Between this and being under Obama's spell already, you can be rendered senseless

[stupidicus]

quickly, and turned into a good and compliant little bot without even knowing it. Dare I say some are already there?

As long as you are part of the herd of the good sheppard, there is nothing to fear, including all those canines he uses for herd cohesion. Right?

Put differently, George Orwell isn’t who you should be reading to understand the dangers inherent to the NSA’s dragnet. You’d be better off turning to famous French social theorist Michel Foucault. (I wouldn't disregard Orwell, or Huxley either)

The basic concern with the PRISM program is that it is undoubtedly collecting information on significant numbers of Americans, in secret, who may not have any real connection to the case the Agency is pursuing. PRISM sifts through tech giants’ databases to cull information about suspected national security threats. However, since it uses a 51 percent confidence threshold for determining whether a target is foreign, and likely extends to individuals that are “two degrees of separation” from the original target, the chances are extraordinarily high that this program is spying on a significant number of Americans.

A citizenry that’s constantly on guard for secret, unaccountable surveillance is one that’s constantly being remade along the lines the state would prefer. Foucault illustrated this point by reference to a hypothetical prison called the Panopticon. Designed by utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham, the Panopticon is a prison where all cells can be seen from a central tower shielded such that the guards can see out but the prisoners can’t see in. The prisoners in the Panopticon could thus never know whether they were being surveilled, meaning that they have to, if they want to avoid running the risk of severe punishment, assume that they were being watched at all times. Thus, the Panopticon functioned as an effective tool of social control even when it wasn’t being staffed by a single guard.

In his famous Discipline and Punish, Foucault argues that we live in a world where the state exercises power in the same fashion as the Panopticon’s guards. Foucault called it “disciplinary power;” the basic idea is that the omnipresent fear of being watched by the state or judged according to prevailing social norms caused people to adjust the way they acted and even thought without ever actually punished. People had become “self-regulating” agents, people who “voluntarily” changed who they were to fit social and political expectations without any need for actual coercion.

Online privacy advocates have long worried that government surveillance programs could end up disciplining internet users in precisely this fashion. In 1997, the FBI began using something called Project Carnivore, an online surveillance data tool designed to mimic traditional wiretaps, but for email. However, because online information is not like a phone number in several basic senses, Carnivore ended up capturing far more information than it was intended to. It also had virtually no oversight outside of the FBI.

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/06/07/2120141/why-the-nsas-secret-online-surveillance-should-scare-you/

[RainDog]

1. Jeremy Bentham

who, not ironically, is stuffed and encased in glass and on display, after death, at a University in the UK.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Jeremy_Bentham_Auto-Icon.jpg

[stupidicus]

2. I had no idea

but can't say that I object, even if it is a tad "different".

[Berlum]

29. Panopticon

[bvar22]

3. DURec.

...OR,
you could just take the Blue Pill and drift away on the Pink Cloud of Blind Trust.




There is some stuff being posted here today that genuinely Creeps Me Out.
I won't "go gently into that Good Night".
They will have to take me kicking and screaming!



[font color=firebrick size=3][center]"If we don't fight hard enough for the things we stand for,
at some point we have to recognize that we don't really stand for them."
--- Paul Wellstone[/font][/center]
[center][/font]
[font size=1]photo by bvar22
Shortly before Sen Wellstone was killed[/center][/font]

[font size=5 color=firebrick]Solidarity![/font]

[Cha]

4. Yeah, because anyone who disagrees with you is "part of the good little herd"..

I call bullshit. And, you can throw your stupidicus insults out all you want.

[geek tragedy]

6. Of course--if you aren't building a bunker and stockpiling

canned goods and ammo, you're part of the problem.

[Cha]

7. Really.

And, or "leaving the Dem Party" and calling others who disagree.. "enemies of the State!!!!111"

[Cha]

10. And, there it is.. your

silly insult. You just can't function without them.

[Lady Freedom Returns]

20. +1

And yes stupidicus , I am a supporter of President Barack H. Obama. A big one.

[Cha]

21. And, there it is.. all in one sweet little graphic.. thanks LFR :)

[WonderGrunion]

33. Welcome back whoever you are

Enjoy your stay before the eventual PPR

[geek tragedy]

5. It's funny how many at DU view Obama as alternatively

a weakling pushover and then, in a post like this, some combination of Sauron and Hitler.

Kind of like the Freepers.

[stupidicus]

9. what's funny about it?

all I see is a baseless, example-free line of BS that likely applies to a very few at best, substituting for a response to the content.

you might as well given the readers a "baahhhhhh" eh tragic one?

[geek tragedy]

15. The 10,341st self-congratulatory post at DU wherein someone condemns the idiotic

sheeple unwilling to see how the current President is a pied piper leading the American people down a path that leads to the end of the Republic and the beginning of an age of tyranny really merits derision rather than respect.

When you begin your piece by disparaging the intellect and honesty of those with whom you disagree, you make it clear that you're really not interested in what they have to say, and thus should not be surprised when reciprocity holds.

