Tag: stasi

Government

Are You Paying Attention?

I hate to say I told you so… but I did warn you. Let’s see, what’s that old saying? “It’s not a Conspiracy Theory if it comes true”. I’ve been babbling about social credit scores and government domestic spying for quite some time. Here’s yet another example of where we’re headed. It came out yesterday that the FBI has been encouraging banks and credit card companies to flag transactions with terms like MAGA or Trump. You also got flagged if you shopped at sporting goods stores or purchased religious materials. Uhm, yeah. This is not ok.

Germany had the Sicherheitsdienst des Reichsführers, or the SS as its intelligence service to spy on its citizens. East Germany in the Cold War had the Stasi. Russia had the KGB. And thanks to the Patriot Act, we now have the FBI.

In the name of security and terrorism, the FBI is now a full fledged state security agency tasked with spying on the citizens. Are you ok with that? I’m not. I don’t think the agency can be saved at this point. It needs to be disbanded. But that won’t happen and we all know it. So what do we do?

I’m not sure what can be done. A rogue agency like that exists because we no longer have a press interested in asking questions. There are a handful of members of congress that will attempt to hold a hearing here and there, but nothing will come of it. If it wasn’t for Elon Musk and twitter, you’d never even hear of the FBI’s misdeeds. How do you hold an agency accountable when the watchdogs either don’t care or actively support their actions?

When the FBI is flagging transactions because you fit the profile of an evil white nationalist on the basis that you support Trump and shop at Cabelas… it’s over. We’re rapidly sliding into Orwell’s 1984 territory. When you’re guilty of wrongspeak, you’re going to have trouble finding a job, getting credit, or renting a car or hotel room. Is it really all that crazy to think that’s where we’re rapidly headed?

The DOJ has an entire web page dedicated to their pursuit of J6 evil doers. They’ve arrested 1,265 people so far and the FBI continues to show up at peoples houses daily. Grandmas and people wandering around taking selfies. Antifa burned cities across the country for an entire summer… where’s their DOJ dedicated page and mass arrests? Crickets.

The people don’t have the power to resist or complain. Say or do something and your life will be ruined. You’ll spend your life savings in lawyer fees trying to defend yourself. This is not who we were supposed to be as a country. The founding fathers are rolling over in their graves.

The scariest part is that the only hope we have rests on one person. The President of the United States is the only one with the power to effect actual change. The odds of our electing someone with the courage to do something is very low. I’d go so far as to say impossible. The deep state will ensure someone with that level of commitment to do the right thing never gets close to the office.

Vivek Ramaswamy was the only candidate who at least voiced the right answers and seemed to have an actual plan to make changes. I guess all we can do at this point is hope he can whisper in Trumps ear enough to convince him to do something. That is assuming he can win, which is far from a guarantee at this point.

But even if he does win, Trump has already said he wants to build the FBI a magnificent, shiny, new building in D.C. (with his son-in-law Jared already bidding for the construction contract). Trump kept Comey and then gave us Wray, so I don’t have high hopes for a complete shift in thinking.

Parents, it’s time to educate your kids on how to stay safe and away from the watchful eye of the state security service. Just like in East Germany with the Stasi, be careful of what you say and who you talk to. Don’t post anything controversial. Be wary of that new friend who encourages you to go to a rally or join a protest group. Go along to get along. Like only pictures of puppy dogs and recipes on Facebook.

It’s the new normal.

“Surveillance breeds conformity”
– Glenn Greenwald

Government, Solving the wrong problem

The Robot Way

If you didn’t already see the story, NYC is going to deploy a giant Roomba vacuum cleaner with cameras on it for additional security in the subway. Ok, it’s not actually a Roomba. It’s something called a K5 from a company called Knightscope. This 400 lb robot is equipped with continuous video recording, facial recognition, thermal anomaly detection, and license plate recognition. Somehow this thing is supposed to make the subways safer. Will it work, or is it just a stunt?

The premise of a wandering robot recording everything it sees and potentially spotting crime isn’t necessarily bad. The problem is – let’s say it spots someone stealing a ladies purse (I guess it could be a mans murse to be fair and balanced). Now what? If you’re not going to have real live officers in a place they can respond quickly, what did it deter?

Ah, but we’ll know who you are and come arrest you later for your evil-doing right? As every large city in the country is experiencing, there already aren’t enough officers to respond to real-time calls for service, let alone try to track down and arrest people after the fact. And even if there were, that only does any good if you’re actually going to prosecute and jail them. See California for how that’s working out.

So basically the NY mayor blew a chunk of budget he doesn’t have on a giant Roomba that rolls around and hopefully captures video of crimes that won’t be stopped or prosecuted. Mmm, ok.

It did make me think about the ever advancing security state. What level of privacy are you entitled to from state run surveillance? New York City already has more security cameras than a Vegas casino. They employ fleets of drones to watch any large crowds or gatherings. Obviously the courts have ruled generally that you have no expectation to privacy in public. But if the police were to set up a camera to watch and record your house and had officers actively follow you and video wherever you went, wouldn’t that level of surveillance require a warrant? Or at least some sort of official procedure and sign-off?

I’m not a lawyer and don’t know the answer to that. My point is, aren’t police cameras on every corner recording everything and creating a searchable record the same thing? This just seems like a slippery slope we’re headed down. If you live in a bigger city, the government is essentially recording your every movement, every place you go, what times you went, and who you interacted with. Who knows what they’re going to eventually do with that info. Hmmm. A giant, permanent database of every citizens movement patterns and network of friends and interactions? What could possibly go wrong?

Lawyers, woke liberals, and the George Soros funded prosecutors have made actually enforcing the law impossible. Too expensive in terms of cost, lawsuits, and negative press to arrest, prosecute, and jail criminals. The end result is the free for all you’re seeing in cities in California… coming to a town near you soon!

So politicians have thrown in the towel on any sort of traditional policing. The potential cost of doing the hard work to arrest bad guys is too high. Confronting a meth’d out psycho threatening people with a machete never ends well. Someone will capture it on cell phone video and the bed wetters will scream for the creation of crisis intervention teams to pass out therapy bears instead of armed police officers. And god forbid the subject is non-white. RACIST!

The end result is that the politicians will trade your freedom for the illusion of security. See, we’ll put all these cameras up and it will be like a force multiplier. We’ll see crime anywhere in the city and can respond. It’s like quadrupling our police department! Except there’s nobody to respond. Nobody to investigate. Nobody’s going to go track down that car jacking that was recorded.

So every city now has data centers containing multiple exabytes of stored surveillance data on its citizens. I know I’m a tad more skeptical than the average guy… but I’m pretty sure some bureaucrat will find a use for all that information.

You know, for your own good and all.