What is Digg?201 Comments
- geddon, on 11/10/2007, -1/+163I heard Mark Klein in an interview on NPR and must say he is taking a bold step to protect the rights of every American Citizen. Please Digg this article to support a True Patriot!
- natedouglas, on 11/11/2007, -11/+152I see this as one of the most compelling reasons for anarchism.
The presence of state secrets, possessed by a privileged few, is inherently a devaluation of the citizen and an establishment of hierarchy. The possession of private information about a specific citizen, or group of citizens, or even the trends of unspecified citizens, without their consent -- surely we can agree that this is a bad thing? National security is not information shared by all members of a nation, even an ostensibly democratic one. It is information within the hands of a select few, who say "trust us... trust us and GIVE US MONEY; but we cannot tell you what we do with it, and you would probably not approve if we told you." Whether or not you consider anarchism a ludicrous proposition, I believe any reasonable person must believe that an informed participatory government (whether democratic or representative republic) fundamentally depends on the quantity and quality of knowledge possessed by its citizens. When there is a restriction of information, the democratic process (and by extension, the citizenry) never benefits.
The existence of certain technologies (for instance, nuclear power and nuclear weapons), certain governmental behaviors (spying, human rights violations, negotiating individual liberties), and so forth demand the existence of state secrets. Is it by coincidence that many of us consider the use of nuclear weapons, spying, torture, and unreasonable coercion to be unethical behaviors? We may consider monopolies on certain information to be justified when possessed by a corporation -- for instance, I can buy that Apple should retain the right to conceal the source code to OS X -- but can I really justify paying money to an organization that uses that money to spy on me without my consent, or to piss off brown people halfway around the world (something I'm not really in favor of), or to shove microwaved bottles of Aunt Jemima™ pancake syrup into the microscopic sphincters of East Timorese children?
Surely anyone who cares about the future of this country and its people -- whether they be classic conservative, anarchist, liberal, libertarian, social democrat, whatever -- has to howl for the blood of these pigs. ***** them, ***** the "national security" excuses for harmful state secrets that limit our freedoms and weaken our ability to participate in the political process, ***** the stooges in high places sacrificing their integrity for cash, ***** 'em all.
Granting immunity may be one small step toward fascism, but it's a giant leap toward dragging the pigs out into the street and shooting 'em. - ChaosMotor, on 11/10/2007, -0/+90Ignorance is a choice. Unfortunately it's a popular one.
- dirtkahuna, on 11/10/2007, -0/+58What will it take to get the American people to wake up and stop this madness? We allow the government to trample our constitutional rights and all we seem to care about is who got booted from "Dancing With the Stars."
- lucidguru, on 11/10/2007, -1/+37This makes a lot of sense actually. It's all about money. This gave att the ability to spy on sprint, verison, t-mobile, comcast, and any other company that would compete with it and allow the gov't to spy on citizens: a very shady business practice. I wouldn't be surprised if people within att used this info to become rich by illegally buying and selling stocks or something else unethical. Reminds me of Enron.
Hopefully enough corporations were screwed over by this spying and will have the balls to take the telecommunications companies to court. The government doesn't care about the citizens or our privacy so the only way I can imagine the telcos not getting immunity is if other large companies take them to court. This is where we need tech companies like m$ and google to step-up and cry afoul. It wouldn't surprise me if they were in on the corruption too, however. - LargeTrout, on 11/10/2007, -2/+28And I buried you for burying your head in the sand. Wake up.
- Ouze, on 11/10/2007, -0/+24"everything" for AT&T is 312 terabytes, apparently. http://www.research.att.com/viewProject.cfm?prjID= ...
That's a lot of lolcats - hoist0that0rag, on 11/10/2007, -0/+24well, if you're not doing anything wrong then you've nothing to worry about, right?
right?
/sarcasm - knomevol, on 11/10/2007, -0/+24without a doubt!
i wish more people would consider the implications of such spying, such as this commenter on the article page:
parrot wrote on November 7, 2007 6:17 PM:
And the question is...why were they domestically spying? Was it so they could get blackmail leverage on politicians in the United States? Was it so they could identify groups of people who would oppose suspension of the U.S. Constitution? Or was it so they could determine which companies could be intimidated and money extorted from them? It's a very interesting question and deserves to be explored in depth...and legal penalties applied to those who have abuse the law and our country by asserting that exercising raw power is more important than ruling wisely and with respect for the ruled. - pencilneck, on 11/10/2007, -3/+25What kind of storage space is needed to copy "everything"?
