, Hassan Piker can be interrogated at the airport for speaking out against Israel. So really, what's changed? It's great that one minor intrusion on our freedoms has been officially ended. The lion's share will not be touched, and certainly Matt Taibbi will not lead the charge.
Well, Matt isn't an elected official, much less the President. And he definitely leads the charge on free speech and the evils of surveillance.
Why are you trying to pin this shit on Matt?
because troll
"Leads the charge"? Have you heard him mutter word one about the mass arrests of pro-Palestine activists in England? (Oh sure, he's all over Graham Lineham, but what about people fighting a genocide?) He has been utterly mute on the mass slaughter of reporters in Gaza, said nothing about the McCarthyite hearings against university presidents who offended Israel, said barely anything about Mahmoud Khalil, Rümeysa Öztürk and others who have been targeted by this administration for daring to excercise free speech, and his list of lip-zipping goes on. (Do you think Matt will ever address the ICE/ National Guard blitzkriegs, even as people are starting to shoot back?)
Matt isn't leading the charge on anything. He is a goddamn fair-weather friend on free speech. Anything that comes close to confronting the Trump cult, he avoids.
blahblahblah
Matt is a journalist who covers the topics that interest him most, or that he feels are important to his readers.
Do you bitch when sportswriters don't weigh in on elections? How about TV weather people on the local news--do they need to have an opinion on minor league hockey?
If you want non-stop Gaza, there are surely places for to drink your fill.
It appears you may be one of the idiots who are afraid Matt has gone over to the dark side, piss off and troll somewhere else. Or fly on a broomstick. I've been reading the guy for 20 years, and his views haven't changed much.
My apologies for replying to you in the future rest place. I hadn’t noticed that you were a one-trick pony.
If you’re trying to say Trump supports this as much as the previous bunch did, no doubt you’re right.
The surveillance itself is the new reality. We the People still have control regarding WHO is in control of it, and how it's used. That's what populism is. And that's why government officials and media hate populism so much. They've lost some of their grip on power, and their tears nourish my hope.
If surveillance is "the new reality", then brother, you can stop trying to console yourself with delusions that "We the People" are somehow in control of it. No one in government is crying, They are more powerful then ever, and the "people"s faith in jerk-offs like Trump giving them their power back is yummy yummy in their tummy.
That’s a week-written comment and a truth.
It is sad to think how much democracy and transparency was lost after 9-11. Not that things were excellent prior. Both “parties” have embraced these idiotic back-sliding policies. Now it seems a race to see which one can better trample the Constitution.
Not to disagree but as St. Thomas said, "error has no rights."
"Morally, all this information-gathering reverses the natural political order, giving elected officials undeserved and unearned power over their bosses – the voters. These programs all need to be reevaluated. A lot of them have to go. People who lie about them in this chamber need to be fired."
Good stuff.
Along with way too many people employed by governments, who have a stake in preserving their supremacy any way they can.
Worse than that, it gives the information gatherers control over politicians, more dangerous than the corporate/government partnership of fascism. How many more 20 page contracts of fine print must be agree to with less than zero negotiating power?
Is this comment that respectfully has only one reply? "Duh!"
as Benjamin Franklin put it; “Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
Welp, we did give up, and Matt certainly will never lead the charge to get those liberties back if it means getting on the bad side of MAGA. (Do you think he wants his next appearance before Congress to include rough treatment by BOTH parties?)
Oh brother....
Thx Matt- for your tireless drive to expose the government (and private sector!) on this! 👏
Well said Matt
I knew when they passed the Patriot Act that it opened up the door for abuses of our individual rights. All in the name of protecting us. That should have sunsetted but still to this day congress votes to keep parts of it alive
If I remember correctly Tulsi herself was grilled on her position on this kind of surveillance?
*USA PATRIOT Act
Because there's no problem so big the government won't give it a catchy acronym.
Yes, the formal name is "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism." Obama extended it in 2011.
And yet no one, not even Trump, is fighting to repeal it.
Isn't Tom Cotton the R Senator that keeps pushing this?
I think most senators in both parties continue to vote for extensions on the act.
Did you really think he would?
No, of course not. But I am tired of these subtle blowjobs from Matt for Trump and the MAGA party as if they represent some real reformist agenda towards surveillance. They are bigger scum than anyone that preceded them, and deserve no kudos.
"...bigger scum..."
You people really can't deal with reality, can you?
