Go back to sleep...everthing is fine.

So today I hear that National Public Radio and other media outlets have decided not to use the word "whistleblower" to describe Edward Snowden. Their narrow reasoning is that, since the NSA data collection was technically "legal", thanks to the Obama administration, Snowden didn't reveal "illegal government activity", therefore he's not a whistleblower. Even if the law is controversial and probably even unconstitutional, and definitely a bad thing? Apparently that doesn't matter.

Jonathan Turley pointed out that "whistleblower" can cover illegal activity, but also "wrongdoing". But most of the media seems perfectly happy to do their part to keep the public from taking too much exception to what the Executive has been doing. It's easy for them to come up with lame, "sensible" sounding excuses. If this were being done under a Romney or Bush administration, rather than under Obama, I wonder how the reaction of the press, and the people, might differ?

People point out that Google, Facebook etc. already have lots of information about us, so what's the big deal? Well, they do collect some information about us, which they use to target advertising to us. But somehow I doubt Google is going to assemble all our social and purchasing data along with all our phone records, skype calls, library books, movements and associations, health records, etc. in order to create a secret dossier that can be used against us any time some official decides that something we've said, some cause we've donated to, someone we've associated with, gives them reason to dig up dirt about us.

Hmmm, I see you traveled to Lebanon recently...oh, you have college friends there; did you know that some of them may have third hand "tribal connections" to suspected extremists (peace activists, perhaps)? I see that you attend the same church as a nun who was part of a group that entered the grounds of a nuclear waste disposal site to paint peace slogans on the wall, and who is now facing federal terrorism charges because of it. And you donated to the ACLU, and have had problems paying back your student loans. Do you often renege on your lawful obligations? What does that say about your character? 

With all these suspicious connections, you are certainly a "Person of Interest" to us, and will be added to a database for extra scrutiny when it comes time to file your taxes, or take a flight, or apply for federal loans, or check your credit or criminal background. Be careful what political causes you donate to, and be sure not to make any statements that are overly critical of U.S. Foreign policy or the War on Terror, lest they serve to confirm our suspicions about you. Oh, and, by the way, you can't be told about any of this, or have any means of appealing the process, because it's all Secret, and to reveal it to you would be to reveal our "sources and methods" to the Terrorists, and besides, it would be a violation of your privacy.

It's easy, especially with the power of big data, to build a case against anyone, due to malice or just incompetence. As an analogy, think about how often there is incorrect information in our credit records (studies show it happens a lot). We have no idea how our government and its corporate contractors might use our information, and no recourse should it be misused. We drugged and kidnapped a Canadian/Syrian citizen, Maher Arar, and had him tortured for months because of wrong information linking him to muslim terrorists. After a year he was released, but the impact on his life was considerable, as you might imagine. He was one of the lucky ones who lived long enough to be let free. The Canadians eventually paid him off, but the U.S. still insists it did nothing wrong, and he and his family are still on the "No Fly List" ten years later.

 Surveillance has always been abused. Look at the investigations carried out by the Church Committee. Read up on J. Edgar Hoover, and the East German Stasi. Look at the evidence of how the "Fusion Centers" in various American cities teamed up with the feds to surveil and harrass non-violent Occupy activists in various cities. I just can't fathom how people can say this is "no big deal". I just have to conclude that they haven't really thought things through. And I think that's the way the folks in power would like it to remain.

NSA USA: Do we really have to ask if that's a bad thing?

I don't think I can handle much more media coverage today. You see, I've been following the coverage of the NSA leaks, and leaker, Edward Snowden, who's come forward. And I'll just begin by saying, apathy and ignorance are damn depressing. I know all of us can think of many instances where we felt frustration over the public's seeming lack of interest or education with relation to some issue we care about, but this is a topic that literally affects everyone, right now.

Check out the coverage on The Guardian, the British newspaper that broke the story with the help of "Civil Liberties Extremist" Glenn Greenwald. At least watch the inteview with Snowden himself, if you haven't already.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2013/jun/09/nsa-whistleblower-edward-snowden-interview-video

The NPR news shows today featured mainly former CIA directors and conservative think-tank pundits as commentators on the topic. The mainstream coverage I've seen has kept the focus on the leak as a security breach, a threat to our security, blah, blah. On "On Point" this morning, there was an interview with Glenn Greenwald, who himself interviewed the NSA leaker for The Guardian. Greenwald was articulate as always, but his relatively brief segment was followed by an interview with a former government flack and Heritage Foundation member whose role was apparently to represent the status quo, to return the focus of attention back to the the leak-as-a -crime, and to generally assure everyone listening that there is nothing to worry about (except Terrorists, of course).