- MikeMacMan, on 11/10/2007, -0/+19Satellite has way too much latency to route "most traffic".
- rhinopig, on 11/10/2007, -4/+22I wouldn't say anarchism, but I agree with most of what you're saying. A completely open government, with no secret information, is an interesting concept that I'd like to believe could work, but I'm not so sure. However what I would strongly recommend is that atleast any government computer connected to the internet should be entirely readable by the public. You could still have a private government network for the various, strictly military or national emergency, purposes, but those computers should be terminals not connected to the internet and with physical security surrounding them. Basically, don't make confidential information just marked confidential and encrypted, separate the entire apparatus for confidential systems, and systems needed for day to day operations of the government, and then make the day to day system entirely open to the public. This directly wouldn't prevent things like this NSA stuff from happening, but would make it much more difficult to coordinate without the public knowing.
Equally, you could entirely get rid of privacy all together. Go ahead and set up data surveillance and even physical surveillance (CCTV stuff) and make it all accessible by the public. Then you can let the public police itself (and the government) in a sort of wikipedia style way. Of course, I'm sure most people wouldn't like this idea, but I'd be willing to give it a shot. - Waiting2awake, on 11/10/2007, -0/+18*****. The Americans I have met and known are every inch as good, capable and competent as anyone else. It is just the mentality that goes to the lowest common denominator, which sadly is newspeak and xenophobic ideals, and that is what generally gets put in power.
It will change when America starts to value intelligence, science, community. Until that time, "Einstein" will still be an insult, science will be on par with Christianity and community a synonym for communism.
Sad. - McSwankypants, on 11/10/2007, -0/+17It still floors me to see the quick change in attitudes toward at&t over the last year or so. First, they were evil for becoming a giant monopoly...again. Then, they were evil for [supposedly] sending any and all data/voice communications directly to the NSA. Then the iPhone came out and -- while I'm not going to look up the stats -- a *****-ton of people switched carriers to at&t. WTF?!
Those that give up their privacy for an expensive piece of technology deserve neither privacy, nor an expensive piece of technology. - bowens44, on 11/10/2007, -2/+17So you have no problem with corporations passing personal/private data to the government without warrants?
Have you always hated freedom and our Constitution or is this a recent developement? - Waiting2awake, on 11/10/2007, -5/+20I have often said that the only true government is no government. Of course this usually strikes people as strange and a really, really bad idea. It flows from the idea that "governments" produce order, but this is the exact same argument that was made before when the "church" was being broken down under it's obvious failings. The "Church" argued that without God, there would be no morals, for Morals come from God. But that was just as mush of a lie as Governments producing order.
Whether humanity is mature enough for anarchism is another story all together, but IMO, there is no doubt that government benefits in chaos, indeed gets its power to control because of the chaos. - thejude, on 11/09/2007, -0/+14http://www.NPR.org/templates/story/story.php?story ...
link to npr interview with Mark Klein. Worth a listen, the man is risking quite a bit to stand up against AT&T and other telecoms. - chillypacman, on 11/09/2007, -0/+12A true patriot who is actually acting to protect freedom no less /pun intended.
- snotrokit, on 11/08/2007, -0/+11The fact that they are doing this, and DID this 6 YEARS AGO. That is the point. No, I don't think they want Aunt Edna's apple pie recipie, but the very fact that this has happened, with zero oversight, zero intervention, and zero notice is what should scare the living ***** out of every man woman and child.
- seanherman, on 11/09/2007, -0/+10speaking of the Mark Klein NPR interview, here is the audio from his appearance on All Things Considered
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?story ...
digg it if you dig it. He does a wonderful job of explaining that AT&T knew exactly what they were doing when they invited the US Govt. into their facilities, having dealt with wiretapping requests for almost 75 years. As part of their "data mining" program, first revealed by the NYT, they're copying vast amounts of domestic communications in direct violation of our most BASIC CIVIL LIBERTIES. This is ***** absurd, and we need everyone to know just how horrible things have gotten.
http://digg.com/world_news/AT_T_Wiretap_Whistleblo ... - Waiting2awake, on 11/10/2007, -2/+12enjoy your sleep
- DirtySnachez, on 11/10/2007, -1/+10Hey, Bit of a tangent .. This made me just realise, there is no way to delete your digg profile that I can figure out. I'm prolly just overlooking something..
Not that I want to, but can someone explain how to completley delete your digg profile / every comment made here ? Is it possible. ?
Google gives no relevant results : http://www.google.com/search?q=delete+digg+profile - scoobydoo84, on 11/10/2007, -4/+13Impeach, impeach, impeach, impeach, impeach, impeach................................................................
