Your governess must have told you some bizarre bedtime stories. Or did you have a point buried deep within the parable?

I know that even by posting this comment something is added to my “permanent record”. It sucks. Makes me feel (even more than ever) like moving into some remote cave and subsisting on roots and insects. (At least insects that don’t have rfid tags attached).

Think about it. Warrentless wiretaps are like the ultimate in peeping tom voyeurism. Maybe people are just envious and wish THEY could listen in on phone calls. Actually (in a stream of consciousness sort of way)…

Imagine you could set up a website that let you just listen to anonymous phone calls. Or imagine even that you had to pay a dollar an hour to do it.

It would make you millions.

Which is why I added that they can edit your communication. “What? You claim you haven’t been talking to terrorists/pedophiles? We have your e-mails to them and your bank transfers to their accounts that show otherwise.” It doesn’t have to go to court, you may in fact be able to prove the gov info is wrong. Doesn’t matter, your career is over, your personal life in ruins, your reputation is shot and you went bankrupt defending yourself.

This is why online privacy is so important. Not because “Oh, I guess I can’t look at porn any more.” Take a look at this story:

Seizing Laptops and Cameras Without Cause

Returning from a vacation to Germany in February, freelance journalist Bill Hogan was selected for additional screening by customs officials at Dulles International Airport outside Washington. Agents searched his luggage, he said, “then they told me that they were impounding my laptop.”

Business is responding:

the controversial practice has prompted some businesses to change their policies about traveling with corporate information. Many now require employees to access data remotely to avoid confiscations.

The point that I wish to make here is that this will also be the home users best response. Either get a secure remote account, they already exist, or else take your important PC off line and restrict internet surfing to a stripped down, highly secured PC. This will once again introduce a digital divide between those who know how, or can afford to hire someone who knows, to set up a secure PC for the internet and those who can’t.

But increased state and corporate power over the internet also threatens the internet’s generativity:

the Internet’s generativity lies not only in the end-to-end openness of the network but also in the network’s endpoints, the personal computers and other hardware that we use to communicate over the Internet. Virtually all the debate over the Internet’s generativity has centered on the openness of the network (often termed “network neutrality”) and content available on the network (principally, the debate over copyright industries’ use of digital encryption and digital rights management). But as Zittrain cogently argues, the proliferation of personal computers, mobile phones, and other network communication devices that are themselves non-generative — that sharply constrain users’ ability to adapt and use them outside the device’s predetermined functionality or the supplier’s ongoing control– may greatly diminish the generativity of the system as a whole.

Jonathan Zittrain, The Future of the Internet — And How to Stop It

If the internet becomes so hostile to privacy that in order to use it you have to use an internet appliance, a secure account, a stripped down PC, your iPhone or whatever, then you have effectively killed off the very thing that has made the internet so attractive.

There is nothing inherent in digital communication that necessarily results in the free open model we have had so far. It could just as easily be the most repressive form of control we’ve ever seen. Far outstripping any of repressive dictatorships we’ve experienced so far. We have a choice.

I’m saying this interpretation of this ad is like an ink blot test – and how someone interprets it is an indication of their mindset and predisposition to belief (well founded or not).

first the young woman i was speaking with, who was chewing gum in my ear, began to inform me of her absolute ignorance of world affairs in a valley girl voice, in forming me directly and without shame that she didnt pay any attention to politics because it has nothing to do with her life!

i got frustrated with the call and hung up…yet the phone rang again…ATT&T had called back! it was a supervisor, who started trying to question me as to the nature of my knowledge of a ‘spying program’ and was feigning total ignorance, as though he was also unaware of any such thing. and began questioning what it was i had to hide anyway. it was obvious he was bored at work and was trying to entertain himself by harassing me. so i again hung up.

heres where it gets really freaky…they call back a third time! at this point im working out my escape plan to mexico, and wondering if i should put my hard drive in a microwave for good measure!

has this for of deliberate harassment ever happened to anyone else?

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AT&T doesn’t think warrant-less wiretapping is funny.

But they do think being able to tell customers to go fuck themselves over the issue of warrant-less wiretapping is hilarious.

– SCAM

Simplify, Organize, Liberate sounds like something the kids in “The Wave” would shout while giving their little team power salute. Then at the end, when they realize they’ve been working not for Hitler, but rather for AT&T, they all have a good cry and renounce their ways.

Actually, I’ve been putting off getting a cell phone again for a while now, and it’s probably time to quit resisting. Credo looks pretty good. Thanks for the tip.

What? You want me to open the store today? But it’s my day off!

or

Oh. Hi mom. No, I’m not married yet. Not much. Just got home from work. Yes, I am having a beer. No, I’m not getting drunk. You’re putting dad on? Yes, dad…the car is running fine.*

If listening to that turns you on, I recommend a new hobby. Also, if listening to that helps fight terrorism, then terrorism is the least of our worries.

* Note: based on every conversation I’ve ever had on the phone with my parents.

@39
I love you. Give me money.

What? No? But surely they’ve got nothing to hide? OH – SO NOW THEY FINALLY UNDERSTAND THE CONCEPT OF PRIVACY!!!

Not that you can reason with these people, of course.

http://www.credomobile.com/

Plus a small portion of your bill goes to some good causes.
Peace