The show's comment section attracted some "kill the traitor!" type commenters; more of them than I usually see there, and I have to wonder if these people really bothered to educate themselves before reacting with such reflexive outrage toward the leaker, rather than the information leaked. I guess that's why they're called "reactionaries". A cynical part of me often wonders how much of the angry-internet-political-commentariat is coordinated by some kind of psy-ops public perception-management operation (maybe several different ones). I'm not just "being paranoid" in considering this possibility, either. Not when it's been known for years to anyone who bothers to pay attention that PR and spin are a huge part of the Managed Democracy game. 

Neal Conan, the "Talk of the Nation" host was actually rather patronizing and hostile toward several callers who wanted to challenge the notion that all this spying takes place "with full judicial and congressional oversight" and is basically no big deal. Sadly, the off-the-cuff callers weren't as smooth and well-prepared as someone like like Glenn Greenwald might've been, so the host was able to browbeat them successfully. I'm glad that show is being cancelled.

I've seen this pattern repeated in much of the media coverage of "leaked secrets" scandals like this, both on the radio and online (personally I try never to have anything to do with the idiocy taking place on the cable shows). There's little said about the actual information revealed, and why the leaker was willing to risk everything to come forward. When the evidence of government or corporate wrong-doing is discussed, there is usually a quick follow-up rebuttal from some government flack or journalist which reiterates the party line, which is what "sensible citizens" believe, of course.

The reader comments under many articles on major news sites are largely of the ignorant, reactionary variety. "He's a traitor", "Why would the government care about me", "Terrorists are going to kill us", "what's the big deal?" What room is there for informed discussion, disagreement, and openness to new ideas in a "dialogue" such as that. At least we Americans still have the right to express our personal opinions, however ill-informed and pointless they may be. Yay.

What really bugs me is the same thing that Edward Snowden told Glenn Greenwald worries him the most: that this story may just "blow over" like so many others, thanks to the adroit spin of propagandists and the dull complacency of a populace kept largely uneducated and apathetic. That would be a terrible shame both for Snowden, considering the personal sacrifices he made to reveal this information, and frankly for anyone else who can actually put two thoughts together in their heads and understand why a police state is a bad idea.

If nothing much changes, it will be a sure sign of the ultimate triumph of cultural apathy, a-historical ignorance, incurious complacency and conditioned obedience to authority. If that happens, I ask myself, how can I continue to live as a part of a society whose values I find increasingly repellent and inhumane? Even recognizing that neither I or anyone else is above reproach, how can I  be expected to have any respect for those of my fellow citizens whose stubborn ignorance, self-centered hypocrisy and lack of basic human compassion disgusts me?

After a while, one starts to feel that such people deserve what they get. Problem is, the rest of us have to live in this world, too.

For now, all is not (yet) lost. Some people out there are still able to remember the lessons of history, and to understand the implications of Big Data in the context of an authoritarian/corporatist political regime. They will want to take meaningful action. I just hope they aren't too small and marginal a part of society to be able to make any difference. Other nations may be able to exert political pressure on our country, and on the powerful internet companies like Google as well, serving to place at least some limits on the extent of Sauron's gaze, even while many of these nations have their own spying regimes. Also I suppose that as "consumers" (which is what we are now, instead of "citizens"), we could vote with our meager wallets and boycott those companies that do business with the NSA et al., to the extent that that is possible in the modern techno-oligopilized world.

This post will most likely be placed into a giant database by an automatic filtering algorithm,  stored along-side the rest of humanity's thoughts and expressions. A unconscious collective memory held in secret, accessible only to a shadowy few, their motives unaccountable. Information held in abeyance not to promote the development of thought, but instead to control or prevent it. A sort of vast, Anti-Library, you could say.

At any time, these words can be retro-actively called up and used against me, or anyone I associate with, should someone with the right access choose to do so at any point in the future. Given the vast, complex data-stores that exist about all of our movements, associations, habits and thoughts, it becomes frighteningly simple to retroactively pick out just the information needed to make a case, to discredit a troublesome enemy, even to render someone into oblivion. None of this is science fiction; it's all happened already. And that doesn't even account for the possibility of erroneous data, or hacking and theft.

How can anyone who considers themself an "American" not see the danger in allowing faceless, unaccountable bureaucrats and private corporate operatives to build dossiers on everyone, to be used and abused as they see fit, with no real oversight or recourse on the part of the people? Do we really think that living in a Panopticon society won't have a chilling effect on speech and thought? Can we maybe just stop arguing about our "right" to purchase AR-15's from Walmart long enough to pay some attention to the Constitional Rights that actually matter to our democracy? What does being an "American" even mean, any more?

Sassy black men. You Tube auto-tuned. Laughing at? Laughing with?

This was written in response to a short article on NPR (appended below) about the “instant celebrity” surrounding Charles Ramsey. You may recall he was the gentleman who helped free three young Cleveland women who were being held captive in a house owned by three bloated, sweaty older gentlemen who probably shouldn’t have been let out into the world unsupervised. 