Meh. Someday Trump will do SOMETHING that will remind you that he is nothing like the conservative you imagine he is.
First thing that came to my mind. One party started it, the other loved it. Anything that gives the Uniparty more power over the people.
Lesbian feminist Marxist hustlers (now the DEI) and their friends in the "why can't we just kill men" MSM began the open malicious destruction of lives and careers way back in the 60's. As Paul Simon said:"Someone could walk into this room and say--...' you're life is on fire..it's all over the evening news about the fire in your life."
Innocence/evidence be damned, trial by press hysteria, stilted kangaroo court, whisper campaign, anonymous phone call complaint and when the target proved innocent it made no difference at all. How many Universities paid huge settlements to men whose lives and careers were destroyed--because "he made me feel uncomfortable". Electronic Salem witchcraft poisoned the American psyche, installed the political snitch and got paid to do it. How? They used crazy people and tax treasure.(The manufacture and exploitation of crazy people is an industry.) The MSM and spook land saw that the grift worked and said "why not".
"Back in the 60's" Tricky Dickie and staff couldn't find a way to throttle White anti-war protest and stop the Black civil rights movement so they invented the "drug war". Overcharged and booked criminal conspiracy and mass arrests, when open murder (Fred Hampton/Gary Webb) wasn't required, laid the ground work for the surveillance state intrusion into private citizen life and finance. How'd they do it? Compromised informants (Whitey Bulger) and tax treasure? (Did the "drug war" get murky? Well yes!! Who was dealing what to who?-- Gang culture and values is prison culture. Black youth violence today is the result of the drug war and the prison industrial complex.)
Meanwhile--(guess who?)--the MSM got their "nasty little fingers in every bodies pie" and gladly put the hatchet to anyone D.C. political surveillance deemed a threat. Heads rolled on demand and when state propaganda/spook land needed a voice the MSM was there. Why and how does the beast survive? Tax treasure.
Throughout this sorid little story polished (sometimes not so polished) little grifters cast their grasping little shadows across the lives of hard working Americans, looted their economy and stole everything they could get their hands on. Electronic shadow villains from East to American West abound. Silicon Valley, the D.C. "Swamp", the MSM, monopolizing Private Equity perps and the biggest canker sore of all, a surveillance machine that designates concerned parents terrorists and puts sniffer dogs on sane American political voices. And, turn over the dead on Fentanyl corner, boarded up downtown, car jacked, working two jobs, buying food on credit so my children won't starve, herd management, keep you're f'kin mouth shut rock and behold, the Gerogie Soros NGO, CCP, Billy Gates euthanasia center, Green New Deal Al Gore, EU/Brussels billionaire Davos snake pit.("Perpetual crisis and war for thee. Never for me")
Gee--How does that grift keep breathing? Tax treasure.
And, uh... when is President Liberty going to fight to repeal the PATRIOT Act?
As soon as the Democrats repeal the War Powers Act after screaming about Orange Dumpster Fire having his vulgarian fingers on the nuclear button.
Never. Along with abolishing CIA and FBI, never.
Remember how we all felt on 9/12. A couple of non military Muslim activists killed about 3,000 American civilians and brought down the symbols of our financial power of the US. How could this happen?? How did we miss this?? We wanted the government to keep is safe!! We forgot that freedom comes with risk. We just wanted to feel safe. And we gave up a lot of our freedoms to let the government do that. We have to fix it now!!
Yeah, "Patriot Act": maybe the most grab your balls you're about to get hit name of all time...
This is a "why does the dog lick his balls?" situation - they have too much power and are dumber than mutts. Fire all the bosses and let the agents do their jobs instead of checking for skid marks. For real! Great work, Matt!
I'd like to see an investigation into who exactly weaponized the federal government against Gabbard. It was an outrageous abuse of power.
Well, maybe if Gabbard hadn't been sidelined for speaking out against Israel that might have happened.
Willing to bet it was the Hillary contingent trying to find dirt for Kamala.
Tulsi explains it in an interview, I think with Rogan. She was high up in the DNC, when she voiced opposition to Obama on some military action. Which ended her career with the democrats.
Which goes to show you, its difficult to slip a cigarette paper between Ds and Rs. The D-R battle in the press is all political FakeBe.
I do remember that happening. But it still doesn't tell us exactly how she got on the TSA red flag list.
"Not wittingly" needs to be on Clapper's tombstone.
AKA plausible deniability.
