the real danger of the NSA spying (and a comment about Obama critics)
What is very telling is that, for all the fury about Obama, Glenn Greenwald, Snowden, et al, there is one facet of this that is not being commented on at all: the people getting all this data, even former CIA ops like Snowden, are doing this as PRIVATE COMPANIES.
Why is that the important part?, because as anyone who has copied a file knows, it will be impossible to ensure the data collected is destroyed, even if the companies were somehow compelled to make a SINCERE effort to do so. Take the proverbial case of some teenager posting a nude pic of themselves; once it hits cyberspace, it can wander into any number of databases, from a company hoping they can outlast a law, to the Russian Mafia, which is known to traffic in Blackmail and ID theft.
Now, add to this that the chances of the companies making a sincere effort are about as likely as a Unicorn trotting along Fifth Avenue. Of course they will want this data, because it is POWER. It also allows them to censor protest, because they can pinpoint people they dislike. It's one thing when you have an army of guerillas, like Anonymous, raising hell, it is another when Corporations can hire the equivalent of mercenaries, equipping them with supercomputers and corporate lawyers.
The fact is, the State has been shown to be weak in Cyberspace; this is what allowed so many free thinkers to have a presence, why even Maoists and Fascists can have a webpage that gives out literature better than any small group of people ever could, and organizes people rather well. The danger is that the internet can be the oligarchs weapon to keep people in line, especially as it is faceless. A quote from Eric Hoffer fits:
Great evils befall the world when the powerful begin to copy the weak. The desperate devices which enable the weak to survive are unequaled instruments of oppression and extermination in the hands of the strong.
In short, the internet that has let places like DU throve becomes the bane of us when we get bedeviled by spies and outright plants, as well as people who are not plants, but are so interested in disruption that some GOP op is sitting behind a PC wishing he hired these people.
Oh, side note: I do not need to consider someone a hero or villain to judge what they say. I can agree with Medea Benjamin's, need to protest, to even protest loudly, since to Americans, politeness equals weakness. That does not mean I cannot chide her for giving the Pauls a lot of praise and love, since they know the Pauls will use that on their other pet projects, like getting rid of the Civil Rights act. I can believe Glenn Greenwald is someone with courage, but that does not mean I am blind to the fact that what Libertarians hate government for doing, they will gladly allow corporations to do.
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