The point of the article was to highlight this and other cases where “sassy black men” from poor areas have gained accidental notoriety by being articulate and outspoken on camera. The article asks an an important question, namely, is there an element of condescension in our reaction to these people? Are we “laughing with them, or at them?” One of the other examples of this phenomenon cited in the article was Antoine Dodson (of “hide your kids, hide your wife” You Tube fame). Having actually met Mr. Dodson, in passing, and therefore feeling confident in my ability to speak authoritatively on this matter (this being the Internet and all) I had just a couple thoughts to contribute.

I met Antoine Dodson at an Internet Meme convention (ROFLcon) at MIT last summer. He was a funny guy. I do remember wondering at the time about the same questions raised in this piece.

When Mr. Dodson was "discovered" on line, auto-tuned, and eventually feted by tech-startup Ivy League grads, was there a measure of patronization in his notoriety as "that sassy outspoken black guy from the projects?" It seems a valid concern given the obvious disparities in wealth, race and social class between the parties involved. But we shouldn't discount the fact that he was also an articulate and funny story-teller with genuine appeal--a bit of a natural stand-up comic.

At any rate, he seems to have turned this unexpected windfall to his own advantage. So perhaps it's too simplistic to see his relationship with internet fame as a matter of pure "exploitation", or at least as exploitation flowing in only one direction.

I think many Americans from all walks of life are pretty savvy about how this aspect of the media works, whether or not they've ever taken a class on Internet Studies. I hope that, instead of just being relegated to the role of unsophisticated "victim", he can use his unexpected celebrity to improve his and his family's situation while avoiding the pitfalls of instant fame. This is more or less what most of the other "Internet Meme" folks were happily doing, it seemed to me. Who knows, maybe Charles Ramsey will be able to do the same thing, in his own way. As George Herbert, author of the science fiction classic Dune, said in his 17th century classic Jacula Internetum,

"living well is the best revenge".

Find the original NPR piece below:

Are We Laughing With Charles Ramsey?

Gene Demby May 7, 2013

Charles Ramsey talks to media Tuesday as people congratulate him for having helped some women get out of a Cleveland home. Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus, Michelle Knight and a 6-year-old girl were rescued from the house. (The Plain Dealer/Landov)

It's hard out here for a black man the Internet accidentally thrusts into the limelight. Those 15 minutes ain't no joke.

Charles Ramsey, the Cleveland man who helped Amanda Berry escape from her captor and free her fellow captives, is already a full-fledged Thing On The Internet, primarily owing to a live local television news interview. During that interview, Ramsey proved himself a fantastic storyteller, and he kept it extra-extra-real.

What made Ramsey really blow up on the Internet was his observation at the end of the interview.

"Bro, I knew something was wrong when a little pretty white girl ran into a black man's arms," Ramsey told a local TV reporter. The local reporter quickly pivoted away.

(He's not lying: Cleveland is one of the 10 most segregated cities in the U.S., according to a study from two researchers.)

Like Ted Williams, the homeless "man with the golden voice," Antoine Dodson of "Hide Your Kids, Hide Your Wife!" fame, and Sweet Brown of "Oh, Lordy, there's a fire!" — three other poor black folks who became unlikely Internet celebrities in recent years — Ramsey seemed at ease in front of the camera. And of course, he's already been Auto-Tuned.

Very quickly, they went from individuals who lived on America's margins to embodying a weird, new kind of fame. Williams ended up being offered work doing voiceovers for radio. Dodson leveraged his newfound notoriety to get his family out of the projects. (Our colleagues at Tell Me More sat down with Dodson a little while back to talk about blowing up and moving out of the 'hood.)

This new notoriety mimics the old, familiar trajectory of celebrity. We start to learn all sorts of things about these regular people that "complicates" them. Their foibles become part of the story. Williams' history of drug abuse and petty crime quickly came to the fore; he would go on to appear on Dr. Phil to talk about his estrangement from his family. Dodson would later land in the news for run-ins with the law for drug possession. (Just this week, Dodson announced that he was joining a nationalist religious order called the Black Hebrew Israelites and renouncing his homosexuality.)

But race and class seemed to be central to the celebrity of all these people. They were poor. They were black. Their hair was kind of a mess. And they were unashamed. That's still weird and chuckle-worthy.

On the face of it, the memes, the Auto-Tune remixes and the laughing seem purely celebratory. But what feels like celebration can also carry with it the undertone of condescension. Amid the hood backdrop — the gnarled teeth, the dirty white tee, the slang, the shout-out to McDonald's — we miss the fact that Charles Ramsey is perfectly lucid and intelligent.

"I have a feeling half the ppl who say 'Oooh I love watching him on the internet!' would turn away if they saw him on the street," the writer Sarah Kendzior tweeted.

Dodson and Brown and Ramsey are all up in our GIFs and all over the blogosphere because they're not the type of people we're used to seeing or hearing on our TVs. They're actually not the type of people we're used to seeing or hearing at all, which might explain why we get so silly when they make one of their infrequent forays into our national consciousness.

Copyright 2013 National Public Radio (Source).