There is no other solution!! - notque, on 11/08/2007, -0/+9http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/interviews/9612-anarch ...
Noam Chomsky on Anarchism
What are the intellectual roots of anarchist thought, and what movements have developed and animated it throughout history?
The currents of anarchist thought that interest me (there are many) have their roots, I think, in the Enlightenment and classical liberalism, and even trace back in interesting ways to the scientific revolution of the 17th century, including aspects that are often considered reactionary, like Cartesian rationalism. There's literature on the topic (historian of ideas Harry Bracken, for one; I've written about it too). Won't try to recapitulate here, except to say that I tend to agree with the important anarchosyndicalist writer and activist Rudolf Rocker that classical liberal ideas were wrecked on the shoals of industrial capitalism, never to recover (I'm referring to Rocker in the 1930s; decades later, he thought differently). The ideas have been reinvented continually; in my opinion, because they reflect real human needs and perceptions. The Spanish Civil War is perhaps the most important case, though we should recall that the anarchist revolution that swept over a good part of Spain in 1936, taking various forms, was not a spontaneous upsurge, but had been prepared in many decades of education, organization, struggle, defeat, and sometimes victories. It was very significant. Sufficiently so as to call down the wrath of every major power system: Stalinism, fascism, western liberalism, most intellectual currents and their doctrinal institutions -- all combined to condemn and destroy the anarchist revolution, as they did; a sign of its significance, in my opinion.
Critics complain that anarchism is "formless, utopian." You counter that each stage of history has its own forms of authority and oppression which must be challenged, therefore no fixed doctrine can apply. In your opinion, what specific realization of anarchism is appropriate in this epoch?
I tend to agree that anarchism is formless and utopian, though hardly more so than the inane doctrines of neoliberalism, Marxism-Leninism, and other ideologies that have appealed to the powerful and their intellectual servants over the years, for reasons that are all too easy to explain. The reason for the general formlessness and intellectual vacuity (often disguised in big words, but that is again in the self-interest of intellectuals) is that we do not understand very much about complex systems, such as human societies; and have only intuitions of limited validity as to the ways they should be reshaped and constructed.
Anarchism, in my view, is an expression of the idea that the burden of proof is always on those who argue that authority and domination are necessary. They have to demonstrate, with powerful argument, that that conclusion is correct. If they cannot, then the institutions they defend should be considered illegitimate. How one should react to illegitimate authority depends on circumstances and conditions: there are no formulas.
In the present period, the issues arise across the board, as they commonly do: from personal relations in the family and elsewhere, to the international political/economic order. And anarchist ideas -- challenging authority and insisting that it justify itself -- are appropriate at all levels.
What sort of conception of human nature is anarchism predicated on? Would people have less incentive to work in an egalitarian society? Would an absence of government allow the strong to dominate the weak? Would democratic decision-making result in excessive conflict, indecision and "mob rule"?
As I understand the term "anarchism," it is based on the hope (in our state of ignorance, we cannot go beyond that) that core elements of human nature include sentiments of solidarity, mutual support, sympathy, concern for others, and so on.
Would people work less in an egalitarian society? Yes, insofar as they are driven to work by the need for survival; or by material reward, a kind of pathology, I believe, like the kind of pathology that leads some to take pleasure from torturing others. Those who find reasonable the classical liberal doctrine that the impulse to engage in creative work is at the core of human nature -- something we see constantly, I think, from children to the elderly, when circumstances allow -- will be very suspicious of these doctrines, which are highly serviceable to power and authority, but seem to have no other merits.
Would an absence of government allow the strong to dominate the weak? We don't know. If so, then forms of social organization would have to be constructed -- there are many possibilities -- to overcome this crime.
What would be the consequences of democratic decision-making? The answers are unknown. We would have to learn by trial. Let's try it and find out.
Anarchism is sometimes called libertarian socialism -- How does it differ from other ideologies that are often associated with socialism, such as Leninism?
Leninist doctrine holds that a vanguard Party should assume state power and drive the population to economic development, and, by some miracle that is unexplained, to freedom and justice. It is an ideology that naturally appeals greatly to the radical intelligentsia, to whom it affords a justification for their role as state managers. I can't see any reason -- either in logic or history -- to take it seriously. Libertarian socialism (including a substantial mainstream of Marxism) dismissed all of this with contempt, quite rightly. - seanherman, on 11/11/2007, -0/+8Investigation into that precise allegation is what the civil cases brought by organizations like the EFF are ALL ABOUT. We don't know how or why the Administration was using these wiretaps and data mining surveillance programs. We do know it was a blatant violation of the most basic civil liberties guaranteed to every American citizen. I really don't understand why anyone would want to defend the administration's stance on this issue. Why reward this blatant disregard for the rule of law with retroactive immunity for those corporations that were willing to disregard their customers privacy, whom they are bound to protect, at a moments notice. This affects everyone, conservative and liberal alike. This isn't even about president bush, or republicans. If a Democrat were authorizing this program, I'd be just as repulsed. Retroactive immunity would destroy these cases currently under way with an act of Congress. That's absurd.
