4 Comments

1. Corbett on 03/21/2015 at 2:22 pm

   I think you’re right, AoC. Needless to say I’ll be keeping my eye on this in the coming weeks and months, but any news tips, links and analyses are always welcome, of course.

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2. BennyB on 03/21/2015 at 11:36 pm

   Giving Obama the award for transparency is up there with the Nobel Peace Prize on the scale of absurdity. However, one could argue that his administration has taken certain strides in contrast to its predecessor: it’s far more transparent when it comes to openly stating its disregard for civil liberties, over use of secrecy, and utter disregard for any form of oversight whatsoever. In general, Obama seems to have defined himself in contrast to the Bush administration in his capacity to tell the public to go f##k themselves in a way that’s more palatable to liberal sensibilities.

   In terms of making voting mandatory in the United States, I think that could actually work out advantageously to the extent that it’s bound to bring the conversation around to the fact that voting for one party or another in essence only determines whether you get rat feces on a cone or in a dish. I appreciate the symbolism of voting rights; and I don’t intend to say that dismissively. In that respect, I think the struggle to protect those rights is important. Once this no longer remains at the forefront of the discussion about voting in the United States the discussion can open up more to why it is that voting remains a symbolic act even when you take the elements of racial disenfranchisement out of the equation.

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3. BennyB on 03/27/2015 at 8:41 am

   Hi Fosca,
   I can’t speak for James, but my interpretation of the commenting on the iSnoop CIA-Inside hardware was just a reflection of how pervasive the extent of existing government spying/spy-ware is. This is just one more illustration that there appears to be no legal constraints on what the Intelligence Agencies can and will do in violation of your privacy if they decided it falls under the ubiquitous “National Security” catch all classification. My impression was not that the inclusion of the story was intended to raise alarm. It’s more of a confirmation that this is the state of affairs and we shouldn’t have any illusions that there are any limits to the scope of these activities.

   What I feel some of the issues which have been expressed here and elsewhere in regards to Snowden, is that the whole spectacle of these leaks has more or less trivialized the matter for the public at large. The immediate reaction was and is of course to set a bunch of toothless dogs on a “fact finding” mission, which proposes some structural measures of “oversight” to address the Snowden ‘Revelations’. A side note: at this point every time I hear any combination of Snowden and Revelations, I can’t help thinking of some L. Ron Hubbard type of scenario.

   With that in mind, take the association for whatever you may, but in my opinion Snowden, whether you believe in his sincerity or not, has become something of a false prophet. Salvation isn’t going to come in the form of some sort of government oversight. At this point every new revelation has lost its shock factor. I don’t think this is what people like Glenn Greenwald think that they’re doing every time they release a new chapter from the gospel, but I think that’s the way it’s playing out and I don’t think that’s an accident. People have outrage fatigue and, with no practical outlets being presented to counteract the problem, people are beginning to accept it.

   I certainly don’t have any immediate answers to what can be done about this, but I’m certain that whatever solutions may exist are going to come about as the result of a dramatic change in the way people begin to look at their relationship to the system as it currently exists. One of the messages that I think James (and James) continues to stress is that simply withdrawing consent from participating in the system is one of the most basic and practical tools we have at our disposal. Understanding this, discussing it with people, raising awareness, and trying to put it into practice are the only realistic measures of protection we have. That said, it’s not a bad policy to be aware of what’s going on behind closed doors or encrypted chips. That’s the closing remark on my takeaway from the story anyway.

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4. Corbett on 04/05/2015 at 12:41 am

   Thanks for the question. No hiatus, per se, just some scheduling conflicts made it unfeasible to record last week and some technical gremlins got in the way this week:

   https://twitter.com/mediamonarchy/status/583787374225666048

   All things being equal, we’ll be back next week.

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