I don’t have to tell you that this isn’t the sort of “roundup” where you get to go, “Yipee-i-o-kyaaay!” It’s the sort where you go, “OMG, what will learn next about these creeping, peeping totalitarians?” Some of the newest nooz: Got a smartphone? NSA can get your data. Not yet a mega-scooping data project; they have to really want your particular data to get it. Mega-scooping? That comes next year, no doubt. And when it comes it’ll be with the help of “Mr. Civil Rights” Obama himself. Seems two years ago the secret court, responding to a secret request, made…
Category: Official thuggery, bad prosecutions, and bad law
Alas (but no surprise), the rumor that’s been buzzing around the ‘Net ever since Edward Snowden’s NSA documents began their slow leak has turned out to be true. The NSA has cracked the encryption on which the Internet thrives. All those assurances from our banks, insurance companies, doctors, credit card companies, etc. that our data is safe and secure? Blooey. Maybe “cracking” isn’t quite the right term. Apparently, they haven’t really gotten any great master key. Not even to one form of encryption (and there are many forms). This isn’t Bletchley Park and the Enigma machine. Nothing so grand. Simply…
It’s gotten easier and easier to become a “terrorist” in the government’s eyes. Buy too many MREs. Join a Tea Party group. Get the same tattoo that your friends have. Talk too much about religion or the Constitution … all of that — and more! — puts you in the “if some jerk sees something, s/he’s supposed to say something (about YOU!)” category. But frankly, people, some of you are just too lazy. Too lazy or too blandly innocuous even to qualify as a terrorist suspect by those lax standards. All your friends are making their way onto “lists” or…
Join David Codrea in reporting a ghastly conspiracy and crime in which domestic terrorists kidnapped, abused, and put American children in fear for their lives.
Yikes. Sorry. I didn’t mean to be away from the blog this long. Expected to be back with you by Sunday afternoon, but each time I hoped to sit down at the computer, chaos piled on the chaos that was already piled on top of the chaos. And that on top of an Internet connection that’s extremely sketchy and drops entirely every five or 10 minutes. So give me a couple more days to really get coherent, please. By Wednesday I should also have a functioning ‘Net connection, too. Knock wood. Cross fingers. Throw salt over shoulder. Burn incense to…
Most media outlets aren’t mentioning that those four people who found and reported that killer-kidnapper in Idaho were all armed, men and women both. (They didn’t confront the creep because even though they felt something was wrong about the man and the nervous young girl they didn’t realize until they got home who the two were.) First dog Bo is so privileged he may soon have to be named Incitatus. But even Caligula probably didn’t make Roman taxpayers fork over bux for his critter’s private progresses through the streets or a $100k per year handler. How Nixon ushered in an…
… doubt no more. The government — and now the UberGovernment — is filled with idiots. Here’s an email (with names redacted) sent by a friend about one of their more less amusing stupidities: Dear Claire, We thought we were under scrutiny because of the words we use, but it turns out the FBI also don’t like the word “Subversion”. My firm (and probably 100,000 other small and large businesses) use the open-source software package Subversion to provide version control of documents and code. The idea of version control is alien to the uber-government, but ignorance has never deterred thugs.…
Carl-Bear (who occasionally traffics in science fiction) makes his best guess about what Elon Musk’s mysterious new “hyperloop” transportation system will be. And finds it familiar. One more (rather weird) way that the rich are different than the poor. Different toxins in their bodies. Government forces one privacy option out of business (in the creepiest way). A new privacy option is born. Not in the U.S. of course. Nobody in their right mind would base a privacy service in the U.S. from here on out. Small business? The IRS wants to know what you’re doing with your cash — and…
The last few days I’ve been doing physical labor, spending time in the sunshine, painting rooms — and thinking about America’s UberGovernment. It’s dawning on a lot more people that a government run by secret spymasters is illigitmate even by the most conventional, mainstream standards. Among freedomistas, even those like the folks at DownsizeDC — who are usually pretty polite, mainstream, and hopeful of working within the system — are talking last straws. Edward Snowden’s revelations of the NSA were a shock, though not a surprise. Now this week they’re followed by news of DEA operations that are top secret…