Qwest knew the programs were blatantly illegal, and refused to comply. AT&T, Verizon and the rest complied because they have no respect for their customer's privacy. They do the administration's bidding in hopes of currying favor. We need to let them know there are serious, substantial repercussions when they sell us out. They need, desperately, to be taught a lesson. - geddon, on 11/10/2007, -1/+9I agree completely, though anarchism is an ill-defined concept that offers no real solutions. I believe, however, that your sentiments towards an Open Government provides us with a model that many on the Internet are familiar with thanks to Open Source. Elsewhere, I've commented that Open Democracy is right around the corner (and received a few Diggs in return). This tells me that people are not only aware of the possible solution, but supportive of redistributing governmental power back into the hands of the people.
While only a desperate few projects are in the works, such as the Unity Party (along with a couple Open Source Voting Systems), the strongest support comes from Presidential Candidates such as Mike Gravel who advocates a strong Participatory Government, along with the Open Source Voting Consortium, who are not only changing the face of politics in California, but also receiving strong support from "top tier" candidates such as John Edwards. However, more needs to be done in order to focus our efforts towards and Open Democracy.
Specifically, Internet entrepreneurs such as Kevin Rose needs to look towards helping his country (as opposed to helping his wallet by creating a new Twitter). Kevin has helped to create one of the most impressive Participatory Cultures on the web (ie. Digg), and should strive to create something of real value to the future of our country. Furthermore, developers must begin working on the foundation / platform for an Open Democracy, so that We the People might march on our nations capital and demand control be given back to the Citizens of the United States of America.
We can revolt. We have the means to do so. But we must begin in order to succeed. - solidcube, on 11/10/2007, -3/+11He's right, people need to wake up. The politicians in this country do not care about our rights at all. By the way, I am very happy now that Rose is "***** you" rich. I expect that he'll take his liberal politics and do something good with all that cash.
- freecon, on 11/08/2007, -2/+10If weren't criminals they wouldn't be seeking protection. Hang them all.
- buckrogers1965, on 11/10/2007, -0/+7everything has a lot of repetition so it compresses well.
- knomevol, on 11/08/2007, -0/+7i've read h. res. 333 is only attempting to solve half the problem.
- spyd3rweb, on 11/08/2007, -1/+8Sometimes its manufactured as well.
- knomevol, on 11/08/2007, -1/+8metaphorically, it does make sense. perhaps your mother tongue is not english, so then perhaps it does not appear obvious.
- knomevol, on 11/09/2007, -1/+8interesting to contemplate... what grounded fact, for the sake of amusement, makes you so certain that there would be no TV, no library, no paved roads, no electricity, etc?
- darkciti2, on 11/10/2007, -0/+742
- knomevol, on 11/10/2007, -2/+9space requirements? man hours needed?
you are the technically challenged one, then, you have just proven. this rhetoric shows you are behind the times.
the biggest, most sophisticated datacenter in the world is obviously not where you would suppose it to be. - Dgen_X, on 11/10/2007, -1/+7Actually it's all streaming straight to bush's brain...that's why he always seems so slow.
- andshewas, on 11/09/2007, -0/+6A big problem is the fact that "Dancing with the Stars" is broadcast on national television at a prime time for all the middle class grannies to watch. The people watching that crap generally aren't checking digg, or the real news for that matter. The only news they concern themselves with comes on at 11pm on Fox, or any major network. The unfortunate reality is, most of middle America has no idea that this surveillance is even ongoing. The main stream media doesn't talk about it, so it isn't news to most people.
- hydrodev, on 11/08/2007, -1/+7The point is at any given time the definition of "wrong" or "illegal" or "terrorism" can be changed, with out warning and with out approval of the public at large. I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop and find out one day they have made it illegal to dislike your gov't policies and officials and be thrown in jail for it. I'm pretty open about my discontent. On the internet especially.
/honesty - snotrokit, on 11/10/2007, -0/+6This was on NPR last night. Podcast is here. http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php? ... and here http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast/podcast_detail.php? ...
