At 01:05 PM 21/11/2013, Frank O'Connor wrote: >failed to detect or predict the greatest economic crisis in 70 years >... despite all the signs and data being out there, they failed to >protect their own raw data from low level contractors and >operatives, they intrude on the privacy and rights of the people >they are supposed to protect ... and now they impact on our foreign >policy, trade and good relations with a neighbouring country and >relatively crucial ally because they thought tapping the phones of >that country's elite was a good idea and that they'd never get caught. > >When are THEY going to be held accountable? When are WE going to do >a cost-benefit analysis?
If you're on the Privacy discussion list, hid Delete now. Here's a post I put there yesterday about this issue. See if it resonates. Note that this stuff is just a continuation of warning bells early last century. ---------------- Time to reread Orwell's 1984 and as I did just recently, Huxley's Brave New World http://www.huxley.net/bnw/one.html . I think we are actually experiencing a bit of both: fear of retaliation by government with little recourse under the guise of 'anti-terrorism' and the bliss of control through reward (bread and circus entertainment, look the other way media spin), even in the democracies of the world, primarily US and Britain, and to a lesser extent Australia. It's interesting that the other two Five-eyes members, Canada and New Zealand don't seem to be going down this path, despite also having conservative governments in recent times. I'm now reading Brave New World Revisited http://www.huxley.net/bnw-revisited/index.html , written in 1958 in the middle of the cold war where the Soviet Union totalitarianism was the big fear. The tables have turned in some ways. Huxley analyses the differences between the 1984 and BNW scenarios and how things had developed between his 1932 book written in 1931 in the midst of the Great Depression and Orwell's written just after WW2. Many of his major issues are still with us: over population and population growth effects on resource depletion, the impact of consumerism and the quest for happiness, bureaucracy gone mad, propaganda, and the use of drugs as chemical persuasion, which may not be soma, but is most definitely alcohol and more recently the move to decriminalisation of marijuana. The other tension is science/technology and liberal humanism. Big topic that relates to our concerns over privacy, the expansion of technology to 'watch'/control by science, and how to maintain our humanity. When power wants to control, it must watch everyone for fear of losing control. As resources are reduced due to expanding populations (threat to life style), governments do these stupid things because of the existential threats by those who are exploited or have little to lose. At least that's the hypothesis/rationalisation for it. But at what cost to us as human beings and our relationships with one another? We often talked about the nose under the tent and function creep. Spying is just a natural extension of governments who think they are invincible and make moral choices based on flimsy arguments of "everyone does it". Seriously? It's a funny old world and time, isn't it? ------------ I've read even more in the BNW Revisited essay. There are comments by Huxley in there that you would swear were describing today's "crisis". Change a few names and they all line up, including Hitler. Huxley's analysis of propaganda is uncannily descriptive of the three word slogan and lack of attention to evidence. Each new paragraph made me want to repost it to some list saying: "Look at this!" Rather than doing that, check out the link above if you have the time. Jan Melbourne, Victoria, Australia [email protected] Sooner or later, I hate to break it to you, you're gonna die, so how do you fill in the space between here and there? It's yours. Seize your space. ~Margaret Atwood, writer _ __________________ _ _______________________________________________ Link mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