[Cha]

22. Brilliant.

"Reciprocity".. love that word.

[CakeGrrl]

26. The "either you're with us or you're stupid" theme

I'm not with this self-righteous subset of this small Internet community, and stupid I am not.

[KharmaTrain]

28. Surely...

...when President Warren, Vice President Sanders and Secretary of Peace Kucinich and the 300 far left Congresscritters and 65 Senators pass their sweeping reforms it'll all be sweetness and light. Us "sheeple" that live in that silly place called the real world "just don't get it"...

[Lady Freedom Returns]

23. The bashing of the President a Dem. President on a Dem site.

It has been going on on many Democratic sites and it is getting to the point of being hilarious... for the other side!

[tblue]

13. I don't think that's correct.

Some say he's a weakling and a pushover for the Right, which is not at all inconsistent with perpetuating the authoritarian programs so favored by the Right. (This is not my opinion, but it might explain the logic.)

[geek tragedy]

16. By the same token, the Freepers believe he's a pushover for the various anti-American forces

across the globe, while also being ruthless in carrying out an agenda that serves these supposed forces.

[JoeyT]

34. What's even funnier are the people

that think everything good comes from Him directly and only He deserves the credit, while everything bad clearly can't be His fault.

When a good law passes, best president ever! When a bad one passes or is used, magic wand, pony, poutrage, not a king!

That's how you can tell you're dealing with a religion. The focus of the religion is thanked for everything good that happens, while no blame attaches to them no matter what bad stuff they do. Which is fine for a religion, but turns a little silly once we start applying it to people.

I don't see a whole lot of "Like the ACA? Blame congress!" "Lilly Ledbetter? Blame congress!" posts, for some reason.

[alcibiades_mystery]

11. Sooooo meta...posts on DU about little conflicts on DU are like, super awesome, yo!

Great awesome little meta post, my main doo!

[ProSense]

12. Shouldn't it be

"Between this and being under Obama's spell already, you can be rendered senseless"

...."rendered stupidicus"?

From the OP:

Online privacy advocates have long worried that government surveillance programs could end up disciplining internet users in precisely this fashion. In 1997, the FBI began using something called Project Carnivore, an online surveillance data tool designed to mimic traditional wiretaps, but for email. However, because online information is not like a phone number in several basic senses, Carnivore ended up capturing far more information than it was intended to. It also had virtually no oversight outside of the FBI.

Meet the Carnivore system
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022972777

[SidDithers]

35. Just so you know, this post was alerted on...

and survived by a 6-0 vote.

and the alerter, whomever that might be *nudge nudge, wink wink* has lost alerting privileges for 24 hours.

Sid

[Puzzledtraveller]

14. The river denial flows through Slate as well

Reading Emily Bazelon's latest and many of the comments confirm this same thing.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2013/06/nsa_s_prism_program_the_government_s_surveillance_will_lead_to_an_abuse.html

[Fire Walk With Me]

17. Thankfully, the panopticon principle falls under the category of "domestic terrorism"

and we know the government would never use force or the threat of force against its politically-minded citizens to attempt to change their actions and values.

Unless you're in Occupy. And other social justice movements.

[undergroundpanther]

18. fuck obedience

fuck the corporate panapticon, fuck the corrupt,fuck the rich, fuck the state who lick the boots of the rich. Fuck them all.They corall we the people with cop guard dogs and spy because they are scared of us,because they KNOW they are ABUSING us.
And they are scared of the day when the groggy giant we the people they've been abusing exploiting,robbing and making sick and crazy says enough and knocks the living shit out of those !% or 400 plutocrats causing 98% of human misery and millions of unnatural deaths and takes it all back from them and dangle the sociopath plutocrats asses from whatever a rope can be looped over to dangle these assholes by thier necks from..

[YeahSureRight]

24. They have nothing to fear from 'We the People"

The majority of "We the People" are gladly serving on their knees and have been for some time only a few are willing to stand.

That is the power the 1% have over YOU!

Standing up will cost and most don't want to pay the price, they are not willing to lose everything and if people are not willing to lose everything for freedom, they choose subjugation instead.

[undergroundpanther]

30. this sadly is true

I still bite the hand..

[Bolo Boffin]

19. The principle of the Panopticon has been around since the eye of Horus.

God watching over you every waking and sleeping moment. It's how religion gets you to self-regulate.

[Junkdrawer]

25. What good is building the perfect Big Brother if only the hipsters know it exists?

No matter how good the NSA is, no matter how many people they have using the new "Google for Tyrants&quot tm), you can't keep tabs on everyone and all their doings.

--- BUT ----

If everyone "knows" that Big Brother is watching....

Think about the normal trajectory for a story like this. DemocracyNow, Truthout, DU maybe Kos....

Now, what was this story's trajectory?

[Skidmore]

27. Aw, jeez. Someone found the

sheep entrails early tbis morning.

You are tedious beyond words.

[11 Bravo]

31. Congratulations on your remarkably introspective choice of a username.

[Cha]

36. ..