Listen to this show, listen to this segment. Realize what YOUR government is doing against YOU. This is outrage. Act now. Do not forget, do not let your children forget, do not let your neighbors forget. Get this out. Get this out NOW. Act NOW. - hydrodev, on 11/08/2007, -0/+6I've always hated that response too. The point is at any given time the definition of "wrong" or "illegal" or "terrorism" can be changed, with out warning and with out approval of the public at large. I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop and find out one day they have made it illegal to dislike your gov't policies and officials and be thrown in jail for it. I'm pretty open about my discontent. On the internet especially.
/honesty - geddon, on 11/10/2007, -0/+6Come on down to Dayton, Ohio and we'll take a tour of LexisNexis.
- knomevol, on 11/09/2007, -2/+8when i think of no government whatsoever i imagine all of society breaking down, everytime i think of it. i have to force myself to ponder, how could there be no government and a smoothly running, peaceful society at the same time?
perhaps it is in the evolution of the human being to be capable of participating in such a society.
reading the thoughts of ol' man ben franklin, one can't help but notice his regard of dispicableness of government - yet he was among the wise founders the United States, and signatories of my beloved Constitution. - bowens44, on 11/08/2007, -0/+6Did the article say 'log' every phone conversation? No, it didn't, but that doesn't mean that everything flowing through these particular fibers isn't monitored.
- Slungsolow, on 11/08/2007, -0/+6based on the information from yesterday's WashPost, it really doesn't matter if you're with AT&T, Sprint or Vonage - everything that went through AT&Ts network (either originated, terminated or passed through from line leasing) was copied over to the NSA.
Now I doubt all the data was utilized. The NSA is infamous for their raw computing power and their prowess with automation. My guess, read that word carefully - GUESS, is they flagged content for further review. That doesn't mean they discarded all the information they collected, which is a giant breach of privacy. Who knows what they do with all the junk. It could be immediate destruction, it could be kept for future data mining or it could be used to test some new fangled technology that transcribes every damn thing that passes through it so some black ops agency could do Minority Report type ***** and raid our houses because we *might* commit a crime in the future. - williamdyer, on 11/08/2007, -0/+5Well we fixed that eh?
- scoobydoo84, on 11/10/2007, -2/+7STKD,
Since you hate freedom so much why don't you move to N. Korea where you belong!! - natedouglas, on 11/09/2007, -0/+5cdahlkvist, I can dig what you're saying but I don't consider it a valid argument against anarchism.
I agree with Libertarians in some regards: namely that government intervention retards progress and development. I think the free market (with some restrictions)'s a pretty good way to go about things. I consider anarchism to be a system in which all individuals have equal rights and responsibilities, and "governments" (in quotations because they cannot govern, but I have no better term for them) can be evaluated and memberships bought and sold so that we can evaluate societal and economic systems the way we evaluate computers, coffee, and pencil sharpeners.
So if you want to be a socialist-type person, you can join a socialist "government," and live right next to capitalist neighbors, and pay extraordinary taxes but receive in exchange astounding social programs. If you want to be an Objectivist, you can live right next to commies, pay basically no taxes, and receive in exchange no social programs.
So anarchism, as I see it, is the best way to allow people to participate in the type of "government" and receive the social programs they wish to receive, all while coexisting peacefully with those who disagree. There is no reason for commies to hate capitalist pigs or vice versa when neither can control the other's life, money, children, and so forth.
We've become accustomed to the concept of there being two kinds of people: liberals and conservatives, and they fight constantly. That's nowhere near true, as I'm sure you know -- we have dozens of different types of political and economic beliefs (hundreds, really). I think the vast array of political and economic opinion in this country is sufficient to prevent any one "government" from gaining too much power -- even if that entity and its citizens decided they wanted to go stark raving mad and oppress other people.
All it requires, fundamentally, is tolerance for people who differ so long as they don't oppress you, suspicion toward any desire for the power to oppress, and the willingness to oppose any such moves. - bemenaker, on 11/08/2007, -0/+5Instead of Anarchism, how about civil unrest and revolt to restore our Constitution?
- bemenaker, on 11/10/2007, -0/+5You don't have to log all that to be illegal. A machine listening for specific keywords and recording only those conversations is still illegal and still a violation of the law. If you think that can't be done with modern computers, you are a complete idiot. East Germany did this in the 50's with tape and reel.
- waynemr, on 11/10/2007, -0/+5It would be nice if the governor of each state with an AT&T office authorized their national guard units to occupy those AT&T offices and destroy the equipment in those secret rooms.
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