A government that commands so much of our personal information might even send IRS agents to the door of someone testifying to Congress -- to make sure we know who's boss.
You would think this would make Matt sympathetic to people being beaten up by ICE. Oh well.
Wow, you sure have a crush on Matt😉
Hey, I'm paying a lot to date they guy. $7.00 a month?? People with a lot more talent only charge $5.00. Sure hope I get a handy out of this!
By your own metrics it appears you're a dumbass
Salusa - If "virtue is its own reward" as the saying goes, then you must be at least two or three times more virtuous than anyone else.
If you're not careful, Matt, we're gonna elect you to something
"The government spent $200 million a year following up to 50 people a day for a program that in its history never once led to an arrest, or thwarted a single criminal act."
Excellent example of our tax dollars at work! Ain't government great!!??
Ah, it's not real money. They're just printing it at will.
Word! But it may still be worth a few hundred thousand.
We the People need to ask what do we need a central government for?
One of the wisest founders no one knows about is Robert Yates (aka) Brutus – who predicted ALL the corruption we see today. When compared to Alexander Hamilton (who said a bill of rights is not only unnecessary but dangerous (Federalist #84 and argued against term limits), it’s very apparent we should have amended the Articles of the Confederation and not created a powerful central government further away from the people.
Brutus was right about EVERYTHING: https://lizlasorte.substack.com/p/captain-hindsight-to-the-rescue-brutus?r=76q58
https://lizlasorte.substack.com/p/get-in-the-ring-alexander-hamilton?r=76q58
Wow I got in early to this story. Never before SitCom gets the first word...
Question, is there any avenue for a "typical citizen" to get a report of what info has been captured on their person?
FOIA like and not a seven year wait.
rich
Defeats the whole purpose of the secret police…
Thanks Dave, true, but we know data is being gathered, so the police are "not so secret" anymore.. I was thinking like credit score reporting, but would be:
who/agency is gathering my data?
what did they get on me?
as a stretch, how can this data gathering be blocked,
take care
I won't buy a new car because ever since about 2011, they're all connected to the internet. Not only do cars hoover up data which the automakers can then sell to anyone (including government agencies!), they also have the ability to "update" the software that runs many (if not most) of the systems in your car without your permission, consent, or even knowledge. Oh, and if you financed your car, the lender can shut your car down if you've been missing payments.
Now, add in the wonderous technology of "self driving" and "autonomous" vehicles, and think of the potential for official or unofficial mischief. Could someone use it to make your car drive off a bridge? The sales people will assure you that of course that's impossible, and we believe them because there's no one on earth more trustworthy than auto dealership sales people.
I'll keep my 2006 car with 150,000+ miles on it until someone will sell me one that's not connected to the internet.
Damn, and being a repo man was once a good middle class job.
A rebuilt engine & transmission is what, maybe $15k. Get another 150k miles for about 10c per mile.
I don’t know about that Danny. Car dealers really rely on the return customer…
I’m not an anti-immigration proponent, but think about it…in the absence of a well enforced border and a rigorous immigration vetting and assimilation process, the whole of society becomes suspect. And then, government in its duty to its citizens to protect gets license to surveil everyone because who knows what bad actors were let in. It’s a slippery slope from there.
Fix immigration, insist on assimilation and resume teaching love of country instead of distorted Marxist lies and then dismantle the surveillance state.
Just by the by.....the propensity for regular spying, on anyone, is a totalitarian trait.
We saw a great deal of spying -- by the average person -- emerge during the COVID-mania months and years. The British called them "curtain twitchers". Tells you something about totalitarianism being afoot during COVID-mania.
We also saw these everyday spies portrayed in "1984".
And Alienating parents who control their children to hate the other parent will have the kids spy on their innocent mother or father to report back to the controller. Damages the child, of course.
Totalitarians are so prone to spying because they want to determine who is following their narrative and who is not. Those who are not following what they demand will be punished. This is the general principle driving them.
Don't you worry! Trump's gonna get onto rolling back "totalitariansm" any moment now! Pack your bags, Deep State! Trumps'a commin' for you! Yessiree Bob, freedom is on the way! Swamp's a-drainin' faster than you can say "Jeffrey Epstein was a pedophile pimp!" Power is coming back into the hands of the people in three...two... one...
It is the leftwing WOKE who are totalitarian, my friend.
Oh, yes... I forgot that ICE is all about trans rights.