As soon as AOL and Prodigy made their debuts, I think most of us who had been on the 'Net prior to the WWW knew the general shape of things to come.
Like most innovations, it seems, that start with government research, while the scientists most often (?) look to and innovate for the -good- of mankind, their extraordinary accomplishments are then farmed out too frequently to other depts or contractors for development into weapons of some sort.
There are probably many scientists who have thought of J. Robert Oppenheimer's (mis)quotation upon seeing the destructive force he helped to unleash: ?I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.?
Not all reimagined innovations are as obviously deadly as the atomic bomb, but I'd imagine similar thoughts go thru other scientists' minds upon seeing the evolution of their own accomplishments.
At this point and age, I'm finding I really kinda miss the old BBS I ran for years.
You guys DO understand that practically *everyone* who works for the government has a "secret" clearance, right?
You also realize that this increased spying with a brand-new program is NOT just for NSA/FBI/CIA (and every other alphabet soup agency) contractor employees? Nor will it be limited to gov't employees once its efficacy is known, as should be easily seen by now.
How many of us were stupid enough a decade+ ago to think we actually killed TIA? They killed the name; only.
I didn't go into work today. I'm trying to decide (4 years from retirement with not enough $$$ to tide me over til then) whether or not to quit my *non-intel* job because of this.
This is actively monitoring and profiling all gov't employees both on-the-job (expected) and OFF-the-job. How long before that monitoring grabs, hassles, fires, or disappears those of us protesting this and other political issues? (allowed [supposedly still] on our off-duty time) And how long before it morphs under a corp-religio-fascist-type gov't to encompass those who hold the wrong religion. I've already lived thru the years when people in my religion were jailed, had kids taken away, etc. That was only 20 years ago. Think it can't happen again?
Gov't and corporations may no longer be able to look at the long term implications of what laws they put in place; surely WE are still able to do that. Or have we all been dumbed down by the "conform or else" curriculum of constant test taking?
As someone who has gone from punch cards to bench tech; from no hard drives to the cloud; I expected a much more enlightened series of comments from people on this site. Most of us ARE techs or in the biz somehow, and we're all against this survellience. Tell me honestly -- does some gov't receptionist barely making $12k a year deserve to have both her online and offline life -- as well as everyone 3-6 jumps from her, monitored constantly JUST because it's a GS position?
Maybe I've lived too long, and there's no longer any place in this world for me - a consideration I'm actually contemplating.
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Re: Hate it
Don't forget lowercase and special characters. In this case, a couple of well-placed exclamation marks might just be what's called for! ;)
Re:
As soon as AOL and Prodigy made their debuts, I think most of us who had been on the 'Net prior to the WWW knew the general shape of things to come.
Like most innovations, it seems, that start with government research, while the scientists most often (?) look to and innovate for the -good- of mankind, their extraordinary accomplishments are then farmed out too frequently to other depts or contractors for development into weapons of some sort.
There are probably many scientists who have thought of J. Robert Oppenheimer's (mis)quotation upon seeing the destructive force he helped to unleash: ?I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.?
Not all reimagined innovations are as obviously deadly as the atomic bomb, but I'd imagine similar thoughts go thru other scientists' minds upon seeing the evolution of their own accomplishments.
At this point and age, I'm finding I really kinda miss the old BBS I ran for years.
Expanded gov't spying
You guys DO understand that practically *everyone* who works for the government has a "secret" clearance, right?
You also realize that this increased spying with a brand-new program is NOT just for NSA/FBI/CIA (and every other alphabet soup agency) contractor employees? Nor will it be limited to gov't employees once its efficacy is known, as should be easily seen by now.
How many of us were stupid enough a decade+ ago to think we actually killed TIA? They killed the name; only.
I didn't go into work today. I'm trying to decide (4 years from retirement with not enough $$$ to tide me over til then) whether or not to quit my *non-intel* job because of this.
This is actively monitoring and profiling all gov't employees both on-the-job (expected) and OFF-the-job. How long before that monitoring grabs, hassles, fires, or disappears those of us protesting this and other political issues? (allowed [supposedly still] on our off-duty time) And how long before it morphs under a corp-religio-fascist-type gov't to encompass those who hold the wrong religion. I've already lived thru the years when people in my religion were jailed, had kids taken away, etc. That was only 20 years ago. Think it can't happen again?
Gov't and corporations may no longer be able to look at the long term implications of what laws they put in place; surely WE are still able to do that. Or have we all been dumbed down by the "conform or else" curriculum of constant test taking?
As someone who has gone from punch cards to bench tech; from no hard drives to the cloud; I expected a much more enlightened series of comments from people on this site. Most of us ARE techs or in the biz somehow, and we're all against this survellience. Tell me honestly -- does some gov't receptionist barely making $12k a year deserve to have both her online and offline life -- as well as everyone 3-6 jumps from her, monitored constantly JUST because it's a GS position?
Maybe I've lived too long, and there's no longer any place in this world for me - a consideration I'm actually contemplating.